In 2004, I was 35 years old. www.biquge.info It was autumn in New York, and I was in the bustling city of the world talking to several major publishers about the publication of my third novel. Actually, my third book hasn't been written yet, so to speak, I don't even have an idea, what to write? How to write it? When will it be written? Everything is still zero. It's just that when I won the Nobel Prize for Literature and the Dr. Kim Prize, I said, "The third part will still be written, but not now, maybe it will be a new subject." ”

But those American booksellers with a keen sense of business seem to have sensed something, and it may be the reason why the first two books sold 35 million copies worldwide. As soon as the price went up, I had to sell them the exclusive copyright first. Those big film companies have long been waiting for them, from famous directors and big-name stars who are worth a lot of money, to start the warm-up before filming. After dealing with the negotiations with the studio, I told them that I would take a break for a while, maybe in a few years, and I would have to think about it, and if you want the copyright, you have to wait for me to write something! That's how they left a bunch of business cards and left.

I feel very tired from the non-stop writing for the past few years, and I want to put down my pen and take a break, spend time with my family and children, and maybe put down my pen forever and go to a certain state to buy a farm and live the secluded life I have always wanted to live.

That night, I changed into high-end pajamas, held a glass of mineral water with ice, and stood in front of the glass window of the presidential suite of a five-star hotel, looking at the brightly lit New York City at my feet.

Its night view is enough to enchant anyone, and the city now looks like something out of a wonderland! It was like a dream, and I was in it!

I've been in the U.S. for more than 20 years, and I still feel like I'm dreaming! Wife, children, money, I can say that many people who have the American dream, I have everything I want to have when I come to this country. After so many years, I don't think I have the excitement and excitement I had at the beginning, do I still have to write for the father who I never met and didn't know where he was? I actually didn't have any hope a few years ago, and it didn't make sense for me to search in vain. Just then a phone rang, I picked it up and thought it was the bookseller's phone again, and five minutes later my glass of water fell on the Persian carpet. After another 5 minutes, I said, "Okay! See you on Thursday at 9:30 a.m. on Hudson River Square! ”

The next day on the banks of the Hudson River. I've been standing there holding on to the railing and looking at the Statue of Liberty for almost 30 minutes as I wear the new coat my wife bought for me and the sweater she knitted herself. But perhaps because of the proximity to the river, the weather seemed to be a little colder than usual.

I was full of anticipation that day, I would know about my unmasked American father, and my half-brother who was going to meet me for the first time, and I decided to wait, because I knew that the person I met was vouching for his honor. Realistically, his use of the words "my own reputation" doesn't make me believe anything, at least at the time. But the tone of the other party's voice on the phone was really serious and serious, and he was able to tell the betrothal that my dead mother had left to my father, and his retelling was strikingly similar to my childhood memories! All this can't help but make me believe and look forward to it, and it was with this mood that I was waiting for my first meeting with Mr. Shen.

Looking at the calm, blue sea and the Statue of Liberty towering over Bedlow Island (now Liberty Island), I somewhat quieted my excited thoughts. I looked at my watch: at 9:27, "You should be showing up soon!" I was talking to myself when someone suddenly said, "Excuse me, are you Mr. Mark, the writer?" "In the slightly chilly breeze, a man's voice came from behind me.

I slowly turned around and turned around again, and I don't know why I did this in two parts that day.

"Yes, it's me! Are you the one who called me? ”

Sky! I had an Asian man in my eyes, about 35 years old, tall and strong, with a straight body and neat hair. The big white square face was covered with a Neo-style frog-style sunglasses, but it could still make people feel a kind of righteousness revealed between his eyebrows. He was wearing a black suit, ironed straight trousers, a navy blue tie on a sky-blue shirt around his neck, a black coat on his arm, and a pair of shiny black leather shoes under his feet. If he had been wearing earplugs in his outfit that day, Ken Ding would have been mistaken for an agent of the Federal Investigation Bureau.

"Yes, sir." He nodded as he spoke, and then he took off the sunglasses off his face. That's when I saw a scar on his eye, small but visible.

I have to say that this is the first time I really look at and face a Chinese, he is somewhat serious, he feels like a serious scholar or professor, and I seem to have a sense of déjà vu with him.

"Are you that brother of mine?!" I said a little overwhelmed.

"Nope! Your brother Dill received an order a month ago to go with the army to fight terrorism, and he asked me to bring you a letter here. And this. ”

He took out a white sealed envelope from his bosom, and a small wooden box. I took what he handed me, opened the little box, and when I opened it, it felt like my brain was spinning and playing back.

"I'm sad to tell you, Mr. Writer, that your father died in Raccoon Town. I am sorry for that viral leak. ”

As he spoke, there was also a sad expression in his eyes.

"But how do you know?! How did you get this thing!? "My expression must have been hard to look like, was it sadness? Or is it inexplicably angry because of the disillusionment of his expectations, and maybe there are doubts.

"I'm sorry, sir. I was there at the time, a resident of the area, and a friend of your father. More than 100,000 people died in that incident. You know, I'm just one of the less than 2,000 survivors of that incident. This box contains photos and relics left for you by your father. Please forgive him, he has been living with self-blame for himself, if we can we sit down and talk? ”

"Of course, your English is very good! Are you Chinese, born in the United States? ”

"Nope! But now I should be considered Chinese, I was born in China, and my grandfather taught me English when I was 10 years old. He smiled slightly.

\"Really? You're amazing. ”

We were in a café next door that day, and he talked for a long time about my father and loved ones, and before he left gracefully, we exchanged each other's business cards, and he said he was going back to his home in California. And I also returned to my home in Richmond after 6 days, looking at the photos of my relatives who had left and my father's relics in the study a few years ago, and when I recalled the past before I came to the United States, I had an indescribable emotion and Cangsang, maybe I should have cried sadly but no, I did not hate my father, but more thinking and recalling the past. During those months, I have been adjusting my emotions, accepting it and facing it calmly, and during this time, my wife and my children have given me great comfort and encouragement.

The last time we met was a year later, at the end of 2005 at an air base a few hundred kilometers outside Washington, I met my American-born brother, who had been wounded in Baghdad but was fine, and I will never forget when he was bandaged on his head and was helped up to me by a female soldier who came up to me and called my brother, and Mr. Shen was there, and we gave him belated thanks after lunch at the base.

I felt this way because I was a writer, and I called him a few days later to tell him what I thought, but he shook his head vigorously, saying that he didn't want to be the main character in someone else's book, and told me to let the past pass, and didn't want my life to be disturbed.

I said to him, you should always leave something for your loved ones and children, but also for yourself. I think people who only know about a virus leak in 1998 in Oregon in a place called "Raccoon Town" in 1998 will only know about it in some historical museum, and I think there should be something else to remember them.

It was only after I promised not to use his real name that he agreed to help me write a novel about the "Raccoon Town Incident".

There have been a lot of books and materials about the "Raccoon Town Incident" in the past six years, and I feel that there is still something missing. A few months later, after I was invited to participate in the 2006 Vietnam National Day parade, I decided to start writing the book.

Since Dill had been in Raccoon Town with Mr. Shen, I started with my brother Dill first, and I first got some information about what he had done. I took a trip to the United States, the first black five-star general to retire, and then three months later I got on a plane to California, and then I took a coach to Barstow to visit Mr. Shen, especially after visiting Mr. Berard, and I became more and more excited to meet him.

I called Mr. Shen and on the phone he was glad to know that I could come. And told me that tomorrow he had a day off and asked me to go to his house to find him, I prepared it the next morning, I took a taxi for more than 30 minutes, I came to a middle-class residential area, I walked in front of a house No. 27 and stopped, it was a small white two-story residential building, the roof of the red layer of tiles, the white fence was very low, it was more than 1 meter high, around the green grass around the house, I was standing at the door with a backpack and was about to walk inside, suddenly! I hear the dog's wow! I was stunned, and I didn't dare to go inside. At this moment, a window on the second floor opened, followed by Mr. Shen's big smiling face, and shouted at me, "Mr. Writer! Welcome! Come on in! Ignore it, stop screaming! Carol!! He closed the window.

I smiled at him and walked in, before I could finish the steps. The door opened, and this time he was wearing a white shirt, a gray sweater, and black trousers with slippers on his feet, much like a big idler.

Mr. Shen greeted me warmly in the unique way of greeting guests in Chinese, asked me to sit down and then to tea and coffee, to be honest, I walked into the living room and thought that the interior of his home would be very Chinese, full of Chinese vases or national flag calligraphy and paintings, but no, like many American families, three sofas around the coffee table, in front of the coffee table with a TV, simple and clean. There were pictures of his family on the fireplace, and I was surprised that there was a picture that attracted me, a family photo of him, and his wife was a blonde beauty? However, it is not a new thing in the multiracial country of the United States, and what surprised me even more was his three children, white and black, and a cute little girl with a clear mix of Eastern and Western ancestry?! They are all cute and innocent, with childish faces, and angelic smiles.

"You're surprised! Don't worry, everyone who comes is like this, my eldest daughter, Catherine, second son, Cody, and youngest daughter, Lisa. This is my wife, Linda. A harmonious family, very American? Isn't it? He came over and sat on the couch in the fireplace, sipping tea and smiling, introducing me to his family.

My first thought was that the story of the family alone would be enough to write a book, and I took the coffee he handed me. I choked up and said, "What about your family?" ”

"It's Friday, they go to school, go to school, go to work, go to work, it's not! I closed the bookstore for a day and waited for you to come. They won't be back until 5 o'clock. ”

"By the way, Dilto, I thank you for your help to them."

"You're welcome! Helping others is the foundation of happiness. ”

I sat across from him under the couch by the fireplace, and when I put down my coffee, I took out my notebook and tape recorder, and he knew what I was really here for. But it was evident that the smile on his face had disappeared all at once, and I knew that it reminded him of an unbearable past.

"Shall we begin? Mr. Shen? I asked him cautiously.

"Ahh Yes, it doesn't matter, it's okay. ”

I told him what he could find interviews and conversations with other people, including Diel's. He was just nodding and saying yes, and I decided to break the ice and take my time.

"Let's start with how you came to the United States and how you came to live in Raccoon Town."

He put down his teacup, sighed, and said:

"I love to dream so much, for the sake of a childhood one. Dream. It turned out to be really realized, like a fairy tale, to the other side of the sea, a piece that I had never been to before, the mainland and many children went on an adventure together, it was so simple at that time. ”

"For an American Dream of Your Own?"

"Even if it is, it's not. I've read your books, and you and I have different experiences, and we are not the kind of gold diggers who come to the United States for money and political purposes. It's a childhood dream, a very simple dream, you are to find your relatives and home, and everything you have now is something you never imagined. You are more innocent than I am. ”

I watched him and listened to him, and I chose to be silent, and I think this is the best language. He said again.

"I'm a big fantasizer and a bookmaker, and I've been dreaming since I was a kid, and when I first came to the United States, I was amazed by the novelty of the country, but I wasn't overwhelmed by my fellow citizens. Can you believe that? All thanks to my grandfather's education of me. I sometimes feel like I'm not going abroad, I'm going to a part of China. ”

Then he smiled slightly.

"After studying abroad and getting a degree, I will return to my country to find a job and get married. To serve the motherland. But I didn't expect the dream, it's still going on, it's really come true, I really shouldn't have made that oath. ”

"Oath? What oath?? ”

"Hmph, forget it, it's just a child's words. To put it bluntly, it's all your own choice. ”

Mr. Shen and I talked to each other for a long time that day, and the topic turned out to be "Raccoon Town", and we didn't even feel hungry. Especially at the end, we all have a strange feeling, is everything a coincidence, or is it fate?

We talked until about 4 p.m., and when I felt that it was time for me to say goodbye and go back to the hotel, Mr. Shen did not have the usual Chinese send-off etiquette of letting guests stay longer, but sent me to the door and called a taxi to see me off. When I got into the car, I had a feeling of incomprehension that made me turn around and walk back, put down my backpack and hugged him tightly.

"It's a small world, and besides, you've been to Raccoon Town before, and we might even have met. You can come to me at the store, or go to my bookstore. By the way, greet your family and Dill for me, all right, go back and rest early. I'm sure you have something to write about, goodbye! ”

"Thank you, I will."

I walked into the taxi.

I got into the taxi, and I looked at him in the distance, and it turned out that we had met at that time, and I really didn't think about it. That's right, it's a small world! Soon I felt hungry, so I asked the driver to take me to McDonald's first. After a hamburger meal, I walked back to the hotel, gathered my thoughts, sat down in front of the typewriter, put on the ribbon, and clicked! In the sound of typing, the cursive writing of the book began, and it was also the first chapter of the book.