1

As half and half gradually got on the right track, the scale of Uncle He's garden gradually expanded, and the small hillside behind the old house was expanded into a terraced style, and all kinds of flowers and plants were subdivided layer by layer, which was more organized and elegant.

Colorful flowers, strange grasses, you say this is the season of spring, it has the vitality of spring, you say this is the season of summer, it has the bloom of summer, you say this is the season of autumn, it has the laziness of autumn, you say this is the season of winter, it has the coolness of winter. The gesture of every moment in the garden never echoes the change of seasons, and the trajectory of life should be free.

The best thing to see is the trumpet flowers on the west side of the hillside, crawling all over the fence, green leaves, blue-purple flowers, and a flower wall separating a small world of flowers. There are bees flying around the flower wall, and some of them stay in the horn of the trumpet flower, taking advantage of the good time in the afternoon, quietly dreaming.

The earliest memory of He Li is in this garden.

He Li coveted quiet places, and besides staying in her room, the garden on the hillside was the place she frequented the most.

We like to pick out the dog tail grass in the weeds, rub the grass pole with one hand, let the dog tail roll in the palm of the other hand, and shout "Mao Mao, Mao Mao, come out" in the mouth, and then there are really little black insects in a daze from the dog tail grass panicked escape, He Li Dan Fan will be happy to clap when he sees "Mao Mao": "Mao Mao come out!" Mao Mao comes out! If you don't see him, you will pout, and angrily throw the dog's tail grass far away.

At the top of the hill there was a plane tree, and the plane tree was so thick that when we were young, He Li and I could use it to hide and seek. Whenever the sun was shining, He Li and I would hide in the shade of the sycamores, and the old farmer who passed by would always come here to rest for a while, and he would tell us stories about the mountains on a stone bench.

The old farmer said that the big mountain on the back of the hill is called the general's village, and it is said that in ancient times, there was a general who was downtrodden because of the rebellion of his subordinates, and the general was deeply ashamed of the royal family after losing the battle, and used his own sword to chisel a boulder at the top of the mountain into a coffin, and the sound of chiseling stones could be heard throughout the valley, and finally the general lay down in the sarcophagus, and used his last strength to cover himself with a stone cover, and lived his life. The mountain is also named General Village.

He Li and I were skeptical, and went to the top of the mountain to find out, and there was indeed a coffin-like boulder. I really don't know if the stone shaped the legend or the legend shaped the stone.

The ant's home is under the sycamore, sometimes one or two small ants will emerge at the mouth of the hole, and they will go back after walking around, and sometimes they will be lined up in groups until they are lined up in the woods not far away, neatly in and out, so lively! He Li and I stared at it all afternoon.

Whenever the wind blows, the flowers and plants in the garden begin to exchange ears, and the wind brings them stories from all over the world and eavesdrops on the secrets of the place.

He Li and I don't know the wind language, and we don't bother to care, let the quiet young time be spent in the wind, and let the outside world be safe or panicked.

2

In the summer of '98, the outside world was in a panic.

Every painting in Dad's album is a sunny day, except for the one with the date of "Summer of '98", there is no one in the painting, only rain, especially heavy rain, the sky is black and oppressive, as if it is going to fall down with the rain.

And when I was young, I didn't know about it, but I wondered with He Li, why did the power go out so well? I just bought a color TV that I can't watch.

The rain was so heavy that the water in the river reached the shore, and the families by the river were immediately placed in the auditorium of the school in the center of the town, and the men went out, leaving only the women and children. A woman who farmed the field said bitterly, "What will happen to the crops in the field?" ”

The children were noisy, and like me, they didn't understand what the rain meant that summer.

At that time, even if the ignorant teenagers experienced the rainy season of that year, the real understanding was through the textbooks many years later, and the old sorrowful children rarely mentioned it, and it was only a few words, and the pain engraved in their bones was a knowledge point that we needed to memorize. The chapter on the flood of '98 in the textbook is only a few pages, with an illustration and text. But the real life is hard to survive day by day, and the young children can't understand it the most.

When the sun came out, the flood waters receded, and our family moved back to the riverbank, I still didn't know what was going on in the outside world, just calling out to my brother over and over again, but no one responded.

I told Ho Li, "I can't find my brother, he should come back for dinner." ”

He Li said: "Wait a little longer, my brother will definitely come back"

He Li promised me to go out with me to look for it, and we searched all the places where I thought we could find my brother, but we found nothing.

At the intersection where my brother and I used to play, I seemed to see him, and I blurted out: "Brother! In a blink of an eye, he was nowhere to be found.

When I got home, I asked my mother, and I said, "Where's my brother?" ”

Mom picked me up and hugged me tightly, I felt her sobbing, I put my arms around her quietly, and her tears wet my thin shoulders.

I was really quiet, for fear that the slightest sound and movement would disturb my mother's grief.

The rain that year took my brother with them.

I often think of my brother, but the fragments of my memory about him are not pieced together. I always remember that when I was a child, I followed my brother and said "Brother!" without a word. Brother! He was called.

"Hey!" Every time he took the trouble to respond to me, the voice is still real in my memory.

Dad's sketchbook has his brother's childhood appearance, he has the same beautiful dimples as his mother, his eyes narrowed into a slit when he laughs, and he is eight or nine years old.

For many years I didn't ask my parents about my brother, I was afraid to open the wounds in their hearts, but in fact those wounds themselves did not heal well, and what I feared most was my helplessness in the face of my mother's sadness, I could hold her already rough hands, I could wipe the tears from her cheeks, but it was still not enough to soothe her wounded heart.

What about understanding and comfort, even empathy? It can't be shared.

When I grew up, it was Sister He Qing who told me about my brother.

Sister He Qing said that the tallest person in the class is my brother, he is very righteous, can take care of people, and is righteous enough, and all the classmates chose him as the class leader.

The elder brother has bad grades, is playful, likes to play basketball, and Jordan is his idol. When my brother went to school, the school didn't have a cement court, and the yellow mud clay court was full of dust from the ball, but every time after school, I still had to play it for an hour or two to be satisfied, and the tired brother simply didn't do his homework, and then copied the homework according to Sister He Qing's homework.

My brother was not picky when he was a child, he ate everything, but he was allergic to shrimp, so his mother never allowed him to eat shrimp, and he never cooked shrimp. My brother was greedy, and he once secretly went to Sister He Qing's house to eat a meal of shrimp, and his brother, who was addicted to his mouth, had a rash all over his body, and he walked and twisted and pinched, like a monkey being played, funny and funny. Since then, my brother has never dared to eat shrimp again.

My brother is still kind, sunny, persistent, and brave, Sister He Qing used a lot of words to describe my brother to me, she said that there were tears in the corners of her eyes, and she could see that they were very good before, and at the end she said: "If it weren't for the heavy rain......"

If Sister He Qing wanted to say anything more, she would only sigh, deep and tired.

Before the heavy rain came, my brother helped the teacher send the last classmate home, but on the way back, the heavy rain came, and the brother who was in a hurry chose to take the path, but encountered a landslide, and he could neither catch up with the time nor catch up with the rest of his life.

My mother cried heartbreakingly, and her tears were like the flood that burst the embankment back then.

3

Sister He Qing also told me that my name was not Jiang Xingyu at the beginning, it was my brother's name. After my brother left, my mother missed him too much, and one day my mother suddenly called out my brother's name to me: "Star Field!" ”

I promised her.

Missing someone is addictive, my brother is gone, his life trajectory is still there, the road he has walked, the school he has attended, the bowl he has used, all of which make my poor mother regret while reminiscing.

It is often said that time can dilute everything, indeed, but there are always things that are difficult to be consumed, and when the memory is only a wreckage, and the plot of the story is not connected, there are still haunting feelings that will not change. For example, I love you, I can forget your appearance, forget your name, but I will never forget love.

"Jiang Xingyu"

"Hey!"

"Star Field"

"Huh?"

My answer will be somewhat reassuring to my mother. Adults are mostly sensible, and children are easily deceived, and the best consolation is probably to deceive themselves.

Star field, which means the field of the stars. My brother must have gone back to his hometown in the sky.

Over time, I used my brother's name, and as for my original name, I had long since forgotten it, and probably no one remembered it, as if it had never appeared.

Time has consumed memories and habits, and all the beautiful or cruel encounters that come to us at this moment will become habits, obedience will be habitual, struggle will be habitual, remembering will be habitual, forgetting will be habitual.

There were still no shrimp in our house, and I told my mother several times that I wanted to eat shrimp, but my mother refused because I would be allergic.

Actually, I don't have any allergies to shrimp, children are very rebellious and curious, and the more they don't let them do, the more they have to try.

The first time I ate shrimp was with my pocket money, I picked up a big bag of crayfish at the deli on the street, I asked Ho Li to wait for me in the garden, and I had to walk around the main street to avoid my mother's sight.

It's the path that my brother was in a hurry on.

The path is very quiet, with mountains and forests on one side and streams on the other, birds in the forest and fish in the water.

Turning a corner, a large pit suddenly appeared on the side of the mountain forest, bare yellow soil, which looked particularly abrupt in the green forest, as if a gap had been opened in the whole mountain forest, and there were scattered dead leaves rotting in the mud, and life was lost here. The traces of the collapse of the mountain are still there, and I know that this is where my brother was wrecked.

I involuntarily stopped, squatted down, peeled a crayfish and ate it, my mother always said that I would be allergic, I would not be willing to try it, not to mention my brother, he didn't hit the south wall and didn't look back?

It was my first time eating crayfish and it tasted good, and I proved that I don't have allergies. Later, I had many firsts on this path, the first time I played a game console that I bought stolenly, the first time I smoked behind my parents' back, and the first time I held a girl's hand...... I do a lot of things that my parents don't know here, on the one hand, because I miss my brother, and on the other hand, I want to confide in my brother, so I don't want to live according to other people's tracks, I want to be myself, even if this person is my dear brother.

He Li was still waiting in the garden, and after eating a crayfish, I got up and left. On the way, it suddenly occurred to me why I was born, and I lived in my brother's name, what kind of person would I become? Or how about someone else? I couldn't answer it at the time, and it's a question that will haunt me for many years to come.

When I arrived at the garden, the greedy Ho Li hurried to greet me, and she couldn't wait. We sat down under the plane tree, and my mouth was watering before the shrimp shells were peeled.

Soon, the shrimp shells were scattered all over the ground, and a group of ants were surrounded, and it seemed that the crayfish tasted really good. He Li's mouth was red, and I laughed at her: "Haha, your mouth is like a sausage, it's almost a bamboo skewer." ”

He Li glared at me, laughed too, and said, "You don't look in the mirror yourself, are your big lips stung by a wasp?" ”

We didn't eat in our mouths, gasping for spicy air, and giggling while fanning the wind with our hands. He Li was sweating profusely, the scar on her head was clearer, and sweat stains mixed with dust painted casually on her flushed face, like a little beggar. However, at that time, He Li didn't need a smile for too many reasons, and bookmarked it into the chapters of childhood memories, flipping through it casually, and the lovely time was clear at a glance.

4

Sometimes I feel that my mother really thinks of me as an older brother, and the clothes she buys for me are always the red color that my brother likes, and she usually buys hibiscus cakes, which my brother loves to eat, when I meet my aunt who sells pastries on the street. I don't know if my dear mom is crazy or used to it, but of course I'm more inclined to the latter. Does the way you love someone become a habit too?

Hibiscus cake is a famous snack in the town, square-shaped, packaged in pure red paper, red and festive, and the old family uses it as a gift every New Year's Day. Hibiscus cake tastes good, sweet, noodles, mixed with raisins, can be disassembled and eaten, or placed in a rice pot to heat and steam, suitable for all ages.

I prefer black when I wear clothes, but red is not a hate, I am not very picky, I can do it, as long as my mother can be happy.

My father often told me that there are two important women in my life, one is my mother and the other is He Li, and as a man, I must protect them. When my dad first told me this, I was still ignorant, and I just nodded heavily. When I was younger, I didn't know how to protect these two women, but there was always something that made me have to do it, and when I grew up, I understood that those powers were innate love.

For He Li, I want to protect her and accompany her, this is my mission. And Mom, I will happily wear the red dress she picked out for me, and eat the hibiscus cake she bought casually, the only thing I can think of is to follow her and try to become my brother.

As an ordinary person, my mother talked and laughed during the day, and like ordinary people, at night, I could always hear her heavy sighs, in the gap between my father's snoring. Ordinary people, who hasn't had a few difficult nights? It's the kind of night that is harder than a lifetime.

We are all ordinary people, my mother is, she can't escape those difficult nights, and so am I, I will never become a brother.

5

When I was 10 years old, my parents took me to my brother's grave for the first time.

My brother's tomb is on the mountainside of the general's village, and the morning sun can be drenched in the sun all year round from morning to night.

When you go up the hill to the mountainside, there is a fork in the road that turns to the west, and you can see my brother's tombstone after turning past a row of bamboo forests. I stepped forward, and the vegetation around the grave had been cleared, and some of the fallen leaves from last winter were rotting and melting into the black soil, and a few grass plants that had just poked their heads out were shivering in the wind. The corner of the tombstone has turned black, black and shiny, which is the trace left by the frequent burning of paper money.

My brother's name is engraved on the tombstone, and it's mine now.

Mom carefully opened the hibiscus cake she brought, broke it one by one and put it neatly into the plate, placed it on the table in front of the tombstone, and then looked at the tombstone in a daze, the ashes of the paper money burned flew up, and a few pieces fell on her mother's head, she didn't care, I reached out to dust, and broke her shoulder. Mom turned her head and smiled at me, she had long since stopped shedding tears, one hand around me, and stood quietly, I don't know if she could tell the difference between me and my brother at that moment.

"Starfield, let's go back first." Dad said to me after burning the paper money.

My mother let go of her hand around me and acquiesced to me leaving, but she had no intention of leaving.

I followed my father's footsteps, and he said, "Let's go down the mountain first, and let your mother be alone for a while." ”

I said "um" and asked my father, "Did you go first before?" ”

"Yes."

"Mom will feel lonely."

"Then leave her alone for a while."

Halfway down the hill, there was a small lawn, and my father sat down, and I just lay down, just in time to see the sky outside the forest.

I said, "I want to go up and be with my mother." ”

"No, people living in this world will be more or less lonely, and they will also have the strength to match, it's not a big deal." Dad paused for a moment and then said, "Your mother is a strong woman. ”

"Okay!" Mom is a strong person, and I think so too.

After resting for a while, my father got up and said to me, "I used to wait for your mother here, but today I changed you, so I'll go back to cook first!" ”

"Hmm." I nodded.

I looked at the sky, the spring sun was comfortable, the wind was blowing gently, and I fell asleep unconsciously.

When I woke up, I was already on my mother's lap, and when she saw me get up, she said softly, "Wake up?" ”

"Uh-huh." I rubbed my squinted eyes and saw my mother's smile clearly, calm and gentle.

"Let's go! Let's go home, your dad should cook. After saying that, my mother stood up, walked two steps, and then turned back to me and said, "Hurry up, I won't wait for you!" ”

"Good!" I stumbled to my feet and trotted all the way to catch up.

"Wait for me!"

I chased, chased her back to ordinary life, back to the days of oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea, back to the bumpy road, back to sleepless nights, back to the ordinary.

If loneliness is a disease, not all long-term illnesses become doctors, if being strong is a science, not all of them are self-taught, it's not a big deal.

It's just that it's too easy to disguise numbness as strength in a long life, which must be separated, numbness is a senseless afterthought, and being strong is moving forward with pain.