Strange to say, this is a letter addressed to me, but I didn't have the heart to read it carefully. It's not that I have a bad habit of snooping on other people's letters, but because even if I don't read them carefully, I can guess what Mama Meng told me.

Sure enough, the content and tone of the letter were quite polite, but there was only one spirit conveyed throughout the letter, that is, their Meng family did not welcome me as a religious element who ran counter to Marxism-Lenin Thought and "Capital", and hoped that I would not be delusional that I could have the possibility of going to the end with Meng Dongxue, and also hoped that I would understand the painstaking efforts of my parents, so that I would not continue to pester Meng Dongxue and the like.

If I had read this letter before today, I think I would have been very angry. Because when you haven't really understood a person, you deny the other person in advance, whether I'm a god or not, it's very disrespectful. Isn't it a dignity for a person to live a lifetime? But when I saw it today, I didn't feel angry, but I felt disappointed and sad, disappointed that I was still a feudal who was not accepted by most people, just like when I was knocked down, and sad because of Meng Dongxue, although Meng's mother said so much, the final decision is always in Meng Dongxue's hands, and now it seems that she has made a choice.

The letter that Meng's mother wrote to me was only half a page, and the remaining page was written to me by Meng Dongxue on another piece of letterhead. But in one sentence:

"I won't forget you, but I'm sorry."

There is no title, no signature, no date, and I don't know how her Chinese teacher taught her, and she can't even write a letter.

So I just picked up the piece of letter paper that Meng Dongxue left me, folded it in half several times, and put it in my pants pocket. Then I tore up the two letters that Meng's mother wrote to Meng Dongxue and me.

That night, I didn't eat, and Aunt Xu didn't come to call me for dinner. I just sat silently in Meng Dongxue's room, not even turning on the light, thinking of my ignorant love in the dark. Originally, I had the idea of going to Meng Dongxue's house to find her, but at this moment, I also dispelled this idea. It is said that love needs to be fought for and retained, but all this seems to me at the moment, it seems that it has no meaning, I think there may be no chance to return to her in the future, she should not come to me again, after leaving me, she can have a broader world, more future possibilities, from this point of view, I also sincerely hope so.

But Meng Dongxue, you have always told me that the love you yearn for should be upright and pure, noble and flawless, but what you left me in the end was a shameful road that I had to continue on.

That night, at about three or four o'clock in the morning, I fell asleep unconsciously, and when I woke up, I found myself lying on the palm mat, recalling the smiling appearance of Meng Dongxue standing in the rice field that appeared repeatedly in my dream, I don't know how many times I repeated it, each time it was a little farther away than the last time, until I couldn't see it. In my dreams, I tried to reach for it, but I couldn't reach it.

But I deny that I cried in my dreams, but I don't know why the mat got wet.

I have lost my love, and my life still has to go on. Otherwise, it will be a worthless performance in my opinion, and I will look down on myself because of it. But for a long time after that, although Aunt Xu and Uncle Zhou have been carefully enlightening me, saying something like "There is no grass at the end of the world", I was always a little absent-minded and confused. The scariest thing was that I started smoking.

The smell of smoke is terrible, but every puff of deep inhalation into my lungs will bring a sense of stimulation to my chest, which can make me sober and let me continue to forget Meng Dongxue for a while and continue walking.

Half a year after Meng Dongxue left, there was no news at all, and she didn't even write a letter to Aunt Xu and Uncle Zhou. Maybe she knew the reason why I was still here, so she didn't write a letter to say hello. I was sad, but I didn't have much hope. However, in March 1970, some young people who had returned to the village from the city happily told everyone that the armed struggle in the city had begun to surrender guns to the PLA troops, which meant that the political atmosphere had begun to gradually ease, so I thought, perhaps, that it is time for me to leave the village.

Although Aunt Xu and Uncle Zhou kept it, I decided to go out and break in. Master has not heard from me for nearly a year, and I can't even inquire about Mo Langzhong, so I'm still a little worried. But I promised Aunt Xu and Uncle Zhou that if I had the opportunity in the future, I would definitely come back to visit them often, and I also left the address of Mo Lang's Chinese medicine shop, as well as the address of Meng Dongxue's home, telling them that if they need to find me for something, and I am not there, I can tell Mo Langzhong and ask him to bring me a message. As for Meng Dongxue's address, please ask the two old people to tell her, I have left the village, I am getting acquainted, if she is free, please also ask her to come back to see the villagers, and see the two old people who have taken care of us for so long.

Before parting, I packed up the things I had picked up in the village over the years, then went to my master's grave, kowtowed three times, and left the village, where I had lived for more than three years, but I had no idea where to go next.

So I had to go back to Master's house for the time being, and since the door was locked, I had to pick the lock and enter the house. Fortunately, the neighbors around me know who I am, otherwise I am afraid that the police will also report to the police and arrest someone if they see me picking the lock. Until the late autumn of 1970, I lived there, barely making ends meet with a little list introduced by Mo Langzhong from time to time. I still live in a muddy way, Da Mao often comes to eat and drink with me, and my addiction to smoking has become bigger and bigger in that year.

One day in late autumn, Master had disappeared for almost two years, and there was no news at all, and he had never written a letter to the village or Mo Langzhong, and I brought a message to Master through Mo Langzhong, but it was always in vain, so I decided to go to Hubei to find that Qin senior. Because I think that if Master hasn't come back for so long, then he must have found Old Qin Senior, otherwise there is no reason to stay in a place where no one can be found for so long.

So I asked Mo Langzhong for the address of the old man Qin, and he knew that I was worried about the master, so he gave it to me happily. But he also told me that he didn't dare to make sure that someone could still be found at this address, maybe that Qin senior suddenly had a temperament again, and maybe he would go somewhere else, and said that I would go to find it first, and if there was no result, he would write to the pharmacy again, and he would help inquire again.

I expected that this trip to Hubei would not be very short, so I took almost everything I could to take with me, and rummaged through the cabinets to find the money that Master had hidden at home and the national ticket, and just like that, I embarked on a new journey with unknown results.

My destination was Hankou, but the transportation was inconvenient, and I had to take a boat from the wharf to Hubei, and then dock at Wuchang, and then transfer to other modes of transportation to Hankou. The route of the ship will pass through the city where Meng Dongxue is located, and it will dock there for two or three hours. But I didn't go ashore, but just looked from the deck at the place where I had landed, so close to me, but so far away, that I couldn't help but feel sad again.

Whenever I feel sad, I light a cigarette. Under the blowing of the river wind, the smoke burned faster than usual. Among the passengers in the same cabin, only me and another middle-aged man who had been sleeping since boarding the ship were left at the moment. By the beginning of the next morning, the ship had already sailed to the border of eastern Sichuan, and the temperature in late autumn was already very cool, especially on board. But I withstood the cold wind and stood at the bow of the boat. Because I can't miss so many cultural treasures left by my predecessors, such as Zhangfei Temple, Shibaozhai, Fengdu Ghost City, Baidi City, etc., and I can't miss the ghosts on the Yangtze River, the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River.

Along the way, I gained a cold from too much wind, and I was amazed by the magic of nature, and I briefly forgot my previous sorrows.

So on the afternoon of the third day, I sneezed and blew my nose while carrying my bags and set foot on the boundary of Wuchang, Hubei Province for the first time.

But I didn't expect that what I thought was an ordinary trip to find Master would change my life once again.