On September 12, 2019, accompanied by my parents, I left the small mountain town where I had lived for 19 years and took the high-speed train to Chengdu. And the distance between me and my hometown, as the scenery outside the window gradually changed from plains to mountains, and from mountains to plains, passing through tunnels and crossing bridges. From Hanzhong to Guangyuan, and then to Mianyang and Chengdu, the distance between time and space has become more and more profound in the transformation of platforms and platforms. At that moment, a sentence suddenly appeared in my mind - hometown, far away.

When I first arrived in Chengdu, it rained for several days in a row, and the temperature dropped sharply, and it seemed that I had transitioned from midsummer to late autumn, which made me, who was still planning to spend another month or two in Chengdu, feel the chill of autumn here in advance. The few short-sleeved shirts I had brought with me from home were no longer enough to keep me warm, and I was too shy to spare any money to buy autumn clothes. So, at the entrance of the cafeteria, between the teaching buildings, and beside Ginkgo Avenue, if anyone pays attention, they will find a shabby-dressed, hurried figure, who often holds a book borrowed from the library in his hand, and always wears a black and white checkered shirt with tiny fur balls. It's just that people are used to paying attention to those glamorous and beautiful talents, and no one will pay attention to the lonely figure of a poor sour boy. But it allows me to stay away from the crowd, not to be confined to human feelings, to hike alone in the dark, and to think about the meaning of life by the way, even now I can't tell whether life comes from nothing or from nothing.

On National Day, I didn't go home, and there was no other reason, just because I was reluctant to pay more than 700 yuan for the fare back and forth. The only trip out of the middle is to go to Bazhong to find a long-distance girlfriend who is still in high school and has not seen each other for half a year, we are holding a small umbrella in the heavy rain, snuggling up to each other, like a lonely island floating in the sea, it seems that everything has some hazy beauty, but I didn't think that meeting became the last meeting with each other. We broke up shortly after we came back, and I brought it up at the time, and she didn't ask me why. Every day after that, whenever I think about the process of the breakup that day, I feel heartache because we seem to even break up as before, tacitly knowing each other.

Because of different life trajectories, we haven't messaged each other for several weeks before we broke up, and even if we suddenly have time to play with our phones, we will think that she (he) must still be busy and can't see it, so I dismiss the idea of texting each other. Until the day of the breakup, I lay in bed and edited a message for her on WeChat: "I feel a little tired. ”

She immediately replied to me, "Can't you hold on?"

Me: "Hmm. ”

Her: "Okay, then...... Shall we leave it at that?"

Me: "Okay. ”

Really, when I say the word "good", my heart is relaxed for a moment. But the moment I ended chatting with her and turned off my phone, my tears suddenly gushed out, from the quiet flow at the beginning to the wailing and crying later, and my mind just kept repeating the phrase "no ...... home"

In mid-October, my parents called me from home. My mother told me that it was raining in my hometown these days, and it was already a bit autumn, and asked me if the weather in Chengdu was good, and if you would like to send me two sweaters and a quilt; my father told me that they were busy picking chestnuts in the mountains these days, and the walnuts at home should also be hunted on the trees, and asked me if I would like to send me some walnuts and chestnuts. I listened patiently and told them not to worry too much about me and to pay attention to their bodies before doing anything.

A few days later, I received a heavy package containing a bag of mountain goods, two coats and a futon sent from my hometown. When I gave walnuts and chestnuts to my roommates, they were obviously not interested, and indeed, compared to the duck necks and rabbit heads they brought from home, I was a little simple and shabby. So, I had to put a few walnuts in my pocket before each class, and use the class time to secretly crack them, and taste the bitterness and sweetness with the taste of hometown alone.

In the nineteen years before my life, I had never really left home, and I had always lived in a radius of 100 miles from home, and perhaps it was because I never left that I didn't pay attention to it. Until one day, when I left the place and saw different scenery and experienced different stories, all of a sudden, my life began to become detailed and vivid, and those things and emotions that I had never cared about in my past life were magnified in an instant, becoming clear, sincere, and indescribable, but I could not forget.

I have also come to understand that the so-called hometown is never a fixed place or area, but an emotion and memory. So, no matter which direction you are heading, as long as you take that step, your hometown will always be behind you. She is watching your back from a short distance, you can see her, but you can never get close. Then, she will smile at you, beckon, and say softly, "Don't be afraid, child, just go ahead." ”

At 8:19 a.m. on October 18, 2019, as usual, I got up to prepare breakfast for you. In the refrigerator, there is also half a plate of fish-flavored shredded pork left over from last night, a bowl of sauerkraut vermicelli soup, I put them in the rice cooker and steamed them, and mixed a small half bowl of red oil cowpeas.

You like to eat my mother's soaked cowpeas, so every time we come back from my hometown, we always put one or two cans of soaked cowpeas in the inferior suitcase we bought from Taobao, and the sour taste will turn into a piece of kraft candy, which will exist in the suitcase for a long time.

Of course, today is an ordinary day, just like usual. But only if that doesn't happen......

At ten o'clock, you packed your things and were ready to go out, and the company was going to let you go on a business trip, I didn't care, because you left, only temporarily, and you will always come back. I didn't hug and kiss you, I didn't fix some messy bangs on your forehead, I was sitting on the couch reading a book when you told me you were leaving, I just answered casually.

I didn't look at you one last time, you left, never to be seen again.

At three o'clock in the afternoon, I was feeling a little hungry and ready to get up to find something to eat. At this moment, the phone rang, it was your number, but it was another man who spoke, and I suddenly felt inexplicably uneasy in my heart.

"Hello, is it Mr. Liu Muchen?"

"Hmm. ”

"Is your wife Chen Miaomiao? ”

"Hmm. ”

"I'm Wang Lan from the Bazhong City Police Station, your wife ......"

I really can't remember what he said later. Time shattered and chaotic at that moment, shattering my whole body and soul together. My memory also ended with that phone call.

Officer Wang told me that you died in a car accident. At that time, the truck's brakes suddenly failed, ran a red light, and crashed into you as you walked on a zebra crossing. He also told me that I could get a sum of money by going through the legal process.

I went to the driver's house for you. The man is from northern Shaanxi, and the woman is a native of Bazhong, who looks to be in his fifties, has two children, and is crammed into a small space of only 20 square meters. When I went, they were polite, even a little apprehensive. After kicking the child out, the man knelt directly in front of me, kept apologizing to me, and when he was about to kowtow to me, I helped him up. Then, I smiled and asked the woman next to me, "Sister, I'm hungry, can you cook me a bowl of noodles?"

Later, I didn't go to them again, I didn't go to the court, and I didn't ask them to scrape together the 100,000 yuan. I know, you'll understand me.

I didn't tell anyone else after your accident, but they all seemed to know. Lynn specially wrote a eulogy for you, which was written in ancient Chinese, and one of the sentences was "What does the sky mean, let Yulan wither first, Xia He is distorted", he is still the same as before, he likes to borrow metaphors when writing articles. I burned it to you yesterday, you can take a closer look.

When I chose clothes for you, I was a little hesitant, but fortunately, Xiaoyu picked out a light blue dress for you, the kind that can be dragged on the ground, you wanted to wear it before, but you couldn't bear to buy it, and said that I would wait until I was more comfortable in the future, and now that I think about it, I always regret it. You're not comforting me, are you? I dreamed of you again last Saturday and you told me that you love this dress.