Two guitars, an African drum, plus a tent, sleeping bag, pots and pans, on October 2, 54-year-old He Xiangmin and his long-time friend, Liang Cheng, 52, set off from Zhuzhou, Hunan Province, driving a second-hand van south. First run to the sea in Guangxi, and then plan to travel all over the Yunnan-Guichuan River.
He Xiangmin was strong and strong, and Liang Cheng's body was emaciated. The latter was diagnosed with advanced tongue cancer in early September this year. In order to "live with dignity and quality while still alive", he chose to give up treatment and look forward to completing a casual and relaxing trip in the final stage of his life. He extended an invitation to He Xiangmin, and He Xiangmin gladly agreed.
The day before departure, He Xiangmin posted on the social platform: "From tomorrow onwards, I will accompany my terminally ill brother to complete our last wish, to wander the world!" There are departure days, no return dates!" The journey of the two has aroused heated discussion on the Internet, and the related videos have received tens of thousands of likes, and some netizens have praised them as "good brothers in China".
In order to take care of Liang Cheng's physical condition, the following is narrated by He Xiangmin:
On the evening of October 3, He Xiangmin (pictured right) and Liang Cheng dined at Fangcheng Port. Courtesy of respondents
While still alive, live with quality
It's really just walking.
In early September, Liang Cheng was diagnosed with tongue cancer in Changsha. On September 10, he returned to Zhuzhou, did not even return to his own home, and carried a bag that was hospitalized in Changsha and came directly to my house. The first sentence is, Brother He, I want to go out for a walk. I said, ok.
After twenty days of preparation, on September 30, I spent twenty-five thousand yuan to carry a second-hand Wuling Hongguang van, and on October 1, I flattened the seat in the back seat of the car, made a large piece of wood, sawed a bed board myself, and put my own mattress on it. In my experience, I prepared pots and pans, tents, sleeping bags, sleeping mats, and brought an electric box to charge mobile phones and flashlights.
We set off on the morning of October 2nd, arriving in Yangshuo, Guangxi in the evening. I found a farmhouse, parked and pitched a tent in the open space on the side. Liang Cheng slept in the car, and I slept in a tent. Yangshuo is a good place, the mountains and rivers are beautiful, that is, there are too many people during the festival, and there are traffic jams everywhere. So we left at noon the next day, drove for most of the day, and arrived at Fangchenggang Dongxing City on the evening of October 3.
In the first few days of Fangcheng Harbor, we found a secluded beach, or I slept in a tent, Liang Cheng slept on the car. During the day, we would take a walk and chat on the beach. At night, when you look up, you can see a lot of stars, which are as bright as the high altitude. Dongxing this place is very much in line with our expectations, there are few people, and the sea is blue and beautiful.
In fact, at the earliest, Liang Cheng planned to travel by motorcycle, and I was happy because we were both lovers of outdoor and motorcycle riding. But since September, Liang Cheng's physical condition has become worse and worse, and his walking has become shaky. I thought, what else can I do if I go on like this, or drive!
On September 29, I told a friend who was driving a repair shop about our situation, and the next day he helped me pick a car. On the same day, the transfer of ownership, temporary license plates were completed, and comprehensive maintenance was also done. The police officer who was working on the office heard about the purpose of my car purchase and worked overtime to help me get through the formalities.
Liang Cheng's illness is somewhat indicative. The ulcer in his mouth had been bad for several years, but none of us cared, thinking it was a complication of his diabetes. In the past six months, the ulcer point on his tongue has expanded and grown into a tumor. The tumor is also expanding, and every day it is like holding a red date in the mouth, which is very uncomfortable. He first saw the local hospital for a month, did not look good, went to Changsha Xiangya Hospital to confirm the diagnosis of tongue cancer.
He "gave up treatment" and ran out of the hospital. When he was diagnosed with tongue cancer in Changsha, the doctor told him that the operation had a 50 percent success rate, but the operation required cutting the tongue, and he was unwilling. He felt that there was no quality in that kind of post-operative life.
He now doesn't take any medication and takes insulin every day before meals. Along the way, he was weak, thin, and the co-pilot could not sit for half an hour to lie on the mattress behind the car. No matter how uncomfortable it is, there is no way, you can only carry it yourself.
I never advised him, I think it was his own choice and I had only respect. But I told him that when to go back was up to him, he felt that he could not bear it, in a word, I immediately took him back. If he dies on the road, I will carry him back.
We both have a habit of going out on a tour, only specifying one direction, not doing detailed strategy, and where to go along the way, it is uncertain. When I park, I usually talk to local residents, buy them a small thing, or give them a cigarette and ask what good food, fun and good things are nearby.
This trip with Liang Cheng, the first direction set is to go to the beach, we plan to rest at the beach for a while, wait for my hometown friends to send my official license plate, continue to the northwest direction, and strive to Guizhou, Yunnan, Sichuan and other provinces are a circle.
The purpose of our trip is clear: we just want to live, and we want to be able to live with dignity and quality while we are still alive.
From the evening of October 2 to the early morning of October 3, He Xiangmin and Liang Cheng slept in a farmhouse in Yangshuo, Guangxi, with Liang sleeping in the car and He sleeping in a tent next to the car. Courtesy of respondents
“VIP中P”
In addition to the necessary groceries, we also brought two guitars and an African drum on the other.
We are all music lovers, and when Liang Cheng was a soldier, he was the bassist of the military band. His guitar and bass performances are professional. I only started learning guitar at the age of 47, and seeing that Liang Cheng always played guitar at friends' dinners, I also itched to learn, so I groped and played by myself. Liang Cheng took over 180 guitar students, but I didn't learn from him because I was older, and a lot of music theory knowledge was difficult to remember and too lazy to do. But I'm interested in trying things, and I can play and play enough.
Once upon a time, we would both ride together on a motorcycle every year. At our age, we don't ride a motorcycle around to blow up the streets like young people do. We just use the motorcycle as a means of self-driving travel, basically running through most of China, and the mileage of my motorcycle is more than 400,000 kilometers.
We don't like to go to famous scenic spots, we like undeveloped, natural landscapes. The first is that there are fewer people, and the second is that it is affordable. Motorcycle a twenty or thirty thousand, saving can afford to buy, oil money is not expensive, a kilometer is two or three cents. Along the way, when eating vegetables, they go to the farmer's home to buy it directly, often less than ten yuan for a meal.
There is a saying in motorcycle circles, "Four wheels carry the body, and two wheels carry the soul." "Riding a motorcycle, more free, more casual." You can go anywhere you want, don't worry about not being able to reverse, don't have to worry about road conditions, and your driving vision is all-round.
Liang Cheng's health has not been very good, and he has been tortured by diabetes for more than ten years before getting tongue cancer. And I'm an energetic person, so when I go out together, I always have to take care of him, to see if his blood sugar is high and low, whether the person is dizzy or not.
After being diagnosed with tongue cancer in Changsha last month, his first phone call was also made to me. Some people on the Internet do not understand this, in fact, because his parents are dead, the marriage is also separated, he himself is introverted, except for me, there are not too many people can say.
In fact, Liang Cheng and I were not familiar with the first half of our lives. We were classmates in junior high school, and when we were studying, we felt that he was honest, introverted, not troublesome, and his grades were better than mine, and he was a good student in school. After graduation, I took my father's position and entered the factory, Liang Cheng first went to be a soldier, and after returning to Zhuzhou, he also entered the factory. But our friendship at that time was not deep, and at most we met on the road a few times a year.
I am a person who has many hobbies, playing outdoors, riding motorcycles, drinking tea, and always having many friends come to sit in my house. About eight years ago, Liang Fei came passing near my house, and happened to run into me, so he also came in and sat down. This sitting, we found each other to talk very well.
After that, Liang Cheng came to my house almost every day, and in the end, he ate lunch and dinner at my house every day. If the day does not come, you have to call me first. The six keys to my house were given to him, and he could go in at any time when I wasn't there. In his words, he is the "VIP of the P".
Three years ago, I got divorced, and when I went out, I had a change of clothes in my hiking bag, which was basically all my belongings. I think I have a lot of friends, but basically have a home and a room, and I am not embarrassed to bother more, so I went to find Liang Cheng. He had been divorced for more than a decade, and at that time he rented a small house for four hundred yuan a month. He slept in the bedroom, and I pitched a tent in his living room, and lived like this for a year and a half.
My relationship with Liang Cheng is very casual. For example, if I borrow money from him, I will ask directly, do you have 20,000 yuan? He said there were no twenty thousand, there were ten thousand. I said that line, I borrowed ten thousand. You don't even have to hit an IOU. Our group of friends is like this, never saying too many polite words.
On the evening of October 3, He Xiangmin and Liang Cheng were at the beach in FangchengGang. Courtesy of respondents
He was ready to spend the winter with him
Today is the eighth day out, we were trapped in Dongxing by the typhoon weather, the beach could not stay, stayed in the hotel opened by local friends. Two days ago, I reversed on the beach, scraped someone else's car, and lost three hundred yuan, which was a small accident. The most worrying thing is liang cheng's body, which may appear at any time, which is something that dare not be said.
I will buy some marine fish from local fishermen, very affordable, twenty or thirty yuan a catty, are the freshest caught, stewed for Liang Cheng to eat. He has now basically lost his chewing function and is easier to eat fish. I will also cook rice for him, but first soak it in the soup to soften. Rice noodle oil was brought from home and was almost finished.
He and I have been helping each other along the way. The twenty-five thousand yuan for buying a second-hand car this time was also borrowed by a friend.
And one of my brothers came to my house the afternoon before I left and told me that I just had to go, and he helped me with the mortgage repayment, which made me feel very at ease.
When I went out, I brought 3,000 yuan in my pocket, which was all my working capital, and Liang Cheng estimated that he brought less than me. But in the past few days, friends in the circle have sent me red envelopes, and I now have more than six thousand yuan on me, and while using money, the money has become more.
Just that 3,000 yuan, it was also a friend who came to the scene. I don't have much work to do in the factory anymore, and I've built a home kitchen in the last three months. A friend who wants to eat, call me two or three hours early. I usually make a table at noon and a table in the evening, and each table is eaten by five to ten people, and A few hundred yuan is charged. I don't hire helpers, I buy vegetables, prepare vegetables, cook vegetables, and sanitation are all done by myself, and I can earn about five thousand yuan a month. Knowing that I wanted to go out with Liang Cheng, I worked hard for a month, earned more than 6,000 yuan, paid off more than 3,000 mortgages, and left 3,000 yuan to take out.
So now some people on the Internet say that I am hype, and I do not agree. The two of us used to live this kind of life, going to work to earn a living expense, more money, even if it is three days and two days, I have to go out and play.
On the afternoon of October 6, a reporter called me and said I wanted to interview. I think I'm doing something decent, and the interview is the interview. Then more media came back. To this day, I have received calls from more than thirty media outlets. A few days before the trip, I did live broadcasting on the Internet, and the short video account had more than a thousand fans, but in these two days, it suddenly rose to nearly three thousand, and the number of likes was nearly thirty thousand.
When the fire became like this, I still had a little burden in my heart, afraid of some uncontrollable things. For example, last night, I heard that a friend had crowdfunded me. I knew he was well-intentioned, but I still called over the night and asked him to take it down. Because I just want to take my friends to find tranquility, find a place to go, I don't want to do something that rubs traffic, and I don't have difficulties enough to need social donations at the moment.
Before this trip, Liang Cheng and I had a trip of two people. Almost four or five years ago, we spent more than 20 days riding a motorcycle from Hunan to Guangdong, then to Fujian, Jiangxi, and finally back to Hunan, a total distance of more than 4,000 kilometers. That time passed through many places unknown to outsiders, such as the intersection of Guangdong and Jiangxi, there are a lot of wild hot springs, all of which are living water, flowing, five yuan to soak once. Went to Fujian to see the Hakka walled house, but also went to Dongshan Island, few people, cheap prices, there is a ring road is quite suitable for cycling.
That time he took annual leave and rotational leave, and this time, we didn't have a clear time plan. When the typhoon day is over, my license plate is sent, and we continue to set off. I brought a down sleeping bag and was able to sleep in the weather of minus twenty degrees Celsius. I was ready to spend the winter with him.
Source: Beijing News reporter Feng Yuxin
Editor: Zhang Heng