On the day of returning to the town, the rain gradually subsided, and the season was close to Qingming.
Most of the archways facing the street have been eroded by rainwater and are difficult to remember. The bluestone pavement is slightly inclined, and the dark green moss overflows between the lines, which complements the reliefs on the wooden doors.
In the end it is the spring of the south. Water was stored in the eaves, and three or two pieces of worn-out clothing were hanging on bamboo poles protruding from the windows. The road grew darker and darker, and the green bricks and white tiles were covered with water stains. The sparse plant in the corner of the wall has not yet woken up, and the long stem is wet.
Chen'an Street in the town has been prosperous for nearly a hundred years, and only a few old ancestral houses have been left over time, and few repairs have been made. Most of the families have long since moved away, leaving only a few hunched old men silently guarding the tobacco under the stove.
Last month, Gu Lin returned here and sent me the score that had been left in the old piano room before. At the end of the letter, he said that the magnolia flowers in the town were blooming very well and should be returned to see.
What can be missed is not only this short flowering period.
Photos of magnolia flowers sent by Gu Lin
Gu Lin was not a child who grew up in a small town. When we were young, we practiced together for six years. After the family changed, Gu Lin left the town with his family.
Letters went through several times. Sent was Mazas's score, the handwriting on which had turned dark yellow, apparently an old manuscript that had been shelved for a long time. I haven't mentioned my bow in four years.
I stayed in town for half a month, sorting out the things that had been in the old house for a long time. More often than not, he would go to his cousin to help him take care of the business in the shop, and occasionally watch him draw. My cousin was only a few months older than me, and we grew up together, in the same class at the same high school.
When he grew up, his cousin stayed in Chen'an Street, doing bits and pieces at his aunt's grocery store. He rarely spoke, and when he saw me coming, he just smiled and nodded.
In the years of study, my cousin often held up a drawing board on the roof of the building, and most of the oil paintings painted were given to people. Layer after layer of color is covered up, and the smudge seems to be a torrent that is difficult to fade inside. I don't remember much what he drew, but I just think that the silence he was always in front of the drawing board at that time was the whole of his personality.
I always thought that my cousin would choose to re-read it after he fell off the list, but the truth is that he returned to the town without a word, living a seemingly idle life. Occasionally I would run with him on Chen'an Street, a gradually deserted road that bordered the river, reflecting the prosperity of the past and the soran of today. Many times when I run, I feel that the road under my feet is getting narrower and narrower, like stepping on the unpredictable twists and turns of the canyon. At the end of Chen'an Road was the sound of oars rising and falling on the Mo River, and we stood on the guardrail to watch the fisherman's mast.
The night Sun Han returned, my cousin found me, and the three of them talked in front of the gate of the old house. Sun Han was a high school classmate of my cousin and I. Sun Han spent three years in Shanghai, and he wanted to break out of the world. The reality is that in front of that proud city, everything seems humble and small, including Sun Han's enthusiasm and dreams as always. He worked as a waiter in a restaurant and was fired for quarreling with customers. He fantasized that there was always a small corner of the vast land that belonged to him, but the reality was that he could only rent in the basement every day with a meager income, confronting the city's high work and indifference.
Now he is alone, no different from the year he left.
That night, my cousin drank a lot of wine, and he and Sun Han kept toasting and drinking without stopping. I looked at Sun Han and only felt that what was hidden in his eyes was the three years that I was not good at experiencing or imagining. On that night in Shanghai, I looked at the brightly lit night outside and felt distant, and what I couldn't understand was that there were still those tough climbing lives under this neon.
The cousin helped Sun Han walk home shakily. I watched their thin backs on the uneven cobblestone road of Chen'an Street, like those swaying cries and longings. Two weeks later I received a call from Sun Han, who went to Harbin, in the army. Naturally, it was his father's meaning.
Chen'an Street is still raining down the mouth, and the rainwater spreads over the sloping stone slabs and flows down, like a tributary of the Mo River.
The scattered ancient houses appear to be more and more cold and empty, and the plaques on the doors have long since died humbly, disappearing into the long time of Chen'an Street. Like our lonely yesterday, they remain in the frame and have a pair of open eyes.
Sun Han said a lot that night, still eager to leave. But the reality was that Sun Han went north alone and threw himself into the fierce background, and the information was unclear. Before leaving the town, I walked along Chen'an Road all night, facing the shadowy fishing fire on the Mo River. Is it that we have devoted all our persistence to write only this narrow line of life?