no one can travel alone

Chapter 7 Traveler (1)
1. Aimless roaming

One of the most impressive trips in my early memory happened on a Sunday when I was 17 years old. My girlfriend and two boys in her class were traveling together.

Can't remember what season it is.Maybe it's autumn, because there seem to be reed flowers blooming by the Qingxi River.The Qingxi River is at the foot of the mountain behind the school. There is a small road next to the boys’ dormitory building leading to the back mountain. The path crosses Bijia Mountain. Boys sometimes sneak down to the Qingxi River to swim in summer.

In fact, it cannot be called a long-distance travel, but at most it can only be regarded as an aimless excursion.But 20 years ago, most of us from small towns did not live beyond the county seat.The concept of tourism has not yet entered the life lexicon of most people.An outing in spring and a picnic in autumn are also like festivals.probably that is
At first, it was about the concept of remote travel.

The campus life in the early 90s was monotonous and clear.The schoolwork is not heavy, but the discipline is very strict. After-school entertainment is nothing more than playing ball on the playground, reading books in the reading room, and practicing piano in the piano room.The excessively strong hormones in adolescence have no place to vent, so boys often do destructive behaviors such as twisting off the faucet and knocking down the fence. Sometimes they climb over the wall to catch frogs at night in summer, and occasionally make a sensational inter-school group fight.Knitting sweaters is popular among girls, and the stitches with various patterns are spectacular.I probably followed my roommate to weave two scarves with thick wool and big stick needles, and soon lost interest and patience in this lady's handicraft.Apart from staying in the reading room for two hours every day, the only hobby that I never get tired of is going to climb mountains.With the campus as the center and a radius of one or two kilometers around, measure the past one by one on foot.I was always tired from reading, or had too much dinner, so I just picked up a companion at random and left, wandering all the way until dark.

In that year, I probably conquered the surrounding hills one by one, and the familiar places lost their scenery, so I decided to go further.Bring dry food, set off early in the morning, and move forward in one direction.There is no preset destination at all, and I am going upstream along the Qingxi River without knowing where I am going or what is ahead.

The two boys who are traveling together are best friends.The two boys who play the guitar often go in and out together with the guitar on their backs, and they are quite eye-catching on campus.One is because of the reputation of the guitar prince, and the other is because of the overly striking height.The boy, who is about 1 meters tall, is as thin as a bamboo pole, and the clothes hanging on his long hands and feet are empty, which makes people worry that a gust of wind will blow him away.I was not familiar with them at first, but I heard my girlfriend mention them from time to time.At that time, the girlfriend was obsessed with the guitar.Who knows, maybe it's just someone who just fell in love with playing the guitar, and I haven't seen her play a full piece for years anyway.The prince is his girlfriend's guitar teacher, and the bamboo pole is a fellow villager, so they naturally formed an iron triangle combination.At around two o'clock in the afternoon, we climbed up a hill with sparse vegetation.We have completely lost our sense of direction, there are few people on the road, and the Qingxi River has parted ways with us at a certain part of the way, and we don't know where it flows.The sun began to slant to the west, and the result of everyone's discussion was that if we wanted to get back to school before dark, we couldn't go any further.So they set up camp on the spot, found an open and flat place to spread oilcloth newspapers, and gathered the dry food they brought, which were just snacks such as melon seeds, peanuts, and biscuits.Start chatting with dry food.What to talk about completely forgot.Believe that words are the age of the road, there are always endless things to say, and you can't stop talking until your lips are parched.There are probably big topics such as growth ideals, and there are also flashes, temptations and provocations between young men and women.

It was getting late, so I packed up the topic and returned along the way.But walking randomly along the way, sometimes passing through large areas of barren mountains and wild lands, I soon lost track of the path.We had no choice but to find someone to ask for directions, but the peasants working in the field didn't know the place names we mentioned at all, and we were completely at a loss about the place names they told us. It turned out that we had indeed traveled a long way.Fortunately, after asking all the way, I finally found the location of Qingxi River.So go down the river, no matter how far it is, it's always right to go along the Qingxi River anyway.The clear water of the Qingxi River can be seen swimming fish, and the reeds on the riverside are blooming just right.Playing and playing all the way, procrastinating and walking back, when it was dark, I finally reached the familiar land and began to find my way.Since then, I have breathed a sigh of relief, and then feel depressed, as if I have been away from the world for a whole day, and I will fall to the ground again in a blink of an eye.Since then, the footsteps have hesitated and wandered, and unknown feelings have secretly arisen.At this time, the night had already shrouded, and the boy had the foresight to bring a flashlight.So they were naturally divided into two teams, with one taking care of the other.Very tacitly, the guitar prince was with his girlfriend, and the bamboo pole boy was with me.In the two beams of light before and after, the two companions fell silent.

Back at school, the lights in the dormitory have been turned off.After calling for hot water to soak my feet, I saw that there were already big blisters on the soles of both feet.The next day, when I got up and went to the ground, I gasped and could barely stand.But there is a secret pride and joy in that pain, as if carrying secret news that cannot be shared, as if carefully guarding the distant fire, reminding you every step you take, that feeling can still be clearly remembered after many years .

The leg pain lasted for about a week.During the week, we met enthusiastically, had dinner together, took walks together, and almost got tired of being together except for class.But the combination of four did not last long.After that is the winter vacation.At the beginning of the winter vacation, the four of them organized another cruise because of the lingering aftertaste of the last excursion, and it seemed that the long vacation without seeing each other was unbearable.The route is probably to go to Zhugan's house first, then spend the night at my girlfriend's house, and finally arrive at the empty old house in my hometown.Such an age that can never be enough to talk about, it really is "Tonghua Wanli Road, even the Korean language is endless".On my last night at my hometown, the power went out.We gathered around the Eight Immortals Table under the faint oil lamp, and suddenly there was a Liaozhai atmosphere of holding candles at night and talking about foxes and ghosts.So someone suggested that everyone tell a secret of their own, which is probably similar to the truth-telling game between boys and girls nowadays.The secret was being carried out laughingly and jokingly, forgetting who thought of blowing out the lamp, suddenly there was a kind of solemnity in the darkness.All youth is full of unknown dark substances. The dark night in the countryside quietly opens a gap, and the light shines in. We see the sincerity in each other's eyes.Time flowed like water. Those who spoke and those who listened quietly lay around the table of the Eight Immortals, staring and listening quietly in the dark. Some people shed tears, while others fell silent.

Many years later, I don't know if anyone still remembers the secrets told by each of them in the darkness of this night.I don't have any memories of it, but I still can't forget the breath flowing in the darkness of that night.I believe they have never forgotten.During the winter vacation, I will say goodbye to the bamboo pole.In the hut by the pond, water lilies bloomed just outside the window. He half-jokingly took my hand and wanted to help me read my palm.That was probably the tacit temptation and flirting between boys and girls in that era.A trace of foreseeable fear flashed in my heart, followed by ambiguous expectations, but mixed with a vague sense of loss for some reason. At the age of 17, who is simple but thinks he is complicated, he always expects us to be different, expects him to be different, expects the lies that will never be pierced, expects the infinitely extended waiting and the eternal protection, and expects the relationship between the four people to never change .But then his girlfriend said: You broke the balance.Don't you know that the triangle is the most stable? If you add an extra corner, it will immediately tilt and disperse.

After the winter break, the foursome never reappeared.The girlfriend and the prince became lovers, and the relationship between Zhugan and I became delicate and embarrassing.Years later, his girlfriend and the prince finally got married after on-off and on-again, and Zhu Gan also married a wife and had children.The days settle down day by day and become the backbone of their respective teaching fields.I have gone through a lot of tossings and got married as a woman, and then I went through reading, taking exams, leaving the podium, ending my marriage, and going far away, from one city to another, from one bed to another, sneaking through the world and my heart alone The dark abysses of the storm, turbulent for many years, hear less from them every year.One year when I went back to my hometown for the New Year, I saw my girlfriend goodbye and talked about each other's recent situation. She suddenly said with emotion that character is destiny, and the paths you and I each take are the best explanations for this sentence.I didn't answer.But know she's not wrong.I always think of that year's long journey, which is actually a metaphor for my whole life, a kind of beginning to emerge.Most of the things I have done in my life have been willful and reckless, I didn’t know the beginning, I went forward recklessly, I never planned carefully, and I never preset goals.The only thing that is sober and certain is that I want to go to a distant place, no matter how far away it is, or what is there in the distant place.If you refuse a life where you can see the end at a glance, you must accept a life where your whereabouts are unknown.This is clearly the clue and foreshadowing laid by the hand of fate in the long past.

2. Far away on paper

Years later I read Calvino. In "Invisible Cities", he used the dialogue between the Venetian youth Marco Polo and the Tatar emperor Kublai Khan to describe one imagined city after another.I was shocked, as if it was a dream I had in my early years.Zaira, the city of fortresses, Issaura, the city of thousands of wells, Octavia, the city of cobwebs, Zenobia built on stilts, Arga under the dust, the streets and alleys like lines under the moonlight The white city of Zobeid, tangled like a mass, the city of Almira with no houses but pipes, the city of Valdrada, a mirror-like twin, Adelma, the city where the dying arrived, and the place where merchants exchanged memories. Cities, continuous cities, hidden cities... I left the countryside when I was ten years old and followed my father to live in a small town.It was not until I was admitted to a normal school at the age of 16 that I saw the county town for the first time.After graduation, he returned to the small town to teach.It was not until the age of 21 that he held a long-distance bus ticket for the first time and climbed into the dirty sleeper car to the bustling world.At that time, there was no train in the county.For many years, all the imagination about the distance came from reading.

An uncle in the family was a Pansteel worker, who occasionally brought back colorful candies, beautiful pictorials, and even brought back a phonograph one year.Working outside at that time was a very mysterious and legendary thing for children, and every time they went home, it was a big event that caused a sensation in the neighbors.People crowded around him, asking for news from the far-off world.The children looked up at the great man, listening to his unfamiliar accent, fashionable clothes, and the shiny gold watch on his wrist, as if he was the whole world outside.My cousin, Joan, is over a year old. Among the many sisters in my family, she is the best because she is the youngest.She has a picture of her as a baby with the word "Anshan" on it.She was born in Anshan, and later her uncle transferred to Panzhihua, and she followed her mother back to her hometown, only remembering crossing the rope bridge over the turbulent river on the way.She repeatedly talked about the memory of the train, and pointed to the black mountains and tall buildings at the bend of the Dadu River in the pictorial on the wall, and told me that it was a steel factory with a raging fire day and night.When spring comes, flocks of swallows land on tall buildings and chimneys.I stood in front of the pictorial, following her description with infinite fascination, imagining the cold but warm winter night in the distant city, the vast snowflakes flying all over the sky, and the sparks tempered by steel set off the gorgeous golden sky.Imagination about life elsewhere began to sprout from then on.A traveler's dream is ignited by a distant fire.Yes, we must go far away, go out of the countryside, and see the outside world, those cities where there are no crops but high-rise buildings, those cities where the colorful neon lights are not extinguished all night, and the streets are like cars and horses.

When I was ten years old, my father finished his studies and returned to the district middle school to become a teacher in order to take care of his family.I then transferred to the elementary school in the town.There is a small shop near the elementary school that rents out comic books for two cents a copy, but they can only be read in the shop and cannot be taken away.There is a long nap time at noon in summer, and I always sneak out to spend the afternoon watching comics on the bench in the shop.It was probably at this time that the idea of ​​collecting books came up for the first time, and I saved my popsicle money and started buying books.My father and his colleagues sometimes confiscated extracurricular books from students, and they were all included in my first collection list.When I graduated from elementary school, I owned three wooden boxes full of comic books, which were my first wealth.At that time, comic strips had a literary enlightenment significance that cannot be ignored, providing an initial reading path, and many classics that were later revisited were first encountered here.Impressive ones include Cao Yu's "Sunrise", Lu Xun's "Sorrow for the Dead", and even "A Dream of Red Mansions". Before the age of 16, I lived in my father's campus. Because I am a teacher's child, I have the freedom to go in and out of the library at will.The school library of the middle school does not have a rich collection of books, and it is partial to traditional culture and literature and history classics.I started reading "Eastern Zhou Dynasty Chronicles" in the third grade of elementary school, and successively finished reading "The Romance of the Sui and Tang Dynasties", "Shuo Tang", "Shuo Yue Quan Zhuan" and even "Seven Heroes and Five Righteousness". I finished reading "Journey to the West", "Nie Haihua", "Water Margin" and "A Dream of Red Mansions", except for "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" at that time.When encountering a character you don’t know, ask your father. I remember that Zhu Dian’s "Tong" character was learned by asking his father at that time.Sometimes guessing and reading.I remember that year when I was lying on the small bed and read that Gao Chong died of exhaustion while carrying the iron tackle, Niu Gao burst into tears, and then he burst into tears, so startled that my father hurried in to ask me, and many years later I thought I was crying with Niu Gao It is "Brother, Gao Chong".I started chasing martial arts in middle school, from Liang Yusheng, Jin Yong to Gu Long, I almost took them all, and I didn't let go of everything I saw.At the 20-year reunion of junior high school classmates, when talking about their impressions of each other, most of them remember that I was burying my head in reading novels while walking in and out of class.At that time, Qiong Yao was popular among girls, and later Sanmao and Xi Murong were also popular.That was the age when books were scarce, and I hungrily grabbed every paper thing, regardless of good or bad, and swallowed it whole.A book is circulated among classmates, and it is assigned to everyone for a time limit. They often have to return it the next day. After turning off the lights, they read under the quilt with a flashlight, or wait for their father to fall asleep. Get up and hide in the kitchen all night.When I met a teacher I didn't like, such as politics class, sometimes I simply skipped class and went home to read novels.My father probably knew about my situation, but he also indulged me with his eyes closed.Probably because of the same situation in his own student days.He talked about reading in his correspondence with me in the future. He also said that only when he was a student in his life can he study without distraction. There is no more complete meditation.So we must cherish it.

The real most intensive and nutritious reading time is during the normal period.At this time, the interest has turned to foreign language translation, from Tolstoy, Dickens, Flaubert, Stendhal, Hawthorne to Kafka and Faulkner.During the winter and summer vacations, Mr. Wenxuan used his library card to help me borrow most of the tomes. Most of the multi-volume books such as "The Quiet River Don" and "War and Peace" were read during those years of vacation.Those words from foreign lands open up a magical world.In the text, he hid in the sewers of Paris with Jean Valjean, followed the Crusades, exiled Siberia with the Decembrists, was infected by cholera in the medieval holy city of Jerusalem, and woke up a meditation for the preaching bells in the church , reaching out to touch the splendid murals of the Renaissance...

Words make a barren life extravagant.Put on the wings of imagination to fly freely, roam freely, and lift your feet to the clouds.At that time, I knew that the world is so vast and the human body is so weak, even if one day I can wander around the world like Sanmao with a bag on my back, for the rest of my life, the distance covered by my steps is only a few feet away.Even if you travel all over the world, how can you take a peek at the myriad phenomena hidden in the universe.The confusion in the heart that only seizes the day and night suddenly arises, so let's concentrate on reading.Even if one day I want to go far.

In addition to the books in the library for borrowing, there was also a reading room at that time, which provided literary magazines such as "Fiction Monthly", "Shanhua" and "Sprout".The female teacher who manages the reading room is an old teacher with a bad temper. She is unsmiling and never pretends to talk to people. Most of the students are afraid of her.But she was extraordinarily kind and tolerant towards me.The reading room closes every night before self-study, and books are not allowed to be borrowed. I have seen many people go to beg for it, but they get nothing.But as long as I offered to take back the unfinished book, she never refused me.She probably likes me very much, because the head teacher told me later that she was in charge of sending and receiving and seeing me always had a lot of letters, and she also reminded the head teacher to pay attention to whether I was in a relationship.In fact, it was all pen pals.Pen pals are a special product of that era, not only boys and girls, but also friends who forget the years.People who have never met each other from all over the world, just because they also love words, use paper and pen as a matchmaker, and swan geese pass books, and they talk enthusiastically in letters.With the help of words, we get out of the square inch that confines us, can be seen by eyes, and can be walked by footsteps, and travel freely in time and space.

(End of this chapter)