Longmen Memoirs

Different from what Chen Mo imagined, Su Huhu [<=

But until he was about to get in the car, Su Huhu didn't say a word. He followed him quietly as before.

"What's wrong?" Chen Mo turned around and asked as he stood in line. "I'm leaving here today. It's a good day. Why do you look so unhappy?"

Su Li did not answer. He lowered his head, as if Chen Mo had just met him, shrugging his shoulders.

"Don't want to leave me?" Chen Mo turned around with a smile and raised his hand to pinch his face.

"Don't look so bad. I'm not going to the execution ground. I've lived a good life. You should be happy for me, little fox." He said, "I will write to you in the future, when I am stable." When you get down, call Uncle Wang and ask him to find out where you are, and then write you a letter. I will go find you after I turn 16."

Su Li raised his head.

"Sure, let's write a letter."

"Don't worry, I won't forget it, I promise." Chen Mo said, patting his chest. "But you have to learn to read first, otherwise you won't be able to understand if I write to you."

"it is good."

"Next!" Someone's voice sounded.

Chen Mo turned his head. "coming!"

He reached out and pinched Su Huhu's ears, turned around and walked forward.

"Chen Mo, male, seven years old." Chen Mo said as he said before.

The other party looked at the plywood in his hand and pointed to the bus on the left.

"there."

"Thank you uncle."

Chen Mo walked to the car, turned around, smiled and waved to Su Li.

"I'm leaving, Su Fox! Don't forget to give me discounts in the future!"

He stepped onto the bus, and the moment he turned his head, the smile on his face suddenly collapsed.

The car slowly drove out of the gate of the resettlement camp. Su Li looked at the bus going away until it completely disappeared from his sight. He looked back and breathed out gently.

"next."

"Su Li, female, seven years old."

Chapter 8 Orphanage

People always think that if you don't say goodbye, it doesn't count as leaving, but in fact there is no difference. You will always encounter what you should encounter, and you can never escape what you shouldn't escape.

The car slowly drove away from the gate of the resettlement camp. Chen Mo sat on the soft seat. The familiar scenes were left behind little by little. He knew that someone was looking at him from behind.

The relationship between him and Su Huhu was not very deep. In the final analysis, the reason why he kept Su Li by his side was because he felt pitiful and interesting. It was like having a pet, and he would feel a little uncomfortable when they were separated. sad.

He knew very well in his heart that he didn't know how long it would take to see him again before leaving this time.Although Longmen is neither big nor small, at least it is not small for the two children, not to mention whether people will maintain their original intention when they grow up.

Could the fox cub still remember that he had met such a person before?

Chen Mo didn't think he could play an important role in Su Li's life. He was just an inconspicuous passer-by in the ignorant life of the fox cub.

A person has to meet many people in his life, whether it is him or himself. Some people pass by in a hurry, and some people look at each other hand in hand. How can they still remember that there was a sloppy boy and another boy in the messy resettlement camp.

When Su Li truly discovered that he could be independent and strong enough to face his own life, his existence no longer seemed so precious and nostalgic.

This period of time is usually not too long, because memory has a shelf life. When you grow up, you will forget many things. Things you once cared about and things you didn't care about will slowly fade away as time flies.

Maybe one day, when Su Li and Chen Mo pass each other across the street, they will suddenly realize that the person they just passed by looks familiar to them, but in the end they are just familiar, but they can't remember where they have seen them.

Chen Mo took a breath, relaxed his body and leaned on the seat.

He took one last look at the increasingly smaller figure behind the car.

"Goodbye, fox cub," he murmured softly.

The morning of September 1077, 7 in the Crystal Era

The car leaving the resettlement camp drove past the area where Chen Mo lived in the past, which has now been reduced to the old city. The familiar appearance in his memory was no longer visible here, only the mess on the ground and the ruins after the fire. Lonely building.

The new city is rising on the corpse of the old city. Gantry has shown its efficiency and coordination. The construction machinery on the construction site is working all night, steel frames, cranes, winches... The past buildings have been knocked down and replaced by brand-new high-rise buildings. , wide streets, neatly landscaped gardens and already reserved shops.

We can vaguely see the prosperity in the future, presumably more people will come here in the future.

It's just that today's Longmen, today's neighborhood, is no longer the Longmen he remembers.

The Longmen in his memory was that noisy street, with fruit stalls on both sides of the street, high-bar bicycles selling newspapers passing by with their bells ringing, the vegetable market filled with sewage across the street, the tall magnolia trees on the street and under the magnolia trees. An old man yelling around the chess booth.

The old apartment building buried under the rubble was only a few dozen square meters, with a cracked roof and an old-fashioned ceiling fan hanging from the ceiling.

After opening the door, the food that had been prepared was placed on the table, and my mother scolded her gently.

The man who pushed the door in had cautious movements and a silly smile.

How big the world is actually depends on how many people you know, how many places you have been, and how many things you have done.

Every time you meet someone, your world becomes a little bigger for you, and every time you go to a place, the world becomes a little broader.

But there will be many people in this world. You don’t know them. They don’t belong to your world. There will also be many cities in this world, such as Longmen, Syracuse, Lateran, and Victoria. Many places are just names to you. That’s all, you haven’t been there, and there’s no one you know there, so they don’t actually belong to your world.

The only things that really belong to you are the places you have visited in your memory, the people you have met and the sunsets you have seen. Maybe it is just a street, or maybe it is just a magnolia, or even just the sunlight shining into a corner of the balcony.

They are often so small that a small flame can incinerate them.

Chen Mo retracted his gaze from the car window.

He actually doesn't care what Longmen will look like in the future, whether it will be more prosperous or gradually declining. He doesn't care about the high-rise buildings in the new city and the life that has yet to unfold under them.

What he cared about had passed away in a fire not long ago, just like the dragon gate in front of him, which had already become a strange memory to him without even realizing it.

They only really lived when he remembered them.

The car drove through the construction site of the new city and entered another urban area, stopping briefly on the elevated beltway around the city.

Chen Mo saw the whole city called Longmen for the first time.

Magnificent, majestic, beautiful and prosperous.

There are many high-rise buildings, continuous buildings, and interlaced roads extending through the gaps between high-rise buildings in the city to the endless distance. The rising sun shines on the glass of the office buildings, reflecting dazzling brilliance.

Huge billboards, a dazzling array of shops under the billboards, dancing patterns on the digital screens and a steady stream of vehicles.

The word "busy traffic" is a perfect metaphor to describe Longmen.

The construction site in the old city she passed seemed to be just an insignificant part of her body, and it was indeed an insignificant part, because she was too huge. How many people were attached to her body, living in it like ants, so why bother caring about a small part of her body? Life or death.

The word "life" couldn't be simpler. The intersection between people constitutes life. Behaviors and emotions. Every word and every action spoken has become a part of life.

Acquaintance, deep love, attachment, regret, complaint, abuse, bullying... these are life, and everyone's life eventually forms this huge city and becomes Dragon Gate.

No one is indispensable to it.

The children in the car were lying by the car window, with longing and uneasiness, looking at the city outside the car through the thin window glass, looking at this vibrant, majestic and huge city, with the new city reflected in their eyes. The brilliance of the city makes me feel like I have stepped into a new world, and I imagine that this is where I will live in the future.

There is a hint of light in those dark eyes.

But Chen Mo knew that no matter how prosperous and exciting the world outside the car window was, it was not prepared for the people in the car. The future future of their group was just like the place where this car was going, even though it seemed It is full of unknowns, but every corner, every straight line, and every bridge passed are in the hands of the driver, and the place they want to go has already been marked out for them.

But despite this, Chen Mo couldn't help but wonder, still holding on to a bit of luck, whether there would be a slight turning point in his life. Maybe something unexpected would happen around the next corner.

When he saw this majestic city clearly, he was also fascinated by its prosperity and prosperity. He hoped that one day he could become a member of it and integrate into its high-rise buildings.

You are looking forward to it, you are regretting it, and you hope that someone can light a fire for you in the darkness.But the world will always be like this. He will not be stingy in giving you any warmth, nor will he bring any hesitation or embarrassment when taking it.

When God opens a window for you, he will close the door, and you never know how high a cliff is waiting for you outside the window. You can only stand in front of the window and look at the scenery outside the window, but as long as you step on If you take one step, you will fall to pieces.

There will no longer be an angel in the sky tenderly leaning down to kiss my forehead, because my angel has already left me along with that gentle lullaby.

The car passed through the long Maple Leaf Road and slowly stopped in front of an iron gate. There were already people waiting there. They were wearing black and white nun uniforms. The leader was a middle-aged woman. Under the black headscarf, she had a gentle and calm face. Face.

The children got out of the car one by one, and the driver walked over and said something to the nuns. Chen Mo didn't notice. He looked at the church-like orphanage behind the iron gate, but he felt unprecedentedly calm in his heart.

The car that came slowly left with the roar of its engine, rolling up the maple leaves on the roadside and drifting at Chen Mo's feet in the breeze.

The nuns opened their hands, and one child after another was taken into their arms, feeling the warmth that they had not been exposed to for a long time. Soon, there were cries one after another under their soft comfort.

The emotions that had been suppressed for a long time finally broke out. The pain and grievances I had suffered along the way, everything, finally broke out at this opportunity.

Chen Mo didn't know how much of what they did was sincere, but probably all of them were sincere. He didn't know when he began to learn to look at everything around him with suspicion.

But when they accepted their displaced selves without hesitation and held them tightly in their arms, no matter how sincere they were, at least they were the first ones willing to do so in such a long time.

The big iron door of the orphanage slowly opened, and the nuns took the children's hands.

then.

After being thrown around, they were accepted into this orphanage and regained their own "home".

Chapter 9 Days in the Orphanage

The orphanage has a small front yard. The front yard is paved with a row of stone pavement, which extends to the steps at the door of the church.

There was an old oak tree planted in the yard. The oak tree was so big that several children had to work together to hug its trunk. There was a small swing tied under the tree. When they walked in, several children were gathering around it. By the swing under the tree.

The swing swung up and down again, crossing one arc after another, as if it would never stop.

Chen Mo thought of the magnolia tree under the apartment. It was also very big. You could always see old people gathering under the tree shouting about playing chess.

But when he came out, only the dark and withered trunk of the magnolia plant was left, and now many of the old people under the tree had turned to dust.

Chen Mo didn't want to think about it. He followed the nuns and stepped onto the stairs of the orphanage.

There was not much expectation and longing for a new life in his heart, but only a moment of tranquility and confusion.

Clear on May 1078, 5 in the Crystal Era

The nun's name was Teresa, and the children liked to call her Mother Teresa, but she accepted it gladly.

She is the director of this orphanage and was a nun in her early years. After the Dragon Gate riots, she and the nuns transformed the monastery into the current orphanage and adopted a group of orphans after the disaster.

They were not the first children adopted by the orphanage. There were already more than a dozen children in the orphanage earlier. It was also from the mouths of those children that Chen Mo heard someone call her Mother Theresa.

A year has passed since the Longmen riot ended. Chen Mo gradually became familiar with the life in the orphanage. Among the original group of people, many of them began to call the nuns mother instead.

Life in the orphanage is actually very simple. We wash up together before breakfast, wash our hands and pray before eating, don't fight in the room, say hello to the nuns when you see them, and older children can't bully younger children...

The children who came first also taught them at the nuns' signal. Gradually, they gradually got used to the life here. From the initial fear, confusion and hesitation, they became familiar, kind and teaching others, and most people's faces also reappeared. The smile and the change of mouth also started from this time.

After them, another group of children came to the orphanage.Including the original children in the orphanage, there were more than 30 people in total. The nuns vacated a room and used it as a bedroom for these new children.

The children volunteered to help the new friends, and Chen Mo was one of them. He still played the role of a child, and he was often very good at it.

But he couldn't integrate himself into them no matter what, trying to become a little kid who didn't understand anything.

He is too hypocritical, putting a smile on his lips every day, but not feeling any joy at all.

He felt like a ghost wandering in the orphanage. When every child who came here could find spiritual solace and a safe haven, he was like a lonely name hanging in the orphanage.

He learned to laugh like children, to accept a completely new life, pretending to be a child, trying to deceive himself into being one of them.

But every time he tried to do this, his mind couldn't help but think of the fire that night, and the pale and feeble face of the woman in the firelight [=

Sometimes knowing is more torturous than not knowing.

The most painful thing in the world is not that you do nothing, but that you want to do something, and you know what you should do, but you can't do anything.

Chen Mo knelt on the double-decker steel frame bed and struggled to spread the white sheets on the bed with both hands, carefully smoothing out every wrinkle.

Standing under the bed was a little girl from the Philin tribe who was hugging the quilt. She had white ears with a little black on the top of her ears. Her black and white tail hung behind her and she was swaying gently in accordance with her owner's uneasy mood.

"Hand me the quilt." Chen Mo turned his head and stretched out his hand.

"Oh, um, here."

The little girl was stunned for a moment, as if she just realized what she was doing. She stood under the steel frame bed and lifted up the quilt in her hands. However, her body was too petite, so she had to stand on tiptoes to just lift it up. The quilt was handed to Chen Mo's hand.

Chen Mo took it several times before grabbing a corner of the quilt and pulling it to the bed. He spread the quilt.

"All right."

He neatly climbed down the short ladder between the beds and climbed under the bed.

"Thank you."

The Feilin girl lowered her head slightly. She was wearing a somewhat old pink children's hooded sweatshirt. Behind the sweatshirt, you could see two round ears on the hat. She put her hands in front of her uneasily, and her small voice contained a soft tone. Nuo was so timid that she didn't even dare to raise her head to look at Chen Mo standing in front of her.