north bird south

……

I turned on a lamp on the desk, and after I finished reading part of the letter, it was already dark.There was still some time before the library closed, so I asked a stranger next to me to borrow some ink and wrote a reply letter to my grandfather.

After I told him my recent situation and explained the reason why I had been negligent in contacting him, I wrote this in the last paragraph——

"I'm reading the letter you sent slowly. I can't find any signs of opening it. I guess you never opened it. I can probably understand what you're thinking. I respect your choice, but if any God, if you want to know Teacher Yu's dusty words, I can relay them to you at any time..." I crossed out the next paragraph and rewritten it.I thought to myself, Grandpa kept the letter, probably because he wanted to keep Mr. Yu in his heart alive, just like when I meet my favorite book, I will leave a few pages without reading it, and give myself a kind of book. The delusions and hopes of the unfinished world in the middle world-but it will be read someday.

Because there is no such thing as eternity, so if you like a person or a thing, you must endure the regret of not having him.

This is what I originally wanted to express.I want to say that grandpa has reached this age, and he can let himself go and read these letters as "thoughts". The daunting word "grow old" happened to be his luck at this time.It can make the regretful years not so long.

Although there are no related words, "death" is written between the lines in this sentence. I remember my grandfather's lesson that it is not polite to speak to others, so I erased it and rewritten it.

"Study is much smoother than I imagined. I am about to study in New York and continue my studies. In my spare time, I have a great interest in digital computers, which will be my future career direction. I am still close to I will go back to China in four years, I promised you, I will definitely go back... But our meeting won’t take that long, I can go back to China to see you during the holidays, and I also want to see red-crowned cranes.”

I left the library at the tail of the night. The next day, I included a recent photo of myself in the letter and sent it back across the ocean.

The package that Grandpa sent again included many things, including a thick leather notebook and a photo album full of birds.

There are some cut-out pieces of text and graffiti pasted on the notebook. Judging from the handwriting and content, it probably only came from Teacher Yu and Grandpa.These are all the things that grandpa has always cherished, but now they are sent to me all at once.

I opened my grandfather's reply in doubt, and the familiar "reminders" rushed to my face through the words.

"Dog, when you were in college, you didn't write a single letter for four whole years, and you pretended to entrust your father to convey your greetings. Now you know how to pretend to be filial to your grandson? I don't need you to come back from across the ocean to see me, four You can go back to the country with your brains after finishing your studies a year later. You keep all the things you sent over for me. I don’t have a good life for a few years. I’m afraid that if I die, your father won’t be able to sort it out——your father Fortunately, your mother has neutralized your genes so that your genes will not be as stupid as him—and I’m afraid that these letters will make me want to read them all the time in front of me, so I don’t have to worry about them. So I sent them all. It's up to you, and it's up to you to deal with me when I die."

"I'm done talking, as long as everything goes well for you. The red-crowned crane will wait until you come back. It will always fly back when the time is up. Your life is still very long, and you will always meet your own migratory bird."

I:"……"

Dog things—it’s really been a long time since I saw this name.

I don't understand the meaning of Grandpa's last sentence, it seems very abrupt when appended to it, and I feel that the style doesn't match the whole letter.But judging from the front, he doesn't look like he "hasn't had a good life for a few years". When he scolded me and my father, he was still so logical and hale and hearty.

I raised my eyebrows and continued to open the things he sent in the old place.

……

Coincidence is such a delicate and wonderful thing, many years later, my wife and I talked about the first time we met, and it turned out to be during the time at the City Library of New York.

She said that she saw a handsome boy who came to the same seat to read letters for many days in a row, so she wondered if I was very popular and why there were so many letters.

... It made me a little embarrassed for her to say that.

But I didn't know it at the time. Although I became friends with her, I still didn't notice it for many years in the future, and even when I returned to China, I was single.

……

Four years later, at the age of 83, my grandfather fell ill for some reason.

I went back to visit him a few times before, on and off.Finally it was time to go back to China. The night before I bought the boat ticket, I had a dream. It was a dream I had when I was living with the old man in Beicheng. I played the violin alone on the Uyuni Salt Lake.

When I woke up, I couldn't calm down for a long time, and I was stunned for a long time in the sleepy night.

At midnight the next day, my father and I called to say that Grandpa had passed away.

I crossed the Pacific on a rickety plank.When I went home and put down my luggage, the first thing I did was to come to my grandfather's tombstone.

I bought a few birds of paradise along the way. The orange petals are about to fly. I heard that it is "as the name suggests" and that it is the only bird that can fly to the heaven and relay the human language in front of the grave to the deceased.

Until I came to his tomb and saw the photos on the stele, I felt that the money spent on buying birds of paradise along the way was wasted.

He shouldn't need to "report", he smiled quite happily, I have never seen him smile like this.

"..."

I turned around and asked my dad, "Why did you choose such a photo for grandpa?"

"He said it himself," my dad told me the old man's words, "the world is too irritable, the longer you stay, the more things you have to do, out of sight and out of mind, I'm very happy to die."

"..." I said, "He really hasn't changed at all... When was this photo taken?"

"When I took the commendation certificate before."

I looked at Grandpa again, staring into his black eyes, and remained silent for a long time. I don't know why, but suddenly I felt some complicated emotions.

I am a doctor of returnees in people's mouth. I have just set foot on the soil of my hometown and have not started to create any results.Many people envy me, a "young talent" with a promising future, but what I really envy is such an old man who has passed away.

He has his own persistence and his own "migratory birds", and he has been guarding and watching them all his life.When he died, he also smiled happily, without any regrets.

Perhaps this emotion is due to unwillingness.

"I shouldn't have bought a bird of paradise. This flower doesn't go well with grandpa." After a long silence, I spoke and said to myself, "... I should buy a bottle of wine and drink a pot with him."

……

Holding such an idea of ​​"comparing" with my grandfather made me focus a lot in the next few years of my life.

In mid-October of a certain year, my girlfriend at the time - and now my wife - and I visited Grandpa again in front of that monument.

The first time she saw the photo of grandpa, she couldn't help but twitched her lips, and then she apologized to me, and I said no, the old man didn't mind, he was quite happy himself.

"Grandpa must have been funny back then," she said with a smile.

I went to his old residence in the north when he was young, which is still there, but I heard from the neighbors that this place will be demolished soon.My father will also choose another day to come here to pack his things.

It was a worthwhile trip, and I found several letters in the drawer with different attributions: some unopened—from different people, and some unsent—to different people.

I thought it was after he sent all the letters to me at that time, so I put them away.

So in a long period of free time, I followed the addresses of these letters to visit, inquire, and found several protagonists in the grandpa's story here and there.

……

When Mr. Fu Shubai learned of my intention to come, he specially picked an afternoon and invited me to his home.He shouted to a gray-haired lady in the study, "Tongqiu, if you have time, make me a pot of tea." Putting on his glasses, he looked at me for a while and said, "You said... your grandfather is Yuan'er...Xu Zhiyuan?"

"Yes," I said, "Mr. Fu, my name is Yu Changsheng. I heard about you from my grandfather."

He said my name once, and a smile appeared on his face shriveled by aging. He put the five fingers of both hands on his knees slowly, and said: "How is Xu Zhiyuan now, I haven't seen him... For many years."

"He died," I said.

"Oh," Mr. Fu was not too surprised, "death" is a common word at their age, he just froze for a while, and then said, "By the way, you said you are Yuan'er's grandson, so your father is his grandson." His own son?"

I shook my head.

I have grown up, and my father didn't intend to hide those old things from me for the rest of my life.After my grandfather passed away, I learned that the angry words that my grandfather said when he scolded others, "Your father picked it up", turned out to be true.My father is not the old man's own flesh and blood. The reason why my grandfather always used this yin and yang ambiguity is because when my father was rebellious when he was young, he always used "I am not your own, why do you care about me" to anger him. This is just the two of you. tit for tat.

The so-called Yangtze River waves push back against the waves ahead - the waves before will also hold grudges.

"So..." Mr. Fu said again, "Your grandfather told you about me, so did he tell you about Teacher Yu...and the origin of your name?"

"Teacher Yu, but not in such detail." I was a little curious, and asked, "Does my name have any profound meaning? My dad said it was taken from an ancient poem."

My mother is British so I have two names.When I was studying abroad, I was always called by my English name, so I had to react for a while when I heard my dad call "Yu Changsheng" when I first came back.

Mr. Fu asked, "Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

I shook my head again.Mr. Fu speculated: "Then your father is called 'Xu Changsheng'."

When I heard my father's name from Mr. Fu, I was stunned for a moment, and said with a smile: "Sir, do you know my father?"

"No," it was Mr. Fu's turn to shake his head this time, and he said, "I just know where your names come from."

I respectfully said: "I would like to hear the details."

Ms. Wu brought the brewed tea in front of the two of us, nodded to me and said hello, without saying anything, and then went to the study to get busy.

Mr. Fu stared at Miaomiao's heat, and said: "During the time I just left Huaishi, Yuan'er actually wrote to me often, and it was nothing serious. He just wanted to show off to me the trivial things that he and Teacher Yu were together. Just watch." He smiled softly, "Using your youthful expression, it's called Xiu Enai."

Mr. Fu said: "Once he talked with Mr. Yu about the child - at that time too many children were displaced, and it was not difficult to adopt one. Yuan'er asked Mr. Yu what name he would name the future child. And Yu The teacher blamed him for being too ambitious, and he didn't even graduate from college, so he started to think about it."

I couldn't help twitching the corner of my mouth and asked, "Is Teacher Yu up?"

"Of course," Mr. Fu curled his lips, "I haven't forgotten that Xu Zhiyuan's son is best at soft grinding and hard foaming."

He said: "You already know that his names are Changsheng and Changsheng. As for why there are two, Yuan'er said that he also asked, and Teacher Yu said that his wish is 'the mountains and rivers will prosper, and the lover will live forever'. This probably also represents two beautiful kinds of loyalty."

After he finished speaking, he looked at me kindly and said, "Not to mention anything else, your temper always reminds me of Teacher Yu."

I said, "You're exaggerating."

We laughed at the same time.

Later, I heard a story from Mr. Fu, and got several letters of "showing love".I said goodbye to him, and on the way to the home of the next protagonist, I unfolded these old letters in the bumpy carriage.

I was disappointed to see the word "burial".The sentence in the letter was a joke, saying: "...the dead must be buried together."

I stared at this word for a long time, and somehow felt that something was wrong. This strangeness did not come from sadness, but a kind of...unexplainable.

This feeling lasted until I got out of the car. I stared at the word closely, and suddenly I felt blessed, and my brain went blank for a moment.

I didn’t bring a pen with me, and there was no canteen on the side of the road. I managed to find a passer-by to borrow a pencil, and wrote this word over and over again on the palm of my hand.

Burial, burial.

I went home eagerly, and finally found the word "burial" in the envelope that my grandfather asked me to keep. The letter was signed by Yu Yao.Grandpa's font is not very good-looking, and the "death" in the middle is a normal up-down structure.And Mr. Yu's handwriting is elegant, but the word "death" in the middle of the word "buried" is written in a left-right structure, with left and right daggers, which is probably one of his writing habits.

I looked at the letter and was stunned for a long time. A feeling of trance spread by the tide of time gradually rose in my chest, and I discovered a detail that I had ignored for many years.

A picture of my fingers gently stroking a big rock when I was young suddenly appeared in my mind. There was a line on it, which read "October, my lover is buried here."

There is also a word for "burial".

I sold the train ticket that day and went back to Beicheng.

Because I have read it many times, even after many years, I still have the impression of the "image" of this character on the rock.When I dusted it off and saw it again, it confirmed my thoughts even more.

Sure enough, the "burial" on the stone and the "death" in the middle are left and right structures.And the thing that I have been ignoring is... How could Grandpa write in such delicate handwriting as on the rock.

I remembered that I asked my grandpa many times, "Did you engrave these words", but grandpa never gave an affirmative answer. The most directional thing is only one sentence that you think is yes.

These words were actually engraved by Teacher Yu at the beginning, and "my lover" refers to Xu Zhiyuan.

I don't understand why Teacher Yu carved these words on the stone when Grandpa was obviously still alive.

I curled up my fingers in the morning wind, and I couldn't help but feel a slight tremor in my heart, and my heart beat faster.

I've never really wanted to know one thing...how exactly did Teacher Yu die.