The Way Back (Past)

In the late autumn and early winter of 1982, for some reason, I went to another country three or four miles away to study. Just walked into the door of the school in a foreign country, there is no place to eat and live, and I can only run back and forth between the school's home.

When the sunset sprinkled its last light on the earth, the last session of self-study was completed, when I was in the third year of junior high school, there were two evening self-study classes after the afternoon class, and the last self-study class was at 8:00 pm, and then the whole school was unified.

For students in the vicinity, they can return home after a few minutes of working with each other, while my classmates who are far away from home and who are alone and have no companions can only go home alone. I left school with my school bag on my back, and slowly I couldn't see my classmates who were coming home nearby, leaving me alone on the dirt road in the countryside. The village, the trees and grasses walked by little by little, and an endless field appeared in front of it, and as the sun set, the scenery in the distance of the field became hazy and blurred, the sky began to turn dark, and it was impossible to see what was in front of the path, and a person walked quietly, with the monotonous and dull footsteps of "popping and popping" ringing in his ears. A little feeling of fear cannot help but arise in my heart. Occasionally, the wind blew the wild branches of the wild grass on the side of the road to make a "rattling" sound, as if someone was following behind, turning back sharply to look back, but there was nothing.

Although the teacher had told me that there were no ghosts and spirits in the world, the ghost stories and traditional concepts that I had heard since childhood were deeply rooted in my mind, and it was still difficult to eliminate them from my mind for a while. Looking at the empty and dark fields around me, I did not dare to blink, put up my ears, tightly squeezed the school bag that was crossed over my shoulder in my hand, and continued to rush forward, judging by my feelings that I was about to reach the cemetery on the north ditch of my hometown, and I began to feel nervous in my heart, "Bang bang bang... The ground beat violently faster, almost jumping to the eyes of the throat, while silently chanting, don't do anything! While squeezing the bag hard with his hand, he didn't know when the palms of his hands were oozing sweat! I thought to myself, even if there is a person I don't want to see in my daily life, I can give myself courage, but fantasy is fantasy, and the road by the cemetery still has to be crossed.

At this moment, there was a little fire not far from the road ahead, flashing and moving, my hair "brushed" up, my scalp was numb, my steps stiffened and became slower and slower, I instinctively leaned down and grabbed a handful of soil in the roadside field, ready to cope with the changes in front of me. I stared at the Mars in front of me, not daring to slacken off, but I saw that the thing was not only swaying from side to side, but also wanted to approach me... Mars is approaching, and as a dark shadow of Mars is gradually approaching me, why is it about the same height as a person? I wondered in my heart, holding my breath and not daring to make a sound. Just when I was panicking, I heard an old coughing sound coming from the black shadow opposite, and it was clear that it was a person, and when I looked closer, it was Yue Yu, an old man in his fifties in the village, holding a cigarette in his mouth, flashing a flash of light, swaying from side to side as people walked! He saw me casually and asked, "Just got back from school?" I quickly replied "Hmm" and asked him again, "It's late, why are you going?" "Oh, go to the graveyard and burn paper." After greeting each other, my dangling heart fell to the ground, threw away the soil I was holding in my hand, "booed" a long breath, and strode back home.

After returning home and settling in, I had to rush back to school early the next morning, read early at 6 o'clock, and rush to school around 5:30. In the morning, I got up to wash up, my father could not send me too far, out of the village he returned to worry about the work in the field during the day, there was only one person left on the road, rushed to the school when it was still dark, suffered a false alarm last night, I changed the route to the school, changed the slope of Gongdong Village to go north to school, in order to give myself courage, after climbing the slope I began to hum songs, breaking the quiet and dull atmosphere of the field, when humming a small tune, the roadside grass not far in front of me "whispered", A black guy swooped out, and the arrow ran across the dirt road into the field, and disappeared into the night without much effort. This suddenness really scared me a lot! Judging from my experience in cutting firewood and digging medicinal grass in the ditch by the ditch when I was a child, I judged that there was a good chance that a wild rabbit was scared away by me. Because the only flashlight at home is broken and has not been purchased, it is not convenient to take it to school to be useless during the day, so it is also dark to go to school. After the hare ran, I picked up my pace and arrived at the school before six o'clock.

The day's school life passed quickly, and it was time to come home from school, after the lessons of the first two roadside encounters, I chose the third route to and from the school, taking the Beigou Gongdong Tuyuankan Sheep Gut Trail close to my hometown to go home, this road avoided a large cemetery, passed a small cemetery in the far north, and was far away. However, on the west side of the thorny North Ditch Dirt Road, about a mile long in the north and south, is full of wild dates, trees, wild elms, etc. that are higher than me, and the road can only allow one person to walk, two people walking side by side, the road is too narrow and a little careless, it will fall into the black rumbling north ditch, and if you can't be reimbursed, you will fall enough! Just as I was groping forward, a terrible cry came from the dark and dim sky, which broke through the night sky, frightening me with excitement, and when I looked up, the thing was gone, and I secretly scolded in my heart: Damn the eagle does not call early or early, but when it is difficult for people to walk, almost let people fall into the ditch. Looking around, the wild trees and weeds towering by the roadside stand like monsters on the edge of the dark ditch cliffs, which makes people feel uneasy. Although the cemetery was bypassed, the pile of graves west of the North Ditch was not too far away, and when I opened my eyes, I could still see in the twilight that the unknown tombs were piled up one by one, and I crept forward with difficulty, afraid that there would be a mistake under my feet, around me, and in front of my eyes. About half a mile of kung fu, a bright light in front of me loomed, slowly coming in my direction, wanting to come closer, didn't you encounter something again? Just as I was guessing, a voice from the other side called my name: "Lin Er... "It's Daddy! I'm so happy now! "Ouch," I responded loudly, the bright light of the flashlight shining through the grass on me, and the night was no longer dark. My father approached me and said that I had bought a new flashlight, and I took my school bag casually, and I happily crossed the difficult North Ditch Road with my father, walked out of the thorny North Ditch, and came from the small road to the small slope of Wangjiagou.

Dad was of medium-to-upper stature, a blue cloth uniform that had been worn for many years, but the foreheads of people under fifty were covered with wrinkles, and the black and thin face was the mark of long-term farm work. He was not only the head of the family, but also my protector!

After walking through the small slope in wangjiagou, he came to the village and returned home without much effort.

In the days to come, I made an agreement with my father that as long as my father didn't have anything particularly important, he would come to pick me up in Beigou. Later, Dad contacted an old relative who had rarely interacted for many years and said that if he lived there after school, Dad would not have to work hard to pick me up. On the way to school, my father used his practical actions to break the fears and superstitions in my heart, and silently encouraged me to temper my will and overcome difficulties! The bright light of Dad's flashlight, through the dark night, shone brightly, like the stars and moon in the sky, the torch on the way, warm and bright, illuminating my way forward. Dad's figure, like the sun at eight or nine o'clock, jumped out of the horizon, wanting to come and light, illuminating my future life path!

About author:Wang Xiaolin, born in 1966, is a member of the second group of Gongxi in Daying Community, Fengming Town, Qishan. In 1983, he published the essay "Younger Brother" in Baoji Literature, and later published the poem "Childhood" in Baoji Youth. After graduating from high school in 1987, he participated in the "Three Jian" poetry club in Pingnan County, Fujian Province for many years, and published several poems. Later, he was a member of Beijing Farmer Daily, and his name was included in the "Collection of Modern Chinese Art Talents" published by the newspaper. In recent years, the articles have been scattered in Shaanxi Rural Daily, Qishan Writers, and Qishan Campus Literature.