Text/Guo Jingming
1
If you fold up memories, if you turn back time. If you pull your youth back to its hasty shape. If you ignite the years and months into light clusters jumping in the dark.
Then—
2
It’s not fictional or fabricated—when I was young, such a dream really appeared.
Knowing that it is false, but it is so true that people cannot deny it. In the dream, I was standing on the deserted cold ice field. The huge glacier sliced through the blue sky like an axe, and the huge and long wind and snow seemed to hit from behind without end, and then rolled towards the distant horizon. Large groups of snowflakes blow away the sight, stirring the white light.
There is a sharp whistling sound between heaven and earth, passing through the eardrums and hitting the chest painfully.
The silver knight and the sorcerer wrapped in a black cloak stood silently on the mirror-like ice field, their eyes were as silent as the eternal huge universe.
In my dream, I walked towards them step by step, slowly getting closer. Heart is full of excitement and fear.
Then, I slowly become them.
——I forgot whether I became a silver knight or a black wizard.
3
When I wrote this text, eight years have passed since I started writing this novel. What kind of time length is eight years? According to the life expectancy of 80 years, then not too short one-tenth has passed. And if according to the whole most golden years of youth?
That is a whole youth.
It seems that when people start to grow up slowly, they will slowly cherish the memories of the past. Be it a failure or a great one. Pale, yet gorgeous. It’s like turning into a licorice stick, chewing a new taste in the mouth. There is some slight bitterness in the sweetness, which makes people frown slightly.
But the self in most memories should be superficial and ignorant, childish and impulsive. That’s why there are so many regrets lingering in my heart.
But it is very subtle, but there is a kind of unreasonable envy and longing for the self who used to be like this.
4
It seems that people who are 24 years old and about to be 25 years old are not suitable for mourning the spring and autumn. For those lives and memories I have written, I also have a lot of shame and difficult to face emotions. Maybe only when people are young and frivolous, can they show their hearts so confidently and boldly, the fragile and furry surface, or the indifferent and smooth inner wall. Present all private emotions and moods in front of others as grandly as an exhibition, to win their sympathy or sneer. The righteousness and confidence at that time turned into a thin sigh in the long consumption of time, and fell to the ground.
At the age of 17, I was infinitely brave.
And the current self is like the PRADA bear wearing steel armor hanging on my bag, strong, invulnerable, and lovable, but far away from the self at the end of the world.
5
When I re-read the postscript of “Illusion City”, I found that apart from the slightly hypocritical writing style, there are many sincere feelings, but I can’t write it now. Today, after gradually growing up, I have long been used to putting all the emotions in my heart into novels, and expressing them to my heart’s content through the characters I created. This will not be criticized. Because everything is “this plot is purely fictitious”. As for prose, which is almost a heart-to-heart thing, I haven’t touched it for a long time. Except for publishing two collections of essays in 2003 and 2004, until today, I dare not publish any records about my mood. It seems that antibodies have been produced, and when certain injuries approach him, he will be keenly aware of it. Then the siren in my mind started beeping.
The epilogue mentioned a lot of things and a lot of friends. Some friends still see each other every day, such as Ah Liang; some of them can only talk on the phone occasionally. Everyone has gradually grown and changed in eight years, with their own lives, a new circle of friends, a new living environment, a new job, and a new meaning of life.
Therefore, not many people go back and explore how we got to where we are today.
It seems that the sad topic has started again.
6
We are always complaining about the past. The studies that were not handled well, the lovers that were not treated well. The childish articles I wrote back then, and the impulsive things I did back then, now seem to turn green with regret.
So, when I took up the pen to rewrite the preface of this book written eight years ago, I had no idea what to write. Although I am far away from the original self who stood at the starting point of the text, I don’t know how many journeys I have traveled during this period. The weight on the shoulders is getting heavier and heavier, and the shoes deeply trample the heavy snow on the road, leaving clear footprints like road signs pointing to the distant future.
Of course, you can also rely on these footprints to go back to the long past. At that time, the sky was still blue and transparent, and the earth was softly covered by white clouds, like a wrapped gift.
The whole earth sleeps in the season of youth. There is a golden light shining in the sky, hiding behind the hurricane.
7
I have been sewing and tinkering with this first novel for a week, like an old woman repairing her original wedding dress, with some indescribable emotions in my heart, subtly mixed The ratio of sadness and joy, it is difficult to calculate the ingredients precisely. The minutiae have been refurbished, as if my cleanliness in writing has always existed, and it is difficult to face the works of a year ago, even half a year ago, or three months ago. So let alone seeing the passionate self who was unfamiliar with words eight years ago.
We are always discussing with words what is more important, passion and skill in words.
The answer is no.
8
Shanghai is slowly recovering after the long snowy winter. The silvery snow turned to gray rain. The whole city turned into that bustling city bathed in moist mist again. The rotating glass ball shines brightly.
We can only spy on and touch the once distant ice century in our imagination.
Those princes of ice and snow are standing in the wilderness of the world, and the ice and snow have accumulated a long sadness on their shoulders. Those loves and hates, those heavy sighs in fate, are all condensed by the white light in the subzero snow.
In my memory, such a world created by imagination and passion seems to be as far away as a light-year away from me.
It stuck at the end of my 17-year-old world. They are suspended in the cosmic white dust.
9
Many names have been chanted repeatedly, and they have become legends in the lives of many people. Their white hair and white pupils, their tragic fate evaporated into ashes in the sound of birdsong.
Ka Suo, Ying Kong Shi, Li Luo, Lan Shang… They were born out of the mind of a 17-year-old boy, and then became little legends in the world.
10
Shanghai is slowly entering spring. When the sun is shining, I go to the Starbucks downstairs to drink a cup of coffee. I sit on the side of the open road and see foreigners rushing with English newspapers in their hands and coffee in their hands. The sound of them flipping newspapers was rattling.
After a few years, I am no longer the kid who hurried to school with a schoolbag on his back.
Now I wear slightly more formal clothes and enter the office building every day. After being woken up by the phone every morning, I started to discuss various topics and projects with others while drinking coffee.
The whole room became extremely dry after the air conditioner had been running all night. Unscrewing the shower head, the rattling shower sprayed out countless white mist.
Drive. See a movie. Writing the latest chapter of “Little Times”, I was thinking about whether Lin Xiao should be with Jian Xi or Gong Ming. Sort out the latest work plan and fight the tug-of-war with advertisers. Sometimes flattering and sometimes hostile to media reporters, the agencies tried their best to smirk at each other.
How far is this life from the ice-covered empire? Knights of silver or wizards of sorcery, they never actually existed.
11
Eight years ago, I couldn’t stand separation, loneliness, growth, depression, disappointment, worldliness, hypocrisy, and money.
But now I am slowly getting used to it.
In fact, sometimes a person sits by the floor-to-ceiling windows of a skyscraper, listens to the depressing but ready-to-move music in the bar, and then turns his head to look at the small, sharp, brightly lit fashion capital under his feet-this kind of loneliness has already It is decorated with material to become taste and nobility. Become the vision in the eyes of others.
You become the scenery in the eyes of others.
12
When I look back, I actually find many, many naive places about myself. Whether it is in “Fantasy City”, or in the youthful years when I was writing “Fantasy City”. But I still miss those rough and slightly pale times back then. That period of high school years, which was neither long nor short, was cut out by the selfish self, framed into a picture frame, and hung on the wall of my heart for many years.
The bell for class has always been a boring electric bell, but suddenly one day it becomes the melody of “Ode to Joy”.
The school’s badminton court is open-air, and the concrete floor has been rubbed smooth and shiny by countless pairs of sneakers. I fell on it many times.
In the snack stall in front of the school, the proprietress would chop up watermelons in summer, put them in a glass water tank, add sugar water and crushed ice, and then turn them into cheap cold drinks that cost 50 cents a cup.
At the door, there is roast lamb that our parents never let us eat. They said that if we eat too much, we will get cancer. But in winter, I still put my hands in my sleeves and wait in front of the stall trembling.
There is also the small artificial lake. There are always students who skip classes sleeping on the grass by the lake. By the lake is the dormitory for the girls, and their colorful clothes are hung to dry in the corridor, like various mottled flags.
The road from the dormitory to the boiled water room is very long and quiet. There are tall trees on both sides. In summer, there are boundless and huge tree shades. It is scary for many nights. I ran back to the dormitory quickly with a water bottle . But there will be beautiful light in the morning, shining through the one or two crisp birdsong.
If time could be turned back——
13
I have done countless psychological tests about whether I would like to go back in time. Every time I feel that I must want to go back to the past. But when I choose carefully, I find that when you wash away the dust of these years and stand at the clean starting point of time again, you may not be happier than you are now.
The premise of going back in time must be to let me keep the memories of these years.
Over the years – I’ve used this opening on countless occasions. I complained about the pain of life, and I also complained about the heavy fate; I shared the joy of success, and I also tasted the bitterness of loss. However, no matter how much weight and dust accumulated on my shoulders, they all decorated my fate in the end.
They turned my body into a container, sealed the past years, and turned bitter tears into a sweet spring.
They made me the king of ice and snow, and they finally turned into the snow of the last days.
March 2008 Shanghai