Sadness begins with your name

Chapter 22 Wake up from a dream and never lose my love

Ning Qinglan left the nursing home and was admitted to the No.1 People's Hospital in Zhenjiang City.

The diagnosis came back and she had cancer.

Lung cancer in the middle stage.

This made me, who was already at a loss for the world, feel even more at a loss.

Uncle said, he told her it was just pneumonia.

My aunt and cousin came, and the three of them talked and laughed around Ning Qinglan. I knew it was to reassure her, but I felt uncomfortable, so I hid in the bathroom under the pretext of washing fruit.

Ning Xiaoxiao, who is one year younger than me, ran in and handed me an envelope: "Today I learned from Lei Feng to help the old man in the mail room to pack up old letters, and accidentally saw a letter from you. There was no class written on it, so it was kept in his place all the time. "

The crumpled envelope was a little yellow, the time on the postmark was March, I took the envelope and opened it, and saw Ye Weiyang's neat and beautiful handwriting.

She said in the letter, Baosha, you are a pig, why did you leave without saying goodbye?What happened and why are you leaving?Is there something you won't even tell me?
She also said, do you know how far I have come around to find out your whereabouts?

Are you coming back for the senior high school entrance examination?The three of us still go to the same high school, and we will take the entrance exams for universities in Beijing together.By the way, Lin Beifeng said, he promised to take you to Beijing to tour the alleys?

Bosha, you must remember, three years later, we will meet again in Beijing! ! !
She used a series of exclamation points, and I thought to myself, since she loves Beijing so much, why did she transfer to M City in the first place?
"Sister, is that your boyfriend?" Xiao Xiao winked at me, this boy seemed dull and even made fun of his cousin.I smiled, stuffed the letter into the envelope, put it in my pocket and turned to go out.

"Mom, I'll peel a pear for you to eat."

Now, my only wish is to accompany Ning Qinglan and make her recover quickly.

In the evening, my aunt and cousin stayed with my mother in the ward, and my uncle and I went home to pack our things.On the way, my uncle suddenly asked me, "Should I contact your father?"

"Why contact him?" Except for the occasional dream of him, I never mentioned or missed that ruthless man.

"After all, such a big thing happened, whether the next step of treatment is chemotherapy or conservative treatment... Someone has to decide." He pondered, the deep twilight reflected on his face, blurring the gentle look in the past.

"Uncle." I looked up at him, the face full of deep and shallow wrinkles was full of helplessness.

He is just an ordinary worker, his aunt works in a textile factory, and his cousin has to go to school...

I understand what he meant.

"My mother has a passbook, and all the deposits from their divorce are in it."

"I asked your mother, and there is not much left. The remaining tens of thousands are for your school use." Uncle looked at me with calm eyes: "Give me your father's contact information, and I will tell him. "

I gave him Bo Yuntian's phone number. It's been so long, maybe he changed a new number in Beijing.

I wrote back a letter to Wei Young.

I told her that my mother was sick, so I had to take care of her here.Now I don't want to think about anything else, go to school well, accompany her well, and be a sensible and good girl.

Two weeks later, she wrote again: How is Auntie's illness, do you need help?Otherwise, I will go to Zhenjiang to see you with Lin Beifeng sometime.We all hope to see a grown up and sensible Bosha, must be more beautiful, right?

I wrote to her again: Don't come.My mother is very ill and I have no time to entertain you.See you soon.

After a few letters, the time has slipped to September, and my high school career has begun.

The hospitalization expenses were like running water, and as soon as his condition stabilized, Ning Qinglan was discharged from the hospital and moved to his uncle's house.

For nearly two months, Bo Yuntian never showed up.

I scolded him and Ye Congling in my heart. One day, I will take revenge on you guys.

Unable to contact Bo Yuntian, my uncle spoke less and less, his face became more and more ugly, and my aunt's complaints drifted into my ears from time to time.

The old-fashioned house with three bedrooms and one living room was even more crowded because my mother and I joined in, and we had to queue up to use the bathroom every morning.

For lunch, my aunt made braised chicken wings, which is my favorite dish, but no one moved their chopsticks, so I could only watch helplessly, motionless.

Ning Qinglan talked about her book tirelessly, "An editor from a publishing house contacted me and wanted to publish "Tu Mi". Brother, please take me to the pier by bike later. I'm going to Nanjing to send a sample manuscript."

My aunt let out an "oops" and said, "Isn't your motorcycle out of gas? You have to refuel when you go to work later, and the price of gas is rising so fast now..."

Xiaoxiao stared at the delicious chicken wings for a long time, and finally stretched out his chopsticks to pick up one while the adults were talking. I thought he would put it in my bowl, but unexpectedly, the chopsticks stretched out in front of me. He grinned and said, "Sister, you eat."

Before the words were finished, the chopsticks slipped and the chicken wings fell onto the dining table.

Aunt slapped Xiaoxiao on the shoulder, and the chopsticks fell to the ground with a thud, followed by a slightly hoarse reprimand from the aunt in the small dining room: "Do you know that the chicken wings cost more than one catty? What a waste! Pick it up and eat it!" "

The atmosphere suddenly froze, Ning Qinglan stopped talking in embarrassment, and looked at me in blank dismay.

Under the gaze of four pairs of eyes, Xiao Xiao, a 14-year-old boy, lowered his head to pick up the chicken wings that fell on the tablecloth, and slowly put them into his mouth.

I couldn't see his eyes clearly, but the aggrieved look with his head down was just like the current situation Ning Qinglan and I were in.

Lunch was silent and awkward.

After dinner, my uncle went to the shed to roll out the two Suzuki motorcycles. After a long time of preparation, he finally started, and shouted to Ning Qinglan who was walking out, "Lanlan, I'll take you to the pier."

"No need." Ning Qinglan was wrapped in a large violet shawl, her hair was tied into a bun, and she wore a light purple crystal clip. She was paired with a pair of black trousers and beige leather shoes. Looking carefully, she had light makeup on her face, making her pale. Her cheeks were lightly rouged.

She walked slowly in the alley, like a beauty in a painting.

Such an image is obviously not suitable for riding a motorcycle.

The uncle said, "Then let's take a taxi."

Ning Qinglan said: "You don't need to go, I can do it myself." She smiled at him: "Help me take care of the children, brother, please."

Then she touched me standing behind her, and she bent down and said softly, "When I finish the contract, we can go home if you want."

She was talking about the north, the home in M ​​City.

She smiled in the wind, with unspeakable sadness, and my uncle didn't speak, and stood there until he watched her back go farther and farther, and finally disappeared at the end of the alley.

I will never forget that afternoon, when the breeze blew through the green vines, the thin and beautiful Ning Qinglan left the alley and out of my sight with every piece of "Tu Mi" she wrote with all her heart.

An hour later, she was in an accident on the ferry bound for Nanjing from Zhenjiang.

In this life, I will never see her again.

I got the news that it was [-]:[-] in the afternoon, and the second math class was about to end. A woman in the dark blue work clothes commonly seen in cotton mills rushed into the classroom, shouting anxiously: "Sand, sand, sand." sand--"

I hurriedly stood up from my seat, and the math teacher who was correcting homework on the podium stopped her and asked, "Who are you looking for?"

"Auntie, what's the matter?" I asked anxiously.

"Your mother has an accident, come with me!" She walked over quickly and hurriedly apologized to the teacher: "I'm sorry, teacher, I will help the child take a leave of absence!"

She walked over to my seat, pulled me out, and trotted out of the classroom.

"Aunt, aunt—" I was out of breath, but I was extremely scared in my heart.Didn't mother go to Nanjing? Did something happen? Did she fall ill?

That day, she, who has always been very frugal, took a rare taxi, got in the car and I kept asking, but she looked impatient: "I'll find out later, I don't know the details."

We have been to the wharf, where people who choose the waterway from Zhenjiang to Nanjing usually take a boat.

As soon as the taxi stopped, I saw a group of people gathered around the river, and a police car was parked there with its lights flashing.

The surrounding area has been cordoned off. As soon as I broke in, the police shouted: "Don't approach the scene!"

"We are the family members of the deceased!" My aunt shouted in her ear.

deceased!
There was a bang in my head, like an atomic bomb exploded in my heart.I turned my head and stared at my aunt: "What did you say?"

"Who, died..."

The wind by the river was so strong that the sound that I opened my mouth was completely covered by the wind. My aunt opened and closed her lips, but I couldn't hear what she was saying at all.

Until I heard a man's cry, sad, sad, with a long tail.

"Ah... ah... ah... ah..." The four crying voices dropped one by one, and I could tell that it was my uncle.

I dragged my feet that were heavier than lead stones and walked towards the direction of the crowd. My mind was empty. My thinking had never involved the loss of my mother...

"Shasha." The man kneeling on the ground saw me and rushed over to hug me into his arms, "Son, your mother is gone..."

This is impossible.

At noon we still sit and eat together.

"You lied to me!" I choked my throat and said.

Just below our feet, a huge white cloth covered a human body, they said, that was my mother.

"I don't believe it!" I yelled suddenly, pushed him away, then pointed to the wet white cloth and said, "Who the hell is this! She's not my mother..."

I rushed over and lifted the white cloth violently.

The surroundings suddenly became silent, and the heartbeat in his chest almost became zero.

Even though the face of the woman in front of me was a little swollen from the water, I still recognized it at a glance, it was Ning Qinglan.

Ning Qinglan, who had been rebellious, proud, dusty, and depraved, left home at the age of 18 to go to Beijing, worked as a nude model, loved an art student, and divorced writer Ning Qinglan.She is like a poppy, who spends her life in a gorgeous and addictive way, and then turns into dust in the end.

She fell from the boat into the river and drowned.

The forensic doctor said that it was possible that she fell into the water accidentally from the deck due to a sudden illness. Of course, the possibility of suicide was not ruled out.

The thick stack of manuscripts was already incomplete, some fell into the water, and some floated into the air, leaving only a pile of soaked paper wadding beside her.

I held the pile of rotten papers in my hand, but I knew that it was her life's painstaking efforts. I firmly grasped her cold and swollen hands. A 15-year-old heart was cracked into pieces, crumbs, and powder. Also lingering coldness, sinking forever, falling into darkness.

Ning Qinglan was born and died in Jiangnan.Or, it was her only consolation in a life full of regrets.

My uncle bought a cemetery in the cemetery in the city. Although the land is not expensive, the surrounding is quiet and humid, and there are unknown small flowers blooming all year round.I think Ning Qinglan is sleeping here, except for being a little lonely, everything should be fine.

On the day of the burial, the aunt cried mournfully, and the regretful uncle beat his chest and wailed loudly, leaving only one sentence in his mouth: "It's all my fault, it's all my fault... If I send her there, I won't Something will happen...why didn't I send her there..."

Seeing the family crying miserably, my cousin also rubbed his nose and shed tears. He looked up at me, dressed in white, expressionless, my cousin was stunned, ran over as if he was a little scared, and gently tugged at me. cuffs.

"Sister, sister?"

"It's okay." It's strange that at this moment, I didn't even shed a tear.

The uncle and his wife were crying around the tombstone. I walked over and helped my uncle with one hand and my aunt with the other. I looked at them like a calm adult and said, "Don't cry. Let her be here quietly and well." have a rest."

All of a sudden, I seemed to be ten years older.Uncle said, since you can't get in touch with your father, Baosha, you can study at ease in Zhenjiang, and uncle will sell everything for you to finish college.

The wind in the wild was bitingly cold, I moved the corners of my lips, and smiled bitterly: "I want to leave this place."

Looking back, my entire youth was in a state of turmoil, ups and downs, and restlessness, but there is no way to do this. It is often not that you choose life, but life chooses you.

Natural selection, survival of the fittest, right? I believe that the thin sand like weeds will become more and more beautiful and tough in the displacement.

I reorganized and packed the luggage that He Ning Qinglan brought to Zhenjiang.I intend, alone, to return to the North.

When I went to sleep at night, I put my hands on the skin of my chest, and the words "Lin Beifeng" gently soothed the pain in my heart like the tentacles of a butterfly.

do you miss me?

Have you ever thought about me?

If there is no Weiyang, you will like me, right?
I didn't sleep well all night, and when I woke up the next day, I heard the wind whistling outside the window and the sound of rain.

I'm going to catch the ferry, I'm going to catch the train, I'm going home.

After hastily washing up, as soon as I opened the door, I saw my cousin Xiao Xiao staring at my room with big black eyes.

"What are you peeking at, brat!" I slapped him on the head.

"It's nothing, I'll see if you've woken up yet. Hehe." After scanning the room with both eyes, Xiao Xiao asked, "Sister, where are you going after packing?"

"Where not going." I didn't tell him, because I didn't want my uncle to know, otherwise it would be very difficult for me to leave.

Xiaoxiao said to me in the tone of a little adult: "Auntie, I hope you don't blame my parents, they are also living very hard."

It's rare that I, Baosha, have such a sensible cousin, so I sighed lightly: "I know."

So I can't stay here any longer.

Xiaoxiao ran out the door as soon as she finished speaking, and both uncle and aunt had gone to work.I turned around and glanced at the house built by the water, and a cloud of wet fog that could not be dispelled lingered in my heart like this weather.

In this life, there is no home.In the end, it's up and down, with no branches to rely on.

There was no bag in all, and most of Ning Qinglan's clothes were burned to her. The most important thing in the luggage, which almost made me unable to breathe, was her work, "Tu Mi", which was painstakingly worked hard and never made it to the world.

Ten years later, when I became a freelance writer, wrote articles for various literary columns and magazines at home and abroad, and also published two novels, I always felt that this was Ning Qinglan's secret guidance , she looked at me from the sky.

Out of the alley, you can see some boats for ferrying people docked on the water bank. The emerald green water waves are rippling under my feet. He hugged my waist and dragged me off the boat.

"Sand sand! What are you doing?" Uncle was sweating on his forehead, his face was ashen, he was not very strong, but his arms were very powerful, and he pulled me from the boat to the shore, and he glared at me angrily: "I promised your mother to take good care of you!"

"I don't need someone to take care of me."

"You have to stay here for school!"

"I don't! I want to go back to M City, I want to go home to school!" I shouted and struggled, trying to grab the boat that was about to leave.

Ning Xiaoxiao appeared at the right time, jumped onto the deck in one step, grabbed my two bags of luggage and threw them back to the shore.

"Xiaoxiao--" I screamed, kicking my feet and shouting, "You let me go--let me go--"

The quarrel naturally attracted many people to watch, my uncle had no choice but to call Xiao Xiao to help, and the two controlled my hands and feet until they dragged me to the entrance of the alley, and then my uncle let go and went back to get things.

I broke away from Xiaoxiao and ran away, jumping onto a small boat on the shore in one breath, and shouted: "Go, go!"

The boatman was obviously at a loss, but soon the boat moved slowly in the direction of the current.

"Sand--"

There was a piercing cry.Immediately, like a frightened cat, I arched my body and backed away.

He said: "M City has nothing for you, what will you do when you go back?" His voice was full of grief, pain, and helplessness.

"I can live alone, I will definitely be able to live well!" I stubbornly answered against the wind.

"But you don't even have a home anymore, your house has been sold!"

There was a bang, as if something exploded in my ear.I have no home, my parents are gone, and the house has been sold?

Who exactly?Who took my home?

I huddled tightly on the deck, and saw my uncle's thin figure standing by the water like an autumn tree, holding a black luggage bag in each hand.I heard him continue to shout: "I don't want you to become the second Ning Qinglan!"

"I can't just watch you repeat your mother's path back then..." I shouted with tears, my chest was so tight and sore that it couldn't be more painful, and the tears that didn't even fall at Ning Qinglan's funeral flowed down my face.Back then, Ning Qinglan was also so young and energetic, did she dare to seek an unimaginable life in a wooden boat?

Presumably the uncle back then stood on the shore so powerlessly, letting his relatives go without looking back, right?
With tears in my eyes, I searched for sex too much.But suddenly, he fell down.

No, to be precise, he fell to his knees.

His voice was clearly audible: "Xiasha, please come back. I will take care of you for another three years for your mother. When you are admitted to university, you can go wherever you want, okay?
The world became chaotic at this moment, and I pulled my hair like crazy until the pain woke me up again: I have nothing left.Baosha, if you want to survive in this world, you can only stay and live under the fence.

I gently said to the person who drove the boat: "Uncle, can you please turn around?"

(End of this chapter)