Chapter 78 Naples Yellow (1) In the blink of an eye, they had already...

December 21, 2023, Sunny

"Dear passengers, the next stop is Wangchun West Station. The outdoor temperature is -20 degrees Celsius. Please take your belongings with you and line up at the door in advance..."

Lin Xia was awakened by the sound of the station announcement. She woke up in a daze. Beneath her was the train that kept moving forward, and outside the window was the rapidly flowing scenery. She leaned on He Chuan's shoulder and didn't know how long she had slept. For a moment, she couldn't tell what day it was.

Is it the train from Beijing to the provincial capital that was delayed for a day and a night in the wind and snow for the art exam?

Or is it midnight in Hong Kong, on the rickety minibus back to the village house from West Kowloon after a full day of sightseeing?

In the blink of an eye, they had already spent so much time.

"woke up?"

He Chuan asked in a low voice.

"Um."

Lin Xia sat up straight and reached out to pinch his shoulders: "Are you feeling numb?"

He Chuan smiled and said, "Not bad."

"What are you looking at?"

She lowered her eyes and saw that what he was holding was not a cell phone, but a paper book.

"Your poetry collection."

He Chuan moved, revealing the cover of the poetry collection, on which was clearly the author's name—

Text: Song Dynasty Porcelain

Painting: Lin Xia

Lin Xia was a little embarrassed: "It's not a real book."

This wasn't a published poetry collection. Song Ci wrote the text, she drew the illustrations, and together they worked on the typeset. They found a publisher and printed a book that would never be released. It fulfilled a childhood wish, a keepsake. The book spoke of youth, of love, of the mountains of Wangchun and the snows of the Northeast, and of their respective childhood memories.

It's not that I don't want to actually publish, it's just too difficult. There are many reasons, but none of them matter anymore. Sometimes, life is destined to leave behind all kinds of regrets.

Three years after the pandemic, a year after the nationwide lockdown was lifted, a lot has happened in the intervening years. The global landscape has been turned upside down, and people's lives have been forever altered. Yet, upon reflection, it's hard to explain why. The human brain has always had a protective mechanism against traumatic memories. In the post-pandemic era, everyone is wandering in a state of confusion, and society as a whole will need a long time to recover.

Lin Xia and He Chuan are still together, still in Shenzhen, sharing a large apartment with a cat, a dog, and two goldfish. Like any ordinary couple in the world, they've experienced repeated cycles of quarantine and reopening, sometimes together, sometimes apart. He Chuan's work requires him to travel abroad frequently, exacerbating their difficulties in seeing each other during the three years of the pandemic. The longest they've been apart, he was in the UK and she was in China, and flights were suspended, forcing them to spend a full six months and eleven days apart. They've argued over trivial matters, and experienced cold wars over conflicts between work and life, but they've always reconciled and finally let go, because neither wants to let go of the other's hand. They've agreed that this time, they'll be together until the end.

.

When the train arrived at the station, two people carrying suitcases got off the train with the crowd. This is the newly built high-speed railway station in Wangchun. It used to take a whole day and a night to get from Beijing to Wangchun by car and train, but now it only takes a few hours.

After a long separation, they finally met again and returned to their hometown. This was the seventh year since Lin Xia left and the fourteenth year since He Chuan left.

Lin Xia had been planning to return to Wangchun since the opening of the park at the end of last year, but both she and He Chuan fell ill, with COVID-19, influenza, mycoplasma, and influenza A, one after another, delaying their return until this year. At the end of the month, they both mentioned the matter. They knew it was not just for the Lunar New Year, but also for a promise made many years ago that had never been fulfilled. So they took their annual leave and set out on the journey home together.

The high-speed rail station was some distance away from the city center, and Lin Xuedong drove his old Santana to pick them up.

Although they had video calls and phone calls in recent years, Lin Xia still couldn't help but feel tears in her eyes when she saw her father again. Lin Xuedong had become thinner, older, and his hair had turned white.

Time is so equal and cruel, leaving its mark on everything.

Lin Xuedong didn't say anything about He Chuan's colleagues. He had known about their relationship for a long time. When Lin Xia told him about this a few years ago, she felt a kind of almost malicious pleasure. Now that the three of them were in an unblessed relationship, no one had the right to lecture the other.

In the past few years, Lin Xuedong retired and moved. The place he lives in now is no longer where Lin Xia lived when she was in high school. As he gets older, his legs and feet are not as agile as before. Moving from a high floor to a low floor makes it more convenient to go up and down the stairs.

When they got home, Lin Xuedong's new wife, Wang Li, was cooking. She was a simple and shy middle-aged woman, short and plump, and not good at speaking. Lin Xia and He Chuan called her Aunt Wang. She wiped her hands on her apron, her face flushed, and nodded stiffly:

"Hey, you're back! Come sit down, we'll have dumplings later!"

Wang Li was a former colleague of Lin Xuedong's. Lin Xuedong told her she had a difficult life, having once enjoyed a happy family. One afternoon, over a decade ago, her husband was in a car accident while picking up their son from school, leaving her alone. Lin Xuedong, the director of the political work department, initially offered his support to lonely colleagues on behalf of the unit. But as time went by, the two equally lonely people found each other's company. Life, like sometimes, just involves walking together.

Arriving at the guest room and unpacking her luggage, Lin Xia unexpectedly found some of her old belongings piled in several large boxes in the corner. When Lin Xuedong moved, he hadn't thrown them away, but had brought them to the new house intact. Actually, Lin Xia had already taken everything she could take with her, and these were just insignificant memories. She was torn between keeping them and throwing them away.

He Chuan squatted beside her with great interest, rummaging through the collection with her. He had never seen her girlhood before she was sixteen, and now he could only get a glimpse of it through these scattered old items.

"You made all the doll's clothes yourself?"

"I learned needlework from my grandma when I was little. It's pretty good, right?"

"It seems you have had a talent for design since you were young."

"Haha, of course."

"How many paper cranes are there?"

"I think there are more than a hundred. I originally wanted to fold a thousand, but the glass bottle couldn't hold them all. It took up too much space. So now I'm going to fold wishing stars... Hey! Don't look at this!"

Lin Xia snatched the notebook from He Chuan's hand. On it were the lyrics she had handwritten. He Chuan asked with a smile:

"Have you ever liked XX?"

"I guess so. When I was in elementary school, this star was the most popular. All the girls in my class liked him."

She was even arguing with her friends because they both wanted to marry this star. I hope He Chuan didn't see the childish confession she wrote in her notebook just now. Now it seems like a dark history.

"Ah! Found it!"

Lin Xia finally found what she was looking for at the bottom of the box, a toy wrapped in several layers of plastic bags. After unpacking it, she found it was a bear holding a honey jar. Although some of it was deformed and faded due to washing, the parts and fur were intact, and the furry face was still as adorable as ever.

"That's Puff!"

Lin Xia happily showed it to He Chuan. This was her most precious toy when she was a child. For a long time, she had to hug it before going to bed at night.

"I've heard a lot about you."

He Chuan shook □□Xiong's hand seriously.

Thank you for protecting her for so many years, allowing her to sleep peacefully on so many nights without being disturbed by nightmares. Please leave this important task to me from now on.

.

After dinner, the father and daughter talked alone.

"Have you reconciled with your mother?" Lin Xuedong asked Lin Xia.

Lin Xia was stunned for a moment and shook her head: "I don't know if it counts."

At the beginning of the year, my grandmother passed away. Lin Xia went to Shandong to attend the funeral and met Zhao Qianyi again. In the face of life and death, other worldly trivialities seemed to become unimportant. Zhao Qianyi has aged over the years and her temper is not as sharp as before. She took the initiative to soften her stance towards Lin Xia. Lin Xia did not accept, but she did not refuse either. It cannot be said that they reconciled. Perhaps in this life, the mother and daughter will never be able to return to the close relationship they once had, but in the end, there is no deep hatred. Why bother to hate each other so much? It is enough to face each other from a distance, not disturb each other, and say a few words of greeting during the holidays.

"How do you know this?"

"Your mother said so. She called me to show off, saying that her daughter forgave her first."

Lin Xia was surprised: "Are you still in touch?"

She thought the couple had lost contact with each other for the rest of their lives.

Lin Xuedong said calmly, "How can a couple of over twenty years suddenly become strangers? I was wrong back then, and she was wrong too. There's no point in settling accounts too clearly. Even though the feelings are gone, we still have a debt of gratitude."

Lin Xia fell silent after hearing this.

After Li Wen divorced Zhang Lijie, she has been living alone. Last year, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and her condition was very serious. Zhao Qianyi and Zhang Lijie took her home to take care of her. Now the three of them are living an awkward life together.

When we are young, we think that the world is black and white, with clear likes and dislikes. But as we grow older, we find that the world is chaotic and people's hearts are complicated. In many cases, we can't tell who is right and who is wrong. It is too tiring and difficult to live with the constant demand for perfection.

"Dad, I came back this time with something I wanted to tell you," Lin Xia said slowly, "After discussing it with He Chuan, we both feel that you still need to decide how to handle this matter."

"What's up?"

"It's...about Grandpa's will."

Lin Xuedong's expression changed: "What's wrong?"

"In October, He Chuan went to Beijing on a business trip and saw my grandfather's calligraphy." Lin Xia paused and whispered, "To be more precise, he saw my grandfather's calligraphy that He Ping had sold."