An old green car with peeling paint was approaching slowly from a distance. The country road was too bumpy and winding, and the car rattled and stumbled forward, like a drunk old man in tattered clothes, staggering and bumping his way home.
The smell in the car was even worse, like an old wardrobe that had been sealed for years and had never been opened. It was full of mold and the air was so stagnant that it made people feel like they were going to suffocate at any moment.
The scorching summer sun is already uncomfortable, let alone in such a closed and bad environment.
My cheeks were burning, sweat was evaporating, and the air was filled with a salty smell, leaving me with nowhere to escape or hide.
Xiao Bai's mood was not just bad, it was extremely bad.
Not only did the environment in the car make her feel bad, but the fact that she had ridden in this car countless times and smelled this unpleasant smell countless times made her even more upset.
The story begins a month ago.
At that time, she had just woken up from a small rental house in Hancheng. When she woke up, her mind was blank. She had lost her memory! She couldn't even remember who she was!
However, this feeling of not being able to remember who she is but being extremely anxious and crazy seemed extremely familiar to her, as if she had experienced it countless times!
A whole month later, she remembered who she was. Her name was Xiao Bai and her hometown was Xiaojia Village.
So, had she lost her memory? Or was she reborn? Why did she feel so familiar yet so disconnected from this world? She was baffled, and so she could only tell herself to make the best of it.
Then she got on the car back to her hometown.
The familiar smell in the car made her feel upset, but there was nothing she could do. Her hometown was in the mountainous area, remote and secluded, with poor road conditions and inconvenient transportation. There was only one bus a day, so no matter how hard it was, she had to endure it until she got home.
The people in the car were all from her hometown. There were a few familiar faces, but Xiao Bai only vaguely remembered that a few were from her village. She had been away from home for so long that she could hardly remember their names.
They were all talking in dialect. While chatting, the old man was smoking. The smoke rings he exhaled were like a lively little animal, running around in the carriage, circulating back and forth in people's bodies, and finally dissipating in the air. The smell of smoke lingered in the carriage for a long time.
Xiao Bai felt that the smoke was like poisonous fog! She frowned and covered her mouth and nose with her sleeves. The smell made her feel dizzy and nauseous, and she felt very uncomfortable.
The car's buzzing with conversation was unavoidable.
"How's the village? Is it all right? I haven't been back for years. If it weren't for this disaster, I wouldn't have gone home. But there's nothing we can do. A star that big fell down, and the fragments are scattered all over the place. There's no way to escape."
"What stars? They're called planets! They're called bombs. If they're intercepted, the fragments will be scattered everywhere. That city will be in great trouble!"
"That's right, the factory owner has closed down. So, we have no choice but to go home!"
"Uncle Daqing, how's the village? Did the debris from that planet hit us? Did it affect the village?"
"I'm fine!"
The elderly man named Daqing put his long pipe to his lips, frowned, took another puff, and exhaled slowly:
"My hometown has high mountains, so the debris is blocked. It can't hit me. But it's fine now. Everything is still the same as before. Don't worry. It's not peaceful now. I have to go back to my hometown to live."
The old man exhaled a puff of cigarette and took a few deep puffs:
"The leaves return to their roots!"
After the old man finished speaking, he knocked his pipe out of the window, and a stream of ashes scattered toward the sky outside the window, casting a layer of blue-gray on the summer sun.
"I wonder what's going on in the village now. Is there anything new? Uncle, come and tell us about it!"
"How is it? The same as always. Nothing new. It's just about which family has a good harvest, which family has built a new house, which family's son and daughter are getting married, and which old man and old woman have returned to the earth. It's just the trivial matters in the countryside, the mountains and fields. If you want to talk about something new, there is one, and that's Grandma Liu," the person who spoke said, pointing his finger upwards mysteriously.
"Dead?" another asked.
"Go away, what do you mean by dead? How can you talk like that? That's called ascension! Ascension!" The old man was unhappy and shouted hurriedly.
"Pooh, pooh, pooh, it's our fault, our fault. Granny Liu has ascended to heaven!"
Xiao Bai was originally leaning against the car window listlessly, drowsy as the car bumped around, when he heard them talking about Grandma Liu.
Xiao Bai had some impression of this Granny Liu. She seemed to be a very old woman in the village. No one knew how old she was. She always kept her eyes tightly closed. It was said that she was blind, but she never used a cane. Her legs and feet were nimble and she walked briskly. Whenever a child in the village was frightened or an adult was sick and the medicine didn't work, they would go to her for advice. Granny Liu would then say some mysterious words that made people confused, and then teach people some inexplicable methods. Although they were a bit magical, the effects were always unexpectedly good. Therefore, Granny Liu was not only well-known in the village, but also in several nearby townships. Unexpectedly, she passed away. That's right, when people get old, they will inevitably die.
Xiao Bai remembered that when he was a child, his grandmother also took him to "visit" this strange old woman, and the corner of his mouth curled up slightly. How could there be such strange things in this world? After reading books for so many years, Xiao Bai felt that if he heard such things again, he would just smile lightly, treat it as a story, listen to it, and then it would not matter.
"Oh, there's one more thing," the man suddenly lowered his voice. "Do you know about that dilapidated temple in the corner of Jianzi Peak?"
"That dilapidated temple that's been there for who knows how long?"
"Yeah, that one!"
"I heard that temple has been abandoned for ages. Inside is just a broken Buddha statue and a large, dilapidated bronze tripod. Someone once tried to steal the tripod and sell it for money. They hired several people, but they couldn't move it. I heard it's really weird. What's wrong with the temple?"
"Yes, yes, that temple. I went to see it a few days ago, and the bronze tripod is still there. Hey, don't tell me, that temple, on the day that star fell, someone saw a streak of light flying from the horizon at night, flying straight there!"
"What? Did you get hit by that debris?"
"That's right, but the strange thing is this: look at the city. Everything that was hit by the debris has been smashed into huge holes, or burned to ashes. It's just ruins. But the temple is still broken, but it's not damaged at all."
"Did I see it wrong? The debris didn't hit there, right? Otherwise, it's impossible that there is no damage at all, right?"
"Some people say they saw it clearly, so they smashed it right there! It can't be wrong, it can't be wrong!"
"He must be still asleep and his eyes are blurry, right?"
"You must have seen it wrong!"
"Some people believed it! They even went there to check, but there was nothing! But since then, everyone said that the temple had... blessings, and they all went there to burn incense! I heard it's really accurate!"
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