Lin Song believes he is the most ill-tempered man in all of Hankou.
But living in Wuhan, what can you do? The winter is cold enough to freeze your scalp; the summer is hot enough to agitate you from the inside out. As for flying into these nameless rages, Lin Song feels it’s completely beyond his control.
He remembers Wu Meili once telling him:
“I’m not the kind of person who is nice to others for no reason. You are good to me first, and then I will be good to you. If you want me to be good to you first, there’s no way.”
A person’s relationship with the world can never be a perfect fifty-fifty split. The best-case scenario is simply to be a little more good to others, or a little less bad.
The Earth is still spinning properly in the solar system, which suggests that everything is still more or less in balance; nothing is too much, and nothing is too little.
Every era has its brilliant minds, who can always find the words to explain the world.
Newton discovered universal gravitation, laying the foundation for modern physics; Kant, through his Critique of Pure Reason, articulated propositions such as “all knowledge begins with experience.”
Compared to these profound insights that have deeply influenced the world, Lin Song finds that he himself is always repeatedly triggered into foolish tempers over nothing.
Each time, he criticizes himself—a very deep self-criticism. He elevates his temper tantrums to a philosophical level for analysis, placing himself within a grand cosmic view and giving himself deafening admonishments.
However, the next time a trivial, sesame-seed-sized annoyance occurs, Lin Song will become hysterical again. But, as the years go by, his temper also fades a little more quickly, and it no longer brings with it too many after-effects.
To relax his mood, he goes for a run. After complete exhaustion, the pointless temper is flushed out of his body along with the sweat.
In this summer, the only ones who can be irresponsibly mischievous are the children on summer vacation.
A mother on her electric scooter is still waiting at a red light. The child sitting in front of her, bored, starts twisting the key in the ignition.
“Hey, don’t you touch the key!”
The mother scolds the child, then casually turns the scooter back on. Before the light turns green, the child’s naughty hands twist the key off again.
Under the scorching sun, the mother is truly incensed. Smack! A slap lands on the child’s bottom. Only then does the child behave.
The child seems to be playing with a lifelike calico cat. Looking closer, oh, it’s not a cat, but a little stuffed tiger.
The television hanging in front of the treadmill is playing an old SpongeBob SquarePants cartoon. SpongeBob lives in a place called “Bikini Bottom.” In Chinese, its name is Bǐqíbǎo (比奇堡). If you said SpongeBob lived in Bǐjīní (比基尼), which is the word for “Bikini,” wouldn’t that sound strange? But in fact, Bǐqíbǎo is just another transliteration of “Bikini.” So SpongeBob really does live in Bikini Atoll. A fun and interesting arrangement.
However, by the time SpongeBob first aired, Lin Song was already far removed from his childhood. The cartoon of his childhood was the black-and-white ink-wash animation, The Nine-Colored Deer.
Driving on the Second Ring Road during the sweltering summer, encountering a sudden downpour is a common occurrence.
A downpour at this time of year doesn’t give you a warning by dripping a few drops on the windshield to tell you it’s coming. Instead, it’s as if you’re driving your car and you plow headfirst into a rainforest; it’s the sensation of standing under a showerhead the instant the faucet is turned on full blast.
The windshield wipers wave their arms desperately to clear the view ahead. The car in front kicks up a familiar misty spray. All the running lights turn on. The oncoming lane sparkles with dots of light, while the taillights ahead bleed into a field of neon.
As you’re crossing the Yingwuzhou Yangtze River Bridge from Wuchang to Hanyang, before you’ve even made it halfway across, you’re already out of the downpour’s range, greeted by a dry road surface. On the other side of the Yangtze, there is no trace of the storm. Thinking back on the rain cloud you just left behind, this ever-changing river city feels so unreal.
After turning off the bridge’s approach ramp, Lin Song drives his car under an overpass. Hiding from the reappearing sun this way feels much cooler.
Every time he crosses from Hanyang to Hankou, he takes a detour onto Guibei Road. It’s a delightful one-way street that winds along the foot of Tortoise Mountain, between the mountain and the Han River. The large trees on the mountain blot out the sky. Looking up through the gaps in the canopy, you can see the Guishan TV Tower soaring into the clouds.
At the end of Guibei Road is Nan’anzui, the point where the Han River flows into the Yangtze. In the summer, when the water levels are high, the line separating the two rivers is exceptionally clear—one side green, the other a muddy yellow.
Under the bridge, beside the shade of the trees, Lin Song drives as slowly as possible. He often sees love, running parallel to his car. Whenever this happens, he feels a little twinge of envy.
What is sweet love? Lin Song’s answer at this moment is: I’m riding a little motor scooter, and you’re sitting behind me, your arms wrapped around my waist.