He hadn’t checked the mailbox in his building’s entryway for a long time. Remembering that an important piece of mail was supposed to arrive recently, Lin Song rummaged through a miscellaneous box in his bookcase and was relieved to find the mailbox key still there.
Three days ago, Lin Song had peered through the mail slot, scouting it out. There appeared to be an EMS envelope inside. But he had long since lost the habit of carrying keys, so he didn’t know for sure what was in there.
After opening the locked box, Lin Song pulled out a copy of the Seniors’ Health newspaper, along with two advertisements from a community pharmacy for free blood pressure screenings.
At the breakfast shop across the street from the neighborhood’s north exit, the young woman who cooked the noodles had been gone for nearly two months. Lin Song hadn’t seen the nimble-handed cook at the noodle station since the beginning of summer. Ever since a “De Hua Lou” restaurant opened in the mall, Lin Song frequented the breakfast shop across the street much less often during the cold winters and hot summers.
In Lin Song’s memory, the woman was just a young girl when she first came to the noodle shop. In the blink of an eye, she had stood before that stove for more than a dozen springs, summers, autumns, and winters. The shop’s hot dry noodles were famous in the Gusao Shu neighborhood, and in the past, a long line would form every day.
Now, the person cooking noodles at the stove was an older woman who used to work in the back kitchen. The cook of more than a decade was gone. Lin Song didn’t know if he should be disappointed.
At the intersection just in front of the noodle shop, a new “San Zhen Min Sheng Dessert House” had opened. The space had formerly housed a bank’s ATMs but had now been converted into a restaurant. Lin Song waited more than two weeks after its grand opening before trying it, buying an order of pan-fried buns and some white fungus soup. The soup was incredibly sweet, so sweet that even a little more sugar would have made it cloying.
Lin Song bought a bowl of hot dry noodles from the new woman. The price was still five yuan, as it had been for years. The sesame paste she mixed in had the same familiar consistency—moderate, just right. Lin Song didn’t know if he should be disappointed.
Carrying the noodles, Lin Song returned to the neighborhood playground and sat down on a long bench under the shade of a tree. He carefully mixed the noodles, making sure not to spatter any sesame paste on his white t-shirt.
Although the Start of Autumn had passed, the morning was still muggy. The only child in the playground was led away by his grandfather, a relatively young man who was shirtless and taking deep drags from a cigarette. A new little girl excitedly scrambled up the slide, bumping her head on the belly of a red plastic goldfish. “Ouch!” The boy playing with her teased, “You’re so clumsy.”
After finishing his noodles, Lin Song sat in the playground for a full two hours, scrolling through his phone. As noon approached, a gentle breeze rustled through the treetops, bringing a sense of delight and satisfaction. It was the kind of moment perfect for sitting in a corner with a cattail fan, enjoying the cool air.
He tossed the empty noodle bowl into the trash can and headed to the second floor of the mall, intending to “occupy” the public piano and play there until the seas ran dry and the rocks crumbled.
As summer neared its end, the flowers of the pagoda trees began to fall on their own. The woods were overgrown with weeds, a scene of desolation. Mugwort was the star of late summer; even with the nourishment of rain and dew, it had lost its vigor, its once-vibrant green leaves now dull and lackluster.
On a small path wide enough for only one car, an old woman stood, holding a bundle of mugwort, her way home blocked by a car.
A small, rain-soaked dog trotted down the path. It wasn’t a common mutt from the countryside; its floppy ears and black-and-white coat suggested it had once been a beloved pet.
At a boomerang-shaped intersection, an Iveco van in the right lane saw an oncoming car and slowed down. A light truck in the left lane stopped, humbly yielding the right of way. The driver of the small car waved, signaling that there was a vehicle in the right lane, but the truck driver seemed to nod in understanding, thinking the car was letting him go first. And so, the light truck and the Iveco began a difficult dance of maneuvering on the narrow road. “You can see it, but he can’t.”
Recently, a new sign had been installed at the exit of the urban village, clearly marking the directions of the three diverging roads.
The rain continued to fall. The radio finished the day’s weather forecast and then inserted a news bulletin: “The Cancer meteor shower will arrive on schedule tonight at 1:30 AM.” Are you just trying to fill airtime? Lin Song thought. Let alone the fact that it was overcast today, even on a clear night, you might not see a meteor shower under the glare of the city’s streetlights. Forget it.
Back when Lin Song was a student, the only telephone he knew of was the orange one in the factory’s guardhouse. If someone had a visitor, a call could be made to the factory office for confirmation. The only joy this phone brought the factory children was that they could dial the number for the weather forecast, without worrying about the telephone company charging the factory for the call. When a young Lin Song heard the sweet voice of the announcer from the earpiece, he would feel an infinite yearning for that distant, unknown world.
In that era before telephones, almost everyone who traveled carried a pen. If you met a girl you admired, you could tear off a blank corner of a newspaper and write: “This is my address. You can write to me.” And so, through correspondence, they connected with each other.