He stood there at the intersection, motionless, facing the center of the crossroads no matter which way the traffic light turned green. The morning sun shone on his slightly weathered cheek, illuminating his faint smile. It turned out he was standing there to bask in the sun. When the tall buildings ahead blocked the sun as it moved from east to west, he would walk to the opposite corner where the sunlight still reached, and continue his sunbathing.
Lin Song got up early. Seeing the good weather outside the window, he carried his quilt down to the airing ground. When Liu Meili got up and saw Lin Song had gone to air the quilt, she instructed him to take hers down too after Xiao Lin woke up. Lin Song grumbled to himself that by the time Xiao Lin woke up, the sun would almost be setting.
Lin Song often worried about repeating his father’s old habits. He now wakes up every day at 7:17 AM—the exact time he used to hear his father’s plastic slippers scraping the floor, followed shortly by the quiet click of the door closing. He didn’t want to live the life he once resented.
Another pharmacy directly across the road from the Central Hospital had closed down. The shop sign had been completely removed, and a flyer with the property management’s leasing number was taped above the doorway.
The column of the braille bus stop sign was plastered with small ads for apartment rentals.
Exactly at 8:30 AM, Yu Cai Hankou Primary School began broadcasting the Seventh Set of Radio Gymnastics, “Colorful Sunshine.” Walking a block away, Lin Song listened to the high-pitched, piercing sound of the loudspeaker and felt his scalp prickle. It was a legitimate public noise disturbance.
On the narrow, circular road in the residential compound, all sorts of cars were parked bumper-to-bumper along both sides of the walkways. A white SUV floored the gas pedal and sped forward, narrowly missing an old woman who was shuffling along, showing no regard for her slow pace. An aging gray Peugeot 308, its best days behind it, immediately started up the moment the SUV passed its hood and drove in the wrong direction toward the south gate of the compound. It was clearly closer to the proper north gate, yet the driver, as always, accelerated the wrong way.
Two yellow dogs lay right in the middle of the village road, leisurely embracing the winter sun. When a car passed by, they would lazily get up to move aside. Once the road was clear, they returned to the center, lying back-to-back to continue their sunbath. One wonders if they are male or female, or if they flirt with each other.
On the highway, to overtake skillfully, if pushing the gas pedal all the way down isn’t enough, you press harder to trigger the hidden mechanism at the bottom, instantly squeezing out the engine’s maximum kinetic energy.
The masters making the original broth dumplings (yuan tang shui jiao) in Hankou probably have ancestors from Anqing. Now, the dumplings are too peppery, and some customers specifically request “no pepper.” It wasn’t like the old days, when the dumpling master, carrying his pole and cooking gear, always had a big pot of rich pork-skin stock ready. With a thin bamboo strip, he’d scoop a pinch of pepper, a pinch of MSG, and a pinch of salt into an enamel bowl. Then he would surely ladle a spoonful of lard and invert it into the bowl. After the water in the pot had boiled twice and was cooled with a dash of cold water, the dumplings were ready. A spoonful of hot stock was poured in to dissolve the seasonings in the enamel bowl, followed by the dumplings fished out with a strainer. Then you could sit down at the small bamboo-woven table next to the carrying pole and enjoy the meal.
When Lin Song was a child, he would always wait outside the bookstore before it opened to eat a bowl of these dumplings first. Winters back then were very cold, and the pot on the stove at one end of the master’s carrying pole was always steaming hot.
Nowadays, when the owner of the wonton stall asks customers, “Would you like a bit of lard?” it feels like a forced affectation.
In Hankou, Northern-style dumplings don’t automatically come with broth; if you want soup, you have to specifically ask the owner for a “bowl of dumpling water.” Their saying is, “Original soup dissolves original food” (meaning the water used to cook the dumplings aids digestion).
The couple selling shaomai (steamed dumplings) in Hexiang Lane are very polite to their customers. “No scallions, no lard, no dried shrimp, no pepper”—all these demands need to be carefully sorted out and accommodated. Yet, the old man who cooks the dumplings and the old woman who wraps them frequently bicker with each other, their mutual complaints filled with profanities.
The “Scallion Pancake” stall, which only operates in the morning when the urban management officers aren’t patrolling, has added a less conspicuous advertisement to its sign: “Ten Million Units Sold Annually.”
Lin Song bought five yuan worth of scallion pancakes, asking the owner to cut him the extra crispy parts. He asked the owner why he didn’t set up a proper shop. The scallion pancakes taste so good, and business is excellent—they sell out every morning before the workday even begins.
The owner replied, “This small business can’t afford a storefront.”
When you are unremarkable in your own career, being able to host a dinner party is the most impressive move. The key to successful boasting is having people willing to listen. If everyone at the table is only concerned with their own bragging, it merely devolves into a chaotic drinking session.
Therefore, a dinner party intended for bragging must be a “moon surrounded by stars” situation, not one where everyone is treated equally or seated on the same level. This is why class reunion dinners increasingly don’t tolerate just one person bragging; instead, every person raising a glass is trying to brag, using the alcohol to fuel their own random boasts, completely disregarding whether anyone is listening or appreciating. Once the effects of the alcohol wear off, they realize their boasting was never completed, and they each merely boasted to an empty room.
Su Dongpo loved to organize drinking parties the most. He was always the bright moon surrounded by stars. Su Dongpo did not spend his entire life striving to achieve one magnificent goal; rather, he immersed himself in the joy and beauty of each day as soon as he woke up in the morning.
In the midday sun, a limping, curly-haired grey dog ambled through the shadows cast by the buildings in Huayuan Residential Compound.
When Cao Zijian wrote Ode to the Goddess of the Luo River, he may not have been concerned with how beautiful later generations would find it; he certainly found it beautiful himself as he was writing it. Life is not meant for suffering; the deepest heartfelt expectation is to feel beauty. To feel beauty is the capacity to continue living.
After dinner, Lin Song cleared the dishes, opened his computer, and continued watching the movie You Can Do It, You Go First, which he had started the day before. This must be Jiang Wen’s latest film. It still features his uniquely raw and aggressive language, reflecting Jiang Wen’s wild and unconventional personality. The plot is chaotic, perfectly embodying the same uneasy, constrained attitude toward life that has been consistent in his work since In the Heat of the Sun.
After his wife passed away, Charlie Munger also expressed his fear of loneliness and social isolation. He said, “At my age, you either make new friends or you have no friends.”
A lifetime, like a drop of morning dew. It is destined to turn into an ethereal, magnificent mist as the sun rises each day.