The headteacher took out a book from the cabinet. It was the novel Lyrics of Youth. She said, "This is your book. I want to give it back to you." The principal confiscated the book from me a year ago; it was considered a bad book that would give young kids an anti-revolutionary influence.
She told me that she also read the book when she was my age, and it gave some inspiring stories of the youth. It didn't matter to me if the book was returned or not. I had found it in the waste paper pile in the paper mill anyway, but the teacher's demeanor made me feel warm.
After saying goodbye to the headteacher on the way out of campus, I saw two classmates hiding in the grapefruit garden. There had been rumors that there were boys and girls in the class who were falling in love. At this moment, the shadow was revealed in the sun.
"Hey, here comes the teacher!" I called out to them on purpose. I saw my male and female classmates run into the deep woods without a trace. I didn't think they needed to do this. At this time, even if the principal saw it, he probably didn't care much. Guess just because we were used to hiding! It's a pity that I didn't have a girl. It's better to have someone like Yalan. I would take her past the principal on a bike. I thought, "The principal had mercilessly confiscated my book. I want to see how he could seize my girlfriend!" But I didn't dare to do it. The principal would call my mother.
I began the long bus journey home and was embarrassed to find that Yalan was also on the bus. She sat quietly in the back row, looking out the window. I pretended not to see her and sat in front. I heard that her family was also at the military reclamation farm in another division. The division of my home was closer to the border and more remote.
My parents were demobilized soldiers, the first group to settle there, followed by many educated youths from big cities. People call those educated youths Zhiqing because they got some education and are young.
When I was twelve years old, my parents sent me to study at the county middle school, which my father arranged through the relationship of old comrades in the army. Now that I had graduated from high school since all the universities and colleges had been shut down, my only choice was to return to the mountains and become a revolutionary worker on a military farm. I thought Yalan's fate was the same as mine.
Did she really think I was a rogue? Maybe she's sandwiching what happened a few months ago with what happened today.
It was a quiet evening, the setting sun resembled the color of blood, and our whole class of fifty or so was crowded on a small barge as we returned from the school-run farm. It was another day of countless engineering and agricultural studies in our two high school years. We were tired and drowsy. Unfortunately, the boat hit a rock. Before we could react, most of the people were swept away and engulfed by the rapids. This day turned out to be the last day of their young lives.
I was quick to react, and Yalan and I grabbed a lifebuoy simultaneously. We struggled to breathe amongst the waves, often thrown underwater and against the reefs. Seeing that she could not hold anymore, I hugged her waist with all my might and helped her put the lifebuoy under her armpit. I let go, and she went with the rapids. I struggled helplessly, swallowed a lot of water, and gave up. The next day, the rescuers found me in the reef's crevices and found Yalan on the beach dozens of miles downstream.
She never told anyone that I had rescued her, and she was ashamed to say that I had touched her. Of course, I didn't say a word, willing to be an unsung hero. Rogue and hero became the same person.
The bus stopped at a mountain pass. When Yalan got off the bus, she passed by me and paused for a second. A small folded note dropped under my feet from her hand. I picked up the note and wanted to give it back to her, but I looked at her back and didn't dare to call after her. Seeing her get out, swaying with her luggage, she gradually disappeared into the midsummer afternoon, woven by flowers and ferns. I looked away from the overlapping mountain shadows and opened the note. It was in crooked handwriting: "Xiaofeng, can you forgive me?"
She disappeared, and forgiveness was meaningless. Looking back, Yalan wasn't that bad. I remembered that our desk was always cleaner than other classmates'. Before I came to the classroom in the morning, she wiped the whole desk with a damp cloth. She could just wipe her half. I had enjoyed the benefits for a long time without feeling it. Another time when we were at the farm, she helped cook and distribute meat buns to the students. When she saw me, she picked the biggest one for me. It seemed random but might have been a quiet reward for my rescue.
Around two o'clock in the afternoon, the long-distance bus stopped by the old banyan tree. I got out of the bus, walked to a small shop opposite, and asked an elderly: "Auntie, have you seen any car from Tenth Battalion come from the mountains?"
"Kid, I did see it yesterday. I don't know if it went back." She gave me some hope that maybe I could catch the car home. Her place was like an Info Center. I spent a few cents, bought a green bean popsicle, went back to the old banyan tree, and sat quietly on the big root.
This familiar old tree was a sign of my return home. It formed a one-tree forest. There were trees in the tree, and the branches and leaves were connected. It was rumored that it already had some immortal energy and could call the wind and the rain. Starting from the old banyan tree, a rugged and winding road led to the mountains. At the end of the road was the Tenth Battalion, where my home was. People from nearby villages came and went, often taking breaks under the trees, with men smoking hookahs for a while and women chewing betel nuts. After waiting for an hour, I didn't see any car from the Tenth Battalion, nor did I see anyone from the Tenth Battalion there.
I put on my backpack and carried a mesh bag with a washbasin and books, and decided to walk home. Wasn't it just a few hours of a mountain road? I'd been there before, but not alone.
The first few miles were still populated. In the stockade at the bottom of the slope, cows were calling under the bamboo houses, children were playing in the pond, and an elderly woman was taking a shower in front of the house - passersby looked at naked her, and she looked at the passersby. There were neat rubber forests on the mountain, and some young people's laughter and singing could be heard from time to time.
Gradually, only me and a young woman were left on the road. She walked in front of me barefoot, with a heavy basket hanging over her head, and clutched the straps of the basket with her hands on either side of her head. Looking at her clothes, I knew that she was not from the valley but a native of the mountains.
After the rain, the road was very muddy, and my sneakers and rolled trouser legs were quickly covered with reddish-brown mud. Initially not wide, the road was constantly occupied and squeezed by mudstones and various vegetation, making them smaller and smaller. There were frightening sounds of birds and beasts all around, echoing between the deep forest and the canyon. Many tiny streams trickled between the ruts, looking for their exit, marking the road with wounds.