【凯源】Mountains and Rivers [GCA2019X]

第十四章 // Chapter 14

On August 15, 1945, the Japanese Emperor announced his surrender.

Wang Junkai walked slowly on the road, breathing in the air, smoke-free for once. Everyone was on the street, rejoicing, every street was joyous and celebrating, and all the hawkers stopped their selling, just waving everything they can wave, giving everything they had at the stand for free. Throughout the whole country, all that was left from the war was the tight hugs, the patriotic cheers and the tears, both happy and sad.

Wang Junkai walked along the edge of the Yangtze River. The smoke followed the cargo ship as it chugged along the river, singing a long, low whistle.

He ignited today's newspaper, and the fire tongue swallowed up the good news, turning it into ashes, and he scattered it into the Yangtze River.

"Can you see it?"

He poured half of the wine in his glass into the Yangtze River, and drank the other half.

The wine was very strong, and his eyes grew red. Through his tears, he saw a person in front of him.

He wore the same black clothes when they met for the first time, and smiled at him.

He was bruised and bloody, but his smile was pure and brilliant, innocent and naive.

He bent his knees slightly, something he had never done before, and extended a slightly-shaking hand towards the boy who held his heart.

"Can I have the honor to invite you to dance?"

He asked, his voice catching on the last syllable, his eyes filled with tears.

The Yangtze River rushed along, away from the city, and flowed into the East China Sea, eventually reaching the Pacific Ocean.

In the winter of 1945, Wang Junkai went to Siberia again. On the night of the trip, he encountered a blizzard and almost lost his life in the storm.

For a few moments, he really thought he was going to die here, but he remembered that he still had an unfulfilled promise, and so he imagined he saw the light in the distance as he on the edge of death, and he climbed toward it, shivering.

"Look." Wang Junkai raised up handful of snow to his eye level, as if there was someone using his eyes as lenses to see the outside world. "This is the snow of Siberia, beautiful and deadly — quite like you."

"You see, the snow on the ground is so thick it reaches my knees, over there is the rime forest."

"You listen, the wind in your ear is especially terrible, but at the same time especially free."

"The world here is boundless."

He whispered: "I wish you could see it."

In the evening he lay on the snow, the sky and the earth connected by the endless white.

He closed his eyes, and the snow fell gently on his eyelashes, like the last caress of the heavens above.

“和所有以梦为马的诗人一样
"Like all the poets who use their dreams as horses to ride forth into the battle of life

我不得不和烈士和小丑走在同一道路上
I have to walk on the same road with the martyrs and the clowns.

万人都要将火熄灭  我一人独将此火高高举起
Thousands of people want to put out the fire. Alone, I raise the fire high.

此火为大  开花落英于神圣的祖国
The fire is big, it blazes in the sacred motherland.

和所有以梦为马的诗人一样
Like all the poets who use their dreams as horses to ride forth into the battle of life

我藉此火得度一生的茫茫黑夜”
I use this fire to cross a lifetime of dark nights."