Chapter 181: A Family of Four (Pay attention to the beginning!)

PS! I haven't been resting well these past few days, only sleeping six or seven hours a day. My head has been aching for days, my spirit is very lethargic, and this article was squeezed out while struggling.

Originally, I wanted to take a day off to recover, but I got ganked by the system, so I stayed up late to make up for the chapter.

I really can't hold on today, so I can only use this way to pad a chapter. The following content is the first four chapters of "Listen to the Wind," to keep my perfect attendance record. After I rest tomorrow, I will revise this chapter and make up for the missing content.

I hope book friends can understand. This is definitely not to cheat you out of your book coins; I will fix it tomorrow.

ORZ………………

"There is no such thing as a perfect article, just as there is no such thing as complete despair."

This is what a writer I met by chance in college told me. But the true understanding of its meaning—at least to be able to use it—came much, much later. Indeed, there is no such thing as a perfect article.

Nevertheless, whenever I pick up a pen to write, I often fall into a state of despair. Because the scope of what I can write is too narrow. For example, I might be able to write something about elephants themselves, but I don't know how to write about the domestication of elephants.

For 8 years, I have always harbored such a helpless frustration—8 years, 8 long years.

Of course, as long as I maintain a studious attitude of paying attention to everything, even aging is not a painful thing. This is in general terms.

Just past 20, I have always tried to adopt such a life attitude as much as possible. Therefore, I don't know how many times I have been hit hard, deceived, misunderstood, and experienced many indescribable experiences. All kinds of people came to confide in me, and then walked over me with a sound like crossing a bridge, never to return. At such times, I just remained silent, absolutely silent. Thus, I welcomed the last spring and autumn of my "20s."

And now, I am ready to speak my mind.

Admittedly, not a single problem has been solved, and I fear that after I finish speaking, the situation will remain the same. After all, writing an article is not a means of self-diagnosis; at best, it is just a small attempt at self-healing.

The problem is that speaking frankly is an extremely difficult thing, and the more you want to speak frankly, the more the straightforward words retreat into the depths of darkness.

I have no intention of justifying myself. Being able to speak here, at least I have done my best as I am now. There is no embellishment. But I still think: if things go well, perhaps in a few years or a dozen years, I can discover a liberated self. By then, the elephants will return to the plains, and I will describe this world in more wonderful language.

I learned most—or should I say almost all—of the way of writing from Hatfield. Unfortunately, Hatfield himself was a hopeless writer in every sense. This is clear once you read his work.

His writing is convoluted, his plots are topsy-turvy, and his ideas are shallow and childish. Yet he was one of the few extraordinary writers who could use articles as weapons to fight. Even compared to writers of his era like Hemingway and Fitzgerald, I think his fighting stance was not inferior. Regrettably, this Hatfield never recognized the face of his opponent until the end. This is exactly what makes him hopeless.

He persisted in this hopeless battle for 8 years and two months, and then died. On a sunny Sunday morning in June 1938, he jumped from the rooftop of a New York skyscraper, holding a portrait of Hitler in his right arm and an umbrella in his left hand. Just like in his lifetime, his death did not cause much of a stir.

I accidentally got my hands on the first out-of-print book by Hatfield when I was in the third year of junior high—that summer vacation when I had an unbearable skin disease in my crotch. The uncle who gave me this book died three years later from intestinal cancer. When he died, he was cut to pieces, with plastic tubes inserted into the entrances and exits of his body, which was very painful. The last time I saw him, he was blue-black and red all over, shriveled into a ball, looking just like a cunning monkey.

I had three uncles in total. One died in the suburbs of Shanghai—stepping on a landmine he had buried himself on the third day of the defeat. The third uncle who survived became a magician, touring every place in the country with hot springs to perform.

Regarding good articles, Hatfield wrote:

"Engaging in the work of writing, one must first confirm the distance between oneself and surrounding things. What is needed is not sensibility, but a scale." ("What's Wrong with Being in a Good Mood," 1936)

So I took a ruler in one hand and began to look around the world with trepidation. That year was probably the year President Kennedy was killed, 15 years ago. In these 15 years, I have indeed thrown away a lot of things. Just like a plane with engine trouble that throws away cargo, seats, and finally even the poor male flight attendant to reduce weight, I have discarded everything in fifteen years, and I have almost nothing left.

As for whether this is correct, I cannot judge. It is true that my mood has become more cheerful. However, whenever I think about what will be left when I die, I feel particularly terrified. Once set on fire, I fear that not even a piece of bone will be left.

My late grandmother used to say, "People who are depressed can only have depressed dreams, and if they are even more depressed, they don't even have dreams."

On the night my grandmother passed away, the first thing I did was reach out and gently close her eyelids. At the same time, the dreams she had harbored for 79 years quietly passed away like a summer shower falling on the sidewalk, leaving no trace.

I will say it again, one last time, about articles.

For me, writing articles is an extremely painful thing. Sometimes I can't write a single line for a whole month, and sometimes I write for three days and three nights, only to end up with something that makes no sense.

Despite this, writing articles is also a pleasure. Because compared to the difficulty of living, seeking meaning in this is indeed too easy.

When I realized this, I was probably not even 20 years old. I was so shocked that I couldn't speak for a week. And I felt that as long as I played a little trick, the whole world would be in my palm, all values would be completely changed, and time could flow backward...

By the time I realized this was an illusion, it was already a long time later. I drew a straight line in the middle of my notebook, recording gains on the left and losses on the right—what was lost, destroyed, especially what was disregarded, sacrificed, and abandoned... But I didn't finish writing it.

Between our various efforts to know and be known, there is always an abyss. No matter how long the ruler is, it cannot fully measure the depth. What I can write here is just a list. It is neither a novel, nor literature, nor art. It is just a notebook with a straight line drawn in the middle. If you want a lesson, maybe there is a little bit.

If you are aiming to pursue art and literature, then go read what the Greeks wrote. Because for true art to be born, slavery is indispensable.

And the ancient Greeks were like this: slaves farmed, cooked, and rowed boats, while citizens indulged in composing poetry and burying themselves in mathematical analysis under the Mediterranean sun. Art is such a thing.

As for the person checking the refrigerator in the silent kitchen at three in the morning, they can only write this kind of article, and that is me.

The story begins on August 8, 1970, and ends 18 days later, on August 26 of the same year.

"What rich people, they are all bastards!"

Rat supported the table with both hands and roared at me, seemingly full of unhappiness.

Perhaps the object of Rat's roar was the coffee grinder behind me. Because I was sitting opposite him across the table, there was no need for him to roar at me specifically. But regardless, after roaring, Rat always showed a satisfied expression, sipping his beer with relish.

Of course, no one would notice Rat's loud voice. The shop was small and crowded, almost sitting outside the door, and everyone was roaring just the same, the scene was no different from a passenger ship about to sink.

"Lice!" Saying this, Rat shook his head with disgust. "Those guys can't do anything; seeing guys with faces full of wealth and arrogance, I just want to vomit!"

I pressed my lips against the edge of the thin wine glass and nodded silently. Rat stopped there, said nothing more, and flipped his slender fingers on the table like warming them by a fire, examining them repeatedly for a long time. I looked up at the ceiling helplessly. This was his old habit: he couldn't speak again until he had counted his ten fingers one by one in order.

Throughout the summer, Rat and I drank a massive amount of beer, enough to fill a 25-meter swimming pool, as if possessed. The peanut shells we dropped were enough to cover all the floors of the jazz bar to a thickness of 5 centimeters. Otherwise, we wouldn't have been able to survive this boring summer.

Above the counter of the jazz bar hung a print that had been discolored by smoke. When I was really bored, I would stare at that painting for hours. The pattern, which looked like it was used for a Rorschach test, looked just like two green monkeys sitting opposite me, passing two deflated tennis balls to each other.

I said this to Jay, the owner of the bar. He stared for a long while and replied reluctantly: That might be true.

"But what does it symbolize?" I asked.

"The monkey on the left is you, and the one on the right is me. I throw beer bottles, and you throw money over."

I was convinced and buried my head in drinking beer.

"Just want to vomit!" Rat finally finished counting his fingers and repeated.

Rat speaking ill of rich people wasn't a whim today; in fact, he hated them deeply. Actually, Rat's family was also quite rich—whenever I pointed this out, Rat would insist it wasn't his responsibility. Sometimes (usually when he had drunk too much), I would add, "No, it is your responsibility," but I would always regret it as soon as the words left my mouth. Because Rat's words, after all, made sense.

"Guess why I hate rich people?" Rat still wouldn't stop tonight. This was the first time he had spoken to this extent.

I shook my head, indicating I didn't know.

"To put it plainly, because rich people don't think about anything. If they didn't have flashlights and rulers, they couldn't even scratch their own butts."

"To put it plainly" was Rat's catchphrase.

"Really?"

"Of course. Those guys don't think about anything critical, they just pretend to think.... Why do you think that is?"

"This—"

"No need! Of course, you have to use your brain a bit to become a rich person, but as long as you are a rich person, you don't need to think about anything, just like a man-made satellite doesn't need gasoline, just circle around one place. But I'm not like that, and neither are you. To live, you have to think constantly, from tomorrow's weather to the size of the bathtub plug. Right?"

"Ah."

"That's it."

After Rat spoke his mind, he took a tissue out of his pocket and wiped his nose audibly, looking helpless. I really couldn't tell how much of Rat's words were serious.

"However, in the end, it's all death." I said tentatively.

"That's natural. Everyone will die sooner or later. But there are 50 years to live before death. Living while thinking about this and that, to put it plainly, is much harder than living 5,000 years without thinking about anything. Right?"

As he said.

I first met Rat in the spring three years ago. That year we had just entered college, and both of us were quite drunk. At 4 o'clock in the morning, we got into Rat's black-painted Fiat 300 car together. As for the reason, I really can't remember.

Maybe we had a mutual friend.

In short, we were dead drunk, and the speedometer needle was at 80 kilometers. We broke through the park fence with unstoppable force, crushed the potted azaleas, and charged aggressively toward the stone pillar. And we were completely unharmed, which can only be called a stroke of luck.

I woke up with a jolt. I kicked open the wrecked car door and jumped out. I saw the Fiat's hood had flown ten meters away to the monkey mountain fence, the front of the car was dented into the same shape as the stone pillar, and the monkeys, suddenly awakened from their sleep, were furious.

Rat was holding the steering wheel with both hands, his body bent in two, but he wasn't injured, he had just vomited the Italian pie he had eaten an hour ago onto the dashboard. I climbed onto the roof of the car and peeked into the driver's seat through the sunroof:

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah. A bit too much, I actually vomited."

"Can you get out?"

"Give me a hand."

Rat turned off the engine, stuffed the cigarette from the dashboard into his pocket, and then slowly grabbed my hand and climbed onto the roof of the car. We sat side by side on the Fiat's roof, looking up at the sky that was beginning to turn white, and smoked a few cigarettes in silence. For some reason, I thought of the armored car movie starring Richard Burton. As for what Rat was thinking, I naturally had no way of knowing.

"Hey, we're really lucky!" Rat said after 5 minutes, "Look, we're completely unharmed, can you believe it?"

I nodded: "However, the car is totaled."

"Don't worry. Cars can be bought back, but luck is priceless."

I was a bit surprised and looked at Rat's face: "Are you a rich kid?"

"Sort of!"

"That's great!"

Rat didn't answer and shook his head, looking unsatisfied. "Anyway, we got lucky."

"Yeah."

Rat crushed the cigarette butt with the heel of his tennis shoe and then flicked it toward the monkey mountain with his finger.

"I say, how about we team up? Guaranteed to be invincible!"

"What do we do first?"

"Go drink beer!" ===== CHAPTER 182 =====