Author of The Flowers of the Camphor Tree Blooming | Yanzi saw a short video of Han Hong, in which she was dressed in black and obviously drunk, playing and singing impromptu in front of the piano. "Hi, I'm Han Hong, a little singer, an ordinary singer.

The flowers of the camphor tree are blooming

Author | Swallow

I saw a short video of Han Hong. She was dressed in black and obviously a little drunk, and she was playing and singing impromptu in front of the piano.

"Hi, I am Han Hong, a little singer, an ordinary singer. For decades, I have only liked singing. Those days of struggle, those unexplained sorrows, I can't tell you... I am that you They love me, hate me, and are ridiculed as a hero. Fortunately, I am still myself... Hey, do you know what you think of those unidentified rumors? I want to be a naive child in a pure world."

During this impromptu performance mixed with narration, she pushed up her glasses 9 times, closed her eyes more than 20 times, and choked several times. "I admit that I am drunk at the moment. It is rare that I have the courage to express the depression in my heart." At this moment, I was moved by the reality of Han Hong in the camera.

In such a melody, a name suddenly hit my mind. It hit a bit hard and made my heart feel hot.

He is hackberry . Hackberry, hackberry, as clean as a tree.

Young people are very unfamiliar with him, but for many people born in the 1970s and 1980s, he is a benchmark for a generation to pursue their ideals. "Pu Shu is a person who is very rare today. He is a bit like a fossil, or fossil is not enough to describe him. He is like amber , and his music is like the hard thing outside amber. He is attracted by these The music is frozen inside. He is the kind of person everyone loves. No matter how hard he is in life or in Vanity Fair, no matter how dusty he is, Pu Shu is the Jia Baoyu of the new era." This is the evaluation of Hackberry by Gao Xiaosong .

Pu Shu is actually not ordinary at all. He is a child who grew up in a family home at Peking University. His parents are both Peking University professors. Peking University Affiliated Primary School , Affiliated High School, Peking University, studying abroad, becoming scholars and scientists, this is the standard future route for children of Peking University Family Home.

hackberry no. When he was in junior high school, he was influenced by his elder brother and received musical enlightenment and became obsessed with guitar. Before the college entrance examination, I worked hard for several months and was admitted to the English Department of Capital Normal University. He told his parents: "I took the exam for you, so I won't go." Of course, after all, he went after all.

When he first entered college, he felt that his long hair was a bit irritating and planned to cut it off. It happened that the leader came to inspect and saw his long hair: "Go and cut it, otherwise you will not be allowed to participate in military training." Pu Shu exploded: "My hair is mine. I can cut it if I want to, and I can't if I don't want to." He dropped out of school during his sophomore year. He took his guitar to the river to play and sing every night, and came back the next morning, rain or shine. His parents refused to give up and found someone to keep his academic status for one year. Invalid, he still has a high school degree.

Ten years ago, he said, "Life is as gorgeous as summer flowers." Ten years later, he said, "Ordinaryness is the only answer." Only when you have a story can you understand the story Pu Shu wants to tell.

His name is Lu, and he has thick, curly black hair. It is so thick that at a glance, his facial features can be completely ignored. He regrets that due to school discipline, he cannot grow his hair and beard long. He said that if he grew his hair and beard, he would be another Haizi.

As long as he gets up, he will stand under the old cypress tree on campus and read poems aloud, affectionately: From tomorrow on/be a happy person/feed horses, chop firewood, travel around the world/from tomorrow on/care about food and vegetables / I have a house / facing the sea, with spring flowers blooming... I will also read passionately: Close your eyes / bury yourself / so that you will no longer see / how the bright red flower of the sun / is pinched He came down/thrown to the ground/and how he was viciously stepped on by the night... His Mandarin was extremely poor. When the Marxist-Leninist teacher passed by, he couldn't help but said: "You kid is ruining your poetry by reading this!" "He didn't seem to hear it. The towering flowers twining around the old cypress tree reflected in his eyes like small burning flames.

He said that he fell in love with poetry and started writing poetry since high school. He took out two thick volumes of handwritten poems bound with manuscript paper. The first page of one had an eagle drawn on it, and the first page of the other had a tree drawn on it. He read us one poem after another in his poor Mandarin. There are so many. When I was drowsy, I remembered a sentence: Dreams are a reality that is more real than reality.

He took his poetry collection and looked for departments, schools, and even the courage to find a well-known local company. He just hoped to turn his poems into a book, even if it was very thin. There is no doubt that as great as the hope is, there is also great disappointment. The eagle was still black and stuck to the front page of the poetry collection, and the tree still couldn't bloom.

He founded a poetry club and held poetry recitals. He also mobilized and raised funds and mimeographed several issues of poetry tabloids. In his junior year, he made a girlfriend at the bookstore at the school gate, a girl who spoke Mandarin well and had a nice voice. Her name was Wen Shixin.

In the graduation album, he wrote a few poems for each of his classmates. What he wrote to me was: The wind in August / soaks every heart / the heart that returns from midsummer / the wind in August / prints and dyes the healing in the heart. Inventing bright colors/the August wind/soothes every/compassionate persistence in the years.

After graduation, we are like dandelions, each flying and scattered. I settled in a small town, but he went to the provincial capital. He said that he could finally grow his hair and beard like Haizi.

Still can’t see that he looks like Haizi. When we met again, he had passed the civil service examination in the provincial capital. He was wearing a shirt, long trousers and black leather shoes. He was neat and tidy and had the standard image of a civil servant. He said that he and the girl named Shixin had broken up a long time ago, and his current lover was also in an administrative unit, and his child had gone to an agency kindergarten.

He no longer read poems to us or talked about Haizi. He only lamented that his lush hair needs to be taken care of every two or three days, which is really troublesome.

Goodbye, everyone is already halfway through life. He is in an important position. He sighed while drinking glasses. Now that his hair has fallen out, he no longer has to worry about the growth, but his high blood pressure, blood lipids , and blood sugar have become a problem again. New obsession. Everyone laughed, same, same.

In the private room, someone sang "White Birch Tree",

The sky is still hazy/There are still pigeons flying/Who will prove the love and life without tombstones/The snow is still falling, the village is still peaceful/The young people disappear in the white birch forest... ...Someone sang "Those Flowers ", and that laughter/reminded me of my flowers/that were quietly blooming for me in every corner of my life/I once thought that I would always stay by her side. / Today we have left / In the vast sea of ​​​​people / They are all old / Where are they / Fortunately / I have accompanied them to open...

I don’t know why, in the singing, the private room gradually quieted down, the sound of hip-hop, The voices of urging people to drink faded away one by one... He picked up the microphone:

"Wandering on the road/Do you want to leave/Fragile and proud/That was also what I looked like/Boiling and restless/You Where are we going/A mysterious and silent story/Are you really listening?" His Mandarin was still not much better, coupled with his outrageous intonation, everyone laughed and listened, vaguely seeing the man reciting poetry under the old cypress tree. Youth... "I have crossed mountains and seas/I have also passed through mountains and seas of people/Everything I have ever owned/is gone like smoke in the blink of an eye/I have been lost and disappointed and lost all directions/until I see that ordinary is the only answer"

chorus Over and over again, he went from choking to whimpering to wailing. Everyone's eyes turned red.

suddenly understood a sentence: when we understand Pu Shu, we understand the arrogant self in our heart.

When I was a child, I often imagined what it would be like to grow up?

First of all, you have to be beautiful, and then you have to live a life that "looks great". You wear high heels and have a lot of fun. The phone rings non-stop. Just like in the TV series, you are surrounded by excitement and noise all day long. After growing up for a long time, I realized that every life is not what it seems on the surface, just like people drink water and know whether it is warm or cold. Behind the lively life there may be desolation, and behind the quiet life there may be richness and charm.

Time can change many things, including things you thought would never change. Time can also filter out many past events, together with the memories you have never forgotten.

But honest people will be honest, and brave people will also end up being brave. Whatever drives you is your destiny. Yes, your final destination is who you have always been.

Perhaps the tomorrow we are looking forward to seems out of reach, and our so-called dreams and every small effort seem to be worth mentioning. But those who are persistent are destined to carve their core, strengthen their muscles and bones, and polish their life into a glimmer of light under the wash of time.

miss Pu Shu and miss myself. Traveling around the world of mortals, never forget that you were once a scholar.

Look, the camphor tree on the street is blooming, and the flowers of the camphor tree are green. The light and delicate fragrance is like the thoughts of a young man.

—END—

【 columnist 】 Yanzi , whose real name is Zhou Yan, has published various prose works in newspapers and on the Internet, and is a member of the Shaanxi Writers Association. Now lives in Hanzhong, Shaanxi Province.

Excerpted from: Reading Village, the copyright belongs to the author.