you come from the sky

The piece of ice that said "I'm bleeding" reached out to the sun and pulled out handfuls of dung from the sun's bowels, out of which it made the planet's mountains and valleys.

- Ursula Le Guin, "The Left Hand of Darkness"

01 A little past

Fang Haochen's background is not very good.

Maybe his background is nothing to many people now, but in that era, Fang Haochen's background was indeed not very good.

It may be unbelievable to say it, but it has been more than ten years, and now Fang Haochen can't quite remember what his mother looks like.

He just heard from his aunt that his mother was a university physics professor. Even in the era of wars and famines all over the country, his mother always liked to wear exquisite cheongsam and taught the most cutting-edge physics knowledge in the world. .She is a veritable princess in the ivory tower. She doesn't care or care about the suffering and struggles in the world.

My aunt always complains, saying that grandpa is the most eccentric.My aunt said that my grandma left early, leaving behind four sisters, three normal people, and Fang Haochen's mother.

But grandpa just likes this unreasonable eldest daughter, which makes people have nowhere to reason.

Yuan Datou in the family, and the other three sisters each have one, and she only takes four of them. Four Yuan Datou is not enough, she also wants grandpa's gold ring.

My aunt was crying loudly, scolding her for being greedy, scolding her for taking an inch, but she was justified. She put the gold ring that was just coming over on her aunt's hand, and asked her mysteriously, "Did you feel it?"

"Each piece of gold is a small piece of matter scattered by the collision of celestial bodies. They float for hundreds of millions of years, and maybe a small piece of it falls on the earth. Although it is so small, it shines brightly after the death of stars billions of years ago. aftertaste."

The aunt with two braids was completely taken aback by her sister, and she even forgot how to cry. She stared blankly at her sister, and tried hard to shake the gold in her hand, but only felt a piece of gold in her hand. cold.

But the elder sister who praised gold so highly, sold her gold ring within two months.The money from the sale was exchanged by her for a set of Chinese and foreign poetry collections, and the so-called "tombstones of stars" were turned into small lead-engraved characters in such a vulgar way.

What kind of stars, what kind of universe, are just the sweet words of the worst-minded sister to deceive the silly sister.

That's why my aunt hates her sister and Fang Haochen's mother the most.

However, even my aunt did not expect that such a bad-hearted and smartest sister would do the most unintelligent thing.

One morning without warning, she calmly told her family that she was pregnant.

In that era, when divorced and remarried would not be able to hold up their heads, it was unimaginable for a single woman to suddenly become pregnant.

I don't know who leaked the news.

The secrets that originally belonged to the family quickly spread all over the streets and alleys, all the way to the university classrooms and school affairs offices.

The school leaders approached her several times, asked her if she was being bullied, and told her that as long as she said the person's name, the school committee would make decisions for her.

But she didn't say a word from the beginning to the end.

No one has ever seen the man, and no one knows who he is.

She wasn't crying, she wasn't hysterical, she didn't even feel a little resentful about being abandoned.It was as if she was the victor in the relationship, and she was just lingering around an illusory man like a superficial one, and the fetus in her stomach was not evidence of shame, but an experimental product born of normal biological reproduction.

Everyone said that the eldest daughter of the Fang family was a weirdo, she couldn't cry or laugh, and she didn't have any hobbies except dressing herself up.An older person said that the eldest daughter of the Fang family probably followed her mother's indifference. Her mother was like this at the time. When she attended her grandma's funeral, she didn't even know she was crying. It was because the adults slapped her twice that she pretended to fall Two tears come down.

Fang Haochen's mother really didn't care, she was still the same, listening to Bossa Nova's ambiguous music, drawing black eyebrows like drizzle in old Shanghai, stepping on high heels every day, holding an oiled paper umbrella, and going to school as usual.

The only difference is that this time her destination is no longer the laboratory, no longer the lecture hall, but the canteen with the most fireworks in the world—after all, how could the school allow her to teach again after such an inappropriate thing happened? If it wasn't for grandpa's face, I'm afraid he wouldn't even have a job in this cafeteria.

Compared to Fang Haochen's mother, her innocent sisters paid a higher price.

The arrival of an illegitimate child made their family famous in this alley.Every time the family members go out, there are a few pairs of broken shoes hanging at the door; every time the aunts arrive at the unit, there are sneaky people pointing behind them.

It was at that time that my aunt got married, and on the day she got married, she straightened her neck and said extremely decisively that she never wanted to see her sister again in her life, nor did she want to go back to this home again.

And she did.

Until one day eight years later.

Oh, no, it's too early to talk about that incident. To talk about that day, we must first turn back the time to the previous three years.

That is, the fifth year after Fang Haochen was born.

Fang Haochen remembers that one day at noon when he was five years old, he was squatting on the tiled floor of the cafeteria, staring at the live fish waiting to be slaughtered in the pool, and he threw a leaf of vegetable into the water , kept stirring the calm water surface with immature little hands, trying to make the fish that were about to die from lack of oxygen thump again.

It was at that time that Fang Haochen saw the dean.Even though she was assigned to the cafeteria, the mother was still the dean's most proud and regretful student, so he came here from time to time, sometimes with fruits, sometimes with toys, and sometimes with a piece of straw paper that was regarded as a treasure, It's just that this time, the dean brought a few people in Chinese tunic suits.

Those few people were very different.

Although young children know very little, they can read some atmosphere from the quiet back kitchen.That kind of difference is like a noisy kindergarten child who suddenly bumps into the patrolling dean.

"Ms. Fang, we want to chat with you."

Fang Haochen remembered what those "Chinese tunic suits" said at the time.

and after?

Fang Haochen's memory of what happened afterwards was a little fuzzy.

He only remembered that his mother didn't answer those "Chinese tunic suits" immediately, but turned around and asked him a few words.What was asked specifically, and what did he answer, Fang Haochen's memory was blank for a long time after that.

He only remembered his mother's rare smile after hearing his answer.

Then she took off the large white overalls in the cafeteria, took off her hat, and straightened her slightly messy curly hair - which she just ironed with tongs yesterday - and said slowly and firmly: "There is no need to talk, I will talk to you Walk."

After that, his mother took him without saying goodbye to anyone, and moved from the old house in the alley to a compound where the howling wind never stopped.

The compound was built on the platform in the middle of the ridge, and looking around, there was only a half of the forest in the middle of the dusk.A few red-faced little soldiers in the distance were unloading some army-green wooden boxes from the car, and the howling of wolves at night and the howling of the mountain wind mixed together into a romantic serenade.

But all this is the same to Fang Haochen as before, except that his playmate has changed from a carp in the pond to a wild rabbit caught by the little soldier.

He just didn't want to move, it was too far away from home, he didn't like to travel by car or boat, and he didn't like to fly, he was dangling all the way, and he could barely spit out his acid water.As long as you don't move again, there is nothing wrong with living in this yard all the time, Fang Haochen thought at that time.

But God always seems to like to fight against him.

Fang Haochen clearly remembered that the weather was fine that day.

Even the howling wind is as quiet as a mother beside a sleeping baby.

That's when Fang Haochen saw a colorful light.

That ray of light appeared from the direction where my mother disappeared every day, shining brightly, like an aurora from the ground, drifting from the rustling mountains and forests to the sky.

At that time, Fang Haochen had a wonderful feeling. He felt that the light was hot, and the outside exuded a scorching heat like melting steel. If he touched it a little, it would burn his bones to ashes; The coldness is like dewdrops falling from the slender tip of a leaf, dripping on the fingertips, and dissipating before it takes shape.

Soon, that gentle light suddenly burst into a blinding white, followed by a loud bang, as if the whole world exploded in the head.

Fang Haochen didn't remember what happened afterwards, he probably fainted.

He only knew that when he regained consciousness, he had already come down from the mountain, and the person guarding his bed was his aunt.

My aunt's eyes were a little red. I don't know if she just cried, or stayed up all night, or both.

Fang Haochen sat up and asked, "Where's my mother?"

Aunt did not answer.

It was strange that Fang Haochen seemed to realize suddenly at that time that something happened in that ray of light, which took his mother away from him forever.

Seems like he should cry.

But he couldn't cry.

He knew what death was, and he knew it meant leaving forever.But when Fang Haochen looked down at his immature hands, what he remembered was that these hands had never been carefully cared for by his "mother".

In this way, the cool nature is inherited all the way and takes root in the chromosome called "fate".

Fang Haochen raised his head, looked at his aunt, and asked calmly, "What kind of person is my mother?"

Hearing this question, my aunt frowned, sniffed her nose, pursed her lips in a half-smile, rubbed his hair with sobs, and said, "Your mother is the most beautiful person and the smartest people."

A week later, Fang Haochen and his aunt returned to their residence in old Shanghai.That night when he returned to the old house in the alley, Fang Haochen had a dream.

He dreamed that a star appeared in the sky, the star was shining with charming light, and the colorful starlight floated on the ground, and it became a little poem.

she says:

you may not know,

As I go to the extremes of the universe,

When night becomes the prototype of time,

I know I've gone too far, too far,

but in my heart,

It's only you.

you may not know,

When the eastern sun falls,

When I become a bubble in the universe,

I know I've been away for too long,

but in my heart,

But only you.

When the coral loses its color,

When the whale sinks to the surface,

When the arc of the moon draws the Milky Way,

When the sun exhausts its last rays,

Please give me one more chance to hug you,

beyond time and space,

beyond life and death,

Outside this light-year thin curtain,

please hug me

eternal,

eternal.