Re-select the life system

249 Chapter 18

Following the bustling crowd of people, Chen Xingchen got out of the train, and walked around for more than ten minutes before actually walking out of the train station.

Chen Xingchen, who was like a homeless man, didn't care about the disgusting eyes around him. On the contrary, this kind of familiar eyes made him feel a little satisfied in his heart.

He glanced back at the train station, "Guixi Station", those characters that were already a little dark yellow, coincided with the appearance in his memory again.

The plaza of the railway station has changed a lot, and the area seems to be much larger, but it is still so noisy. The crowd inside is a mixed bag of people, with pairs of eyes staring at the men and women who are leaving the station. , half leaning on his post, staring blankly at the crowd coming and going.

At the exit, all kinds of middle-aged men and women holding accommodation and job advertisement signs were sizing up the crowd, like a beast waiting to be released from its cage, licking its tongue at a group of small prey.

Chen Xingchen shook his head, and walked towards the bus station in the distance.

Although the way home is already blurred, the route in my memory has been dreamed countless times in my sleep.

Chen Xingchen's short and fat man squeezed into the bus, and was pushed and shoved by a big man. Chen Xingchen staggered and found a handrail to hold him up. irritable.

He raised his head and glanced at the man who pushed and shoved him, and the man glared back at him, and the smile on Chen Xingchen's face deepened.

After a bus ride, Chen Xingchen came under a dilapidated overpass. After looking around for a long time, he was sure that it should be here.

Under the dilapidated overpass, there were four shabby-dressed men of indeterminate age huddled in front of a carbon fire.

Occasionally, someone would throw some firewood inside. It might have rained yesterday, and the firewood was a little damp. Thick smoke emitted when thrown on top, causing several people to cough.

Chen Xingchen subconsciously pulled the loose corner of his clothes, stepped forward, and like everyone else, squatted down, rubbed his hands, and surrounded himself in front of the charcoal fire.

When everyone saw Chen Xingchen coming up, they took a casual look and ignored him.

Among these few people, Chen Xingchen was well-dressed. In fact, he didn't need to guess. He also knew that these people were just a bunch of homeless people, a bunch of poor people.

With Chen Xingchen's appearance and attire, there is no sense of disobedience when he joins it. Chen Xingchen raised his head and saw an unkempt middle-aged man on the opposite side, bare buttocks, roasting by the fire, and occasionally talking to himself and giggling. Not surprising.

The reason why Chen Xingchen came here was because in his memory, he used to take a ride to the countryside when he was a child, and it was always under this overpass. There was a bus here at eleven o'clock every morning, going to Chen Xingchen's hometown.

Chen Xingchen's hometown is more than 60 kilometers away from here, and it is basically a mountain road. In my memory, I need to take a car for more than 50 kilometers and walk another ten kilometers in the mountains to reach my hometown.By the time I got home, it was already night.

I don't know if I still hitchhike here after more than ten years.

Chen Xingchen saw that everyone was roasting by the fire, and they were all silent. Finally, he couldn't help it. After thinking about it, he asked them in a dialect that he had almost forgotten.

"My fellow, what time does the bus to Lanxiang arrive?"

Chen Xingchen's question did not arouse anyone's reaction. After a few seconds, a sleepy old man wiped his eye poo and spoke in the same dialect.

"Baby, where do you go to Lanxiang? The bus to Lanxiang already has to go to the station for a ride, and it has been changed for several years."

Chen Xingchen was stunned for a moment. Sure enough, things had changed, and many things in his memory had changed. However, hearing the familiar accent, Chen Xingchen still felt a sense of kindness in his heart.

"Grandfather, are you also from Lanxiang?"

"Yes, I'm from Jiangxi Village, Lanxiang, do you know?"

"Jiangxi Village, I'm from the village above! When I was a child, I had to go through Jiangxi Village to study?"

"Shangbian Village? Oh, it's really right next to you. Which doll are you from? Haven't been home for a few years?"

When he was asked which doll he was from, Chen Xingchen's heart suddenly trembled. He was vaguely expecting and hesitant. He didn't know where this feeling came from.

"My father's name is Chen Erhe, Grandpa, do you know that?"

"Chen Erhe? Don't you remember this person?"

The old man thought for a while in doubt, but he still couldn't remember who Chen Erhe was. He raised his presbyopic eyes and squinted, looked at Chen Xingchen for a long time, then suddenly slapped his thigh, and said ouch.

"Your father is Chen Er lame, right?"

When Chen Xingchen heard the nickname "Chen Er Cripple", the image of his father suddenly became clear in his mind.

That dark face always carried a sad expression, and his somewhat lame left leg, because of rheumatism, had attacks on cloudy and rainy days all the year round.

In the middle of the night, the brothers and sisters would be woken up by their father's groans, but none of them dared to make any movement on the bed. If there was any movement, the father's hoarse voice would start yelling until dawn, exhausted, Just give up.

Chen Xingchen's eyes were slightly red. He used to never want to leave that house, and never wanted to leave that man. Now that he thought about it again, a kind of complicated emotional entanglement was in his mind, which made him unable to think for a while.

"Let me just say, your appearance is carved out of the same mold as your father, and you have been called Chen Er Cripple all your life. I really can't remember your father's name!"

The old man's words pulled Chen Xingchen's thoughts back to reality. He smiled and moved his hands closer to the fire. The cold hands seemed to still retain the vicious curses of his father in his memory.

"Grandpa, I haven't been home for 12 years, please tell me about the situation in my house now!"

The old man was interrupted by Chen Xingchen, raised his head, looked at Chen Xingchen's clothes again, and couldn't help but sighed deeply.

"Baby, you have to go home if you have a bad time outside! Whose parents don't care about their children. I remember how many brothers and sisters you have in the house, right? Who are you?"

"My family has seven brothers and sisters, I am the fourth, and my name is Chen Xingchen! I came back once in 2000, and this year is already 13 years!"

"Fourth, oh, fourth, I remembered. A few years ago, your father asked several young people who went to work outside to help inquire about the situation of his fourth. Some people said that they saw you performing arts in Yanjing. Some people also said that they saw you cut off your hands and feet and begging on the street in Beihai, but after so many years, they haven't seen your baby come home, and your father has given up on it."

When the old man said this, he also sighed endlessly. Seeing Chen Xingchen's tattered and baggy clothes and the pair of sneakers that were dirtier than his own feet, the old man spoke again in a regretful tone.

"However, your father and mother are in good health, but they are much older. Your eldest brother has gone to the house of Widow Wang next door to be a door-to-door son-in-law. Your third son has not married a wife yet, and your sisters have come back every year. Now your third brother is at home to take care of your parents. , and cultivate more than ten acres of land every year!"

The flames of the fire suddenly became a little hot, and Chen Xingchen's face was a little hot. Hearing the news that his parents were still alive, his heart suddenly calmed down, as long as he was alive.

Chen Xingchen fantasized in his mind countless times that when he set foot on that land again, he saw his father and mother's dilapidated lonely grave, and he stood alone in front of the collapsed wooden house, surrounded by a vast expanse of whiteness.

This idea has been thought of countless times in his mind. Perhaps he has never thought about this scene happening all the time. Only in this way can he make a clean break between the present and the past. The parents in his memory did not give him a good impression.

What should come will still come, and what should have passed will eventually pass. In fact, the current self does not need to be afraid of anything. It is a pity that any powerful person, the shadow of childhood, no matter how long it takes harm.

Chen Xingchen stood up with a complicated expression, thanked the old man, turned and walked towards the station.

The moment he decided to go home, Chen Xingchen knew that what he had to face next, everything he had experienced in these years had already made him see many things clearly and understand many things.

Including childhood, because of his incompetence and pain, the father could only vent on the children by beating and scolding.

In the world of adults, everyone has experienced sad and powerless moments, and Chen Xingchen has also experienced it. In his ten years of business career, he has also encountered countless opponents who made him powerless.

Either bow your head and admit defeat, or you have nothing. If it wasn't for the man behind you, "Tian Tian You" would have disappeared in the long river of history. Even with today's achievements, the person in charge is definitely not Chen Xingchen.

Today's media has praised him countless times for his self-made, superior intelligence, astonishing means, and business prodigy.

Only Chen Xingchen himself understands that these can only deceive those young people who have nothing and are ready to start their own businesses. There is no such thing as self-made in this world.

The real self-made is nothing more than relying on luck and compromise again and again. If you really start from nothing without any background, you will definitely not be able to achieve the No. [-] position in the industry.

And when I was a child, my father's beating and scolding was also a kind of incompetence to vent. In a remote rural area, raising seven children, struggling in the fields [-] days a year, even if my feet were so painful that I couldn't stand up, I couldn't stand up every day. Got to get up and go to the field.

The pain of being unable to break free cannot be understood by others, and neither can the children. Only the current Chen Xingchen has understood it, and understanding does not mean acceptance and approval.

The pain of the father was imposed on the brothers and sisters in childhood. This kind of invisible scar will be engraved in the children's hearts for a lifetime.

After all, Chen Xingchen bought a ticket to go home. The once-a-day bus has now become a four-hour bus, twice a day.

The road is still the same as before, but it is now a cement road. Although it looks like it has only been repaired for a few years, it is full of potholes, but it is better than the gravel and yellow mud road in memory.

The vehicle wobbled and twisted through countless bends in the middle of the mountain road. Chen Xingchen looked at the surrounding scenery quite qualitatively.

In my memory, many fir trees all over the mountains and plains have disappeared. Many forests are full of eucalyptus trees, and there are stretches of barren hills. The dark jungle can vaguely see that this place was burned by wildfires last year.

I don't know how long it took to go around, but the scenery outside was gradually resembling the one in memory. When Chen Xingchen heard the familiar accent in the carriage, besides kindness, there was also an invisible sense of oppression in his heart.

Near noon, the bus finally arrived. This is a village, a small gathering place, and the bus stopped at the entrance of a grocery store.

Chen Xingchen got out of the car, saw the winding mountain road in the distance, and knew that he still had a long way to go.

Chen Xingchen took out dozens of yuan in change from his pocket. This was all the cash on his body. He came back in a hurry this time. He didn't even bring any money. The only few hundred yuan was from the last time the female secretary's jacket pocket dropped on his bed. .

I bought the train tickets all the way, and there was only so much left, but Chen Xingchen was not worried at all, he hadn't used cash for many years.

It's not that mobile payment is popular now, but because of his status, he no longer needs to pay by himself. He has 24-hour secretarial services for all his daily life.

Chen Xingchen laughed at himself, bought a bottle of water and a piece of bread, and ate it dry with water.

After eating the bread, Chen Xingchen stretched his arms, and then started to walk towards the winding mountain road. Although this road is still the one in memory, it has been widened a lot, and it can already be as wide as a tractor, which is used for passing motorcycles car, more than enough.

Chen Xingchen walked for half an hour and passed the first village. Standing on the mountain road halfway up the mountain, he could see the whole picture of this small village at a glance. In the field, there were a few old people farming. Chen Xingchen stood in the mountain, After sighing for a long time, I started again.

Although the villages outside have been connected to cement roads, most of the mountain villages along the way are in the deep mountains. It is more cost-effective to move the entire village to have cement roads.

In fact, there is no need to move. At a glance, you can already see that there are not many young people in these villages. Most of the young people have left their hometowns to work in distant places.

Many years later, most of these young people will probably buy a house and go outside, and leave the small mountain village of their ancestors. After the older generation passes away, the place will basically be completely deserted.

This is the law of history, and it may be the life that people yearn for, and it is also a compromise for life.

Without a watch to tell the time, Chen Xingchen used his memory to walk through one bend after another, and jump over one mountain after another in his memory. Childhood memories and current emotions are intertwined, making him feel the passage of time.

After all, he still didn't have the physical strength he used to. Every time Chen Xingchen climbed a mountain, he had to sit down and rest for a long time before he could start again. Back then, he walked out of the mountain in one breath just to buy a [-] cents popsicle.

He didn't know how long he had walked, but he had vaguely felt that the sun was going to set, so Chen Xingchen quickened his pace.

Until I turned over a mountain again and looked forward, the familiar scenes were like bombs exploding in my heart.

Chen Xingchen's eyes finally couldn't be controlled, the man did not flick his tears easily, at this moment, his eyes, which had not shed tears for 20 years, were slightly blurred by the tears.

In the distance, a dilapidated wooden house with faint smoke rising, the evening sun accompanied by the smoke seems to be hanging on the other side of the mountain.

Not far away, an old cow was being pulled by a man, and the sound of shaking could be heard from time to time. In the field, a figure of a man wielding a hoe vigorously was also seen. What a familiar picture, what a familiar figure.

Standing at the intersection of going down the mountain, Chen Xingchen's footsteps seemed to be welded by welding rods. After watching for a long time, he never took a half step.

"It's more timid to be close to the hometown!"

(End of this chapter)