Back to the golden age

The rattling old-fashioned green leather train is driving in the wilderness.

Luo Yang sat by the window, staring at the passing scenery outside the window.This reminded him of the past when he took the same train to the Great Northern Wilderness many years ago. Back then, he was still a young man full of enthusiasm and hope for going to the mountains and going to the countryside. On the train along the way, there were friends who went to the countryside together. There was laughter and singing in the carriage, but so many years have passed in a flash, and now the carriage is full of changes, only ordinary passengers.

It has been nearly a week since he came out of Yanjing. During this week, Luo Yang traveled to many places, almost all the provinces near Yanjing. It can be said that he spent almost all of this week on trains, cars and even ox carts. of.

Getting closer and closer to the Great Northern Wilderness, Luo Yang's thoughts couldn't help but go back to many years ago, back to the youthful years...

The train started and stopped, and arrived at a small northern station in the morning one day later. Luo Yang got off the train with luggage, and glanced around. The dilapidated platform and the rusty iron gate all looked so familiar, so kind.

This is a small station, so small that it can’t be found on ordinary maps. After leaving the station, there is a small county town. This county town has only [-] to [-] permanent residents. Compared with the county towns in the pass, it is at best a town. scale.

In this season, even Yanjing in Guan is a bit hot, but the weather here is still like spring, and the temperature difference between day and night is very large. At night, the lowest temperature can drop to five or six degrees, and the wind like a knife from time to time , There is no way to go out if you wear less.

This time when Luo Yang came out, he specially changed his clothes. He was wearing ordinary blue clothes, wrapped in an old military overcoat, and wore a hat on his head. Luo Yang.

After leaving the station, there is a bus station not far from the train station. Luo Yang is very familiar with this area, so he walked over to ask the departure time and bought a ticket.

There was still more than an hour before the departure time, Luo Yang simply found a place to sit in the dilapidated station waiting room, took out the dry food from his bag and ate with the water in the kettle.

Just after taking a few mouthfuls, Luo Yang felt a pair of eyes seem to be looking at him from the side. Looking along the eyes, he saw a three or four-year-old doll wearing a gray cloth jacket. There was no male or female, and the two big round eyes kept looking at the steamed bun in Luo Yang's hand.

"Baby, are you hungry? Want to eat?" Seeing the baby, Luo Yang laughed. He walked over and squatted in front of the child and asked, seeing the child take a step back, but still reluctantly looking at the steamed bun in Luo Yang's hand, although he didn't say anything , but the answer appeared in his eyes.

Luo Yang directly broke half of it and handed it over: "Here, eat!"

The child hesitated for a while, but couldn't resist the temptation of the white flour steamed bun. He stretched out his little hand to take half of the steamed bun, and then put it in his mouth to take a small bite. After taking this bite, the child's eyes lit up immediately, and then he walked away Run, ran directly to the side.

"Father! Father!"

"Where did it come from?" A middle-aged man was dozing off, and when he was shaken awake by the child, he was taken aback when he saw that the child was actually holding half a white flour steamed bun.

"Over there, Uncle gave it to you." Wawa stretched out his hand and pointed in Luo Yang's direction. The man looked at Luo Yang, and Luo Yang smiled and nodded at him.

Seeing Luo Yang, the man hesitated, then picked up the child and stood up, walking straight towards Luo Yang.

"I'm sorry, the child was not sensible just now..."

"It's nothing, I've already said it's a child, and it's lunch time, so it's nothing to give a child half a steamed bun." Luo Yang said with a smile.

"Thank you..." The man grinned, touched the child's head, and then looked at Luo Yang carefully, with a strange expression on his face.

"You...you are Luo Yang, right?" Luo Yang never thought that this strange man would call out his name, and Luo Yang was taken aback for a moment.

"You...?" Luo Yang looked at the other party carefully in doubt, and suddenly felt that the other party looked familiar, but for a while, he couldn't think of where he had seen him before.

"It's really Luo Yang! I'm Wang Hu! Brother Huzi! Do you still know me?" Wang Hu took off his hat with a very excited expression. When he looked at the other party carefully, Luo Yang finally recognized who the other party was.

"Wang Hu? Brother Huzi? Brother Huzi!" Luo Yang's mood suddenly became agitated, and he grabbed the opponent's shoulder with both hands and asked anxiously.

"It's me, it's me!"

"Brother Huzi, you, why are you so old? Why are you...?" Tears could not be restrained from falling from Luo Yang's eyes. If the other party hadn't recognized him first and told him who he was, Luo Yang would still I really couldn't recognize the person standing in front of me as Wang Hu.

In his memory, Wang Hu has always been the handsome young man wearing a leather jacket, holding a shotgun, walking vigorously, laughing resonantly, full of energy.But now, the face of Wang Hu standing in front of him is engraved with the memory of wind and frost. He is wearing a gray cloth padded jacket with patches, which is no different from ordinary people. He is wearing a military cap without a badge on his head, and he has no shotgun in his hand. , the waist is not as straight as before, the back is slightly hunched, and the whole person looks ten years older than his original age.

"People in the mountains age quickly, and it's going to be like this every day in the wind and rain..." Wang Hu said with a smile, and then said to the child in his arms: "Goofy, this is your Uncle Luo Yang , Hurry up and call someone!"

"Uncle Luo Yang..." Gou Wa was eating half a steamed bun given by Luo Yang, stopped his mouth and raised his head to shout at Luo Yang, then gave Luo Yang a bright smile.

"Brother Huzi, is this your son?" Luo Yang asked.

"Yes! My son! His nickname is Gouwa, and his older name is Wang Zhenlin. He is three and a half years old this year." Wang Hu said proudly, touching the child's head.

"Wang Zhenlin? That's a good name, it's grand!"

"Hehe, you agreed, right? I asked the old branch secretary to help me to come up with this name. My name is Wang Hu. I originally wanted to name him Wang Xiaohu, but the old branch secretary said that Wang Xiaohu was not good, so he simply called him Zhenlin. The tiger roars in the mountains and forests, that's what it means." Wang Hu said cheerfully.

Wang Hu is a child of the Orion family. Orion is a very ancient profession. It can be said that the Orion profession existed when human beings appeared.

Wang Hu's father, Old Man Wang, is the best hunter in a hundred miles in the Luoyang countryside. Wang Hu's grandfather, great-grandfather, and grandfather are also hunters. His family has lived in this place for many years. They all live by hunting.

Wang Hu is older than Luo Yang. If Luo Yang remembers correctly, Wang Hu should be 28 this year. When Luo Yang just went to the countryside and came to this place, Wang Hu was still a young man in his early twenties. The young man has been weather-beaten.

"Luo Yang, didn't you go back to the city? Why did you come back this time?" Seeing the familiar people, Wang Hu was very happy. Back then, Wang Hu and Luo Yang had a very good relationship, and they were quite fond of educated youths like them. With care, Luo Yang's parents were rehabilitated in 76, and Luo Yang had a chance to go back.It's been more than four years since I left.And other educated youths also returned to the city and villages around 78, and the formerly bustling educated youth spot has long been deserted.

"I've been back for several years, and I've been thinking about this place all the time, so I might as well take the time to come and have a look." Luo Yang said with a smile.

"Yeah, it's been several years in a flash, and the days go by so fast." Wang Hu nodded and said with emotion: "A few years ago, the educated youths left one by one, and there were fewer and fewer people every day, let alone the old party secretary. Even I can't see it in my heart, and I often think about the time when you were there, how lively it was!"

"Is the old branch secretary okay?"

When Luo Yang asked about the old party secretary, Wang Hu sighed and shook his head: "I didn't get through last winter, and you know that his body has always been weak. Every winter, he can't get up. This time... hey."

Luo Yang's heart sank suddenly, the old branch secretary gone?This old man with a smelly and stubborn temper, who loves to scold mothers but has a hot heart actually went?This made Luo Yang's heart feel empty for an instant.

"A lot of people have been there in the past few years, and my father also left the year before last, but it's not a pity to see the birth of his grandson." Wang Hu said with emotion.

Old man Wang is gone too?Luo Yang's eyes couldn't help getting moist. He didn't expect that these two elders whom he respected had already gone. If they and Wang Hu hadn't sacrificed their lives to save them, he might have passed away long ago.

Thinking of the faces of the old branch secretary and old man Wang, their resounding laughter seemed to be heard in his ears, but now he has no chance to see them again, Luo Yang regretted for a while, regretting that he came late .

While waiting for the car, Wang Hu talked to Luo Yang a lot, and let Luo Yang know about his situation after he left.

With the return of the educated youths to the city, the original educated youth camps are now abandoned. In addition to some of the farmland that these educated youths reclaimed with their hands, they belonged to the communes, and many of them were also abandoned due to lack of manpower.

Some old people have passed away one after another. Although time has changed, the life of the local young people has also changed, just like Wang Hu. As a hunter, Wang Hu originally lived in the forest and hunted for a living. Before the old man Wang passed away, the policy was adjusted. , The country has other regulations on hunting, so the old branch secretary took a chance to help Wang Hu get a forest ranger staff, which can be regarded as eating the imperial food.

Wang Hu got married shortly after Luo Yang left. The wife he married was a woman from a nearby commune, whom Luo Yang didn't know.However, from Wang Hu's narration, it can be seen that Wang Hu is very affectionate to his wife, and the relationship between the couple is very good. This time he came to the county because his wife is pregnant and expecting to give birth. Living in the woods, it is a big deal for a woman to have a baby. To be on the safe side, I sent my wife to the county hospital in advance to be taken care of by her family for a few days. This is not just settled. Wang Hu will go back first with Gouwa, and come back when the days are almost over. After all, people are inseparable from Linzi.