1978 Synthetic Writers

Chapter 611 A Comeback Years Later

"Reunions are always fewer than farewells, only one less."

Upon hearing this sentence, Jiang Sicheng felt as if an invisible hand was tightly gripping his heart, and a suffocating pain spread through him.

He was reunited with his hometown, with the old locust tree, with Brother Yongsheng, and with his aged father. This was undoubtedly a great joy.

But what about with your mother?
The cold photograph on the wall, the lonely graves behind the village—that cry of "Mother, your son is back" will never be answered again.

This crucial "reunion" was lost forever.

Life is a chain of countless farewells and reunions.

Jiang Sicheng still remembers when he was a boy, he said goodbye to his parents, thinking that he would be reunited with them soon.

But they could only bid farewell to another year in a foreign land, hoping for a reunion sometime in the future.

Fate cruelly told him that the total number of reunions was destined to be one less than the number of farewells.

And that one less time is often the most unforgettable and irreparable.

Jiang Sicheng vaguely remembers the scene of the last time he met his mother. When he boarded the vehicle with the troops, his mother handed him a pomegranate.

He lowered his head to eat the pomegranate, and at that moment someone on the bus told him that his mother was greeting him.

The car had already started moving when Jiang Sicheng, who was eating a pomegranate, realized what was happening. By the time he did, the car had already turned, and he didn't get a chance to see his mother.

Because of that one bite of pomegranate, I missed seeing my mother one less time.

His final farewell to his mother turned out to be their last.

From that moment on, Jiang Sicheng never ate a single pomegranate again in his life.

He returned this time and saw everyone, but his mother was missing.

This loss of "young" became an insurmountable chasm for the rest of his life, a lifelong regret that no amount of wealth, honor, or family happiness could ever erase.

"The journey home is always longer than the journey of getting lost, longer than a lifetime."

"Reunions are always fewer than farewells, only one less."

Jiang Sicheng's vision gradually blurred.

Then he saw the footnote in the lower right corner of the poem.

—Jiang Xian, "Before Arrival"

"Jiang Xian."

"Before arrival"

Jiang Sicheng's body, which was almost exhausted from grief, inexplicably surged with strength.

Despite being a soldier, Jiang Sicheng also enjoys literature. After all, the provincial authorities say he's more of a figurehead than a soldier; his military post is more symbolic. In his spare time, he exchanges literary ideas with his colleagues.

And this was the title of the poem before the arrival.

Jiang Sicheng discerned something peculiar in it.

First of all.

The title of this poem is very contradictory.

"Arrival" is a completed action.

The word "before" indefinitely prolongs this completed state.

Thus, "before arrival" creates an eternal ongoing tense.

—It is not static, but a dynamic equilibrium poised to unleash its potential.

Just like the moment a bowstring is fully drawn, the arrow has not yet left the bow, but all the power has already been gathered.

Those who see this poem's title will be placed in a time gap filled with anticipation.

Poetry often uses small things to reveal larger truths, and Jiang Sicheng took his thoughts to an even grander scale.

The title of this poem omits the subject and object, leaving the question: Who is arriving? Where are they arriving?

This approach, originally a form of spatial narrative using blank space, allows for multiple interpretations of the blank areas.

But this poem is now appearing on this document.

So how do we interpret this?
It's not hard for Jiang Sicheng to think of the meaning of "reunion".

"This poet has a very broad vision!" Jiang Sicheng said with great admiration.

It says "arrival".

What is its true meaning?

"return"!
The car continued on its way, getting further and further away from his hometown, but also closer and closer to the "home" where he had lived for thirty years.

Jiang Sicheng knew that he would return to his wife and children and resume his daily life.

But some things have changed completely.

His understanding of those two lines of poetry was not merely a sentimental feeling expressed in the words, but a life imprint ingrained in his very being.

His "journey home" is not over yet; in fact, it could be said that this brief return has just marked the beginning of a new and more complex journey home.

The reunion that was "missed" will become an eternal coordinate in his heart, reminding him where he came from and where his roots are, and also measuring the preciousness of every future reunion with his father and hometown.

He carefully put away the documents, as if they were not just a piece of paper, but a condensation of his life of wandering, the warmth of his father's aged hands, the scent of his hometown soil, and the shallow yet deep strait that would forever lie in his heart.

The scenery outside the window flew by, and through his teary eyes, Jiang Sicheng seemed to see the old locust tree at the village entrance again. Under the tree, his father's figure shrank to a black dot, yet stubbornly, forever, stood there.

He knew that from then on, no matter where he was, a part of his heart would remain in that earthen house, in front of that grassy grave, and could never be taken away completely.

This is the price of the "return journey," and also the eternal melancholy after the "reunion."

He could only continue to look forward to the next "arrival," the next "arrival" in a truly meaningful sense.

With the opening and expansion of family visit activities, reports about "homecoming groups" have been coming from all over the country.

One person was mentioned multiple times.

This man is named He Wende. He is from Hubei Province. He went there at the age of 17 and later became very active in returning home activities, becoming the president of the "Out-of-Province Homecoming and Relatives Visit Association".

He once wore a shirt with the words "Homesick" written in red and held up a banner that read "Born as a Chinese, die as a Chinese soul."

He also led the first "homecoming visit group".

When the application for family visit registration was first accepted, a total of 10 application forms were distributed. Many eager people lined up early in the morning before the service hall opened, and many even waited overnight. Within just half a month, all 10 application forms were claimed.

Ultimately, only 18 people were given the opportunity to return home to visit relatives and form a "homecoming visit group".

These 18 people immediately became the focus of domestic media attention, and their experiences of returning home were reported in detail.

According to reports, all members of these family visit groups, except for He Wende, were alone, many of them were destitute, and could not even afford airfare. They had a hard time raising enough funds.

Then they went to Hong Kong and came from there.

During the two days they transited through Hong Kong, the visiting group stayed in a cheap "Guest House" in Kowloon. The rooms were simple and not soundproof, and even the slightest footsteps could be heard clearly in the corridor.

The narrator said he clearly remembered that the night before entering the mainland, he could still hear suppressed sobbing from other rooms until 1 a.m. He barely slept, and the others only managed to get an hour or two of sleep in the morning. After the family visit group arrived in Guangzhou, they did not disband immediately but flew to Xi'an together.

Although the veterans were eager to return home, they still wanted to pay their respects at the Yellow Emperor's Mausoleum first.

They said, "This represents the significance of worshipping our ancestors; we're not just going home to visit relatives."

He even personally wrote a eulogy for the Yellow Emperor, the last paragraph of which reads:
"The great calamity is not over yet, and peace is hard to come by; may our ancestors bless our Chinese people; may we stop fighting among ourselves and forever abandon mutual destruction; may we unite as one again and glorify China; may our ancestors of a thousand years continue to enjoy our blessings."

After his visit to his family ended, He Wende donated his "homesick" jacket to the National Museum.

The most frequently mentioned item in the report was a poem, a poem written on an ID card.
—Before Arrival

"The journey home is always longer than the journey of getting lost, longer than a lifetime."

"Reunions are always fewer than farewells, only one less."

"After reading it, I felt like something had hit my chest, a sudden jolt," the veteran told the reporter.

"Isn't this exactly what happened to us? We thought we'd be back soon, but instead we embarked on a much longer and lonelier road of no return than we imagined. It's true, we always thought there was plenty of time, but we found that our connection with our homeland and our loved ones was severed just like that."

"This poem is so well written! This poet is very talented! He has a very broad mind!"

"He understands what it means to miss someone."

“It’s written in a particularly moving way, like this ‘longer than a lifetime’. What does ‘longer than a lifetime’ mean? Look at us, we’re doing well, we’ve seen some of our family members more or less, but what about Mr. Zhang? All his family members have passed away, he hasn’t seen either his elderly mother or father. That’s what ‘longer than a lifetime’ truly means.”

“I think many people don’t understand this poem as deeply as we do. ‘Just one less time’—you know how long we waited and how far we went to get that one time? We risked our lives for that one time. I told my family before I came here, and I made sure all my files and documents were ready before I left. I told my family to take good care of my son if I got arrested. We came home with the determination to die if we had to.”

"This poem should be seen by more people who want to go home. I think they can see their own hearts reflected in it."

"."

These reports quickly spread throughout the country, reaching both lower and higher levels.

Even he asked:

Who selected these two poems?

I immediately inquired about it.

After making some inquiries, they found out who it was.

"Zhuo Yongliang."

Zhuo Yongliang was quickly summoned. He was very interested in the matter and asked about it carefully while smoking a cigarette.

Zhuo Yongliang quickly explained in detail that he was inspired by the poem "Nostalgia" and wanted to find a poem about "Nostalgia" from the mainland for his compatriots to read, so as to inspire their longing for home through our poetry.

He then spent several months devouring the Poetry Journal, and finally, the poet Ai Qing recommended this poem to him, namely Jiang Xian's "Before Arrival".

"Before arrival."

He smiled and said, "This is interesting before we arrived. It's a good name. What was he thinking when he wrote this poem?"

"Shall I ask for you?"

"no need."

He waved his hand, "Everyone has things to do, why bother him by making him come all the way here? As for these two lines of poetry, I think the design on the back of the ID card is excellent. Why not send some more gifts, and write these two lines of poetry on them as well, so that the poem can have a chance to spread over there?"

"You mean, the poem I wrote back then?" Jiang Xian heard this news from Zhu Wei and knew that those two lines of poetry had left a deep impression on the visiting group.

I was quite surprised after hearing his story.

"Before Arrival"—those were poems he wrote two years ago.

This poem was written when he went to the airport to see off Zhao Zhenkai and others who were going to the United States. Several friends were arranging to write a poem, and Zhao Zhenkai asked him to write one. So he wrote these two lines.

The poem was later published in the Poetry Journal, but compared to the nationwide craze for copying and reading poems sparked by "To the Oak Tree," the impact of "Before Arrival" was less significant.

This is understandable, after all, a phenomenal poem like "To the Oak Tree" is not something you can just casually write when giving it to a friend.

As time goes by.

Just when Jiang Xian himself was almost forgetting his two poems, he never expected that his poem "Before Arrival" would once again receive such enthusiastic and important attention in this way.

This feeling is similar to that of some singers in later generations, whose songs from more than ten years ago suddenly become popular again on the internet.

Uh, for example, "The sky is blue and clear, and the grass is green and fragrant."

This cartoon has been airing for over a decade, and Pleasant Goat is already 27 years old, yet this song has inexplicably become a viral sensation across the internet. I bet even the creators themselves didn't expect it.

After gradually understanding the situation, Jiang Xian, unsure of what to say, could only helplessly utter:
"It's still a good thing overall."

"It's also a contribution to the motherland."

However, the atmosphere in China is like this: once something attracts attention, it will quickly be pushed to the top, just like those random things like "Wu Jing" and "Demon Pill".

As the family visit activities were reported one after another, "Before Arrival" quickly became the most popular line of poetry, spreading by word of mouth and becoming as popular as "The night gave me black eyes, but I use them to seek the light."

It's just that the weather has gotten cold recently, otherwise T-shirts with the poem "Before Arrival" would have become popular again.

Meanwhile, in some unknown corner, Zhiyin magazine suffered another blow.

Even though Hu Xunbi has apologized to Jiang Xian and taken back the publication as promised.

Unfortunately, the controversy surrounding "Tongue" still broke.

This is a very sensitive issue.

Yes, your *Zhiyin* is an Avengers magazine; whatever you publish, we in the literary world can't be bothered with.

But this time, someone's going to take care of you.

This is Pandora's box; once you open it, things will spiral out of control.

The entire issue of "Tongue Coating" was criticized as utterly despicable.

The magazine "Zhiyin" has ceased publication.

All editors in the editorial department were suspended from work and received criticism and education.

In addition, editor-in-chief Hu Xunbi has been suspended from his duties pending investigation.

The first three issues of the publication were all recalled and destroyed.

After receiving the notification, Hu Xunbi sat in his office chair for a long time, motionless, his face ashen.

He knew it clearly.

This publication, which I created and built myself, is now finished.

Whose fault is it?
Hu Xunbi knew, of course, that Jiang Xian had indeed kept his promise and had not published the article.

This is not Jiang Xian's fault.

He just didn't expect that the novel "Tongue" would be so devastating, and that the content of the novel was such a sensitive subject that it was untouchable.

People of this era are simply unaware of this.

(End of this chapter)