Diary

Cause I don’t know what kind of mood I am writing this travel note at this time, because it is not originally a travel note - how can returning to my hometown be considered a trip? But when I finally stood in the east square of Wuhu Station at one o’clock in the morning, I realized clearly: I was finally home. It all started a week ago. On a gloomy afternoon, I was walking alone on the bamboo-shaded road of the Chengdu Giant Panda Base, thinking aimlessly - about work, about marriage, and even about some insignificant things. Giant pandas are not that attractive to me. After all, they are all similar-looking creatures. I will get bored after looking at them for a while and taking a few photos. So this is a great time to fill your brain with whatever it is. ...

At this moment, I am sitting in a dormitory somewhere in the Banan industrial district, staring at a fingerprint-covered laptop, trying to think of anything from this difficult year that still makes me reluctant to let go. As usual, when I write this kind of half-coherent year-end summary, I put on headphones and loop a song that can make me feel either sentimental or excited. This year, what I have kept listening to is still Li Zhi’s unplugged version of “Rehe” from his 2018 New Year’s Eve concert. It is odd: the song is called “Rehe,” but it is really about Nanjing. Just as when I was in Shanghai, I passed Shunyi Road every day but never once went to Beijing. ...

The so-called “14-day self-health management” system, which is just a prettified way of saying “14-day quarantine,” is a perfect example of lazy governance. This afternoon, I dragged a large suitcase and a big package of deliveries to the gate on Guangfu West Road. The package contained replacement bedding. The reason I had to carry it around myself was that the closed-campus policy does not allow couriers to enter, forcing me to pick it up from the Cainiao station and bring it back to school. ...

To myself four years ago: I know that right now you are sitting in an evening self-study classroom, preparing for the gaokao with endless fantasies about the future. Although your recent mock-exam scores have not been ideal, you are still immersed in the glory of having once ranked among the top 500 in the province in the Jiangnan Ten Schools exam, holding on to a baseless confidence. You probably cannot imagine that, a little more than a month later, on June 22, your terrible final score will make you doubt your life. I admit that it took us a long time to let this go. That is why, around this time last year, in a letter to my self ten years from now, I swore that I would get into Renmin University for graduate school. Now the graduate entrance exam is over, and I did not get into Renmin. ...

As the Dingyou year gasped like an old man near the end of life, I felt, as usual, that I should write something. With time, my writing has become increasingly clumsy, to the point that I can no longer even come up with a decent title. So I will boldly borrow a line from Bei Dao for now. Why this title? I will explain later. On the last day of the old year, Wuhu finally had a proper haze. In the morning, as I rode alone to school, I could not see the library hidden in the thick fog. There was a faint, almost imperceptible chemical smell in my nose, and only then did I realize winter had arrived. Unlike intermittent ice ages, winter comes every year, sometimes early and sometimes late, sometimes gentle and sometimes fierce. But in its reliability, in the fact that it always keeps its appointment, it deserves some praise. ...