The Fourth Anniversary of Li Wenliang’s Death: Time for the Wandering Soul

After the 2008 earthquake, the old city of Beichuan was reduced to ruins, with the Beichuan County Kindergarten at the top of the ruins. "The Cruel Side of Beichuan After the Disaster" records the excavation site of the firefighters: "The team members kept digging out small flower quilts and small flower pillows, and then a team member reached down and picked up the first child, followed by the second. Earthquake The children were taking a nap when it happened, and they remained in a sleeping position after death, with small fists clenched on their chests. Their bodies were green and white, exuding a choking smell, and only had beautiful heads and soft bodies. Still elegant.”

Li Haipeng, one of the two reporters who wrote this report, posted on Weibo in 2023: "Over the past 15 years, I have constantly recalled the scene where the children were taken out. At the earliest, I remembered it about 10 times a week, and then As time goes by, the frequency gradually decreases, and now it is about three times a week. As I get older, I begin to have the feeling of carrying the past with me. This scene seems to have merged with me and become a pressure in my consciousness. The part that is solid, compact, compassionate, and peaceful. No matter how the world changes, it is no longer changing.”

I have not had the experience of witnessing such a tragic scene. It seems that it is not only because I am young and have experienced less things, but also because most of the tragedies nowadays have no scene that can be reached even for reporters, and only a shout is fleeting. But in the past few years, today is the fourth year. In these four years, there have been many moments when I suddenly thought of Dr. Li. When you see someone eating fried chicken legs, think about it. When planning a trip to New York, think about this. Think about it when you need to set up a wifi name and password after moving. Think about what you read, such as this Weibo post by Li Haipeng.

I began to explore what shape and texture Dr. Li had in my consciousness. Li Haipeng's description so naturally inherits the nature of the earthquake; at the same time, the clear layers of events like the earth's crust and the mind shaped by them undoubtedly belong only to the previous era and only to men.

I heard someone recommended "The Distance Between Us and Evil" and wanted to read it. I checked Douban and found that I had already seen it, and it received five-star reviews, but I had no impression at all. Looking at the date again, I saw it on February 5, 2020. Only then did I realize that that period of time had already been filled with reality that was more terrifying than this realistic work, and I almost couldn't breathe anymore. Later, I tried to breathe hard and tried to get up. With my efforts, a vacuum was created unknowingly.

Dr. Li is the most real thing in the vacuum.

His death was a grain of sand that I selected from the overwhelming grief and indignation, swallowed it, and kept it to this day. Four years later, the sand has grown a new surface, moving towards something smooth and gentle. I also began to need to hold the thing harder and harder to remember how sharp a grain of sand it once was, and to remember the entire beach.

Last August, I read Lou Ye talking about "The Summer Palace": "The problem is that most people did not die that night. Most young people in China did not die that night. This is a fact. They still have to live in the past and bear the burden. To continue after that night is the hardest.”

I guess we’re already living “after.” In everyone's deliberate efforts to live a good life, the anger that earned this life for everyone has become increasingly out of place. Even the memory of sacrifice seems to be deliberately destroying that "good life." I don’t know if this dead end is the difficulty Lou Ye mentioned. Is this a completely new difficulty, or have they pulled the same knot before? Or is this just a side dish before difficulties, then what will be the difficulties?

It is precisely because of the inability to speak that we have such a night; it is precisely because of the inability to speak that there is anger that has nowhere to place; it is precisely because of the inability to speak that we have to leave behind the trauma, abandon healing, and deliberately get into a life ; It is precisely because I can’t express it that I don’t know whether the difficulties of the predecessors are the difficulties of today’s people, and I don’t know whether my difficulties are your difficulties... This is a dead knot tied on a dead knot, and the silent future generations wrap around the silent predecessors. generation.

Of course I am also deliberately living a good life. With a little bit of unwillingness, I deliberately cultivate a life where I can at least converse in my mother tongue in a small area. Here, mixed with reluctance but ultimately chaos, as the time progresses, some particularly clear days emerge from time to time. For example, when I read Lou Ye’s words in August last year, I immediately knew that these would be the words I would use to commemorate Dr. Li on February 6th next year. Not only that, my time immediately changed, I could clearly see the future, and I began to count down the days of the old year before the New Year's calendar would appear. I know that on some mornings from the end of December to the beginning of February, I will wake up and see everyone retweeting Dr. Li’s Weibo post, saying, it’s the fourth anniversary. The flowing time of chaos will be tortured by a clear-scaled time.

I also read "You buried your bones in the mud under the spring, but I sent them to the world with a head full of snow." I read a novel and frightening feeling that this poem could be a self-imposed memorial. I pay tribute to my friends, and at the same time I pay tribute to myself; I am half accomplice, half victim; I am a living person of the "after" and a wandering ghost of the "after". The wandering spirit of me drifted into the wandering spirit of time, fell on the snow, and turned into an exclamation mark: Farewell Li Wenliang!