An old city that grew up along the river was smelled of salt by the river wind even before the train arrived. Paper, ink, grain bags, cotton yarn, opium, rumors and oaths were tangled up at the dock. Lin Moxuan, a newspaperman who was born in a narrow alley, took over the night shift manager of Jiangsheng Daily at the age of twenty-seven. He wrote about the livelihood of small households and the notices hung on the city gates. He wandered among government offices, shops and teahouses, wearing thin clothes, talking to the wind. In his eyes, Jiangcheng is more like a city that is constantly moving. Door lintels are torn down and put up again, and new street names are often heard only in the dark.
Beside him, Shen Ruoyu, a teacher at a women's school, has a calm gaze, and his fingertips are very light when turning the book, but he dares to teach female students to read new poems in the night; Zhang Erniu, a dock porter, has carried sacks and shouldered life debts, has a rough voice, and is so soft-hearted that he often stuffs a bun with people who are poorer than him; Duan Jiayan, the son of a salt merchant, does numbers like playing dominoes, and sleeps in the warehouse with silver, which is also his anxiety. And Yu Qingsheng, who took the photo, looked like there was light in the lens. Times are like an invisible hand, overturning their lives and then picking them up and placing them somewhere else. The disintegration of the Qing Dynasty, the gunfire of 1911, the military and political changes, student demonstrations, labor unrest and blockade, foreign machines entering the factory, but the people inside were still awake. There are words on the paper, there is blood on the street, which is darker or lighter, no one can tell.
This is a story about choice. People may not shout slogans, but that does not mean they have no stance; people may not shed tears, but that does not mean they have no pain. Ten years after ten years, the river wind never gets old. The lights are in the wind, stopping and going, refusing to be extinguished.
