In the summer of 1988, Adong was released from prison, leaving only a torn T-shirt and a photo of his mother.
His mother passed away the second year after he was imprisoned. She had lung disease and had no money to treat her. He knelt in front of the soul all night, got up at dawn, carried his body photo under his arm, and walked into purgatory on earth without looking back. Moving bricks, carrying bags, and watching night market stalls, he lived like a wild dog. Until I met Shen Xue in the hair salon.
Her hands were cold, like ice that could not be melted. She said she had been like this since she was a child. A Dong said in a hoarse voice: "I'll help you warm up." She laughed at him for not even being able to warm himself up, but she was secretly moved. In the spring of 1990, A Dong made a promise to her: "Wait for me for three years, and I will come back to marry you."
Shen Xue didn't cry. She took off the red scarf she had knitted all winter long and wrapped it around his neck. The stitches were full of bloody holes. "If you don't come back in three years, I will marry someone else." He went to Shenzhen and Guangzhou, working hard to make money.
Being beaten, cheated, ups and downs, making money and then losing it, and losing money and making it again. Thinking about her every night and losing sleep, I sent letters but nothing happened. He thought she didn't wait any longer, thought she was married. In the winter of 1993, he came back to marry her with 30,000 yuan, a gold necklace, and a red woolen coat.
But standing at the door of her house, what was waiting for her was: "Shen Xue is dead." Last winter, the factory machinery broke down and everyone died. A Dong clutched the gold necklace until blood oozed from his palms, but he didn't shed a single tear. He sat at her door all night, put down the necklace at dawn, and never returned to this small town. Every winter from then on, he bought a red scarf and hung it on the wall. The whole wall is covered with her...
