Chapter Seventeen of the Sunset

Linlan has no sea. This northern town has only one cinder track, laid by Old Sun twenty years ago. It crunches softly underfoot, as if talking to the runners. There is also a parasol tree, growing crooked and slanted. It sheds its leaves every year and sprouts again every year. No matter how many times it is pruned, it refuses to grow straight. Song Wanting grew up here. She ran the third leg of the relay, the curve. Her body leaned inward, her left arm swung in short strokes, and her right arm drove back with force. After the curve came the straightaway. At the end of it, someone was waiting. Lu Shihan shot hoops on the basketball court. His wrist flicked and his fingers spread, like he was setting a bird free. Two pieces of cinder sat in his pocket, one large and one small, both flecked with quartz. He had picked them up from the track. His mother used to say that while you're alive, your feet have to stay on the ground. Plant them firmly, then keep moving forward. Later, they all left. The cinder track was dug up and replaced with red synthetic turf. The parasol tree was trimmed into an even rounder shape. Everyone scattered in every direction: the provincial capital, Jiangcheng, Delingha, and places even farther away. But the cinders were still in a pocket. The parasol leaves were still pressed between the pages of a book. Song Wanting watched the sun set by the Yangtze River sixteen times. On the seventeenth, she returned to Linlan. Beneath the parasol tree, everyone had come back. The things you thought had vanished had actually become part of you long ago. After seventeen sunsets comes sunrise. (Some passages in this work draw on Haizi's Poems by Haizi. This is noted here for the record.)