Nineteen-year-old Zhou Mu dragged his suitcase back to the gloomy county town. When his mother died of illness, he had no choice but to seek refuge with his father, whom he had not seen for twelve years.
The house is still the same: alcohol, slaps, and the son Shen Chuan left behind after his father's new wife left. They are only one year apart. One grew up in the provincial capital, and the other grew up wildly under the fists. Zhou Mu's fair skin and long hair were his original sin, while Shen Chuan's wheat-colored skin and brow bone scars were a sign of war.
In a leaky room and a factory with a pungent smell of engine oil, the two teenagers went from hostility to closeness. Zhou Mu learned to sew Shen Chuan's torn school uniform, while Shen Chuan handed over the steamed buns he had secretly hidden late at night. In order to escape from their father, they moved into a more dilapidated basement and lived together.
Money has become a knife hanging above my head. When Shen Chuan's future became the only light in the darkness, Zhou Mu turned and walked into the deeper night - the neon of the Golden Age Club swallowed up his last innocence.
More money, less words. He was used to perfume overpowering the smell of engine oil, and to the touch of strangers scrubbing him in the bathroom in the early hours of the morning. On the day Shen Chuan passed the electrician's certificate exam, Zhou Mu got a new bruise on his wrist.
"Stop it."
"Then don't spend this dirty money!"
Arguments, reconciliations, more intense arguments. One becomes numb due to alcohol and hypocrisy, while the other becomes increasingly silent due to guilt and anger. Shen Chuan moved out of the basement. Remittance, return; call, mute.
Later, Zhou Mu went to the south with a guest and was never heard from again. Shen Chuan established himself in the provincial capital, but every rainy night, he would think of the aroma of roasted sweet potatoes at the train station, and of his brother's side face that was so white under the dim street lights on the day he first arrived.
It turns out that some winters are impossible to survive. They were like two straight lines that briefly intersected, but under the weight of fate, they separated forever in the direction of never intersecting again. Love is real, even if it is ground to ashes by reality, it is also real.
Intention: humble to feed oneself
