Introduction to "The Kite and the Shrapnel"
In the spring of 1927, childhood sweethearts Lu Yuan and Zhou Yan by the Suzhou River said their final farewells in the rainy alley as artillery fire approached. She stuffed a bunch of candied haws with seeds into his bag and tied a twisted knot around his wrist with the red rope used to bind the candied haws.
The young man went to join the army. Letters were sent back intermittently from the battlefield, with only one sentence each time: "I will be back when the kite flies across the river." Lu Yuan waited for him in the occupied city, skewering candied haws on a stick every day, saving a buckle from his cuff and tying it around his wrist.
Later, the kite flew across the river, and the boy never came back. In the ruins after the city was broken, the search and rescue team found two clasped hands - the boy held an unsent letter in his arms, and the girl had a faded peace knot tied around her wrist. I only had time to write half a sentence on the letter: "Waiting for the kite to fly across the river..."
Spring in Jiangnan has come as usual. On the river bank, an unknown paper kite flew high, crossed the wide river surface, and circled over the wheat fields on the other side.
——The sweetness of candied haws is used to describe the bitterness of troubled times; the lightness of paper kites is used to describe the weight of life and death. Use the simplest objects to remember the crushed and silent love of that era.
Intention: When a young man goes to a national disaster, a young girl waits by the river; when the kite flies over, the old friend has turned into a green mountain bone.
