Time Flows

When 42-year-old Lu Changhe took his last breath on the hospital bed, what flashed in his mind was not unfinished work, but three images: Father's withered hands on the hospital bed. The back of her turning away that winter. The figure of my mother sitting alone on the kang of an old house in Northeast China, waiting for a call. When he opened his eyes again, the heat from the radiator warmed his face. Outside the window, he could hear the cicadas chirping in the northeastern summer and the violent dust rising. In front of him was the final exam paper for the sophomore year of high school that had just ended. Sitting diagonally in front of him was the girl he would remember for his whole life. The date on the blackboard: June 20, 2002. He still has a whole year - to change his father's fate, to make up for the regret of missing out, to protect everyone he cares about before the pneumonia that sweeps the country arrives. The long river of time flows endlessly, and this time, he goes against the current.