A letter to Shi Wanjia

Shi Wanjia:

Good news!

It has been so long that I can’t even remember how many years we have spent together.

On this festival which has no surprises, no holidays and even not many people know about it, I think of you always scolding me for having “too many idle thoughts”, so I can’t help but pick up my pen to write something that I am too embarrassed to write down on other days.

Occasionally, you think of the past, sitting by the Xuanwu Lake in the evening breeze, and you like to hum an old song, “The fish that swims all day long, the fish never stops swimming. The person who misses you all day long, the love never stops.”

There were several times when you cried after getting drunk, expressing your sadness at not being understood. You didn’t want to live the life you hated.

There is no way, life is always like this. Those high achievements, low frustrations, long patience, short satisfaction, are all the scenery along the way. Just the right surprises and sudden frustrations always meet on the narrow road.

We had heated arguments several times. You were angry that I was too idealistic about everything, and I was not used to coaxing your emotions, although I also understood that many people would use formulas and algorithms.

You blame me for not being romantic enough and not having a good time, and for talking about trivial things that are neither exciting nor dramatic. I say, being ordinary is the true meaning of life. When you, who are not good-looking, were drowned in the crowd, I still found you. You said, get lost.

You laughed at me, saying that you spend so much time thinking and chatting about economics, society and humanities with millions of “friends” holding their phones. You deserve those hairs to leave you. I said to you righteously, why should you try to keep someone who wants to leave? Goodbye. You said, get out of here.

You asked me, is it worth it to be so angry at those who “accuse me of something” and type so hard to be polite that it makes the keyboard smoke? I said, it is the bottom line of this society not to confuse right and wrong. For example, I don’t like to hear you say “you are so thin and lazy” to your bestie. You said, get out of here as far as you can.

There are always a lot of laughter in front of our eyes, right? I took you through every street that made me linger, smelled every scent of sweet-scented osmanthus, and tasted every flavor of Jinling. But I want to tell you that we should not only hear the laughter in front of us, but also hear the helpless silence. We should see the flourishing flowers, but also the weak and powerless.

Along the way, we saw so many people who hoped that we would stay on their eyes for even a second. I looked at their shy but hopeful eyes and realized that was our way to love the world.

The bridge we built allows the powerless to walk on it with strength, allows those with closed hearts to open, allows the city’s strivers to see more beautiful scenery, and makes every trip worthwhile.

You often comfort me, telling me not to pay too much attention to those criticisms, because it will make me live too hard. But I don’t think that these criticisms are actually reminding us to remember who we are. When I occasionally feel angry and frustrated, they will say, “Who makes you the biggest backer?” “You are our only connection.”

How to describe this feeling? It’s like watching a short video and seeing “I don’t want to be so tired, but she calls me mom” over and over again.

You know me, I have always been such a face-conscious person.

Our city is never just about us. There are too many people you can see and can’t see, and they all deserve to be seen. We can’t represent a city, but we can really do something for it.

Do you remember the rare typhoon that passed through the city on the eve of the Mid-Autumn Festival? There are too many people in this city who stayed up all night like me. So when I saw the picture of a bright moon shining over Nanjing, every cell of my body was moved.

Time never answers, but my understanding of the city I live in and every sky and earth seems to have found the answer from time.

Thank you for always being by my side. When I picked up the pen in my hand to help the powerless, when I recorded the changes in the city, you joked but stood by me firmly, and together we fulfilled those not-so-great dreams.

Thank you for your encouragement, which let me know that the word “meaning” is not abstract and the word “value” can be concrete.

Walking such a long way, writing so many words, and meeting so many people, it is actually an extremely happy thing when the words written create a wonderful connection with more people you have never met.

Do you remember the last two lines of the song you used to hum, “Fish Swimming All Day Long”?

“The ocean is so vast, I can never look back. As long as you keep me in your heart, you will always keep me.”