I went to interview a director a few days ago. His new movie tells a story of “finding relatives”. In the movie, the end of the story is the regret of not finding a loved one. In real life, decades after the prototype of the characters in the play sought their relatives, they met his relatives by chance in a restaurant in the middle of the crowd and sat next door.
The director said: “This is too dramatic, and the script does not dare to write it like that.” Because of this coincidence, it becomes difficult to convince the audience. However, reality is often so unexpected. This reminds me of those dramatic moments in my memory.
Before 2008, because of my family, I lived in a village in Beijing for a short period of time, and I often listened to my family telling stories about what happened around me. At that time, most of the outside of the Fourth Ring Road was still a scene of the countryside. It was all low and dilapidated bungalows. There were many wholesale markets in the area. The huge trash can at the corner of the intersection always emitted a stench, and people came and went. It is often necessary to pinch the nose to pass quickly, and after a long time, the residents will gradually get used to it.
The stall owners of these wholesale markets are mostly outsiders who have come to Beijing to work hard for many years. Among them was a man named Lao Tang, and many people around him were deeply impressed by him. Old Tang, who appeared in the market, always wears sunglasses, a top hat on his bald head and a long gown. He walks with wind, and he often follows a few workers behind him. He is very style.
He likes to sit on a wicker chair under an umbrella at the door of his house, drinking tea, and chatting with someone. Once he talked to my father who was passing by, he buys a car now like buying a bicycle, “You have to let others do the work for you, so that you can make a lot of money.”
Old Tang’s business is very prosperous, he is capable and bold. There is also a mind. He dared to stock hundreds of thousands of goods at once, and went to various supermarkets in Beijing to sell the goods in a few words. There were more and more stable channels, and the business was getting bigger and bigger. He also took his young son from his hometown and rented several rooms, including an office with a large area and a rectangular conference table in it. He hired more than 20 employees, and the delivery trucks lined up ten. A few.
Old Tang, who had made a fortune, began to swell. The son was crippled by a fight in his hometown, and he chased him to Beijing. He took a few bundles of cash overnight to settle the matter. But soon, something happened again.
This time it was human lives. Because a young driver in Sichuan stole the goods, Tang called some social hooligans and dragged the driver to the warehouse and hung up for interrogation. The driver was finally beaten to death. A familiar doctor told us later that after he rushed to the scene, he saw that his face was swollen and the person was no longer good.
Although Old Tang was not present, as a behind-the-scenes conductor, he couldn’t run away from prison. Later we heard the story version: Lao Tang is not actually called Lao Tang. He used to be a small official in his hometown. He was jailed for corruption and spent money to come out. He changed his name in Beijing and started a wholesale business. The reason is that this old case cannot be discovered, and the family business cannot be separated from Old Tang, and cannot be entrusted to his son who only fights and sleeps every day. Later, he spent a “large sum of money” to get his 23-year-old son to jail for him.
While his son was in jail for his father, Tang passed away from a sudden illness. We never saw this family again.
At that time, the outskirts of Beijing were like a wasteland in the city, exuding the atmosphere of the grassy era, stacked with countless embarrassing stories. These people and things have been so close to me, and they seem to be so far away.
When Marquez returned to his childhood village, he talked about his feelings: “It’s as if I’m reading here. It’s as if everything I see is already written. Come down and copy everything I’ve read here.”
Now that place has long been torn down , replaced by viaducts, and those stories have disappeared in the rubble.
Fortunately, I can still review all this with poor writing.
