I went back home in August this year. Of course my mother was busy cooking for me, suddenly she found soy was running out and told me to buy it. My mother just kept the habit of letting me buy soy even I was an adult now, maybe in her eyes I was still the little boy to buy soy and also a lollipop to suck.

    On my way to the store, I suddenly saw a little grave on the roadside under two poplars. Wasn’t this the grave of Li Dan? How could I forget her completely? Maybe I was really obsessed by fame and gain and forgot so many precious things in my heart. Seeing the weeds on the grave mound swaying along with breeze, I felt my heart was injected with lead and so heavy. So pure and innocent girl like an angel was just buried in the ruthless soil now.

     Li Dan was my classmate of elementary school. Among a group of rural children with runny nose and dirty hands, Li Dan was so conspicuous and really a Triton of the minnows. Her two braids were always with red bowknot, watching far way, they were just like two jumping flames. Li Dan always smiled, pupils were just like ink spar in water, black and shiny. Her hair was as black as ebony and face as white as snow, which made so evident contrast and impression on people. Though I was only a 8-year-old boy then, I thought she was really pretty and never saw a second girl in my village prettier. She usually wore a red coat and black trousers and was always clean, even on her white shoes couldn’t be discovered a tiny spot.

    She was also very smart and always the first on all four subjects. Li Dan was the most favorite student of all four teachers. At the same time, she liked to work and was always willing to clean the floor of classroom and public toilet, even though she loved cleanliness so much. After school, Li Dan was also a great helper to her granny. Her granny loved her so much that she always spent all her money on Li Dan instead of her little brother. In the countryside, boy was always superior than girl, but her granny loved her more.

    Once, I was on the road to school and met Li Dan, she was eating cookies. I was so greedy and stared at her cookies without consciousness of my gaffe. Though cookie is one of several kinds of food I hate most now, it was a rare delicious food then. Li Dan saw this and gave her cookies with the packing to me, but I was proud, pretended not to like it and refused it stubbornly. She was a very smart girl and knew what I thought. Suddenly she tucked her cookies to my schoolbag and run away.

    I was happy all that day. I dared not to eat at school because my classmates would ask me to share with them. I could share common food with them, but wasn’t high-minded enough to share cookies. After school, I found a mow by the river side with no one around and then started to enjoy my feast. Only several cookies, I spent hours eating them. It was so delicious that I wasn’t willing to devour them ravenously. I just preferred to nibble them until the sun went down hill. Then I went home and felt happier than ever.

    Maybe God made her so perfect and hence was greedy to take her back. Several months later, she suddenly died of meningitis. So unexpectedly, I couldn’t recover myself for a week and didn’t know why was her. Her granny cried her eyes out and felt her world was lost. She became delirious and died after suffering for a few years. But Li Dan’s parents weren’t so sad because they had son and Li Dan was only a daughter.

   Suddenly I heard my uncle calling me and found myself sitting under poplars without knowing when. Then I stood up and had to leave…

   Yesterday, I contacted with one of my classmates Yuan in junior high school. She is a L.D. of Peking University and now working as an advanced translator for international conference. Yuan’s boyfriend is a doctor of Stanford University and earns more than one million dollars a year. I just thought if Li Dan was alive, she would even done better than Yuan for sure.

    Alas, the God is jealous of Li Dan’s beauty and talent. Foolish as I am, the only thing I can do now is writing something in memory of her so that I won’t forget her completely.