It was a cold winter day and I went back to my village through the icy wind. There was a light snow and I just walked ahead slowly. What was I going to do? I didn’t know and also didn’t want to know either. 

    Walking alone the small river, I found it didn’t change too much. It was the small river brought me huge happiness to my childhood. I learnt to swim in this small river, it was a new river and hence got its name New River. 

    One day during a summer vacation, I was probably ten years old and played with several children in the river. The cool river water made us extremely happy, being happy wasn’t as difficult as now, was so easy those days. 

    Actually I couldn’t swim then. Suddenly I had a discovery, when I buried my head into the water, my body floated up automatically. When I kicked water with my legs, I even swam a little far. I was really happy about my amazing discovery and did that again. 

    This time I wasn’t lucky and lost my direction because I buried my head into water. Soon I was choked by the river water and fluttered myself up and down. My buddy Fei found that and tried to pull me to the river side, unfortunately he wasn’t a good swimmer either. I pulled him to the center of river and he could only help himself by swimming to the river side. 

    Suddenly there was a funeral scene in my brain and I thought I was going to be drowned. All past scenes were crowed in my brain. However, by fluttering fanatically, I was able to move to the river side. 

    Five years before that day, another buddy Boa was drowned in the New River. I was only five years then and couldn’t remember him clearly. My mother said Boat liked me so much that every time I went to his home to play, he treated me like his younger brother and fed me. 

    Also a hot day during summer vacation, Boa went boating with several kids. By accident, the boat was overturned. Everybody could swim except a small kid. Boa was the oldest and decided to save the kid. The kid was saved, but Boa was exhausted and drowned. 

    When his mother saw me last year, she thought of her own son Boa. She said Boa liked me so much and he could be as tall as I if he weren’t drowned. While talking, I found she was covered with tears. I thought of Xianglin’s wife and her son Amao. I couldn’t bear to see the heart-broken mother who lost her son. 

    After Premier Wen’s new country policy, the burden of farmer wasn’t as heavy as before. Boa’s father quarreled with his cousin over land. Boa’s father tried to beat his cousin with a carrying pole and the cousin caught it. So Boa’s father tried really hard to pull it and his cousin released, the carrying pole hence hit right on Boa’s father’s breast, then he fell to paddy field. When people got him out of paddy field, they found him dead. Boa’s mother lived alone in a small house and every time I avoided walking around her house because I couldn’t bear to see her sad face. 

    Soon I came to a deserted house. The host died twenty years ago, only two days after his son’s wedding. A wizard told the host to avoid his son’s wedding, or else he would get disaster. The host just snorted, “What a load of crape. I don’t believe that kind of nonsense.”

    After the weeding, the host played poker with his daughters and said complacently, “So? I’m totally fine. I want to beat that wizard for he scares me with no reason.” 

    He went to bed soon and let his son to replace his place. Soon his daughters heard he snored like thunder. They felt strange and went in to have a check and found the host wasn’t able to talk. He just died on the road to hospital. It was really a mystery and nobody could tell the reason. 

    The oldest daughter broke her left hand by old thresher. The old thresher broke a lot of hands before. She still liked playing poker and used a square container with rice to insert poker. Her husband was a musician to sing on wedding to support the family. Of course they were poor. Musician didn’t earned much like star earned today. 

    The youngest daughter insisted on getting married with a thief. She believed her love would change him. A leopard can’t change its spots. For the first few years, they lived merrily. When her husband became a little rich, he got a divorce and found a new wife. 

    Only the second daughter found an honest and poor man. Though they lived poorly for the first few years, now they lived happily. With diligence, it was so hard to become rich. Her husband was always grateful for she got married with him when he had nothing and never complained him. Only loved based on love can last longer. Love based on so-called background, money etc is fragile.