That afternoon of Reset 4

  The train rumbled on, the scenery outside flashing by in a blur. Moscow, Beijing, Berlin, Hong Kong, New York, Baghdad - countless scenes appeared, floated and disappeared into obscurity. Then the train entered a long tunnel through the mountains. Ahead, there seemed to be a glimmer of light, but no matter how far the train went, it remained just out of reach. The train had been running for a long time in the tunnel when a voice began to sound, at first very weak, then growing louder and louder, accompanied by countless echoes:

  My name is Lin Mo, My name is Lin Mo, My name is Lin Mo, My name is Lin Mo, My name is Lin Mo, My name is Lin Mo...

  Bang, there was a sound of something hitting. The person on the bed shook his head. Bang bang bang, the sound grew louder. Then came the sound of keys unlocking, doors opening, and footsteps. The person on the bed shook his head vigorously, as if there was a dazzling white light in front of him. Out of the tunnel? Why is the sky so bright, like there are nine suns?

  There was a hand on her forehead, and she muttered to herself, "No fever?" The next moment, she curled up her fingers and used her knuckles to knock hard on her son's forehead, saying loudly, "Get up, the sun has set."

  Jiang Zhihan opened his eyes and stared blankly at the woman standing in front of the bed, murmuring "I'm called..."

  Lishi didn't hear clearly, leaned in closer and asked "What did you say?"

  "My name is..."

  Li Rongrong sighed and said, "You've slept stupid. Your name is Jiang Zhihan, your mother's name is Li Rongrong, and your father's name is Jiang Yongwen. Any questions?"

  Jiang Zihan said in a low voice: "It's not called Jiang Zihan."

  Li Rongrong's great hatred, couldn't help but slap his forehead again, "Pretending to be stupid is useless. If you don't call me Jiang Zhihan, I'm still your mother." Walking to the door, she turned back and instructed: "Also, starting from tomorrow, when I get up, you have to get up for me too. The first day of summer vacation, letting you sleep in late, but you slept for a whole day, waking up without recognizing your mom." She said as she walked out of Jiang Zhihan's room and went to the kitchen to prepare dinner, opening the refrigerator and starting to mutter again, "Lunch was prepared but not eaten, saving food is not like this, stupid child."

  Dazed Jiang Zhihan was still lying in bed, with a bewildered expression. What was it called again? What was it called again? Not Jiang Zhihan, not Li Rongrong, what was it called again?

  At dinner time, Jiang Zhihan still looked dazed. He seemed to have had a very long dream, a continuous eight or ten years of dreams, but the content was all forgotten. It seemed that he had caught something, but couldn't say it. Finally, it was in the tunnel, he remembered very clearly, but what was that name? He racked his brains but couldn't think of it again. He could even remember the texture of that voice, first soft and then with a hint of sadness. I called... what was it?

  Incidentally, it seems that one's normal memory has also become somewhat fragmented. It hasn't been lost, just fragmented, and sometimes it feels like I'm watching myself from outside my body.

  "Mom, I had a very long dream, it seemed endless. It felt like many years, but now I can't remember anything."

  Li Ruo Ruo gave her son a white look, "You slept more than 16 or 17 hours, afraid of having a long dream?"

  "Mom, it's not like that. I just feel like I've been to many places and seen a lot of things I've never seen before. Yeah, it feels like Liu Laolao entering the Grand View Garden." Jiang Zihan said.

  After a while, Jiang Zhihan sighed and said, "Mom, our house looks really old."

  "What's wrong, a child doesn't dislike his mother for being ugly, and a dog doesn't dislike its home for being poor. If you think our house is old, then study hard and earn a lot of money to help me buy a new one in the future." Li Ruoruo educates her son.

  "Mom, you look so young."

  Li Ruo couldn't help but touch her son's forehead again: "You don't have a fever, are you sleepwalking?"

  "Mom, you really look very young." Jiang Zhihan said seriously.

  "Son, you look really strange." After saying that, Li Ruoruo couldn't help but laugh too.

  After the summer vacation, Jiang Zhi will be in high school. Most people think that Jiang Zhi is a quiet and introverted child who doesn't like to show off. But Rong Rong, his mother, knows her son well - although he may not be the top student in his class, she thinks he's very smart and is not shy at all when he's with family or close friends; on the contrary, he's always polite and sometimes even quite humorous.

  Li Rongrong is a high-spirited person who was an excellent student when she was in school. Unfortunately, the Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside movement ruined her opportunity to attend university. She replaced her father at the factory very early on. Over the decades, although she worked hard to move from being a frontline worker in the workshop to becoming a clerk in the office, she had no background or education, so she knew that her career would basically go no further than earning a living to support her family. Like many of her peers, she also placed more hope on the next generation. Fortunately, she was easy-going and not a strict mother. Jiang Zhihan's grades were average in elementary school, mediocre in middle school, but he scored well in high school, especially in key subjects. Every time there was an important exam, such as the entrance exams for middle school or high school, Jiang Zhihan would perform above his usual level. Li Rongrong was very pleased with this and many of her friends, half-jokingly and half-seriously, said that her son was smart and not a bookworm, so his grades got better and better as he progressed in school, and he performed even better on important exams, so it was no problem for him to get into a key university, and she would be set for life. Although others might not have been sincere, Li Rongrong listened with her heart and deeply believed this.

  "Mom, don't wait for Dad to come back and eat together?" Jiang Zhihan asked.

  "Are you still sleepy? Your dad said yesterday that he would work overtime today and won't be back until 8:30, so we ate first. I've already left some food for him."

  Jiang Zhihan's father worked in a distant suburb, spending an hour and a half on the bus each way. At that time, in the inland city of Zhongzhou, it was extremely difficult to change jobs. The vast majority of enterprises were state-owned, and while they offered job security, changing to a different one was even more difficult. Jiang Yongwen had a university diploma, which he obtained through self-study while working. He is now considered a technical backbone in the factory, but being introverted by nature, he is not good at competing with others, so his chances of promotion are slim. Almost everyone who knows him says that Jiang Zhihan looks and acts more like his father, but Li Ruo does not think so. She has always felt that Jiang Zhihan is more like her in some ways, and she also hopes that her son can be more outgoing and better at interpersonal relationships, just like herself.

  After dinner, it was not yet half past six. In the summer of Zhongzhou, the sunset is around eight o'clock. So Jiang Zihan and her mother said hello and went out for a walk. Li Ruoruo said it's good too, having slept at home all day, they should go out to breathe some fresh air.

  Actually, Jiang Zhihan just wanted to find an opportunity to sort out his thoughts, including those fragmented memories. It's not that his memory disappeared, it's just that some connecting threads seemed to have temporarily broken off. For example, if his mother didn't mention his father working overtime, he wouldn't think of it himself. But as soon as she mentioned it, Jiang Zhihan immediately had the impression that this was indeed something that happened.

  The factory where her mother worked was a large state-owned printing factory, which was established when the country was building its second line of defense and had a history of about 40 years. The factory area is only four or five minutes' walk from Jiang Zhihan's residential area. Most of the residents in this living area were workers of this factory and their families. In that era, commodity houses were extremely rare in Zhongzhou, and the vast majority of people lived in allocated houses or single dormitories provided by enterprises.

  Jiang Zihan walked slowly around the living quarters and factory area, looking curiously at these buildings and their surroundings, as if seeing them for the first time or needing some degree of reminiscence to evoke old memories. The residential building where Jiang Zihan lived had a history of over 10 years, but due to lack of maintenance and severe pollution in this industrial city, the exterior had become mottled and lost its original color. The factory name above the main gate was made of mosaic tiles, which had also fallen off one or two pieces due to corrosion, giving a sense of decline. In this summer in Zhongzhou, air conditioning was still a rare commodity. For ordinary workers, probably only one or two out of ten families had it. So in the alleys, courtyards, and open spaces in front of the buildings, people sat everywhere eating dinner and cooling off after dinner, as well as those who ate outside.

  All the way, there were people greeting them. Li Ruoruo had a good relationship with the people in the factory, although she had no power or money, but she was a kind-hearted person. Whoever had some small conflicts or difficulties, she would actively mediate or help. No matter what the outcome was, everyone would have to acknowledge her kindness. As a result, Jiang Zhihan was also quite popular in the residential area. After all, Jiang Zhihan attended a key high school and had good grades, with an honest and down-to-earth image outside. In the eyes of adults, this was considered a good child. All the way, Jiang Zhihan was busy greeting the aunties, occasionally adding an uncle or two. In Zhongzhou, even relatives by blood, such as a father's sister, could be called "auntie". Generally, older relatives, such as parents' female colleagues, would have to add their surname before "auntie", like "Wang Auntie" or "Gu Auntie". Jiang Zhihan's brain was like a mess, and she couldn't remember their surnames, so she just smiled and greeted all the aunties along the way, which made her seem even more affectionate. Behind them, a group of old ladies were discussing, "This child, Zhihan, has a really sweet mouth today."

  This was the state-run factory district that had just started in the 1990s, with a bit of warmth and a bit of noise, many trivial squabbles, and more rumors and gossip.

  Throwing the living area behind, Jiang Zhihan walked silently outside the factory wall. The entire factory area from the foot of the mountain to the waist of the mountain, like the whole city, was built on the mountain. Outside the wall was a 388-step staircase. Jiang Zhihan climbed up step by step, and the entire factory area and living area were shrouded in a gloomy atmosphere, giving him a sense of oppression. Even the trees planted for greening along the road were thin and short due to poor air quality and lack of maintenance.

  Although the dream has become blurred, as he climbed up step by step, Jiang Zhihan felt that his mood was slowly settling down and becoming clear. It seemed that some new things and elements had been injected into his body, very vague, but could be felt. Was it confidence? Was it ambition? Or something else, he couldn't tell.

  But suddenly, a scene appeared in my mind, countless fish were driven by the rapids to swim forward, but they didn't know where the road was or what was waiting for them ahead. And one fish jumped high, as if it saw the tributary ahead, the dam ahead, and the danger ahead. Although it was an instant thing and soon forgotten, that fish seemed to have gained confidence, I can be different from others, I can stand higher and see farther, I can control my own destiny.

  Jiang Zihan clenched his fists and muttered to himself: "I can do it".

  "What can you do?" A crisp voice sounded in her ear.

  Jiang Zihan looked up and, despite a one-second pause, still remembered that the girl with slightly dark skin, bright eyes, two good-looking dimples when smiling, and two braids was their classmate Wu Tao.

  "It's you, Little Peach Red." Jiang Zhihan blurted out. The boys in the class gave Wu Tao this nickname because her name had the character "peach" and she super loved wearing red clothes.

  Wu Tao vaguely knew her nickname, but no boy had ever called her that to her face. She blushed and said, "You guys call me that behind my back, how boring."

  Jiang Zhihan was taken aback, realizing his slow reaction today, but subconsciously he added a sentence: "No malice, it's just that you look really good in red clothes."

  In ten years, junior high school students may be able to say "I love you" fluently, but at this point in time, in a closed and mediocre city in the mainland, complimenting a girl on her beauty in front of everyone requires considerable courage.

  "I didn't know you were so eloquent." Wu Tao's face turned even redder. The young girl had never been formally praised like this by a man of the same age before. She was a bit flustered, and subconsciously replied with a sentence before running away, but deep down she felt a little happy - did I really look good in red?

  Jiang stood there for a while, dazed and confused, before realizing that he had given his first face-to-face compliment to a female classmate of the same age to Xiao Taohong. This was not his usual style. He smiled wryly, I'm changing, aren't I? Maybe I can become better... maybe... maybe I can change all this - he gazed at the gray and gloomy factory buildings and residential area. Maybe I can be that fish that flies high.