I'm from kaifeng

Kaifeng has a history of more than 4,000 years. It once served as both the capital and the provincial capital. Its story is hard to tell in a moment. I was born in a village more than thirty kilometers away from it, so to speak, I grew up at its feet, and I really knew it when I was twenty-four years old.

That spring my father fell ill and was hospitalized. I worked in a small town far away from home, and when I heard the news, I came back in a dusty hurry. I spent the whole day with my father in the hospital. He worried about my missing work and urged me to leave. When I returned to the city, I decided to quit my job and find a job in Kaifeng, close to home, so that I could take care of my aging parents.

Soon, I got my wish and returned to kaifeng. Kaifeng is still a strange city to me because I seldom went there since I was a child. I don't know many street names, and I don't know the route to the scenic spots like Dragon Pavilion, Sangguksa Temple, Iron Tower Park, etc. Apart from a few colleagues, the rest of the city was a stranger. On weekends, I spent most of my time in the village with my parents; Occasionally I wander in the streets of Kaifeng. I gradually understand its simplicity, understand its ancient, but also experience its comfort.

Once a friend passed by Kaifeng and wanted to stay for half a day. I wanted to take him to some scenic spots in the city. He said they were too crowded, and asked me to take him somewhere quiet and elegant. I took him to the old campus of Henan University. We looked at the iron tower from the lakeside of the campus, walked around the buildings of the Republic of China, and ate with many students in the dining hall. We sat on a stone mound under the shade of a tree and talked. He said he also wanted to die quietly in a small city, but he wanted to do a big career, small city can not accommodate his dream, so this time he is to Shanghai, hoping to fight out a piece of their own world. He advised me to join him in a metropolis like Shanghai while still young. I politely declined. In the small city of Kaifeng, EVERY day I walk along a fixed track like the pointer of a clock, quietly killing time.

Three years later, I had to leave Kaifeng due to a change of job. I was reluctant to part, parents advised me: "our legs are good, eat well and sleep well, you don't have to worry about us. You're young. It's good to see the world in the big city." I packed my bags and left Kaifeng, seldom going home to accompany my parents.

One winter my little nephew was born to the joy of our family, but within a month he was admitted to the emergency room of Kaifeng Children's Hospital with intestinal malformation. The doctor said the condition was serious and an operation was urgently needed, but it was risky. My mother and sister-in-law fell to the ground when they heard. My brother called me sobbing and said, "Brother, please come back. The baby will be operated on in an hour. The doctor says it's very unlikely." It was the first time I heard my brother crying, and I drove back to Kaifeng in panic.

Night had fallen, and the vast night flooded the land. I knew my brother was going through the worst time of his life. After nearly a decade of barren marriage to his sister-in-law, he had the baby through ivf, but bad luck seemed to break through his rare and belated happiness. When I arrived at the outskirts of Kaifeng in a hurry, my brother called me ecstatic and said, "The operation is successful, but there are still 72 hours of danger." I spent an uneasy 72 hours with my brother, and the doctor said the baby was doing well and recovering. We breathed a sigh of relief. That evening, I drove out of Kaifeng.

If kaifeng like human beings have memory, I in its long and complicated memory is only a short moment, but it gives me the memory, like a crystal bright pearl, let me forever stored in the mind.