A little girl with two pigtails sat amidst a pile of gifts, wearing a pale yellow dress. She was clumsily yet earnestly unwrapping a package.
“Mom!” she called out, lifting her head and raising an Iron Man gauntlet. “Look at the birthday gift Uncle Cai gave me!”
Lin Qile stood by the wardrobe, initially sorting through her daughter’s clothes for summer camp. She accidentally found a thick stack of wedding photos from five years ago in a hidden compartment of the drawer.
She took out the photos and looked through them one by one, observing the smiling faces of each guest raising their glasses. Uncle Yu, drunk at the wedding banquet, had unbuttoned his suit completely. He, along with her father, Uncle Cai, and Driver Shao, were embracing each other and crying, though the reason was unclear.
Lin Qile, outside the photo, lowered her head and gently touched the faces of the elders. Suddenly, she felt a lump in her throat.
“Mom!” The little girl called from behind.
Lin Qile snapped back to reality. She put down the photos and saw the bright red, glowing Iron Man gauntlet. She smiled, “Which uncle or auntie gave you this?”
“Uncle Cai,” the little girl hugged the gauntlet like a stuffed toy, swaying from side to side. “I love Uncle Cai the most!”
Lin Qile opened the bedside drawer and locked the photos inside. She resumed packing her daughter’s clothes, but realized there were too many to fit in the small backpack.
“The backpack’s too small. Can we bring fewer items?” she negotiated with her daughter.
The little girl pouted and whined, “No…”
She had been looking forward to this summer camp for a long time, especially since summer meant wearing her favorite dresses. She wanted to bring them all.
Lin Qile rarely disappointed her daughter over minor issues. She opened the closet door, searching for a bag that could hold more clothes while still being manageable for her daughter to carry.
“I’ll pack all the clothes you want to wear. When you’re at the camp, don’t wander off and listen to your teachers, okay?” she said.
The little girl immediately hugged Lin Qile’s legs and nodded obediently.
When they first bought the house after getting married, Lin Qile hadn’t expected to move so soon. Like in her childhood, moving meant losing track of many things while unexpectedly finding “new” items they didn’t remember buying. Lin Qile crouched inside the wardrobe, pulling out accumulated bags. She remembered having a light blue backpack bought in Hong Kong.
However, the first bag she pulled out was her husband Jiang Qiaoxi’s work laptop bag. The next one was also his, identical in color and pattern, seemingly unused.
Lin Qile furrowed her brow.
“Why did I buy him so many…” she muttered.
She felt another bag at the bottom of the wardrobe and grabbed its straps, thinking she had finally found what she was looking for.
A black, square leather backpack appeared before her eyes.
Lin Qile paused.
She ran her fingers over the straps, feeling their roughness and severe wear. Some threads at the connection points had broken, making it hard to imagine how many heavy books this backpack had carried and for how long.
“Mom,” the little girl noticed Lin Qile staring at the old, black backpack. “Whose backpack is this?”
Lin Qile turned to look at her, stroking her fair little face that resembled her father’s.
“This is your dad’s backpack,” Lin Qile said.
The little girl blinked her big eyes in surprise. “Is Dad going to summer camp too?”
“No, he’s not going. He’ll be taking you there,” Lin Qile replied.
“Then why does Dad need a small backpack?” The little girl clutched her skirt.
“Everyone was young once,” Lin Qile explained. “This is the backpack your dad used when he was little.” She opened the old black backpack and added, “Your dad’s little secrets used to be hidden in this bag.”
The little girl asked, “What kind of little secrets?”
Lin Qile smiled. “An old… an old plane ticket to America…” She reached into the inner pocket of the backpack, about ten centimeters square.
Logically, after so many years, the bag should have been empty.
The little girl watched as the smile faded from her mother’s face.
A thin red string fell from Lin Qile’s hand, with a translucent cherry amber pendant dangling from it.
It was a Friday, and the City God Temple was bustling with people. Early in the morning, the people of Qunshan had gone to the temple fair. Lin Qile stood on her tiptoes, peering into each shop. Jiang Qiaoxi was about to leave, and she wanted to buy him some souvenirs so he wouldn’t forget them.
“Lin Qile,” Yu Qiao asked from behind, “where’s your amber?”
“Mom, what’s this?” the little girl asked.
Lin Qile frowned, looking at the amber pendant in disbelief. She examined it repeatedly, realizing it truly was the amber she had worn as a child.
How could it be here, in Jiang Qiaoxi’s old backpack?
Lin Qile turned to look at her daughter’s face.
She resembled her father, except for her big eyes which were like Lin Qile’s – seemingly bright yet a bit silly.
Lin Qile untied the thin red string and carefully wrapped it around her daughter’s neck, fastening it securely. The small red amber pendant hung on her daughter’s chest.
“What is this?” her daughter asked curiously.
“It’s cherry amber,” Lin Qile replied.
“What’s amber?” her daughter inquired.
Lin Qile explained, “It’s something that doesn’t change for thousands or tens of thousands of years.”
The little girl was delighted. She put on the small backpack her mother gave her, donned a little yellow hat, and ran out of the house cheering, bypassing the cabinet with the red suspension bridge model.
Lin Qile followed behind, stopping at the doorway to look outside.
Jiang Qiaoxi had taken the day off. He had rolled up his shirt sleeves after washing the family car. Their daughter ran towards him with outstretched arms, and he bent down, smiling as he picked her up.
Jiang Qiaoxi looked up first, seeing his wife standing by the door. He then turned his head to listen as their daughter proudly showed him, “Dad, look at the cherry amber Mom gave me!”
…
He sat in the back seat of the car, occasionally turning to look behind. For a few seconds, he wondered if Lin Qile would appear – he was leaving just like that, never to return to Qunshan. She would surely cry.
There was no one else in the car, only Jiang Zheng’s driver in the front. Qunshan was a poor place with potholed roads, full of tricycles and bicycles. It was market day, and people were everywhere. The car was stuck in traffic, unable to move.
The driver caught a glimpse of the rearview mirror inside the car.
“Qiaoxi?” he asked, turning back.
Jiang Qiaoxi was wiping tears from his eyes with his arm.
The driver was surprised: in all the years he had driven the young master of the Jiang family to and from school, this was the first time he had seen him cry.
“Uncle,” Jiang Qiaoxi said, holding back tears, “can we go back to the Qunshan construction site dormitory?”
The driver recalled that Jiang Qiaoxi had been very reluctant to leave that morning. He asked, “Do you want to… say goodbye to your little friends?”
It was difficult to turn the car around in the middle of the road. The driver had just backed into a space when he heard Jiang Qiaoxi say from the back seat, “Wait, open the door!”
The driver didn’t know what was happening. Jiang Qiaoxi frantically tapped in the back, suddenly unlocked the door, pushed it open, and ran out.
The City God Temple was packed with people, and children were lost in the crowd. It was impossible to find anyone, let alone hear a single word clearly. Jiang Qiaoxi, carrying his backpack, pushed and shoved his way through the crowd, being jostled about. He looked everywhere, searching frantically, but couldn’t see any sign of Lin Qile, Yu Qiao, or Du Shang.
He thought he had seen them just now – he had seen the backs of the four of them disappearing into the crowd entering the City God Temple.
Had he been mistaken?
As the temple fair was about to end, Jiang Zheng’s driver, pale with fright, found Jiang Qiaoxi behind a button shop that was preparing to close. Jiang Qiaoxi was wearing his backpack, clutching a red amber he had picked up somewhere, covered in dust from being stepped on.
“I want to go back to the Qunshan construction site…” Jiang Qiaoxi said, looking up at the driver.
The driver originally had other plans, but he had nearly lost the boss’s son. After such a mishap, he could only agree to Qiaoxi’s request. He drove the car back, turning on the radio inside. It was July 13, 2001, and in a few hours, the result of Beijing’s bid for the 2008 Olympics would be announced.
2008 seemed so far away.
The driver listened to the news and noticed Jiang Qiaoxi sitting in the back, staring out the window, lost in thought.
The security guard at the Qunshan construction site dormitory area, wearing a military green uniform, saw their car from afar. As the large iron gate opened, the guard said in surprise, “Why are you back?”
It was nearly evening, and some workers were already off duty, riding bicycles past their car, ringing their bells loudly.
The club was lit up, with employees’ families practicing choral singing. Grandparents were leading their grandchildren to play by the fountain. Du Shang, wearing a tank top and slippers, stood at the door of their single dormitory in the eleventh row, telling his mother inside, “Cherry is crying, I’m trying to cheer her up with a comedy sketch!”
The construction site’s small shop was also open. Qin Yeyun, with plastic curlers in her hair, wore a dress and slippers. With slumped shoulders and a gloomy expression, she held meal tickets as she went to the cafeteria to get dinner for herself and her daughter.
The driver drove the car past the workers’ club, past the staff cafeteria exuding the aroma of food, past rows of safety production slogans, and finally stopped at the head of the twenty-fourth row of dormitories.
Jiang Qiaoxi opened the car door and got out.
The Qunshan construction site was on summer vacation, and children from every family were playing. Yu Qiao was at home flipping through an English book, watching the American film “Air Force One” on CCTV-6. Cai Fangyuan was at home enjoying the air conditioning, lying on a cooling mat, eating chips and reading his favorite comics.
Lin Qile, however, wasn’t playing. She sat alone on the steps at her front door.
She seemed very sad, burying her face in her arms and occasionally wiping tears with the back of her hand.
Jiang Qiaoxi stood at the entrance of the road.
Suddenly, he didn’t want to return the amber to her. Jiang Qiaoxi looked down at the object in his hand, knowing he was being selfish – utterly selfish.
He was about to leave, and Lin Yingtao still had Qunshan, while he had nothing.
He might never see her again.
He would go to America in the future, he wanted to fly far away, as far from all this as possible…
“Cherry!” Jiang Qiaoxi suddenly called out from a distance.
She was still sitting on the steps, wiping her tears.
“Jiang Qiaoxi…” she saw him.
Little red shoes scraped against the brick-red path. Child ran towards child.
Cherry Amber
The End
※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※
Jiang Qiaoxi, holding his daughter, saw the cherry amber and recalled the past. Years ago, he had taken the amber and left, holding no hope for his future. Now in 2019, approaching thirty, he reflected on those days with his current perspective. He would have called out “Cherry” back then.
—
The main story of “Cherry Amber” ends here. I am deeply grateful to all readers of this story – past, present, and perhaps future. Cherry began as a small piece written to reminisce about childhood and youth, but by the end, it had gained so much more. I hope every child can grow up safely and happily, and I wish for everyone to find the courage to seize their happiness at crucial moments. Looking back, there must be some genuine things that have always been hidden in our hearts.
If you’ve read this far and feel moved by this story, it must be because those emotions already existing in your heart have resonated with it. Once again, thank you to all readers for reading to this point. Cherry will have several extra Our Generation – Chapters about herself and her friends, mostly casual writings. After that, I will begin writing the next novel, “Nichang Ye Ben,” which will be about Pilot Yu Qiao’s story. It’s already listed in the column, but it requires a lot of research, so the preparation time might be quite long. Interested readers are welcome to bookmark it in advance in the column. News about the publication of Cherry and more updates will be posted on my Weibo. So, friends, until we meet again.