Part 189
If you look closely enough, you’ll find that on December 31, 8th year, that moment of looking up to watch the snowflakes was also carefully taken out from my memory in the 1st year and placed into the extra story “Bluewater” of “Hello, Old Times”.
In the 2nd year, it appeared before you once again in a brand new form.
I never knew a book could change my life like this, but at the same time, it all felt so natural. My little Marianne had already been waiting for me for many years. During those years, I was once blinded by the halo of others, foolishly trying to become an elite woman striding in ten-centimeter heels, carrying a laptop, in Frankfurt today and the New York Stock Exchange tomorrow, only to realize I was never cut out for that; I also once cried my heart out in anger at the ugliness and blatant unfairness of the adult world, wishing my own father was Li Gang... I’ve done many ridiculous things, and the detours I’ve taken have twisted into circle after circle.
No matter which way I went, Marianne was always waiting for me at the end of the road.
The process is more important than the result—there may be countless people in the world who would object to this, athletes, college entrance examinees, negotiators, and attending physicians racing against death—yet as an author, my love for this sentence is beyond your imagination.
Making mistakes, taking wrong turns, loving the wrong person... “wrong” simply doesn’t exist for me.
For a storyteller, the process of life is the result.
I used to be such a rule-abiding person, always leaving myself a way out in everything I did, which is why I studied business management even though I didn’t like it, because it was easier to find a job, and why I didn’t go all in to do what I loved in my youth, because it “wasn’t secure.”
That’s how I became a person who was “right, but so dull.”
But to Marianne, this is what’s “wrong, to an absurd degree.”
Last time the book was reprinted, I wrote an afterword, which could be said to be a gift to all friends who have ever suffered from delusions.
But this time, please allow me to selfishly dedicate this scattered afterword to myself.
I know that as a novelist, I’m not particularly gifted, nor have I worked hard enough. But I know I’ve already taken the first step.
Because of “Hello, Old Times”, I had the chance to become a storyteller again. I live passionately, get to know people, listen to stories. I’ve never felt so free and loved myself so much, because I’m doing something that makes me happy.
I stood once again on that fifth-grade classroom podium.
Of course, my ambitions are not just this little bit.
But I believe the world is so big, no matter how big my ambitions are, it can surely hold them all.
August Chang'an Press 2nd year, July
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2015 Edition Afterword Zoe, thank you
Fastest updates of the latest chapters of Hello, Old Times!
You are the first stroke of luck in my life; my real life began because of you.
In the summer of the 9th year, I typed the three characters “Zoe Young” on my computer, and in December of the 9th year, she appeared in print, and was also imprinted in many people’s hearts. In the blink of an eye, this is already the sixth anniversary edition, and also the third afterword I’ve written for “Hello, Old Times”.
In these five or six years, I’ve published a few more books. The time I started writing “Secret Crush: Southern Blossoms” and “The Best of Us” was not much different from “Hello, Old Times”, but because they were published later, I had more energy and opportunities to revise them over and over. To be fair, as my first work serialized online, “Hello, Old Times” has quite a few debatable points in its writing, and still carries some bad writing habits of a beginner. As I’ve improved, looking back, I can’t help but feel embarrassed by the immaturity of my past words.
For this reprint, I reread the entire text and fixed some minor grammatical errors. If “Hello, Old Times” were my work now, I’m afraid the way I organize the plot, control the pacing, and the writing style... would all be very different. But I held back and didn’t make bigger changes, because I know that such a story, though perhaps immature, perhaps rough, the 5th edition afterword is still full of the innocence and passion of that time and place. Back then, as a senior in college, I had an overwhelming urge to express myself to the world. That urge to express and vitality, which everyone’s experience and life will gradually wear down, is fully preserved in this book, every sharp edge shining.
I want to keep it.
My attitude toward writing, from casually writing as an amateur to today’s caution and reverence, has also taken a long time. I will keep working hard, using diligence and sincerity to repay the happiness that writing and life itself have given me, but no matter how much I improve in the future, no matter how mature and complete my works become, “Hello, Old Times” will always be the original witness.
In the afterword of the 2nd year, I once wrote that I never thought a book could change my life like this.
At the end of the 5th year, I want to tell Zoe Young: my life is still changing for the better. “What you gain is luck, what you lose is life.” You are the first stroke of luck in my life; my real life began because of you.
Thank you, for letting me fly free. August Chang'an Press 5th year, September
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