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In 1987, after a breakup, she came to work at the Chongqing Photo Archives.
It's a very boring job, working from 9 to 5 every day, facing more and more old photos that are sealed in dust. Sometimes, proper storage means proper forgetting, and history will become history forever and will never see the light of day again.
She felt that she was just like these old photos. The brightest time had passed, and the rest of her life would be covered in dust in a corner that no one remembered.
Until one day in 1988, a handsome young man suddenly found her.
The young man came from a small island across the mainland, and recently many people like him have come from the other side of the sea.
He was holding half a photo in his hand, yes, only half a photo.
"This is an old photo of my family. Twenty years ago, my grandfather burned half of it for some reason. He has always regretted it. Now he is old, and his only wish before he dies is to find the complete version of this photo. I have searched many places but couldn't find it. I thought if you don't have it here, then it is probably really gone."
She took the photo and looked at it carefully. Most of the photo was burned. It should be a group photo. In the rapeseed field, a girl turned her head with a sweet smile on her face. Her hand was held by another hand, but the person holding her hand was burned.
On the back of the photo, there is a line of words written vertically, which is well preserved: Photographed in Leshan by Jiang Huanshan in the autumn of 1945.
She agreed to help look for it, but after a whole week of searching she found nothing.
Until she went to visit her adoptive father.
She was adopted. Her adoptive father was already 60 years old when he adopted her. He was a lonely old soldier who had participated in many wars. She had an average relationship with her adoptive father. After she left home as an adult, she visited him once a week. The two of them had little to say to each other and were as distant as strangers.
When she walked into the courtyard where her adoptive father lived alone, she heard the familiar lyrics : "You do your makeup and I mix your rouge and powder, you burn incense and I pray to the sky, you paint and I grind vermilion, you play the flute and I pluck the bow." Her adoptive father had a quirk. For decades, he had watched an old movie repeatedly - a restored version of the 1935 opera film "The Peony Pavilion". She had listened to it for more than ten years since she was a child and could almost recite every line.
She parked her bike and walked into the house, said a simple hello and went into the kitchen to cook.
When she brought out the dishes, she saw her adoptive father looking at the half photo of her placed on the coffee table with a magnifying glass.
After a while, the old soldier smiled and said, "I didn't expect to see you again after fifty years. Mr. Jiang, Miss Third, long time no see."
