Time flows like wind and moonlight, stepping forward with an unchanging pace, neither hurried nor slow, through springs, summers, autumns, and winters, through days of cloud and sun. Looking back, the distant days resemble a swaying kaleidoscope, inadvertently shaking out unique, unrepeatable patterns; every reunion and separation, joy and sorrow, have become unique editions. Thus, I realize that youth is a one-way bus that cannot return and has no stops.
Morning bells and evening drums urge me to raise the sails for a distant voyage, yet my heart lingers like a leaf clinging to its old branch, hesitating in the wind of yesterday, reluctant to let go. I know I should not delay the journey, yet I cannot shake off the bonds of emotion, nor can I seal away everything I have ever had in the castle of memory. Day after day, as the sun sets and the moon rises, I stand in a clear river; that clear water is my life, possessed only once. Yet too often I stand still in the water, letting the upstream flow become downstream after passing me, letting the future flowing through my present become the past. Because I am too immersed in yesterday, I lose today and tomorrow, ending up with nothing.
I often imagine: when spring blossoms and autumn fruits become history, sitting in the memory of yesterday with a head full of snow, chewing on the stories hidden in every wrinkle on my face—what would that mindset be? It should be that the more one knows, the less one believes, yet I am still fooled time and again by the joke of "the boy who cried wolf"; it should be that having walked through winter, one favors spring, yet I still linger on the fairy tale of "Snow Child." The path walked seems to be a circle; after a long journey, one returns to the starting point. Thus, much of the time, I am doing the same thing: searching for a goal.
In the dim and dark depths, I pondered deeply and finally deciphered that the simplest withering and flourishing of grass is a profound mystery, a visual lesson in life: flowers bloom red only once, and grass turns green only once a year. Time passes like a stream; hazy past events have drifted away with the seasonal winds. Why seek and recall so bitterly? The train of youth carries countless passengers; no one can predict the encounters along the way, nor can anyone return to the point where they boarded. Since there is no other choice, Let me crush the past disappointments and successes on the steel tracks of time, then open the windows to bathe in fresh air and sunlight, welcoming a new journey. Because I now know: youth is a one-way bus that cannot return and has no stops.
