Chapter 343: The distant hometown buried deep in the heart, everyone has their own Uqbar "I believe there must be Uqbar, because that is my hometown." The truck was bathed in the afterglow of the setting sun, and the old man's smiling face was covered with the setting sun. The sun had gone down, and the old man must have missed his hometown very much. In him, one could feel the loneliness and solitude that did not belong to this world. Maybe he really is an alien from Uqbar. In the passenger seat, the boy was so tired after moving goods all day that he felt sleepy. So, when the old man kept talking, he accidentally said out loud, "Yes, yes, yes, there must be Uqbar. It's in your mind, old man." It was an unintentional remark, and when the childhood friend came to his senses he realized that he had said something stupid. Unfortunately, the old man seemed to be frozen by his words and even forgot about the steering wheel. By the time they came to their senses, a kind-hearted Tibetan Bodhisattva standing on the roadside had already met with disaster. It's true that you can get shot even when you're lying down. The memories of the day ended here. The tough captain and his childhood friend had finished their midnight snack, and his childhood friend was still going crazy under the influence of alcohol, shouting at the air. "Uncle, you can't keep dreaming about Uqbal. As human beings, we must face reality and live on!" He said this as if he was talking to the old man, but also as a warning to himself who dreamed of becoming an actor. He stubbornly wanted to change the old man, just like advising himself who once pursued his dream of becoming an actor. If he had not been so stubborn, perhaps many things would have become simpler and he would not have to suffer so much.

The fall from dreamism to realism is the inevitable situation for most people, but the old man is obviously not one of them. He has been searching for Uqbar alone for more than 20 years, and Uqbar has become his belief. It is a terrible thing to shatter a person's faith. After the drunken boy went crazy, he ignored the looks of people around him and asked the tough captain to help investigate the old man's identity. As long as the truth is revealed, as long as the truth is revealed, maybe the old man can return to a normal life. The macho captain looked at his childhood friend who had passed out from drunkenness, then raised his head to look at the sky full of stars. Could one of those thousands of twinkling planets be the old man’s hometown? Gradually, a breeze blew under the starry sky, and the night wind brought the sound of bagpipes from afar, making the night psychedelic and the starry sky hazy. The bagpipes brushed over the treetops, swept across the streets, and finally knocked on the door of an old man. Feng heard the old man say, "Could it be that there is no such place as Uqbar? I have been looking for it for the past 25 years, but I can't find Uqbar. Could it be that this place only exists in my mind?" The night wind felt the loneliness and pain of the old man. He was like a child who had just woken up from a sweet dream, feeling lost and helpless. So Feng thought, let's help this helpless old man, he looked like he was about to cry. The phone rang at the right moment, and Feng gently fiddled with the windmill on the table, which was Feng's favorite toy. When the receiver was picked up, I heard the creaking sound of a huge windmill turning. It was a huge windmill floating in the sky, and only the strongest wind in the sky could make it rotate. The old man was stunned by what he heard. That was the hometown he had always dreamed of! In that gentle Uqbar, there must be someone who misses him, so they called him, and his family is urging him to go back. He has been away from his hometown for more than 20 years, and his family must be very worried. In a trance, he seemed to see the city in the sky on the island in the middle of the lake again. It was dreamy and romantic everywhere, with white walls and red tiles, and alleys lined with all kinds of gorgeous flowers. That was his home! Although the sudden ringing of the phone was a bit suspicious, the old man's behavior was so empathetic that Zheng Lin couldn't help but fall into the dreamlike city in the sky. It would be nice if there really was Uqbar. Then, the scene turned to the captain of the macho team. The macho men were either working out or on their way to work out. One of them curled 120, and the other did a 180 bench press. Zheng Lin's eyes widened as he couldn't believe that this was human strength. He would believe that they were Gaia! The only shortcoming of the tough guys' team is probably that they are not good at technology. One of them said that he has believed that he is an Earthling since he was a child, and the other one is even more outrageous, saying that he is sometimes called a non-human and has nothing to do with Earthlings. In the end, the captain can only ask for help from the scientist Womeng. But this time it was different. Even I, a tech geek, was helpless. After all, they were just facing an old man, not a vicious criminal. But in the end, I Meng still figured out a way to find his birthplace to prove that the old man was from Earth. Captain Macho immediately drove to the old man's birthplace and found that it was an abandoned old house with dilapidated doors and windows, and all kinds of old furniture tilted around. Spiders had reproduced here for countless generations, and this place seemed to have become a paradise for small animals. The captain didn't have time to explore too much before he received a notification from my dream - the old man's current residence had a distorted magnetic field! Somehow, all the events seemed to be linked together.

Surprisingly, the tough captain met his childhood friend near the old man's residence. He said that the old man did not go to work today and did not ask for leave, and he was very worried. It is hard not to associate something bad with the sudden absence of an old man who has been working at his post for 25 years. They rushed into the old man's house and found that the doors were not locked, which made them feel even more ominous! When I entered the room, I saw the old man lying on his back, looking like a patient who had suddenly fallen ill. Seeing this, Zheng Lin almost thought that the so-called Uqbar was just an illusion and the old man was just sick. Fortunately, the old man was awakened by their torture soon and said that he had a dream. "I dreamed that Luke came to pick me up." “I’m going back to Uqbar.” The old man had a happy face. Even though there was a chattering voice next to him telling him that Uqbal was just a dream and asking him to wake up, the old man didn't care at all, because he had already heard the voice from Uqbal, which was the call from his hometown. The old man even picked up the microphone and asked them to listen to the sound of the wind in Uqbar. That was a wind that was completely different from the wind on Earth. It was a wind that belonged uniquely to Uqbar! However, to others, it was just a microphone without a signal line. Perhaps the magnetic field distortion was related to the so-called "Uqbar wind"? The tough captain carefully put the microphone close to his ear and was surprised to find that there was actually the sound of wind over there?! When the wind sounded, the small windmill next to the telephone whirred, and the red dot in the center of the windmill looked very much like the nose of the monster named Luke. No one knew whether the windmill imitated the monster's nose or its appearance. All we saw was that the windmill was spinning faster and faster, and the sound of the bagpipes in our ears was becoming clearer and clearer, occasionally mixed with the shouts of our childhood friend trying to persuade the old man to wake up. The old man ignored him and just kept calling Luke's name. "Rook." "Rook." "Rook!!" Each call, like a living coordinate, connects the earth with the mysterious Uqbar. Wow! ! ! The windows were shattered by an inexplicable force, and a monster actually appeared on the street. The monster called Luke looked exactly the same as the one the old man had seen before. Seeing Luke, the old man couldn't help but rush out. He wanted to go home! He was going home! After searching for twenty-five years, he finally found it! His destination, his Uqbar. Everyone on the street was frightened by the sudden appearance of the monster. Everyone ran away in panic, but the old man ran against the flow of people. Everyone was running away, but he ran towards his dream. No one wondered why the old man was approaching the monster. Everyone was busy with their own business. Only the tough captain who had chased after him noticed that something was wrong. The monster named Luke walked lightly and did not destroy the city. It just wandered around the streets as if it was looking for someone. And every step it took was like the sound of a drum being struck. If you close your eyes and listen carefully, you will find that it sounds like a slow-motion song. However, the monster's search for people was soon interrupted by Gaia's sudden transformation. But even the strong red giant could not stop Luke's progress. Luke did not attack. He just moved forward like a ruthless machine looking for people. Even the action of shaking off Gaia did not stir up much dust. If you say it is weak, he can shake Gaia off; if you say it is strong, Gaia looks fine. Perhaps this is the power of longing. Luke, who came to meet the old man's wish to go home, is so strong that he is unstoppable! When a person's desire to go home is strong enough, no wind or rain can be an obstacle, and he will give his all just to go home! Finally, the old man climbed up the tower and stood in front of Luke before Gaia used her skills. The "family" was reunited, and the whole sky echoed with the sound of a huge whistle. The setting sun disappeared into the clouds, dyeing them a dreamy pink, with only one or two spots dotted with orange, which was a signal to go home. In the days when there were no clocks, people relied on the sky to tell time, working at sunrise and resting at sunset. For a moment, the old man's previous mumblings automatically echoed in people's minds. [In Uqbar, there is no such thing as a clock. But at dusk, a loud whistle will sound, and then the adults will stop working, the children will stop playing games, and everyone will go home.] As the sound of the whistle hovered over the city, it seemed as if there was a big hand behind the thick clouds, which pushed away the heavy fog and showed the way home to the wanderers.

Uqbar Uqbar His hometown Under the crimson sky, the old man looked at the city in the sky in fascination. When another whistle sounded, Luke disappeared, along with the city in the sky, and the old man also disappeared. Perhaps, he really returned to Uqbar, the hometown he had been thinking about for twenty-five years and the only home in his heart. At the end of the story, Captain Macho and My Dream came to the old man's hometown again. The house was dilapidated and seemed to collapse at any time, but he still found something different inside - A wall calendar. Most of the younger children had never seen this thing and found it baffling. They just thought that the old man imagined the scene he saw when he was a child as Uqbar and they believed it for so many years. But older audiences are familiar with this thing. It has to be replaced every New Year's Day, and the replaced calendars are used to wrap book covers. They are strong and durable, better and more beautiful than newspapers. Zheng Lin still remembers that when he first went to school, it was still fashionable to use calendars to cover books, and everyone often compared their book covers to see whose book covers were prettier. But later, plastic book covers became popular, and calendars were gradually replaced by calendars on mobile phones. Time takes away a lot of things. As for whether the old man is an alien or not, does Uqbar really exist? None of these questions matter. Although the macho captain has a macho appearance, he seems to have become gentle at this moment. "He has a heart of a tiger but can smell the roses" is the best description of him. So when he walked out of the old house, he said to himself: "This man, he needs Uqbar." ".The distant hometown buried deep in my heart." The story ended with the confusion of my dream and the captain's deep sigh. Zheng Lin suddenly came back to his senses and felt his face was cold. He wiped it off casually and fell into deep thought again while listening to the ending song in his headphones. Uqbar. What kind of place is that? Zheng Lin recalled the old man's description of the city in the sky, but he didn't feel the old man's strong emotions. Instead, because he just remembered the book cover, he thought of the time when he went swimming in the village pond. He was beaten with a belt afterwards, but he couldn't help but go secretly. It was too hot in summer at that time. The fan at home had to be turned on for a break. A group of crazy boys went everywhere to find the pond to go down the ditch. Once he was almost drowned by the water at the gate. He still remembers everything that happened that day, but he also learned to swim because of it and never drowned again. He still hasn't dared to tell his family about that, otherwise he would have to be scolded for being late. Perhaps his Uqbar is the village of his childhood? It seems not, he just missed the carefree days back then, after all, the biggest worry back then was that he could never finish his homework, his parents were always too strict, not allowing this or that, but he insisted on trying, he had no idea how to write the word death, he only knew the pain of being hit by the belt. But the pain only lasted for a while, after the pain was over, the trouble-making gene started to stir again, as if he felt uncomfortable if he didn't get scolded for a day, and felt particularly wronged if he got scolded. The distant hometown buried deep in my heart So is the so-called hometown really just a hometown? Perhaps it is just a place where a tired soul can relax, just like the old man was born on Earth, but insisted that Uqbar was his hometown, and eventually he returned to his hometown. Maybe the old man once had a family, but they left early for various reasons, or maybe he is always alone. After all, in this era of economic downturn, there are many people who don't want to get married and find a burden. The only thing that is certain is that the old man has no sense of belonging here. He doesn't think he belongs to the earth from the bottom of his heart, even though he has worked here for 25 years. Or maybe the Bodhisattva that was hit before was also a hint. The old man may have a serious illness, and everything he experienced after waking up was just a dream. After thinking about it, Zheng Lin felt his heart getting heavier and heavier, as if he had turned into an old man, feeling sad about the passing of time. Perhaps in the future, he will find his own Uqbar. Uqbar exists in everyone’s heart, and it is the resting place for the weary souls in this world. (End of this chapter)