I Heard the Voice of the Boy We Once Were

W, L, and I are no longer boys, but we met when we were.

By chance, W and I found ourselves with almost the same stretch of time off, almost at the same moment. We called it "the summer vacation of our lives." I asked W whether this implied that autumn would come afterward. He said no. I did not think so either, because summer has always been my favorite season.

L had planned, half a year in advance, to travel with his girlfriend in August. Since W and I happened to be free, the four of us set out together for Xinjiang.

The journey covered 4,100 kilometers in total. It began on the night of the 1st, when we arrived in Urumqi, and ended on the night of the 10th, when we returned to Wuhan. Every day, we were on the move.

It was a strange and wondrous journey, filled with too much kindness, coincidence, and luck, along with a few regrets. We unanimously agreed, with no shortage of shameless grandiosity, to call it a legend. On those long roads, we talked about the world and ourselves. We are the people who know each other best.

The last time we traveled together for such a long stretch was five years ago, during the summer after we graduated from college. In Chengdu, we drank every night until two or three in the morning and woke up after noon. In the five years since, I have been to many places, for conferences or work trips, sometimes for nearly half a month at a time, but those were not travels. Hiking, mountaineering, and skiing were not entirely travels either.

We all envied who we were five years ago. Back then, our bodies were in excellent condition. Even after getting drunk, we could drink again the next night. No matter how packed the itinerary was, we never seemed to feel tired.

And tiredness, as it turned out, was one of the strongest impressions this journey left on us. We had to admit that after twenty-five, physical strength declines rather noticeably. Even though we keep up habits of fitness and exercise, it is still difficult to contend with time.

In many ways, we are still young. In our respective fields, we are still rookies. Perhaps we should not yet be talking about "getting older." In fact, we probably do not really feel that we have grown old. What we feel, rather, is that we have changed slightly from who we used to be. Sometimes these changes leave us with a sense of loss. But more often, I think, they show that we have become better people.

Whether hiking, mountaineering, or skiing, I had more or less been trying to detach myself from reality in the mountains. Standing at the crossroads of life near graduation, it was difficult not to fear the future. Fortunately, time kept pushing me forward. Stories that had ended had ended, and stories that were about to begin had not yet begun. I no longer needed to escape. Only then did travel truly become travel.

The present, and the future of the present, will both become the past; and the past, once, was also a future. Perhaps what truly matters is simply that something remains in time.

Rather than saying that we are the people who know each other best, perhaps it is more accurate to say that, at certain moments, we resemble one another more than we resemble ourselves. The beautiful things we once loved in ourselves, and later lost, may still exist in each other. Each time we meet, we become ourselves again.

What he said was:

May your heart be filled with courage.

Written in August 2025, in memory of a journey with my closest friends.

我与W和L早已不是少年，但我们在少年时代相识。机缘巧合之下，W和我几乎在同一时间获得了一段几乎同样长度的假期，我们将之称为“人生的暑假”。我问W这是否暗示此后将进入秋天，W说不是。我也不这么认为，因为我最喜欢夏天。L在半年前就计划好了8月和女友出游，恰逢W和我有时间，我们四人就一起踏上了新疆之旅。

旅途总共4100km，1号晚上到达乌鲁木齐开始，10号晚上回到武汉结束，每一天都在奔袭。这是一趟非常神奇的旅途，有太多善意、巧合、幸运，也有一些遗憾。我们一致同意大言不惭地称之为“传奇”。在漫长的路上，我们谈论天地与自己，我们是最熟悉彼此的人。

上一次如此长时间的旅行还是五年前大学毕业的暑假，我们在成都每天喝到两三点才睡，中午十二点之后才起。这五年间我去过很多地方，开会或出差，时间长的也快半个月，但不是旅行。去徒步，去登山，去滑雪，也不完全是旅行。

我们都很羡慕五年前的自己，那时的我们身体机能绝佳，喝醉了第二天晚上还能接着喝。不管多么满的行程安排，都不会感觉到累。而累，则是这趟旅程我们最大的感受之一。不得不承认25岁之后体力下降十分明显，虽然平时保持着健身和运动的习惯，却也难以和岁月抗衡。

从很多角度来说，我们都还算年轻人，在各自的行业里也都还是“新秀”，或许我们并不应该讨论“上年纪”这个问题。事实上我们大概也并不是真的觉得自己“上了年纪”，而是觉得现在的自己和原来的自己相比有了些许变化。有时候这些变化让我们怅然若失，但我想更多的时候，这些变化是说明我们成为了更好的人。

无论是徒步、登山，还是滑雪，我或多或少都是想在山里抽离现实。毕业之际站在人生的路口，未来很难不让人畏惧。好在时间推着我走，结束的故事结束了，开始的故事还没有开始。我不再需要逃避，旅行才真正是旅行。

现在与现在的未来都将变成过去，过去曾经也是未来。真正重要的或许只是要有东西留在时间里。与其说我们是最熟悉彼此的人，不如说有些时候我们比对方更像对方。彼此身上丢掉的自己喜欢的美好的事情，可能就在彼此身上存在。每次见面的时候，我们就成为自己。

他说的是：祝你心中充满勇气。

写于2025年8月，纪念我与挚友的旅行。