Lanzhou always leaves early in the morning;

Lanzhou is warm and drunk at night.

In Lanzhou, I met a few friends, listened to a few of their stories, and smoked a few Lanzhous together.

1

I went to Dunhuang from Hami. I chose to go from Hami because I was poisoned by the movie "No Man's Land". We were a chartered bus, running on the deserted 215 National Highway. There were no cars on the road at all, let alone one or two pedestrians. It was all filled with sand. The car drove very fast. If this was a sports car, I guess the driver could drive it to the sky.

People have to poop and pee while eating and sleeping. There is no service area in the desert. You drive for a while, stop for a while, and get off the car to deal with it yourself. Fortunately, the man opened the gate and released the water directly next to the car, which made the girls suffer. The vast desert is unprotected. A group of old men began to whistle in the direction of the far distance, which could be regarded as a consolation for the boring journey.

"You're a very serious guy. You don't look at other girls like girls, and you don't whistle either." Sister Sun told me and handed me a cigarette, a Black Lanzhou.

"How could a pure boy like me peek at and molest someone else's little girl?" I responded to Sister Sun's question and answer with a righteous look on my face. In fact, I wanted to watch it. Firstly, I can't whistle, and secondly, Sister Sun was standing next to me. I couldn't watch it even if I wanted to. It was a pity.

I met Sister Sun in the car. She had a stomachache, and I happened to have the habit of carrying medicine with me. When we go out, helping each other brings warmth. That’s how I met Miss Sun.

"Bah," Sister Sun laughed at me, "It must be me here. Are you embarrassed to look at me? I can't see that little bit of your guts?" Sure enough, ginger is still very spicy. Sister Sun saw it.

Heilanzhou is a bit bitter, and I kept coughing. Before we left, Sister Sun gave me a number and told me very domineeringly, "Just say it's from me, and this person will treat you well when you get to Lanzhou."

2

The man who came to pick me up at the station was a burly man with a face full of vicissitudes of life and decadence. He had long hair and was thin. He looked like a man from the fallen generation.

"Are you Xiao Liu?", Uncle Bai asked me. "Yeah," I said. "Get in the car, Viagra." He said and handed me a helmet. It made me look confused. The motorcycle he drove to pick me up was Horizon, which I had always loved for a long time. When the roar of the engine, which is a weapon used to bomb the streets, sounded, I couldn't help but shout, "Fuck."

Uncle Ma’s surname is Ma. I want to call him Brother Ma. He said there were too many people with this name, so just call him Lao Ma. Lao Ma took me to dinner.

The first meal I had was in Lanzhou, in a quite remote alley. The signboard was swaying in the wind and almost fell down. It felt a bit like a black shop of Longmen Inn. I didn't see the menu, and Lao Ma didn't order anything. The wine was served first, and Lao Ma handed me a cigarette.

The wine I drank was called Furukawa State. To be honest, the wine didn’t taste good at all and it choked my throat. Drink it straight to the head. Lao Ma wanted to help me light a cigarette, but I said I didn’t smoke. Lao Ma glanced at me and said, why did you come to Lanzhou if you don't smoke? What he handed me was Genlanzhou. I felt that I had said the wrong thing, so I took a big sip of Furukawa Shu, which made me choke and want to cry. Lao Ma said, wait for the food to arrive, drink slowly, and then help me light up the Lanzhou.

We were served without ordering. First there was a large basin of hand-caught mutton, a basin like a washbasin. The mutton is in large pieces, with bones and meat included. You can eat it directly with your hands without using chopsticks or gloves, or it is called nibbling. There was no fishy smell at all, the mutton was fat but not greasy, and it was cooked extremely well. The five-spice aniseed has already penetrated into it, so there is no need to dip it in any seasonings. Eat big chunks of meat and drink big gulps. Furukawa Prefecture was not choking at all, and went down without any hesitation.

Roast lamb was served next, and Lao Ma, who had had some wine, began to introduce the roast lamb. Lao Ma's family is in Jingyuan, Gansu Province. They raise sheep and know how to eat sheep. The sheep in Jingyuan eat salt-alkali grass, which is not fat but has solid meat, which is especially suitable for roasting whole sheep. Fruit wood charcoal grilling is used, and roasting sheep is a technical job. Roasted with secret seasonings, it's crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. It is not advisable to cook it over a slow fire, as it will burn easily over a high fire, so you have to keep turning it over to control the heat and penetrate the seasonings into the innermost layer, so that it tastes delicious. I have to say, this is the best roast lamb I have ever eaten.

I couldn’t eat the ones served at the back, such as lamb sausage rolls, dried skin, and black beans. Oh, it's so delicious.

Lao Ma asked me to drive. He was a little drunk and walked unsteadily. The key is that I can’t walk very well. When a man touches a loaded gun, a roaring engine, or a beautiful woman, his adrenaline hormones will secrete crazily. I quickly pulled his Horizon to 120, and kept pulling the accelerator down. Our wine suddenly woke up. Lao Ma and I stopped at the edge of the Yellow River. It was a bit cold in Lanzhou at night, so Lao Ma lit a cigarette.

I know that Lao Ma is also a person with stories.

3

Lao Ma sang folk songs. Folk songs had not become popular at that time. There was no "Miss Dong" and no "Nanshan Nan". Lanzhou, a city with the Yellow River running through it, is particularly suitable for the growth of folk songs.

In Lanzhou, I always go out in the early morning; in Lanzhou, I get drunk in the warm night.

I said, Lao Ma, I used to write poems and ballads, but I was tone-deaf and couldn’t sing.

Lao Ma said, you can pull me down, are you the only one who can write poems and ballads? Literary and artistic young people have a bad habit of saying that I am the best in the world and your bullshit makes no sense.

I showed Lao Ma a song I wrote called "Ancient Alley" and "The Girl We Chased for Him Together in Those Years". Lao Ma didn't say anything. He said that my writing was not bad and that it was a bit vain. Southerners are just pretentious. I asked Lao Ma to show me his, and Lao Ma replied with one word, "Get lost."

No guitar, no tambula. Lao Ma sang to me on the bank of the Yellow River. Lanzhou, always go out in the early morning; Lanzhou, warm drunkenness at night; Lanzhou, the endless flow of the Yellow River water flows eastward; Lanzhou, the end of the road is the entrance to the sea.

Lao Ma never told me the story between him and Sister Sun. They met in a bar, and Sister Sun was a passerby. Did Lao Ma's singing make Sister Sun shed tears? They met in that Longmen Inn-like restaurant, and the delicacies recommended by Lao Ma caught Sister Sun's stomach and captured her heart? Is it because this water-scarce Gobi city, without so much romance, failed to keep Sister Sun?

I don’t know, Lao Ma didn’t tell me, he kept smoking.

When Sister Sun arrived in Dunhuang, she flew back to Shanghai directly without stopping by Lanzhou. In Shanghai, where society is rich and glamorous, Sister Sun leads a leisurely bourgeois life. Later, she sent me an email, which was a letterhead for her wedding. I didn't go, after all, the groom was not an old man. I don't know their stories either. Maybe it's that sentence, my dada's horse's hoof is a mistake, I am not a returnee, I am just a passerby.

They may have smoked a Lanzhou together, Lanzhou, Lanzhou!