The Lost 40 Years

Zhao Zimo, written May 9, 2025

The sky that truly belongs to us will shine again. As long as someone still remembers, dawn will come no matter how long the night.

Yesterday evening, a young man stopped me. His eyes were dark and bright, like a hungry dog's eyes on a rainy night. He asked, "Have we lost more than forty years?"

I looked at his patched coat and remained silent for a moment. The wind blew, and he shrank his neck like a frozen bird. I nodded and said, "Not just forty years—they've taken that plus interest."

I

Some say the past was gray, while today is colorful. But walking through alleys at night, I always hear strange sounds: coughing, gasping, and sighs like sleep-talking. As if someone is struggling in the darkness, wanting to call out but swallowing it back.

More than forty years ago, a light went out. Not an oil lamp hanging under the eaves, but a kind of light that refused to bow. It once shone on wheat seedlings in the fields, on iron filings in factories, and on the flickering hope in children's eyes.

Back then, the sky was high, the earth was thick, and people's backbones were straight. Everyone felt that as long as they gritted their teeth, even mud could turn to gold, and destiny could be grasped in their own hands.

Later, someone changed the frame, mounted the simplest words, and hung them on the highest floor of tall buildings, allowing only distant gazing—no touching, no using, only reminiscing. Like a sealed jar of aged wine, even its fragrance gradually soured.

So, this is how we quietly lost more than forty years.

II

Some people lost their bowls; some lost their bones; and some have even forgotten how they lost anything.

"Let's all get rich together," some shouted. But behind every pleasant-sounding word stood rows of people with bent backs. Like wheat planted in cement ground, breaking at the slightest breeze.

I know a worker who entered the factory at sixteen, had a hunched back by forty, with fingers like withered branches. He whispered, "When I was little, my grandfather told me that workers were the most honorable people under heaven." After speaking, he raised his eyes slightly, then quickly lowered his head, as if afraid of disturbing something.

If this is called progress, what does regression look like? If this is called reform, whose life exactly has been reformed away?

III

Someone once said that all distant places in the world are related to me. Someone also said we should serve the majority with utmost loyalty until our last breath.

Later, these words were written into textbooks, hung on walls, becoming exhibits in museums. Children recited them fluently, adults listened numbly, like hearing an old melody—the tune remains, but the flavor is lost.

True progress isn't building golden houses for a few people, but letting millions have smoke from their chimneys, laughter, and inner strength that grows from their bones.

A true future isn't turning a group of people into numbers, stuffing them into the shining decimal points of reports, line after line.

But now, "struggle" has become a rat crossing the street, "revolution" has become after-dinner jokes, and "class" has become a dusty monument in the corner of a museum.

People dressed sharply on stage talk about "inclusiveness" and "innovation," like slowly boiling frogs in warm water. People below, heads down, carrying bags, running blurred in the rain.

Does anyone still remember who originally farmed the land, who built the buildings, who raised this family while holding broken bowls?

IV

Forty years can turn infants into white-haired elders, can build cities and then let them collapse, can simmer ideals into a pot of bitter soup.

Some laugh, saying, "Don't mention those old stories, be more realistic!"

But children can't afford school, the elderly dare not get sick, young people sleep under bridges, and middle-aged people sell their lives working overtime—is this reality?

What should really change are the stones pressing on people, not the rules that make people accustomed to bending; What should really be discarded are the iron chains that steal dignity, not the courage to once clench fists.

The red flags taken down in those years shouldn't become ribbons packaging capital. They originally had a sentence embroidered on them:

"The people, only the people, are the driving force in the creation of history."

We haven't lost forty years—the forty years were quietly taken away. Stripped bit by bit by soft fingers, coaxed bit by bit by slick tongues, packaged bit by bit by shiny terminology.

Faith was stolen. Backbone was stolen. Even the future was secretly stuffed into someone else's pocket.

Epilogue

However, no matter how thick the dust, it cannot kill the seeds.

A hundred years ago, someone carried a pen into the night, cutting open festering flesh, one stroke at a time. Bloody as it was, at least one could still smell the scent of being alive.

Today, we should also learn to pick up that pen. Even if there are thorns underfoot, even if there is mist ahead, we must remember:

As long as there are still people who refuse to kneel, as long as there is still a fist slowly clenching in a pocket, as long as there is still a word faintly glowing in the dark night—

Then these forty years will not have been lost in vain.

The sky that truly belongs to us will shine again. As long as someone still remembers, no matter how long the night, dawn will come.