The Mailman Who Climbed the Mountain - 爬山的邮差

Day had just broken, and the small mountain path was still wet; the only sound was running water. Lao Zhang, a mailman over sixty, hoisted the heavy mail bag onto his back, looked up at the mountain, and started up.

The mountain path was narrow and slippery, and the mud was deep. Lao Zhang walked slowly, but he never stopped; he had been walking this path for decades. This year motorbikes and a signal tower had come to the foot of the mountain, but the villages up the mountain were still waiting for him to bring their letters.

An hour later, a young woman reporter with a camera on her back caught up with him, breathing hard. "Hello, I've come to interview you. Everyone says you're a hero." Lao Zhang said nothing and kept walking.

The reporter raised her camera and took photos. "You've walked alone for so many years. Don't you find it hard?" Lao Zhang pointed at a tree root and said, "That one's slippery. Be careful." Then he kept walking.

She asked him many more questions, but Lao Zhang didn't answer a single one. He only warned her at the difficult spots: "The stones are loose." "Don't step in the water." The reporter looked at him, a little puzzled. The two of them kept climbing.

When they reached the first village, Lao Zhang delivered the letters house by house. The villagers took their letters and went back inside without a word. He had never minded that. He drank some water, put the mail bag back on and set off again.

The reporter took photos all the way and had already picked a title for her report: "The Hero of the Mountains." She thought: he must really love this job to have done it for so many years.

At noon they reached the last village, at the top of the mountain. It was high and cold up there, and the clouds were below their feet. When the letters had been delivered, the reporter asked, "Why did you take this job in the first place? Did you want to be a mailman ever since you were a child?"

Lao Zhang smiled. "I never wanted to do this. I never once thought about being a mailman." The reporter was taken aback. "Then why did you..." Lao Zhang said, "My family was poor. The job paid a wage, so I came."

The reporter said, "So you don't actually love this job." Lao Zhang said, "That's right. I never planned to stay. But the pay came on time, I got to know the road, and the years just went by. And nobody has ever thanked me." The reporter lowered her camera.

She had meant to write a hero's story, but Lao Zhang was nothing like she had imagined. He didn't think he was great, and he never made big speeches. He was just an ordinary man who needed a job.

Lao Zhang put down the empty mail bag, sat on a big rock, took out his old flask and drank some hot tea. The wind was strong at the top of the mountain, but he sat there perfectly comfortable. He said, "I know the road well, and people up the mountain are waiting for their letters. It's actually been pretty good."

The reporter wrote those words in her notebook. She didn't write "hero." On the way down, Lao Zhang walked in front and warned her whenever they came to a slippery spot. The clouds cleared, and the villages in the distance came into view.

A few days later, the report came out. It didn't say "great" or "hero." It was only about a man who had never wanted this job, carrying his mail bag up the mountain every year to deliver the letters.