4月29日清早起来,微信里看到陈忠实去世的消息,惊得我把手机都给扔了。38年前的1978年,我去西安,在陕西省第一次文代会上认识了他,从那时起,我就一直叫他老陈,很难改口。老陈那时候还在他老家西安近郊的灞桥区的一个人民公社当领导,业余写作。我印象中老陈当时刚好发表了一个小说,引起了全国文坛的关注。不过,那时老陈还不那么有名,写的也主 On the morning of April 29, I saw the news of Chen’s true death in WeChat, and I was shocked to throw my cellphone. In 1978, 38 years ago, I went to Xi’an and met him at the first Provincial Assembly of Shaanxi Province. Since then, I have been calling him Lao Chen very hard to change my mind. At that time, Lao Chen was still in charge of amateur writing in a commune in Baqiao District, near his hometown of Xi’an. In my impression, Lao Chen just published a novel, arousing the concern of the national literary world. However, when Lao Chen is not so famous, write the main