We didn't die at the end

10

Before I graduated from university in 2017, I went to a dubious magazine in the provincial capital as an intern as an editor.I say it is nonsense, because this magazine has everything like a big Northeast stew, with a football commentary in the front, a peachy news in the back, and a large page in the middle with a buyer's show with over-edited pictures and a few stitches. A small advertisement for renting a house.Being an editor is an easy job. I do some copy and paste work every day, and I don’t even have to proofread. Anyway, there are never any complaints from readers.

The president is a rich second generation. At the beginning, he was full of dreams to run a magazine. He put all his hobbies and ambitions together to show the world, so that others can understand his broad mind and ambitions. He also invited a poet to give the magazine an It is known as the flower in the moon and mist in the water.It's a pity that his ambitions are a bit vulgar, and he turned this Crescent School magazine, which was supposed to be in the first rank, into an eighteenth-tier street stall literature.Fortunately, the president's family is rich and generous. Although the sales are not good, the wages are not missed. He also invites guests to drink and sing every now and then.

I stayed there for three months, and I ate and stuffed a lot. I didn't learn much experience, but I gained weight three times.The president also felt that it was too sloppy. From time to time, he proposed to organize a field trip in the suburbs to learn about the life, customs and customs of the city, and to enrich the empty content of our magazine.

Although the magazine is hard to describe, but luckily the boss is rich. The magazine is located on the top floor of an office building with breathtaking housing prices in the south of the city.I usually start to write something small after picking out the article and finishing the layout. When I am tired, I open the window, lean on the window sill and squint my eyes to smoke, watching the smoke wind up like a cloud. fairy.Downstairs on the road, there were all kinds of things going on, and I looked down at all living beings from the perspective of God, and I naturally felt like I was on board.The past has accumulated for a long time and will pop up one by one when you let go, regardless of whether you want to think about it or not.On that top floor, I often think of the drama-like high school life, think of Xu Wei and Cheng Yihuan, and I feel bored and painful in my heart, because people have changed a lot.

But having said that, when the wind blew away the broken hair on my forehead, I closed my eyes and held a cigarette, with a face full of stories, I smacked it carefully, and felt that the overall effect might not be bad.

At least Lu Zhen thought it was good.At that time, Lu Zhen was about to graduate in her junior year, one year younger than me, and she studied photography, accepted some prints from original clothing brands to earn living expenses, and wandered around in major third-rate magazines.Maybe it's because the models he shoots are all with strange skeletons. I often laugh at him that his P-drawing skills are 22 times better than his photography skills.That day when Lu Zhen came to our editorial department to hand over the film, I happened to be posing by the window as mentioned above. The passionate primary school boy likes men with vicissitudes of life. I was hit by the melancholy temperament that rushed to my face, and I flicked my eyebrows. Hooked up, and ended my [-] years of miserable life experience in mother solo.Lu Zhen always felt that I must have experienced something, and she was quite afraid of accidentally bumping into some thorn in my heart. We have been together for a long time before I dared to insinuate and ask me.I promised to write the story for him, only to disappoint him.The story is someone else's story, I am just a bystander, I can't see it clearly, so I can only suffer with the protagonist.

After graduating, I became a full-time member of this magazine. A year later, as expected, the magazine closed down in the bloodbath of purging the literary and art market.Recently, classmate Lu Zhen was busy with graduation, and I received a call from Xu Wei when I was looking for a job all by myself.He took the college entrance examination a year late, and went to an American university as an exchange in his sophomore year. He heard that he was admitted to a prestigious American university a while ago.He said on the phone that he would go back to China for a period of time before graduate school. I asked him if he wanted to pick him up at the airport, and he said he was already at home.I was so angry that I just wanted to ask him: Do you still consider me a friend?Did you tell me when you got home?A lazy voice came from over there: Don't you know that you are busy recently and don't want to bother you.And I'm afraid that the kid in your family will be unhappy.

I coughed twice: I'm all busy, I have nothing to do.

There was a few seconds of silence over there, and he said again: "Then if you are free... accompany me to see him."

Are you still going to see him now?I asked.I haven't seen you mention it before.

Xu Wei said: Yes.Every time I come back, I will go to see his parents.

Then he said: This time is long, I want to go with you.Also, that scum...he has lung cancer and seems to be dying.

11

I started to laugh at Lu Zhen's P-picture skills that are [-] times better than camera skills. There should be an opportunity.Once I received a cheap clothing ad sample from him, stared blankly for a long time, and found that the model's eyebrows and eyes looked a bit like Cheng Yihuan. Because of the long staring time, the eyes were so sore that tears were about to fall.I hummed my nose and asked him for the original film. He originally wanted to abide by the professional ethics of photographers and refused to make the original film.The moment I saw it, I regretted it: this man in front of the PS was like a cake, his skin was dark and full of acne, and he only had one pair of eyes that were considered beautiful, and he was far less ethereal than Cheng Yihuan.I couldn't hold back my laughter, my eyes were no longer sour and my nose was breathing. I looked up and saw Lu Zhen staring at me with resentment. I praised his superb PS skills from the bottom of my heart, and he murmured Muttering in a low voice: You can't blame me, then find me a good-looking model, and save me a lot of time in retouching.

I suddenly thought of Cheng Yihuan, who was wearing a white T-shirt and lying on the window sill in the corridor outside the classroom in early summer five years ago, looking at the scenery.The butterfly bone on his back protrudes gracefully, and the waistline is looming under the translucent fabric illuminated by the sun.His whole body is shining like a god descending from the earth, looking at it, it is a piece of white flowers without any impurities-but if you keep staring at him like me, you will find a long black pen mark on his left sleeve, At first glance, this kind of mark was accidentally left when the deskmate turned the pen.Cheng Yihuan lowered his head to touch the pen mark, gentle and pious like a loyal believer approaching his god, and resolute like Icarus approaching the burning sun.He wanted Xu Wei to leave marks on him just like I wanted to leave marks on him, a few bruised hickey marks, a scarlet scratch, even if there were none of these, a black pen mark would be enough.

That year was 2012, the year the Mayans predicted the end of the world.At that time, our countdown not only included "XX days left in the college entrance examination", but also "XX days before the end", and it can even be said that the latter is more exciting and exciting.Crossing out the former day is boring, crossing out the latter is terrifying. At the age of 17, we talked about love and death all day long. In the end, I didn't get love, and I couldn't meet death.Countless midnight dreams I dreamed of the time when time and evening clocks buried the day and dark clouds swept away the sun.Light can no longer be echoed, and everything will be returned in eternal darkness.Xu Wei told me that he felt a little regretful if he died so soon and had never experienced the joys and sorrows of life.I laughed: Maybe it’s quite happy not to face a future full of uncertainties.Xu Wei was noncommittal.None of us expected it to come true.

People were panicking, and the second half of that year seemed to be spent extraordinarily hard.I secretly thought, I hope that I, Xu Wei, and Cheng Yihuan, we can all die in this doomsday.No one dies for whom, no one lives for whom.No one has devoted his heart and soul to others, and no one has exhausted his singing voice and withered like a thorn bird.Death seems so dull, but it is the dullness we most desire.

And we don't die at the end.

12

Christmas in 2012 was extraordinarily lively because of the survivors.I have never experienced such a lively Christmas again.Later, Xu Wei, who was in the United States at this time every year, would make long overseas phone calls to me. He would talk about everything, trivial matters, his tutor’s evaluation of his thesis, and his roommate’s gossip. He just couldn’t let himself be idle.When we were tired of speaking, we were silent together through the microphone. When it was quiet, I could hear the sound of Christmas songs and fireworks explosions, the cheers of people on the street, and Xu Wei’s suppressed voice on the other end. Breathing and the occasional tiny sob.He said that this is the most difficult time for him every year. The streets are full of people, and it should be the most hopeful festival.

That Christmas, I received a call from Xu Wei. The first second I put the phone to my ear, I heard Xu Wei's voice almost crying.He nonchalantly reported the name of the hospital and asked me to go there quickly, then hung up the phone and there was no sound. I "hello" here for a long time, and there was only a beeping busy tone over there.I thought that one of his relatives had an accident and ran out of the house in a hurry, but I didn't see anything wrong with his house.After rushing to the hospital, I realized that in such a big place, he didn’t tell me where he was, and when I called him, the call you made was temporarily unanswered, so I had to ask the nurse at the front desk if he saw someone my age. Pretty much the same, tall and handsome guy.

The nurse said that there was such a boy just now, crying like a child all the way, as if his friend had a car accident.It should be there in the operating room by now.I ran to the operating room, and sure enough, I saw Xu Wei sitting on a bench beside the operating room, with his arms supporting his knees, his face completely buried in his arms, his whole body was shaking non-stop, and he was so fragile that he seemed about to collapse in the next second. debris.And opposite him, on the bench on the other side of the operating room, sat a couple. The beautiful woman was sobbing in her husband's arms.

It was very foggy that day, the air pressure was low, and it was so gloomy that we couldn't see clearly.I stood at the end of the operating room and watched them, feeling a heavy burden suddenly fell on me, so heavy that I couldn't even move my legs.I don't know exactly what happened, but when I saw that couple, I had a premonition, and I wanted to turn around and run away for a moment, not touching the truth to the death.

That morning Xu Wei received a call from Cheng Yihuan. The boy whom he hadn't seen for a long time asked him to go to a nearby cafe on the other end of the phone, saying that he wanted to talk to him about something.Xu Wei felt that he actually missed him a lot, and felt that he needed to make it clear to him face to face, so he agreed.They agreed to meet at the bus stop across from the cafe.

In the thick fog that day, he walked all the way to the bus stop and saw Cheng Yihuan standing there.I think it must be a very beautiful scene: the slender and transparent beautiful boy stands in the five-mile fog, keeps his head down in meditation, and turns his head with a smile when he hears something from the side, and he is about to become a fairy.

When Cheng Yihuan saw the sweetheart whom he was thinking about day and night, he couldn't even say anything for a while, he just lowered his head and smirked, and occasionally raised his eyes secretly to glance at him.Xu Wei let go of it, chatting with him all over the world, making him laugh constantly.The traffic lights in the distance only had a faint halo, pedestrians appeared and disappeared in the fog, like ghosts, and the shops across the road were completely gone. When he turned his head, the only thing he could see clearly was the boy’s smile. Everything was like a scene. A grand dream weaved in advance.

The last moment of the dream was Cheng Yihuan's sudden change of expression and a sudden cry that didn't even have time to finish, "Xu Wei!" In the next second, he was pushed aside and fell to the ground. endlessly.In the chaos, he heard a loud collision, several screams of passing aunts piercing the sky, and finally the long-lasting shriek of an ambulance.

The vehicle that caused the accident, galloping towards Xu Wei with its back, running a red light and speeding, escaped. At the last moment when it was about to hit Xu Wei, Cheng Yihuan resolutely pushed him aside as if he had exhausted all his strength.Xu Wei, who had finally recovered from his mild concussion, stumbled all the way to Cheng Yihuan's side, and was comforted by more and more passers-by who gathered around him, and finally broke down, and began to cry loudly.

That cry was so miserable, the first cry he had just come into this world from his mother's womb might not have been that miserable.The reason why I know is because we went to the police station to watch the surveillance in order to find out the escaped car.At that time, Xu Wei actually didn't know what happened. When this scene was re-enacted in front of him from the perspective of God without any emotion, in the end he could only hear his cry at that time, but Xu Wei didn't make a sound during the whole process. sound.

I turned my head back to look at him, Xu Wei covered his mouth with his palm, tears streaming down his face.