Give a bellflower to the drowning ghost

-13

Despite some effort, the ranger found the pink hairpin that the author had forgotten along a certain mountain road.

The writer was so shocked that his eyes widened. He took the hairpin as if he had regained a treasure, held it in his hand, and screamed like a child: "How did you find such a small hairpin?"

The ranger felt a little hot on his face, as if something long-lost had awakened from his heart.He rubbed his nose under cover: "I'm not exaggerating, there is nothing on this mountain that I don't know."

"Great, thank you so much," the writer pinned his bangs back with a hairpin, restoring the look they had when they first met, "I'm much more at ease with this."

Thanks to the careful care of the forest rangers, the writer's mental state is much more stable.

He walked out of the sleeping bag and went out with the forest ranger. The two of them both worried about the mosquitoes in the summer forest, sweated profusely together in front of the stove to eat, gradually agreed to wash and go to bed at the same time, and said good night to each other. .

Looking at the face of the writer sleeping peacefully, the ranger also felt that a certain missing piece in his heart had been filled.

-14

"Why are you so experienced?" the writer asked.

"What experience?" The forest ranger lowered his head, checking the remaining dose and the medication record sheet.

The writer held his chin: "The experience of taking care of patients with depression."

The forest ranger lowered his head and slowly fixed his eyes on a certain grid on the record sheet: "This will not be a pleasant topic to share."

The writer said: "It doesn't matter, you can exchange unhappy things, you are friends, isn't it?"

The ranger put down his pen: "Well, you probably guessed it anyway...my adoptive father also suffers from depression."

The writer leaned forward, staring intently at the ranger's gradually sad expression like melting ice and snow.

He has always had an irresistible fascination with the true heart of human beings.

-15

The ranger gently pushed the pen holder with his fingertips: "I was stupid at the time and had a bad temper. I always only thought about my own affairs. I felt that my life was very hard and I lived in poverty. The only clothes I could wear outside were school uniforms. , and because my home is too far away from the school, I basically have no chance to play with my peers, so I gradually developed resentment in my heart."

"When I was in high school, he was already in his 60s. His health was poor, and his temper was naturally bad. I had to go down the mountain to school before dawn every day, and take all my spare time to finish my homework, because even if I came home after school , my adoptive father would also pull me to keep babbling about the hardships he had suffered in the past, which made me feel irritable and unable to calm down and do my homework."

The ranger picked up the pen and twirled it between his fingers: "The adoptive father valued his work very much, but his legs were already failing, so he kept talking all day that I would go back to the mountain to take over for him after graduation, but I just felt annoyed and didn't want to Listen to him. I want to go to the city, to a more developed place than here, to work, to study, whatever, but I don’t want to hear him say the things that have been said dozens or hundreds of times.”

The writer quietly hugged the tissue in his arms, but the forest ranger didn't cry, he just said to himself: "I just want to avoid him, even though I know he doesn't sleep well every night, I pretend to be okay with everything." I don’t know the same thing, I just want to survive until graduation, then I can go to another place to start a new life.”

"Then as if punishing me for neglecting him, he took medicine and medical records and told me that he was sick and couldn't do many things, and asked me to take more responsibility."

The writer puts it mildly: "You really don't have to trap yourself here, and you don't."

The Ranger shook his head unconsciously, as if still feeling guilty at the thought.

The writer did not speak, and for the first time he focused on the house.

Twenty square meters, a cramped size, outdated furniture and room furnishings, as if everything was stuck in decades ago.

It is also like becoming the old ranger himself, still clinging to the ranger tightly.

The forest ranger said: "When I was abandoned on the mountain, he picked me up, and he was the only one who was willing to bring me up. I should repay his kindness."

The truth is this.

Of course it is.

But when his elderly adoptive father went mad due to illness, when he saw familiar people become strange and terrifying, and when he was unconsciously used violence by the other party, reason naturally could not make him feel safe.

The ranger grabbed the pen in his hand: "But I can't give him the care he needs. I have to go to class during the day and leave him alone in the house. He doesn't know what time he is in, and he doesn't know that he has taken medicine. No. He also suppressed his condition at night, fearing that it would affect my study the next day, so he had to secretly increase the dose to make himself fall asleep at night. I found out about this and stopped him from taking the medicine himself, but instead And it made him worse."

"Finally," the ranger put down his pen, "one night when I returned home, I didn't find him, so I searched around the mountain with a light. Found him at the bottom of a landslide."

He will never forget that night.

Holding the searchlight, he stood on the edge of the landslide and saw it. He thought it must be wrong, he must have misread it, so he turned around and wanted to look elsewhere, but found that he had already searched all the places. .

He climbed to the bottom of the cliff and fell when he landed. He groped to grab the lamp back quickly, but he felt wet hands on the sharp stone under him.

In moonlight, blood is black.

It's time to find someone for help, he thought. He shivered and got up, trying to hold the searchlight as if grasping at a straw, but he couldn't think of who to turn to.

He was the only one left in this mountain.

He covered his face with his hands, and a weak sentence came out from between his fingers: "If he fell because he went out to find me..."

The writer stood up, walked to the ranger, put his hands on his shoulders, and gave him strength: "He committed suicide. If he wants to find you, he will naturally find the way down the mountain instead of going to the landslide."

"I know," said the Ranger, "but if I could do better..."

The writer said: "There is no if, he is just tired and wants to end, this is what he wants to do, you should respect his wishes."

The ranger puts his hand down.

The writer leaned down and hugged him.

Trembling, the ranger grabbed the writer's hand with his eyes closed.