four year itch

[All wandering lives dream of peace, childhood, azaleas, just as all peaceful lives dream of vodka, bands, and drunkenness][1]

Xu Ruibai opened his eyes, and it took about three seconds to regain his senses. The deafening noise in the room gave him a headache, and the mixed smell of tobacco and alcohol made him feel like he was back four years ago, every day in the same Waking up in a different place, sleeping next to different people, he subconsciously turned on his phone to check the time, but the page of the phone was still on the page of call records, but the doorbell persistently announced the end of the dream.

What is the difference?

Xu Ruibai opened the door for Xu Ling, with the same face, same expression, and same tone, she said, "Xu Ruibai, how long are you going to be ridiculous?"

absurd?

"I'm rushing to draft." He wasn't being ridiculous.

"After finishing the current one, don't waste any more time." Perhaps in their eyes, this is another manifestation of absurdity.

"What do you mean?" Xu Ruibai asked mechanically, he hadn't gotten out of the trance yet.

Xu Ling said, "You are not too young, get engaged first, and then slowly take over some family affairs. Since you like painting, let's start with W Agency first."

"got engaged?"

"Chen Di is very suitable to be the Xu family's daughter-in-law."

"Suitable?"

They are always very good at finding the word "suitable", the school is suitable, the major is suitable, the path to be taken is suitable, and love is suitable.

"You've had enough fun outside, it's time to calm down and come home early."

"Play?"

It turned out that staying up late day after day to catch up on manuscripts was nothing more than rebellion in their eyes.

"Do you think that what you are doing is serious? Look at what you have made of yourself? Do you know how the social circle evaluates you? You are not young anymore, stop being willful." Xu Ling's face was full of disgust.

"Willful?" He seemed to be resisting something, but he couldn't find an exit, so he could only repeat the broken words, using such a painful way to attack his numb senses.

"Isn't it capricious? I also went to see your little editor that day..."

Xu Ruibai suddenly opened his eyes wide and caught the most important information, "You mean Ye Jia is here?"

He knew that he was being controlled and monitored by the Xu family, and he also knew that the date would inevitably reach those people's ears verbatim through Xu Ling, but he still didn't realize that all the rough tracks in the future would be different. He couldn't escape their grasp, he thought that there would always be something different these years.

The woman nodded and frowned for a while before she nodded casually, "Come back when you've had enough trouble. Struggles without results are meaningless."

Yeah, what is he struggling with.

He clearly knew that no matter how he struggled, he would still return to the original point.

He stood on the roof, lit a cigarette, didn't smoke it, just watched it burn out in silence, Xu Ling's car slowly drove out of the house, he let go of his hand, and watched the remaining part of the cigarette fall freely .

The heart is ashamed.

He also had unrestrained and uninhibited feelings, trying to escape the hostage of fate by wandering endlessly.

That year his birthday cake was not filled with twenty candles, but the Xu family didn't care about that.They only care about financial reports, K-lines, industry research reports or other things, so he was tied up to New York, sitting in the business school and being overwhelmed by those boring numbers and curve images, they are connected into a thin fishing line, bit by bit Tighten it tightly, and tie it around Xu Ruibai's heart until the heart is cut in half.

Xu Ruibai clearly felt that he was dying.

On a late winter Saturday, I walked out of the closed theater late at night, and Manhattan was still as bright as day in the early morning. New York has always been a city that never sleeps.

Compared with the bustling Manhattan, Xu Ruibai seems to prefer the dirty Queens, where there are many cheap small galleries full of artists who are destined to become losers.He likes to see them struggle, to see them cry, to see them despair.

He looked for a broken resonance in them.

He took a deep breath of the cool air, turned around and walked into Marie's Crisis Café. The atmosphere here was really lively. The resident pianist was playing a classic piece from the musical "Don Quixote". The audience sang "to reach the unreachable star."

—to pluck, the unreachable star.

On this night, Xu Ruibai fled deliberately.

Fleeing does not require many things, a passport that is not in his name, and a few bearer bank cards are enough.

He burned his passport, seeing it turning black and brittle, feeling absurd in his heart.

It turns out that these little cards are defining my life.

According to the plan, he will start from New York all the way south, cross the Patagonian glaciers, and come to Ushuaia, the southernmost place, to experience the struggle of love and desire and the rubbing of ears; and then cross the Pacific Ocean to Tasmani, an isolated island at the end of the world Ya, to appreciate the snow wrapped around the top of the Cradle Mountain, and to see the innocence that comes with the chaos of the world; but also in the fishing village town in the most southwestern corner of the UK, listening to the Pieditors, and passers-by in the evening wind dance...

At first, everything went so smoothly. He was in a foreign land, breathing the air that had nothing to do with the Xu family. He lit a cigarette with the poet under the starry sky, set up a stall on the side of the road to paint, Spend a dollar to buy a rose to give to the devastated statue, and then exchange a glass of wine for a cheap love story at the bar... As long as it has nothing to do with the Xu family, everything is free and romantic.

Freedom is romantic, and romance is also free. At this moment, he is free and romantic.

When Xu Yuwei's people found him, he was sitting in a small park in Madrid, listening to the cello on the side of the road, feeding sparrows and planning to rent a boat to the Aegean Sea in Greece.

The man in the black uniform bowed slightly to him, and said to him in a calm tone, "Master."

These two words were like the last gunshot before the execution, ending Xu Ruibai's three-month life.

This is the longest time the Xu family allowed him to be exiled. His freedom was shackled from the very beginning. He was only allowed to wander in a limited frame drawn by the Xu family. Once he exceeded this boundary, he would be banned. Ruthlessly pulled back to the origin.

The consequence of wandering without permission is stricter surveillance. He no longer has the right to return to New York, and he no longer has the right to leave their sight. He began to learn to be restrained and gentle. All the paintings can only be drawn for the Xu family.

When he returned to the mundane world, there was no more self to speak of, so he looked for another way to vent, cigarettes, alcohol, or a moment of drunkenness, in order to find a more concrete freedom.

Body entanglement, fluid exchange, he doesn't care who is around him, and no one cares about him.

Orgasms make all beings equal.

He felt himself falling in the deepest dreams of every night, he dreamed that he was falling, falling endlessly, dying before he hit the ground.

It's just a battle of trapped beasts.

Day after day, year after year, he felt the same boredom in different entanglements.

One day he saw a little starlight inside the familiar drop.

"to reach the unreachable star."

—to pluck, the unreachable star.

Ye Jia.

It is a higher level beyond lust, it is his indescribable desire and need, as if the stars that have not been visited for a long time have found a living body, forcing him to enter a dialogue with the soul.

It is not so much that Ye Jia was looking for him to chat with trepidation every day, it is better to say that he was anxiously waiting for Ye Jia to chat with him. He chattered some beautiful words about freedom and soul, which extended to those three years. Months away, his longing for life, he wasted Ye Jia's time greedily, and he did not hesitate to use hypocritical tenderness to keep him.Because only at such moments can he breathe occasionally in the cracks of this prison.

Ye Jia asked him, "Will I disturb your drawing when I chat with you?"

He said, "No."

how come?

It is obvious that I am occupying your life in an insatiable way.

But one day, those star-like eyes were filled with the same lustful pleadings as anyone else.

He feels sick.

Whether it's his white limbs or his green moans.

It turns out that everything is the same, Xu Yuwei is right, Bai Zhuyu is right, there is no difference, they will never escape the instinct of lust and the fate of bondage.

It makes no sense.

Because of estrus, because of instinct, Xu Ruibai's star died the day he slept with Ye Jia.

On the day when Ye Jia's love began, on the day when Xu Ruibai's heartbeat ended.

From: The Lonely Pond by Françoise Sagan