Food Bureau

So cold.

That's what she said when I first met Shang Wan.

She was six years old that year, and her long hair had already grown into a beautiful texture.My adoptive parents, her uncle and aunt, took her to my newly decorated pink room, smiled and said, "Xiao Ru, this is your cousin, Shang Wan."

I looked at her, at the distance between us.

The adults left, and there was only a shy wild girl brought back from the orphanage, and a calm Miss Jiao who was born with a golden spoon in her mouth.

The pink room is still unfamiliar to me. I always like to open the window. The blue sky and green trees outside make me feel more familiar.She turned to look at the open window, "It's so cold."

That was the first sentence Shang Wan said to me.

The afternoon sun slanted on her body through the treetops outside the villa, and slanted on the newly painted pink walls. The breeze blew, swaying like water waves...

Just like at this time, those sparkling water waves pervading my body, my long hair unfurls in a slow rhythm in the water, like experiencing a performance art of death.

"It's so cold..." My consciousness gradually recovered, my lips trembled, and I muttered.

In a trance, I felt that I was in a moving world, and people around me were busy, which made me dizzy. At the same time, unprecedented pain came from the top of my head. I choked my neck and vomited uncontrollably.

"There is a possibility of a concussion," said an emotionless voice next to him.

I vomited so hard that I couldn't speak a word, but gradually realized that I was being loaded into an ambulance.I was saved.

Yes, I was saved.

It’s so cold, Zhuo Bing, my Zhuo Bing has been dead for nine years.

I saw the news report on the hospital bed. On the Feihong Bridge, she was riding a motorcycle and slammed into the place where I fell.

For nine years, they all said I was crazy, but they didn't believe me when I said I wasn't crazy.That's what madmen say, they say.

The nursing home in Jingshan sometimes reminds me of the welfare home when I was a child. When the weather is fine, I will sit by the window with the windows open—they arrange me on the second floor, which is too high for fear that I will jump off the building and die. Lou was afraid that I would escape—I sat by the window and looked at the blue sky and green trees outside, thinking, if time goes back, would I still choose to go with the Shang family?

Look at me now, is there any reason to hesitate about this question?Why hesitate?

Because of my Zhuo Bing.If I am not adopted by the Shang family, how can I go to study in England?How could I meet Zhuo Bing if I didn't go to England to study?Met the person who made me feel worthwhile after all, the woman who made me complete.

I met Zhuo Bing when I was a sophomore in London.

For nine years, they wouldn't let me mention her, take me to Italy to see her cemetery, or even give me a picture of her, thinking I'd forget her.

That face is indeed a bit blurred in my memory, and I even dreamed back many times in the middle of the night, I saw her face was smashed into blood, squeezed and deformed by the concrete pier and steel hub... I was sweating profusely, in the dark Howling and crying at night, at this time the nurse would always come in and give me an injection skillfully, and soon I would fall asleep peacefully and without dreams.

My Zhuo Bing, maybe your countless facial expressions have faded away in the past nine years, but I still remember the first time I saw you in front of the vending machine, you smiled shyly, with the eyes You took a photo of the bottle of water I was stuck in the machine, held it in your hand, and said in Chinese with a substandard pronunciation: "It's so cold, why don't you drink a cup of hot water?" ?"

Later I asked you how you were sure that I could understand Chinese. You said that you had been paying attention to my designs in the salon for a few days.

I found out later that she just went to London from Florence for a short-term excursion during the spring break, and she will go back after completing one or two works. She is Italian-Chinese.

I am a person who was abandoned by my biological parents and sacrificed by my adoptive parents. If there is anyone who has loved me wholeheartedly in my unfortunate life, that is Zhuo Bing.

Of course I still remember her outline, she is tall and thin, she has a unique temperament that is both uninhibited and shy, her hair is always clean, the inner layers of her temples are pushed out, sometimes tied up at the back of her head .You think she is cold, but you have never seen her smile, shy smile, enough to warm the thickest glacier in the North Pole, and warm my heart.

My only sense of security comes from her.In front of the crackling fireplace in the apartment, I unscrupulously took off my clothes one by one until I presented them to her without reservation.

"What's that?" she asked, looking at the pink mark on my right waist.

"Tattoo washed off," I said, "washed off last year."

"What's the tattoo? Why did you wash it off?" She arranged all the charcoal pencils and adjusted the angle of the drawing board. "May I ask?"

"I'm afraid to scare you."

"Try it."

"The cousin's name commemorates a beautiful and absurd summer, and also commemorates the shortening of the wild girl and Miss Jiao to...about zero."

"Do you have sex?" She raised her pen, closed one eye, and measured the proportions to me.

"do not know."

"do not know?"

"Kissing...touching, sleeping together naked counts?"

She didn't make another sound, and silently finished the painting. She went to wash her hands, and walked in front of me, "I'll tell you what sex.love is."

She stayed, gave up her studies in Florence, and devoted herself to studying with me in London. Before making this decision, we tried to live apart for a while. It was too difficult, so she decided to take 99 steps toward me.

She lives with me, but refuses to spend my money, she will go out to pick up some odd jobs, help some studios paint some decorative paintings, which is fine, when she has no work, she will go to the street to paint people, but No matter how hard it is, she will always bring me a flower or a small gift when I go home at night.

I feel distressed. Letting a person who dreams of being an artist paint decorative paintings is probably a kind of slow suicide. I started saving money for her, hoping that she can go to the University of the Arts in London, and I believe she can.

We occasionally get together with Monk Wan, and Zhuo Bing always laments that we are very similar, and she thinks it is amazing that we can look so similar without any blood relationship.

In fact, everything has logic. The Shang family chose me for three years because I look alike with my grandma and the girl from the Shang family.And when I entered Shang's house, I always imitated Shang Wan intentionally or unintentionally. This young lady who was born with a golden spoon in her mouth has been imitated for so many years, can it be different?

"What is your dream?" I asked her one day.

"To be with you forever."

"anything else?"

"Open a gallery and draw my own favorite paintings."

"It will definitely come true, you quickly think of a name."

"Zhaobing." She wrote to me, her Chinese was already very good that year.

My Zhuo Bing, I haven’t stopped thinking about you in the past nine years. The only motivation that supports me to live is that one day I can go out, go to Italy, visit you in front of your grave, and tell you something Love words that haven't had time to say.

Until Shang Wan came to see me last night.

The author has something to say: Who will be interviewed in the next chapter?