Jujube

"I'm by your side, but you still look for me everywhere."

//

I met Lu Xinyao for the first time in the summer when I was five years old. His outstanding image left me an indelible memory.Over the next ten years, while I tried my best to get close to him, the great changes in the family made him gradually become silent, so I often felt that my brother was cold and unapproachable.

However, all the warmth I got when I was young came from my brother. He made me cry and wiped away my tears.There is always a layer of tears between us. In fact, some truths will be blurred by tears.

But after all, there will be a day when the truth will be revealed.

It was a night not long after, the moon was covered by a cloud, and I was wandering the streets alone.After being rejected by my brother, I fell into endless sadness, and the sadness brought me and Feng Lang together. I often hung out with him in bars and karaoke rooms to kill many nights.

I also drank a little wine that day, and my mouth felt parched on the way back, so I ordered a bowl of rice dumplings from a roadside Tangshui shop, sat down and ate them slowly.

Nanting is a place where every inch of land is expensive, and the road in front of the shop is winding and narrow. It was on this road that I first met the monkey artist.

The first thing that caught my eye was a monkey, it stepped on the shoulder of a short old man, motionless, its eyes shot at me, then its owner also turned his head, the human face and the monkey face were next to each other, unexpectedly Two similar faces.

These two faces sat across from me, and there was also a bowl of fermented glutinous rice balls in front of me. The strong smell of rum and the monkey's body odor mixed together, and I suddenly felt a spasm in my stomach.

I raised my face to look over, and at this moment the owner of the monkey also looked at me, with a strange and flattering smile on his face.For some reason, his smile reminded me of the man who used to sweep the streets, and even though they looked nothing alike, their smiles were equally bewildering.

I resisted the discomfort in my stomach and continued to take two bites. An accident happened without warning in the process.I suddenly felt that the wine that I swallowed leaked out, not from my mouth, but from another outlet.I felt a stream flowing unimpeded from my nasal cavity.

I covered my nose subconsciously, and the blood quickly overflowed from my fingers, one drop or two, out of control, and dissolved into the bowl as if I couldn't stop.The monkey on the opposite side jumped up, I escaped from my seat, bent my back, and ran towards the Tongzilou.

There was blood in my nasal cavity, and the road in front of me seemed to dissolve and become blurred, but I still wanted to vomit.When I was struggling to think about whether I could find the trash can, I was suddenly pulled back.

Immediately, that monkey face appeared in front of my eyes, my heart was jumping with fear, my chest hurt, and then I realized it was not.

I felt my heavy body being held up by a steady force—he picked me up in the same way that he hugged Mei Qingqing in the wind and rain.

I couldn't see my brother's face clearly, and I could only smell the meaty smell of blood when I held my nose, but I knew it was him, it must be him.I was already at the bottom of Tongzilou, meeting my brother in such a place really makes one wonder if it was not a coincidence.

Lu Xinyao's voice seemed to be heavy because of my weight, and he said to me, "Look down, are you still bleeding?"

"Brother, I want to throw up."

My voice was sticky, but Lu Xinyao still heard it clearly, and he replied: "Wait a minute."

I rest my head on my brother's shoulder and feel the slight jolt, which is reassuring.I recalled the gossip about Baiquedang again, Mei Qingqing left red lip marks on my brother, but I rubbed my nosebleed on him, and asked him to hug me and vomit next to the dirty trash can.

After vomiting, my body was also relaxed, a kind of relaxation with nowhere to focus, the moon came out from behind the clouds, and I felt like that floating cloud.Not pure white, but stained and dirty gray, and I nestled in my brother's arms, and he wiped off the blood for me.This action makes my eyes relax as well.

It is said that goblins and ghosts can suck yang energy, and so can water ghosts.All the yang energy I had accumulated over the years was sucked away by Lu Xinyao. When he was not around, I had the energy to stay up all night. When he was by my side, there was nothing but dreams.

Grandma said that people tend to have nightmares when their yang energy is insufficient and they are not feeling well.This sentence has been confirmed on my body.

When I was young, I often had nightmares when I was sick. The most vivid memory I remember was the first New Year’s Eve after Meng Guanghui’s death.At night, when my brother and I were watching the New Year around the charcoal brazier, I sat there secretly dozing off and had a short dream.

I dreamed that I was sitting on a bumpy pickup truck, with my brother and Sun Yuemei in the car.The side of the car was very narrow, and I couldn't sit still, so I moved to my brother's side, but at this moment, the car body suddenly bumped, and half of my body was thrown out of the side of the car.

I anxiously went to grab my brother, and Sun Yuemei spotted him as soon as I grabbed his hem.She glared at me, and as soon as I got scared, my brother's clothes slipped out of his hands and he couldn't hold them any longer.I fell out of the car, but my brother didn't notice, so I watched the car drive him farther and farther...

The dream wasn't scary, but the reason I kept remembering it was because I woke up and found myself lying on my brother's lap, and he gently scratched my ear with his fingers, and then I pretended to sleep with the itch.

But this one in Nanting was not a nightmare.

At the beginning of the dream, I felt like a fish in a net. The water on my body was gradually drained, and I was very thirsty. I opened my mouth and breathed in and out.

Then I heard a long beeping sound like a long needle piercing the eardrum, all the sounds were muffled, as if separated from the outside world, even if I poked, drilled and knocked hard with my hands. use.

I started to roll, feeling terribly uncomfortable. At this moment, I vaguely felt that someone came to me, took my hand, lifted my collar, and put in a cold thing.

It was very cold, I shrank into the quilt, and was immediately held down, unable to escape, so I wrapped the ice skate with my body temperature to warm it up.Finally, it was clamped tightly and it was hot. After a while, it was pulled out mercilessly.

He played tricks on me.I wanted to see his face clearly, but as soon as I opened my eyelids, my field of vision went dark again.But the light was enough for me to recognize my brother.

Lu Xinyao caressed my forehead with his hands, and then put a wet towel that was folded and folded.During this process, I watched him intently, because the real Lu Xinyao added a nose nail, so his fake also had the same one, nailed into the dream, and flowed on his nose.

His finger was on my lips, and with a flick, his tone was almost seductive: the mouth opened.

I don't open my mouth, this is my dream, he wants to listen to me.I have a lot of things to say, which I dare not say in reality. I finally waited until I fell asleep, and I could say them to his counterfeit, but after a lot of effort, I couldn't make a sound from my throat.

Could it be that I was also dumb in my dream?Why are you so dishonest?I was at a loss, anxious and aggrieved, only tears were free, and hurriedly moistened the slits of my eyes.

At this time, I felt my brother's hand pressing on my chin and opening my mouth. I felt uncontrollable panic for a moment, what should I do?My dream was taken away by him.

Unwilling to do this, I opened my mouth, sucked his fingers in, bit from the tip of the finger to the base of the finger, bit and sucked gently, stretched out my tongue to lick his palm, licked up along the palm lines, licked To a bitter taste.A pill was fed into his mouth, and he was in a daze...it was an aphrodisiac, otherwise why would he feel hot all over his body?

Lu Xinyao scraped my nose with his wet hands and gave me another sip of water.

After swallowing the water, Lu Xinyao finally rubbed my hair with his hands, very naturally, unlike that day in Xinghe.After a while, I heard him speak.

"Didn't you tell me not to drink?" He scolded me again.

I couldn't answer, so I thought in my heart: I don't want you to care.I don't know if he could hear it in the dream.

The conversation is broken.I felt the weight of my eyelids, my vision was bright and sometimes dark, and I was really afraid that when it got dark, he would go away without a sound.After a while of silence, I heard my brother's voice again:

"what is this?"

He took out two diaries from under the pillow. After I came to Nanting, I started to write a diary, and both of them were full.But if Lu Xinyao asked, the answer would not be a diary.I answered in my heart: It is my love letter to you.

After finishing speaking, he suddenly felt a little anxious, not only the love letter, but also a ridiculous suicide note...he couldn't read it!

Never before have I gritted my teeth in such a hurry and hated it, and I was so hard in my throat that I almost coughed up a mouthful of blood, just to prevent my brother from opening it.

"Brother...Brother!" When I yelled these two times, my whole body was startled, as if waking myself up from a dream.But soon I found that I was still in the dream, because the person in the dream was still there.I relax, it doesn't matter if he saw it in the dream, it doesn't matter.

Lu Xinyao put down his notebook upon hearing the sound, and wiped my overflowing tears with his hands, which was gentler than any dream.

Go to sleep, he said.

I shook my head at him and rubbed my forehead against his legs back and forth. I couldn't sleep, I woke up again after sleeping, and he left.

But what I swallowed just now was not an aphrodisiac, but an ecstasy, and I listened to him again.My eyes dimmed, and it was another night.Come like a spring dream for a short time, go like a morning cloud with nowhere to look.

The more affectionate I am in my sleep, the more tormented I am when I wake up. No matter how many times I experience it, I still can't get used to it.

When I opened my eyes and heard the sound of the door opening, I froze for a moment, looked blankly, and my heart suddenly beat for no apparent reason, with unrealistic expectations.But it was Wang Chunlu who came in, holding a thermos bottle filled with hot water in one hand, and a bowl of packaged Guilin rice noodles in the other hand, which was steaming hot on the table.

I don't know what kind of expression was on my face when I looked at Wang Chunlu, but Wang Chunlu must have seen something from it, she is a considerate woman.

I heard her ask, "That man is your brother, right?"

I was a little surprised, my heart thumped, and I almost thought she was talking about something in a dream.Then I thought, probably Lu Xinyao was seen by Wang Chunlu when he sent me back.So I nodded.

A smile appeared on Wang Chunlu's face, as if she was happy for me. She thought Lu Xinyao was my own brother, and told me that yesterday my brother took care of me all night and didn't leave until early in the morning.

I just woke up completely at this time, but I was completely in a trance again. I lost the ability to think for a while, and I heard Wang Chunlu's voice continue to murmur: "I'm not a real brother, I don't care about my brother's life..."

I didn't know what Wang Chunlu said later, but I felt the bitter taste in my mouth belatedly, so I couldn't help thinking about it.

That tube of opium smoke burned rosemary and degenerated, and the smoke engulfed in smoke, which not only locked the dream, but also made the whole person sleepy.I fell into a mixed mood of confusion and desire, and suddenly realized that he was in charge of me.

Maybe not just pipe.

Who can say that the reality that happens during the day must be true, and the dreams created at night must be false?I felt like I had fallen into a real dream, and the intimacy between lovers was revived in the dream, and I saw my brother's true feelings in the dream.This is something I don't see when I'm awake.