Jujube

Cities are not safe.

In the newspapers in Nanting and the discussions among the neighbors in the tube building, I often heard some shocking news.For example, women's clothes have been salvaged several times in the brightly lit Linjiang River, for example, notes for help have been floating down from high-rise buildings that no one cares about, for example, for example, a car parked by the side of the road once stretched out its hand to stuff passers-by into the back seat in the middle of the night, Like a coffin that eats people in one bite.

After I learned that my brother was leaving Nanting, I often wandered around the night like a ghost for a while, and unconsciously, I took a familiar route involuntarily.It's just that there is no back of Lu Xinyao in front of me at this time, and I follow my desire.

The corn on the cob was roasted brown and sweet. I bought one every night, squatted under the building where I met my brother and gnawed, and went back after gnawing.In the past in Baiquedang, every time I recited his name, he would always come as scheduled, but here is Nanting, where there are many tall buildings, the sky is dark, and the trash cans are filled with corn cobs, and I can’t wait or touch them... ...A thousand sails are all gone.

I can recite the string of numbers that Lu Xinyao gave me by heart, but I have never dialed them out. Seeing the days go by, I am more timid than the day before, as if it is a spell, as long as I don’t say it, the most feared thing will not happen occur.

I didn't use the deception Mao Lin taught me to deceive others, I first learned to use it on myself.Ignorance is also a blessing, and I have gained a period of peace because of it, just like those old people who bought fake medicines gained "peace of mind".

That unusual day happened on the way back to Tongzilou.

When the grilled corn was finished, I threw it into the garbage truck on the side of the street and walked back slowly along the road.

I couldn't see the moon that night, and the sound of the wind sweeping the fallen leaves floated on the ground. I have been timid and cautious since I was a child. Maybe it is because of this that I am more discerning than others.I suddenly felt that someone was following me. At first I could only faintly hear rustling movements, but as I got closer, I could gradually hear footsteps.

The road in front of me could not see the end, as if it would never end, my palms were clenched with a layer of cold sweat.For all my devout vision of death, when real danger looms, my instinct is still fear.

What should be done?I was dazed and anxious, and couldn't think of anything.The very first phone call to my brother happened in such a situation.

My brother reminded me to go home early after get off work at night, but I disobeyed him, so if misfortune happened, it was my own fault.I was very apprehensive when the call was made, fearing that my brother would ignore me, but at the same time I knew very well that he would not ignore me.Worry and trust are paradoxically interdependent in me.

"Hello?" The voice clearly entered the ears, but the eyes responded.

The moment Lu Xinyao spoke, my vision became wet, and I suddenly regretted why I had to call him now.

"Brother." I heard my voice trembling slightly, I don't know if it was because of fear or helplessness, "...someone is following me."

Lu Xinyao must have been surprised to receive such news suddenly at night. I couldn't see my brother's reaction and the expression on his face. The distortion of the receiver made his tone less calm.

Lu Xinyao responded quickly: "Don't be afraid, tell me where you are."

I couldn't find a sign, and there was no one else around, so I vaguely told my brother, "The way you buy your grilled corn."

The peddler who sells roasted corn pushed his cart along the street every night. Lu Xinyao must have felt incomprehensible. After a few seconds of silence, I heard him say, "Go to the crowded place first, and don't look back."

"Brother, if..." I didn't know what I was about to say, but an inexplicable impulse made me start with "if", but Lu Xinyao interrupted me.nothing will happen.he tells me.

"Don't hang up the phone."

I don't know what my brother said on the other end, because after I finished saying this, my ears were empty, and only a handful of cold sweat remained in my hands.

It was not a stranger. I turned my head and saw a short and thin figure in my vision, but there was a burly and majestic monkey standing on my shoulder.I didn't expect it to be him.

During my wanderings at night, I never met Lu Xinyao once, but I had a few encounters with this monkey artist who had left a deep impression on me.Every time he passed me, the monkey on his shoulder would turn around and stare straight at the corn in my hand.

We have met many times, but we haven't said a word. He walked behind me with a monkey on his back, and he came to me at some point, neither fast nor slow, neither ahead of me nor behind me.

My phone was in the monkey's hand, and it put it up to its nose, sniffed it, and then bit it with its teeth in a gesture that mimicked me eating corn on the cob.I felt the gaze of the monkey artist. He had a focused face with straight eyes, which made his focus almost demented. It took a few seconds for me to hear him speak.

He whispered excitedly: "Like...really like." As if talking to himself.

"You're looking for someone, aren't you?" I'm sure it was addressed to me.

His usual humble smile returned to his face, and he chased me and asked, "Who told you to come?"

I don't know you, give me back the phone.I said.

"I know what you're here for." When he spoke, he shrunk his shoulders, making him look even shorter, his eyes rolled sideways in their sockets, as if he was afraid of being heard, such behavior made him look less like a person, More like an animal.

"...It called you here." He said affirmatively, holding my arm with one hand, and the smile on his face became secretive.

I saw the monkey's yellow eyes, it blinked its round yellow eyes, and made a "chirp" sound from its mouth.

But "it" is not a monkey.

The monkey owner licked his fingers, and took out a picture from the hidden pocket of his close-fitting clothes, on which was printed a picture with a strange shape.From top to bottom, there is a monkey first. The monkey in the painting has four monkey heads, fangs and sharp teeth, and a ferocious face, riding a man who does not distinguish between men and women.The man lay obediently under the monkey's crotch, like a centaur, and the monkey's long tail was raised high like a whip.

——He said that this is the "Great Sage", and he raised his eyes suddenly, with a strange and excited light in his eyes, and said: It really looks like it, it really looks like it.

His unintelligible words made me inadvertently have a terrible association.I was startled, broke away from his arm, and told him: "My brother is here, I'm here to find my brother."

Nonsense, you come here alone every day... I know everything, it was the Great Sage who guided me to find you, it told me everything.He pointed to the monkey in the picture and giggled.Dasheng will help you find someone.

I knew that I had encountered a real psycho, and when I avoided him, he would reach out and grab me, saying, "Good boy, come here, the Great Sage will not harm you, he will save you."

Nanting’s news at that time often had reports about cults. Maybe he was a cult member who went mad. I was a little scared and eager to get rid of his entanglement, but where should I go?

On the game street in front, there are snakes, turtles, hedgehogs, turtledoves, muntjacs in cages... The ground is dirty and wet. I saw someone kill a snake, cut off its head, cut it with scissors and it fell to the ground, and then bled the snake. peeling.The snake was dead, its head was still opening and closing beside the bowl containing the snake's blood, the snake's eyes were staring, spattered with blood.Do not rest in peace.

follow me.It's a blessing, not a curse. It's a disaster that can't be avoided. Only by following the great sage can we achieve positive results.The man tangled up again, muttering incessantly.He said he was here to rescue me and save me, but I don't want it, incense and the Great Sage can't save me, all I need is my brother.

But where to find it?He must have left Nanting.

I backed away. Surprisingly, the monkey master didn't chase after him. He stood there and smiled inexplicably, hehe, hehe.Then, with supernatural powers, stretch out your index finger to perform the "fixation technique".

Of course I wasn't anchored, and neither was his monkey - it jumped off his shoulder and onto me.

I didn't see the monkey's face, but felt its weight hanging on my back, and the monkey's paws were vigorously pawing and kicking. I heard the monkey's cry, and the voice of the monkey's owner calling for the great sage.It seems that the monkey on my body is the one in the picture:

An angry monkey gallops a boneless horse with four heads, greed, cunning, evil and obscenity... I hear myself screaming.

What happened later made me almost believe in the so-called "Great Sage". It couldn't make me achieve a positive result, but it made me meet Lu Xinyao. —or he bumped into me.

My brother was not knocked down by me, and neither was I. I didn’t even have time to see him clearly. I only felt his hand pressing on the back of my head. struggling.

The monkey kept screaming strangely. It swung its tail on the back of my neck, wrapped it around, hung half of its body, and grabbed my brother with its two hairy hands. It fell to the ground with a splash.In a sense, at this moment it became my accomplice and fulfilled my secret wish. I let go of its claws to protect my brother.

This process didn't last long, and soon I felt my neck loosen, and the monkey was thrown away by Lu Xinyao.

I heard the monkey barking, it jumped up from the ground, and ran away as fast as a frightened wild cat and wild dog.And the monkey's owner was still planning to use his magical powers there. When he found that the monkey had run away, he staggered and chased after it.

The supernatural power passed to him by the Great Sage caused him to fall while escaping.

Only the wallet and keys were left on the ground, and I squatted down to pick them up for my brother.I have to be good in front of my brother, so that he can look at me more pleasingly and not rush me away.I have studied these since I was a child. I know how to pick up things on the ground deftly, and I also know how to wipe off the dust outside, and then hold them in both hands and offer them to my brother.

But I picked it up, but I don't want to return it to him.I hold the wallet firmly in my hand, and it has never been returned to its original owner.

I recognized my things in it.In the open wallet, there was a train ticket in the place where the ID card was placed.The expired train ticket, the date on it made me spend a lot of money in front of my eyes.

It turned out that I left him, he saw it, and he knew it!So why did he come to Nanting? ...Is it related to this train ticket?

When I first arrived here, I often thought, what would have happened if I hadn’t been so rebellious, hadn’t run away from home, and stayed in Baiquedang honestly?

Maybe Lu Xinyao will forgive my mistakes, and I can continue to be his younger brother and continue to study.Lu Xinyao will marry a wife and have children, and live a normal life like his peers. I will watch everything that has nothing to do with me happen to him.After I was admitted to university and left Baiquedang, the ambiguous relationship with my brother would naturally fade away until it finally disappeared completely, as if it had never happened.

But I can't imagine that.

I even had the idea of ​​going crazy. I left the train ticket to Lu Xinyao, and my intentions were sinister and selfish.I want him to leave behind his mother, younger brother and "bride", no love or affection, just me.

Is he here for me now?I look up to him.

I didn't want to stand up, and after a long time, I finally cheated in front of my brother again.I lay on the ground until he crouched in front of me.I was still looking up at him, clutching his "external objects", trying to see what was inside his body.

"Mengli, are you scared?" Lu Xinyao didn't know why I was squatting down. He unzipped my coat, checked my neck and wrists, and talked to me, asking if I had been scratched by a monkey.

"I thought you were gone."

Lu Xinyao's movements paused, and that subtle feeling flowed between me and my brother in silence.

A train ticket may not mean anything to Lu Xinyao, it is just stuck in my wallet and I am too lazy to throw it away, but it lends me courage.I heard my voice say, "Brother, do you miss me?"

I have thought about these words countless times, and I have read them fluently in my heart, but I still tremble when I say them.

Lu Xinyao's gaze flicked towards me, and he passed by lightly and without trace. He didn't say anything, and took the key from my hand, but he couldn't take the wallet away. I held it tightly in my hand. , grab him.He almost laughed a bit, forced to indulge, but when he smiled, my tears fell for no reason.

"I miss you very much." It doesn't matter if he doesn't say it, I will say it for him and myself.

Lu Xinyao has always disliked tears, every time I cry, he wipes them away very skillfully.This time he didn't—he wanted me to cry for him.Not only to look, but also to look closely.

Such a close distance seems to be a thing of the past life.I begged my brother: "Don't send me 'back', brother, I don't know if I can find you again."

"You shouldn't be looking for me," he said.

"Brother, there is still a piece of paper in the piggy bank. Have you seen it?" It doesn't matter if I didn't see it, I still remember the words on the paper, and I can repeat it to him.That saying never expires anyway.

Lu Xinyao's eyes changed a bit, and I could clearly see cracks appearing in the flat indifference on his face, and the cracks were full of vitality, growing inch by inch, conquering the city.But there is another moat in his eyes.

"I saw it. Or is it because you like me?" Lu Xinyao pulled the corner of his mouth, but I felt that he was not smiling. How could there be sadness in his smile?

He said, "Meng Li, wake up."

I don't want to be sober, I want to answer the questions left by my previous life again.

"You used to ask me if I can't live without you," now I tell him, "Actually, I can live without you, but I can't live without loving you. Can you give me some love?"

I looked at my brother, kneeling on the ground as soon as his legs softened, and I begged him with tears in my eyes and blood in my heart.

"Brother, don't go, I'm afraid."

Lu Xinyao suddenly looked away, and then he lowered his head, and I saw a vortex on the top of his hair submerged in my shadow, a small, intricate vortex, sucking the soul into it.That moment seemed to pass very slowly, and I was even more reluctant to drop it, answer, answer—a few seconds that elongated.

I guessed that the river in my brother’s eyes had burst its bank. I was not used to this, and I was afraid that the water would overwhelm him, so I said to him, “Brother, you climb on my back.”

Lu Xinyao didn't move, his shoulders trembled.

"Meng Li, I didn't take good care of you." His voice was unbearably low, he squatted in front of me, his black and white eyes were a little red at the moment, and he didn't blink, as if he was emotional.I heard him say that he taught me badly.

For the first time, I noticed "vulnerability" in my brother. He didn't cry, but there was a tear on the wing of his nose.

After Zhang Buyu left for a year, seeing him again, there seemed to be a layer of separation between us, and it was weird to hug him.I think Lu Xinyao and I are separated by layer after layer, and we are strangers everywhere, but I still dare to kiss him.

I want to kiss him!quick!

I pressed myself against Lu Xinyao's neck, kissed his lips, and bit him hard.

...He will definitely push me away.So I hug him tight.

But I guessed wrong, I will never know what Lu Xinyao is thinking and what he will do, all I am familiar with are his fakes.But the one in front of me, the one who came to me from afar, is the real Lu Xinyao with flesh and blood!

I dare to kiss him, and he dares to respond to me with bloody lips.

The bloody scene on Wild Game Street emerged before my eyes: a snake with its body and head separated, its head spitting out a letter, biting fiercely on the ground, biting... the ground was covered with my own blood, cold and smelly.The snake's eyes were staring, and it shot out a fierce light, dying with regret.There was a secret, treacherous emotion rolling in my chest, and the bloody scene stimulated me deeply.

This is a bloody kiss, which does not happen between lovers. In a trance, I fantasize that we are a bond of blood.We have lived together for so many years, if there is love, it must be watered with blood.

We are in love with each other.Together!

I feel like a piece of cracked land. My brother kissed me wet, and I kissed him too. We absorb each other's water and consume each other. When we are about to die of thirst, we have the illusion of drowning.

This...is too much like a dream.Eyes are full of illusions, too easy to break.I am afraid.

I am not afraid of that man, I am not afraid of cults, I am not afraid of the Great Sage, I am not afraid of monkeys.I'm afraid of Lu Xinyao.

I'm not afraid of him breaking my leg, and I'm not afraid of him kicking me again, but if he kicks me again, I'm afraid I'll crawl back--that's what I'm afraid of, I figured it out when he kissed me, I will definitely climb back.