[Zhongyingmei] I don't want to save you today

More than 30 years have passed, but every detail of that afternoon is still alive in his mind—the curtains that brushed the mottled walls, the breeze turning books through the windows, and the beautiful sky outside the window.

The middle-aged man flipped through the question booklet in his hand in disbelief, and the book was rattling. He compared the standard answers with Wang Chaocao's handwriting, trying to find the wrong answer.He checked the steps step by step, but couldn't find even the flaws—concise, effective, and the interest in mathematics itself that had been extinguished by teaching students over the years seemed to return to him, every cell was screaming loudly —Look at this beautiful logic!

The middle-aged man asked eagerly again: "Where are you a student? Did you do this? Did you do this yourself? Who is your teacher?"

He stood aside, finally breathed a sigh of relief (he thought he had caused trouble, but he couldn't help flipping through it, and then answered the question), he thought about it and replied: "I don't have a teacher, sir, I am Self-taught."

The middle-aged man was silent for a while, and couldn't help but raised his voice and repeated his answer: "Self-study? No teacher? What are you kidding?" He unconsciously rubbed the booklet in his hand, walked back and forth anxiously, and then stopped abruptly. Next, he asked: "How long have you studied?"

He was a little confused, but he still replied obediently: "Three and a half months, sir."

The man didn't know what to say anymore. He closed the book in his hand, looked at him carefully, and frowned in embarrassment: "Do you have an ID card?"

He nodded quickly, as if something would slip through his fingers if he was a second slower: "Yes, sir."

——But I don't know if I can find it... But in this case, even if there is a gun on his forehead, he still has to swear that he can find it.

The man frowned and nodded, and asked very quickly: "Will you come here tomorrow afternoon? Oh, I'm sorry I haven't asked yet, are you interested in the math competition?"

It seemed that he was afraid that he would not know what the math competition was. The man was about to explain, but he nodded quickly: "I am interested, I am interested, sir, I am here every afternoon."

The middle-aged man nodded, flipped through the exercise book in his hand, gave him another deep look, turned around and strode away.

"Then around five o'clock in the afternoon the next day, he brought another man over to see me."

"Really? Then you can go to their school to study?" Tai Anna couldn't help but opened her eyes wide, and leaned forward.

He shook his head and said, "There was a quarrel among them. One said how could I be able to teach myself that way, and the other said that they shouldn't be so pedantic long ago."

"Still quarreling?" Tai Anna became more interested, her eyelashes fluttered twice, and asked, "What did they say?"

He tried his best to imitate the tone of the man who was brought in: "What are you kidding? After three and a half months of self-study, what do you think of mathematics? God knows how he learned it."

Tai Anna took a sip of wine: "Then how did the other man answer??"

He secretly delighted at the focused gaze that Taina had on him, and raised his voice slightly, trying to imitate it as best he could: "But he did it, Daniel, in three and ten minutes, all right. Fucking all right! I went to see the surveillance, I just think we should believe the facts - and those kids at school can't even do the simplest algebra, they are a bunch of crap. Are you going to expect them to participate in the competition?"

Taina giggled and couldn't help but take another swig of her drink.

She commented happily: "This is so fucking relieved, and you can finally move forward!"

The girl hugged him, so close that he could smell the faint smell of alcohol on her body.

His face turned red, and he carefully wrapped his arms around his arms, but when the hug was about to be completed, Taina slammed him away.

She didn't mean it, she was just a little drunk——

The little squirrel excitedly raised the wine glass again, the cloudy liquid was swaying in the glass, and under the dim light of the bar counter, a beautiful white spot of light appeared at the bottom of the glass: "Let us drink for your future—a glass! !!"

He drank a big gulp in one breath, a little choked, the corners of his eyes were a little red, and some tears leaked out, Taianna raised her hand to wipe it away, thinking that he was crying, she lowered her eyes and stared blankly for a while. Wet and cold, she raised her head and smiled at him suddenly, and comforted in a gentle whisper: "Okay, okay, it won't get worse."

Her tone became lower and lower, as if from another world: "The worst time is over, there will be no more difficulties we can't face, it won't be worse than now..."

Tai Anna put down the wine glass carefully, patted him on the shoulder, and fell asleep on the bar counter.

In the next six months, he got more books, more question books, more knowledge, and even a teacher who could answer his questions.He knows about competitions one after another, AHSME, USAMO, AIME... Domestic and foreign, all of them are the way stations that he may reach in the future.He understands different types of answering skills, and the piles of questions he has done are as high as half a person. The advantage here is that the pen and paper can be used casually, and there is no need to write three or four times to save a piece of paper.

But the only downside is that he spends less and less time meeting Tai Anna—he has to spend time doing questions and doing more questions until no one in this area can beat him, and he can advance smoothly .

Tai Anna looked at it very openly, and she said magnanimously: "Leaving is done step by step. After all, you will leave here sooner or later."

He was a little depressed, and his little pale face was full of depression due to lack of sleep: "But I want to see you..."

Tai Anna paused, sighed, and persuaded: "I can come to you, you must cherish this opportunity."

He could only nod his head, even though he knew that consolation could only be consolation—Tianna had been getting busier recently, she had more guests, she still needed performances and training, and she wanted to save enough money to leave here earlier.

But what can be done?This is the only chance he has and he has no choice.

He asked: "Will you always be with me?"

Tai Anna didn't know whether she didn't hear "always" clearly or if she heard it clearly but felt that she could do it, she said firmly, "I will."

It was the eve of the AHSME competition, and when he was anxiously repeating the real problem, Tai Anna knocked on the door lightly—he had already moved out because his stepfather and stepmother did not allow him to turn on the lights for too long at night.It just so happened that Tai Anna's roommate had something to go home recently, and there was an empty bed in the room, so he moved in.They simply set up a wooden screen in the middle of the room, which served as a door.Now besides going back to do housework every day, he is gradually leaving that so-called "home".He thought: maybe the little squirrel is right, he is losing the relationship and the link here.

Pushing away the screen to get out of the way, Taina came in quickly.She first looked curiously at the contents of the calculation paper on his desk, then swung her tongue and wobbled back.She unceremoniously occupied the chair, raised her head to look at him, and said teasingly, "Guess what I'm here for?"

He shook his head blankly, still rejoicing at her sudden arrival in his heart.

—Is it to encourage him?

"Dangdang! Look!"

She proudly took out a small box: "Quickly open it and have a look~"

He opened the flap—it was a pen.

She said as a matter of course: "No matter what, every scholar should have a pen of his own, and it is said that this one is super spiritual, so remember to bring it with you tomorrow."

He nodded, suddenly felt something blocked his throat, nodded indiscriminately, and he hugged Tyana.Watching her tears stain her light-colored clothes deeply, and then submerged and disappeared.

She was taken aback, as if she didn't expect his reaction to be so big, tentatively raised her arms around him, and said softly: "Okay, I'm here. I've saved a lot of money to buy this recently. "

He raised his head from her shoulder in astonishment, and asked, "But don't you still want to—"

She didn't care, and straightened her recently long hair, she said: "There will always be opportunities in the future, but you are going to compete tomorrow."

Seeing that he still looked a little silly, she complained softly: "What's the matter with you, you look so stupid, you can do so well...Okay, okay, I won't bother you, come on tomorrow , remember to go to bed early~"

Before he could ask to stay, she stood up from her seat, slipped back in again, then turned around and closed the screen.

After a while, Xixisuosuo's movements also fell silent, and he heard her cover the quilt, and a delicate voice came from there, with tired sleepiness: "Good night."

"Good night." He replied softly.

Go to bed after finishing this question.

There were more people participating in the competition than he had imagined, and he waited nervously on the sidelines, clutching his ID and the pen that Tai Anna bought him, while recalling those formulas in his heart.

The surrounding crowd was bustling, students gathered in groups of three or four, some chatted, some took the last time to read notes, and some didn't care.

The gap between people is so big. For some people, it is a godsend and the only way to get out of the predicament. For others, it is a weekend adjustment requested by parents to go through the motions.

He seemed to feel the scrutinizing eyes of the people around him, and the whispers that fell on him like a knife.He felt contempt, curiosity and surprise.But in this situation, even pure curiosity seemed aggressive, like a barbed hook, trying to tear off a few pieces of flesh from him.

He can understand that even his classmates in the "same school" are unwilling to stand with him, because he is a "child who grew up by the sewer of the garbage dump", his body is always full of stench, and he is full of waste. He plays in the backyard of his home, eats leftovers, wears things that are not even clothes; he needs to survive season after season, virus and scolding, because he has no money to see a doctor and no one cares, He has no formal education and has spent several months in school over the past ten years.

But so what?Are those people much better than him?Is he really worse than those people if he removes the shell?

All he has is a chance.

He watched the people giggling and talking in the lobby—they just glanced at him and then turned away—the conversation was filled with words he didn't understand, as if he had never learned English, as if even after this For a long time, he was still the orphan who didn't understand anything, and suddenly there was a mixture of envy, unwillingness, inferiority and contempt in his heart.

He's different, he told himself to himself.

Compared with those teenagers whose future is bright and bright, the only setback is that they did not ask their parents for enough money to get the latest game, he was born to stand on the tip of a cold knife, and was endowed with a life close to negative Tolerance rate.Those touching happiness, the magnificent beauty of clouds and clouds above the vegetation, peel off the most glamorous shell, remove layers of sweet sugar coating, leaving him with shocking and scarred life itself, with countless gaping mouths hidden. The deadly trap lurking patiently in the path he must pass.

He can only rely on himself in life, and he only has Tyanna.

He clenched the pen in his hand, and his eyes became firm again—the surrounding fog was billowing and misty, and what he saw in front of him was only the four walls cut by the axe, and the towering peaks, but he could only cling tightly to the precipitous broken rock beside him.

He wants to keep going, even if the mountain road is rough, he will fall to pieces, even if his muscles and bones are broken, he will not have a future at all, he will move out of this dangerous situation inch by inch, to find the tomorrow that does not exist or not.

There is no way back, only the way back.