Pavlov and the White Moonlight

It’s almost the end of the end of the year, and Tang Shuhe’s teaching and scientific research tasks are very heavy. X University has a broken system of young teachers who are promoted or left. He wakes up earlier and goes to bed later than the dog every day. This makes me often I am worried about the hair volume of this young scholar in our family.I go back and forth between the theater and home, and I have opened a new book. In fact, I don’t have much time to spend my days leisurely at home. Often, the two of us don’t talk much at night. There is only the sound of typing in the room. I'm thinking, I'm going to stay at home with Tang Shuhe for a while after I finally finish this busy period. Tang Shuhe probably thinks the same as me. We work in separate rooms and sleep in the same room. Once, after eleven o'clock in the evening, he ran to the house with his slippers. I came to this room, took off my plain glasses, buried my face in the crook of my neck, rubbed my face, gave me a kiss, sighed, put on my glasses and left with my messy hair .I was prostituted for nothing, and I sat there in a daze for a long time before I came out with a silly smile.

X University set up a research institute in Tianjin this year. On the day Tang Shuhe received the notice, the two of us rarely had free time. Just as we were about to go out to watch a movie, he sat on the shoe-changing footstool by the door and frowned while looking at his phone. I said, "What's wrong?" Crumpled?"

He said: "The head of the department asked me to go to Tianjin with him for research."

I said, "Just you two?"

He shook his head: "There are still a few professors."

"That's right," I said happily, applauding him, "Teacher Tang is expected to be promoted."

Tang Shuhe said: "It's just a research group."

I said, "That's fine too—when are you leaving?"

"Next week," he said.

I didn’t expect that at the age of 26, I would have a long-distance relationship with my partner. I felt a little bit reluctant, but I still had to watch the movie. It was a very popular movie at the time. I don’t remember what it was about. I just remember that Tang Shuhe was so close to me. The two couldn't help but had a short boo, and when they parted, they heard an uncle behind him singing and saying in a particularly painful way: "Oh my mother."

I stuck out my tongue at Tang Shuhe, he covered his forehead and smiled, embarrassed, sorry and helpful, very funny.

Because of the painful uncle at the back, the two of us didn’t do anything more, and watched the second half seriously. After the movie ended, we didn’t take a taxi and walked home slowly. He said that there seemed to be no fruit at home, and he was at the gate of the community in a while. To buy some, I tidied up the scarf for him and agreed.We were still wandering around in the bustling business district. There was a wedding company in the square doing promotional activities. There was a huge human-shaped silhouette standing sign, which looked like a couple proposing marriage. There were staff members wearing big white bear doll costumes walking by. Walking around, a bunch of people crowded there to take pictures, the two of us went around the crowd, Tang Shuhe wrapped his coat tightly, hid his face behind the scarf, glanced in that direction, and I said, "Go and see?"

He shook his head, I took a look at the standing sign, and asked in a hurry, then I will kneel down for you?Or will you kneel down for me?He chuckled and pulled me away.

I glanced back.

The night before he went to Tianjin, I sat on the bed with my laptop in my arms and watched him walk up and down to pack his luggage. I couldn't type a word, and I felt a little separation anxiety.I said, "How many days are you going?"

He folded the clothes with his back to me, and said, "Let's count the round trip for four or five days."

I slammed the computer shut, jumped out of bed, and hugged him from behind.

Tang Shuhe dragged me, stretched out his hand with difficulty to reach the suitcase in front of him, stuffed his clothes in, and said sullenly: "Don't drink too much wine with others at home. Eat three meals regularly, or you will have a stomachache."

I am happy, what kind of attitude is this to take care of children, I patted his stomach in the posture of hugging him: "Then don't eat too many pancakes and fruits with others outside, and eat three meals regularly, or you will be overwhelmed."

The corner of Tang Shuhe's mouth twitched, sighed, and said, "Then I'll call you every night at ten o'clock, okay?"

I said, "Yes, of course you can, work hard on scientific research, and think about me in your spare time."

He pursed his lips and smiled, and said, "Then you work hard, amateur..."

"I miss you full time," I said.

After I finished speaking, I shivered, making myself feel numb enough, but he turned around and kissed me.

I got up early the next day and sent him to the airport. After returning, I went straight to the theater. When I was in the corridor of the theater, I received a message from him. He said that he had boarded the plane.Looking up, I saw Wen Ruixiu leaning against the end of the corridor with his shoulders and head tilted, and smiled at me.

I raised my eyebrows, Wen Ruixiu stretched his neck, raised his hand to light the cigarette, took a puff, and said, "Go in and have a look, I'll finish this one."

I brush past him.The rehearsal is about to start, and now I am adjusting the stage scene by scene. Not long after I sat down, Wen Ruixiu sat next to me, smelling of cigarettes all over his body, he said: "I haven't seen you smoking recently."

I nodded: "I don't want my family members to smoke second-hand smoke."

He smiled and shook his head.

I squinted my eyes for a while and said, "Will this play be a hit?"

He laughed: "Mr. Lu, when did the small theater sell out?"

""Leaving Beijing" is quite popular. I watched it."

"It's okay—why, are you afraid that you'll ruin my signboard?" Wen Ruixiu asked.

"Do you have a signboard?"

"Thankfully not," he said.

Both Wen Ruixiu and I laughed.We were sitting not far from the stage, the headlights were a bit hot, Wen Ruixiu was sweating on his forehead, and the hair tied behind his head was also wet. He tugged at his neckline and said, "Who wants to do this with money."

I smiled and said yes.

After a while, he said, "Is your thinking still the same as when you started writing?"

I was silent for a while, and asked if we could stop chatting during rehearsals, and he clicked his tongue, asking who would start first.No more talking.

It's the fourth act on the stage. Meng Tian is wearing makeup, and he's stuck in the stage. It's not unreasonable for Wen Ruixiu to like to use him as the leading actor. More language than Xie Shui.

"There will come a day when death is still and serene to me, when fear is to me like fingers freshly peeled from an orange, and love is like the whine of a steamship down the valley, then I'll stop looking You, until then, I will never stop looking for you, this is my own business. This is my own business."

"Hey!" Wen Ruixiu yelled, "Did the light just wait for a while?"

Meng Tian stopped.Deng Deng apologized, and Wen Ruixiu sat down again, twirling his fingers, as if he was addicted to cigarettes.I looked around and asked, "Where is Xie Shui? Is he going to play soon?"

Wen Ruixiu twirled his fingers again, stood up and said, "What about the dressing room—I'm going to smoke another cigarette."

My phone vibrated, and Tang Shuhe sent me a message: "The plane has landed."

Before Tang Shuhe left, the two of us agreed to make a phone call at ten o'clock every night. It was not eight o'clock when I came home. I didn't feel anything when I lived alone, but someone came and left, and suddenly The room feels empty.After I ate and fed the dog, I was bored, so I had to wander into the study to see things and think about people. Except for a large pile of books and scanned documents on the table on the bookshelf, other things in his study were neatly tidied up. See, I really can't think of it anymore. I slid my fingers across the spines of those books to quench my thirst. When I scanned the books aimlessly, I realized that only some books were stacked horizontally on the bookshelves, with the spines facing inwards. , I couldn’t see the content, it seemed a bit messy, I got a little curious, took out those books, froze for a moment, and then smiled.

This stack is the books I have published over the years, and even in order to collect all the articles I wrote for the magazine column, he bought back every issue of the magazine, neatly arranged them together by date and serial number, I flipped through Sure enough, my name, Lu Huai, was on the title pages of books and magazines.

Holding the stack of books in my hand, my heart was suddenly gently pinched.The old days are chasing from behind like a tide, eight years... no, nine years ago, at the sports meeting when I was 17 years old, I accidentally revealed a secret, and the empty schoolbag clattered out a lot of teenage thoughts, Perhaps since then, my thread with him has been entangled together and can no longer be separated.

Me, if I go back to that time, I will definitely not let that embarrassed and flustered young man run away like that. I will grab him and tell Tang Shuhe, let's elope, and we will hold hands and run to City X.

Some of those books have been turned to rough edges by him. Over the years, I have written so many things. I don’t know if he can read them. Sometimes I will hide behind the words and think about him cleverly.I flipped through the books one by one, and found that there was still something in the book, which floated down as I flipped the book. I picked it up and saw that it was a piece of paper, a piece of...

It was a yellowed page of exercises, which should have been cut from a textbook. Next to the cumbersome political topic, there was an ugly smiling face with a small red blob on the left side. Next to the smiling face were my crooked words: Tang Shuhe .

This is you.

There is an old Ding head next to this clown face, and under the old Ding head is my name: Lu Huai.This is Tang Shuhe's handwriting.

Such an ordinary thing, he has hidden it for so many years.

I lowered my head, my hands were trembling badly, I hurriedly clipped the page back, and flipped through the books one by one, for fear of missing anything, he also clipped some things: the graduation photo of Wen ([-]) class, my photo , and then scroll down, there is no more.The bottom one was not my book, and I suddenly realized what it was.

That's probably... Tang Shuhe's notebook, diary, note, whatever you want to call it, things related to work, he won't put them together.Something here must be about me.

I slowly sat on the ground.

Until Tang Shuhe called, I had almost no sense of time. The ringtone of the WeChat audio phone startled me, and his voice came into my ears. I looked up at my watch, and it was ten o'clock.

"...Teacher Tang," my throat was astringent, and I cleared it with all my strength, "off work?"

"No way," he complained on the other end of the phone, "today, there was no mention of work at all, and the teacher at the reception took us to play for a whole day."

"Ah?" I said, "...that's normal, I want to do my best to be a landlord."

"I'm exhausted," he said.

I am very distressed, how can I still be tired after playing: "Then have you gone back to the hotel now? Have they given you alcohol?"

"No, no drink," he lazily turned over, "back to the hotel."

"Where did you go today?" I said.

He gave a hum, and talked to me about what street he visited today, what he ate, and what Ferris wheel he rode at night. I said, "Well, are you happy?"

He said it was okay, and I said, "Then do you miss me?"

He chuckled and said, "Yeah."

I said, "I miss you Tang Shuhe, I really...I miss you so much that I feel sick."

He laughed over there, thinking I was teasing him, and I said, "I'm not kidding."

Tang Shuhe stopped laughing: "What's the matter, do you have a stomach problem?"

"No. I just miss you. Thinking about someone makes my head hurt and makes me want to vomit. Have you ever had that?"

He was silent for a moment, then said softly, "Yes."

I sat on the ground, took a breath, changed my sitting position, and said, "Baby, I'll admit my mistake to you."

"Huh?" I heard the rustling of the cloth on his side, and he seemed to sit up, "What's wrong?"

"I... I went to the study today, and I saw your diary."

He froze for a moment: "Have you seen it?"

I said, well, I couldn't help peeking.He paused, then smiled softly, and said, "You can just watch it... You see, it's not considered peeking."

"I..." I lowered my head, feeling dizzy as if I had been addicted to cigarettes. I restrained myself from picking up the lighter. I twisted my fingers, untied the collar a little, and said in a low voice, "That day when you Downstairs, I was interrupted to tell you about the play I wrote, and then I forgot to tell you."

"Well," he seemed to lie down again, "tell me."

"It's...a man. His lover died suddenly in a car accident. He was very sad, and his heart ached like mad. He could see his unrecognizable wife wandering around the room, washing her bloody neck with water."

Tang Shuhe hissed.

I laughed: "His friend took him to see a psychiatrist, and the doctor said he had a phobia. But he himself firmly believed that it was because he loved her so much that he had those hallucinations."

"He firmly believes that there is a way in this world that will reunite him with his lover. He thinks he will find her. He has tried many methods, and he also wants to die in the past. Standing on the roof of the building, but suddenly there is a strong wind , he suddenly became very frightened, hugged the lightning rod on the roof and yelled, and people saved him. He never tried to die again."

"Someone told him a way to burn his wife's clothes on the day of her death, so that he could not only see the hallucinations of blood and flesh, but actually see his wife's soul, so he burned his wife's clothes at midnight that day. It was getting more and more prosperous. At this time, there was a knock on the door, and he was so frightened that he collapsed to the ground. After a while, he got up, howled and put out the fire, but did not open the door. Put out, one wall of the house has been burned."

"And then?" Tang Shuhe asked softly.

"Then he sat in the ashes and said, 'There will come a time when death will be to me still and serene, and fear will be to me as fragrant as fingers freshly peeled from an orange, and love as the whine of a steamship down the valley. , then I'll stop looking for you, and until then, I'll never stop looking for you, it's my business. It's my business.'"

Tang Shuhe didn't speak.I said: "Today Wen Ruixiu asked me if my thoughts are still the same as when I started writing. I don't know how to answer him. I... My affairs with you have nothing to do with the stage, right?"

He smiled: "Well. But it's a good story. Remember to reserve a seat for me on the day the ticket sales start."

"Okay," I said, "In the scene, the narrative of the first scene starts with him burning clothes... You have to be careful, Xie Shui will rush up from the audience to put out the flames, hahaha."

"Why, because his name is Xie Shui?" he said.

I laughed and rubbed my eyes, I still had the notebook on my lap, I don't know why I told him this story, sometimes things develop illogically like the human brain.

He said Lu Huai, I kind of want to go home.

I said, "Okay, I'll pick you up."

The author has something to say:

It's almost over, the next chapter or the next chapter.Xiao Tang's notes are on the sidelines.