gentle collapse

There was no one in the store, and he and I were squatting at the door, behind us were cement pockets built up to the roof, and the floor was covered with lead-gray dust. The rolling shutter door seemed to be broken, half hanging over our heads.I am now thinking about what kind of image I am in such an environment. My imagination is watching me coldly, but at least it has not left me.

He Yuchen didn't speak all the time, which also blocked the possibility of my further conversation.There was a sound of an engine accompanied by a strong smell of gasoline, and a truck drove outside the store.He Yuchen stood up when he saw it, put a gray-black towel on his left shoulder, put on hemp gloves, and went into the store to carry cement.The strong man standing inside the truck jumped down from behind, pulled the latch of the iron enclosure, and pushed down a wooden ladder.He greeted He Yuchen, and He Yuchen handed him the cement bag, and he turned around and bent down to lay it down.

When He Yuchen returned to the store, he saw that I was lost. He wiped his face with his sleeve and said, "Lin An, I'm sorry, I pulled you here just now, do you still have to go to school?"

"Well, I still have time to go now." I looked at the watch on my wrist, there was still half an hour left, "Didn't you say you have something to tell me?"

"Actually, it's nothing." He straightened his gloves. "I should take care of these things myself. You should go back to school first. I'm a little busy right now."

"Okay then." My legs were already a little numb from squatting for too long, so he gave me a hand. The loose and deformed gloves were of poor texture, and there was still a lot of cement dust on them.When walking to school, I kept rubbing the pad of my index finger with my thumb, rubbing it unconsciously.

Chen Wei arrived before me, with his head down, I couldn't see his expression, and he didn't take the initiative to speak.

He still couldn't hold his breath and asked me: "How long have you known He Yuchen? Has he said anything to you?"

I said, "Not long, but I know everything."

"No wonder you look at me that way today. You stand on He Yuchen's side, of course you think I deserve it."

I was a little angry: "Wherever I stand, I will think that you deserve it. Don't you feel that you did something wrong?"

"Since you can't bear to see my face, why do you still pretend to be peaceful, and why do you wait for me to come out in the office? You are really hypocritical, do you know that?" He turned his body and straightened Look into my eyes.

Actually I know.

There was a muffled sound of books hitting the table behind him, and Zheng Yi asked: "What are you arguing about...Come on, everyone in the third year of high school is angry, let it go, after reading books for so many years, you still use your voice to win or lose, listen It's too ugly."

"At six o'clock in the afternoon, the flower bed on the right side of the auditorium in the playground, if you want to hear what I have to say, come." Chen Wei ignored Zheng Yi and said to me.I turned my head to look at Zheng Yi, and exchanged glances with him to reassure him.

I don't want to go, I know how badly a story will be distorted if it is split into two perspectives. A story that serves subjective desires will be reduced to a tool.

But I still squatted in the grass and listened to Chen Wei.He kept talking without giving me a space to express my opinion, which made me feel at ease.

"The day I died... I went home in a daze. The soul is very light, it doesn't land when it steps on the air, and it's easy to turn in the air. I got used to it and looked at the old furniture with peeling paint and the white damaged corners around me. Tiles, a relief. These are no longer binding me, I don't have to soften my voice to speak nicely to the landlord for the right to use such a dirty and disgusting room.

When he came back, he was carrying a few bags of vegetables. After he put the vegetables in the kitchen, he took out his account book and took out the receipts to write down carefully.Then he boiled hot water in the kitchen, simmered soup, and sat in front of the sofa to watch TV.I was thinking, when will he hear the news of my death?Maybe not, I only saved his number and name in my mobile phone, it looks no different from a normal number.I committed suicide. I was out in the wilderness. It is estimated that I will not be discovered until I rot.I don't have a serious job, and it's impossible for my superiors and colleagues to call home to ask, not to mention that there is no landline in the rental house.

In a short period of time, he would only think that I was missing. He still went to work on time, left work, cooked, and one day even called a decorator to install the tiles in the corner.When keeping accounts, his brows were so wrinkled that he could raise his nose, which was very interesting.Just like that, I stayed in that house for more than ten days.He finally started looking for me.When he was sitting by the computer, the printer was working all the time, and sheets of warm white A4 paper came out of the machine, with my stiff face and a few lines of large black characters on them.That photo was cut from the only photo of the two of us together, and his ears and shoulders were visible at the edges of the paper.

He flipped through the address book and called people in the gang, with a neither humble nor overbearing voice.The voice in the microphone was very loud, accusing him of why I disappeared for so many days before he thought of asking, he said: "He used to do this often..."

Over there is Brother Qiang's voice: "Hey, wait... is he dead? I heard that a man's body was found on the hillside outside the old city yesterday. A policeman came to look for our boss last night. , I don’t know whether to suspect our gang or what…”

Yes, that body is mine.When he went to the police station to identify the body, I was already rotten. The police said that I didn't have anything to prove my identity. In fact, I had a wallet and a mobile phone on me. I guess someone took it after I died.

He still recognized me.

He touched my black and swollen fingers and said to the policeman, "Can I take him away?"

After he sent my body to the funeral home for cremation, he bought a train ticket back to Los Angeles. He stuffed the urn into his backpack and held it on his chest. He leaned against the window with his eyes closed, his head trembling along with the windowpane. , looking haggard.

I fell in love with him at that time.

I think of the way he was wearing sandals and running on the main road when he was a few years old, the way he took the bus with his guitar on his back, the way he watered the garden when he was taking care of the garden, he curled up under the quilt in the morning and looked at me with only his forehead and eyes exposed. The look of the mirror.These images bounced around in my soul, as if to remind me how dull I was. "

Chen Wei's voice stopped suddenly, and I saw a few people in school uniforms running towards this side. They jumped into the flower bed and took some takeaways in disposable cylindrical lunch boxes from under the iron railing. .Our school strictly controls the students going out, so this should be the place where they pick up food secretly.

A man took money out of his school uniform pants and said to him, "We paid together."

"Wait a minute, let me see if there is any change." The voice was so familiar that I felt a little nervous.I looked up and it was really him...

He is the one who came after me with a system mission.He obviously saw me too. After giving the money to that person, there were still two white boxes in his hand. He looked down at the phone screen and then at me.

He hesitated and said, "Have you eaten yet? Do you want to try the mutton powder? I ride a bicycle very fast. They haven't come yet. I can give it away again."

I looked at Chen Wei, who was hanging his head, and said, "No, thank you."

He was carrying the bag, and passed his arm over the railing to me, with a slightly embarrassed expression on his face.I stood up and took it with both hands: "Then how much should I give you? Six yuan for a bowl of noodles?"

"I want to make a phone call to ask them to cook noodles quickly, and I have to ride a bicycle. The car is a bit broken...so I'm in a hurry. I'll go first. Give me the money another day. I'll come to you." He gripped the spigot of the bicycle , ignoring my hand to hand over the money, and said quickly.

Because it was going downhill, the back of him riding a bicycle quickly disappeared.I put the money back into my pocket, and put the powder in front of Chen Wei: "You haven't eaten, either."

He shook his head and said, "Did you hate me more after hearing what I just said?"

I said: "There is indeed one thing, at least you should tell him clearly that you don't like him at the beginning, so that he can give up. You clearly know that he is alone with you when you are down, and you enjoy his life with peace of mind. take care of?"

"I told him." Chen Wei pulled a piece of dry grass into two knots, and said with a wry smile, "I told him very early. He left my house later, and went to the Conservatory of Music, wanting to pursue his own favorite music. until my dad’s company went bankrupt, and he found me again, saying that he had a two-person room and was short of a roommate, and asked me if I wanted to rent it. He said he didn’t like me anymore, so the two of us could be □ □, to meet physiological needs.”

Stirring the fans in the box, I said to him, "Even if I'm just a high school kid, I know he just said that to reassure you."

"I thought I had a chance," he said, "when I woke up and saw 2019 on the calendar."