three feet away

The next day, the two woke up very early, and everyone in the small courtyard was still asleep. Xu Nuo and Yan Ruyi washed up silently in the morning light, Xu Nuo went back to the room and took his backpack, Yan Ruyi followed behind her.

When she was about to leave, Xu Nuo suddenly stopped and turned sideways, and took a look into the room. For some reason, she always felt that she would never come here again.

Yan Ruyi stood behind her, looking back like her, then she raised her hand to stroke Xu Nuo's hair, and said in a low voice, "Let's go, I'll take you to the station."

The two walked side by side at the school at 06:30 in the morning. Except for a few older retired teachers, they met no one along the way.

The delicate sunlight in the early morning fell on the two of them through the thick magnolia forest path. Xu Nuo took a deep breath. She stopped at the place where she looked sideways at Yan Ruyi's face, the breeze fluttered, and the mottled light spots trembled in the corners of her eyes as the leaves swayed up and down.After one night, she could barely open her right eye, but the bloodshot eyes had not receded.

"What's the matter?" Seeing her stop but not speaking, Yan Ruyi raised her head slightly to look into Xu Nuo's eyes, and asked her softly.

Xu Nuo was silent for a moment, bent his lips towards Yan Ruyi, and asked in a pretendingly relaxed tone: "Yan Ruyi, will you give up on me?"

Yan Ruyi looked at Xu Nuo's slightly raised lips, narrowed her eyes, her expression didn't change much, she looked at Xu Nuo, opened her thin lips lightly, and uttered a word: "Stupid."

Xu Nuo didn't understand what the word meant at this time. She raised her hand and pulled Yan Ruyi's clothes, lowered her head slightly and begged in a low voice: "Yan Ruyi, let's not break up, and then, be more careful in the future, okay?"

In fact, she didn't know why she asked Yan Ruyi like this. It seemed that only when Yan Ruyi gave her an affirmative answer could she go home and spend this summer vacation with peace of mind.

Yan Ruyi sighed softly, his eyes dimmed a bit, he tightly held Xu Nuo's hand that was holding the corner of his clothes, and led her out of the school gate.

The good word that wafted into her ears like a breeze, finally added a little color to Xu Nuo's sad mood for the past two days. She looked at Yan Ruyi's slender knuckles holding her hand, and couldn't help but curl her lips.The sun fell on the back of Yan Ruyi's head, and those mottled light spots danced like cute elves on her long black and smooth hair, which was very beautiful.Before she knew it, she and Yan Ruyi had known each other for a year...

On the night when the final grades were collected, Xu's mother suddenly asked Xu Xu at the dinner table if he wanted to transfer to another school.

Xu Nuo's hands trembled, she lowered her eyebrows, feeling a little flustered in her heart, she didn't understand why Xu's mother suddenly brought up this matter.About the school, Lao Wang said to talk to her, because Zhang Qiming was beaten up by his father in front of the teacher at school and was delayed. Until today when she went back to school to get her grades, she still hadn't heard what Lao Wang said. She didn't show any abnormalities all the time. She thought she would save it for the next semester, but she didn't know why her parents, who had already agreed to let her continue studying here, would ask her if she wanted to transfer to another school at this critical point when she was about to enter her third year of high school.

Xu Nuo calmed down, swallowed the food in his mouth as usual, and then answered Xu's mother slowly but clearly: "Don't turn around, it's fine here now."

"It's good to have a blank paper in two subjects?!" Before Xu's mother could speak, Xu's father had already put down the beer glass in his hand heavily, and reprimanded with a sullen face:

"Do you think that you can do whatever you want when your wings are hardened? The student handed in a blank paper. What is your reason? You can tell me?!"

It was probably Lao Wang who contacted his family members. She didn't know what they had said between them, but they knew about the handing in of the blank papers and they proposed to transfer themselves to other schools. It is estimated that Lao Wang had said a lot of things.Xu Nuo put down the chopsticks in her hand, lowered her eyebrows and looked at the rice bowl in front of her, feeling her throat was a little swollen, she took a breath and explained: "I didn't feel well that day..."

"I don't feel sick any day, but the exam is uncomfortable, right?! Do you remember what I told you? You don't want to go to that crappy school. If you insist on staying, then get me some The results come out."

Xu Nuo frowned and didn't speak any more. Xu's mother sat beside her and sighed, pulling Xu's father to tell him to stop talking.

"Promise, my mother thinks that your school's enrollment rate is really not high, and your head teacher has high expectations for you, but my mother thinks that you still have to plan for your own future. The third year of high school is no better than the second year of high school. You can't make detours. Let me tell you , you can transfer to another school and let your dad do this for you..."

"I don't want to transfer schools." Blinking, Xu Nuo stood up: "I won't eat."

Xu's father saw that she wanted to leave, his neck was even reddened, he pointed at Xu Nuo and cursed: "Just say a few words and leave, where did you learn the untaught temper, Xu Yan is a few years younger than you, and has always been You know how to listen to Lao Tzu! It’s good for you, every day you look like you don’t like anything, and I’ll explain it to you, you promise to have great abilities in the future, and you still have to call me Dad!”

Xu Nuo clenched his fists, looked at the red-faced middle-aged man across the table who was drinking and screaming, and the elderly woman sitting next to him who only sighed sadly when she was talking, couldn't help it. Let out a sneer.

Mother Xu pulled her to make her sit down, Xu Nuo lowered her eyebrows and shook her head at her, then forced a smile at the two over there: "I know, Dad." She intentionally bit the word "Dad" very hard Heavy, but when Dad Xu looked up at her, he quickly turned his gaze to the side: "I know you are doing it for my own good, but I don't want to transfer to another school. I can do what I promise. I will go out for a walk, You eat."

After going out, I promised to avoid all the neighbors who had dinner and went out to shake cattail fans under the big tree to enjoy the shade and chat, and walked into a remote path full of weeds behind the backyard of my grandma’s house. There was a cemetery there. When she was a child, she was very afraid of night I was ordered by grandma or father to buy soy sauce or monosodium glutamate from the neighbor's house in the courtyard behind the cemetery.Under the night, the little girl always felt that the tombstone standing in the cemetery was a person standing there. The more she looked at it, the more she looked like it, and the more she looked at it, the more frightened she was, but she had to bite the bullet and move forward.

Summer nights are mostly clear, and when the moon is thin, she can often see her own shadow. Under the woods next to the cemetery, the night wind blows the watermelon leaves rustling, and her little shadow is drawn by the pale moonlight. Chang, who accompanied her all the way, was the ghost in her heart that wanted to swallow the child, which made her afraid to cry, but she remembered that she had resisted fiercely and refused to buy beer for Xu's father, but no matter how much she cried and shouted, the last thing she got was , it’s still just the three words that Xu’s father said with a sullen face that he must go…

During those days when she was forced to walk alone at night, she often sang loudly, singing songs that she didn't understand the meaning of, and she yelled out the songs one after another, as if someone was talking to herself, so , the winding cemetery tree-shaded path becomes shorter.And every time she sees the lights of the neighbor's house shining through the eaves of the tile-roofed house, she will stop singing unconsciously and then run towards the dim yellow light, as if being chased by a wild animal and an angel of safety. Summoning, but the more anxious you are, the more prone to problems.The weed-cleared path behind the green tile house of the neighbor’s house is not as good as the less than 50-meter trail in the shade of the cemetery. Now, she can’t remember how many times she broke her knee there.

Later, when Xu Yan was about four or five years old, he started to follow her wherever he liked, and most of the time he made Xu Nuo impatient, but most of the time, he made Xu Nuo feel warm.She was no longer the only cold shadow on the path to buy beer and MSG.Xu Yan likes to hold her hand. When he walked to the graveyard, he would say to her timidly, "Sister, are you afraid? Yanyan is afraid, you hold Yanyan."

At first she no longer was afraid, but liked to tease him, saying that there was a scary old lady living in that grave, who would crawl out and drag the child who was walking behind to be eaten. The little man would stand out with his small breasts in a particularly manly manner and make a quick correction and promise: "Grandma said that there is grandpa's brother living there, not an old lady!"

"Besides, when Yanyan grows up, she will drag her sister to run with her."

When passing by the cemetery, Xu Nuo stood still on the grave that scared Xu Yan by speaking. She looked at the tombstone firmly. Under the faint moonlight, the stone tablet still had a vague silhouette of a person. Taking a breath, he spread his right hand and slowly closed it in the air. The little warmth that had been left in his palm was no longer there. Go to the neighbor's house.

Xu Nuo smiled and nodded when the neighbor asked her with a smile if she came out to buy beer for her father. Finally, she took two cans of beer, a pack of cigarettes and a pack of spicy dried tofu at the checkout, and returned the same way.

The moon is very high and bright, and the road under her feet is no longer as long and scary as it was ten years ago. She carried the bag of beer and cigarettes and walked silently all the way to the backyard of her grandma’s house. The yellow dog in the backyard heard After his own movement, he started barking wildly, and he didn't like her, so he had only been home for three years, and he still didn't recognize his own footsteps.Xu Nuo turned the direction blankly, and walked further along the creek behind the house under the cold moonlight.

When the barking of the dog behind her stopped, she arrived at the destination, the night became dark, and the water grass by the river was very wet with dew, so Xu Nuo raised her foot and kicked the lush grass on the earth bridge below, kicking all the dew on it The little frog in the grass jumped over the instep, leaving a sticky touch. She stomped her feet, took off the slippers on her feet and put them by her feet, then slowly leaned forward and sat down.

As the breeze blew by, she smelled the smell of water plants, rice, and also the smell of sadness permeating her body.She opened the two cans of beer, one at her feet, and the other in her hand, then opened the cigarette case, took out a cigarette from it and lit it, and was about to put it on the beer can at her feet. Just as she put down her hand, Suddenly remembered something, murmured: "Oh, I forgot that you are not yet an adult, you are not allowed to smoke, you should eat your favorite dried tofu." After finishing speaking, he shook his head with a wry smile and retracted his hand holding the cigarette. When he came back, he tore off the package of dried tofu and placed it next to the beer can.

The smell of the cigarette made Xu Nuo unable to like it. The first sip made her cough for a long time. She heard her own coughing in the paddy field where there were only crickets and frogs chirping. It was abrupt and frightening.

The clear water was flowing under the bridge, Xu Nuo sipped beer one after another, and tried to take a puff of cigarettes from time to time. After mixing these two smells that she didn't like, she still couldn't accept it. She tried to flick the cigarette ash with her left hand. Propping his face on his lap, he whispered, "This beer is not as delicious as I imagined..."

No one responded to her, except for the clear flowing water under the earthen bridge, Xu Nuo raised her head and looked at the vast starry sky with her hands behind her back. The moon is very round and bright tonight, and she can clearly see the clouds on the edge of the full moon , in every possible way.She searched for a long time among the stars all over the sky, before she found the biggest and brightest star, she held up the wine jar and squinted at it and said, "Cheers, but you have to drink less, you are underage..."

When she retracted her hand with a smile, she drank a big gulp of beer, forcing herself to swallow all the bitter liquid in her stomach. There was too much wine, she had no time to swallow it, and she was choked with tears streaming down her face , the cold river wind blew her long hair, she raised her head, looked at the star again, wiped the cold tears on her face with a faint smile and said:

"You are born to be hated, no one calls you a boy, everyone likes you, but I hate you, but you just like to follow me, like to be beaten and scolded by me, because of you, I don't know how much I have suffered Wronged, I should hate you, Xu Yan... I should hate you, you see, after so many years, you are still the pride in their eyes, and I am still the one who cannot be pardoned. Hate it, look...how you hate it...but, you hate it so much, Xu Yan, why do you hate it so much, you are the one who loves me the most?"

"No one will accompany me on that scary night road anymore, no one will call me sister with a playful smile, no one will protect me when I was beaten up and cry, and say that I did it first, no more There is no such a foolish radish head shaking his head, he listens to my words without asking whether it is true or not, and does everything...Xu Yan...If time goes back, I will not let you go into the water...I would rather, the one who was soaked in water The white child is me...I remember I told you to go ashore, I really remember...but, hehe...who would believe it? Who cares? You are gone, there will be no more children at home ..."

When Yan Ruyi's call came in, Xu Nuo had been sitting on the earth bridge for almost two hours, with countless red spots from mosquito bites on her arms and legs. She sniffed her nose and wiped the corners of her eyes before answering the phone, lest she Yan Ruyi could hear the strangeness in her voice, but she didn't think about it, just said hello, and she failed, probably because she drank wine, and the wine turned into tears of sadness.

"What's wrong? Is it a conflict with the family or is it not feeling well?"

Yan Ruyi's anxious voice came from the receiver, Xu Nuo buried his head between his legs, and said in a whisper, "Yan Ruyi, I miss you, can you take me away? To a place far away..."

Facing Xu Nuo's question, Yan Ruyi was silent for a long time, Xu Nuo knew that she was being childish and silly again, she sniffed, and showed a big smile to the phone, as if that person who was far away could see her through the wireless waves "It's okay, I just drank a little beer, maybe a little drunk, Yan Ruyi, how are you?"

"okay."

When Xu Nuo heard Yan Ruyi sigh softly, she regretted her gaffe just now. She turned her phone to speakerphone and slowly raised it above her head, letting Yan Ruyi hear the frogs in the rice fields and the crickets on the river bank: "You Listen, do you hear me? The cricket misses you very much, the frog misses you very much, the rice field misses you very much, Yan Ruyi, I, also miss you very much..."