sunk into the earth

It was already nine o'clock when Haiyan woke up, she drew the curtains and the sun flooded into the room, but she couldn't see it. There were only some blurred and weak shadows in front of her eyes. She opened the new day with this light and shadow, dressed neatly, washed and packed her luggage.

Her eyes are not the same as those of ordinary people, but she only wears sunglasses when she is working, because the proprietress said that such eyes are really scary. If the guests accidentally look up and see it during the massage, the business may never be the same again.When Haiyan was packing clothes on the hotel bed, she remembered the first time she went to a massage parlor to apply for a job. As soon as the proprietress saw her, she excitedly said, "What a beautiful girl", but the tone of the next sentence dropped sharply. The proprietress sighed and said, "What a pity." .

Afterwards, she felt something on her nose, and then she heard the satisfactory words from the proprietress opposite: "This looks much better, and it doesn't feel scary at all."

Many people are afraid of such eyes. When she gets emotional, her eyes will lead to terrible changes in the whole face. The eyelids are constantly rolled up, and even the cheeks are pulled together.

But Zhang Chen didn't dislike her.

Haiyan completely opened the curtains of the hotel, and the sunlight outside instantly filled the room. She suddenly remembered what happened ten years ago. When she went to Zhang Chen's house for the second time, she originally wanted to lie to Zhang Chen that she was going to Shenzhen. Let me ask for an explanation, but when he asked aggressively, "Why are you lying?", Zhang Chen, who was leaning against the door of his house, said, "I don't want to make you sad."

She slept at Zhang Chen's house that day, and lied to Zhang Chen that he couldn't find his way home. Such an unreasonable lie, but Zhang Chen didn't express any doubts at all. He even cooked preserved egg and lean meat porridge for her for dinner, and went to the toilet after washing the dishes. Make the bed and quilt for her, and take care of all the details.

At night, Haiyan heard a boy playing the guitar in the next bedroom, and the lyrics sang about his mother and missing him. She found it strange, because the "he" in it played football, basketball, piano and drums. Lovely, like a boy.

This was the only time she heard Zhang Chen sing a song with lyrics, and later she knew that Zhang Chen would never write complete lyrics again.

The year they first went to the provincial capital was in [-], and everything was being overthrown and rebuilt, but Haiyan always said that she must be the one who drowned at the top of the tide——she just finished junior high school, could do nothing, and couldn’t see , what can be done?But not long after, Zhang Chen took her to a blind massage shop near the entertainment city, and asked her if she would like to work after systematic training. The salary is not high, but it is enough to support herself.

Haiyan said, "I owe you a lot."

After stuffing all her luggage into her backpack, she suddenly remembered that on the last night of [-], she was sitting alone on a chair in a [-]-square-meter rental house listening to the radio. There was a loud noise outside the window, and the chaos was mixed with the sound of "Ji Yuan Zhang Chen is playing guitar and singing on the roof of the boys' dormitory". Dial-up, the way of entertainment couldn't be simpler, and everyone will swarm to catch up with interesting stories that attract people's attention.Haiyan stood up when she heard the noise, changed her clothes, picked up her crutches, and went downstairs with the students to their male dormitory.

There were a group of watching students downstairs in the Heiye dormitory, and she stood among them with her head held high and listened to these strangely melodic songs with them.It seemed strange for everyone to stand in the dark, but it didn't matter. Everyone was full of anticipation and yearning, as if waiting for a brand new world.Strangeness in a whole new world is not so strange.

When it was almost zero, everyone counted down excitedly. Zhang Chen on the roof also put down his guitar and counted down three two one with everyone. When the count reached zero, there was an unexpected collective silence around him. How to welcome this new node.But in less than a second, the crowd was like boiling water. Someone shouted "the new century is coming" in a high-pitched voice, couples hugged and kissed, and someone set off fireworks in the distance.

Haiyan heard the sky explode, and suddenly remembered that the history books said that in [-], China was still in the Northern Song Dynasty, and no one would play the guitar on the roof of the building to count down.Standing downstairs, she couldn't see the night being colored by fireworks, and could only remember this once-in-a-thousand-year night with her voice.

The only regret was that she and Zhang Chen were alone that night, maybe the friend Zhang Chen was talking about was also alone at this time.

After all the people downstairs were gone, Haiyan was wrapped in a thick down jacket and sat on a bench downstairs in the dormitory. After a while, a cold man came down. He put his guitar aside and leaned back on the chair, humming softly. Commander's song.

Haiyan heard the movement and moved closer to him, patted his shoulder softly, and asked, "Brother, are you feeling uncomfortable?"

Hearing Zhang Chen say "No, I'm very excited", Haiyan smiled and said, "Tell me about that amazing friend again, what do you think he is doing now?"

In the dark night, Zhang Shen thought for a long time before opening his mouth: "Maybe crossing the century with his parents."

Haiyan lowered her head and smiled: "He still has parents, I'm really envious."

She also asked, "Have you met his parents?"

Zhang Chen said, "I've seen it on TV."

"Then what do you think he will do in the future? Go to graduate school and find a job like you?"

Zhang Chen thought about it seriously, and then showed a faint smile, "Should go abroad, he may study all the way up, or transfer to work halfway through, but no matter which way he takes, he can be at the forefront."

"Are you so sure?"

Zhang Chen let out a "hmm" and said nothing more.

For some reason, Haiyan only remembers that she and Zhang Chen have spent many winters together, but she can't remember the other seasons clearly.

One winter, she and Zhang Chen went to the market to buy fireworks and couplets for the New Year. At that time, apart from attending classes at his own school, Zhang Chen would always find time to go to the music academy next door to listen to intervals, scales, and ear training. These are endless part-time jobs.On the way home that day, she accidentally touched Zhang Chen's hand, only to find that it was covered with new blood scabs. In the heavy snow, Haiyan suddenly cried. Shaking all the guilt, she said: "My sister is worthless, and you even helped find a job. I will go out with you to earn money in the future, and I can't drag you down anymore."

At that time, there were always some strange customers in their massage parlor, including local bosses with gold chains around their necks, college students from nearby, and some people who couldn't tell their occupations.Haiyan was obsessed with money for a while, and she believed a customer's lies about making her rich and proper. She was tricked into a pyramid selling den, and was locked in a room where more than a dozen people ate and lived together for nearly half a month.Later, someone jumped out of a window and someone committed suicide, which finally provoked the police, so she was dragged into the Public Security Bureau.When I came out again, it was a winter afternoon, and Zhang Chenfengchen's servants came from outside. When he entered the door, he smelled like snow. Haiyan couldn't see him but could feel how angry he was. She flinched and followed him out of the police station, and she hadn't reached home yet He heard the sound of Zhang Chen lighting the fire.She counted silently in her heart, guessing that half a pack was about to be drawn, and finally mustered up the courage to reach out to stop him. As soon as she opened her mouth, tears also ran out. She cried and said, "I just want to make money. I don't know what it is Liar, I didn't expect a blind man to be worth being cheated."

It was snowing all over the sky outside, and Zhang Chen's smoking hand trembled in the snowflakes falling from the sky. He couldn't lose his temper, so he could only hate iron and steel and say: "How can such a good thing happen? Don't you understand? There is only the part where life is begging for our lives, not the part where we take it easy for no reason."

On the way home, they passed a bridge. Under the bridge was a muddy river covered with a thin layer of ice. Haiyan was deeply bewitched by the river that symbolized death. She suddenly threw down her crutches and climbed over the fence. Before they could jump down, they were pulled down by a force behind them, and then they both fell on the icy road and rolled twice.

Haiyan patted Yu Xue on her body, got up tremblingly from the ground, and said to Zhang Chen: "I don't want to live anymore, so just let me go. I've been blind since I was born, and I can only see a little bit of light and shadow. A little bit of light and shadow is my whole world and all the motivation to live. But after thinking about it, it is this little light and shadow that hurt me and made me think about the future. If I can only see a piece of darkness, then there will be nothing. Will look forward to it."

The person next to him got up and shook all the snow off his jacket, and in the middle of the shaking, he suddenly took out a cigarette and lit the fire. He kept smoking in the heavy snow until he had a pack of tails and said: "I won't force you, in fact, I will If you don't want to live anymore, I'll go with you."

Haiyan's tears flowed down again quickly, and the cold wind blew on her face like being cut by a knife, and the expression on her whole face became strange and terrifying.She suddenly ran to Zhang Chen's side, slapped his arms and chest with her hands that were almost frozen, and said while beating: "What do you compare to me? Why don't you want to live? You are only 21 years old. Didn’t you major in Chaoyang? Didn’t you study all night for the postgraduate entrance examination? Don’t you have a lot of songs that you haven’t had time to write? Don’t you have a friend who hasn’t heard from you and can’t be contacted?”

After finishing this series of aggressive rhetorical questions, she regretted it, pulled Zhang Chen up with trembling arms, and became cautious between the lines, "My sister is not dead, I was just teasing you, you also listen to my sister, bear with me, you I will definitely make a fortune and live a comfortable life for the rest of my life.”

White mist billowed from Zhang Chen's face, and he was still smoking, and the words drifted out from the white mist, "I don't want to get rich, I'm just too tired, and I want to completely disappear in this world. I still miss my mom a little bit and want to meet her right away. Do you miss your mom and dad? Let's go together."

But Haiyan kept repeating that sentence: "Be patient, everything will be fine in the future." When she was talking, she was staggered by the snowstorm, trying to hold on to the tree so as not to let herself fall. Thinking about it, she suddenly asked Zhang Chen excitedly. : "Have you ever been in love? They say that love is beautiful, no matter how sad people are when they encounter love, they will melt. Think about it and you don't want to die."

"But some people say that love is painful, and all it brings is pain."

Zhang Chen still leaned against the tree to smoke. He was wearing a light jacket today, which couldn't stop the snow from flying all over the sky, but he was used to the cold, but his smoking hand was shaking all the time. It's all downhill from the apex."

love?

Haiyan remembered that in [-], when they went to Beijing, Zhang Chen got a lot of money overnight due to the major reconstruction of Yuncheng City Center, and Zhang Chen used the money to make more money, and the money rolled like a snowball, until later Zhang Chen Started buying houses and musical instruments endlessly, as if to make up for all the things I never got.

Standing aside, she wanted to say to him, "brother, let yourself go."

On the day when Shenzhou [-] was launched, the two of them watched the TV broadcast in the large recording studio bought by Zhang Chen. Haiyan couldn't see it, but heard everyone on the TV talking in such an excited and high-pitched tone. Why are they as excited as crazy about their own affairs, so they asked Zhang Chen with a foxy face: "Why are they so happy?"

Zhang Chen said: "Human beings can go to another unknown field, of course it is worth happy.

Haiyan asked again: "Did that friend of yours also learn from this?"

"No, he is a computer student, and now he is doing machine learning modeling with foreigners."

This sentence made Haiyan start to laugh, her body was shaking on the sofa, "What is that? Why is it a computer and a robot? I can't understand a word." But when she thought about it, she couldn't understand it. After accepting the indecent gesture, he asked, "How do you know? Didn't you guys never contact me again?"

Zhang Chen looked away from the TV screen, went to the water dispenser to get a glass of ice water for himself and Haiyan, and told her when he came back: "I searched his English name on the Internet and found a few papers. his school."

"Then he never came back?"

Zhang Chen next to him gave a "hmm" and said, "Maybe."

Haiyan leaned on the sofa, yawning: "Why don't you go to him because you miss him so much?"

Zhang Chen said: "Some things are good to watch, but they will shatter soon if you touch them."

After tidying herself up, Haiyan went out with a cane in one hand and a room card in the other. Behind her back was a large-capacity backpack containing only two days' worth of luggage.

After a while, the door next door rang, and she heard the footsteps of two men, one of whom walked like a limp, with one foot light and the other heavy, and within a few seconds she heard the slight sound of rubbing hands and hair, probably One was stroking the other's hair, and she could also hear the rubbing sounds of the two men's hands, the sound of lips touching their cheeks, and the faint sound of coquettishness, one man whispered to the other she was familiar with. The man said, "It's embarrassing to go down to the front desk for a while."She thought it would be disgusting for a big man to act like a spoiled child, but no, it is difficult for people to feel disgusted when they do something sincerely. Haiyan even felt that this man suddenly lost his former workaholic and cautious posture and became a little cute.

When they stood still in front of her, Haiyan immediately looked for the direction of one of them and took his arm, and said with a smile: "Boss Cheng, we are going back soon!"

Cheng Sheng, who was standing opposite her, had been with her for a long time, and was used to greeting her in such a casual way, and replied with a smile: "The time I stayed is too short, and I feel a little bit reluctant."

Zhang Chen next to him answered immediately after hearing this: "Didn't you say this place is a broken place?"

Cheng Sheng, who was being pulled by him, scratched his head with the other hand, "It was all angry words many years ago, how do you remember?"

Haiyan leaned on crutches and walked slowly beside them. She could only see a little blurry shadow, but she could clearly feel what Zhang Chen was doing next to him. He kept holding Cheng Sheng's hand, and there were occasional rough spots between his fingers. Rubbing sound, he also touched Cheng Sheng's hair and ears, helped him tidy his clothes, and asked him if he wanted a drink.Haiyan listened carefully and noticed that their hands had not been loosened, leading them from the hotel corridor to the lobby, until they got into the taxi bound for the train station.

The taxi driver pulled up an order to go to the train station at the entrance of the hotel. He seemed enthusiastic along the way, but halfway he felt that the two men and a woman in the back seat were really strange. He accidentally glanced back in the rearview mirror and saw Zhang Chen in the back was playing with Cheng Sheng's hair, thinking that this action was so intimate that it didn't look like the actions of two ordinary men, so he couldn't hold back his curiosity and took a few more glances.It just so happened that these glances were noticed by Zhang Chen from behind. He met the driver's eyes in the rearview mirror. Instead of stopping playing with human hair, he deliberately reached down to pull Cheng Sheng's drooping short-sleeved collar , and then turned to pull his fingers to play.

This time the driver in front of him understood everything, and immediately turned his eyes away to concentrate on driving, thinking that this trip was really unlucky, and he happened to be picking up a blind woman and a couple of gay men.

Cheng Sheng didn't know anything about it, he answered the phone midway, and there was Frank, who was in a hurry, and now he was only talking about work with the phone.As soon as he talked about work, his temperament changed drastically, his face no longer showed a look of sluggishness, his eyes were shining, his speech speed and thinking were all like rockets, and he had to put his hand on his forehead to think after a few words. Seconds later, he crackled and talked about the solution to the person on the other end of the phone.

Zhang Chen liked this appearance very much. He seemed to be obsessed with Cheng Sheng's strong and capable appearance, and he kept tilting his head and staring at his side face admiringly.

When the work call ended, Cheng Sheng patted Zhang Chen next to him, returning to their business-like attitude in their daily work, "Next week we will go to Shanghai for a business trip, you and I, Xiao Huang and Xiaosun, have an entrepreneurial exhibition to attend , There is still a small interview at the end, we will work harder to see if we can negotiate a contract with the college over there, and we will discuss how to arrange a meeting on Monday."

After finishing speaking, he returned to the usual way of getting along with Zhang Chen, let Zhang Chen play with his fingers, and whispered in his ear embarrassedly: "Why do you suddenly become so courageous in your house? Are you holding hands like this so you won't be afraid of being seen?"

Zhang Chen glanced back at him, "Guess if I'm afraid."

Cheng Shengyue felt that this person really didn't care about the eyes of outsiders, especially in this well-known place, just as he was about to say something, he suddenly felt a warm touch on his cheek, and then he listened to There was an indifferent voice: "All acquaintances know what I am, and those who don't know me don't care, as long as they see it, they will see it."

When he turned his head again, the person next to him had already left his face, and was leaning against the window glass to seriously enjoy the scenery along the street.

Cheng Sheng's heart was beating wildly because of his frequent movements. The free hand patted his cheek that had just been attacked by someone, and the hand that was grabbed was not honest, and he opened his legs indiscriminately. Rub and grab.

Zhang Chen, who was pretending to look at the scenery, turned his head helplessly, "What are you doing?"

Cheng Sheng was afraid that the taxi driver in front would hear him, so he lowered his voice and whispered, "Why are you kissing me all of a sudden?"

"How can there be so many reasons?" But after finishing speaking, Zhang Chen felt that there were real reasons. He looked up and down Cheng Sheng who was wearing his clothes today, and suddenly said: "You look good when you are serious about work, and you look good when you dress younger."

Cheng Sheng immediately slapped him hard on the thigh, and still suppressed his voice and said: "You tell me in advance, so that I can be mentally prepared!"

But Zhang Chen said "Okay", and returned to his previous indifferent appearance, and turned to the car window to look at the scenery.

Cheng Sheng was caught in the middle, feeling like he was sitting on pins and needles, thinking about how hard it was for him to get his wish on this trip home, but he couldn't get a cheap price to act like a good boy, and then went to grab Zhang Chen's arm to coax him, and the hand holding his arm waved wildly, but his voice was still lowered He said: "I'm not afraid that others will see and gossip. I'm not so open now."

After saying this, Zhang Chen looked back at him inexplicably, "I'm not angry."

This time, Cheng Sheng shut up and kept silent, his body bumped along with the taxi on the bumpy road.After a while, the person next to him stretched out his hand to his side, and quickly grabbed his hand and put it in his palm to play with. After playing for a long time, he pulled it to his eyes and looked carefully. He folded his hand with his, one finger stuck in his fingertips.

Cheng Sheng lost his temper completely, and said hoarsely, "You did it on purpose."

***

The train carriage on the way home was still very noisy, and Haiyan sat quietly next to them to capture the conversation between them, occasionally teasing Cheng Sheng with a few words.When she was about to get out of the car, she put her chin on Cheng Sheng's shoulder beside her, and lied to him seriously: "You have a special smell about you."

Such ambiguous words immediately made Cheng Sheng vigilant, stiffened his shoulders and asked, "What special smell?"

"Zhang Chen's smell, can't you smell it?" She poked Cheng Sheng's shoulder again, and asked in a lower voice, "Did you sleep with him last night? I walked with a limp today, and I I heard it all."

Cheng Sheng hesitated for a long time, neither saying yes nor no, but Haiyan sighed and said with emotion: "Why do you feel different from working at this time?"

Cheng Sheng had the strength to refute her this time: "The area of ​​the human brain that processes emotion is different from the area that processes logical knowledge, and they should not be confused."

Haiyan, who was leaning against her, immediately begged for mercy: "Boss, if you tell Zhang Chen or Qi Yuan, I don't understand."

Zhang Chen, who had been leaning against the car window without moving, suddenly poked Cheng Sheng's hand, but said to Haiyan, "Don't tease him, he is very serious now, much more serious than me, I can't help you teasing. "

Haiyan laughed twice, and said frankly, "Forget it, forget it".

When the train arrived in Beijing, it was just catching up with the sunset, the sky was divided into half dark blue and half crimson, and the tall buildings in the distance were dyed hot by the last afterglow.Haiyan leaned on Cheng Sheng's shoulder, and heard people around the window describe how beautiful the sunset was, but she could only see the blurred light and shadow, suddenly laughed, patted Cheng Sheng's shoulder, and whispered: "You guys are going back again. Work, pay attention to your health, don't accidentally fall ill, you and my brother are working so hard, so hard that people are afraid that something will happen one day."

She also said: "Zhang Chen used to tell me that love is painful, but what he said were all lies, obviously very beautiful."