sunk into the earth

Zhang Chen allocated a spare key for his recording studio. Cheng Sheng went to accompany his parents on the weekend, and cleaned up and down the small suburban villa. His most cherished musical instruments and all kinds of pedals Put them into cartons, seal them, and stack them in order in the storage room.

After finishing all this, Zhang Chen checked the two things he was going to deliver later, and went to the old Liu's house on the motorcycle he just bought a few days ago.

Old Liu's house is not far from his original unit, an ordinary house with two bedrooms and one living room. Before getting married, Lao Liu and his wife put all the wages they had accumulated over the years into the down payment, and they are still struggling with monthly loan repayments.

It was Old Liu's wife who came to open the door, a bold and enthusiastic woman with short hair. When she saw Zhang Chen at the door, she waved to invite him into the room with a smile on her face. Shen came to our house!"

There was a sound of "Hey" from inside, and soon a slovenly man with an unshaven face and a vest and big pants jumped out.

Lao Liu stroked his beard that hadn't been shaved for two days, looked up and saw Zhang Chen, who was neat and tidy, and complained to him: "Call me before you come! How can I meet people with my slovenly appearance at home?"

Hearing the sound, his wife fanned the flames, pointing at Zhang Chen and scolding Lao Liu: "You have to be clean at home. You always make excuses that men don't like clean. Why is Zhang Chen so clean? The same band doesn't know how to be clean." Learn more, no wonder they attract girls, you were only begging for nothing to chase me back then."

Old Liu chuckled, not daring to talk back to his wife, so he greeted Zhang Chen to the sofa, turned around and went to the kitchen to get freshly boiled water and make a cup of boiling hot tea for the three of them one by one.

He picked up his cup and blew it, and looked at Zhang Chen: "What's the rush? He came to surprise me at home all of a sudden. What about the music festival next week? There's no problem after the rehearsal last time."

"It's not a music festival." Zhang Chen took the cup of tea that he pushed, without moving. The hand that was originally on his lap took out a key from his pocket and threw it to Lao Liu, "I The key to the recording studio will be yours from now on."

Lao Liu, who was diagonally opposite, was caught off guard by his unexpected action, hurriedly caught the key thrown by Zhang Chen, and shook the brand new key back and forth in his palm like a hot potato, looking up at Zhang Chen in disbelief. Look, only to find that his expression is extremely serious, and he doesn't mean to be joking at all.

"What does it mean to belong to me?"

"It means it's all yours, you can use it whatever you want, and you can spoil it however you want."

"Is all your amazing equipment and so many units in it all mine?"

Zhang Chen took a sip from the teacup that had dissipated a little heat, looked back into Lao Liu's eyes and said, "Of course, it's all up to you, you can play however you want."

"Fuck! Zhang Chen, you are crazy!" Lao Liu stood up abruptly, pointed straight at Zhang Chen, and asked with staring eyes: "What happened? You stopped playing music or what?"

Mrs. Liu, who was originally sitting at the side, looked left and right, and found that the atmosphere in the living room was tense. She oiled the soles of her feet, and slipped back into the bedroom with her cup of tea tactfully.

Zhang Chen didn't intend to explain so much to Lao Liu, he just said: "I won't be here in the future, I won't need these, who will I give them to you?"

Lao Liu was still standing there, and then asked: "What do you mean you won't be here in the future? Not somewhere? Not in Beijing? Then where are you going? Are you still making music? Making music is inseparable from equipment and studios."

This series of questions made Zhang Chen ponder for a while, and he changed into a comfortable leaning position, but he still didn't intend to talk about it, he just said: "Even if you are not here anymore, you are right to say that you are not in Beijing."

Old Liu on the opposite side stopped talking, and sat down again leaning on the armrest of the sofa, his movements were slow, he didn't know whether he was angry at Zhang Chen's sudden announcement of leaving or at himself for not being angry with him.

Zhang Chen would never coax anyone, he just sat on the sofa and waited for Lao Liu to speak.But Lao Liu kept silent. Instead, he kept adding strong tea to his cup, gulping down several big cups.

Zhang Chen glanced at him, guessing that he would lose sleep tonight.

Just when he was about to throw down the keys and leave, Lao Liu suddenly remembered what he had missed, stopped talking about the recording studio, and started talking about Qiyuan: "By the way, Qiyuan said two days ago that she is going to get married, next year , did I tell you?"

Zhang Chen said: "No, she never told me."

Old Liu shrugged: "It's normal, I probably don't want you to know. I heard that her friend introduced her to her boyfriend. He is a man in foreign trade business. His family background is much richer than the two of us. It would be shabby to run a big business. The two of them met for a few times and thought it was good, so they decided to have a flash marriage."

Zhang Chen took another sip of tea, didn't say much, just said: "That's very good."

This emotionless "very good" made Lao Liu sigh heavily, "It's true that the conditions are good, but do you think flash marriages are reliable?"

Zhang Chen bent down to add some more tea to his teacup, and said, "She made her own decision, what can we say?"

Old Liu tilted his head to look at him, only felt that the man's expression didn't fluctuate at all, and shook his head unconsciously: "You are really heartless, most people should stay away from you."

This made Zhang Chen laugh, nodded and admitted: "Yes, I'm a bad person, and it's not worth it at all."

Seeing that he didn't intend to say anything more, Lao Liu went to the kitchen and poured the almost drained tea leaves into the sink, twisted a wave of new tea, re-brewed a pot and went back to the living room, intending to have a good chat with Zhang Chen about the future of the music festival. plan.But as soon as he reached the living room, he found that Zhang Chen had packed up and planned to leave, so he hurriedly stopped him with the teapot: "Would you like to sit down for a while?"

Zhang Chen turned the motorcycle key and leaned against the gate of his house, and said, "I have to meet someone else, let's have a good chat next time we rehearse."

The next person he wants to meet is Haiyan.

Coming out of the old Liu's house, Zhang Chen was relaxed. Whether it was Qiyuan who didn't tell him about the next year's marriage or the collection of a house of painstaking efforts in the past few years, he didn't feel any negative emotions. Zhang Chen stepped on the motorcycle as usual. , Facing the evening wind, headed towards the blind massage shop where Haiyan worked.

When I arrived at the store, it was not time to get off work. As soon as the proprietress saw Zhang Chen stepping in, she immediately poked her head out from behind the computer at the front desk, and greeted him familiarly: "Xiao Zhang is here, Haiyan hasn't got off work yet, wait for her for a while. "

Zhang Chen responded, and sat down next to the sofa in the lobby, instead of pulling out his computer to work as usual, he just wandered around idly, thinking about things.

He is always thinking about things, whenever he has time, he only thinks about very imaginary things, but he can't find the result after much deliberation, so he keeps thinking about it, thinking about a problem for 11 years since he was a child.

Zhang Chen waited for someone while thinking about things like this. After sitting for almost an hour, he finally waited for Haiyan who had just changed into casual clothes.

Haiyan was still the same, she bluffed on the surface, she lost her shape when she saw Zhang Chen, walked over on crutches, took his arm, and was extremely intimate, but she asked another person: "Cheng Sheng?" What? He didn't come with you? I miss him."

"He will go home to spend time with his parents on weekends."

"Okay, you deliberately picked the weekend to come to my place, just to take Cheng Sheng as your own, and even prevent me!" Haiyan pretended to slap Zhang Chen, but her face was full of high spirits.Holding Zhang Chen's arm, she suddenly thought of something, patted him on the way out, and said in a low voice, "By the way, don't let Cheng Sheng introduce men to me again. How can he know ordinary people? Tell me about your identity." You're going to scare me to the ground! I wondered how they could look at me, a blind man who graduated from junior high school, with such good conditions? You persuade him, don't let him busy with my affairs, I'm sorry."

Zhang Chen let her embrace him, nodded and said, "He won't be able to introduce you soon."

Haiyan sensed something was wrong, let out an "ah" and asked uncertainly, "Did you come here today for something?"

"Of course, it's still a big deal."

Zhang Chen was afraid that it would be inconvenient for Haiyan to get on and off the motorcycle, so he parked the car at the entrance of the massage shop and stopped a taxi on the side of the road. Along the way, Haiyan seemed a little worried, holding Zhang Chen's hand in the car, and wanted to ask some questions several times Nothing was said in the end.

At home, Haiyan finally relaxed a bit. She never used crutches at home, and went to the kitchen skillfully to pour two glasses of fruit juice for the two of them. She brought them out at a steady pace. One cup was handed to Zhang Chen at the table, and the other cup was picked up by herself. Take a sip.

"Tell me, what's the big deal?" Haiyan sat down next to Zhang Chen.

Zhang Chen picked up the bag hanging on the back of the chair, took out a wallet from it, and took out two brand new cards from the wallet and stuffed them into Haiyan's hand.

Haiyan touched the two cards with her fingers curled up, and found a row of raised numbers on each of them, obviously two bank cards.

Of course, the bank card means money. Haiyan was taken aback by Zhang Chen's move, and suddenly withdrew her hand, but Zhang Chen, who was next to her, firmly held her hand, and closed the five fingers she had stretched out one by one. Get up, no matter what, she is not allowed to break free.After a while, the other hand continued to cover the back of her hand, as if delivering something.

Haiyan is a woman after all, and she can't win a man who is determined no matter what. She tried to pull back the hand that was forced to hold the bank card, but failed repeatedly. Finally, she gave up and let Zhang Chen hold her hand. hand, and the tone of the question was very rude: "Why did you give me the bank card? If you have nothing to do and want to spend money, it is better to go to disaster relief. I have hands and feet and don't need you to give me money!"

These words were very aggressive, but Zhang Chen's tone was calm as usual. He slowly let go of Haiyan's hand, and when he saw that she didn't want to let go, he answered her: "I'm leaving. Several suites have been sold. One card contains the money from the sale of the three sets in Yuncheng, which is 120 million, and the other card contains the Beijing set, which has 300 million. The passwords have all been changed to your birthday. You can take it."

Haiyan's palm holding the bank card was gradually sweating. Of course she didn't want Zhang Chen's money, but she couldn't do anything to throw the bank card on him. She knew that Zhang Chen must have his reasons for doing so. Maintaining the original posture without moving, the aura just now was completely extinguished, but asked cautiously: "You...where are you going?"

"You can't find my place."

Zhang Chen looked at the callused hand on his leg, which was tightly holding his savings over the years, and he felt a great sense of satisfaction in his heart.

But Haiyan didn't respond, her unwavering eyes were tightly closed, and her brows were also furrowed, as if she was trying to think about the meaning of Zhang Chen's words.Soon she stuffed the card tightly in her pocket into her pocket, her arms trembling uncontrollably, for fear that she would fail Zhang Chen later.

She opened her trembling lips, and in the end she didn't ask what the word "gone" meant, but gritted her teeth and asked, "Are you going with Cheng Sheng?"

Zhang Chen gave a "hmm" and looked up at her face.The eyes, bridge of the nose, mouth, and figure of the woman in front of her are all very different from Li Xiaoyun's. The only similarity between the two of them is the pair of warm hands with thick calluses.

This time Zhang Chen finally fully realized that these are two different people. He felt that he was absurd in the past. How could someone find traces of his miss on completely different people?

Zhang Chen looked away from her face, lowered his face, and said with a relieved smile, "Sister."

Haiyan seemed to have a premonition of what he was going to say next, and her eyelids, which were calm just now, suddenly rolled upwards because of her excitement.She stubbornly pulled Zhang Chen's arm, and said loudly, "Don't tell me you're sorry! There's no need! I'm just blind, not stupid. Of course I already knew why you've been so good to me. Shen Chen, We have lived together for 11 years, how could I not understand you? How could you not understand me? I just hoped that you could help me find Mingming’s family and the whole body. I can’t believe you didn’t see it. We two Who is not pretending to be deaf and dumb? Who needs to apologize to the other party?"

But Zhang Chen said: "I didn't intend to say I'm sorry, I just wanted to tell you that I'm really leaving, and I won't be able to be your crutch in the future. You can do whatever you want with the money, don't give it back to me."

The rental house in this tube building becomes extremely hot and stuffy every spring and summer. Haiyan is already sweating a little in the room, and her whole body is listless, even her back that was straightened just now is bent into an arc.

She sat there in a daze, not continuing to speak.

Zhang Chen stood up, neatly carried the bag when he came here, bent over and pinned the strands of loose hair behind Haiyan's forehead behind his ears, and said: "I swore in the mine back then that I would help Mingming find the whole body and his family. , but the mine has been sealed off for a long time, where can I find his remaining body? China is so big, where can I find a family that has disappeared? We can find it, but have we found it? It’s been [-], and the Olympic Games are coming. Their family has never been back to Yuncheng for so many years. No matter what they think, something happened outside. I know I can’t find it at all. , that's just an obsession firmly stuck in my heart. Those empty houses and houses full of musical instruments are also my obsessions from the past. I can't keep them. I have to wipe out the traces of the past before I can start again. Forgive me I."

Haiyan closed her eyes, and the muscles on both sides of her cheeks were tense like a bow.

The air in the room became thinner and thinner until it was almost suffocating.The two were in a stalemate, and neither of them continued to speak.

In the end, it was Haiyan who first compromised. She lowered her head, hid her tense cheeks in the light from the gap in the opposite curtain, and asked softly, "What about Cheng Sheng? Will he be with you?"

Zhang Chen said: "He chose the same ending as me."