sunk into the earth

In the remaining month, Cheng Sheng received an unprecedented number of gifts—Zhang Chen took him for a ride on a motorcycle every day, Haiyan gave him a peace talisman from the temple, and Lao Qin hung a group photo of the three of them on the In the middle of the photo wall of the bar, below them are Zhang Shen's band, and the snapshots of him sitting on the steps and improvising with the jazz guitar master a few years ago.

Cheng Sheng touched the photo, and saw that Zhang Shen, who was in his early twenties, was facing the camera sideways, with an expression of determination, and was proud from the bottom of his heart, pointing to this old Qin who was hanging the photo beside him: "He still Impromptu with someone?"

Qin Xiao wiped the sweat from his forehead, put his arm on Cheng Sheng's shoulder, looked at the half-walled photo, and raised his chin at Cheng Sheng, very proud: "He has been so successful a few years ago, everyone is waiting for his autograph , He ran to the stage to discuss without saying a word, I don't know where he came from so bold."

After he finished speaking, he glanced at Cheng Sheng, who was always happy beside him, and he couldn't hide the fact that he was in a relationship, even if Zhang Chen and Cheng Sheng refused to tell him anything, as long as the stranger with eyes stayed by their side For a few hours, you can feel that there is a hood around the two of you that no one can get in, not to mention the friendship between Boss Qin and Cheng Sheng who grew up together since the crotch-opening period.

But he never mentioned it, followed Cheng Sheng, and instead talked about unimportant gossip. He glanced at Cheng Sheng's recent extraordinarily young attire, and then glanced at the row of shiny earrings on his ears, pressing down on him. Over his shoulder, he said with emotion: "You have rejuvenated recently, and you are almost exactly the same as Zhang Chen."

Cheng Sheng touched the earrings he just put on a few days ago, and smiled: "I'm a homeless person now, I can dress up however I want, and no one cares about me."

Lao Qin shook his head: "I don't understand you, each of you is a normal person. Xinxin quit her job a while ago, what do you think she is going to do? She said she was going to South Africa to be a volunteer and joined some kind of United Nations organization , determined to go, no matter how hard I can stop it, her husband is going crazy."

Cheng Sheng listened and smiled: "As expected of her."

Qin Xiao glanced at him and asked again: "What about you? What are you going to do in the future?"

Cheng Sheng, who was still smiling just now, scrunched his face, lowered his head and kept looking at the floor, and finally said after a long time, "Let's take a good rest, I have to keep checking up for the past six months, do you think you'll be fine after leaving the hospital? It's very troublesome." , talk about work later."

Qin Xiao remained silent for a while, and then said uncertainly, "Why don't you play the band with us? At least make yourself happy."

Cheng Sheng glanced at him, nodded and then shook his head, but finally said nothing.

During the period after he was discharged from the hospital, Cheng Sheng experienced a manic period, which was not very obvious, but the speed of thinking and speaking was much faster than usual, but there was no destructive behavior.He later went to the hospital for re-examination several times, and the results were stronger each time, but he was still taking the medicine, and the doctor forbade him to stop.

Cheng Sheng had no resistance to taking medicine, it was like a key to unlock every day, and he never missed it once.He also took advantage of this emotional stage to learn things that he had no time to pick up before. He went outside every morning to learn painting with his teacher, waited for Zhang Chen to pick him up from the restaurant at noon, and nestled next to Zhang Chen at night. Practice the drums with the Didi sound metronome, and wait for Zhang Chen to give some pointers occasionally.

The place where Cheng Sheng learns to paint is some distance away from his home. The teacher is a young woman about his age. She speaks softly and always wears a Chanel suit. You can smell her faint fragrance when you get close.The teacher told him about the history of art development and about painters from ancient times to the present. Cheng Sheng, an older student, was very interested, and even memorized the class notes neatly.

When the teacher glanced at his notebook occasionally, he would always boast: "The writing is so beautiful."

Cheng Sheng raised his head from a stack of drawings and notes, and said with a smile, "My father forced me to practice calligraphy since I was a child, and I got out of it."

Zhang Chen came to pick him up at noon, and leaned on the windy motorcycle to stand at the door, which was very eye-catching.

The teacher and Cheng Sheng came out of the gate together, saw Zhang Chen waving at Cheng Sheng, and asked mysteriously in Cheng Sheng's ear, "Is that your friend? Or your younger brother?"

Cheng Sheng also leaned into her ear, said "That's my husband", and ran straight to Zhang Chen's motorcycle.

Before the teacher came back to his senses, he saw Cheng Sheng galloping towards the man. The man caught the man running towards him as expected, raised the helmet in his hand, and stroked the obstructive spot on Cheng Sheng's forehead with one hand. hair, and put his helmet on his face with the other hand.

The teacher looked at them for a while, and suddenly remembered that Cheng Sheng told him in class today that he would not come to learn painting next week. He felt sorry and waved to him across the road to say goodbye.

Cheng Sheng has a calendar, and every day before going to bed, he takes a dark green pen to cross off a day on the date.When he crossed off the first day, many unexpected things happened. Cheng Sheng suddenly discovered many things. For example, there was always a dog wandering around the fountain in the community, but he had never met the owner of the dog. For example, the food in the side-door supermarket is always [-] or [-] cents cheaper than the food in the chain supermarket at the crossroads, and it is especially fresh. For example, my parents have completely let go of their own affairs, and my mother even asks Zhang Chen from time to time. Ask Cheng Sheng to bring a lot of things back, saying that these are all for Xiao Zhang.

The April date on that calendar was quickly overwhelmed by the dark green pen, and finally it was the last day.

On the last day, Cheng Sheng bought several pots of green radishes, Phnom Penh tiger piranha and a large bouquet of purple tulips at the flower shop near the main entrance of the community.When he got home, he placed the green radish and tiger Piran one by one on the balcony, squatted on the ground alone and watched them for a long time, thinking that some flowers and plants would accompany Zhang Chen in the future, which would be better than the noisy himself.

After seeing enough, he went to the kitchen to wash the newly bought vase and store the water, soaked the cut tulips in the water, and placed the vase of flowers in the center of the coffee table in the living room contentedly.

After dealing with these flowers, Cheng Sheng still felt that something was missing, so he found hundreds of paintings he had drawn over the past month, and flipped through them casually.There are scenery and people, there are parents sending Xiao Haiyan and Zhang Chen, there is Zhang Chen sitting on the front of the steps tuning, the side with earphones chatting with others, and the back of guiding others to record through the glass, Cheng Sheng is all based on memory I drew it with my imagination and didn't show it to anyone. I just saved it one by one, and today it's all sealed in the innermost layer of the cabinet.

In the end, Cheng Sheng moved the property transfer contract that he had drawn up with a lawyer two days ago to the top of the bedside table, and only then did he feel that everything was really going to end.He didn't have anything more complicated to prepare, but he wanted to find a window and jump out after watching the show tomorrow night, as casually as he jumped off the fence when he was a child.

Cheng Sheng hugged a pillow in his arms, leaned on the sofa in relief, didn't think about anything anymore, and crossed out his last day on the calendar with a pen in his hand.

At this moment, there was a sound at the door, and Cheng Sheng's thoughts that had just floated up were suddenly interrupted. He was shocked, and when he turned around, he found that it was Zhang Chen who had just returned home from the rehearsal.

Today's Zhang Chen is not the same as in the past, carrying a piano bag and holding a large bouquet of flowers in his arms. After he entered the door, he put the bouquet of flowers on the cabinet in the entrance, and pointed to the calendar beside Cheng Sheng that he hadn't had time to put away. , asked: "Why do you suddenly count the days?"

Cheng Sheng turned his face sideways, glanced at the calendar full of handwriting beside him, did not appear flustered, but naturally shook his head at Zhang Chen who was walking towards him, "I have been keeping track of the days since I was discharged from the hospital, and draw a stroke every day. , It's all the days with you." After he finished speaking, he pointed to a large bunch of purple tulips in Zhang Chen's arms, and raised his voice, "I also bought purple tulips today, we have a good understanding!"

Zhang Chen sat down next to him, put the flowers in Cheng Sheng's arms, and said casually, "Is it the flower shop at the main entrance? I passed by when I came back, and I bought a random bunch, and it looks good at home."

Cheng Sheng took his arm, took out a flower, smelled it, and said, "Then you have to come to change the water for the vase later, I don't want to work."

Zhang Chen refused straight away: "Whoever buys it will change it, don't be lazy."

Cheng Sheng seemed to have noticed something, suddenly stopped laughing, raised his head and stared at Zhang Chen seriously, but he couldn't see any other emotions on his face.

This delicate atmosphere lasted until the evening, the two of them lay on the bed after taking a shower, body to body, neither of them spoke.

A few hours later, Cheng Sheng still wasn't asleep. He felt that Zhang Chen beside him wasn't asleep either, so he poked his arm tentatively, but he didn't expect that someone would pinch his wrist as soon as he moved.

"Why are you still awake? Tomorrow we have to get up early."

Cheng Sheng lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, and said, "Can't sleep, how about you? You didn't sleep anyway."

Zhang Chen said, "I'll have energy tomorrow even if I don't sleep." This made Cheng Sheng beside him suddenly laugh. The teacher who taught me painting said that people who can play art to the extreme are lunatics. They are full of energy and have a clear mind. She also scared me, saying that although some artists have gentle faces, as soon as they pick up their tools, the lunatics in their hearts will go away. I'm going to break out of the cage." After saying this, Cheng Sheng looked at Zhang Chen with a smile, and asked, "Are you?"

Zhang Chen looked at him, "I didn't play to the extreme, I played pretty badly."

"What do you want to achieve? The ultimate in technology?" Cheng Sheng shook his head and said, "I can hear something different from others. This is the ultimate."

Zhang Chen just laughed and didn't speak again.

The two lay quietly for a while, but still no one fell asleep.Cheng Sheng grasped Zhang Chen's hand under the blanket, slowly stuck his fingers tightly between his fingers, and suddenly asked: "If there is a next life, what do you want to do?"

"I don't have anything in particular I want to do." Zhang Chen answered casually: "Do you have anything?"

"Let's think about it..." Cheng Sheng kept approaching Zhang Chen's direction, and finally leaned on his shoulder, with an extremely serious expression in the dark, "I've been studying all the time? Actually, it's a pity that I didn't study for a Ph. D. I shouldn't be against my dad. He knows what I'm good at."

Thinking of something to be happy about, Cheng Sheng straightened his upper body abruptly, and the hand holding Zhang Chen under the quilt kept shaking. He seemed a little too excited, and his words were a little incoherent, "I thought about what to do! In the next life I will You must learn other styles of drums, and then we will go to the street to perform together. You play the guitar and I play the drums. Put a coin box on the ground. If the business is good, we will have a good meal at night. If the business is not good, we Just drink the northwest wind, isn't it great?"

"Oh, no, no!" In the middle of speaking, Cheng Sheng himself vetoed it first, shaking his head and said, "It's not enough to just perform, what if you can't support yourself? We should open a small shop, cafe or restaurant in advance. Make sure you don’t starve to death before going to perform.”

Cheng Sheng thought very seriously, his face seemed to be shrouded in light, with an expression of being completely intoxicated in fantasy.

"You're pretty good at daydreaming."

Cheng Sheng got back under the covers, and couldn't help laughing uncontrollably at the thought of the two of them starting over in the next life: "It's all a daydream, of course you have to think about it, anyway, in the next life, you must do what you really like."

Zhang Chen clutched his hand and poured cold water on his face: "How can anyone know what he really likes from birth? Only by doing a lot of things that he doesn't like can he know what he really likes."

These words woke up Cheng Sheng, and his longing expression fell back to the end. He nodded in disappointment, "You're right, it's still the same if you live another life. It's really an unsolvable situation."

Zhang Chen also turned around, staring at his face in the dark, without saying anything comforting.

Cheng Sheng was keenly aware that the other party was staring at him, so he moved closer to him, hugged Zhang Chen tightly under the quilt, and pawed him with his hands and feet.He was not at all affected by the disappointment he had imagined about his next life just now, and after only a short delay, he began to ramble on about some insignificant things.

"I recently discovered a lot of things. There is always a blind dog next to the fountain in our community. It keeps going around the fountain. I can see it every day when I go to class. I also found that the dog in the supermarket by the side door The food is generally a few cents cheaper than the food at the supermarket at the crossroads, so when I came back from the side door today, I bought a lot of lettuce and tomatoes, and there are meatballs and fried tofu from my mother in the refrigerator at home. Do you want to eat casserole? I Get up early tomorrow morning and make it for you, and then we will set off enthusiastically, go to the music festival to make a big event, I will definitely shout louder than your fans!"

Zhang Chen didn't answer, but kept his eyes on Cheng Sheng.After a while, he slowly hugged Cheng Sheng who was opposite him, put his chin on his shoulder, and listened carefully to every word he said.

Cheng Sheng was a little distracted by his sudden intimacy, but he still hugged Zhang Chen vigorously, and continued to ramble on about these trivial things: "Apart from the bunch of tulips in the vase on the coffee table, I also I bought several pots of green radish and tiger Pilan, and you can see them when you go to the balcony. Speaking of that flower shop, I went back and forth so many times before but never went in. When I bought flowers today, I realized that the proprietress is so nice. He gave me a discount card and taught me several simple flower arrangement methods. I learned it for a while, and my heart calmed down. I put the discount card in the coffee table drawer. Do you want to learn it in the future?"

Zhang Chen said, "I don't want to learn."

Cheng Sheng gave a "tsk", didn't care, changed the topic within a second, and talked about his own family affairs naturally: "Actually, my mother likes you very much, and my father doesn't hate you that much, you know my father What does that guy hate most? He hates rich people the most. Isn’t it funny? Why does a man like him hate rich people? He also sympathizes with poor people. Sometimes we watch the news together, Looking at him, he was about to wipe away his tears, saying that those people were suffering too much, and he really wanted to help them. How can people be so divided? Obviously he has done so many bad things himself."

"Forget it, I'm not qualified to talk about him, don't I want to break up?"

"I'm going to be 29 in four months. I'm going to be three years old, but I don't want to grow old at all. I hope I will always stay at the age of two." Cheng Sheng paused, his chin resting on Zhang Chen's shoulder Going back and forth, he smiled and said: "But you can grow old, you'd better get old quickly."

"By the way, if you have a chance, you must meet my uncle. The old man is very interesting. He looks like a brown-haired raccoon. His favorite thing to do is to walk the bird, play chess, and go to the supermarket. He is very serious when he plays chess, and he does not move. Looking at the chessboard, that look looks like I look at you." Speaking of this, Cheng Sheng curled his lips, "Well, I don't know what the look is when I look at you, these are all imagined by me, I always imagine Something weird."

"What do you mean by love? Who invented the word? Does the person who coined the word understand love? If he doesn't know what he invented it for? Is it to torture people like me?"

"I love you, even though I don't know what the word means, I still love you."

In the darkness, Zhang Chen kept his posture. He waited for the machine-gun-like man beside him to finally stop talking before he said, "You talk a lot."

Cheng Sheng admitted frankly: "I don't know what's going on. I've been able to talk since I was a child. It's like a firecracker. I won't get tired even if I annoy everyone around me."

Zhang Chen asked again: "Then do you want to listen to me?"

"Would you like to say it?" Cheng Sheng was a little surprised, and suddenly moved his upper body away, put his face in front of Zhang Chen, and joked: "I thought you really hated talking, and if you want to hear your truth, you can only listen to your album. If you don’t understand, you’re completely useless.”

Zhang Chen glanced at him and laughed: "You're right." He stroked Cheng Sheng's hair on the back of his head, and slowly talked about today's events: "The flower shop proprietress told me that April is the best month for cuttings." Epiphyllum, you can see it blooming in August and September. I originally wanted to buy a pot of Epiphyllum, but the epiphyllum in the store is gone today, and it won’t be until tomorrow when the proprietress finishes stocking up. I ordered a pot in advance, and the performance ends tomorrow Let's come back together to pick it up, how about the two of us see it together in August or September?"

The voice of the dark miles stared at Zhang Chen without blinking, and after a long time lied to him and said, "Okay."

After this sentence, the two of them stopped talking.

After a while, Cheng Sheng reached down with one hand, and took off the last bit of fabric on his body, curled his legs around Zhang Chen's waist, and with some difficulty let Zhang Chen get stuck in his body.

This time they were not lubricated, and the space between the two bodies was dry, and it hurt like a knife when they rubbed together.Cheng Sheng put his arms around Zhang Chen's neck again in the pain, closed his eyes, took a breath, and asked intermittently, "Do you think we have become one person now?"

Zhang Chen hugged his waist, rubbed his hair like they used to when they were making out, and said truthfully, "It's still close."

"I also feel that it's not enough." Cheng Sheng stubbornly let the people on the opposite side enter more, but still felt that something was not enough, and said with some annoyance, "What is the difference?"

Zhang Chen said, "No one knows."

"Okay." Cheng Sheng was a little disappointed, but he suddenly thought of something, his eyes lit up, and he shook Zhang Chen's arm expectantly, "I know what's wrong, the difference is that you didn't tell me last time What you said when you took me for a ride."

"Did you say love?" Zhang Chen shook his head: "No, you can't always say the word love."

Cheng Sheng muttered softly, "What's that?" He raised his head, shifted his face a little, and asked stubbornly, "You don't have to say it if you don't want to, but can you prove it?"

Cheng Sheng wanted to continue to say something, but Zhang Chen, who was hugging him, smiled very easily. He patted himself on the shoulder, and said like coaxing a child: "Go to sleep, and I will prove it to you tomorrow. "