sunk into the earth

[-] (Self-narration by Stranger Ah Chi)

The day I met Zhang Chen and Cheng Sheng for the first time was a bit special. It was three years before they met me. I cried for a whole day because I broke up with my boyfriend.

He said that I don't know how to love at all, and aggressively listed my evil deeds one by one: I can't remember his birthday, I don't know what he likes to eat and play, I never take the initiative to buy gifts, I don't act like a baby, I look at him with eyes no light.

I said, "I can't even remember my own birthday, how can you expect me to remember yours?"

He was such a tall man gasping for breath, pointing at my nose and cursing me: "You don't understand love at all, you can't find love in this life! No, you don't have the eyes to find love at all, I can’t even see other people’s love in this life!”

Then my tears fell uncontrollably.

Strange, I obviously don't like him that much, why do I cry?Do I admit that he is right?

I was walking aimlessly on the main road with my bag on my back, and I happened to come to a bar that was being renovated.I know this bar. It is said that the owner is very wealthy. A few years ago, a group of well-known and unknown bands came to perform in the bar.But the market has not been very good recently, and most of those not well-known bands have disappeared, and no one has heard of them again.

When I walked into this unrenovated bar, I was still thinking about that question: Why don't I have a pair of eyes that can see love?

Thinking about this question, I walked upstairs, but suddenly a strange man grabbed the strap of my schoolbag on my back.

"Girl, we haven't opened yet."

The man who held me had calm eyes and a slightly chubby figure. I looked him up and down, guessed that this man should be the owner of the bar, and immediately lowered my head to apologize: "I'm sorry, I drank too much, and I'm not sober now."

Probably the bar owner has an innate advantage, he is naturally able to deal with alcoholics and neuropathy, he easily forgives my impolite behavior, takes me to the messy bar, throws me a box of hangover medicine, and pours a glass at the back Bring warm water over.

After taking the medicine, I improved a lot. Before the boss got up to drive me away, I swaggered back and forth in his shop.There is a large colorful wall at the side door of the stage. I looked closer curiously and found that the wall is covered with photos, and each photo has a specific year.

There are two large and conspicuous photos hanging in the center, one up and one down, the same two men and one woman, separated by ten years, everyone has changed a lot.

Before I looked carefully, the fat boss suddenly appeared from behind me, pointing his finger like a pig's trotter to the upper one of the two photos in the middle, and said proudly: "This is my time. Looks pretty handsome, isn't it?"

I looked back at the boss's fat face now, and then at the thin man in the photo, nodded regretfully, then pointed to the man in the center of the two photos, and asked the boss: "Who is he? You grew up together friend?"

I don't know why, but I felt the boss was stunned for a moment, but he quickly came back to his senses, pointed to the man in the photo and said, "My boy is Cheng Sheng."

As soon as he finished speaking, my eyes happened to notice a group photo closest to these two photos. It was also two men and a woman. The tall, thin man in a white shirt in the middle was particularly eye-catching, with an electric guitar hanging on his body and his arms on the other side On a person holding a bass, looking casually at the camera.

I looked into his dark eyes, as if I saw some kind of different emotion, which made me unable to look away, and kept staring into his eyes as if possessed.Looking at it, I suddenly felt a sense of familiarity. I seem to have seen such a look before, but I'm sure I don't know this man.

The boss behind me had already noticed that I had been looking at that photo, pointed to it and introduced to me: "Are you looking at him? His name is Zhang Chen, and he and I are a couple."

As he spoke, he picked up a pink pen from the table next to him, connected Cheng Sheng and Zhang Chen in the photo, and drew a pink love heart very greasy.

I was startled: "Boss, you are so sudden."

The boss put down his pen and smiled facing the photo wall: "I'm not sudden, these two people are sudden." He put his arm on my shoulder familiarly, looked at me sideways, and corrected my address to him: " It's fate to meet, don't call me the boss, call me Brother Qin."

The first time I met my brother came and went, it was somewhat uncomfortable, but after all, I caused trouble for others, so I called out "brother" tactfully, pointed to the two men in the photo and continued to ask: "Why are they so sudden? "

Brother Qin said, "Isn't homosexuality sudden?"

"Not suddenly." I shook my head and said, "There are more homosexuals, so what is sudden?"

Brother Qin's fleshy arm was still resting on my shoulder. He looked at the photo and sighed, but quickly smiled in relief: "I'm just kidding, it's not the suddenness, it's the two of them falling in love and dying, and in the end They hugged each other and jumped off the balcony at home, which suddenly surprised others."

Martyrdom?This matter aroused my interest, and my mind, which was still in a mess just now, suddenly woke up. I gave an excited "wow", pushed the hands on my shoulders, and asked anxiously, "Then what happened next?"

"Later, the auntie cleaner who was sweeping the floor in the morning found out and called an ambulance, but the two of them hugged each other tightly, and they couldn't be pulled apart. It took a long time before they were sent to the hospital. I don't know whether to say that the lives of these two people are serious or not. Deliberately, rolled down the tree to the lawn, lay in the hospital for a total of three months, and suddenly disappeared one day with money, ID card and account book, and no one knew where they went."

I just blurted out in my head: "That's great, that's great!"

"What's the matter?" Brother Qin gave me a strange look, "One person jumped off the fifth floor of their building just now, with his head upside down, dead. A few months later, two men jumped down with their arms in their arms. How scary? Housing prices in the community plummeted, and no one dared to buy a house there."

When I came out of the bar, it was completely dark. I squatted on the steps and looked towards the end of the noisy street, thinking about my school days and those familiar eyes.

When I recalled the school newsstand 5 minutes away from the cafeteria, I suddenly remembered where my familiarity with Zhang Chen came from.

At that time, I always bought a rock magazine called "AZ" in the school newsstand.I clearly remember one day at dinner time I slipped to the newsstand to buy a new issue of "AZ". That issue had a dark green background and a pure white title. On the cover was a man sitting on the carpet, wearing a T-shirt and jeans, pregnant. Holding an electric guitar in his arms, his eyes are exactly the same as those in the photo wall of the bar today. It seems that there is a strange and depressed emotion, which makes people unable to figure out what he is thinking.

The most conspicuous column title in that issue was: Interview with Tributary Guitarist/Experimental Musician Zhang Shen

The fine print below reads: Experimenting with life in doubt

"AZ" stopped publishing two years ago because of poor sales. The magazine that Zhang Chen made the cover of had already been sold by my mother to junk collectors along with dozens of other issues, and I couldn't find it anymore.Thinking of this, I felt a little lost, patted the dust on my pants, straightened up and looked at the sky.

I'm still thinking about what Zhang Chen said, and I have huge doubts about it. Can life be an experiment?

Zhang Shen and Cheng Sheng, two strangers who have nothing to do with me, passed through my life like a gust of wind, and soon I forgot about them completely until I was in Interlaken in [-]. Encounter peace in the town.

Should I call them Zhang Shen Cheng Sheng or He Sheng?

It doesn't matter, the name is just a code name. Since I am used to calling people by their Chinese names, let's call them Zhang Shen and Cheng Sheng, even though they seem to be a bit against their original names.

It was snowing heavily the day I met the two of them, and there were only a few scattered people on the street, including a thief.

The week before last, I was scolded by my boss for being worthless at the team meeting. I took my suitcase to Interlaken to see the snow-capped mountains in a fit of anger. papers stuffed into a suitcase.

The trip with an impure purpose really didn’t end well. The next day, my wallet was stolen in the town, and I became a penniless homeless man. So I didn’t care about my image, and I sat on the snow and wailed. Cry, hurry up and take advantage of this rare opportunity to cry out all the formulas that you don't understand these days and the boss's scolding.

Maybe it was because my crying was too loud, and not long after, someone patted me.I was crying heartily, I threw off the hands on my shoulders, and blurted out a sentence in Chinese in the confusion: "Who are you?"

The person behind me didn't seem to think that I was a Chinese. He paused for a while and continued to shoot me. He also replied in Chinese: "I am a human being."

I wiped my face and found that the back of my hand was full of icicles, and I was sweating from fright, but the line of my self-esteem was set in a strange way. I was obviously scared but embarrassed to ask others for help openly, so I sniffed and said something to the person behind me Saying against your will: "You go about your own business, I just want to cry for a while."

The person behind said "OK" and left.

He didn't even want to say a word of persuasion, and I was deeply moved by the indifference of human feelings, so I cried even louder, hoping that he would come back and give me another hand.

Not long after, another man came up. From the sound of his footsteps, this man sounded easier to get along with than the man just now. He jumped and jumped all the way. When he jumped behind me, he tapped my shoulder hard and asked me: " Why are you squatting on the side of the road and crying? Tell me what happened, and if you meet Chinese people abroad, help them if you can."

This person must be in the same group as the man who just left, otherwise how would he know that I am a Chinese?I was afraid that I would drive him away again and again, so this time I turned around and grabbed his sleeve with all my strength, and hiccupped and said intermittently: "The first time I came here, my wallet was stolen, and I can't go home now." , don’t know what to do.”

The man let out an "ah", and patted his chest to assure me: "It's okay, just come and stay with us for a while, and brother will take care of it for you."

As soon as he finished speaking, another man came from a distance and stood in front of me, shaking his chin at me, "Come back with us, we will take you to the police station here tomorrow morning, don't worry if you can't find your wallet, We send you back."

I raised my head wiping away the icy tears, and saw clearly the appearance of the two men in front of me in the haze.

The shorter man looked at me with snot and tears, and smiled and handed me a pack of tissues. The taller man hugged his shoulders affectionately, but looked at me, as if saying: Don’t know me. Come on, hurry up and come with us.

The meaning in this look is my wild guess, he probably didn't think so, because after taking me back to their coffee shop, he skillfully ground a cup of hot latte for me, and even made a smiley latte on it.

The eyes are difficult to ponder, but the actions are quite friendly.

I walked around the coffee shop with my coffee in my hand, and found that it was a bit like a music bar, with various musical instruments hanging everywhere, and a huge record cabinet standing in the corner, with hundreds of albums from various countries in the transparent glass.I looked clockwise and saw the checkout counter, which was warmly decorated, with a row of dolls on the counter and several boxes of baked biscuits and cakes juxtaposed in the glass window.The livelier man was leaning behind the man clearing away the coffee cups, wrapping his arms around his waist affectionately, not paying any attention to the presence of a stranger like me.

I put down my half-drunk coffee cup and asked them, "What's your name?"

The livelier man rushed to answer: "My name is Sheng, he is called, you can call me Brother Sheng and call him Brother."

He looks in his early 28s, [-]s, and [-]s, but he looks like a child. I still can't say the word "brother", but it's different. It doesn't matter how old he is. "Brother."

My differential treatment caused Sheng to show a humiliated expression in an instant. He rushed to sit down in front of me with his loose waist, pointed at his face and asked me: "Why do you only call him and not me? I watched people call me Don't you want to be a brother? I'm a year older than him, and he has to call me brother!"

"That's not what I meant." I shook my head against my will and said, "You look too young, like a child."

This time Sheng finally showed a satisfied expression, lowered his head and approached me and said, "Actually, I am already 34 years old this year."

I glanced up at him, and found that this man was actually proud of such a thing. I also thought of those 30-year-old men among my relatives who kept giving advice. I was a little shocked, and asked in a low voice, "Are you really over 30?"

Sheng nodded proudly: "Really, can't you tell? You also say that I look like a child."

I kept staring at his familiar expression and eyebrows, and suddenly remembered where this sense of familiarity came from. His current state is exactly the same as the person I accidentally saw on the photo wall of a certain bar a few years ago, Cheng Sheng.

I turned my head to look at the counter, and I happened to meet the man who had just cleared away the coffee cups. His eyes were dark and he looked at people casually, but I always felt uncomfortable.Until I recognized Cheng Sheng, I was finally sure where I had seen such a special look—the cover of a certain issue of AZ magazine and the photo wall of a bar.

Now I can finally call them Zhang Chen and Cheng Sheng in a fair manner.

In the evening, the two of them took me home, who was homeless, and packed up a bedroom for me.

Their house is not big or small, with two bedrooms, the living room is full of records, several electric guitars, acoustic guitars and basses hang on the wall, and there is a set of drums and African drums in the corner.

Cheng Sheng casually pulled out an orange-backed record from the record cabinet, and showed off to me: "This record is specially made for me, and all eight songs are written for me." He pulled out several more Records of different colors swayed at me proudly, "This is another record he participated in the production of, and one of them won an award. Unfortunately, he was not the main creator of that record, and only participated in part of the post-production."

I took the stack of records, looked at them one by one, and asked curiously, "So it's the producer?"

Zhang Chen took the record that I handed him after reading it, stacked it and put it back in place, turned around and sat next to me, and said: "I used to play experimental music, but after getting in touch with more people, I transformed into a producer. "

I clicked my tongue twice, and said with emotion from the bottom of my heart: "It's not easy to do this outside, it's amazing."

"Of course, he is not ordinary." I was obviously exaggerating Shen.Cheng Sheng seemed more proud than himself, with his back straight, and he continued to show off to me: "When we first settled here, we just wanted to clean up. At that time, we had just traveled around several countries and were a little tired. I happened to come to this place, and I decided to stay here after a short stay. When we first settled down, we performed on the street every day. It was a real show. He played the guitar and I played the drums. Sometimes it was plugged in and sometimes it was not. I play the djembe when the TV is on. Every day when the show starts, we put a jar of change in front of the two of us, and we can earn hundreds of Swiss francs a night. But we just play for fun, and it doesn’t matter if we earn more or less. I thought of a producer who happened to see him playing the piano when he came to relax, and left us his contact information after the end, asking him if he is willing to cooperate." He pointed at Zhang Chen, smacked his lips at me and said, "Where is he? It can be discovered by noble people, and then we will stay until now."

"Then are you planning to leave in the future?" I was really curious about this question.

Cheng Sheng didn't seem to think much about the future, and shrugged lightly at me, "It depends on the situation, at least I have to finish my Ph.D. next door, and then we can make a decision together."

I looked at Zhang Chen again, hoping to hear his thoughts.

I guess Zhang Chen is very sensitive to emotional perception. The moment he met my eyes, he immediately understood what I wanted to know, thought for a few seconds and replied: "Let's read it after Shengsheng finishes his Ph.D., but his People are not sure, a few days ago I told me that I wanted to change to another country after graduation to do a postdoctorate, and within two days I said that I wanted to study humanities and history again and start from the beginning, and yesterday I said that I wanted to go to Africa to dig bones.”

Cheng Sheng on the side immediately grabbed Zhang Chen's hand and retorted unconvinced: "Come one by one, I want to do them all, those things are so interesting!"

Zhang Chen embraced his shoulders, leaned on him naturally, and said, "Yes, yes, come one by one."

Afterwards, I asked a lot about Zhang Chen. These questions gave Cheng Sheng a lot of room to play. He added fuel to the air and boasted about how powerful his punch was, until Zhang Chen couldn't help it and pulled his wrist Tell him to shut up, "Don't just catch someone and show off. Some of them I have only participated in a little bit. Why do you still talk about it? Isn't it embarrassing?"

Cheng Sheng, who was sitting on his lap, glanced at him, put his arms around his neck and said, "It's hard to find a little girl who speaks Chinese, I can't help it!"

After he finished speaking, he looked at me again, as if realizing that his actions were a little too much, he quickly moved back from Zhang Chen's lap to the sofa, and smiled at me regretfully: "We are usually like this at home, and we are not used to it for a while, you Never mind."

I shook my head and said, "Thank you for bringing me back. What would I do if it affected your normal life? You can do whatever you want."

I was just being polite, but Cheng Sheng took it seriously, and when I finished speaking, I couldn't wait to jump back on Zhang Chen's lap, pouted at him and said, "Look how sensible this girl is."

Zhang Chen hugged his waist, glanced at me, but said to Cheng Sheng who was on his body: "I think the girl is just being polite."

I immediately shook my head and waved my hands, "Really, don't pay attention to me."

Before going to bed, the two of them naturally walked into the same bedroom, but Cheng Sheng didn't know that I had already known them both. He was afraid that he would scare me by being so upright, so he whispered to me before entering the door: "We live in the same room, don't worry about it .”

I shook my head, "I'm just a renter, what do you care about?"

But I misjudged the "don't care" he said. At twelve o'clock in the evening, I opened my eyes and looked at the ceiling, and my ears were filled with the sound of violent shaking of the bed board in the next bedroom.

But don't blame them, I can feel that this movement is already the result of restraint.I thought about a question in the sound of love and love: Someone said a few years ago that I didn’t understand love, but I clearly understood, and I could clearly distinguish what was love and what was not, but it was not my fault. , Why do you say I don't understand love?

After half an hour, the movement on the opposite side still continued. I looked at the ceiling immersed in the darkness and wondered, would it burn out after doing so for so long?But let me not continue to think about it, the more and more ferocious movement next door rose to the highest point, and then the two said "I love you" to each other, after this sentence, the room fell into complete silence.

I close my eyes in the dark night, feeling confused, is the end of lust not nothingness or love?

This question is a bit too profound for me, and soon I fell asleep completely in this burst of thinking, and it was already the next morning when I woke up again.

The two of them took me to the police station, but nothing was found.So I logically stayed at their house for an extra day, waiting for them to send me back to the vicinity of the school on Sunday night.This day completely relaxed my tense life. I followed Zhang Chen to repair the steps at the door. Enjoy the snow scenery.

Their coffee shop is really beautiful, behind it is the endless snow-capped mountains, which are almost connected with the clouds and the sky.I looked up and looked at the magnificent scenery from the bottom up, feeling a little homesick for some reason.

When I looked up again, I saw Zhang Chen and Cheng Sheng in the yard having a snowball fight in the snow.Zhang Chen hit a target, and quickly smashed Cheng Sheng to surrender, but I saw that the surrender was just his conspiracy. Sure enough, within a few seconds, he grabbed a big snowball from the snowdrift while Zhang Chen was not paying attention, and ran away. He threw it at Zhang Chen.

Zhang Chen caught Cheng Sheng who was running towards him, and the two people with unsteady balance fell on the snow together. Cheng Sheng seemed to be frightened, and got up from him anxiously, touching his legs back and forth through his pants , looking very distressed, "Is your leg okay?"

Zhang Chen didn't care at all, stood up from the snow in twos and outs, and seemed very satisfied to see Cheng Sheng's anxious and distressed appearance, grabbed his hand and pulled it in front of him, with the tip of his nose pressed against his face, and asked: " What should I do?"

This time Cheng Sheng finally realized that there was nothing wrong with him at all, so he stretched out his hand to hit him, but still followed him and said, "I will take care of you, I will take care of everything."

I lay on my back in the snow, and wiped my red eye sockets with my hand.

Soon I saw Zhang Chen and Cheng Sheng walking towards me in my blurred vision. Both of them were wearing thick woolen coats today, a thin layer of snow fell on their shoulders, and their bodies were covered with marks from the snowball fight just now. Looking at them, it is hard to imagine that they are over 30 years old.

Zhang Chen stretched out a hand to me and asked, "Do you want to perform with us in the afternoon?"

I nodded, took his hand and stood up slowly, had a hearty snowball fight with them, and then set off to the street with the musical instrument and the change jar.

Zhang Chen personally drove me off on the day of departure, and Cheng Shengwo helped me solve a mathematical formula in the paper that I couldn't understand during this period of time. He was very smart and always liked to talk nonsense. The supervisor consciously pushed all the problems accumulated during this period to him.

When I arrived at school, I didn't go directly to my residence, but squatted on the side of the road thinking about things.Just like a few years ago, Zhang Chen and Cheng Sheng passed through my world like a sudden gust of wind. When I looked at them, they had completely disappeared. Fallen leaves are in my sight.

[-]? Winter

Li Xiaoyun jumped into a stream, and no one knew what she was thinking when she jumped down.

The woman floated up and down on the surface of the water, her head covered with wet hair was exposed for a while, and her whole body sank to the bottom for a while, leaving only a string of bubbling bubbles on the water surface.

In this way, she rose and fell dozens of times in the bone-chilling stream until she almost fainted.But the last sliver of reason saved her, and she suddenly thought of her child who was still in elementary school in the suffocation, and instinctively grabbed the stones by the stream with both hands, swayed her body and climbed to the bank.

In the distance, black smoke continuously gushed out from the huge black chimney. Li Xiaoyun, who was about to freeze, stretched out an arm and pointed to the sky. She raised her pointed chin and looked up with her fingers. There was nothing on it except black one slice.

Li Xiaoyun wiped her icy eye sockets with her other hand, took out a box of cigarettes she had hidden from her side pocket, lit it tremblingly, and smoked heavily while breathing the cold.

Soon a woman pulling cotton slippers came from a distance. The man's eyes were sharp, and when he saw a woman lying on the ground lying on the ground, she immediately put on an excited expression and shouted: "Li Xiaoyun, you It's so fierce! I'll go back and sue your husband for stealing his cigarettes!"

Li Xiaoyun extinguished the cigarette in a hurry, threw it on the ground, and shouted at the woman from a distance: "Don't talk nonsense, it's the breath from your mouth, how can I smoke? I can't even press the lighter!"

After sending the meddling woman away, Li Xiaoyun took out another one and lit it. With her head next to a clump of cold withered grass, she looked straight up into the sky, just in time to see a few birds of unknown species flying by.

What does it feel like to fly into the sky?

She smoked a cigarette and kept thinking about this question.

Suddenly a series of boy's voices came from a distance, Li Xiaoyun knew who it was, quickly put out the cigarette and threw it out, said "Hey" in the direction of the child, and shouted: "Mom will go back soon!"

Eight-year-old Zhang Chen ran up to her and stood still, looking at the icicles on her face, and said, "I saw you smoking secretly."

Li Xiaoyun wiped off the icicles on her face two or three times, and said sullenly: "You are wrong."

This time Zhang Chen didn't speak anymore, but those dark eyes kept staring at her.

Li Xiaoyun touched her son's arm and asked, "Son, what do you think it feels like to fly into the sky?"

Zhang Chen squatted down and wrote on the ground with his hand: Freedom.

Li Xiaoyun said: "Don't write, I can't see clearly, open your mouth and tell me, describe it to mom."

Zhang Chen shook his head.

Li Xiaoyun said: "You speak, speak out."

Zhang Chen still didn't speak, but he stretched his arms on the ground and wrote again: freedom.

Li Xiaoyun said: "How can you do it if you don't talk? In the future, going to school and going to society will all depend on real skills and a good mouth. How can you tell your mother to rest assured?"

As she spoke, she threw the pocket beside Zhang Chen vigorously on Zhang Chen, forcing him: "Say it, say it!"

Zhang Chen staggered when he was hit, and sat on the ground with a bang.But the child's eyes were still fierce, staring fixedly at his mother's face, but his mouth remained silent as if locked.

Li Xiaoyun was discouraged, and turned her head to look at the sky dully.

After a while, Zhang Chen put away his expression just now, walked to his mother, poked her face with his hand, and said word by word: "Mom, today our teacher taught us to write the word freedom. What is freedom?"

Li Xiaoyun closed her eyes and said, "Mom doesn't know either."

But not long after she finished speaking, she suddenly opened her eyes, stretched her arms and pointed to the sky, stuttering excitedly: "There, there is freedom."

Zhang Chen looked up in the direction his mother pointed, and saw two birds flying by in the cold wind. He followed the tracks of the two birds and kept watching until they completely disappeared from his field of vision.

[-]? Summer

He Sheng flew out of the sight of others.

"Sinking into the Earth" full text