Manhattanhenge

They ate lunch with grandma and waited until she fell asleep before going home together.

On the way, Su Hui shared what he saw when he just bought coconut candy. In fact, they were all trivial and boring things, but he said it was very interesting.

Ning Yixiao liked to stare at him when he was talking, looking at the current Su Hui, but he was like an afterimage of him in those few years apart, lingering.

If grandma hadn't said this, Ning Yixiao might never know about these crazy pasts for the rest of her life.Whenever he asked how Su Hui was doing well, Su Hui would always just smile and take it easy.

"Isn't it funny?" Su Hui said, stopping to look at him.

Ning Yixiao twitched the corners of his mouth, "Funny."

"Then why are you staring at me in a daze?" Su Hui moved closer, "What's wrong? Are you unhappy?"

Ning Yixiao shook his head, raised his hand and scratched the bridge of Su Hui's nose.

"fine."

Su Hui snorted and grabbed Ning Yixiao's hand, "You didn't wash your hands when I was away, did you?"

"No."

Su Hui pulled up his hand and sniffed it, his eyes lit up, "It smells like oranges."

Ning Yixiao smiled.

"My hair has grown a little bit, and I have black roots." Su Hui rubbed her hair facing the car window, "Why don't I dye it another color."

"What color?" Ning Yixiao asked.

"Red?" Su Hui looked at him, "Is red too dazzling? What about blue?"

Ning Yixiao stretched out his hand and patted Su Hui's head, "You look good no matter what."

"Don't lie to me."

"I don't lie."

The street was crowded, the driver sitting in the driver's seat was bored looking at the license plate of the car in front, while Su Hui leaned on Ning Yixiao's shoulder, staring at the pedestrians going back and forth on the street, suddenly he found a small shop selling With a variety of cultural and creative supplies.

He suddenly patted Ning Yixiao on the shoulder, "I want to go to that store to buy something."

Ning Yixiao glanced in the direction of his fingertips, without hesitation, unfastened his seat belt, and said to the driver, "Go back first."

In this way, they got out of the car, walked through the street full of cars, and came to the retro shop.There were no customers in the store, so Su Hui went straight to the mahogany shelf that attracted him, picked up a heavy jigsaw puzzle, and held it up for Ning Yixiao to see.

"Is this very similar to the one you spelled before?" His eyes were moist and bright like a child's.

Ning Yixiao took it over and looked at it, "It's a series, all of which are nebula patterns co-branded by NASA."

"I want to buy this." Su Hui was going to check out directly, but suddenly found another puzzle with a different pattern on the back of this puzzle, and couldn't help picking it up, "Hey, there is another..."

"Buy it if you like it." Ning Yixiao bent down and helped him check, "Is there anything else that is different? Do you want to ask the shop assistant?"

He said everything Su Hui wanted to say, and Su Hui looked up. There seemed to be no shop assistants in the store. He asked in a low voice, "Is anyone there?" and soon got a response.

"Have."

An old lady with gray hair came out from the inside, "What do you need?"

Su Hui took the jigsaw puzzle in her hand and went up to ask if there were other styles. The old lady put on reading glasses and looked at it for a long time, and finally called for help—called out her husband.

The old man helped Su Hui take out all the styles, six in total, but unfortunately, the one that Ning Yixiao had put together in the past was missing.

But Su Hui still bought them all, and refused to let Ning Yixiao pay, and used his own card.

He chatted happily with the old lady whom he had never met before.

"You and grandpa have been married for 45 years? My God." Su Hui thought for a while, "It seems that Sapphire is married, isn't it?"

The old lady smiled and said that she didn't know, and complained, "I'm going to annoy him to death, I can't sleep because of the noise every day, my movements are slow, and my ears are not working well."

The old man showed a pitiful expression, "I knew I should marry someone else, didn't I?"

Hearing this sentence, the old lady lowered her head and smiled, and whispered to Su Hui while packing, "That's still the best thing for me. Don't look at him now, his back is also hunchbacked, and his teeth have fallen out. He was very handsome when he was young." .”

Su Hui smiled and said, "I can see that you must have been beautiful when you were young."

The old lady was overjoyed, and even came out on purpose to see the two of them out.Su Hui turned her head several times, and she and her husband stood at the door watching until they turned the corner.

The weather was fine, Su Hui took Ning Yixiao to sit on the bench under the sycamore tree, staring at the endless stream of vehicles in a daze.

"I'm so envious of them." He said suddenly.

Ning Yixiao looked at him, "What are you envious of?"

"45 years, how long." With coconut sugar in his mouth, Su Hui spoke a little vaguely, "It is very happy to be able to grow old together with each other."

Ning Yixiao suddenly thought of Su Hui's hallucination.

He really wanted to say, didn't you also grow old with me, but it seemed too cruel to expose it like this, and Su Hui would definitely hide.

"Su Hui."

"Ok?"

"You said, will I be ugly when I get old?" Ning Yixiao looked at him.

Su Hui blinked his eyes very slowly, his subconscious mind was faster than his thinking, and his tone was serious, "You are handsome even when you are old, a tall old man."

Ning Yixiao smiled and pinched his face, "How do you know?"

Su Hui realized something, avoided his gaze, and shook his outstretched legs, "I...guess."

"What about you? What will you look like when you are old?" Ning Yixiao asked, "Are you still very picky eaters? Will you stay up in the middle of the night and go to the park to see flowers?"

Su Hui glared at him, "Yes, I will be difficult and troublesome when I get old."

Ning Yixiao smiled, "I'm too old to handle it, and I'll be very anxious if I can't find you. Otherwise, tie a rope and tie you to me."

"You don't have good ideas in your head."

"Well, why don't you practice it first, it will take a long time."

As Ning Yixiao said, he was about to wrap the rope around Su Hui's waist, which made him itchy, laughed non-stop, and finally stood up, sternly telling Ning Yixiao to "be serious".

But he himself didn't have to be serious for a few seconds before laughing.

Su Hui smiled sweetly, the corners of his mouth were raised, and the wind blew his hair, like a child who had never been hurt.

Although this is not the case, he is scarred and wandering, like the little match girl in a fairy tale, relying on segments of burning visions to survive.

Ning Yixiao looked up at his smiling face, a little lost in thought.

No one can repay Su Hui for these years of misery.

Back home, Ning Yixiao locked herself in the study again, took out all the collected evidence, and went through every detail.He has always been very patient. In order to succeed, he will always be fully confident and wait for the opportunity, but Ning Yixiao can't bear anything about Su Hui.

For this reason, he invested a lot of time and financial resources to dig three feet into the ground. If someone is a person, something will be dug out. It cannot be a solid wall without any gaps, let alone a scum like Xu Zhi who commits all kinds of evil.

Through the previous private bank, Ning Yixiao found Xu Zhi's payment account, spent a sum of money to get through the relationship, obtained information, and searched for it, and found a private account of Xu Zhi.

"This account has carried out many large overseas securities transactions, and it has always been in a state of loss, but it will continue to invest every time. It feels abnormal to lose such a sum of money. I searched, and there are several accounts that are similar to this account. The mirror account, which is almost in balance, is already eye-catching.”

The person on the other end of the phone who helped check the accounts was an investment consultant whom Ning Yixiao trusted very much. His sources of information were very reliable, especially in the fields of securities trading and digital currency trading.

"So he is laundering money." Ning Yixiao said with certainty, "There should be more than one channel. If we continue to investigate like this, we might find several shell companies."

"You reminded me, I'll ask someone to look into this."

After the other party finished speaking, he reminded Ning Yixiao on the phone, "These things are of great importance, and you have to plan well. If the other party retaliates, it will not be worth the candle."

"So the more evidence the better, it's best to crush it all at once, so that he can't turn over."

Not long after hanging up the phone, Ning Yixiao received an email from Charles about the same matter.

Ning Yixiao glanced at it and called Charles back.

"He won't take this job."

Charles got straight to the point, put out the other party's refusal first, and then said, "It's normal, Xu Zhi has too many interests behind him. Once they are reporters, once they jump into this bureau, it doesn't matter whether they can keep their jobs." It's secondary, and you understand that."

Ning Yixiao had anticipated such a situation, and was not discouraged by it, "Are there any other candidates?"

"I have to search again. There are only a few people I am familiar with here. After all, it is a multinational, so it is not easy." After Charles finished speaking, he remembered something. evidence?"

"I suspect that's the case. So far, no strong evidence has been collected. Just judging from his treatment of Su Hui and his grandmother, I speculate that Su Hui's mother died because of him."

Charles pondered for a moment, "But it's just that he sent Su Hui and his grandmother abroad. In fact, there is no problem legally, because Su Hui is a mental patient. After his family members passed away one after another, Xu Zhi also became a Of course, Su Hui's grandma did too. In order to rule out grandma, he chose to send her to a nursing home abroad and put her on a hat of being unable to take care of herself. In this way, Xu Zhi automatically became Su Hui's only legal guardian. Well, all of Su Hui’s itinerary, treatment, and property and inheritance have to go through him. There is no way to convict him through this. With the channels of exposure, our current predicament can be easily solved.”

"Ah."

Outside the window, the sky turned dark blue, the lights of New York City were bright, and the golden star points connected the dazzling and bustling city.

Ning Yixiao took out the paper and pen from the drawer, put on his glasses, and lowered his head to write while listening to the conference call.Over the years, he has developed a multi-threaded processing mode. If the time is not used to do more things, it seems that it is not time.

Half an hour later, he heard a knock on the door of the study room, and reflexively picked up the documents on the side to press down on the paper, closed the lid of the pen, and looked back.

Su Hui was wearing a mint-colored pajamas made of tencel, her hair was tied up in a small tug, she stood barefoot at the door, and asked in a low voice, "Are you busy?"

"Conference on the phone." Ning Yixiao stretched out a hand to him, and Su Hui immediately walked over, naturally straddled his lap, faced each other, kissed Ning Yixiao's lips, and leaned his chin on his shoulder, Like a kitten doll that only asks for hugs automatically.

Afraid that others might hear his voice, Su Hui checked that he was not wearing earphones, and then leaned over and said in a low voice, "I'm so tired, but I can't sleep, and I want to be next to you."

"Yeah." Ning Yixiao hugged his waist, the difference in body size made their hug fit very well, as if they just fit together, wrapping and being wrapped.

"Will I get in the way?" Su Hui asked cautiously.

"how come?"

Ning Yixiao turned around and kissed him on the cheek, "That's just right."

Su Hui nodded, buried her face in the crescent of his neck, and closed her eyes in Ning Yixiao's embrace full of security.

"Recharge for a while."

"it is good."

After working for too long, Su Hui's mental and physical strength were exhausted. He hadn't slept for more than 40 hours in a row, and his whole body was controlled by mania. With a huge overdraft, even after forcibly taking medicine and lying on the bed with his eyes closed, his thoughts are still running wildly, as if a small universe is exploding in his mind.

He didn't want Ning Yixiao to know about this, and even subconsciously acted normal in front of him.

After several attempts to no avail, Su Hui had no choice but to seek comfort from Ning Yixiao.

This is very effective, he leans in Ning Yixiao's arms, and listens to him responding and giving comments with a deep voice from time to time, he speaks very little, listens more, and rarely gives a long list of answers, at most one or two words.

But these words and sentences, which are very different from Su Hui's work, brought him a deep level of comfort, like lying on a huge, warm palm, being gently kneaded and comforted.

Ning Yixiao's broad palm was indeed stroking his hair and back gently.

"Well, the project payment has been settled, and the rest will be left to them."

"Come here first, and report in time if there is any new situation."

Ten minutes later, Ning Yixiao hung up the phone.He found that Su Hui's breathing was very steady, and his whole body was soft, as if he had really fallen asleep.

"Su Hui?" Ning Yixiao tried to call him in a low voice, but got no response.

He felt a little wicked in his heart, and called out a name that he seldom uttered, "Baby."

Su Hui was indeed sleeping like a child, so she didn't respond, but she seemed to hear a sound and rubbed her hands.

Ning Yixiao stopped teasing him, and hugged him quietly for a while, feeling that sleeping like this would be uncomfortable, so she put her arms through the hollow of his knees, carried the koala back to the bedroom face to face, and put it on the mattress.

Su Hui seemed to be dreaming, talking vaguely, but Ning Yixiao couldn't hear clearly, so he lowered his head and moved closer.

"Ning Yixiao... birthday..."

Ning Yixiao couldn't help laughing, "How long has it been since you celebrated your birthday?"

He took off his glasses, lay down and hugged Su Hui, and patted him on the back, "Little cat, have some good dreams."

In the absurd real world, everyone is facing bad things like nightmares every day, falling into bad situations big and small, meeting and leaving, gaining and losing again, Ning Yixiao wants to bring Su Hui many beautiful new memories, Hope he continues to be stuck in the past.

He found that there was a new wound on Su Hui's hand, probably caused by accident when making the installation art.Ning Yixiao checked it carefully, found the medicine box, rubbed the medicine on him lightly, wrapped the deep ones with a band-aid, turned off the light, and fell asleep with his arms around him.

It was rare for Su Hui to sleep until dawn.

When he woke up, Ning Yixiao was no longer there, and he was lying on his bed alone, surrounded by Ning Yixiao's smell.Su Hui lay back for a while, then turned around and found the note left by Ning Yixiao on the bedside table, which was pressed under the mug.

[Drink this glass of water when you get up, there is curry in the kitchen, heat it up before eating, take medicine on time, I have a meeting in the park, and I will go home to eat with you at night. ——Ning Yixiao]

Su Hui has a habit of collecting strange things. For example, he will keep every note written by Ning Yixiao, and occasionally take it out for a look. These are like tickets to the real world.

After eating, Su Hui left the apartment and went to the studio to continue her work.The academy sent someone over to inform him that there will be an interview with the Art Weekly the day after tomorrow, and asked Su Hui to prepare a little bit. Su Hui didn't know what to prepare, so he just agreed, tied up his hair and started to work.

As the time for the solo exhibition drew closer, Su Hui also became more and more nervous, experimenting over and over again, forgetting to sleep and eat.

When Ryan entered the studio, Su Hui was stepping on the ladder, fixedly brushing lustful fishing nets.Colorful fishing nets covered him from head to toe, and Su Hui put nails inside, the picture was hazy and dreamy.

He looked at it seriously and was a little lost in thought. It wasn't until Su Hui noticed him coming in and called his name that Ryan came back to his senses.

"Oh yes, I'm delivering something for you. I just saw your package, so I took it for you by the way."

Ryan said, and put a small box at Su Hui's feet, "I put it here for you."

"Yeah." Su Hui fixed the nails, clapped his hands, got off the ladder, and squatted down to look at the box. He bought a batch of second-hand materials online before, but he didn't expect it to arrive so soon.

"Do you want to have dinner together? I'll fix the rest for you. I have drawings."

Su Hui shook her head, "You go, I'm not hungry yet."

"Then I'll bring it to you." Ryan took his coat from the studio, "I'll send you the menu later."

"Okay." Su Hui opened the package with a utility knife without looking up.

The door was closed, and the workshop was quiet. Su Hui opened the box, but found that it was not the materials he bought, but many letters.

But he already bought enough handwritten letters, and the project was closed, so how could there be new letters?

The envelopes are off-white. There are no streets, names, or stamps on them. They are only marked with serial numbers. Every envelope is the same and has been sealed.

Su Hui opened the envelope marked with the number 1 suspiciously, took out the letter paper from inside, glanced at it, and froze in place.

The handwriting inside was too familiar, exactly the same as the note he saw when he woke up in the morning.

[Su Hui:

See the word as the face.

This is the first time I have written a letter to someone. I originally had a lot to say, but when I picked up the pen, I edited and edited it in my mind, and I didn't know what to say.Are you in that little room now?Are you always looking at the same tree?Maybe you can regard it as me. If I can, I really hope that I can really become that tree and accompany you day and night.

The man in the diagonally opposite room cried in the middle of the night, you must be very scared, right?I wish I was here and could hold you to sleep.Don't feel guilty, there has never been forgiveness or forgiveness between us, there is only a relationship of loving and being loved.

If possible, I also want to go back to the day when I first saw you, the day before I fell in love with you at first sight, in that coffee shop, if I knew that I would fall in love with you in the future, that day would definitely not just stay The next Band-Aid.That way we'll be together sooner.

I can't walk for the time being, and now I'm covered in plaster. I lie on the hospital bed every day, and occasionally have nightmares at night, dreaming that a car will run over my body.I'm really sorry, I used the kitten breeding fund privately, but I will work hard to earn it back in the future.Now I have sutures all over my body. I'm afraid I'll scare you. Let's meet again later.

Miss you very much, want to see you every day.

Su Hui, I hope you are safe and happy, and come back to me.

- Ning Yixiao's own handwriting. ]

After reading this letter, Su Hui shook his hands, randomly pulled out another letter, and the serial numbers were scattered.

[Su Hui:

See the word as the face.

Today I can stand up. The rehabilitation doctor praised me for my perseverance, but I think it is still too slow. If I want to walk faster and normally, standing up is not enough.

I don't know if you are doing well?Do they give you stationery every day, are you waiting at the glass door again?You will definitely press your forehead against the door, stare at people coming and going, and refuse to leave until your forehead turns red.It's all my fault, my movements are too slow, I have to run to see you.

Lying in bed and unable to fall asleep, I watched "Interstellar" again. I really wish I could enter the high-dimensional space of the black hole. You are smart, you must be able to read it.It's a pity that we are all trapped in our respective space-time strange circles.

The patient in the next bed said, I survived the catastrophe, and I will accumulate good fortune in the future, and good things will happen.If there is, these blessings will not be brought about by this car accident, I know, you saved me a little bit.

Winter in Canada is also very cold. You should cover yourself with a quilt and drink plenty of water when you sleep at night, so as not to catch a cold or feel sad.

Su Hui, I hope you are safe and happy, and come back to me.

- Ning Yixiao's own handwriting. ]

Every letter ends with the same words, it is all written about the time Su Hui missed, and it is Ning Xiao's strokes and strokes, earnestly compensating for his echo.

[Su Hui:

See the word as the face.

I'm in California, the west coast is not as good as we thought, but it's not bad, my time is very tight, occasionally I miss the hanging sun in Manhattan, but I don't want to see it myself, I always think you will come back .

I gave up socializing and just wanted to do my own thing, but I met this weird guy.He is of mixed race, but he wants me to call him by his Chinese name, Jingming.Always felt like you would like such a weirdo, so I made him friends.

There's a botanical garden with huge cacti, you'd love it, but because of that, I never actually went in, which is weird.

Today, when I was standing on the stage to give a mid-term business report, I always felt that you were sitting down and listening to me. Just like before, after you listened to me, you would quietly send a message and let me sneak out with you.

But no, I waited for a long time today, and there was nothing when the banquet was over.

Su Hui, I hope you are safe and happy, and come back to me.

- Ning Yixiao's own handwriting. ]

[I found the baby elephants you adopted, and I also brought the harmonica you mentioned, touched their noses, and fed them grass.They've grown up and are just as cute as you.

But I always feel that something is missing, you should be here. ]

[I registered a company with a very strange name. Jing Ming said it would definitely not work, it was a mouthful, and suggested that I change it, but I couldn't think of a better one.If you were here, you must be able to come up with a better name.

Entrepreneurship is really difficult. I spend the whole day going back and forth in the subway, looking for investment, holding venture capital meetings, and telling those people what I have done. Most of them don’t understand. .

Are you OK?I really hope you haven't been bullied. I wonder if Professor White has found you?He is a very good person, if you follow him, you will have a brand new future. ]

[Su Hui, after we separated, I don't like rainy days anymore.The rain always reminds me of the way you broke into the audio-visual room, and it will also make me ache where I was injured. These broken and healed muscles and bones have not learned a lesson, and I still miss you.

I'm also afraid of winter, but it doesn't snow often in San Francisco, at least I haven't seen it, and my memory still stays in the heavy snow in Beijing.I hope to meet you next time I walk into the snow. ]

[Su Hui, I went to Iceland.I know you will definitely blame me, why didn't I wait for you, because I was too stupid at that time, I thought I couldn't wait for you, so I wanted to go and see first.It's not convenient here, I tried to drive by myself, but the situation was not good, I almost got into an accident, but luckily I was rescued by a group of tourists passing by.

I was freezing all over, and I almost lost the gift I wanted to give you.

Iceland is not bad, but you are not here, it seems that it is not as beautiful as imagined.

Next time we go climbing the glacier together, I have experience and won't hurt you. ]

As always, each letter is a response to those six missing years, and each ends the same way.

[Su Hui, I hope you are safe and happy, and come back to me. ]