Chapter 3 Check mark

The night is already very deep. The early autumn in Shanghai is stuffy and hot, and the wind blows in through the windows, making it sticky, as if you can get water out of it with a handful. Was autumn in Shanghai fifty years ago also this hot? I said to Shen Cao in my dream: "You are so powerful, take me back to fifty years ago, okay?" "At that time, Zhang Ailing was already very unhappy." Shen Cao suggested, "It's better to go back to 60 years ago. When she and Hu Lancheng met for the first time, they had just written a book about marriage, career and love. During those days, it was her Highlight of a lifetime."

"But if it wasn't for Hu Lancheng, Zhang Ailing's tragedy would have been rewritten." I was fascinated, "If I could really go back to 60 years ago, I would persuade her not to be with him." "If I had to choose to go back to the past, I would not go so far. I only went to ten years ago, and I wanted to know you earlier than Pei Zijun and rewrite your love history." I was so embarrassed, my heart was pounding, and I was so sad that I woke up so sad.It turned out to be a dream. But the heart was beating fast and loudly, everything in the dream seemed to be real, Shen Cao's eyes were so affectionate, and all the dialogue words were still in my ears, soul-stirring.Hey!It's just that after meeting him once, he even dreamed that someone was courting him.Could it be that I have fallen in love with him?

Suddenly he heard a soft sigh in his ear, turned around suddenly, and saw a woman with ace hair combed sitting beside his bed, she was wearing a toga with long sleeves, I don't know if it was pajamas or a brocade robe, but You can vaguely see the bright embroidery with large borders and large scrolls, the forehead is as wide and clean as the breeze and the moon, and the eyes are cold and gloomy like the stars in the dark night, slightly depressed, and he hesitates to speak.That demeanor, which Hu Lancheng praised as "natural eyes, upright fairy face", is both familiar and unfamiliar. Who is she?

My eyes suddenly became wet: "You are finally here." "Don't look for me." She whispered, stood up, and walked slowly to the window.The wind blows her hair, lifelike. At this moment, is she alive or dead? "why?" "History cannot be changed, and the secrets of heaven cannot be leaked. Those who break the balance of the universe will be condemned by heaven." "God's punishment?" I was taken aback, "You mean Shen Cao? Will something happen to him?" However, she stopped answering me and turned to the window. The wind blew her long hair, there were invisible waves and dark waves, and the faint sound of thunder.Her sleeves were raised, and one could clearly see the wishful patterns of clouds and clouds on the edge of the brocade sleeves.

"Don't go!" I greeted me, and woke up, it was another dream. At this moment, there was a knock on the door. When the door opened, there stood a dripping Shen Cao. "Is it raining outside?" I pinched my face, "Or am I dreaming?" "I dreamed of you just now, so I wanted to come and see you." Shen Cao was dripping with water, his eyes were miserable and frenzied, as if a fire was burning, "Jinhe, I remembered, I have seen you! I remember when I saw you!" "Really? When?" He was about to answer when the phone rang and woke me up again, and I found myself still lying on the bed, dripping with sweat.

Beside, the phone was still screaming. I took it and put it to my ear: "Hello?" "Jin?" The other party was an unfamiliar male voice, obviously smiling, but choked up for no reason. I frowned: "Who are you?" "Shen Cao, I just met you today... I remembered, we have actually met before." I almost screamed, dream again? !I can't wait to throw the receiver out and smash it to pieces, forcing myself to wake up.But his hands couldn't be controlled, and the earphone still heard a slightly hoarse voice: "I had a dream just now, I dreamed of you. I want to ask you, can we meet?"

"Meet?" I asked in my dream, "At this time?" "is it okay?" What's wrong?Anyway, it's a dream.Since it is a dream, follow your own heart and indulge once. I quickly reported my address: "I'll wait for you, what tea do you want?" Alas, no matter what kind of tea it is, maybe I won't wait until the water boils and the tea is fragrant, and the dream has already woken up. In ancient times, there was a dream of Huangliang. Today I will cook a pot of Longjing and wait for the dream to wake up.I don't know if the tea is cold when I wake up from the dream?

I washed my face, changed my clothes, and walked around the room, still wondering if I was dreaming. Bite your lips, it hurts.But, in my dream, I also feel pain.Just now I dreamed about Zhang Ailing, her resentful eyes, the cold charm in her eyes made my heart tighten, and Shen Cao's phone call, and the dripping him before, said exactly the same words, if now If you are awake, isn't the dream just now also real?But he obviously didn't come, and it was obviously not raining outside the window. I moaned, feeling like I was going crazy if I didn't do something. The water in the "soak at will" boiled quickly.I turned off the power and waited for it to cool down.

Longjing is brewed with 80-degree water, and if it is overheated, it will be stuffy. If the water temperature is cold and Shen Cao has not come, then all this is real and not a dream.Because everything goes well in dreams, only the reality of life can be right with others everywhere. Just then the doorbell rang.So, is it really a dream? My heart is still hesitating whether to open the door or believe it, but my legs have already brought me to the door, and my hand has pulled the pin out. Shen Cao stood outside the door, his eyes were miserable and hot, as if a fire was burning.But his body is dry.

I couldn't help but reached out and touched his arm: "Are you real or fake?" "It's true." He actually replied like this, "It's not a dream." "Isn't it a dream?" "It was a dream just now, but now this me is real." He walked in holding my hand, and smiled in a trance, "You really prepared tea." At the same time he found the photobook: "You bought this?" He looked at me, eyes twinkling, "You didn't tell me you had this." "I came across it in the supermarket." I said, it was a real "meeting", I flipped through Zhang Ailing, turned around, knocked down the book, and then bought it half voluntarily and half forcedly, admitting This fate.Everything is doomed.

Sitting in front of the tea table, he skillfully ironed the cups one by one, Guanyin entered the palace, rewashed the beauty, high mountains and flowing water, spring breeze blowing on the face, he brewed the tea in a moment, turned the customer into the main, poured a cup in front of me: "Please. " "Please." I made a gesture, three dragons guarding the tripod, three sips as a product, and drank the tea slowly, a warm current rushed straight into the lungs, and the fragrance of the tea wafted, refreshing.So it's not a dream? I looked at him: "Just now, I dreamed of you." "I know. I dream about you too. So, I want to see you." "How is this going?" "I can't tell. But just now, I tested new software, hypnotized myself, went to the Central Academy of Fine Arts ten years ago, and saw you walking around the campus..." "You went to Hangzhou Academy of Fine Arts?" I was surprised, "How do you know that I am from Hangzhou Academy of Fine Arts?" "I don't know. In fact, I am also from the Academy of Fine Arts. It's just that I am four years older than you. When you entered the school, I had already graduated. When I returned to school, I was invited by the principal to take a few photos. In the principal's office When I saw you from the window, I felt that your posture and attitude did not look like a modern person. You are independent and lonely, very charming, so I took out my camera and snapped a photo. But when I chased you down the stairs, you were already gone..." As he spoke, he took out a photo in a carved silver frame from his pocket: "I'm afraid you won't believe me, so I found it out on purpose." The girl in the photo has only a profile, but at a glance it is me.Long skirt, long hair, holding a stack of books in his arms, walking with his head tilted sideways, with a thin body, as if his feet were not dusty. When I was studying, my classmates often laughed at my walking posture as if I was walking on thin ice, and it seemed to be wearing shackles. But now Shen Cao said: It is very charming to be independent from the world. What is a confidant.Even if you have already read the other person's eyes and footsteps when passing by, why do you need to get along with each other for ten years? "For you." He said, "It's a meeting gift ten years late." "Give it to me?" I took it, couldn't help pressing it on my chest, took a deep breath, and my eyes got wet uncontrollably. At this moment, both he and I understood what had happened between us. love.Yes, after nearly ten years of marathon love with Pei Zijun, I finally know what is the real love I long for. But how late is it?Ten years late. Shen Cao in the dream said: "If I choose to go back to the past, I will only go to ten years ago, and I will know you earlier than Pei Zijun, and rewrite your love history." But it turned out that he really met me ten years ago.However, he missed it... With tears streaming down my face, I can no longer tell what is reality and what is a dream.The wind is still sticky and damp, but I no longer feel the heat. In my heart, there is an indescribable joy and deep sorrow... When I woke up, the sky was already bright, the birds were singing happily outside the window, and the fragrance of flowers was blowing in with the wind. It was a cloudless sunny day. I stretched, walked to the window, saw the silver photo frame on the coffee table, and was suddenly stunned—a little angel flew lightly in the right corner of the photo frame, bent its bow and shot skillfully, piercing through with an arrow and two hearts facing each other. Very funny and cute. The memory came up little by little.Flowers are not flowers, fog is not fog.Come at midnight, go at dawn. Last night, I had a long conversation with the same person here, tasting tea, chatting, and even shedding tears... It's like a spring dream in a short time, and it seems to go like a cloud without a place to find.Is all that true? His temples throbbed with pain, and his heart was filled with worry and joy, and he was up and down.I asked myself, do I hope everything that happened last night was a dream or real?If it is true, do you want to continue?If it is a dream, do you want to make it come true? But how to explain to Zijun?Could it be that you said to him: I'm sorry, during the few days you left, I met someone, and later found out that I actually met him ten years ago, so we... how can we say it? Moreover, how much do I know about Shen Cao?He is a successful photographer, designer, and a genius. He graduated from Hangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. He met me halfway ten years ago. He may cooperate with our company in the future—other than that, how much do I know about him?His family, his hobbies, his experience, whether he has a girlfriend, how many times he has been in love, his views on love and marriage, does he really love me... Do I understand these? I look in the mirror.In the mirror is a peach blossom face with pink and blush, with full eyebrows and eyes, wanting to be angry but also happy, isn't this what the so-called spring breeze is like? Reason is still hesitating, but the heart has already flown out, and I can't help myself. There was a note under the photo frame, I picked it up, and saw a line of flamboyant words: ——How many decades can we survive?Looking at the tear stains in your dream, I decided to let the past happen again, never to be missed again.Jing'an Temple Always Cafe, etc. Jing'an Temple?Isn't that where Eileen Chang lived? Shen Cao, he knows my mind so well.How can you resist going on such a date? The moment I pressed my hand on the doorknob of the cafe, my heart flew away. "Every afternoon, in the sunshine, I will pick a place by the window, drink coffee, and watch the outside world." This sentence, which is clearly a sentence in Zhang Ailing's article, has now been used as a slogan for the store's signboard. Shen Cao, he brought me here to find a dream, and also to create a dream. I'm lost again. It's tea time, but there are already customers in the cafe.Shen Cao took a seat by the window and smiled at me, bowed slightly, pulled the chair away for me, waited for me to stand still, and then gently pushed it a little bit—don’t underestimate these details, sometimes women’s Heart, there was a wave between the proportions. "Back then, this cafe should have been called Qishilin." He said, his voice was like a dream, with a kind of magnetic unreality, "If Zhang Ailing was sitting in your seat, then Hu Lancheng should be sitting in my seat now." .” "No, it should be Su Qing, or Yan Ying." I smiled in a trance, feeling warm in my heart, and inexplicably a little drunk. In "Double Voice", Zhang Ailing recorded a large number of conversations between her and Yan Ying, with witty words Ruzhu, full of wit and wit, those conversations are inseparable from the coffee shop. "Every time Zhang Ailing and Yan Ying come here, they will order two cream cakes and another cream." "Oh, wouldn't that make you fat?" Shen Cao laughed, "It is said that Eileen Chang is the ancestor of the modern 'petty bourgeoisie', but the 'petty bourgeoisie' never eat butter, saying they are afraid of calories." In a word, time was pulled back again. I finally had a sense of reality, and then I raised my head and looked at the setting in the store carefully. It was nothing more than exquisitely carved and old-fashioned, with imitated paintings of Chen Yifei hanging on the walls, black and white photos of the empresses of the Qing Dynasty, and of course old Shanghai. The calendar painting - it reminds people of nostalgia all the time, but I remember more clearly that this is in the 21st century, it is today fifty years later, Orvis, after all, is not Qishilin. Even if we restore the street sign on Huaihai Road to Joffre Road, even if we rebuild those old-style cafes opened by White Russians and Jews, and duplicate those brightly lit windows, those fringed curtains and flowers, music and dance floor, we will Is it really possible to go back in time?The aroma of coffee has been distorted, and the new leaf of the sycamore tree is not the one that fell last year. No matter what kind of menu, it cannot become a return card to go back in time. When the coffee came, it was milk, not cream.I couldn't help smiling again, lowered my head and stirred slowly with a small spoon, watching the milk, sugar and coffee blend slowly, and it was no longer chaotic. Unacquainted men and women meet by chance and get married from strangers. Is it also the karma of a cup of milk and a cup of coffee?Black and white are black and white when they are in their own way. Once they are in harmony with each other, they are immediately integrated and cannot be separated again. Who can bring the milk back out of a cup of creamy coffee? "When did you return to China?" I asked, "How are you doing abroad?" This is the opening line for first dates between men and women who don't know each other.However, this is the third time we have met.Maybe some topics can't be avoided all the time, so we have to turn things upside down. He lit a cigarette, and the smoke blinded his eyes. Through the smoke, he looked back to the past: "When I was abroad, I always missed the girl from the motherland. I know that the Chinese all over the world are similar, but I always feel that the girl from the motherland in my memory is not the same. The same, yellow and cute flat face, thick black and thick braids, a hand stove in winter, a round fan in summer, in the boudoir treasure box," he looked up at me, "...hidden with rotten silver inlays. Eight enamel crabs." My face suddenly became hot, and I wanted to ignore it, fearing that he would misunderstand me and acquiesce; when I wanted to reply, but he didn't mention his name, wouldn't it be self-indulgent?I had to talk about him from left to right: "Tong Shifang in Li, and Fan Liuyuan in He, also have unrealistic nostalgia for girls from the motherland." Shen Cao glanced at me and said, "It's not more unrealistic than wanting to see Zhang Ailing." I am speechless.Last night, we exchanged shallow words and talked about our ideals and moods for so long.However, that was in a dream.At least, we took it as a dream.Now under the bright sun, how can I lie to myself and tell myself that I don't care? Dreams always have to wake up.We always have to face reality. When Zhang Ailing fell in love with Hu Lancheng, did she hesitate?For a talented and famous woman like her, Hu Lancheng was not the only one who had a chance in the flowery years, but she chose such an unstable love. In what season did they meet? Did they meet at a ball like Bai Liusu and Fan Liuyuan?Jia Yin and Xia Zongyu became friends because of the movie?Or is it like Yindi and Sanye's love to bathe the Buddha Temple? ——Endless doors with overlapping doors, corridors with swastika railings, and bright yellow pillars on both sides.He came from the depths of the pillar.In the depths of the pillar she stood and waited.He didn't want to look at him, but his eyes betrayed his heart, his face was full of smiles, his lips couldn't hold it anymore, and a little bit of it spread to his cheeks, pink, peach blossoms flying, burning half the sky. Not about lust, just hunger and thirst.A thirst in the depths of life. If I could meet Zhang Ailing, I would not discuss writing skills with her. Perhaps what I want to know more is how to choose love and destiny for a woman like her in her age? However, how can I meet Zhang Ailing? I lowered my head and said softly: "In the dream, she asked me to tell you that there would be accidents if the sky is leaked." But Shen Cao could understand: "Have you seen her?" "Maybe it can't be called seeing, it's just a feeling. I don't know whether it's an image or a group of voices talking to me. But I remember every detail in the lucid dream, including the black satin broadband on her dark green brocade robe." Embroidered pattern." "How did she appear?" "There is no action on the stage, it is already there." "How to leave?" "It's like a canopy of fireworks suddenly appearing, suddenly disintegrating, and disappearing in a moment, very melancholy." The words between the two of us are like playing charades and practicing Zen.Coincidentally, both of them fell silent, but they didn't feel cold. He swallowed slowly, as if trying to find a way out of the clouds. My heart is still a mixed cup of coffee, and it is difficult to distinguish the taste. Looking out of the window, you can see the light-colored Changde apartment across the road, as well as the scattered air-conditioning exhaust fans and colorful clothes on the Italian-style balcony, which has a taste of home.The floor is not high, but because of its mysterious connotation, it has become stalwart in my eyes-many, many years ago, when it was not called Changde Apartment, but Edinburgh Apartment, Zhang Ailing went in and out from there, and her My aunt, that woman who is as quiet as the autumn moon, spent one quiet day after another guarding the window of the small building. Ten years of life and death, without thinking, never forgetting.Thousands of miles of solitary graves, where can we talk about desolation? Under the fame, there are desolate gestures and silent sighs.When it is red, it becomes gray.At that time, Zhang Ai was so red that half of the sky was shining, and the light penetrated the time early and continued to shine into today, but at that time, her light had already burnt to the end. Is God jealous of talent?She wrote in her famous book: "The fall of Hong Kong made her perfect. But in this unreasonable world, who knows what is the cause and what is the effect? ​​Who knows, maybe because she wants to make her perfect, a The metropolis was overthrown. Thousands of people died, thousands of people suffered, followed by earth-shattering reforms... the legendary people who overwhelmed the country and the city are probably like this." Perhaps, at that time, she had already foreseen her own destiny?Such an alluring woman, in the earth-shattering reform, bloomed brilliantly like fireworks, but it was fleeting. "Those who reveal the secrets of heaven will be punished by heaven."Last night, when she warned me like this, was she warning me, or was she feeling sorry for herself? If the meeting last night was because she traveled through time to see me, then fifty years ago, did her mournful eyes penetrate the superficial prosperity of the world and see clearly the vicissitudes of life fifty years later? Fifty years later, I see her fifty years ago as a memory, an impression, and a miss; if she knows me fifty years ago, she is only a set of symbols in my pen, a Fiction is suspense and video, right? Shen Cao stubbed out the cigarette butt on the plate: "Let's go." "Where are you going?" I looked up, but I had already predicted the answer while asking. Sure enough, Shen Cao uttered four words softly like reciting scriptures: "Changde Apartment." What else can I do but heed his call as destiny?