Chapter 3 Chapter 1 A Moment of Youth

It was a late autumn noon, the weather was cool, I got out of the taxi, I was wearing a dark red shawl, walking on the road full of fallen leaves, and a couple on a white bicycle passed by me laughing, I Looking at the open and sweet smiles on their faces, I couldn't help laughing too. The sunlight shuttled through the woods on the side of the road, lightly sprinkled on the arms and cheeks, and there was a crisp sound of leaves under their feet. , I seem to be walking in an autumn oil painting. And the rice grains are standing at the end of the painting. Mi Li walked up to me, looked at me with a smile, "Xiao Wei, you have changed so much, you are so thin now."

I still remember that Mi Li’s favorite thing to do when I was in junior high school was to pinch my cheeks, like kneading dough, with a face full of teasing expressions, “Second Senior Brother, I like your fat but not greasy little face the most. Come on, let me touch it, big brother." I replied casually: "I have to be thin, or else I will meet someone as cruel and merciless as you, and my face will really be rubbed into a pig's head." Mi Li covered her mouth and laughed. I haven't seen her for so many years. Mi Li is no longer the Mi Li I remember. Even her most representative smile has changed.

I still remember the way that Mi Li grinned with her mouth wide open in the old days, and her neck was habitually tilted back. That kind of active energy that knows no heights and depths, in today's Mi Li, has been washed away by the years and can't be felt. Mi Li took my hand affectionately and entered the coffee house. From the moment I opened the door, the song "To the Young" was slowly flowing in my ears. "On the rainy street under the sycamore tree, the dead leaves fall to the water surface in disorder, the shallow blooming water halo at the corner of the blue skirt, and a red umbrella hold up my childhood memories. I don't know when it started to be so colorful and uneasy. In my youth, I don’t know when I will walk down the stairs again..."

The baritone sang softly in the record, I looked at the quiet Mi Li, and it seemed that she was wearing a junior high school uniform in front of my eyes. It was a summer evening, and she and I were walking on the tree-lined avenue of the school together, and the sky was falling heavily. The raindrops were so urgent and fast, I took her hand to avoid the rain, but she unhurriedly took out a red folding umbrella from her schoolbag, and stuck out her tongue mischievously at me. And those pictures, those two immature smiling faces of young girls, are gone forever. This feeling is a little astringent, a little funny, and there is an inexplicable sadness in my heart.

Mi Li interrupted some of my distant thoughts, and asked curiously with her chin on her face, "What are you thinking, so preoccupied?" "No……" Mi Li smiled and sighed: "Xiao Wei, we have changed a lot these years. If we meet on the road, to be honest, it is probably like meeting a stranger." "After all, so many years have passed." Mi Li sighed, "Yes, we are no longer those two silly kids." Many years ago, when we were girls carrying schoolbags and going to school together, Mi Li asked me, "Xiao Wei, what kind of person do you think you are?"

"It's crazy to be with people you know well, uh...you have nothing to say to people you don't know well." The girl Mi Li tilted her head, scratched her face and smiled, "Why are you like me?" I will always remember her look at that time, no one is more brilliant and lovely than her. At that time, we both had the same short hair, wore the same school uniform, and had the same body shape. Looking from the back, people who didn't know would think we were twins. It is precisely because of Mi Li's phrase "how can I be like me", that when I was young, I was determined to give her everything to be good to her.

That kind of goodness, so pure that there is no trace of impurities, no consideration for rewards, and can't think too far, just naively think that we will be together forever in the future, and I want to be good to Mi Li for the rest of my life. Thinking of this, I couldn't help but giggle myself. For a lifetime, forever...Maybe only when I was so young, I felt that these words can be taken for granted, so I don't feel guilty! Throughout the afternoon, we seemed to have endless things to say. When we were children, the knots tied in our hearts were slowly untied and loosened by the years.

When it comes to the past, when it comes to the good times we used to be together day and night, Mi Li's face is slightly flushed, excited and enthusiastic, as if immersed in those long-gone youthful years. Until we chatted about our respective emotional problems. "People of our generation get married relatively late, and we have to grasp both conditions and feelings. We can't get rid of the rules and regulations of the world, and we dream of unrealistic romance, but the reality doesn't allow us to be picky and picky. .” Mi Li laughed, "You mean that I can't find a good and suitable one, so I left myself?"

"This is what an emotional expert in our company advised me. How did she know that my reality is that I have nothing to choose, and I am willing to leave it alone." "You, you still talk nonsense like before. Otherwise, I'll introduce you to one. By the way, have you ever had a blind date?" "Blind date? Once, it was just a blind date on the phone. I was still baffled. As soon as the highly educated intellectuals came up, they asked me if I had any plans to take the postgraduate entrance examination. I was thrown into kindergarten, and after studying for more than ten years, I realized that kindergarten is still easy to mess with. As a result, the man put me on the phone on the grounds that I had no education and no ambition. A doctor with a lot of personality, he turned his face when he said he would turn his back. It made me scold my classmate in the end, messing up the mandarin ducks."

Mi Li continued to cover her mouth and laugh, "You are getting more and more funny. Really don't think about it? I have people with good conditions here." "Forget it, it's fine for me to be alone. I'm free and comfortable. I sleep in a big bed alone. No one grabs me for meals. I can spend the money I earn as I like. No one grabs the remote control from me. Don't make thought reports with your mother-in-law and father-in-law, I live a comfortable life like this." "It seems that I will be uncomfortable after a while." I blurted out excitedly: "You and Luo Ran are getting married!"

The sun shone on her long flaxen hair, and for a moment the faint light dimmed along with her eyes. That's when I realized I was saying the wrong thing at the right time. It seems that it has been a long time, "He is already in the past tense." These eight characters are like the thinning sunlight swaying at the tip of my hair, and they jumped into my ears and mind one by one, until I remembered the male doctor named Luo Ran, who was called by Mi Li. The man who is the big brother wears gentle glasses and smiles with a warm and amiable look. The corners of Mi Li's mouth are always raised upwards. Although I know that such a raised arc is actually far more bleak than a straight line. She still cares about him, even if, as she said, he is a person from the past and a story from the past. "My current... fiancé, his name is Chen Jin, and he is doing business in Nanjing. He came to Beijing to discuss the contract, and I came with him. He will pick me up after talking about things later. Let me introduce you to each other. " She patted the back of my hand, "Xiao Wei, hurry up too, or you'll really be an old girl." "What is true achievement? I'm already alive and well now, and it's very thorough." Talking and laughing, Luo Ran's appearance always appeared in my mind, as if it was uncontrollable. I still remember that 6 years ago, Mi Li and I were lying on her mother’s bed. Mi Li had yellow hair, wearing a blue denim jacket and a long black skirt, dressed like a rebellious girl on the street, but softened her face and made me laugh. Pulled to the head of the bed, with a sweet look in her eyes, she handed me a photo. The swords and swords of the ancient costume dramas on the TV collided clangingly. I saw Mi Li’s mouth opening and closing, and the light flickering on her face. The arc of the corner of the mouth was extremely smooth, "This is my boyfriend, Luo Ran, who studies medicine." During the short meeting that day, the topic was all about Mi Li’s new boyfriend Luo Ran. I lay beside her and listened to her dancing and dancing about her love story with Luo Ran. She ended this topic solemnly, "Xiao Wei , I think Luo Ran is the person I love the most. I will definitely marry him in the future and have a beautiful baby." A medical student? My thinking has been wandering in the photo of the somewhat similar eyebrows. That day, the words in my heart were still rotten in my stomach after all. Is it really just a coincidence? I would rather, just a coincidence.I'd rather be myself and think too much. After all, she didn't take the initiative to mention that person. It's like being removed from life without a trace. When I came back to my senses, Mi Li was still stirring the coffee in the cup. She lowered her head, a strand of long hair hanging down her chest, moving slightly with her movements, and she let out a long breath, "Xiao Wei , What do you say youth is? It’s really strange. Recently, I always think about our past. At that time, we were so good, we were in our prime, laughing and playing, and we were heartless like two fools.” She didn't look at me, as if talking to herself. I looked at the big tree outside the floor-to-ceiling window. The wind gently blew the dead leaves on the tree. A few leaves slowly drifted away, leaving the familiar branches, and just casually fell into the unfamiliar soil. The sockets of my eyes became inexplicably hot, and I scolded myself for being hypocritical, just because of the four words "in the prime of life" in Mi Li's sentence, like fine sand in my eyes, my heart sank. A smile flashed across the corner of Mi Li's mouth, but there was water in her eyes, "Youth... is full of regrets, and those regrets happened naturally. Xiao Wei, I'm sorry..." "Say something nice and sorry, it's not your fault that my youth is gone." I touched the back of her cold hand. She looked at me quietly and softly. At that moment, I seemed to see from her tearful eyes the shadow of our youth, the youth that disappeared and never came again, and the person buried deep in my heart. What is youth?Perhaps, only through youth, and the farther you go, can you see its whole picture more clearly. People in it feel that it has no end, like a road with no end in sight. It wasn't until a long time later that I realized that youth and life are just turning around for a moment.