Chapter 55 Chapter 54: The Man Under the Pyramid (No.293 - No.297)

That night, I went home alone on the last bus at ten o'clock. I leaned my head on the grilled window for so long that my hat was frozen in frost and I almost couldn't take it off. In the bus with no lights on, the neon lights and headlights are distorted by the window grilles, and they are refracted strangely on the roof of the car, as if it is not going to take me home, but to take me away. I'm no longer the tall girl who handed the driver fifty bucks and told him to drive farther away. The next morning, I packed my luggage at home and was going to take an evening flight to Beijing with my parents.

I can't remember how long our family of three hasn't stayed together. I have exams for four schools in Beijing, so I asked Zhang Ping to take two weeks off. It seems that my birthday will also be spent in Beijing. Before boarding the plane, I received a text message from Yu Huai, which only had three words: "I'm sorry." It's me who should say "I'm sorry". I'm too eager to make you happy, and I'm even more eager to become someone who can walk into your heart. Kind of selfish. I spent half an hour carefully choosing every word, but I couldn't come up with a complete short message. In the end, I only replied with three words: "It's okay."

Hello, thank you, sorry, goodbye, please, it's okay, how many lives have been saved by polite words. My mother drove downstairs to my father's house, then parked the car in our community, and the three of us took a taxi to the airport together. I don't know if it was agreed to give me the most relaxed atmosphere for exam preparation. After the two of them met, they have been amiable and have not quarreled. It's like we're still a family, which is great. This is the third time our family has gone to Beijing together.The first two times were fun, I don't know how this time will be.

It was 7:00 p.m. when we arrived in Beijing, and we waited in line for 20 minutes before getting a taxi.The hotel is near the Drum Tower. My mother and I live in one room, and my father lives in one room.After putting down our things, we ate roast duck and returned to the hotel before nine o'clock, because we had to go to the registration meetings of the two schools early the next morning. After I washed up, I lay on the bed in a daze.My dad didn't ask me to bring any math, physics and chemistry review materials to Beijing. He said that the child is too tired, so he can relax for two weeks and he won't die.

My mother came over wiping her hair, got into bed and hugged me.I closed my eyes and pretended to be dead. All kinds of emotions were rampant in my head. I was afraid that when I opened my eyes, they would all rush out of my sockets. "How about going to the Temple of the Reclining Buddha before we go home?" my mother said suddenly. "No." "When you were young, once your grandmother took you to worship Buddha, and a master even told your fortune. I think it's quite accurate. Why don't you go and worship." What does it mean?Feeling that your daughter can't count on her, and start counting on Buddha?I was laughed at by my mother.

"What did the fortune teller say?" I asked. My mother thought about it: "He said that you will be in uniform in the future, maybe a teacher or a civil servant, and you are handsome, not a general." I frowned: "What do you mean by handsome talent and general talent?" My mother actually didn't know much about these things, but as an intellectual woman, she still tried her best to talk nonsense: "The general is under the commander, the general is to help the emperor conquer the world, so you are talented as a commander, not only Just to help run errands. It must be a good life."

I know that she broke all these to make me not feel nervous because of the exam during this period.When I didn't have confidence in myself, she wanted to tell me that your fate is determined by God, don't be afraid, just verify it one by one according to it. "Marriage is a bit difficult," my mother continued. "The marriage came later, but in the end it turned out well. I was able to have a son." I just sat up to drink water, and I almost sprayed my mother in the face when I heard the last four words. There are huge crowds of people at the entrance of the Film Academy, and most of them are dressed up to take the acting department exam.I didn't have the time to look at it, but my parents stood together and began to criticize the passing students.

"Only a few people are recruited a year, and the admission ratio is so small." My dad lamented. "Star dreams," my mother shook her head, "this society is a pyramid, who wants to move to the top with a sharpened head." "Isn't it? At that time, many industries were not regulated, and heroes emerged in troubled times. When it came to their generation, life was not as easy as ours. There was so much pressure and so many rules, it was pitiful." My father said with emotion. I quickly took two steps to the side, pretending that I didn't know the two party newspaper current affairs commentators, but accidentally stepped on the foot of the girl in front of me.

The round-faced girl accepted my apology, smiled and said "it's okay".We chatted and learned that she is from Shandong, her name is Cheng Qiaozhen, she is going to take the exam for the Department of Drama and Literature, and she will go to another school to enroll tomorrow. We chatted very tantrums, and within a few minutes, we explained our respective family backgrounds clearly. "I'm going to take an exam in the Department of Editing and Directing, but until now I don't even know how to draw sub-shots," I shrugged, "The result of hugging Buddha's feet temporarily is the result of being kicked by Buddha."

The little girl was amused by me, her round eyes narrowed into two crescents, very cute. "By the way, do you still want to take the Chinese opera exam?" The little girl tilted her head and looked at me, "I have the exam questions of Chinese opera for the past few years, you can learn from it, the Buddha is merciful, he won't kick you every time, Maybe I'll hug it this time!" "That's great," I laughed. "Can you lend me a look? Can I make a photocopy later?" She smiled warmly and nodded. After the registration was over, she took me and my parents to take the bus. My mother learned that the place to go was in the South Fourth Ring Road. After taking the bus, she had to reverse three times and almost fainted. She raised her hand and hailed a taxi.

Cheng Qiaozhen was very embarrassed because of this, and thanked her again and again, saying that she lived very far away, and it would cost a lot of money to take a taxi. My dad was sitting in the co-pilot seat and turned to her and said it was okay, thank you for sharing the review materials with our family Geng Geng. I got goosebumps from the cold.I felt particularly maladjusted when my dad assumed the genial government-servant air.Cheng Qiaozhen and I were leaning together, we watched the scenery passing by outside the window together, she suddenly said, do you think Beijing is very strange? Cheng Qiaozhen speaks with a slight Shandong dialect accent, which reminds me of my grandma. "What's weird?" I asked. "I went to Qianmen with my mother some time ago. Many roads there are very wide, beautiful and clean, which makes people feel very small. But if you turn a few corners, you can turn into a small alley. Dirty and messy, just like where I live now, like a village. It's weird." This world is just weird. I think of the pyramids my parents talked about while standing in the registration hall.Me and Cheng Qiaozhen, all of us who are crowded at the registration site, and those who are studying hard in the classrooms in our hometown, how many of us are really interested in what we want to do? Some want to break through to the upper level of their own, and some do not want to fall to the next level. The undercurrent surging in the impenetrable pyramid is called desire. Cheng Qiaozhen is right, Beijing is a very strange place, outside the South Fourth Ring Road is a countryside where chickens and ducks are everywhere.Occasionally we passed a vegetable field, and the mules and donkeys rested quietly by the side of the road.My mother's expression became more and more strange, probably because she was afraid of being deceived.Cheng Qiaozhen didn't realize it, and showed the driver the way at every intersection. After arriving at the destination, my dad waited in the car and asked the driver to continue to play the watch.He was afraid that the driver would leave by himself—then our family of three would end up here. We got out of the car and followed Cheng Qiaozhen to the yard.Cheng Qiaozhen lives in a farmer's yard. There are many bricks pressed on the asbestos tile roof. I don't know if something was blown away during the sandstorm.There seemed to be four rooms in total. It was only 9:30 when we entered. Several residents had just woken up, all wearing down jackets, standing in front of the water pipe in the yard, brushing their teeth and washing their faces. The only furniture in Cheng Qiaozhen's house is a bed made of bricks and several long planks.My mother frowned and asked her: "You live by yourself? It's so unsafe at night! Who are the people living next to you? Do you know them?" Cheng Qiaozhen was squatting on the ground looking out the materials from her big schoolbag, when she heard my mother's concerned inquiry, she looked up and smiled very sweetly. "It's okay, they are all art students, and they also came for the art test. The Academy of Fine Arts will start signing up in a few days. I came here in the fall, and I came to class. I have lived with them here for almost two months. Everyone I got it. Except that the landlady is very stingy and keeps cutting off the electricity, there is nothing wrong." My mother walked over and pressed the bed board: "The bed is so thin, it's so hard to sleep at night." "It's not that I'm panicking, it's just that sometimes I didn't sleep in the middle, and the board suddenly turned over, which shocked me a lot in the middle of the night." She laughed as she talked about something very funny.My mother chatted with her in a pleasant manner, and I stood aside like a fool, looking at the newspapers pasted on the wall, at a loss. Cheng Qiaozhen handed me a thick stack of materials. "Where can I make a photocopy around here?" I asked a question that I thought was stupid. Cheng Qiaozhen didn't make fun of me: "Just take it away, I'm just helping to look at it, it's useless, it's a pity to throw it away, I don't know if it's useful to you, just talking casually will make you go all the way Send me back..." She can talk lively for a long time by herself. My mother's expression was very complicated, her eyes were full of pity and entanglement.When Cheng Qiaozhen sent us out, my mother suddenly asked her: "Did you go home after the exam? Then there are still more than two weeks?" "yes." "If you can trust your uncle and aunt, why don't you move your things near where we live, and we'll find you a better guest house or fast hotel, and Auntie will pay for it. This wilderness is too unsafe, you go out You have to travel so far.” I immediately cheered up and looked at her with a smile: "Yes, it's convenient to live closer to the school." Cheng Qiaozhen was very moved, but she still refused.My mother tried to persuade me, but I didn't force it anymore.We exchanged mobile phone numbers, and she smiled and waved to watch us get on the bus. After getting in the car, my mother and I didn't speak for a long time.The car turned around, the dirt road was very narrow, and the driver was very careful.There are often donkey carts passing by outside the window. The donkey puts its head down and spreads donkey manure eggs while pulling a cart of briquettes, passing our car wearily and slowly. Two weeks passed quickly. Several written exams were good and bad. I tried my best not to leave any questions blank, and I almost vomited out of writing. I couldn't help but start to admire the simple students of liberal arts. The small rural courtyard where Cheng Qiaozhen lives often comes to mind, with uneven walls, yellowed newspapers, plain and large flowered mattresses, a faucet with a dirty rubber tube in the yard, and rubber hoses attached to it. Weary-looking art students brushing their teeth with water from the pipe and their parents... Cheng Qiaozhen sometimes sent text messages to wish me success in the exam, and I often asked her about the exam.Before leaving Beijing, I sent her a text message, saying that one day I would see her name on the big screen of the movie theater. She replied that it must be. She said, I wish you to find your own direction as soon as possible. Strange, how does she know that I am confused? I remember that on the way back to the hotel from Cheng Qiaozhen’s rented courtyard, my mother sat in the back of the taxi and held my shoulders, sighing all the time.I thought I had already passed the naive age when I was excited by reading inspirational stories, but the moment I saw Cheng Qiaozhen, I realized how fragile and hypocritical my maturity is. The last night in Beijing happened to be my birthday.My parents took me to "Lao Mo" for dinner.I saw this restaurant in Wang Shuo's novel, and then I watched a TV series called TV with Aunt Qi at home, and the young people in it often gathered here. This is the identity and western style of that era. "Are we entering the Great Hall of the People?" I looked up at the high dome, and my dad was amused. They allowed me to drink a little red wine, but they didn't know that their daughter had been very drunk a year and a half ago.It’s like they don’t know that their daughter has abused their trust by insisting on studying science, forcing themselves to this dead end, and coming to Beijing, causing them to take such a long vacation, which is a waste of time and money, but it is very likely that the bamboo basket will be in vain. . Thinking about it this way, I also have a lot of things they don't understand. I laughed at myself.I used to feel that I was the most pitiful, but this time I came to Beijing, I learned a lot, although I can’t express it, but it’s brewing in my heart, some ideas seem to break through the ground, but I don’t know what kind of flowers will bloom. My dad smiled and said, "It's okay if you don't pass the exam. Life is growing, as long as you can learn something." For the first time, my mother, a pragmatist, did not contradict him. Maybe she can't be realistic when facing the child.