Chapter 53 Chapter VII

In 2011, Christmas Eve, Saturday. Ma Li stood on the balcony on the twentieth floor, watching the street below with binoculars.There is a lively atmosphere everywhere, with colorful Christmas trees shining, and young lovers born in the 90s snuggling past.He noticed a strange man, alone in a leather jacket and hood, approaching his apartment like a professional killer. The doorbell rang, and he went back to the door and looked at the visual system, and it turned out to be the mysterious person.Across the twenty floors, the other party lowered his tight hood, revealing his sixteen-year-old face.

"It's you?" "Ma Li, I am Shen Ming." He is the boy named Si Wang. "How did you find it here?" "I have your phone number and license plate number, it's easy to find you." "You know I'm home?" "Feel." Ma Li reluctantly opened the door. He hadn't gone out for many days. He was wearing casual home clothes. His beard stubble covered his cheeks, and a few gray hairs appeared on his head early.Even so, he is the type of uncle who can drive lolis crazy. Just go to a KTV like Haoledi, and you will definitely get a few phone numbers of young girls.

Half a minute later, Si Wang walked into his house. "Happy Christmas!" The boy spoke fluent foreign language. Ma Li nodded blankly. He rummaged through the shoe cabinet for a long time before throwing a pair of plush slippers to Si Wang.Si Wang noticed that there were children's shoes in his house: "Are you married?" "divorced." He answered lightly, and walked into the spacious living room, under his feet was a polished teak floor, the wine cabinet was decorated with expensive blue and white porcelain, and the sofas were all leather. "How old is the child?"

"Four years old." He took out a photo of the child from the TV, "Daughter, follow her mother, in Guangzhou." "Do you miss her?" "I'm used to it. My daughter comes back once a month, but it's a little strange." Ma Ma poured him a glass of milk, "Why do you want to come to me tonight?" "Two reasons: first, I have returned to Nanming High School; second, I think you still have a lot of things to hide from me." "You go out." Ma Li snatched the cup from him, and pushed the tall and thin Si Wang to the door, "I'm so dizzy! You are not Teacher Shen Ming at all, but a high school student with a mental illness. You put it at home!"

The boy stood at the door, unwilling to leave. "I'm sorry, I've done enough for you! I'm going to call security!" "Did you forget the 'Dead Poets Society' you carved with compasses on the windowsill of the dormitory?" Si Wang returned to the living room, sat on the sofa and chanted with his eyes closed, "Someone said, there is a word/Once spoken, That is / dies. / I say, its life / only began / from that day on.” "I do not remember." "American female poet Emily Dickinson, I read it in the library of Nanming High School, almost seventeen years ago tonight, besides you, Liuman and Ouyang Xiaozhi were present."

Ma Ma just wanted to say something, but he hesitated.He took a can of beer from the refrigerator, opened it, and took a swig himself.The lips are full of foam, very masculine. "Thank you for not driving me away." The boy put on a weak and pitiful appearance, it seems that he is not pretending. "Is the writing on the window sill still there?" "exist." "What a miracle." "Now, my head teacher is Zhang Mingsong." "Him?" Ma Li shook his head, and took another gulp of beer, "I didn't expect that." "Some say—he killed me!"

"impossible." "Then do you know who killed me?" He scratched his hair vigorously, and said to himself: "Dizzy, am I dreaming? How could I meet Teacher Shen's ghost?" "Just treat it as a dream." Ma Li pushed Si Wang away, jumped up from the sofa, opened the window, and watched the splendid river view on Christmas Eve.He took out a pack of cigarettes, a little firework lit up near his mouth, and the blue smoke was quickly swept away by the cold wind: "Little friend, do you have schizophrenia? Or are you delusional that there is a ghost lying on your shoulder? Let me tell you, you just now Everything I said was imagined, nothing at all! There is no Zhang Mingsong, no Liuman, and no Ouyang Xiaozhi!"

He regained his indifferent face, and the cigarette butt was about to burn out in a blink of an eye, and he threw it directly from the window on the twentieth floor. "I am not a child. I am your high school head teacher and Chinese teacher. I am Shen Ming. If I am still alive, I will be forty-one years old this year." "it's too cold!" Ma Ma's lips turned purple again, and he closed the window tightly. "You said Ouyang Xiaozhi was imagined by me? I can see her every day now, if you are willing to go back to Nanming High School to see her." "No, I never want to go back!"

"Ouyang Xiaozhi, now my Chinese teacher in the first year of high school." "How did she become a teacher? Why did she go back to Nanming High School?" "Just came back this year—I don't know why." "Xiao Zhi didn't know you were Shen Ming?" Ma Li immediately changed his tone, "I didn't know you called yourself Shen Ming?" "I haven't said...maybe I'll tell her soon." Si Wang took a few steps in the living room, and saw a luxurious home theater system, and a beautiful CD holder, with a limited edition DVD cover exposed: "Are you still watching this?"

"Oh... just took it out this morning, I wanted to read it when I was bored at night." Ma Li remembered that in 1994, the school organized everyone to go to the cinema to watch this movie, and Teacher Shen shed tears after it came out. "I want to watch it again." Feeling like being coquettish, he obediently took out the disc and put it in the DVD machine to play.The two sat in front of the sofa, turned off the lights and watched the home theater.A gymnasium appeared on the projection screen, Bawang and Yuji entered hand in hand with makeup... After 160 minutes, Ma Ma took him off the elevator and went straight to the garage on the B2 floor, where it was still the black Porsche Cayenne.

On the way to send him home, passing the Wuning Road Bridge on the Suzhou Creek, Si Wang suddenly shouted, "Stop!" "Can't stop here!" "stop!" Ma Ma listened to the teacher the most, stepped on the brakes and stopped by the bridge railing. "Thank you." Si Wang opened the car door and jumped out, waving his hands, "Goodbye!" "Are you OK?" He lowered the car window and asked, and the boy smiled under the bridge lights: "Don't worry! I won't jump into the river! Go back quickly." The Porsche Cayenne was gone in the dark night, and when there was only speeding traffic on the bridge, and there was no one left, Si Wang lay on the cold railing, looked at the still water and deep Suzhou River, and roared hoarsely...