I was nineteen years old that year, and it was my third year in France. I studied French for a year at a language school in Lyon, and then at a private business school with a European chain.In my first year of school, I spent almost all the money in my pocket just paying tuition. The girl in the same room is Xiaoduo, a girl from Beijing who is three years older than me and came to Lyon two years earlier than me. My choice of study always made her feel a little weird, and she often discussed with me: "What are 80% of international students coming to France for? Isn't it because the public universities here are free? You said you first I got myself an aristocratic business school in 2010, isn’t the cost too high for you?”

I concentrate on reading.Let her educate me when she educates me, I have nothing to explain.There are two difficult things in the world: putting other people's money in your own pocket, and putting your own thoughts in other people's heads.I was in a hurry. The book in my hand, which was priced at 93 euros, belonged to the library. It could only be borrowed for three days, and the payment was overdue. She sat down next to me, as if she was trying to distract me: "You said, you said that if you go to business school, you should prepare all the supporting facilities. Take a look at your bicycle. Look at the house the two of us live in, is this the house of a noble school student?"

We live in the old town of Lyon, on the left bank of the Rhone. This is a four-story old building with a patio, and there is a sign at the door that someone famous in history once lived here-he died in 1742.This centuries-old building must have been renovated. The exterior walls are painted pink, and the slender windows are bright yellow. Well, the door and the spiral staircase will make a sound when they are touched and stepped on, as if even a little burden will cause pain.As soon as the sky became overcast, the Rhône River fogged up, and the fog poured into the atrium of the old building. The floors, handrails, and abandoned fountains were all wet, and the smell of the sewer was also brought up.I don’t know when I started to have this impression—the landlady always shouted upstairs in this weather: “Chinese, pay the rent!”

Xiaoduo and I share a suite, two small bedrooms less than nine square meters, sharing the kitchen and bathroom.There are a lot of things that I'll ignore and don't want to describe in detail here, such as three different types of cockroaches in the kitchen, bedroom and bathroom; Running up the stairs in a hurry, the whole old building was rattling; we could hear the landlady swearing at her; and the endless sound of the Rhone, especially in the dead of night. When I looked at those gorgeous photos of Lyon city taken by rich or comfortable travelers on my computer, I thought: So it is really like this, the same world falls into everyone’s eyes differently, Lyon in my eyes is the same as Your Leon is different.

Xiao Duo snapped his fingers in front of my eyes: "Qi Huihui, you are so young and deep." I pushed her hand away: "I have an exam next week, please forgive me, let me read this paragraph carefully. Wait a moment, I'll make vermicelli soup for you to drink." She smiled and said, "I just want to tell you one thing. The landlord probably wants to raise the house price. She wants to drive us away. I will handle everything. If you ask me anything, you will say that you don't know." At this time, someone knocked on the door outside, and it didn't sound like the landlord.Both of us became vigilant and didn't speak for a while, until the person outside said in Chinese with a southern accent: "Xiaoduo, it's me."

When she heard it, she smiled and jumped to open the door. When she reached the door, she turned to me and said, "Hey, Huihui, please make an extra serving of vermicelli soup." I nodded and waved to her: "It's fine, as long as you don't make too much noise." That must be her new boyfriend.Every time her boyfriend changes, Xiao Duo is like a happy white rabbit.But she also has her own principles in this regard: never look for foreigners. I did ask this question when we started getting acquainted.Xiao Duo looked at me in the mirror and said, "What are you talking about? I'm going back to my country anyway. Can I bring foreigners back too? I have to be moral in life, so I don't want to cause more love debts." Then she laughed again. Now, covered his mouth and said, "Besides, my French is too poor, and it is too difficult to communicate."

This day is not Xiaoduo's lucky day.The boy from the south had just entered her room. Not long after the two talked, there was another knock on the door of our suite.I put down the book, and they stopped talking.Separated by a wall, the three people listened with their ears upright as before, until the person outside said: "Xiao Duo, open the door quickly, it's me!" The person who came was Zheng Jie, a fellow from Beijing who had just broken up with her.His temper is a bad one, his character is worse than his temper.He was caught cheating by Xiaoduo and was in bed with a Thai girl.Xiaoduo fired him last week, who would have thought that he would come to his door again today.

We opened our doors at the same time, I looked at Xiaoduo and her new boyfriend, and they both looked at me. One thing I can vouch for Xiaoduo: No matter how fast she changes people, she never cheats.But the current situation is too ugly, just because she changed too fast, and now she is simply following up with the previous one before drawing a clear line and taking the posture of the next one. Xiao Duo bowed to me first, and then let the southern boy come to my side. I frowned and refused at first, then gave in silently. The boy first looked at us in surprise, then obeyed the established arrangement and walked over to me.

The three of us silently reached a tacit understanding: Xiaoduo was still single, and that boy became my "boyfriend". Zheng Jie came in and yelled, "Xiaoduo, we can't just finish playing like this." Xiao Duo said, "Why not?" "Give me back... and..." I went back to my room, sat on the bed, couldn't read the book, and the lively sounds rushed into my ears.Zheng Jie and Xiao Duo care about each other to an outrageous degree.Gradually I understood that he didn't come to save Xiaoduo, he came to collect debts. The southern boys were standing in the doorway of my room, next to my bike, listening to their arguments outside.

He was a short guy, and he wore a sapphire blue shirt, a very expensive brand, and I recognized it because one of the boys in my class wore it too—he had traded in two Ferraris.I am not surprised that this luxury item appeared on this unattractive foreign student. Many foreign students have such consumption habits: they can eat poorly and live poorly, and they can skip classes to work part-time, but they don’t hesitate to use their father’s money. The money given by my mother or earned by myself is used to buy exquisite and luxurious luxury goods.French products seem to have this evil magic power.

But I don't hate him.He has a quiet face. I whispered to him: "Don't listen to what he says. Xiao Duo doesn't want his money. She also lent him a lot. Now he comes to collect debts, and he doesn't mention how Xiao Duo took care of him when he was sick." When I was talking, he kept looking at me, didn't say anything, and seemed like he didn't hear me. Xiao Duo let Zheng Jie talk nonsense for a while, and finally said: "How do you know that I am paid today? I have sold clothes for the boss these days and earned a lot of commission. Look..." She was counting banknotes in front of him, whoa, whoa, the nice sound of euro bills. I can't figure out what she's doing. But she suddenly had a seizure, she almost jumped up and said: "Merde (bah)! Zheng Jie, what are you? How dare you touch my money? Why don't you look in the mirror and see what virtue you have! You Come to my place to settle accounts with me, are you a man? Get out of here! If you stay with me for one more second, I will call the police immediately. I will chat with the military police about how you helped people make fake invitation letters! " My scalp felt numb, but I immediately left my room and stood next to Xiao Duo to confront the tall and burly Zheng Jie. He made Xiaoduo hit the nail on the head, and immediately decided to switch lines to fight.He pointed to the southern boy and said, "Just now I wanted to say, why is there a man here? Who the hell is this?" It's my turn to speak. The more nervous I am, the slower I speak, and I slowly said to him: "Zheng Jie, this is my friend, take your 'fucking' back." Xiao Duo came up to push him: "Get out, do you hear that? Get out." If he doesn't want to leave, stay here, even the two of us girls won't be able to push away such a young man.But he had already lost the battle and left cursing.Xiaoduo and I sat on the chair in the kitchen as if we had fought a battle, and didn't move for a long time. The boy found our water glasses and poured us both a glass of water.He asked Xiaoduo: "What's the name of this person?" "Zheng Jie, Zheng from Zhengzhou, Jie with four dots under the wooden characters." Xiao Duo said. Then he asked me, "What about you?" "I'm an irrelevant person," I said. Xiao Duo stuck his fingers in his hair, tears were about to flow, and he was extremely embarrassed: "I'm sorry for you two." I didn't tell her it was okay. related.I can't study, and I don't have time to make myself a hot bowl of vermicelli soup for dinner. Now I have to ride a bicycle for more than an hour hungry to go to Carrefour to work. How can I say it's okay? But it's better than her doing everything by herself.Chinese students studying abroad are the least united, but without great unity, there must be a little friendship, otherwise how can we live on? I have to go.I took my satchel and helmet and carried my bike downstairs.I bought a hot dog for two euros and ate it sitting by the river.At the end of May, early summer in Lyon, the chestnut trees on the mountain are blooming with pink and white flowers. In the city, there is a bird called "Maierle", which is black all over and has a bright orange beak. It is called "wren" in China. elder brother".They are not afraid of people, and come to me bouncing up and down.I had a bit of bread left over, which I broke into pieces and fed them.Then I put on my helmet and pedaled to work. It was a job doing inventory at the wine counter, twelve and a half hours a week, twelve euros per hour.What I have to do is to regularly count the drinks that have been bought on the shelves, and notify my colleagues to replenish the shelves. Before going to work, when I was taking a shower, I was thinking about one thing: the summer vacation is coming, what am I going to do afterwards?I can't just do this one job.It would be best if I could find a job in a restaurant, which would be more stable and earn more.I lived frugally for a semester, and I still have a lot of money to pay for the next semester's tuition.I have to work harder. After taking a shower, changing clothes, and putting on a yellow vest, I combed my hair carefully in front of the mirror, one by one, the ends and roots of the hair, dried, combed, and then tied into braids. Not a trace is left outside.The ends of the braid were secured with a black velvet headband and draped over the shoulders. I don't remember much of my mother's words, but there is one thing I always remember—girls should comb their hair well.When others look at you, they don't hear you, they don't do anything, and they look at your hair first.That's your upbringing, patience, and self-care. There is a new product on the mineral water counter. The one-liter bottle of Hagrid Water has been replaced with a new packaging: the thin-waisted, sand clock-shaped bottle is foggy white, and if you look closely, it is covered with patterns of snowflakes and bubbles.There are blue words on the bottle body, the upper part is the abbreviation JPG of fashion master Jean-Paul Gaultier's name, and the lower part is the water brand "Higer".I held it in my hand and looked at it again and again, and I couldn't put it down. It was also colorless and odorless mineral water. Once the packaging was changed, it suddenly became a work of art.The ad was even stronger: Invite a fashion guru to your feast tonight. This elegant and beautiful Haiger water sells for more than three euros, and the unit price is more than twice that of "Yiyun" or even "Badot", but people are flocking to it.That night, we restocked five times in three hours. The next morning, the professor gave a lecture on "The Reflection of Symbols of Human Behavior on Commodity Packaging".During the group discussion, I took this example out and uploaded pictures from the Internet to show to the students in the same group. They blinked, surprised in their hearts, but didn't say it out. I know what they're surprised about.The three people in my group, the father of the two boys is a famous banker in Zurich, and the other is a Moroccan with a British title; Not too sure, but her grandfather presided over the compilation of the French "Mountain Forest Protection Law" in the 1980s. There are people in each of their families who are responsible for going to the mall to buy daily necessities.The chances of them going to civilian supermarkets are probably even less than the chances of me visiting famous shops on the Champs Elysees Avenue. "What kind of behavioral symbol is this?" said a boy. "Control," I said. "The bottle is designed so that it's the easiest to hold." "Like a woman's waist," another boy blurted out. The woolly roll girl giggled. "Or time," I said. The wool roll girl suddenly remembered something, buried her head in her Gucci shoulder bag for a long time, and finally took out a gossip magazine. She turned to the page she wanted, and pointed to the page that said "Woman's waist" " said the boy, "I think he's right." They have been classmates for a year, and they still don't know each other's last name. She showed me the page of the magazine: Jean-Paul Gaultier was surrounded by the heir of the Haigshui family—Danny Haig. Danny Haig is an Alpine man in his thirties, with blond hair and blue eyes—the colors that take up the sun.He looked at the camera, smiling slightly, with a light line around his lips. He seemed to have a gentle air about him. This is the master of Hagrid Water. "Handsome, isn't it?" the woolly roll girl said to me, "and she has a nice attitude and temperament, and doesn't look like a playboy at all." I look at her. The wool roll girl shook her head and made a regretful expression: "He has been with so many women, who knows how many anonymous collections there are? So, I conclude that the design of the JPG water bottle caters to this man's life Philosophy - hold a woman's waist." Her natural analysis made the other two boys laugh out loud.Looking at them like this, I almost collapsed.Who would be so idiotic as to engrave obvious bad deeds on their products?I don't pay a lot of tuition fees every year just to have fun with them here. My bad temper came up again, and I slowly said to them: "Wait a while, the professor wants us to discuss and report, who will do it? You, you, or you? Either we break up the team, or we will find a new case to do it." analyze." They raised their eyebrows nonchalantly, ignoring my displeasure. The character of tolerance and cheerfulness needs too much capital to cultivate, and I don't have that capital. After class, the "wool roll" was picked up by her boyfriend, and the magazine was thrown on the desk.I hesitated, but decided to recycle it. On the tram ride home, I leaned against the railing to read the page with Danny Hagrid.He is so good-looking, his hair, his eyes, the corners of his mouth and his smile, so gentle and romantic. The tram passed the square, and the pigeons were driven away.I looked up and looked outside, the light of the setting sun in early summer evenly sprinkled on my face.