Chapter 22 22. Dating a bookseller

Let's be together, lonely heart, naked in the light down, the trains shifting swiftly in the dark, these God-built The only way to shake the frame of time. — Tori Amos Editor Deng called again and thoughtfully asked me how I was eating, how I was sleeping, how my writing was progressing, and then asked if I could go to a coffee shop called "China Hands" on Shaoxing Road and have a chat with her and some of her booksellers. friends meet. I said yes. The car arrived at Shaoxing Road, which is a small road with quite a cultural atmosphere. Several publishing houses and bookstores are located on both sides of the road. Famous for period antiques.The owner of the coffee shop is Er Dongqiang, a well-known photographer in Shanghai. There are many celebrities in the cultural circle, journalists, publishers, writers, film and television producers, opera stars, and Western scholars who patronize the coffee shop. Blinking bright background.The furnishings of books, jazz, coffee, and antiques are in line with the erotic memory and modern consumption guidelines of this famous city.

I pushed open the store door and saw Deng and several men sitting around a table in the corner. When I sat down, I realized that one of the booksellers looked familiar.He smiled and took out his business card and handed it to me, only then did I remember who he was.When he was studying in the Chinese Department of Fudan University, he was the Minister of Literature and Art of the Student Union of the Department.Because he often wears a pair of Italian mafia-style hats and sunglasses, his nickname is The Godfather. I remember that there was a play in Fudan that could be called the first salon play in a Shanghai university. It was called The Godfather as the director of that play.For the reason of talking about scripts, I often go to the Godfather’s dormitory in Building No. 3, and sit next to a "talking table" (this table is named "talking table" because people often gather around to talk with each other), staring at a pair of myopic eyes. Foggy eyes, staring at the director's handsome and eloquent face, imagining that he would suddenly shut up, and then stretch his face across the table, sticking to my lips like a magnet.

This scene was far more exciting than any salon play, but it never happened, I was too young to be very embarrassed, and he, I heard afterward, fell in love with the girl who did the stage design on our crew.The girl often hangs a bunch of silver keys, walks with long legs like a waltz, smiles with two small dimples on the left and right sides of her face, and often directs the boys to hold hammers in a serious manner, and the nails are all over the place, She seems to be very good at using paper for props, and often calls "HSBC Paper Shop", and I call her "HSBC" in private.

"HSBC" completely fascinated the godfather. On the eve of our salon performance, I saw them walking hand in hand on the Linyin Avenue to bask in the moon.My mood is like a "sad moonlight song". On the second day of the official performance, the make-up artist was unable to come due to a temporary errand, so the godfather asked "HSBC" to do my make-up.I saw her walking over with a big makeup brush in her hand, smiling, and applying eyeshadow and blush on me like paint, which was painful and awkward. After the incident, I took a mirror and looked at it. I could hardly stand still, and my face was painted like a clown in a circus, and my godfather chimed in and said, "It's very beautiful."So the old hatred and the new hatred came to my heart at the same time, and I cried a lot and announced the strike, until the godfather coaxed me softly for half an hour.

The cologne on his body made me sweet and sad like a tone of apology, and then the new makeup artist put on my makeup.The performance that night was very successful. I acted in a well-organized manner, and tears fell like rain at the emotional part, and the applause burst into wild applause. Two months later, I met the ex-boyfriend who was a Christian, a Shakespeare admirer, and a super-sexual man on the grass behind the statue of Chairman Mao. As I wrote before, we ended up tearing our faces and even using the relationship with the security department. And ended up. Reflecting on the past is inevitably a bit silly, but it's also wonderfully rewarding.I think that if I had fallen in love with the godfather instead of the Christian fanatic, I don’t know if the history will be rewritten in the future, if I will encounter so many things, and if I will write novels as crazy as I am now, it seems like a dream but not a dream , wandering in this city in an ambiguous way?who knows?

"Hi, Godfather." I happily took his hand that he offered. "You are getting more and more beautiful." He complimented, although the words are old-fashioned, they are always tried and tested on girls.Deng introduced several other men to me. They were friends with each other. They set up a studio under Deng's publishing house, called "Zuo An". Wen crepe comes from the name of the French New Romantic Movement. Deng once told that "Left Bank" published a set of "Thousand Paper Cranes" series of books, which set a new sales record in the national book market.According to the estimation of the relevant audit department, the intangible assets of the brand "Thousand Paper Cranes" are now worth more than ten million yuan, which sounds encouraging.

My mood suddenly became lighter. It always makes me happy to meet Fudan students in this city or that city from time to time.Yanyuan, Xianghuitang and the rows of phoenix trees on Handan Road, and the air of youthful madness, freedom, wit, and declining aristocrats floating in the sky are the part of Fudan children's lyrical innocence on the long road of life, and they also rely on it. Distinguish the secret logo of the same kind. "Since you know each other, that's great. CoCo, let's talk about the novel you have in hand." Deng was eager to get to the point. "I have read your first collection of novels, "The Scream of Butterflies". After reading it, I feel very strange, as if I have walked into a room with four walls and a ceiling. The mirror enters the mirror, and the surrounding light guerrilla back and forth like a trapped snake. There is an unimaginably clear and moving sense of reality in the core of mental chaos, as well as the black seductive temperament in language, look at you My novel is like going through a..." At this point, the godfather lowered his voice, "It's like going through a wonderful sexual intercourse."

He gave me a meaningful look. "That kind of text reading is tempting, especially for readers with a higher education level." "Writing is like a person." Deng interjected. "The market positioning of your work can be defined among college students and white-collar workers, especially female readers will have a sensitive reaction." A friend of the godfather said. "But I don't know what will happen, I haven't finished writing yet..." "I heard that many readers wrote to you before?" the godfather asked. "There are also those who send photos." Deng pursed his lips and smiled, and the occasional coquettishness of a middle-aged woman was like flowers blooming after the rain. "Enthusiasm of all kinds is a source of inspiration," said another. "Thank you," and I took a sip of my coffee, looking away from an antique telephone across the way.Something made me smile, and I said softly, "I have finally discovered the meaning of being a writer, at least being a writer is more airy than being a 100-yuan RMB."

Outside the glass window, it was getting late, and several orange wall lamps were lit up one by one, and the godfather asked where to go for dinner.Deng declined. Her daughter, who is in the third grade of junior high school, was still waiting for her to make dinner at home. "She is about to take the high school entrance examination, and the time is very tight. I have to keep an eye on her." She explained to us. At this time, a few more men and women came in outside the door. I often saw that woman on TV talk shows. She was dressed as a sad and talented woman like Zhang Ailing 364 days of 365 days a year. Her cheekbones were high and brown, and her bones were thin. Lonely and lonely, you can often meet her at many other parties.Madonna told me that this woman had more than three dozen foreign lovers, nicknamed "Little Cheongsam".The godfather knew all these people well, and after a round of greetings, we went to have dinner by car.

After the meal, the godfather asked me where I lived and he could take me home.I'm not a stupid woman, I can see what he's thinking, but I can't, things have changed, and I really want to be alone tonight.Although he still looks so attractive. We hugged and said goodbye, agreeing to notify him as soon as the novel was finished. "I'm glad to meet you again, and I regret not chasing you back at Fudan." He whispered half-truthfully in my ear. I walked slowly along Huaihai Road alone at night. I haven’t walked like this for a long time. I slowly started to feel hot all over my body. I thought that I was only 25 years old after all, how young, like a high-value credit card, everything can be done Use it first, and settle the account when it arrives.No matter how many neon lights there are on the street, they are not as dazzling as me, and the ATMs at the banks on the roadside are not as rich as me.

I walked to the subway entrance of Parkson Mall, and there was a large private Monsoon Bookstore below. It was famous for its complete variety and never discounted style. I wandered around aimlessly and stopped in front of the special counter of zodiac signs and divination books. After a while, the book said that people born on January 3 have extraordinary personal charm, known as "beautiful leg sister", and have strong physical and mental repair ability, and predicted that 2000 will be my happy harvest year.That doesn't sound too bad. I walked over to the Photome machine at the subway station again, an unattended kiosk.Mark’s apartment is covered with a long row of beautiful and avant-garde photos he took from photo, four of which are self-portraits of him standing, squatting, crouching, and sideways with his shirtless body. Each photo It is a certain part of his body, such as head, chest, abdomen, and legs. When put together, it has a particularly exciting visual effect, like a robot, or a human body dismembered by a knife. There is also a set of " In the "Gibbon" series, he repeatedly took pictures of a dozen arm parts, and then connected the upper body with the long arms, which looked like a replica of the modern "Tarzan Ape Man". NBA star Michael Jordan is even more hopeful. , very grotesque, very sexy, I remember the first time I had sex with Mark in his apartment, these pictures hanging on the wall really gave me a lot of impulse. I put enough money into the small hole, and after four flashes, about 5 minutes later, I got four photos in a row after printing and drying. The faces on them showed sadness, anger, happiness, and indifference. For a moment, I couldn't be sure who the girl in front of me was, why she had such emotions, which corner of the earth did she live in, and what kind of people had various relationships with her? What is a living? Then 5 seconds later my sanity returned to normal, it was like taking the invisible spirit that had been released into the air back behind the cerebral cortex.I glanced at the selfie in my hand and carefully put it in my bag. Look at the circular electronic clock in the subway station. It’s 10:30, but I still don’t feel sleepy. There is still half an hour before the last subway departs from the train station. I bought a one-way ticket from the automatic ticket machine. I stuffed it into the opening of the automatic ticket gate, and with a "snap", the green ticket popped out from the small hole in the middle, and the rotating fence was released. I went down the stairs and chose a cleaner seat among a row of red plastic seats. down. You can doze off for a while, or you can look at the strangers around you for a while.I once wrote a short story called "Subway Lover", to the effect that a slightly haggard beautiful woman always meets a clean and tidy woman who smells of tobacco, fragrance, and air conditioning when she takes the last subway in People's Square. White-collar men, they never speak, but there is a certain tacit feeling in the invisible. Sometimes when one person does not show up, the other person will be inexplicably melancholy.Until one day, due to the severe cold and snow, the ground in the carriage was wet and slippery. A shaking caused the woman to slide into the arms of the man naturally. As it happened, the man didn't get off at the platform where he was supposed to go.He got off at the terminal at the same time as the woman.Kissed her late at night on the platform, then said good night to her like a true white-collar gentleman, and he was gone.I had a hard time thinking about this ending. I don’t know whether it is appropriate to let the man and the woman have no physical intimate contact from the beginning to the end, or let them go to bed and become intimate lovers, which will satisfy the readers’ aesthetic psychological tendency. As a result, after this story was published in a fashion magazine, many white-collar beauties responded. On behalf of several of her colleagues, my cousin Zhu Sha expressed dissatisfaction with my moderate and eclectic ending, "You should let them not touch at all. Or just completely let go of the passion in my heart, but he kissed her and said goodbye politely and left her alone. Imagine the two of them tossing and turning in their respective beds after separation, unable to sleep all night. The current love stories are so disappointing.” At that time, Zhu Sha had not yet divorced her ex-husband, but she was half-hanging in the air and wandering around. Awkwardly, her ex-husband was her college classmate.Over the past few years, they have been familiar with each other to the point where there is nothing new, like the left hand and the right hand. Zhu Sha, like almost all white-collar women, hides a sensitive and rich heart under her dignified and quiet appearance. They are often scrupulous in their careers and have high demands on their private lives. Move closer to the image of a modern independent new woman in my mind, that is, confident, rich, and attractive.They have more room to choose their own lives. They like Andy Lau’s words in the Ericsson advertisement: “Everything is under control”, and they also appreciate the image of a professional woman wearing a diamond ring and smiling confidently in the De Beers advertisement. The voice-over is The lyrical baritone, "is the flash of confidence and the flash of charm." The last train slowly drove into the platform, and when I stepped into the car, I smelled a nice male body odor, which is exactly what I described in "Subway Lover", "from him mixed with the smell of tobacco , fragrance, air conditioning and body odor, this charming smell made her feel slightly dizzy." I couldn't help but turned my head and looked around, thinking that the characters in the novel were really going to automatically appear in front of the author?But I can't be sure which one of the men around me just now gave off the breath. I gave up this romantic idea, but I did feel the ubiquitous subtle swaying light in city life (especially at night) Beauty and a touch of mystery.