Chapter 13 12

3:58 The office where Shirakawa works. Bai Chuan fell on the floor with his upper body naked, doing abdominal exercises on the yoga mat.Shirt and tie slung over the back of the chair, glasses and watch side by side on the table.Although his body is thin, his chest is very thick, his body has no excess fat at all, and his muscles are hard and bulging.After taking off the clothes, the impression is completely different from when wearing clothes.While taking deep breaths concisely, he quickly propped up his body and twisted left and right.A fine layer of sweat formed on his chest and shoulders, shining under the fluorescent light.Alessandro Scarlatti's cantata, sung by Brian Yashawa, streamed from the portable CD player on the table. He was able to subtly adjust his movements to the flow of the music.It seems that after late night work, before returning home, listening to classical music on the office floor, doing a series of solitary exercises has become his daily habit, and his movements are coherent and full of confidence.

After the fixed number of flexion and stretching exercises, he rolled up the yoga mat and stuffed it into the locker. He took out a white towel and a plastic laundry bag from the closet and went to the bathroom. With his upper body naked, he washed his face with soap and wiped his face with a towel, and then wiped off the sweat on his body. , Every action is meticulous.Scarlatti's aria could also be heard here, since the bathroom door was wide open.He hummed a few times to the music created in the seventeenth century, took out a small bottle of deodorant from the wash bag, sprayed it lightly on his underarms, moved his face closer to confirm the smell, and then moved his right finger several times Open and close, tried a few movements, and confirmed the swelling of the back of the hand.The swelling is not very obvious, but the pain still seems to be somewhat.

He took out a small comb from the toilet bag to straighten his hair.The hairline is slightly receded, but because of the good shape of the forehead, it will not give the impression of being bald.Put on your eyes, button your shirt, and tie your tie.Light gray shirt, navy blue crochet tie.He straightened his shirt collar in front of the mirror and pressed the tie knot. Bai Chuan checked his face reflected in the mirror in the bathroom.He didn't move his facial muscles, and stared at himself for a long time with stern eyes.Putting his hands on the washstand, he held his breath, without blinking his eyes.There was an expectation in his mind that something else might emerge from this.He turned all sensations into objects, locked consciousness, temporarily froze logic, and tried to prevent the passage of time.That's what he wants to do.He wants to do his best to blend his own existence into the background, to make everything look like a neutral still life painting.

But no matter how absorbed and breathless he was, nothing else appeared.The him in the mirror is still just him in reality, just a true reflection of the real thing.He took a deep breath helplessly, filled his lungs with new air, returned to his original posture, relaxed his muscles, and turned his neck a few times.After that, put the personal belongings on the sink back into the plastic toilet bag, crumpled up the towels you wiped with, and threw them into the trash can.When you go out, turn off the light in the bathroom and close the door. After Bai Chuan left, our point of view remained in the washroom as a fixed camera and continued to shoot the dark mirror.Bai Chuan was still reflected in the mirror.Bai Chuan—maybe it should be called the image of Bai Chuan—looking at this side from the mirror.His expression did not change, he did not move, he stared straight at this side from the mirror, but soon he relaxed all the muscles in his body as if discouraged, sighed, and turned his neck.Then he put his hands on his face and stroked his cheeks a few times, as if to confirm whether there was any physical sensation there.

While thinking about something at the table, Bai Chuan held the silver pencil with eraser between his fingers and twirled it endlessly.It was exactly the same as the pencil that fell on the floor in the room where Eri Asai woke up, with the name of veritech printed on it, and the tip of the pen was worn bald.After a moment of juggling, he put the pencil beside the pen tray.There are six identical pencils lined up in the pen tray.The other pencils are as sharp as ever. He started getting ready to go home.Put the documents to be brought back into the brown leather bag, put on the suit jacket, put the laundry bag back in the locker, and take the large shopping bag on the floor next to him to his desk.He sat down on the chair and checked the items in the shopping bag one by one.It was the clothes he stripped from the prostitutes in "Alpha City."

Lightweight trench coat in cream.Red high-heeled shoes with worn out soles.Crewneck sweater in dark pink with crystal beading.Embroidered bra.Blue tights.Black stockings.Uncoordinated pink briefs with cheap chemical lace.The clothes came across as more of the sad kind than sexy.The bra and briefs were black with blood.Cheap watches.Faux leather bag in black. Bai Chuan held it in his hand and inspected them one by one, with a look of "Why are such objects here?" on his face from beginning to end.A look of surprise with a hint of displeasure.Of course he had a complete memory of what he had done in the "Alpha City" room.Even if he wanted to forget, the pain in his right hand would remind him.Even so, everything here seemed to him to have almost no legitimate meaning.worthless waste.Rao Shizi who shouldn't have invaded his life.However, the inspection work continued calmly and earnestly.He was unearthing the shabby remnants of a not-so-distant past.

He unhooked the handbag and dumped its contents on the table: handkerchiefs, tissues, contact lenses, lipstick, eyeliner, and several other odds and ends of cosmetics.Throat lozenges.A small bottle of petroleum jelly and a bag of condoms.Two tampons.Small tear gas bombs against rogues (for Shirakawa, luckily she didn't have time to get them out of her handbag).cheap earrings.First aid bandage.A small box containing several oral contraceptive pills.The brown wallet contained the three 10,000-yuan bills he handed at the beginning, a few thousand-yuan bills, and some small coins. In addition, there were phone cards, subway cards, and coupons for beauty salons, and nothing that could identify him.Bai Chuan hesitated for a moment, then took out the money and stuffed it into his back pocket.Anyway, it was the money I gave, and the property returned to the original owner.

There is also a small foldable phone in the handbag.Prepaid mobile phones, the owner cannot be identified.The phone is tuned to the voice recording function.He pushed the power switch and pressed the play button.A few messages came in, all speaking Chinese, and the voice of the same man seemed to be scolding people quickly.The message itself was very short. Of course he couldn't understand what was being said, but he still listened to the recorded voice roughly from beginning to end, and then turned off the recording function. He brought a paper garbage bag from somewhere, put everything other than the mobile phone in it, squeezed it and tied the mouth of the bag firmly, then put it in a plastic garbage bag, exhausted the air completely, and tied the mouth again.Only the mobile phone was left on the table.He picked up the phone, looked at it for a while, and then put it back on the table—seemingly thinking about what to do with it.Might be of some use, but no conclusions have been drawn yet.

Bai Chuan turned off the CD player, put it in the deep drawer at the bottom of the table, and locked it.Carefully wipe off the glasses with a handkerchief, pick up the phone on the table to call a taxi, tell the company name and your own name, and ask the other party to send a taxi to the general exit in ten minutes.He put on the light gray double-breasted windbreaker on the clothes hanger, put the female mobile phone on the table into his pocket, picked up the leather bag and garbage bag, stood in front of the door and looked around the whole room, and turned off the lights after confirming that there was no problem.After all the fluorescent lights on the ceiling were extinguished, there was no darkness in the room. The light from street lamps and advertising lights poured in through the gaps in the blinds, vaguely illuminating the interior.He closed the office door and walked into the hallway.Walking down the corridor with the screech of his shoes, he yawned a lot, as if to say that the dull day was finally over.

Take the elevator down, open the door to the general exit, go outside and lock it.The exhaled breath has completely turned white.While waiting, a taxi came quickly.The middle-aged driver opened the window of the driver's seat to confirm Bai Chuan's name. Bai Chuan got into the taxi. The driver faced the rearview mirror and said, "Sir, I'm sorry, I seem to have pulled you once before, and I came here to pick you up at the same time. Uh——, the house is Jiang Gutian's side, right?" "Philosophy Hall." Bai Chuan said. "Yes, Philosophy Hall. Are you going there today?"

"Go. For better or for worse, there's nowhere to go but there." "It's a good and convenient place to return." After finishing speaking, the driver started the car, "But it's really enough, I always work until this time." "The downturn, the wages are not long, and there are a lot of overtime." "I am the same. I can't make any money, so I have to rely on extending the working hours to fill the vacancy. But, you are not bad. After all, the company pays for the taxi for overtime work, to be honest." "Let people work until this hour, and they won't be able to go home by taxi without paying!" Bai Chuan smiled wryly. Then he suddenly remembered: "...ah, yes, I almost forgot, turn right at the intersection ahead, and stop in front of SEVEN ELEVEN③, okay? My wife told me to do some shopping, and I'll be done in a while." The driver looked into the rearview mirror and said, "I told you, sir, turning right there is a one-sex road, and it's a bit of a detour. How many other convenience stores are there on the road? Can't you go elsewhere?" "The things I'm told to buy are probably only available there, and besides, I want to throw out the garbage as soon as possible." "Okay, I don't care. It's just that the meter may jump a few times. Just ask." The driver turned right at the intersection, drove a bit, stopped at an appropriate place and opened the door.Bai Chuan left the purse on the seat, and got out of the car with the garbage bag. There were several garbage bags piled up in front of SEVEN ELEVEN, and he stacked the garbage bags in his hand on top of them.Mixed in with many identical garbage bags, my own immediately lost its identity.In the morning, the recycling truck will come to dispose of it.There is no wet garbage inside, so the pockets should not be pecked by crows.He took one last look at the pile of garbage bags and walked through the door. There were no customers in the store, and the young man at the cashier was talking on his mobile phone.A new song by the Southern Cross All Stars (Sazan All stars) is playing.Bai Chuan went straight to the soft-packaged milk, and took the Takanashi low-fat milk in his hand to confirm the expiration date.It doesn't matter.By the way, I bought yogurt in a big plastic box.Then I suddenly remembered that I took out the Chinese girl's mobile phone from the windbreaker pocket, looked around, and after confirming that no one was watching, I placed the mobile phone next to the cheese box.The little silver phone blended so naturally—incredibly naturally—with the place, as if it had been there a long time ago.After it left Shirakawa, it became a part of SEVEN ELEVEN. Bai Chuan paid at the cash register, and quickly turned back to the taxi. "Got it?" the driver asked. "I got it." Bai Chuan said. "Then, this time I headed all the way to the Philosophy Hall." "Maybe take a nap and wake me up when it's almost there?" Bai Chuan said, "There is a 'Showa Shell'④gas station by the roadside, call me a little before that." "Understood, please sleep slowly." Bai Chuan put the plastic bag containing milk and yogurt on the side of the purse, folded his arms and closed his eyes.It is estimated that I will not be able to sleep, but I am not in the mood to continue chatting with the driver along the way.He closed his eyes and tried to think about things that didn't touch his nerves—ordinary things, things that had no profound meaning, or things that were purely conceptual.But nothing came to mind.My brain went blank, but I felt a dull pain in my right hand.The dull pain was throbbing with the heartbeat, like a tsunami ringing in my ears.Somehow, he thought.The sea was originally very far away. The taxi Bai Chuan took drove for a while, but stopped because of a red light.Big intersections, long red lights.Next to the taxi, a black Honda motorcycle ridden by a Chinese was also waiting for a signal.The distance between the two was only about one meter, but the man on the motorcycle looked straight ahead and didn't notice Bai Chuan.Bai Chuan sank deeply into the car seat, closed his eyes, and listened to the virtual tsunami in the distance.The signal turned green, and the motorcycle swished forward.The taxi started quietly so as not to wake up Bai Chuan, and turned left to leave the city. (Note: ① American opera singer. In 1997, he went to Japan to sing cantata ②Alessandro Scarlatti, Italian composer (1660-1725).He has composed several cantatas (cantatas, a form of vocal divertimento). ③The name of the small supermarket (convenience store) chain store in Japan. ④ "Shell", that is, the Anglo-Dutch Shell oil company. )