Chapter 4 Chapter 4 New Year's Eve

After deciding to self-study before taking the university entrance exam, I went to bed early and woke up early, and followed a schedule I made up to study every day.Every time the phone rang, my heart skipped a beat.However, Big Bear didn't call once. My mother was greatly relieved to see my sudden change.One day, she walked into my room, sat on the edge of the bed, and said to me who was reading notes: "I was worried about you at that time, afraid that you would go crazy, so I didn't dare to stimulate you. You can do whatever you like. As long as you don't go crazy and don't kill yourself, it really doesn't matter if you go to college or not."

I raised my eyes, glanced at her once or twice, and said, "How do you know I'm not crazy now?" She glanced at me angrily.When she found the doll on the bed, she hugged it tightly and said, "It's so cute! Can you give it to me?" "No!" I quickly snatched the doll back from her. "You're not crazy!" She smiled and asked, "When will you sing karaoke again?" "I'm not going with you, you hogged that mic all night!" I said. "It's because you don't want to sing, so I will sing alone! What a shame!" She asked me as she walked out of the room, "I'm going to rent books, do you want to rent them for you?"

I shook my head, I didn't go to "Mao Mao Bookstore" anymore.After my mother went out, I called Zhiyi.During the days when I was in seclusion, she called me several times, but I didn't answer the phone. "Great! Come out and meet!" She said excitedly on the other end of the phone. We met at Thirteen Cats on a Saturday at the end of December. I haven't seen her for several months. Zhiyi's hair has grown a lot and is tied into a ponytail at the back of her head.Wearing a pink sweater and floral dress, she looks very elegant. Compared with me who is wearing a patterned sweater and camouflage pants, she is much more mature.She lives in a university dormitory.The homework of the law department is very busy, and she seldom comes out.

Each of us ordered a "Maobuli Pudding", which is made with black sesame. While eating pudding, Zhiyi asked me, "Where is Big Bear? How is he doing?" "We broke up." I said. "Why?" Zhiyi looked at me in surprise. I told her what happened in the small park that day. After listening, Zhiyi said: "He is very good! Why did you break up with him? Wasn't it the first thing you liked about him?" "Maybe he already has a girlfriend now." I said quietly. "Big Xiong is not Xingyi's kind of person." "How is Xing Yi?"

"He has always been very popular with girls, so of course he won't be lonely. A boy like him won't love just one person." "So, what about Bai Qisi? Are they still together?" Zhiyi nodded, and said, "But she also secretly associates with other boys." "how do you know?" "She lives in the same dormitory as me. Bai Qisi and Xingyi are of the same kind. To them, love is just a piece of beautiful gift paper, and it doesn't matter what is inside." "What about you? Aren't there many boys in college?" "Those in the legal department are very self-righteous." Zhiyi pouted her lips and said.A look of contempt for those people.

"I always thought you would study music. You can sing so well and play the piano so well. Didn't you say you wanted to be a conductor?" I said. "It's more secure to read the law." Zhiyi took a bite of the pudding and continued, "You can also protect yourself." This is Zhiyi, right?Never do anything romantic.However, the university entrance examination is so hard, I must choose the department that I miss the most.That's the future of life. "If Daxiong has a girlfriend in the future, what kind of person will that girl be so that you will feel less uncomfortable?" Zhiyi asked me.

"Is it going to be uncomfortable anyway?" I said back to her. "The death penalty also includes shooting, electric chair, and poison injection!" I remembered the words that Big Bear once said.He said: "Being with you is not a death sentence." At that time, I felt that my eyes were sweet. "You don't really think it's a death sentence, do you? I'm just giving an example. After breaking up, no matter what, the other party will fall in love with someone else sooner or later, and you will be the same, right?" I suddenly felt that my eyes were moist, I sniffed my nose, and said to Zhiyi: "Others think that girl is very similar to me, regardless of appearance or character. She also has my shadow. People will make fun of him behind his back and say: 'He I still can’t forget my first love, so I found someone like her to fall in love with!’ In that case, I will feel less uncomfortable, right?”

As I spoke, I wiped my nose and laughed.Seeing me smiling, Zhiyi giggled. I looked up at the sky of "Thirteen Cats".Every time I came here before, I was with Big Bear.Every time, I would count how many pairs of cat's eyes were hidden there, but this time, I didn't count again, because these are not important. I looked back at Zhiyi, she was also looking up at the sky.I thought she was counting those cat's eyes, until she suddenly said: "I know the dormitory where Bai Qisi lives, so I also applied to go there. That way I can get close to her." I turned my head towards Zhiyi and looked at her in surprise.

"I don't know why I told you, but I planned to keep it in my heart." She still looked at the sky and said, "Maybe it's these cat's eyes. I always think they are weird." "So...you like Bai Qisi?" I asked in shock. I didn't expect Zhiyi to like girls.We used to share a fitting room when we went shopping together. Zhiyi looked at me with sad eyes, and then she said, "Crazy! I'm not gay." "Then, what you like is Yixingxingyi" I didn't say the word "yi". Zhiyi smiled bitterly.Said: "Find a way to get close to the person he likes and understand that person, as if you are also close to him and understand him."

"I thought you hated him all the time." "I really want to hate him, but I can't. Because I can't hate him, I hate myself." Zhiyi said with a sigh. "Does he know?" Zhi Yi shook her head and said, "As long as I am determined to keep things in my heart, no one will know." "Sure enough, he is very suitable to be a lawyer! Then he can keep secrets." "Don't tell anyone, otherwise, I will hate you forever." Zhiyi said seriously. "You won't kill me, will you?" She said as if waking up from a dream: "Yes! You reminded me! Only the dead are the best at keeping secrets."

"I'll take your secret to the grave." I smiled at her. Zhiyi and I said goodbye outside "Thirteen Cats".She goes back to the dormitory.There she was only a few rooms away from her rival.Looking at her small and frail figure with her legs bent, I knew I was wrong, Zhiyi is not incapable of doing romantic things.Isn't it romantic to like someone like that? The night lights on the street were turned on, but my heart was still dark.I walked towards the station alone, missing Big Bear beyond words.How much I want to tell him this secret?However, we no longer share secrets together. The cloth bag I was carrying didn't contain a lot of things, but I felt a little stooped.Then, out of nowhere, I caught a bus that wasn't going home. The bus stopped near the boys' home, and I got out and climbed the hill.Big Bear should go home, right?What is he doing at this time? Finally, we reached the top of the hill.I looked up at the familiar window of the boys' dormitory.However, the light did not come on. Is Big Bear not home, or has he moved into a college dorm and I don't know?So, what about Pippi?Did he take Pippi with him? why is he not at homeNext time, I may not have the courage to come. I stuck there.After a while, I walked back with a burst of soreness in my heart.Suddenly, I saw the big bear, he was walking towards me at the foot of the hill, as if he had just finished school.I had no way to escape, so I jumped into the nearby weeds in a panic, squatted and hid, and at the same time I was glad that I happened to be wearing a pair of camouflage pants that day.My heart was beating wildly, and I prayed that the bear would never find me.It's so embarrassing to see you again after a breakup. After a while, I saw a pair of bear's feet wearing blue sneakers in the weeds.Those familiar big feet stopped for a moment as they passed in front of me. At that moment, my heart almost jumped out.However, he soon moved on.At that moment, tears welled up in my eyes and I buried my head in my knees and sobbed. "What are you doing here?" Suddenly, I heard the voice of Big Bear. I was so scared that I shook my whole body, raised my face full of tears, and saw the big bear.He didn't know when he stood in front of me silently, looking down at me with puzzled eyes. I hastily wiped away my tears with the back of my hand and stood up, wiping my hands on my pants. "Are you okay?" Big Bear stared at me, his tone and eyes were the same as before. "Why are you here?" I said softly. "I'll go home this way," he said. We looked at each other speechlessly.Separation is something we are not good at.reunion.Neither of us are good at it, and I let him see my bad moments. It couldn't be worse, right?So, I plucked up my courage and murmured to him, "Why didn't you find me?" "I thought you were still mad at me," he said back to me. Is it really that simple?I thought we were done. "If I'm angry all the time, won't you keep looking for me?" "You won't be angry forever, will you?" He smiled at me. "Who said I couldn't?" I sniffed and stared at him with a trembling smile. "A lifetime is very long." With his hands on his hips, he looked at me playfully. Big Bear, at that time, we all thought that a lifetime was very long, right? When I got home that night, I called Zhiyi and told her about my reunion with Daxiong. "It's not long since you broke up." She smiled on the other end of the phone. However, there is one person who has not received the latest news.On the second day after I reunited with Daxiong, I received a call from Xingyi at home. "Xingyi? What can you do with me?" I didn't expect it to be Xingyi.He never called me. "Can we meet today?" "What's up?" "Let's meet and talk." I made an appointment with Xingyi to meet in the small park.He arrived earlier than me. He was wearing a black jacket and jeans, with his hands deep in his trouser pockets. He was more handsome than a few months ago. No wonder Zhiyi complained that he regarded love as a beautiful gift paper.But I like him in my heart. When he saw me, Xing Yi smiled at me and asked me: "How are you doing?" "I'll take another college test," I said. "That's great! Want me to review for you?" I shook my head with a smile, wondering what he wanted from me. After a moment of silence.He said, "I'm going to England tomorrow, so I'm here to tell you." "England? Are you going to study?" Star showed an embarrassed look on his face.Say, "No, I'm going on a trip with my family." I was stunned, it was just a trip, why did you come here to say goodbye to me?At that time, I didn't understand such subtle thoughts at all.Maybe, Xing Yi came here to tell me, just hoping that I would ask him: "Then when will you come back?" However, at that moment, I didn't ask.There was a look of disappointment on his face. "At that time you said you didn't like me, now that you broke up with Big Bear, would you change your mind?" He asked me suddenly, looking at me deeply. I blushed and said in embarrassment: "We got back together." "Huh?" He was taken aback. "It was yesterday, maybe he hasn't told you yet." "Yes, he didn't say that. I should have told him to follow you if I knew it earlier." Xing Yi smiled at me and said with impeccable demeanor. I breathed a sigh of relief, glanced at him, and said, "Why? So many girls like you. Xingyi, you make me very arrogant." "Do you remember the day before the summer vacation in the third year of middle school?" "The day I met you in the chemistry lab at school?" Xing nodded and said: "At that time, I was very fat. I was bullied by some classmates and hid there crying. When you saw me when you passed by, you quietly turned on the air conditioner for me and closed the door for me. saw me." It turned out that he had always remembered this matter, but I didn't take it to heart. "We are classmates!" I said. "Only girls who treated me well back then are worthy of my pursuit." Xing Yi said. "You are very nostalgic!" I praised him. Xingyi grinned, and said: "You are the first to say that, other girls say that I am greedy for the new and forget the old." "They don't know you." "In the past few years, I have been dating those girls with a vengeful heart. These people never even looked at me before." "Then, what about Bai Qisi?" "It's the same with her." Xing Yi shrugged and said, "It's no wonder, I was like Harry Potter's fat and stupid cousin at that time." "Dudley," I said. "Huh?" Xing Yi was taken aback. "Harry's cousin is called Dudley. Few people remember his name. But I think he is very pitiful. All the children in the book can do witchcraft, but he can't." I said with a smile. "Yes, he is the most pitiful." Xingyi said, and then he asked me, "You won't tell Big Bear what happened tonight?" "Don't worry! I'm good at keeping secrets. I'll take this secret with me in my grave." Xingyi compared his lips with his fingers, and said, "Don't say such unlucky things, my family is in the funeral business, so I'm very superstitious." I stick out my tongue and smile. After walking out of the small park with him, we said goodbye.It's getting cold, I quicken my pace and want to go home quickly.On this day last year, Xu Lu committed suicide by jumping off a bridge.That night, the radio was playing her songs.How wonderful is it to be alive? While listening to the song, I shook the phone to call Big Bear. "Is something wrong?" he asked me. "Just to make sure," I said. "decide what?" "Make sure you're alive." "Are you crazy?" Xu Lu's song, review with me.I said to myself, "I won't lose this time." 3 In the second year, I was finally admitted to the university.Big Bear also made it to the second grade. Xu Lu's "Time Bird" said that when she was twenty years old, time was a little kingfisher.Our twenties are happy and don't know how to live, right? On New Year's Eve in 2003, six of us, Daxiong, Aying, Xiaobi, Xingyi, and Zhiyi, spent time in the "Ancient Tomb Restaurant" where Daxiong and I had our first date. Xingyi just broke up with Bai Qisi.Although many girls want to spend New Year's Eve with Xingyi, Xingyi would rather be with us. So, I called Zhiyi too.She asked me nervously on the other end of the phone: "What did you say to Xingyi?" "Aren't I afraid that you will kill me to silence me? I didn't even tell Big Bear." "Would it be weird? Only me and him came alone." "We are all old classmates, come on!" On this day, the last one to come to the "Ancient Tomb" was Big Bear, who was never on time. Zhiyi is well-dressed, and Xingyi seems to be impressed by her too. Ah Ying heard that Xing's family was in the funeral business, so she asked him with a smile: "In the future, if we-uh, you understand, can we get a discount?" "Don't say unlucky words today." Xing Yi smiled at her. Even so, we came to the "Tomb" and ordered "Tomb Flying Corpse", "Death Swamp" and "Tomb Blood Drink", etc., not afraid of bad luck at all. "Are you afraid of ghosts?" Ah Ying asked Xingyi. "My grandfather said that we are in this business because ghosts are afraid of us." Xing Yi deliberately said in a dark voice. "So, have you ever seen a ghost?" Aying asked. A waitress dressed as a priestess with a powdered face brought our drinks.When she walked away, Xingyi glanced at each of us and took a deep breath. We all waited with bated breath for the ghost stories. "I haven't seen it before." Xing Yi said lazily. Just when we were a little disappointed, Xingyi suddenly said: "But my grandfather saw a female ghost, it was decades ago. She drowned both with her boyfriend. It seems that she jumped into a river to die for love. She was very young. The corpse On the night when it was sent to the funeral home, my grandfather heard the sound of water dripping on the ground in the office, so he went out to have a look." Xing Yi stopped suddenly in the middle of speaking. We urged him, and he continued, "He saw a drenched female ghost who looked exactly like the drowned girl. She kept wringing her clothes dry while crying, but no matter how much she wrung her Don't screw it up..." Ah Ying, Zhi Yi and I were all scared out of our wits, and begged Xing Yi not to say any more.With a crooked smile on Xingyi's face, he took a sip of the "Ancient Tomb Blood Drink" in front of him. "Did you make up this story yourself?" I stared at him suspiciously. "Of course not." He said back to me. "If there is a ghost, including the shadow, it is 20 meters plus half of its length, then how long is it including the shadow?" Da Xiong, who seemed not to be listening to us very much, suddenly asked. "What did you say?" I bumped his elbow. "Ghosts don't seem to have shadows," Xiao Bi said. "That's right!" Ah Ying echoed Xiao Bi. "This is not a ghost story, this is an arithmetic problem, I just came up with it, to test you." Big Bear said. "Why do you ask this?" I turned my head to Big Bear. "I'll start writing a newspaper column next month," Big Bear announced to us. "Why don't I know?" I asked. "I was just late because I was talking about this." "You're always late." I spat at him. "What column do you write?" Xingyi asked. "It's a daily column. I will write an interesting arithmetic problem, logic problem or intellectual problem for readers to guess every day." "It suits you very well!" I complimented him. "Is the manuscript fee high?" Zhiyi asked. "It's better than tutoring, and you don't have to go to work." Daxiong said. "Toast, columnist!" Xingyi clinked glasses with Big Bear first, and we also clinked glasses together. In 2003, Hong Kong was still shrouded in a recession. Unexpectedly, Da Xiong, who was still in the second grade, became a columnist. Xiao Bi was also lucky to find an art design job in an advertising company and designed a large outdoor billboard. It was an ad for youth casual clothes of a famous brand, featuring a bright smiling face of a freckled foreign model.Billboards hang alongside the busy highway with the slogan: "Youth is an excuse for all mistakes." Ah Ying took a picture of the billboard with a digital camera and showed it to us today, her face full of admiration for Xiao Bi.She has graduated from the Academy of Performing Arts and will perform in a large-scale musical next year. "I'm going to 'Thirteen Cats' to observe some other day." She said. Zhiyi seldom spoke throughout the night, but she always had a smile on her face. Xingyi's ghost stories, true or not, also terrify us. He's great for telling ghost stories. "How long is that ghost?" I asked Big Bear. "Is it thirty meters?" Xiao Bi thought for a while and asked. "No." Big Bear shook his head. "Forty meters." Xingyi said. "Yes!" Big Bear nodded. We all applaud Xingyi together. "I have another question." Big Bear said. "Eat!" I said, ruffling his hair. As soon as twelve o'clock arrived, a musician dressed as a priest played "Long Live Friendship" on the accordion, and a group of priestesses gathered together and sang.We sang songs and cheered for the new year with the drinks in our hands. Everyone had flower-like smiles on their faces.If youth is an excuse, then it is the most ecstatic excuse.We clinked glasses vigorously, splashing the drinks in each other's faces.At that moment, we were all full of longing for life, but also worried about the unknown.Tomorrow, next year, the stories and dreams of tomorrow are still waiting for us young to explore one by one. Then, we agreed that next year today, the same six people will meet again in the "Ancient Tomb". "When the time comes, I will tell an even scarier ghost story." Xing Yi said. "Then I will come up with a more interesting arithmetic problem." Big Bear said. "See you there!" I smiled and said to Big Bear. Why does the breath of life slip through our fingers when we think we are facing the waves of happiness smoothly? I was absent from the appointment on New Year's Eve in 2004.The dream suddenly became empty.