Chapter 4 Chapter 3 The Autumn of the Rent Bookstore

The bookstore left by my grandfather is located on a quiet side road.Since grandpa and father passed away, grandma and her have taken care of the place.The small rental bookstore is where she grew up.From the day she can remember, she has hardly left here.This kind of life is boring, but it is not boring. Anyway, she has never seen a life that is not boring than here, so it doesn't matter. She is also content with this kind of life, as long as she is behind the counter, she can know the changes of the four seasons without taking a step outside.Just like now, when the morning glory on the fence of the small park opposite is first blooming, and the nearby boys' elementary school is also in session, it is the busiest time for the bookstore.When the dead leaves on the yellow tung tree fall, it is already late autumn.In a few days, the bare branches will announce the arrival of winter.

She doesn't need to look so far across the street. The bonsai store next to the bookstore is more sensitive to the seasons than the park. The store puts on some new potted plants almost every month, and was still selling lavender a while ago. Grass, these days have been filled with frangipani flowers. Here, she can see the timing that smiles more than the seasons: that is the passing of a day.Little has changed in this way of passing over the years.In the morning, there will be office workers hurrying past outside the bookstore.When groups of little boys with their schoolbags squeezed in and made noise, it was four o'clock when school was over.Later, when her old classmate Zhu Weili passed by, she would always nod and smile at her.A little later, grandma and she would end their day at the bookstore and wait for the bus at the station outside the park to go home.

There are two bus routes to the east and the express train to and from the airport stop here, and people often get on and off with their luggage.Time passes between the steps outside.She understands why grandma is reluctant to close the bookstore. For an old man, such days are easy to pass.What's more, many lively little boys come here every day, no, surrounded by grandma. The grandmother with curly silver hair looks like a kindly principal, with a face in her seventies.It's still a little childish, maybe that's why she used to write children's stories.She has a childlike innocence.When the excitement comes, grandma will tell stories to those little boys.When she meets a boy who loves to read, she will recommend some books that she thinks are worth reading.Sometimes, she admired her grandma for being so talkative. Logically, her grandson should also have grandma's blood on her body, but she was never ashamed to take the initiative to get close to others.She would rather hide behind a counter and listen to music or a radio show on headphones while doing her homework.For a while, her favorite radio station was looking for disc jockeys.

"Do you want to change your life or change your perspective on life?" This slogan often echoes in her ears.Once, she happened to be looking at the page of accounting homework on the computer screen. Isn't this her current life, and even her future life?Her college entrance examination results, like her grades in every year of middle school, proved that she was no smarter or luckier than others.After failing to enter the university, she idled away for a while, knowing that this was not the solution, so she ran to apply for the Open University. If there is any special reason for taking accounting as an elective, it may be that accounting does not require good English.English has always been her weakness. First of all, she couldn't read well. Because of her poor pronunciation, she gradually turned into awe, but she had to face it. So, poor English turned out to be like a defect.Hong Kong is a place of vanity. If you are not good at math, geography, or even Chinese, others will not think much of you, but if you are not good at English, you will even feel as if you are short.Therefore, she sometimes feels that she has no regrets about the life of renting a bookstore.

Until one day, a person broke in, like an unknown leaf gently falling on her heart, making her discover that there is still a world beyond her life. On this day, she was sitting behind the counter listening to music with headphones on, while lowering her head, blowing the bangs on her forehead with her mouth open and closed.When she was concentrating on doing such a boring thing, a voice sounded in front of the counter. "What are the procedures for renting a book?" She looked up, and there was a boy in a cool summer shirt standing there, half a body taller than the counter.She smiled awkwardly at seeing something so stupid, and asked, "Which book do you want to rent?"

"It's these two." It turned out that he came in at some time, and had already selected two novels on the bookshelf. "We need a deposit of 35 yuan for each book, and it will be refunded to you when you return the book. The rent for each book is 7 yuan, and you can keep it for two days. If you return the book after the due date, you will be fined every day for each book. Five dollars." She said solemnly, and then she asked, "Do you want to rent?" The boy nodded at her with a shy smile, and paid with bills from his wallet. "Wait a minute, I'll write you a deposit slip." She said as she opened the notebook for renting books, turned to today's page, pointed to the blank line, and said:

"Please write your name here." When he was done, she had placed the change and deposit slips before him. "Thank you." He put the book in his arms, turned and walked out of the bookstore. After waiting for a while, she stretched out her neck and saw him standing at the station across the street, reading a book while waiting for the bus.She retracted her neck, and saw three words written squarely on the book: Guo Xuanhua.She wrote the two rented books next to his name.These two books are the mystery novels that she finds very good recently.It's not that no one else has rented it out, but just now when she found out that he was renting these two books, she felt a little closer to him.She has a curiosity about him that she doesn't have about other people.

Throughout September, he would come to rent books almost every two days, returning books on time and keeping them clean.Every time he came in, he would always smile and nod to her.She found that he usually came at school lunchtime and after school, and never on a Sunday, and guessed he was the new teacher at the boys' school. Stepping into October, when the frangipani outside the bonsai shop was replaced by marigolds, as long as she knew that he would come to return the book that day, then, from the morning onwards, she would have a kind of eager anticipation in her heart.When he came, she still pretended to be normal.However, since he appeared, the way time passes is suddenly different from the past. It has become two or two days, that is, the time between renting books and returning books, with an ambiguous expectation in between.

One day, when Guo Xuanhua came, grandma just went out. She was the only one in the bookstore, and it was quieter than usual.He was reading in front of the bookshelf. That day, he read it for a long time, and she kept her head down behind the counter.This long time of two people alone together came suddenly like the initial love. Although what she was watching was the plot of the murderer throwing the body into the sea, at that moment, her mind was full of heaven. Then one day, he came without a backpack and had a few books in his arms.When he returned the books, she glanced at them. The top one was an English textbook for the fifth grade of primary school.It turned out that he was teaching English, and she felt a little guilty suddenly, thinking of her own poor English level, she felt a little depressed.

Two days later, she vanity bought a copy of Milan Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" and took it back to the bookstore.She had only read the Chinese translation before, never the English version.As she read, she wondered how she could inadvertently let him see that she was reading an English novel when he came.When he came, she hid the book under the table.She didn't want to lie, it would make her look down on herself. She finally spent several whole nights reading the book word for word.When one reads a book not for an exam, it becomes enjoyment.Because she felt that she also began to know a little about love, she was very involved when she read it.After reading that book, she felt that her English seemed to have improved a lot.When she saw him again, she was not so guilty.

One weekend afternoon, she was waiting for the bus at the station next to the park to go back to her university class. When she occasionally raised her head, she realized that Guo Xuanhua was beside her, also waiting for the bus.When he saw her, the two nodded and smiled at each other.They had never met in places other than renting bookstores, and for a moment, everyone seemed a little reserved.She looked in the direction of the bus several times, and was afraid that he would find her embarrassed. At this time, a yellow leaf fell by her feet, so she pretended to be casual and tilted her head to admire the leaf. fallen leaves. When the car came, she politely nodded her head to say goodbye to him, and went straight to the car.She found an empty seat by the window and sat down, and began to read the novel she was carrying with her head down.When the car drove, her soul was still attached to the station, thinking that he might watch the bus leave.In an instant, he realized that parting was actually a kind of tiny happiness.She closed the book and leaned gently on the back of the chair.The lazy afterglow of the setting sun fell on the book and the back of her hand from the window of the car. She looked out of the car, and a sweet smile appeared on the corner of her mouth unexpectedly. The footsteps of time have changed since this day, the days are short and the nights are long.Every night, she looks forward to the dawn, so that she can go back to the bookstore early and wait for him to appear in the eternal day.Such days are full and fast. The bonsai shop next door has been filled with Christmas flowers, adding a festive atmosphere to this peaceful path.At the beginning of December, she and her grandmother decorated the bookstore a little, and prepared some Christmas cards and Christmas decorations as if they were celebrating the New Year. One day in December, when she was idly flipping through the record book of rented books behind the counter, she accidentally discovered that Guo Xuanhua had rented the same novel repeatedly within a month.She couldn't help thinking about it.Why did he re-read a mystery novel?Did he like it too much or did he forget that he had read the book?Or, he has read all the books here, and in order to come, he has to rent the same book repeatedly?She looked at the title "A Soul's Private Smile" on the rented book. Could this be a hint?An ambiguous joy filled her heart instantly, and she felt the private smile of her soul. The next day, she bought a few new books and put them on the bookshelf when he was about to come, so as not to rent them for others to read.He brought back "A Soul's Private Smile" and put it on the counter. She smiled at him and he smiled at her. No one spoke, as if they were waiting for two souls to chat by themselves. "Zhenxin, I want to go out for a while." Grandma talked to her at this moment.The third soul interrupted the private friendship between the two souls with one word. "Oh, I see." She replied, and sat down behind the counter again. After he left, she hurriedly flipped through the book "A Soul's Private Smile" from beginning to end, picked it up and shook it again, and found that there was not a single note that fell out of it, she couldn't help being a little disappointed.Yet isn't "A Soul's Private Smile" more interesting than any talk? When he came again, he searched the prices for a while, then walked to the counter and asked her: "Is there a box of Christmas cards, please? There are only one by one over there." She went out of the counter to have a look, remembered that the last box of Christmas cards had been sold that morning, and turned to him and said: "It will be delivered the next day, so come back the next day." "Oh, yes." Except for the time when he came to rent the bookstore on the first day, this day was the time they talked the most.She watched him walk out of the bookstore and head towards the school, his figure disappeared into the hazy distance. At that moment, a sudden thought inspired her. At night, she bit the pen holder, lying on the bed, thinking about what to write on the Christmas card for him in a blank book.She wrote: "Please come to Rent Bookstore often", which she quickly deleted, which sounded like a solicitation for business.She wrote this sentence again: "Shall we make friends?" This sentence is also not good, it is too childish.As a result, she wrote a full sheet of paper, but not a single sentence was satisfactory. The next day, when he came back, he changed into a pullover. "The Christmas cards are over there." She pointed to the shelf on the wall. He selected a box of twenty Christmas cards and took them to the counter to pay.She took out a box of ten miniature Christmas cards from under the table, shook it quickly in front of him, and said, "This small box is for delivery." Then she put the two boxes of Christmas cards together in a plastic bag.It was stuffed into him before he could see clearly. Holding two boxes of Christmas cards, he hesitated for a while, but he didn't say anything after all. Her face turned red all of a sudden, and she quickly lowered her head, pretending to be busy with other things.She didn't dare to raise her head until the sound of his footsteps gradually faded away.In the box of miniature Christmas cards she gave him, she wrote on one of them, "The books you picked are all books I also thought were great, didn't expect us to be this close. Merry Christmas to you.", and wrote her own name, then sandwiched after the second Christmas card.This is the answer to the smile of "A Soul's Private Smile". However, he didn't come the next day, and those little boys didn't come for two days, and she remembered that the school's Christmas holiday had already started, no wonder he didn't rent books the day before. As the days grew longer, she finally waited until the school holidays were over.The group of little boys came in and listened to stories around grandma as usual, but Guo Xuanhua never appeared again.Whether he avoided her on purpose, or had already left school for some reason, she had no way of knowing. After a long winter, when the bauhinia bloomed in the park and was replaced by morning glories, he never came.The new school year began, and a new group of little boys came, listening to the stories that grandma told for many years, with some new stories mixed in.The seasons passed as in previous years, and the day passed as before he came. One day when Christmas was approaching, she received a call from her old classmate Shen Luyi, asking her to have dinner with Zhu Weili. Every once in a while, the three of them would meet and chat.She hasn't seen Shen Luyi for several months. When she went out that day, the weather was unnaturally cold, so she put on a dark gray wool scarf left by her father who passed away a few years ago and went out.This scarf was worn by my father for many years, and it is warm.She likes it very much and feels that it is very suitable for her. She came to this small Italian restaurant a little earlier. She sat down, took off her scarf, rolled it up and placed it neatly on the chair next to her, and listened to the music on the earphones. After some time, a brisk voice sounded in front of her. "Sorry, did you wait long?" She raised her head slightly, and saw that it was Guo Xuanhua who came with Shen Luyi.Her face tightened, and she reached out to pull the earplugs on her head. One earplug was pulled off, and the other was still half hanging on her shoulder. "Let me introduce, this is Lin Zhenxin, and this is Guo Xuanhua." Shen Luyi said while throwing her gloves on the table. He nodded shyly. "Do you know each other?" He smiled at her, and then at Shen Luyi, and said while sitting, "I worked as a substitute teacher for three months last year, and her family's bookstore is near the school, and I often go there to rent books." "So that's how it is." Shen Luyi said, and then asked, "Where's Zhu Weili? Didn't she come with you?" "She's taking the students to play the violin," she replied. "That's right! It's Christmas." Shen Luyi murmured. She finally understood why Guo Xuanhua didn't come back after a year of Christmas holiday.During that meal, he and she seldom talked, Shen Luyi was talking most of the time, and looked at Guo Xuanhua with a sweet expression from time to time, although she had tried her best to listen to every word of Shen Luyi, but she still Is blankly thinking about other things.Outside the door of the restaurant is an imitation European antique music box as tall as a person. It is a clown playing an accordion. When the music is flowing, his head will gently turn from left to right and back again.She had heard that old song before, and it was about a pair of young lovers: After the first love died without a problem, the girl was looking forward to reuniting with her lover.One day many years later: she went to the church to attend the wedding of an old classmate.In front of that sacred altar, she met her young lover who became the priest who presided over the wedding.For a moment, a kind of sadness enveloped her.She had thought about the many possibilities between them, the path he chose, but cut off her fantasy in this life.This song is a girl telling a frivolous but helpless story. This is not her Lin Zhenxin's story, but the tone of their reunion. After eating, Shen Luyi asked her: "Let's go to the movies, can you come too?" "No, I'm going back to do my homework." She left the diner and walked alone into the twilight.Did Guo Xuanhua mention that Christmas card to Shen Luyi?They had only known each other for five months, and she had known him a little earlier than Shen Luyi.So what?Now she was ashamed to realize that the soul's private smile was nothing more than a wishful smirk of hers, and it was so embarrassing. While walking, she suddenly felt a little cold on her neck, and then realized that she had left her scarf on the chair.She quickly turned her heels and walked back.The scarf was still there, alone, waiting to be claimed by its owner.Three of their used coffee cups were still on the table.There was a sediment of coffee in his mug.She heard that the future can be divined from the precipitation, she looked at the bottom of the cup in a daze, but she still didn't see anything.The precipitation of that layer of coffee is not like a prophecy, but more like the passing autumn time in the rented bookstore, which finally disappeared without a trace and was washed by time. Leaving the bistro, she walked towards the square.Zhu Weili brought a group of children to the concert.The audience was packed, and a choir was singing hymns. Seeing her, Zhu Weili ran over tremblingly, smiled at her and said, "Didn't you have dinner with Shen Luyi?" "It's over," she said. "It's very cold today!" Zhu Weili said, rubbing her palms. She shrank her neck and nodded. "How is Shen Luyi? I heard on the phone that she has a boyfriend." She nodded sourly. "What does that boy do?" "Editor of the publishing house." "That's not like someone she would like!" Zhu Weili said wrinkling her nose. She didn't answer, shivering in the cold wind. "We are about to leave the stage, you stay and listen!" Zhu Weili pulled her to the side of the stage. She stood there, listening to the Christmas carols lonely. Are those days really gone without a trace? One day after Christmas, she and her grandmother waited at the station for the bus back home as usual.A pickup truck was parked outside the bonsai shop, and workers took away the unsold pots of Christmas trees like garbage. "Actually, those flowers are still pretty," she said. "No one's going to spend Christmas till next Christmas," said Grandma. These words suddenly echoed in her heart through many ordinary days.Who will keep the same flowers for the new season?Hadn't a Christmas flower already bloomed in her bosom?It might have turned out differently if she hadn't been so cowed and shy. The radio station she often listened to started recruiting disc jockeys again. This year's slogan is "Do you want a life with a little risk and excitement?" She sent out an application letter and made a monologue with music. .Not long after, she received a letter from a radio comrade that she was going for an interview. On this day, the corridor of the radio station was crowded with interviewees. When they called her in, she didn't expect that it was her idol Xia Xinju who was interviewing her. "Your voice is very good! You're just a little nervous." Xia Xinju said.Then, she asked in her deep and charming voice: "Do you really want to live a somewhat risky but exciting life? Then there may be unemployment, lovelorn, or even disappointment!" With a smile on her lips, she nodded firmly. By the time the lovesick birds in twos and threes perched on the branches in spring, she had dropped out of school and was working in the radio station. Even her usually calm grandmother was shocked by her change. When the morning glory blooms, a person breaks into her trivial life, and then disappears suddenly.A year later, in the loss of the sudden reunion, what he gave her back was no longer trivial, but the distant horizon, where time would have more beautiful steps.