Chapter 16 Article sixteen

221 Two months after I went to work, I was sent to Wushan Cigarette Factory to debug our company's electronic control equipment. This cigarette factory is located on the edge of the Yangtze River. I took a boat along the Three Gorges upstream and brought two boxes of equipment that sank to death. Tobacco factory, lived in the guest house of the tobacco factory. The guest house is located halfway up the mountain, but the tobacco factory is built on the top of the mountain. The room I was given was on the sixth floor without an elevator, so my daily schedule was arranged like this: I went to the water room to pick up a basin of Yangtze River water in the morning and put it in the water room Settle the sand to the bottom of the basin, then go back to the dormitory, smoke while watching the work to be done for the day, pour some of the water in the basin into a cup, brush your teeth, then change the water in the basin to another basin, and wash your face , and finally went downstairs, climbed the mountain to the Tobacco Factory Guest House to eat a breakfast prepared for me by the Tobacco Factory - a steamed bun and a bowl of milk.After eating, I went to the workshop of the cigarette factory, discussed a big job with the electrician who was in charge, and then connected with the workers. After the workers finished connecting the lines, they scattered, and I stayed alone to check the drawings. I had to correct any mistakes. , and then went to the cafeteria to have lunch. After the meal, in order not to climb the mountain again, I had to go back to the tobacco factory, came to the office to write programs, and continued wiring in the afternoon.A few days later, after the wiring was completed, I started to debug the program in front of the electric control cabinet, in short, every day.The only thing that makes me happy is that in the evening, I walked along the hillside to the Yangtze River alone, where I watched the river flow by calmly, and then climbed the mountain for a while, and came to the most attractive place in Wushan County - food stalls, eating Sichuan For snacks, sometimes I eat casserole, sometimes I eat soup yuan, sometimes I eat rice noodles and meat, I eat it here and there until I get tired of eating, and then I climb the mountain and go back to the guest house to watch TV for a while and sleep.

222 Three months passed quickly. At that time, I earned a travel allowance of 35 yuan a day, and spent 5 yuan at most, so I saved nearly 6,000 yuan including salary. At the beginning of August, the company sent a technician to help me work together , I worked hard together with him, and debugged for another week. The entire silk production line was basically debugged. By the time I left, more than 500 motors had basically operated in an orderly manner according to the program, and the tobacco factory was ready to start feeding. At this time, I was completely overwhelmed by the boring local life, and decided to go home, leave the rest of the trivial work to the technicians sent, and then left Wushan by boat and returned to Beijing.

Within a week of arriving in Beijing, an accident occurred in the tobacco factory. Due to the low output voltage of the substation in Wushan, several motors were burned, and at the same time, several contactors in the electric control cabinet of our company were burned out. Insufficient, I was ordered to deliver spare parts. After I arrived at the tobacco factory, I couldn't leave for a while due to various reasons. I went back and forth for more than a month, and it was already September when I returned to Beijing. 223 After returning to Beijing, I went to the company every morning to show my face, and then I found an excuse to sneak out, wander around, or play video games in front of the company’s computer. Flying made me quit smoking, but I developed a bad habit of eating snacks. I always have some plums in my pocket. One day, I was fined for throwing melon seeds on the ground in Xidan. Ten yuan, so I gave up snacks and resumed smoking. For a long time, I had no friends and was alone. When I was at home, I watched those previously recorded videotapes over and over again, listened to songs, and slept—to get by Endless hours.

Throughout the autumn of 1992, I only ate one meal a day, slept for 12 hours, did not answer any calls, and did not meet any former friends. 224 One night in mid-October, I was changing channels in front of the TV. When the door lock rang, a person came in. It turned out to be Song Ming. When she saw me, she opened her eyes wide, screamed wildly, and rushed over.Before I could say anything, she immediately called Lu Ran Huayang, saying that I came back from a business trip, and we took advantage of the time when those people were on the road, we went to bed and hurriedly went to bed, and when Lu Ran knocked on the door, we just had time to throw the The toilet paper was tucked into a fashion bag next to the bedside table.

After Hua Yang and Liu Xin arrived, we went downstairs and got into Lu Ran's Ford car, went to the car wash bar near Gongti to drink, and after getting half drunk, we returned to my place to fly the marijuana that Hua Yang brought, while flying Chatting all over the world. In the middle of the night, Hua Yang proposed to visit Tiananmen Square. A group of us drove there. The huge square was empty. When the night wind blew, it made people feel a little cold. A small group of soldiers patrolled by the side of the square. We disappeared somewhere behind the circle, and there were two sentries in front of the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall, watching us leave with indifferent eyes as we walked by.We walked to the center of the square, sat in a row on the ground, facing Chang'an Avenue, and watched the cars speeding by. The Tiananmen Gate tower was dark red in the light, and the white jade railings of the Jinshui Bridge were shining white.

After Hua Yang told five pornographic jokes, he searched his brains and found that there was nothing more to say between us. Lu Ran was like a slave waiting to be freed, waiting for the suggestion of everyone to disperse, so that he could drive his car. ;Ri Ford ran away, Liu Xin brought the topic to the girl, saw no one responded, so he treated everyone as strangers, I was not energetic from the beginning to the end, basically I didn’t talk much, and everyone ignored me Soo-myung, as if the party she called was a mistake.In fact, this gathering was indeed a mistake—Hua Yang and Liu Xin were involved in mutual interests, they sometimes disagreed with each other, but they couldn't get away from each other, so they put on a sarcasm in front of others, Lu Ran Immersed in his own expressive world for a long time, not interested in them, I am too lazy to thread needles in it, ignore all topics that may form a conversation, Song is obviously very ridiculous, she is now the four of us disgusted She might be aware of this herself. After we drank the wine we brought, Song Ming said that she was sleepy, so everyone heaved a sigh of relief and dispersed.

On the way home, I felt for the first time that our curiosity about others disappeared, and we were unwilling to mention our depression to others. The comparison also loses interest. That said, we've all grown up. 225 A few days later, Song Ming came to me and took her clothes away, returned me 20,000 yuan, told me that she met a man during my business trip, and now she is going to get married, and said something about what will happen in the future , never to return. 226 "Look, I can write with my left hand now." Lu Ran brushed three lines on the paper with a pen in his left hand, raised his head and smiled at me, then switched the pen to his right hand, and wrote two more lines.

"The font is different," he said to me. "Look, it looks like it was written by two people." I nod. At this time, the whistle of the kettle in the kitchen sounded, and Lu Ran went out to bring the kettle in.After brewing a pot of tea, while we were drinking tea, Lu Ran put out the cigarettes in his hands.Said: "Writing a book is to write a lot of words. These words form a complex symbol system, which can represent many, many things. In short, just like those words, they are all boring things. Writing a book itself is also a boring thing. ." After saying that, he picked up the teacup and took a sip of tea.

I sat across from him, flipping through the CDs in his collection one by one, putting the ones I hadn't heard into the stereo to listen to for a while, and then listening to others. "Let me ask you, is there anything worth doing right now?" "Everything worth doing is difficult, and therefore impossible." "What's the meaning?" "Like you, go earn ten million dollars and let me see." "makes sense." There is a carpet in the center of Lu Ran's room, with intricate patterns of leaves on it. I noticed that some of the patterns on the edge of the carpet were removed by something.

"Who did it?" "Old X." "Has she been here?" "Then left again." "what happened?" "It doesn't matter what happened. One day, I met her in the China World Trade Center, and she came back with me. We were messing around on this blanket. Afterwards, I saw her holding my electric razor in front of her. Here a leaf is shaved off that she says she doesn't like." "Why does it sound so abnormal?" "It's not normal, because all the leaves are similar." "and after?" "I sent her to work the next day."

"where is she?" "At an advertising agency." "and after?" "No more messages." "I called their company again and said she had resigned and left." "What a weirdo." Lu Ran and I ate a bag of pistachios, and the peeled shells were thrown all over the coffee table.Lu Ran took out a photo album from the bookcase, which contained photos taken when we first met a long time ago, so we saw a group of people who seemed to have passed away, including Lu Ran and Hua Yang.Liu Xin, Xin Xiaoye, Old X, Alai, and many others, most of the people in the photo were smiling, and I don't know what made everyone laugh at that time. 227 I bought a leather jacket before 93 to wear it into the new year.Liu Xin and Hua Yang went to other places to perform, and it is said that they can get a considerable income.Lu Ran went to Tibet, where he said he wanted to think about some issues, so he left the car with me.So far, in such a huge city of Beijing, I couldn't find a partner to chat with, which made me feel very bored, so I didn't go anywhere at all, just lay in bed and watched the New Year's party. At about 10 o’clock, the phone rang, I went to answer it, I asked a few times and no one answered, I thought the other party’s phone was broken, so I hung up, left the phone, fell back on the bed, and just lay down Within half a minute, the phone rang again, and I didn't bother to answer it until the third ring rang before I jumped out of bed and answered the phone, there was no sound from the receiver for ten seconds, and I was about to hang up Suddenly, a familiar voice came, it was Alai. "Happy New Year." "Happy New Year." I answered her like this. "Happy New Year." She said it again. "Where are you?" I asked her. "At--" she paused, then told me as if determined, "at home." "What are you doing?" "watch TV." The conversation bogged down, I tried several times to say something, but to no avail, my mind was empty, and the phone was not put down. "Would you like to go--" I was a little hesitant when I said this, and a singer's voice from the New Year's party came from the microphone, "Go for a drive?" There was a moment of silence on the phone, followed by Alai's usual tone of voice, "Okay." "I'll pick you up?" "No, do you still live in the old place?" "right." "Are there many people there?" "no one." "I'll go find you." "I'm waiting for you." "So—that's it?" "that's it." I spent the next tens of minutes in anxiety. I sat on the sofa, imagining that A Cai would first tell a lie to her parents, then put on clothes and shoes, then go downstairs, and then walk in front of their house The narrow asphalt road, and then walked to the post office of the Asian Games Village, then looked both ways, crossed the road, and then stood on the side of the road to take a taxi, the New Year's car is very difficult to take, she stood there looking around, and finally a taxi appeared Yes, she stretched out her hand, her arms were waving up and down in the air, the taxi stopped, she got in, and drove southward, getting closer and closer to my place, passing Anyuan Beili, passing Xiaoguan, passing Anzhenli The shopping mall, passed the Anzhen Bridge, passed the Beijing Hardware Tool Factory, Ganshui Bridge, Jiangzhaikou, Ditan, and turned around the Andingmen Bridge, and then went downstairs to me, when I suddenly found myself I didn’t shave my beard, and I wore an inappropriate sweater. I hurriedly got up and changed into clean clothes. I hurriedly tidied up the house, washed my face, shaved my beard, and found sugar cubes and coffee. After everything was ready, I sat back On the sofa, my heart was pounding, and then I ran nervously into the corridor to see if the elevator was running, then returned to the house, boiled a pot of water, and stood in the middle of the room watching TV. I stood there, Turning a blind eye to the show, I calculated the time when Ah Cai came here from their house again in my mind. At this time, the water in the kitchen was boiling, and the whistle sounded harshly. I went to the kitchen and turned off the fire, and suddenly.There was a knock on the door outside, I hesitated for a moment, agreed "Come on", ran to open the door, and it was Ah Cai who hadn't changed at the door. 228 Alai walked in with a smile. Her hair was long again. She wore a fur coat that reached to her ankles, tied a large scarf with a dark brown floral background, and carried a leather bag. After entering, she looked around for a long time. Then I hung up the clothes hook that she used to hang on, took off her coat and scarf, sat on the sofa, and looked at the TV. I went to the kitchen and made two cups of coffee and brought them over. Toss a sugar cube into a cup and stir gently with a small spoon.I sat on a chair across from her, unknowingly drank the cup of coffee I had just poured, and even forgot to add sugar, it took a long time for the bitter taste of the coffee to come out of my tongue. Alai sat on the sofa, looking very calm. The light brown cashmere sweater fit snugly on his body. Around his neck was a medium-thick necklace. The pendant below was buried in it, invisible. His trousers were made of dark gray woolen fabric. There is a thin looming trouser line in the middle, and the hair is tied behind with a silk handkerchief.She raised her head, our eyes met in mid-air, and then we each looked down. The room was filled with the monotonous TV sketches, and we both sat at the end of the coffee table. We had a lot to say, but we didn't know where to start. I found a pack of cigarettes, gave Alai one, lit another one myself, but forgot to light Alai, Alai picked up the lighter I threw on the coffee table, lit one of his own cigarettes, and stretched out his hand. I took out a few boxes of CDs from the bookcase next to me, and I picked a box of Pink Floyd’s and handed it to me. I subconsciously took it, put it in the CD deck, and pressed the button, and there was a piece of crazy music in the room immediately. , I turned around, Alai gestured for me to turn down the volume, I froze for a moment, understood what she meant, turned down the volume, went to the kitchen to get the coffee pot, poured myself another cup of coffee, Picking up a lump of sugar, throwing it into the cup, a drop of coffee splashed out, and it was splashing on Alai's face. He quickly reached out to help her wipe it. Alai was surprised, and then wiped it with his hands. Our two hands touched Together, I simply held her hand tightly. At first, her hand was tight, but then it softened. I grabbed her hand and wiped off the water stains on her face. In an instant, our eyes met again. Meet, I looked at her, walked around the coffee table, walked to her, touched the corner of the coffee table on the way, made the things on it jump up, the coffee in the cup spilled on the table, but in a blink of an eye I walked to Alai Next to her, she threw herself into my arms, shrank her shoulders, and became my beloved and beautiful Alai again. The kissing took a long time, and when I put Alai to bed she whispered, "I guess it's going to be like this when I come." Then there was endless sex, over and over again, with Alai crying in the middle, and she was very sentimental, resigned.Crazy and tireless. In the middle of making love, she also freed one foot to turn off the TV. After Pink's music was played, the house was quiet except for the panting of Alai and me. The quilt fell to the ground. It took me a long time to feel cold. 229 Alai and I leaned together, her legs draped over mine, and we pulled the quilt up to our necks, only two heads were exposed, and Alai's eyes slanted to me for a while, then turned sideways for a while, Looking around the whole room, I guess she compared the difference with before in her heart. "What are you thinking?" I asked her. "I didn't think about it." Alai turned his head and put his face against mine. "Your face is hotter than mine." "That's because you have a thick skin." After that, she laughed. "what do you want to drink?" "Stop getting up, it's cold." "How about now?" "It's nothing." She stretched out her hand to quickly straighten her hair, and sighed, "Everything is just a passing moment." I turned sideways and hugged her body again. Her breasts were hard and pressed against my chest. Hands came out from below and touched my face. "What have you been doing?" she asked. "Doing things, the same old way, how about you?" "I'm still in that company. After the Spring Festival, the company sent me to the Northeast." "What are you doing?" "It's a long story and annoying." "Go ahead." "Our company invested more than 10 million yuan to build a golf club in Shenyang, and I went there to sell membership cards." "Why did I ask you to go?" "Is it a long story? To put it simply, I didn't get along well with the company's deputy general manager, so this job fell on me. I had to recruit about fifteen salesmen first, and then train them. At the same time, I have to advertise, each card sells for 200,000 yuan, and I have to sell at least 30 cards within half a year. In short, there are a lot of things to do, all of which are trivial." "Maybe I have to drink with people from the Northeast." "I've drank it several times, and once, it made me vomit green water." "So powerful?" "Of course." "You're only two bottles of beer." "Now it's the size of a bottle of Remy Martin." "Do you have to go?" "Neither." "Then don't go." "Stop talking, I'm in a mess." "What's wrong?" "Some things are unclear." Ali sighed suddenly. I grabbed her hand and held it tight. 230 He Lai and I drove Lu Ran’s Ford around the second ring road. On New Year’s Eve, the road was deserted. After going around for a while, we planned to find a place to eat, so we got off the Dongzhimen Bridge and drove up to Dongzhimen On the street, unexpectedly all the restaurants were closed.Although there are some lights on the street, most of them are lonely and dim. The northwest wind blows the branches on the side of the road high and low. Flying in the air and sweeping across the roof of the car, it felt very desolate. I told Alai about my life after the breakup, and Alai sat by and listened in silence, of course, I never said anything about sex until my current company stopped. , At this time, the car had reached the Fourth Ring Road, and I continued to drive along the Fourth Ring Road. Alai sat next to me without asking any questions. When I didn't say anything, she hummed a Mozart serenade softly, He stared blankly at the front of the car window.I deliberately drove past their house, but she didn't tell me to stop, sometimes she played with the automatic window with her hands, the glass would rise and then fall, she asked me for a cigarette, lit it with a lighter, deep I took a deep breath and then exhaled. When I was halfway through a cigarette, she asked me whether I should smoke it. I took it and drove while smoking. going to get married." I was taken aback, and when I kept asking, Alai stopped talking. The car passed by rows of street lights, and I peeked at Alai's expression. Her face was flickering, but there was one thing I firmly believed in. The most thing on Alai's face was sadness. That night was so short, I refueled once, and took Alai through the streets and alleys of Beijing. The car was like a boat drifting in the cold wind, with no definite direction, no reason, no result, what? nor.When it was daylight, I walked Alai home, and Alai said to me before getting out of the car, "Don't call me." Before I could reply, she slammed the car door and disappeared into the dark corridor. I froze in the car, and it took me a while to recover. It was too late to chase her.