Chapter 24 Part III 1.

1. In the early morning after she separated from Astro Boy, Sansan ran home before her parents woke up, and got under the quilt already soaked in heat.There is a history review outline and a collection of mathematical function exercises next to her bed, and all the blank pages have been filled with dense notes and solutions with ballpoint pens and pencils.Now she never wants to see those small letters, she never wants to touch anything on the desk.The skin on the face was taut after the tears and snot had dried.If my mother asks why her eyeballs are covered with red blood after crying, she will say that she suffered from insomnia after drinking Nescafé coffee last night, which is not the first time anyway.Her insomnia and headaches were increasing in frequency.During those sleepless nights, she rubbed her dry eyes and thought that she might die early.In fact, she has already forgiven Astro Boy, forgive him for being rude and cruel, for the childish lies he brought, for the homework he forced her to do, for his love, for those irreparable times, because after all, there are those joys Time to want to lift your feet off the ground and fly screaming!She knew that after a few years, when her memory became blurred again, if she saw the news that he was shot because of murder, robbery or kidnapping on TV, she would definitely cry in her arms and think of those who were led by him in Yan's house. The days of running wildly in the school, those carnivals before the day after school.She always felt that there would be such a day, which made her unwilling to give up even a small piece of news in the middle of the newspaper for a long time to come.She believed that he would never be the good guy they thought he was, that he was born a bad boy with a rebellious bone on the back of his head.He stared at all the people, they were all his enemies.He was born to do evil, and although he was tired of it, there was no way to change it.But even if he died one day, she would still remember the appearance of him throwing stones into the Suzhou Creek on the summer night when he was twelve years old, with his arms rotten, talking nonsense, that was July 1993.Since then, they have been trapped in a place where the adults can't see for a long time, and their calls and yells have not been heard. They grow up to their present appearance alone, talking to themselves in a daze.

And now that she remembered everything, she would never forget it again. Sansan fell asleep in a daze for a few more minutes before the sky fully dawned.She dreamed of riding a bicycle with Lin Yueyuan on the only way to go to school every day.It was the most bustling time in the morning, and the sycamore trees on both sides were already covered with dark green leaves with clear veins, and the trucks rushed past them, honking their horns loudly.She was following behind Lin Yueyuan, her back whose hair was all worn by the wind, like a sweatshirt that had been folded back and bulged into a sail, this dream was so real.If it wasn't for the ear-piercing alarm clock ringing and waking up empty-handedly, she wouldn't be able to remember that it was just a dream, and it was only a few minutes but it seemed to be stretched infinitely. Dusty white running shoes.Then she got up disheartened, and saw that her mother was already frying two sugar rice cakes in the kitchen, wearing a bib that was stained with oil.Since when did my mother cut her hair short?Her short hair was ugly, clinging to her scalp like a withered vegetable, covered with flakes and looking tired.When she was young, she wore long curly hair with bangs always raised high.Every Sunday afternoon, she would stand in front of the mirror and carefully blow her bangs with a curling iron and a hair dryer.It was a really good time.

Mom turned around and saw her and said, "I dreamed this morning that you reported to the university with your luggage, but you looked like you were only a little older, just like your first day in elementary school. I still remember that day You are carrying a lemon yellow schoolbag and your hair is short like a boy. Other children are crying at the gate, but you are not afraid at all, and you walk into the school gate alone without looking back. Time flies. Soon." She didn't speak.Mom didn't know she was leaving today.None of them knew she was leaving. She stole two hundred dollars from Dad's shirt pocket.Originally, she wanted to take away two skirts, but there were no good-looking skirts in the closet, so she stuffed a pair of sweatpants and two washable long-sleeved shirts into her schoolbag, and she did not forget to bring two books to buy. The novels I haven’t read since I came here, and a movie magazine that was stuffed into the mailbox just yesterday, I replaced the Walkman with two new AA batteries, and brought the Cranberries’ "To the Loyal Past" .It's a pity that on the day she fled, she couldn't "paint black nail polish, wear Martin boots, and drink cider in the sun" as one of the songs sang there.She stuffed her schoolbag bulging.In order to save time while drinking milk, my mother used a wooden comb with wire teeth to help her comb her hair that was difficult to comb.She saw her unruly, shaggy, ungainly hair in the mirror, and thought of the novels she read on midnight radio shows in the middle of the night, and the heroines in the novels always had hair like seaweed.Now she has seaweed-like hair, but in reality it doesn't look good at all.She let her mother braid her hair sleepily, feeling more ugly and disheartened than ever.But now she doesn't care about these anymore, because she will never meet Lin Yueyuan again, and she will never meet him again in her long life.No miracles would happen, she hadn't been able to stop their flirting, and now she didn't even have a chance to ask for forgiveness.

That was probably the longest day in Sansan's life.When she sat in the classroom, she could barely get through it and wanted to give up several times.She has never had the experience of running away at night and running away from home.When he was young, Astro Boy often ran away at night to avoid his father's beating, and hid under the awning of the vegetable farm overnight, sleeping in the cabbage piles piled up in a hill, and came to school the next day with the smell of rotten cabbage all over his body.That's how he survived, but Sansan never left home.She asked herself repeatedly, why did she run away?Because sometimes she thought, in fact, she was the one who should go to the juvenile detention center, but she left Astro Boy in that damn place alone, and blamed him for all the faults.He has already paid the price, but how can she continue to live as if nothing had happened?

How long did it take Lin Yueyuan to be discovered?It is said in the novel that the bodies of drowning children will float up, their skin will be soaked into swollen gray, and their clothes will be washed away by the current, leaving them unrecognizable.His parents will be so sad that they want to die.Whenever she thinks of this, she can hardly breathe like being cut by a knife.Why did she do such a cruel thing, she left Lin Yueyuan alone at the bottom of the cold and dark river and kept silent from then on?She is Astro Boy's accomplice!She should have died with him or been sent to the juvenile prison together, but now Astro Boy has suffered for her again and again, how could she not forgive him?How could she call him a murderer again?It was she who turned him into the real murderer, it was her, it was her fault.She never paid for her mistakes.Those unhappiness are nothing, those sadness are nothing, she pressed herself on the desk, and only then did she feel that the so-called injuries she suffered throughout adolescence were bullshit, those report cards, love letters, crying, frustration and shame were all bullshit , It's bullshit whether you can get into college or not.Someone died, and she lived in a turtle shell like a real coward.She never had the courage to love, never knew what she really wanted.She grew up in a nasty and disgusting way, and her youthful feelings are like a piece of shit or even worse than shit.

When the bell rang for the end of school that day, Sansan walked out of the classroom following those classmates who turned over their desks.There were so many people pushing and shoving in the corridor, and the junior students who were rehearsing the opening ceremony of the sports meeting on the playground had just left.She walked through them with her schoolbag on her back, looking like an ordinary high school girl.After the school radio station played "Athletes March", it suddenly played "Tears", which was very popular when I was a teenager.She had bought that tape, and she could sing almost all the songs in it, so she hummed along with the songs that echoed throughout the playground from the tweeter: "If youth has an immortal face, I hope she will never change .Many dreams are always woven too beautifully, followed by disillusionment.” No one knows what is stuffed in her bulging schoolbag, and no one knows her plan.She copied the exercises to be completed that day in her notebook as usual, and she also memorized two pages of English vocabulary during the break.No one knew she was about to escape.I'm sorry she's running away again this time, she's nothing but running so fast, she's still the same girl who can run fast even with strappy sandals on.She could only run far away, to a corner where her memory couldn't reach, even if she exhausted her last bit of strength, it didn't matter.She disguised so well that no one could see her heart, and no one could see her idle heart.But Sansan did not see Astro Boy at the school gate.If he was there, she would have recognized him even in a crowd.He acted as if the whole world was against him and was out of tune with him. No one could confuse him, so he wasn't there, he didn't come, he didn't stand at the school gate and drag Sansan away like he had done countless times in the past Get on that broken bike.She thought he would come, because she was his only friend, family member and memory connected with flesh and blood, so she stood stubbornly in the door room with a heavy schoolbag on her back and watched the noisy road outside, her eyes were as firm as a boy And persistent.When my shoulders were sore, I took the schoolbag in my hand and held it, then put the schoolbag on the ground, then squatted down, and then sat in the corner of the wall against the schoolbag and played with shoelaces.And later, and later, it was dark.Boys playing basketball on the playground jingled their bicycle bells and brushed past her, and the huge dilapidated neon signs outside the fence lit up again.The short crazy time at dusk that only belonged to the two of them is over. She should climb down the narrow stairs in the attic of Yan's house with her schoolbag on her back, and rush home before her parents get off work. In the middle of the game, there is no way to kill the last big boss.Their time was over for both of them.

Sansan looked at the streetlighted road in bewilderment, the neon lights on tall buildings in the distance looked like sprinkled chocolate confectionery.When she was about to stand up, she was hurt by a hard object behind her buttocks. When she touched it, it was a small knife with a hard plastic handle that Astro Boy gave her for self-defense.Although she can't even peel an apple, she still carries it with her.She had already made all preparations to run away with him.On this day, she tried her best to look at those people and those scenes around her. She tried her best to remember this Shanghai because she felt that she might not be able to see it for a long time.She wasn't afraid of just feeling empty, the kind of loss that made up her mind about the future but couldn't get started.But Astro Boy didn't show up again. In fact, she knew from the moment she walked out of the school gate after school that he would never show up again.She waited because she was not reconciled, because she still had a damned faint hope in her heart.Hope was really going to kill her.Sansan stood up, her legs were numb, and walked out along the small road by herself.The air was filled with the scent of gardenias and privet trees, and the strong wind blowing through the gaps in the tall buildings made her hair tossed.She was holding a schoolbag, dragging two heavy braids wearily.Didn't you say you love me?Didn't you say that you won't do anything or say anything to hurt me?What's wrong?Are you running out of strength?

Didn't it say that the pull hook cannot be changed for a hundred years? On the way home, Sansan passed a very small barber shop at the corner of the alley, and walked in, probably just to delay the time to go home.She really didn't want to go home, even if she knew that her father and mother would probably go crazy at this time.She just didn't want to come home, she wasn't the kind of girl they wanted at all.This barber shop is really small, with only two mirrors and various combs piled up next to it, and the international news from CCTV is playing in the TV."I'm going to cut my hair short," she said to the barber, who was lounging at dinner by the mirror, and the barber looked her up and down.

"A little above the ears." She continued to make gestures with her hands in the mirror. "Think about it and cut it? It's very hard to grow your hair. You have kept it for many years, why do you want to cut it off?" "The college entrance examination is coming, and I don't have time to fix my hair." She made up a lie but said it as if it was true. "Oh, from a prestigious middle school, you want to be admitted to a prestigious university." He glanced at the school badge she forgot to take off and said. That was literally the ugliest haircut she ever had.This crappy barber reminded her of the old man who set up a stall under the sycamore tree at the door of Wanhangdu Road. When the scissors dipped in water touched his forehead, he always felt cold, and her hair was more stubborn than when she was young. , stubbornly curly, fluffy and even knotted, even if you get up in the morning and comb vigorously with water, the strong steel wire wooden comb is full of torn hair strands, it will not be submissive.She thought that after all these years, she would look better than before, but when she looked at the dejected girl with short hair in the mirror, she realized that she hadn't changed at all.She looked just like the little girl with the swimming hair cut and crying silently.She touched the stubble on the back of her bare neck, which was still ugly, and her chest was flat, like a twelve-year-old boy without development.It hadn't changed at all, and she had to spend five of the two hundred dollars she had stolen from Dad's pocket that morning for it.She could have put back the two hundred-dollar bills, but now she was holding a handful of tattered, dirty bills.She is always doing things that she regrets repeatedly, even if she is given a chance to start over, she will definitely repeat the same mistakes.When she was carrying her schoolbag, she habitually tried to pull her hair out from under the strap of the schoolbag, but she put her hand back in vain.She walked on the road like a skinny boy, looking at her own shadow, remembering the hug with Astro Boy in the early morning, and suddenly felt goose bumps on her skin.Why do you want to hug him again so much, think that you can't bear it, and want to run with him?She looks like two boys running together with him now.

After returning home, mom and dad looked at her hair and didn't dare to talk to her, but she sat in front of the TV silently with her knees on her hands and watched boring TV series. flickering on his face.How long has it been since you watched those boring TV series?She spends a lot of time at the desk memorizing history books and doing math problems. She can even recite the small characters in the comment column of the history books, and she has done those math problems countless times.Her brain seemed to have been trained as a conditioned reflex machine.I really don't want to do those things anymore, I really want this summer to end like this, I really want to skip those necessary steps, skip this difficult puberty and grow up directly into a real adult.It doesn't matter what kind of adult you are, as long as you can get rid of all this.I was so exhausted, I really wanted to just watch TV for days and nights without thinking about anything, and I really wanted to forget all the sadness.But even Astro Boy abandoned her, and from then on she was trapped in that corner where no one could hear her even if she called loudly.She had been flying into the air for several months, and now she was still hit hard on the ground, and she was so black and blue that she couldn't get up.If Astro Boy was here, he would definitely run over and touch her hair and say, "Idiot, get up quickly, you girls are really useless."

But idiot, I feel that you will come back at any moment, and I am ready to run away with you at any moment.This hope is about to kill me. Before going to bed, Dad carefully sat beside her.The serials on all channels are over and MLM commercials are being played.Dad looked at her short hair with sad eyes and said, "Actually, your short hair is not ugly. You have always had short hair when you were young, and you are as energetic as a boy." "Do I have to go to college?" She asked suddenly. "But why do you have to have horns on your head? Why do you have to be different from other children?" Dad looked at her worriedly, wanting to get an answer. Because it was born this way!However, she couldn't tell her dad about this.He hadn't seen Natural Born Killers. "Tell people we did it, we're Mickey and Malorie." He didn't know the pride and bewilderment.It would hurt him deeply that she knew she wouldn't grow up to be the adult he expected.She was terrified of breaking their hearts.All the bad lies she told were to keep them from being sad, but her whole boyhood had been like a big lie that would eventually be caught.She has been waiting for that day to come, waiting for all their hopes to be dashed.She grew up anxiously and waited for that day to come, but that day never came.She also never smoked at home, never talked about her boyfriend with them, and those days spent at home were always home by eleven o'clock.She has been building up this distant falsehood, as if she is really their daughter who is as well-behaved as a porcelain doll, but this falsehood is clearly broken and they still deceive each other.There will be a day when she will be exhausted, a day will come when she will be pushed into a corner and will not give in anymore, a day will come when they will lose all love and patience for her and abandon her like everyone else.Obviously there is also a rebellious bone on the back of the head but not seen by everyone, and he has already remembered all the past but pretends that he continues to be in the fog of blindness.Will it get better if I go to college?Of course they would tell her yes, it must be so, but she didn't believe it any more.For her, the beautiful future is all illusory soap bubbles, just plots and traps within one another.Why can't we adapt to the upcoming life of rebellion earlier?She harbors a terrible secret, and sooner or later those punishments will come.