Chapter 16 fourth quarter

It was already four o'clock in the afternoon when Huang Jie walked out of the gate of the University Affiliated Hospital. He checked the departure time at the bus stop in front of the hospital. It seemed that the bus heading for his home had just left, and the next bus would have to wait for fifteen minutes.In order to avoid being caught by Yoichiro, Huangsuke decided to walk home. Passing by the convenience store near his home, Huang Jie accidentally looked through the glass window and saw Aki's profile on the other side of the magazine rack. Huang Jie immediately turned around, walked back about 20 meters along the road from where he came, and stood on the road watching the door of the store.In less than five minutes, I saw Yaji push open the glass door and walk out of the convenience store.She was wearing the same long-sleeved top and black flared skirt as she had worn at the crematorium that day, except today her right arm was slung in a white cloth scarf.Huang Jie walked over with a little nervousness.

"Huang Jie..." Ya Ji raised his head and saw Huang Jie. "Huh? Why are you here?" Huang Jie stopped, pretending to be surprised. "I'm going shopping. There will be a vigil soon, and I forgot to buy many things, such as bamboo chopsticks." Aki slightly raised the plastic bag in his left hand. "My father and I will go to the wake later." "Well, thank you." Huang Jie wanted to ask Ya Ji two things. The first is the details about Megumi's suicide that Yoichiro did not disclose; the second is about her car accident.But these two things made it difficult for Huang Jie to ask.He stood awkwardly and was silent for about ten seconds.Aki also kept her mouth shut.

"Are you free right now?" Aki was the first to break the silence. "Huh? Ah, um." "Do you want to go to the elephant park?" "Okay... But, it doesn't matter if you don't go home?" "It's okay, I don't want to go back too early. Many relatives came to the house, and everyone was crying. In fact, my aunt wanted to buy these things. I said I had to buy them for her so that I could get away." Huang Jie and Ya Ji walked side by side, walking naturally at the same time. The so-called elephant park refers to the park where the two used to play together when they were young.There is a huge slide in the shape of an elephant, so it is called the elephant park by the two.The park is surrounded by tall oleander trees. Every evening, Sakie's call to Osuke and Aki will come from outside the oleander.At that time, Huangsuke could still call Aji's name naturally, and Sakieda had not yet become a school counselor at that time, but was just a housewife.

Once, Osuke made a good deal with Aki, and deliberately kept silent when he heard Sakieda's call.After a while, Sakie walked into the park, and Huang Jie and the two hurriedly hid behind the bench.Sakieda kept calling Huangsuke and Aki's names, walking back and forth in the park.Huang Jie snickered while looking at Sakie's appearance, Yaji couldn't help but persuade him, but Huang Jie still hid behind the bench and refused to go out.Gradually, Sakie's voice became different, and her call began to reveal uneasiness and anxiety.Hearing Sakie's voice, Huangsuke himself gradually became uneasy.Occasionally, Sakie looked straight at Huangjie.The eyes of the two met, Huang Jie thought she saw him, at this moment, a sense of happiness surged in his heart.But unexpectedly, this was just Huang Jie's illusion, Sakie didn't notice the two people hiding behind the bench at all.Sakie's gaze immediately moved to another place, and a very strong emotion suddenly surged in Huangsuke's chest, which was a kind of sadness.Obviously he was hiding by himself, but he had the illusion that he was abandoned by Sakie.Unknowingly, Huang Jie burst into tears behind the bench.Sakueda heard his cries and realized the two of them were hiding behind the bench.Sakie squatted in front of Huangsuke, looked at him who kept crying, wiped the tears off his face with the palm of his hand, and scolded him in a very soft voice: "Don't play tricks." In his memory, it was Sakie The gentlest reproach, but also the one that moved him the most.

Huang Jie, who walked towards the park with Ya Ji, thought in his heart that he would never have the chance to play tricks on his mother, and would never have the chance to hear his mother scolding him. When people die, they disappear.After disappearing... There is nothing left. "A long time ago, my mother once told me..." As Huang Jie walked, he looked at Ya Ji and said: "When a person dies, he disappears, and when he disappears, he disappears... Is this really the case?" Huang Jie thought of her mother who hugged herself and cried in front of the toilet in the department store.I thought of the smell of rain on my mother's clothes, the breath ringing in my ears, and the gradually rapid breathing.

"I also... don't quite understand." Yaji shook his head lightly, then put his left palm on his chest and said: "However, today I feel that my mother is by my side." "Ok……" Huang Jie nodded, in fact, he didn't understand the meaning of Ya Ji's words.The conversation was interrupted by such a vague meaning, and the two walked silently. "Huh? The trees are all gone." Walking near the park, Huang Jie was taken aback.All the oleanders that had been planted around the park were gone.Since this park is not where Huang Jie usually goes to school or goes shopping, he hasn't been here for a long time.

"It was gone about a year ago. There was an incident before, a girl was harassed by strange men here. Then everyone said that the park was blocked by trees and it was not safe, so they cut down all the trees." "I see……" Huang Jie didn't know about it until today. Huang Jie and Ya Ji sat side by side on the swing.The size of the elephant slide is still huge, standing directly in front of them, the long nose is still hanging down in the same position, and the white part of the eyes is painted with a bunch of bloodshot by some prank.The line looks like it should have been drawn with a marker pen or something.

"Huangjie, draw a watermelon and see." Aki said suddenly. "Watermelon...? Why?" "Don't ask, find a stick and draw a watermelon on the ground." Regarding this inexplicable instruction, Huang Jie decided to follow through.Since there were no sticks or branches nearby, Huang Jie picked a larger stone and drew a watermelon, a circle, and several vertical stripes under his feet. "...Draw it." Huang Jie looked up and found that Ya Ji was looking at the watermelon he drew and sniggering. "I can't draw anymore." Huang Jie pouted.Aki shook his head and said:

"I didn't laugh because the painting was ugly, I was laughing, and I guessed right." "What's true?" "Look at this watermelon, don't you think it's much bigger than a real watermelon?" "can you……" Huang Jie looked at the watermelon he drew.Look carefully, the real watermelon is really not that big. "That's right..." But so what? "Do you know the mental test for drawing coins?" Aki suddenly changed the subject. "It's a psychological test that can tell whether money is important to that person."

"Ah, that game that was popular in school before!" It was a very simple psychological test, just draw a five hundred yuan coin on the paper.From the size of the drawn coins, we can see the importance of money to a person.If it is drawn smaller than a real coin, it means that the person is "very rich".On the contrary, if the drawing is larger, it means that the person is "poor".When Huang Jie was in the third or fourth grade, this psychological test was popular in the school for a while. "So, I guess Huang Jie will definitely draw the watermelon bigger. If it were me, I would also draw it bigger."

"why?" "Do you still remember the incident when you picked up a thousand yuan?" "what……" Remember. That should have happened during the summer vacation of the first grade of elementary school.That day, Yaji and Huangjie were playing in this park, digging sand and touching toads. It was Aki who found a banknote under the elephant slide. "One thousand yuan!" Yaji shouted as he ran over to pick up the banknote that was half buried in the sand.She held the banknote in her hand and looked at it for a long time, not sure if it was genuine.Huang Jie knew that if it was a real banknote, some parts should be transparent.So the two picked up the banknote and looked it up at the sun, and finally confirmed that it was a real banknote.The two then climbed up the steps of the slide and hid in the space of the elephant's head to discuss what to do with the thousand-dollar bill.Huang Jie advocated sending the banknotes to the police station, but Ya Ji said that this is a pity, and the thousand yuan should be spent.Huang Jie was rather disturbed, after all, one thousand yuan is a lot of money for the first grade of elementary school. "In the end, you were persuaded by me." "Well, I lost." Huang Jie and Ya Ji began to discuss how to spend the thousand yuan in the narrow and stuffy elephant head.They thought of various plans, such as buying snacks and gashapon toys.In the end, the two came to a conclusion, a very good conclusion, buy a watermelon, buy a whole watermelon, and each of them will eat half of it. So, Huang Jie and Ya Ji came to the supermarket with a thousand yuan bill.Bought a watermelon in a plastic net. "That watermelon is really big." "Well, it's so round." Aki's parents were both working at the time, so they decided to eat this watermelon at Aki's house.The two moved the watermelon to Yaji's apartment at the time, and Yuya cut the watermelon in half with a kitchen knife in the kitchen.The two each shared half a watermelon and scooped it up with a spoon to eat.Such a big watermelon, I can't finish it no matter how much I eat. "So, I guess Huang Jie must have drawn the watermelon very big, because the watermelon is so scary, I still dream about it now and then. The watermelon in the dream is about one meter in diameter." "Terrible." Huang Jie imagined a watermelon as big as a hydrogen balloon. "I always feel..., I was much happier then." Aki suddenly said in frustration.Huang Jie couldn't quite understand why she said that. "The trees in this park were cut down... because of me." "what……" Huang Jie looked at Ya Ji's profile in surprise.Ya Ji stared at his toes, and said lightly: "The girl who was harassed by strange men here last year was me. It was an uncle I had never seen before. He walked towards me with a dragging leg, smiled and told me that he wanted to go to the toilet and asked if I could help him .” Yaji raised his head and looked at the public toilet in the corner of the park. "He said his feet were inconvenient and he couldn't go to the toilet alone." "As a result... what happened afterwards?" "I said yes, so I went with him to the toilet over there." "Huh? But like this..." "However, nothing happened to me." Ya Ji looked at Huang Jie. "Just as I was about to go into the toilet with him, an old woman who lived nearby happened to pass by the park. She felt that something was wrong, so she called the uncle. As a result, the uncle gave a 'tsk' and walked quickly I left the park. My feet, which had been dragging, suddenly healed." Ya Ji looked away from Huang Jie again. "The old lady was very angry and kept scolding me. I don't remember what she scolded me. I just remember that she shook my shoulder vigorously and spoke very excitedly. Later, the old lady seemed to call the police. At night, the police called home. At that time My father was not off work yet, and my mother answered the phone. My mother was surprised and scolded me again." Huang Jie was surprised that such a thing happened and he didn't know it at all.He looked at the wall of the public toilet, and silently listened to Yaji's continuation. "But..., I didn't really understand at that time. Why was I scolded? Why did that uncle make a 'tsk' sound? Why did his feet suddenly heal? When the old woman and mother scolded me, they didn't put The reason told me, maybe it was because they had a hard time saying it, so I never knew why." Aki sighed softly. "Of course, I understand now. I know what that uncle wants to do to me, and I also know why I was scolded." After speaking, Yaji's voice trembled slightly, and Huangjie looked at her in astonishment. Aki cried.Huang Jie didn't know why she was crying, nor what to do now.This is the first time Huang Jie saw Aki cry.From childhood to adulthood, Yaji never cried, whether it was a quarrel, or a fall and nosebleed, Yaji never cried in front of Huangjie, never. Ya Ji sat on the swing and kept crying, without making a sound, only his shoulders kept shaking.Huang Jie wanted to call her several times, but he didn't know how to call her, so he could only watch her cry silently, feeling that he was really useless. "I wanted to die..." Aki sobbed and murmured: "Yesterday..., I wanted to die..." Huang Jie couldn't help standing up from the swing.Sure enough, Yaji let the car hit him on purpose yesterday. "Why do you want to die? Is it because Aunt Hui is already dead?" Aki didn't answer.She suppressed her crying, twitched violently, and refused to raise her face even after saying anything.Huang Jie didn't know what to do, racked his brains to think, and finally thought of a way. Huang Jie decided to take action. "There is something that I have not said." Yaji raised his head and looked at Huangjie in confusion.Huang Jie confessed: "The night I ate watermelon, I actually had diarrhea because I ate too much. I ran to the toilet several times and only pulled out something like water. In the end, my butt was so sore that I couldn't wipe it properly. And in In the room, sitting down or standing up makes me want to go to the bathroom, so I just move slowly." A slight smile appeared on Aki's face.Crying and laughing each accounted for about half.Then, it gradually became unclear whether to cry or laugh.In the end, it was finally a total laugh.Huang Jie is very happy, his strategy is successful, his strategy is to say some funny things to attract Yaji's attention.However, Huang Jie made a mistake, and Aki laughed not because what Huang Jie said was so interesting. Yaji's throat kept trembling, he raised his head and said: "Actually...me too." Huang Jie hastily closed his lips tightly trying to hold it back, but a puff of air was sprayed out from his nostrils instead, which entrained some snot by the way.He couldn't bear it anymore, squatted on the ground and laughed loudly.