Chapter 51 51. Never Really Left My Side

After Xu Zhen urged them, the three of them stood there, looking at each other.

When Xie Kang was in school, he smoked and drank, and often went against his teachers. When music critics evaluated Zhuang Yongyuan's creative style, the words they most often used were rebellious and independent, not to mention that Du Jiahao started to get involved in society at the age of thirteen. As a result, none of these three rebellious people thought of climbing over the wall directly, and they were all honestly trying to find a way to contact the person in charge of the construction site.

Xie Kang yawned, took off his woolen coat, and handed it to Zhuang Yongyuan: "Help me hold it."

Unfortunately, today he was wearing a beige shirt, which was the first day he wore it after buying it, and his leather shoes were also new.

Xie Kang rolled up his sleeves distressedly and stood on the precarious pile of bricks Xu Zhen had just built. He first reached out to touch the top of the baffle, feeling a dusty hand. The baffle was very thin, and the joints were sharp. If it caught on clothes, it would easily tear, and scratching new leather shoes would be quite unsightly...

He held on to the baffle tightly, stretched out his arms first. The next step was to lift his legs to flip his lower body over. But after Xie Kang lifted half of his leg, he was a little at a loss. For so many years, he had walked on the main road and through the main gate in an orderly manner, and his body had forgotten how to climb over the wall.

Xu Zhen frowned, looking dissatisfied: "What are you dawdling about? Come here quickly!"

“Right away!”

Xie Kang, concerned about his clothes and pants, stepped carefully onto the fence, keeping one leg outside the fence and the other leg bent and resting on the top of the fence. He took a deep breath, and when he was about to lift his other leg, someone suddenly pushed him from behind.

Xie Kang cried out in surprise, lost his balance, and tumbled to the ground inside the fence. Fortunately, the original concrete floor had been dug by the excavator, and the wet soil that was turned over, although mixed with cement fragments, was still soft overall, so he didn't get hurt.

A few birds flew by in the sky. The weather was clear. His head was buzzing and he couldn't help thinking a little aggrievedly that he had fallen twice in a row in just a few days.

After Zhuang Yongyuan came back, Xie Kang had more and more things he couldn't understand. If he fell and lost his mind, he wouldn't know what to do.

Xu Zhen was too lazy to help him. After Xie Kang stood up by himself, he saw that Zhuang Yongyuan, who was sitting astride the fence, was also pushed by the same trick. He quickly ran forward to catch Zhuang Yongyuan.

He was still hungover and dazed, and Zhuang Yongyuan bumped into him, sending them both tumbling. Xie Kang reached out to cushion Zhuang Yongyuan's head, his hand scratched by a piece of gravel. It was a horrific sight, a smear of blood and dirt.

Zhuang Yongyuan grabbed his hand and examined it, then pulled out a pack of tissues to clean his wound. He then shouted in dissatisfaction at Du Jiahao, who was about to jump in, "Can't you have some manners?"

Du Jiahao chuckled and said, "Seeing you two are just like two old men, it's driving me crazy."

Zhuang Yongyuan carefully blew away the dust from Xie Kang's wound and breathed warmly on the back of his hand. Xie Kang's hand warmed, making his whole body seem cold.

The cold wind howled, and Xie Kang frowned. He said to Zhuang Yongyuan, "It hurts."

Zhuang Yongyuan patted him and said, "I'll find you a pharmacy nearby and buy you a bottle of iodine for disinfection."

He pouted again and said, "Who asked you to block that for me?"

Xie Kang felt even more aggrieved: "If I didn't block it for you, your head would be like my hand now!"

Zhuang Yongyuan glanced to the side and said, "At worst, I'll just get a concussion. You can take care of me for the night."

After saying this, Zhuang Yongyuan thought for a moment and said with anticipation, "Maybe if I fall, I'll create a new song and become a huge hit."

He thought seriously and let go of Xie Kang's hand, complaining, "It's all your fault. You've delayed my fame and fortune."

Xie Kang's injured hand hung down alone, and he argued unconvincedly: "You're in a band, no matter how popular it is, it's just like that."

Zhuang Yongyuan started to get serious: "What are you talking about? Do you want to take out your phone and check the number of views?"

"Don't you believe it? If you don't believe it, just stop anyone outside and ask them if they've heard of 'Misplaced Time and Space' or Lily Heart's songs."

After he finished speaking, he began to sing in a pretentious voice: "I blew the evening breeze that you blew..."

Zhuang Yongyuan interrupted him: "Oh, then you're really repenting by coming back to be a teacher!"

Du Jiahao, who stood beside them with his arms folded, watching their bickering, finally lost his patience and asked them, "Didn't you break up? What are you trying to do by being so affectionate now?"

Zhuang Yongyuan turned around and blamed Du Jiahao: "You just pushed me down. Did you know my leather jacket has a scratch? It's a one-of-a-kind piece I found in Thailand!" He took a deep breath and continued, "Can't you see we were arguing? How can you call that affectionate? Was this how you and Li Xiuyu used to be?"

He spoke too quickly and didn't think twice when he mentioned Li Xiuyu. He just said it subconsciously.

The air stagnated for a moment, and Zhuang Yongyuan remembered that this was a somewhat taboo topic. Even at midnight when everyone was drunk, no one dared to talk too deeply about it, let alone in broad daylight.

Reuniting with Xu Zhen and Du Jiahao always makes Zhuang Yongyuan forget the years that have passed, as if Li Xiuyu is still alive and they are just fledgling campus singers.

"Yes...I'm sorry." Zhuang Yongyuan took a breath and apologized to Du Jiahao with difficulty.

Du Jiahao was silent for a moment, then waved his hand carelessly and said, "What's there to apologize for?"

He looked towards the nearby corridor and continued, "Alright, let's go up quickly. I also want to see where I used to live."

Zhuang Yongyuan followed everyone towards the old building, and the purpose of this trip gradually became clear.

Xu Zhen led the way, followed by Xie Kang and Zhuang Yongyuan, with Du Jiahao walking in the rear. The hallways had been emptied of their belongings, their doors and windows removed. The once-crowded apartment building was now a mere frame, its dark and cramped corridors now bright and airy.

The house was demolished into such a state that the steel bars on the wall were sticking out. It was a 100% dangerous building. When four people walked on the stairs at the same time, the whole building seemed to be shaking.

Xie Kang asked Du Jiahao, "Have you always lived here?"

Before Du Jiahao could answer, he turned to Zhuang Yongyuan and asked, "It's quite close to where you lived as a child."

Zhuang Yongyuan said: "Now it's all been demolished."

Du Jiahao scratched his brow and said, "This is my grandma's house. I've lived here since I was a child."

"You still have a grandma?" Zhuang Yongyuan asked in surprise.

"What else? I was born and raised?"

Zhuang Yongyuan shrugged and asked, "So you live with grandma now?"

In that case, he could understand why Du Jiahao wanted to get married and have children. People like them, if they stayed in Pingnan, would most likely end up like this, feeling sorry for themselves and others.

It’s okay to be criticized by irrelevant people, but it’s too difficult to express the real self in front of your loved ones.

Zhuang Yongyuan stared at the swaying hem of Xie Kang's clothes and thought dejectedly that Xie Kang might not be able to escape this in the future, as he had just gone on a blind date a while ago.

Du Jiahao's cigarette drifted towards him from behind. He said calmly, "Grandma died of cancer while I was away in Pingnan. I only learned about it from my aunt when I came back two years ago."

As soon as he finished speaking, they arrived. Xu Zhen was the first to enter the room on the left of the seventh floor. There were still some old furniture inside the house. Many of the light green tiles on the floor were cracked, but they still exuded a lustrous luster.

Du Jiahao leaned against the shoe cabinet with the door missing, looking around. His gaze stopped at the electronic perpetual calendar with a landscape painting printed on the wall. He said, "It looks pretty much the same as before I ran away from home."

He picked up a half-torn almanac from the ground. The date on the almanac stopped at the summer four years ago. He was stunned as he looked at the auspicious and inauspicious times printed on it.

The others looked around the room. After a while, Xu Zhen asked Du Jiahao, "Didn't you sell the house to anyone else?"

Du Jiahao said: "Grandma left it to me."

Xie Kang said, "Then you are also considered a demolition household. No wonder you have the money to open a restaurant."

Du Jiahao lit another cigarette. Xu Zhen reached out to take it, so he had to light another one. The jumping flame of the lighter burned the cigarette.

"I saved some money from working and borrowed some from friends. I didn't use the demolition compensation for opening the shop, so I left it all to my aunt." Du Jiahao stretched. "She spent a lot of money on grandma's treatment."

Xie Kang said regretfully, "Why don't you come and borrow from me? I still want to invest in some stocks."

Du Jiahao said: "How would I know you would return to Pingnan."

Zhuang Yongyuan asked, "Has Li Xiuyu been here?"

"I didn't want him to come. I didn't know how to tell Grandma about him. There were times when Grandma fell asleep and he insisted on coming in, and I couldn't stop him."

Xu Zhen picked up a piece of broken blue glass from the coffee table, threw it out of the balcony, and asked Du Jiahao: "So what did you dream about?"

"I dreamed..." Du Jiahao frowned. When he just woke up, he still had an impression of everything in the dream, as if he had spent most of his life with Li Xiuyu in it. But after only two hours of being awake, the dream was almost over.

He hesitated for a long time, only remembering the last scene of his dream. He pointed to the room in front of him and said, "I dreamed that Li Xiuyu was carving words on the wall of my room."

Du Jiahao was the first to walk into his former room. At first glance, it didn’t look like the scene in his dream, but it gave him a little confidence.

He pointed to a small children's desk and said, "In my dream, Li Xiuyu was squatting next to it."

Zhuang Yongyuan squatted at the place he said. There were only some gray marks on the wall, and no carvings were seen. He reached out and rubbed the wall for a while, but found nothing.

As if a bucket of cold water had been poured on him, Zhuang Yongyuan suddenly felt that his actions, along with those of his group, were ridiculous. He was observing the spirit world, seeking help from his own dreams, desperately trying every possible remedy.

In the final analysis, Li Xiuyu is dead, just like the past time, gone forever and never to return. We will never see him again in this life. If we want to establish a connection with him, the fastest way is to be like him.

The thought, which had been less frequent since returning to Pingnan, suddenly struggled to resurface. Zhuang Yongyuan slowly stood up. He wasn't the most miserable, if you ask him. He just felt bored. Writing songs was boring, performing was boring, being around people was boring, and dwelling on the past was the most boring thing.

Xu Zhen and Xie Kang didn't believe it, so they took turns squatting down to check, and then stood up awkwardly. Zhuang Yongyuan criticized everyone in his heart, saying that they were not teenagers, they had jobs and families, why did they get together to do such a weird thing?

He kicked the small stones on the ground in frustration and said, "Let's go..."

Du Jiahao interrupted him, his face suddenly enlightened, and he shouted, "Damn, no way?"

Zhuang Yongyuan asked him puzzledly, "What can't you do?"

Du Jiahao's eyes sparkled with excitement as he muttered, "Damn, how did he know I hid the thing here?"

He squatted down as he spoke, but his target was not the wall in front of him. He moved the desk away, pressed down on the corner of the tile under the corner of the desk, and the other end of the tile lifted up. He easily removed the entire tile and stood it upright against the wall.

Everyone gathered around curiously to take a look, only to see that the floor was not smooth without the tiles, and the cement had sunk, leaving a large gap.

There were things placed in the gap, and Du Jiahao picked them out one by one and threw them on the ground beside him. With the help of the sunlight, Zhuang Yongyuan could see clearly that there were cigarettes, a knife, a fake ID card with Du Jiahao's photo but the wrong name on it, two boxes of condoms, and a half-used bottle of lubricant.

Zhuang Yongyuan picked up a box of condoms between his index finger and thumb and said incredulously, "Is it necessary to hide it like this?"

"What do you know? My grandma loves to help me organize things." Du Jiahao said, and scattered a handful of game coins around him. Finally, he found a small thing, stared at it for a while, and said, "This is not mine. I haven't seen it before."

Xie Kang took the thing from him. It was a black plastic sheet in a transparent sealed bag. A corner was missing. It was about three millimeters thick. Some English letters were printed on the surface of the plastic sheet, but they were a little faded and could not be seen clearly.

Du Jiahao said puzzledly: "What is this? If I put it there myself, I would definitely recognize it."

Xie Kang thought it looked familiar, but couldn't place it for a moment. Xu Zhen recognized it first: "This is a camera memory card."

"Camera..." Zhuang Yongyuan murmured. They exchanged glances, and from their eyes, they could tell that they all remembered Li Xiuyu's small camera, which he often carried with him, taking pictures of people and scenery. Xie Kang had wanted to see his photos several times, but Li Xiuyu refused, saying he would show them to him when he turned thirty.

The wind was still cold, but the sun was warm. They were both cold and hot, staring at each other as they gathered around the SD card. Finally, Zhuang Yongyuan broke the silence and said, "Let's go buy a card reader first."