Blunt knife (Part 1)

Zhou Zeyu had forgotten when she drifted off to sleep. She only remembered that after sending a text message to Sorkov, she lay in bed and thought about random things for a while before she unknowingly fell asleep.

She was awakened by the heat of the sun shining on her face. She struggled to turn over and try to escape, but she couldn't find a shady spot in the bed. She could only resist her sleepiness and pull the blanket over her head, but she quickly gave up because she felt stuffy. With a dark face, she jumped out of bed and slammed the curtains shut.

Great, the moment her feet touched the cool tile floor, she was wide awake.

She wailed a few times, then collapsed onto the bed in agony, trying to kill herself by slamming the overly soft mattress. However, after lying there for a while, she failed to commit suicide and could only obediently stand up, grab her clothes, and put them over her head.

After finally managing to coax herself into the bathroom to wash up, she spat out the last mouthful of foam, rinsing her mouth with a slurping sound before spitting it out again. Her eyes glanced at her phone and saw several unread messages.

Was it sent while she was asleep?

Zhou Zeyu reflexively thought it was Sorkoff, but after the facial recognition was completed, she realized it wasn't him; it was Feng Yifan.

She casually placed the toothbrush cup on the table, looking at the name on the page with some confusion, not understanding why she had suddenly sent her a message.

Although the two have known each other for many years, due to their competitive relationship, they seem to have rarely contacted each other, and their chat interface is completely blank.

Zhou Zeyi didn't think that Feng Yifan had anything important to say to her at this time. If it were really important, then she shouldn't be the one to notify her.

But since it wasn't anything important, she really couldn't figure out what the text message was for. It couldn't be a simple reminiscing or a sarcastic remark. Given Feng Yifan's soft temper, she was definitely not the kind of person who would do something like that.

So what else could it be?

Zhou Zeyu decided not to think about it any further. She swiped her phone and opened the interface, where Feng Yifan's message popped up at just the right moment.

It was a photo with a large box in the center, neatly filled with her previous items. It was obvious who had made it; Fang Xiaocan was definitely not a very organized person. It must have been Feng Yifan who patiently arranged it.

"I'm so sorry, sis. I didn't have anywhere to put your things, so I put them in this box. Give me an address and I'll mail them to you."

Zhou Zeyu clicked on the photo and zoomed in. It seemed that all her belongings over the years were not even enough to fill half of that huge box. There was an old mattress and some odds and ends, a few everyday clothes for all four seasons, and nothing else.

Perhaps Feng Yifan hadn't expected her to have so few things when she was preparing the suitcase, which is why her tone was a bit reserved. But that's really nothing, Zhou Zeyu thought, it's not her fault.

The phrase "kicked out" has been vividly demonstrated today. Coach Huang doesn't even plan to wait for her to return to China before packing up her dorm. He probably just wants Feng Yifan to clear out her things and be done with it.

Feng Yifan was a good person; he didn't just throw the box into the garbage dump. Instead, he kindly offered to send it to her. But Zhou Zeyu didn't want to see these things at all. She even secretly hoped that one day she would sell them to the aunt who collected recyclables.

The reason why past memories are so hard to let go of is largely due to the long accumulation of things over the years. How can we just let go of all those little things from the past? Absolutely not.

Zhou Zeyu was overwhelmed with indescribable emotions, but compared to grief and pain, she seemed to feel more numb, because she had long expected this day to come, but when it actually happened, it was still hard to let go of.

She dedicated so many years to the team, but what did she get in return?

With so many empty rooms in the dormitory, how much space could her tiny bed possibly take up? To have it all emptied out in a grand manner, and then be taken for granted as a favor to her successor—she's not a saint, of course she'd be upset.

After her parents divorced, she seemed to have lost the place that could be called "home". In fact, the dormitory could not be considered a qualified home. It was too small, too dilapidated, and lacked the warmth of family reunion. But so what?

She had no choice but to entrust her years of exhaustion and stress, along with her rare moments of joy and happiness, to that few square meters of space, as if she were rebuilding a safe house for herself to shelter from the wind and rain, so that she could understand that no matter how the world outside changed, she at least had a place where she could settle down with peace of mind.

And now, she is even being deprived of that right.

Tears fell silently without her noticing, sliding down her cheeks and into her collar. Zhou Zeyu felt a sudden chill on her face, so she reached out to wipe them away, her eyes blurry with tears as she reached for a tissue by the window, trying her best not to cry out loud.

I remember after every grueling training session, she would eat heartily in the cafeteria with a dizzy head, and what she looked forward to most was returning to her dormitory.

In the small world of the dormitory, Fang Xiaocan and her friend would lie on the bed in their old-man vests chatting. When they got tired of chatting, they would fall asleep. If they couldn't sleep, they would get together to do math problems, eat some forbidden items, or think about trying out the new sunscreen they bought. They would hit each other once and twice. Those times always seemed to be very happy.

They complained that the dormitory walls were too bad, so they bought their favorite posters and stuck them on them. She bought EXO, and Fang Xiaocan bought Wang Sulong. Later, every time they won a competition, they would reward themselves by putting up another poster. Over the years, the walls must have gotten several centimeters thicker. If you stabbed them, you could kill half of the entertainment industry.

The table was too small and was covered with all sorts of magazines and newspapers. Fang Xiaocan would buy the newspapers that featured them with a perverse sense of humor, but some of the photos were so bad that Zhou Zeyu was buried under the table, as if she hadn't seen the light of day for years.

Back when they stayed up all night watching palace dramas, the two of them actually had the leisure to make a pair of fake long fingernails out of A4 paper. They would poke each other all the time. Eventually, the paper was punctured, so they wrapped it with half a roll of transparent tape. In the end, the real thing was too disgusting, so they stuck it on the wall and never moved it. I don't know if it's still there now.

But he's probably no longer around.

Due to her injuries, Fang Xiaocan will soon have to move to another dormitory that is more conducive to her recovery and treatment. Meanwhile, Zhou Zeyu is far away in a foreign country. The place that holds so many memories for the two of them now has a new owner.

Now, Zhou Zeyi only hopes that Feng Yifan won't have too much trouble cleaning up those things.

After all these years, her feelings are like those pieces of paper stuck to the wall with double-sided tape. With the passage of time and dampness, they become more and more firmly stuck together. Even if you tear them off with force, there will always be countless remnants. They are tangled and impossible to unravel, but in the end, they all meet the same fate.

The poster was thrown into the trash can by the group's online community, and Zhou Zeyu was in a similar situation, the difference being that one was passive while the other was active.

She thought for a moment, then called Fang Xiaocan and got straight to the point: "I'm moving out of the dorm, Fang Xiaocan."

Fang Xiaocan answered the phone faster and faster, almost in a second, and asked in a daze, "Huh? When did you get back?"

"I haven't come back, I'm still in Belgrade."

The two fell silent for a moment. She knew that Fang Xiaocan had understood her unspoken meaning. Some things didn't need to be said; it was enough to leave it at that. They both understood.

Fang Xiaocan remained silent for a long time before speaking again, and Zhou Zeyu could even hear a faint sob in her voice.

“I was planning to wait for you to come back from the dorm…” She blew her nose, making a strange, deafening sound, “Zhou Zeyu, why didn’t you come back sooner?”

"Are you stupid? Would it have made a difference if I had come back earlier?"

Zhou Zeyu smiled reassuringly, just as she had done many times before, but it wasn't until her lips felt stiff from the excessive movement that she realized Fang Xiaocan couldn't see her.

So even that forced smile vanished, and she tried to make her tone sound more nonchalant, just as she had imagined, both carefree and cheerful, rather than so melancholic, mourning heavily like all the abandoned people in the world.

Sometimes, parting doesn't feel real. When he went from the first team to the second team, he didn't feel it. He didn't feel it when Coach Huang unilaterally gave up on him either. But now, at this moment, Zhou Zeyu suddenly realized that this phone call seemed to represent a kind of separation.

Just like a farewell banquet is held for someone who is going on a long journey, when she left home, her elders and fellow villagers held a farewell banquet for her. Compared with the grand beginning back then, it does seem much more hasty now.

There was no grand farewell ceremony or any messy send-off rituals. There was only a phone call, and the two of them cried across thousands of miles of distance. That was it.

The place that could once be barely considered "home" is now so remote that even the security guard can't get in.

She had previously visited the Forbidden City and heard from the tour guide that after the fall of the puppet state of Manchukuo, even the former Qing emperor Puyi had to buy a ticket to enter, even though it was the home he had once lived in.

But compared to that kind of person, it doesn't seem quite right. At least Zhou Zeyu doesn't think he's done anything heinous. Why should he be reduced to the same level as him? Doesn't that make one feel disheartened?

Zhou Zeyu leaned against the edge of the sink, staring blankly at her face in the mirror. The longer she looked, the more unfamiliar the face seemed, even though it was actually on her own body.

The moment her tears burst forth, it felt as if something had emptied her heart at the same time. She belatedly realized that this was not her cramped dormitory in Beijing, where there was no one else behind the non-soundproof walls and no coach walking by in the corridor. She could cry out loud, just as she had once hoped.

But it wasn't until I had this right that I realized that so many years of tears had already poisoned my voice. I could have cried my heart out without caring about anyone else, but I couldn't make a sound when I opened my mouth.

Just like she had long been disappointed by the repeated events, and after being disappointed for a long time, she was like a deflated balloon, no matter how much you poked it, it wouldn't leak air, let alone break.

Fang Xiaocan finally managed to stop her tears. Hearing her sobbing faintly, she took a deep breath, as if trying her best to suppress her sorrow: "Take care of yourself. I'll pick you up when you get back to Beijing, and we'll go eat hot pot."

"Back to Beijing?" Zhou Zeyu pulled out a few tissues, only to find that he had run out. He tossed them aside and simply wiped his tears on his sleeve.

Overwhelmed with grief, she couldn't stop crying. Tears streamed down her face, which she wiped away haphazardly, leaving a messy stain. "What would I do if I went back to Beijing? I have nowhere to go!"

Fang Xiaocan felt even more depressed when she thought of this. She met Zhou Zeyu in Beijing. The two of them huddled together for warmth and helped each other. All the joys and sorrows of life were in Beijing. She never thought that one day she would hear the words "nowhere to go" from Zhou Zeyu's mouth.

It's too cold-hearted, it's too painful.

They all left their hometowns for Beijing in their youth, carrying naive and nascent aspirations, eager to make a name for themselves. They settled down in that small room, wanting to grow taller so they could see the world more clearly.

But later you realize that others can still uproot you without restraint, because in the vast and lush forest, everyone is scrambling to grab that scarce sun, so someone will always be eliminated.

Nobody wants to be like that, but who knows if they will become that kind of person?

So before them and after them, so many people still rushed forward one after another, without complaint or regret, working tirelessly, waiting for the final judgment of fate.

Lucky people, like Cen Zheng, have a smooth road ahead after their glorious athletic career. Even after retiring, they can still stay in the team, take a position or go into politics, and have a bright future.

Unfortunate people, like Zhou Zeyu, were deceived when they were young and naive, and then they were exploited for decades. Once they were drained dry and could no longer grow, they were ruthlessly uprooted.

So what is luck, and what is bad luck? And what are the criteria for judging whether someone is lucky or unlucky?

Fang Xiaocan's mocking voice came from the phone, sounding like self-mockery, but more like the bewilderment of struggling helplessly.

"Zhou Zeyu, what have we been after all these years?"

Zhou Zeyu closed his eyes. "If you really want something in return, that's fine. But isn't the worst thing to not ask for anything and end up getting nothing in return?"

They laughed in unison, but their laughter contained not a trace of joy, only pure bitterness.

"So what are you planning to do next?" Fang Xiaocan asked.

"What should we do?" Zhou Zeyi said. "I can't even give Feng Yifan my address, so what else do you think I should do?"

Fang Xiaocan didn't respond for a moment, as if she suddenly remembered something, and made a rustling sound. Zhou Zeyu waited for her to speak, but she remained hesitant.

"Go ahead and tell me, there's nothing I can't bear anymore."

Even after saying that, Fang Xiaocan remained silent. Zhou Zeyu had almost never seen her like this before. Fang Xiaocan was such a straightforward person, sometimes so outspoken that it made people angry. So what was it that she was unwilling to say?

Zhou Zeyu had a bad feeling, but Fang Xiaocan didn't give her a chance to confirm it. She didn't say anything, and left with that strange silence, followed by a long sigh.