When forgotten

In mid-December, a body was fished out of the lake. After the mother came back to identify the body, she looked at the familiar house in a mess. She walked somewhere, called Shunnian's class teacher, and asked for half a day off for him.

Then the mother went to the kitchen and cooked a meal that she had cooked countless times.

After the meal was ready, fifteen-year-old Bai Shunnian rushed home. His mother looked at Bai Shunnian's facial features, which were similar to her husband's, and was stunned for a moment before she slowly said, "The debt collectors have found us..."

Bai Shunnian was shocked when he heard this, and his dusty memories flipped over all the pages. It took him a while to understand the second half of his mother's words - "Your father committed suicide by jumping into the river a few days ago. He didn't die at home."

"...The body was found just yesterday." The mother looked at Bai Shunnian's bewildered look, stared into his eyes, and wanted to call him back.

She pondered for a moment, then continued, "Keep it a secret for now, Shunan. There's hot food on the table. After you finish eating..."

"Just go to school and study hard." The mother forgot the words she had prepared earlier and didn't know what to say. She turned and walked to the front of the house without looking back. "You take care of yourself. Adjust yourself. I will survive."

As soon as his mother closed the door, Bai Shunnian's body suddenly seemed to have lost its soul, and he fell to his knees on the ground, unable to support himself. After a while, he could hear faint crying.

A few days passed, and his mother's daily life continued as usual. Compared to his own collapse, Shunnian felt that this incident didn't seem to have brought much of a blow to his mother. In fact, he felt that his mother had been waiting for this day. Bai Shunnian inevitably thought of his parents' past quarrels when his father was still alive, and he couldn't help thinking that his mother might have played a role in his father's death.

A few days later, Shunan came back. He excitedly talked about what happened at school, his classmates, and his teachers...

Bai Shunnian listened and wanted to interrupt Bai Shunan several times. He didn't know why, but he didn't want to see Bai Shunan look like he knew nothing. He didn't notice that Bai Shunan didn't ask a single question about his father.

Seeing his mother being amused by Shunan again and again, Bai Shunnian couldn't stand it anymore. He left the dinner table, went back to his room, hid in the quilt and cried. When he couldn't help crying out loud, he bit the quilt and cried. The pain that had been accumulating in his heart for many days became more and more.

One night, when his mother was out, he probably wanted to talk to someone so badly that he couldn't help but tell Shunan, "Did you know that Dad is dead?"

Bai Shunan was stunned for a moment, and his eyes, which had been filled with joy a second ago, calmed down. "Brother, I know about this."

"How do you know?" Bai Shunnian looked at Bai Shunan in disbelief, his brows tightly furrowed. Could it be that he was talking in his sleep?

"The teacher talked to me."

Bai Shunnian looked at Bai Shunan's face and could not see any trace of sadness. For a moment, he saw his mother's calmness in Bai Shunan. It seemed that he was the only one in the family who was sad about his father's death. When he recalled the good memories, a great emptiness and unwillingness filled his heart. He controlled his trembling voice and said, "Aren't you sad?"

The orange tree reappeared in Bai Shunan's mind. He couldn't tell himself, "I don't feel anything. I just felt that this day, which would come sooner or later, had finally arrived."

Bai Shunnian took a half step back. He couldn't believe Bai Shunan would say that. He couldn't believe his brother Bai Shunan would be so cold-blooded and like a monster. Is this still his brother? Is this still Shunan? For a moment, confusion and anger came at the same time. He stepped forward and questioned: "What if it was Mom? What if it was me? How would you feel!"

"I have no idea."

When Bai Shunnian heard this, he walked forward and grabbed Bai Shunan's shoulders, "What are we in your eyes..."

As anger and shock raged, Bai Shunnian suddenly found the door hidden in his heart and vented his anger: "Why did I bring you back in the first place..."

After saying that, Bai Shunnian was stunned. Yes, why?

Bai Shunnian couldn't face Bai Shunan in front of him for a moment, so he turned around and walked out the door.

"You are the grapevines." Bai Shunan watched Bai Shunnian's departing back, tears falling unconsciously. At this moment, the answer in his heart surfaced, but no one could hear it, "I hope you live well."

…

No matter what crazy things you did the night before, you still need to continue working the next day.

Li Xuanyue rubbed her temples to relieve the dizziness in her head. She looked at the messages on her phone with frustration and resistance, wishing for a time machine...

Just as she was lost in thought, Lu Jinfeng walked up to her and sat on the chair next to her. He looked at the script with a look of resentment on his face. The sound of turning pages made Li Xuanyue very impatient. She came to her senses and said, "Enough."

Lu Jinfeng stopped flipping through the script and looked at Li Xuanyue as if she were a psychopath. "What are you crazy about?"

Li Xuanyue also flipped through the script, "Your brother asked if you would go home for your birthday. I thought you had a play that day and probably wouldn't be back that night, so I declined for you."

Lu Jinfeng didn't react much. He said calmly, "I understand."

After a while, Lu Jinfeng asked in confusion: "Why did he ask you and not me?"

"He used this as an excuse to say something else."

Lu Jinfeng said "Oh" lightly and said nothing more.

"Why don't I see Xiaoshun?"

"He didn't have any scenes these days, so his agent found him a dubbing job."

"Oh, I'm going to film somewhere else soon. Do you want to stay in the same room with him? A double room, a king-size bed room?"

"Live separately."

Li Xuanyue was not in the mood to tease Lu Jinfeng today. After she said "OK", she looked at Ah Hua who came in, quickly stood up and walked towards Ah Hua. She pulled her wrist and said, "Let's talk."

The two walked to a deserted, dimly lit area.

Li Xuanyue paused for a moment. They hadn't even met eyes during this time. Li Xuanyue stared at Ah Hua's purple cuffs, which were embroidered with a white flower and a few green leaves. "Do we have to separate?"

Ah Hua thought back to last night. Looking at Li Xuanyue in front of her, she couldn't bear to see her like this. Talking about the past, "You ran away from home all these years to make your parents give up. I believed in my choice, so I followed you."

She leaned against the wall, looking down at the fingers of her left hand stroking those of her right. "I spent many years typing in my rented room. You, a photographer at the time, were training with one crew after another. We rarely had the chance to spend time together, so when we suddenly got together, we were still passionately in love. Back then, I felt that love was enough, just a little love was enough."

"Every time we met, every time we caressed, it was only to satisfy our mutually yearning hearts and exhausted spirits. We were so busy that we had no time to nourish our love, allowing it to continue in vain." Ah Hua remembered something, her brows softened, and a faint smile began to appear on her face, a look of nostalgia. "But this is not a problem. We even made a promise: one day you will direct my script. This dream."

"Until today, we finally collaborated. The time we'd been waiting to spend together for so many years finally arrived, and I realized the problem between us. I didn't understand you at all. I saw you, but I still didn't understand you. And our interactions have become increasingly formulaic over the past ten miles. There's a rule that always stands between us. I won't cross it, and neither will you. We can't change for each other."

Ah Hua said her own verdict and looked up at Li Xuanyue beside her: "We have different paths to love."

Li Xuanyue suppressed the powerlessness in her heart and couldn't help but retort: ​​"I am willing to change, I..."

“You can’t leave the door open.”

Li Xuanyue was momentarily speechless upon hearing this answer. She stared blankly at Lin Jinghua (Ah Hua), her heart pounding with panic. In that moment, as the feeling of loss grew stronger, she finally understood why Ah Hua had kept looking at her these past few months. The separation had already been decided, and another glance from now on was a luxury, her obsession eleven years unerasable, the journey back undeniable.

"Do you remember the rental house we used to live in together? The door would creak if it wasn't closed tightly. Neither you nor I could stand those few seconds."

Li Xuanyue stood there blankly, watching Ah Hua's gentle smile, so calm that nothing else could be seen, yet so determined. Deep down, Li Xuanyue already knew; she couldn't refute her words, and no amount of argument would be of any use.

"Do you know why I chose Lu Jinfeng?" Lin Jinghua looked at Li Xuanyue, his gaze finally relaxed for a second, a slight ripple passing through his eyes, "He looks a bit like you..."

Li Xuanyue wanted to say something, but what words should she say to keep him? She had already missed the opportunity to speak in the silence.

She recalled the message she sent to Ah Hua last night: "Stay away from the window. I feel like smashing it."

That night she looked up for a long time, slowly shaking the bottle, her hands becoming increasingly nervous, afraid that if she broke the window, she would be unsafe, afraid that she would be accidentally injured...

Thinking of this, Li Xuanyue suddenly felt enlightened. Eleven years seemed like a blank, and she couldn't find the words to say. In this instant, she couldn't understand herself.

Lin Jinghua was silent for a moment, then lowered his head and whispered very softly, "Of all the people, he looks most like you."

Li Xuanyue swallowed the saliva in her mouth, and her breathing gradually slowed down. She lowered her eyes, made up her mind, and stopped looking at Lin Jinghua. She looked up at Ah Hua, "Lu Jinfeng, he is my brother."

Ah Hua laughed out loud, "I see, no wonder they look alike."

She stopped laughing, but her relaxed brows and eyes still showed a smile. "Sometimes when I look at him, I think I see you when you were younger."

Li Xuanyue looked at Ah Hua with a smile on her face and remembered that Ah Hua had not yet used the name Ah Hua and was still writing under her real name Lin Jinghua.

Thinking back to the beginning, in order to see Lin Jinghua more, she braved the wind and snow and ran all the way to her, just to give her a pen. She stepped back and then stepped forward. Lin Jinghua seemed to have noticed something and looked back.

At this moment, Li Xuanyue timidly called out Lin Jinghua's name. Her voice seemed to be suppressed by something, muffled and vague: "The director asked me to send it."

Lin Jinghua was surprised for a second, then looked at Li Xuanyue with a smile on her face. She took the pen from her hand and said, "Thank you."

The white snowman under the snow, with his bright red lips when smiling, is amazingly beautiful.

"Let's continue loving each other until the end of the movie, okay?"