Orange Sea

The two were very close to each other, and Bai Luo's red eyes were glaring in the grayness.

The girl's pupils were a rare ice blue, as cold as her hair color.

However, he saw his own love and hate reflected in it.

Silent, ethereal, and chaotic.

The trees are growing wildly, the weeds are endless, life is burning, but no one knows for whom it is burning.

Even more than he was, the girl was like a mist that had strayed into the human world. To her, the future was a mirage suspended at the end of the horizon.

Water was flowing in the kitchen, and the faint jasmine scent of detergent permeated the air.

The dim light of the street lamp cast the boy's shadow on the mottled wall.

Aloof, slender, with a "don't bother me" attitude.

Looking at the back figure illuminated by the darkness, Bai Luo called his name for the first time.

The tone was awkward and hesitant, but extremely sincere.

"Thin... thin (diàn)."

The person at the windowsill sink was flushing the last bit of foam from the bowl into the whirlpool.

The sound of water suddenly faded for a moment. A gentle voice scraped across his eardrum, startling him.

He frowned, and the corners of his lips rose slightly, almost laughing out loud.

Which kid pronounces "阽" as "diàn"?

"阽" is pronounced "yán", which means "dangerous but not falling". It was the name given to him by his mother.

He turned slowly, water dripping down the back of his hand and into the sink. His eyes met hers, moist and ambiguous.

That's fucking outrageous.

This was the first time in his twenty years of life that someone had mispronounced his name.

Thin (bó yán).

As the name suggests, he is ruthless and dangerous. Anyone who gets close to him will die.

But she pronounced it as "bó diàn".

So thin that it's at the bottom? What the hell?

"Thank you."

She let out a long sigh.

The figure leaning against the dark cupboard paused for a moment. As the light and shadow played on his brows, a smile appeared for a moment and then immediately disappeared into darkness.

Tsk.

The girl understands the fickleness of human nature and knows that one should express gratitude for even the smallest bit of kindness.

But a word of "diàn" is more touching than gratitude.

It's wrong, so be it.

Anyway, he didn't intend to correct it.

Just let her call it that.

Call me for a lifetime.

Her fingertips were stained with moisture. She casually raised her hand, tucked her silver-gray hair behind her ears, raised her eyebrows, and spoke with a lazy and piercing voice.

"Thank you? What do I want from you?"

“…”

Bai Luo was confused. How did she know what he wanted from her?

But the gratitude is real.

It's not a courtesy, it's not etiquette, it's gratitude engraved in our blood and bones.

Thank him for staying overnight on a snowy night, thank him for remembering my birthday when no one knew about it, thank him for handing me a bowl of steaming hot fireworks.

In the interplay of light and shadow, the mischievousness in Bo Xi's eyes faded away, revealing his 100% seriousness.

“Eat well and live well.”

＿＿

He had seen her too many times.

I saw her walking home against the blizzard in Hangzhou and Hong Kong, the wind and snow made her almost transparent.

The footprints on the stone road were of varying depths, sinking with each step.

I saw her red and swollen eyes after she hung up the phone. The humid night breeze blew past, and her beautiful eyes were watery.

The person on the other end of the phone didn't understand her, but he knew that she could hardly hold on any longer.

I've seen her curled up in stomach pain, her hands on her abdomen, and her steps staggering.

I don’t know if there are any medicines in the rental house. My hands are empty and the wind leaks through my fingers.

So he wanted to give her a hand and save her.

It wasn't out of pity, nor was it a spur of the moment decision. He just couldn't bear to see her living such a dark life when she was so bright.

So what if he is a boy and imprisoned in Nanfeng Lane?

The alley is broken and my heart is broken. It cannot be repaired and I don’t intend to repair it.

But she is different.

She is the one who should be held in the palm of your hand, wear a beautiful dress, receive flowers, and be treated gently.

Girls are born to be pampered, protected and illuminated.

Instead of carrying studies, rent, cold eyes, and illness alone, forcing the whole world onto your thin spine and stumbling along.

The world was rotten, and she shouldn't be a piece of it.

He couldn't hold himself up, but he wanted to hold her up.

The end of sinking is not destruction.

They are two broken people, relying on each other's strength, crawling towards the dawn step by step.

He is not a savior, but he is determined to pull her out of the mud and live as light.

And she deserves to be favored once.

＿＿

Standing in the night, Bai Luo stared at him blankly. The light in the boy's eyes seemed to gather all the gloom of the snowy night and condense it into a pool of tenderness.

People say that salvation is touching the warmth of another person.

The burning heat in his eyes, does that mean he wants to save her completely?

What about him? What is he?

She was just a wounded person who didn't deserve the light.

What she asked for was always humble.

Even a moment of mother's tenderness is only one thousandth.

But the mother's indifference is colder than a blizzard and more deadly than a long night.

Her red eyes revealed the vast white world, and she heard her own response, which was a thousand times warmer than the ice and snow outside the window.

"good."

She promised him to eat well and live a good life.

The boy who had been swallowed by darkness thousands of times finally caught the tail of light.

They did not talk about their injuries or expose their scars, but they reached out to each other with a tacit understanding.

A pair of ruthless hands lifted each other up, trampled fate underfoot, climbed to the top, watched the mountains and rivers boiling, and the sky and earth regained their light.

This snowy night could never be clean again from the moment she agreed.

It's already fucking dirty.

*

The curtains on the old-fashioned casement windows were faded and yellowed. The wind sneaked in through the cracks and lifted a corner of the drapes.

Gray light seeped in from the sky, but it was not enough to dispel the shadows in the bedroom.

Bo Xi was probably awakened by the cold.

On the first day of the new year, it came true in an absurd way.

When he opened his eyes, his pupils were fixed, and there was not a trace of human sleepiness in his cold clarity.

He is never confused, especially when facing a situation that is out of control.

His silver-gray hair was disheveled and hanging in disarray, shadows covering most of his face, and the ends of his hair were stained with a faint mist from last night's cigarette butts.

＿＿

Last night, he was smart enough to lie on the sofa in the living room for half an hour, and waited for her to "fall asleep" before sneaking back to the room like a shadow.

This is to avoid the discomfort of two people being in the same room.

But when he pushed the door open, he was stunned.

The girl sat cross-legged on the quilt, her eyes fixed on the screen of her mobile phone, her spirits bright as day.

He glanced at it briefly and saw a string of messages scrolling across the WeChat interface.

We are chatting.

Suddenly, my heart was shaken and a bolt of thunder split my thoughts.

Does the girl have a boyfriend?

She walks alone at night, eats rice balls alone, and returns to her rental house alone, her back lonely.

But loneliness is never a proof of being single.

Long-distance relationship?

Maybe she has an "electronic boyfriend" in the cloud.

There have been rumors on the campus forum for a long time, and they are very convincing:

Bai Luo has a boyfriend.

Although the person did not show up, his presence was very strong.

The incident dates back to the end of the New Year's Eve party in my sophomore year.

The lights were about to go out, the lingering sound of music was still there, the host came on stage to announce the end of the show, and the audience was about to applaud.

A heart-wrenching cry shook the whole world to pieces and threw the entire audience into disarray.

"Is it so difficult to come back and see me?"

"You know I have depression."

"You've never loved me in all these years."

Behind the thin red curtain, a frail figure was curled up in the shadows.

The host and backstage staff hurried forward and were shocked to find that it was Bai Luo crying uncontrollably.

Her hair was disheveled, tear-stained, and her knuckles were tightly gripping the curtain.

The makeup is smudged, the person is broken, and the disguise is shattered.

On the stage, the applause froze, the laughter froze, and only her intermittent sobs remained.

At that time, he sat in the front row of the judges' seats and watched coldly.

She can walk through the night alone, look down on worldly romance with a cold eye, and say stubbornly, "I don't need it."

But that night, she knelt in the shadows and cried like a fool abandoned by the whole world.

Embarrassing, out of control, and undignified.

Later, the forum exploded.

"Bai Luo cries bitterly backstage" became a hot post, with each title more explosive than the last.

Some say she broke up with her boyfriend because of a broken heart, while others imagine it was a melodramatic drama from a TV drama.

There are also female classmates from my past, with a sour green light in their eyes, who are splattering words on the Internet.

They said she skipped classes in high school and was addicted to Internet cafes, that she was used to seducing other people's boyfriends, and that she appeared cold on the surface but was actually very scheming.

But Bai Luo didn't explain, didn't confront, and didn't say "It's not me".

It's like he has disappeared from the face of the earth, allowing rumors to grow wildly.

He only found out about it when the storm was almost over.

No more nonsense, just get to work, delete all the obscene words one by one, and clear the forum of filth.

But there are always some ghosts that linger, hiding in the corners of the forum and continuing to spread poison using letter codes.

“AL”, “BL”… those who understand understand, and those who don’t understand pretend to understand.

Although he didn't mention her by name, every sentence pointed to her.

The funny thing is, the more they scolded her, the quieter she became.

Don't argue, don't quarrel, don't prove yourself.

When the rumors started spreading, everyone believed that her private life was chaotic and disgusting.

Passersby followed suit and pointed fingers, while onlookers watched coldly, as if she were already a sinner.

In fact, Bai Luo had never read those crappy posts at all.

I haven't even logged into the campus forum. I don't even bother to enter, let alone pay attention.

The clear will be clear, and the turbid will be turbid.

But she didn't care at all.

Time will speak, and she is only responsible for living beautifully.

＿＿

A biting cold wind blew into the small bedroom, and the air felt chilly.

Bai Luo must have felt the cold snap, but he was in a deep sleep and only hunched his shoulders.

Unconsciously, he followed the source of heat, like a tired cat, and threw himself directly into Bo's arms.

The originally sober Bo Xi was shocked and his pupils shrank suddenly.

Her messy hair brushed across his chin, and a slight itch ran into his heart.

His frozen fingers even climbed up the collar of his pajamas.

Hold.

The girl is so brave.

The dim light in the room was just enough to outline her silhouette, which was ambiguous and deadly.

The next second, she moved again, curling her toes and feeling the cold, snow-like touch on his calf.

"……Grass."

Bo Xi's brain froze on the spot.

Back off, afraid of startling her.

He pushed, his hands hanging in the air, refusing to fall.

A man who has lived for twenty years, always aloof and self-restrained, never crossing the line and showing no weakness, is forced into a corner by a sleeping girl.

His nerves short-circuited. His mind went blank. He lowered his brows and looked at her carefully.

Her sleeping face is peaceful and innocent, with a sickly blush on her cheeks and her long eyelashes drooping quietly, as if she is pretending to be asleep and innocent.

But the more innocent she seemed, the more sober he became. They were just bedmates, each seeking warmth, neither taking responsibility.

But what right did she have? Why did she dare to snuggle into his arms even when she was asleep? Why did she dare to grab his collar even when she was freezing? Why did she… make him feel that all this absurdity actually felt a bit like "home"?

If she woke up and saw herself half-huggled by him, would she laugh at him for being hypocritical? Would she call him a prudish person?

But he couldn't move. It wasn't that he couldn't, it was that he didn't dare. He was afraid that if he moved...

He tried to pull the quilt to wrap her tightly, but his movements were as stiff as a rookie defusing a bomb for the first time, and his hands were shaking so much that he almost pulled her hair.

Her toes pressed against his calves, feeling cold like a sin and warm like a punishment.

I closed my eyes and finally accepted my fate.

He had always been in control of everything, except for her, where he was completely defeated.

Defeated by her unconscious rubbing, sticking, and breathing.

He didn't move until dawn.

*

The snowstorm finally stopped, like a madman who had had enough of the chaos and stopped.

Bai Luo woke up from a nightmarish sleep and looked out through the glass window dotted with mottled ice flowers.

The alley was buried in snow, leaving only a narrow crack, and the snow was so thick that it could swallow up the entire spring.

An old city is frozen in the eyes.

I stretched casually, unlocked my phone, and the screen lit up: half past nine.

In the days when I didn’t have a part-time job, I allowed myself to sleep soundly for the first time. The night was dreamless and as quiet as winter.

Suddenly, a sharp, sharp pain stabbed in her abdomen. She frowned, remembering that her period always arrived at the beginning of the month.

My first reaction was to get out of bed, put on my slippers, and bend over to check the sheets.

The moment he lifted the quilt, his sight met the bright red, his pupils suddenly widened in shock.

Just then, the bedroom door was pushed open, and the daylight slanted into the room, exposing her embarrassing situation in the dim light.

He frantically pulled the sheets and piled them in front of him, but the quilt had lost its support and fell limply into a mess.

Bo Yi thought she was still fast asleep, so when he went in to get his headphones, he happened to witness a ridiculous cover-up.

His eyes swept across and fell on a touch of red, and he understood instantly.

Bai Luo turned his stiff neck, and his sight met the glaring red marks on the sheets.

It felt like being burned, and his fingertips trembled as he grasped the wrinkles and pressed the fabric hard towards the crimson area.

"It wasn't intentional. Deal with it immediately."

Her voice was tight, with a hint of self-restrained coldness.

"I have a spare four-piece suit, I'll put it on for now."

She raised her head, her black eyelashes stained with traces of embarrassment, and she was embarrassed and at a loss for words.

It was just the first night and such a misunderstanding happened.

Bo Xi leaned against the door frame, a faint smile on the corner of her lips, slowly peeling off all her disguised calmness.

"Do you need my help?"

"Just get out."

The snow vapor in the air was faint, and Luo Bai only felt a burning fire silently spreading across his cheeks.

“…”

Bo Xi saw through her pretense at a glance and stopped disturbing her. Even the earphones he wanted to take away were left as a shadow in the gap between the doors.

All that was left was the sound of a door closing and the mess in the room.

In the low bedroom, silence fell again.

In a moment, the sharp sound of shattering glass and unbearable insults came from upstairs.

The soundproofing facilities of the entire building were useless, and the hoarse curses sometimes broke and sometimes stuck together, grinding the auditory nerves inch by inch.

Bai Luo leaned over the suitcase and took out the bedding he had stockpiled during the October sale.

The milky white background, the heart bear embroidery is exaggerated and ostentatious, and the English letters are crookedly interspersed.

Cute enough and childish enough.

Suddenly, a strong wind blew outside the window, making a whistling sound.

The azure light from the sky surged into the room, and the newly changed sheets and quilt cover were out of place with the single black and gray pillow.

I took the initiative to get my own white pillowcase and covered it with it.

When she left the house, carrying the wrinkled, dirty sheets, the living room was so empty she could hear an echo. No one was around, no sound, and no one was waiting for her.

After all, I'm not used to being with strangers.

Until you are sure that the thin joint is gone and the tense shoulder line collapses.

The bathroom, which is less than three square meters, is filled with a musty smell that has lingered for years.

The glass windows were covered with dust, and the sunlight was filtered out, leaving only a wisp of light.

The sheets and pillowcases weren't suitable for washing machines and had to be hand-washed. A cheap plastic basin sat in the corner, and the rusty iron frame around the basin hurt my knuckles.

Turn on the faucet, and turbid cold water drips out, as if seeping out from a dilapidated blood vessel.

Bai Luo pumped a few pumps of her own laundry detergent, the label on the bottle frayed. She couldn't touch anyone else's.

Mysophobia is not a habit, it is a boundary.

The liquid droplets fell into the water, spreading out circles of silver-gray foam.

When I was about to sink the bed sheet into the basin of water mixed with clear foam, a cold wind suddenly rushed in from the walls on all sides, and collided with a warning sound that was not clear whether it was warm or cold.

"To the left is hot water."