Light in the sugar
As the night deepened, everything was silent, only the fan was still humming, which was not very noisy, but on the contrary made people feel at ease.
Cheng Xiaorui lowered his head and found himself standing on a green field. When he looked up, he squinted his eyes and looked at something not far away. In the picture, an adult's face was filled with a smile. He bent down and ruffled the child's black hair. The breeze blew, and the adult's hair raised a gentle arc.
"Mom, look!" The five-year-old child held up a freshly caught grasshopper, its transparent wings reflecting a rainbow of colors in the sunlight. The mother reached out and pinched the child's chubby cheeks, her smile familiar to Cheng Xiaorui.
The little boy suddenly turned to look at Cheng Xiaorui, his eyes as clear as black grapes. The young mother followed her child's gaze and nodded and smiled at him. Cheng Xiaorui subconsciously raised his hand to respond, but found that his palm was becoming transparent in the sunlight.
"wait……"
The mother's smile suddenly froze. The sky faded in an instant, the green shade of the sycamore trees turned gray, and the grasshopper in the child's hand turned into a dead branch. Cheng Xiaorui's cry caught in his throat, and the park bench twisted into a hospital corridor handrail.
Darkness swallowed up the last ray of sunlight, and Cheng Xiaorui's feet suddenly felt empty, falling into a cold white expanse.
At first, he stood in the hospital corridor, the lights glaring pale, the walls looking frighteningly pale as if washed countless times. But the ward doors on either side of the corridor were all shut. There were no doctors, no nurses, not even the coughs or groans of other patients. Only his footsteps echoed in isolation, as if forgotten by the world.
The door at the far end was slightly ajar, a faint ray of light leaking through the crack. That was his mother's hospital room, but he didn't know it. Cheng Xiaorui walked towards it, until he found that no matter how hard he walked, he was getting further and further away, as if he would never reach it. The corridor began to twist, the walls collapsed like melted wax, and the ceiling pressed down, suffocating him.
Finally, he stumbled open the door. The ward was empty, save for a single bed, its sheets smooth as if no one had ever slept in it. The drug bag on the IV stand was still dripping, but the bed was empty. The window was wide open, its white curtains billowing in the wind.
He rushed over, trying to grab something, but his fingers only touched the cold edge of the bed. Outside the window was an endless gray fog, no sky, no ground, only nothingness. He opened his mouth, wanting to call out "Mom", but no sound came out.
There was a piece of paper under the pillow on the hospital bed. He picked it up with trembling hands, but the words on the paper were disappearing little by little, like ink soaked by water, and finally only a blank space remained.
The wind suddenly stopped, the curtains fell, and the ward fell into silence. He stood there, with no one behind him, not even a shadow.
When Cheng Xiaorui woke up, cold sweat soaked his forehead. He climbed up from the bed, and suddenly his eyes went dark. It took him a long time to stand up. He stumbled to the bathroom and washed his face with cold water, trying to break the panic.
Cheng Zhixu's door was half open. Cheng Xiaorui glanced inside. The slanting moonlight made his mother's face look a little pale, and her breathing was so light that the rise and fall of her chest was almost invisible. His heart trembled, and he gently closed the door.
In the morning, as Cheng Xiaorui washed up, he saw a fair face reflected in the mirror. The only flaw was his swollen eyes. "Cheng Cheng! Come and have breakfast," Cheng Zhixu said softly, glancing towards the bathroom.
Cheng Xiaorui didn't say anything, but he responded inwardly. After sitting down, he lowered his head to eat breakfast. Cheng Zhixu didn't notice. When they got to the store, they were already changing into their work clothes. Today was the Lesser Heat, marking the beginning of midsummer. The first day of summer vacation was packed with people.
At noon, the sun was hotter than usual. They had a simple lunch and returned to the store.
As I walked through the door, the light gently diffused, and the space felt more spacious than I had imagined. The shelves weren't crowded, but rather arranged at just the right distance, as if each item had room to breathe.
A cooler stretched along the wall, its glass thinly misted, revealing the neatly stacked drinks inside: tea, wine, milk, each in its proper place. Further in, a few bunches of vegetables, still dripping with moisture, lay in the fresh produce cabinet. On the adjacent shelves, the selection of snacks and daily necessities was unassuming, yet sufficient to cover the everyday needs of life.
There's a small table next to the cashier, where someone occasionally sits down, unwraps their freshly bought rice balls, and takes a short break with a cup of hot coffee. It's not a grand place, but its relaxed spaciousness reminds me of the old corner grocery store that once had everything, only brighter and quieter.
Cheng Xiaorui was scrolling through his phone when the soft click of the door opening made him look up. A man, carrying a chubby little boy on his shoulders, slowly walked into the store. His fingertips hovered above the screen, and he suddenly felt dazed, as if some long-lost memory was leaking through his fingers...
When Lu Xuhan was six years old, his family of three moved into a new house. He wasn't even called Cheng Xiaorui yet. His father took his little hand and led him into a super-famous grocery store. It was said they had a complete selection of food and drink items, and the owner was very generous. If you spent over 20 yuan, you could take one daily item away for free.
"Hello, boss!" Lu Xuhan greeted with a childish voice, smiling, "We're here to buy something!"
"Hey, whose little baby is this? It's so cute, why haven't I seen it before?" The old man, who was about forty or fifty years old, put down his bamboo fan, stood up from the recliner, pushed his reading glasses, and was full of curiosity.
"We just got here not long ago." Lu Xuhan was still smiling, but her face was a little red. She was a little shy when she was praised for being cute. The old man suddenly stood up and pinched Cheng Xiaorui's cheek, "You are so good. Go and see for yourself what you want to buy."
"Let's go, Xuhan, and see if there is any Swiss roll that you like." Lu Xubai picked up the child with one hand and nodded to the boss.
After returning home, Cheng Zhixu walked over barefoot. "Xu Bai? Where did you take Xu Han again?" She reached out and wiped the cream off Lu Xu Han's face. "Did you go to buy Swiss rolls?"
"Ah Xu, why aren't you wearing shoes again? The ground is cold." Lu Xubai didn't answer the previous question. Instead, he turned around and went to the shoe cabinet to pick up the slippers. He squatted down and put them on Cheng Zhixu. "Don't forget what I said again." After saying that, he gently tapped her forehead.
"Oh." Cheng Zhixu curled his lips, but there was a smile in his eyes.
"I'll cook tonight. I've bought some groceries." Lu Xubai washed the vegetables and turned back to remind them, "My two adults, please go watch TV."
Cheng Zhixu smiled back.
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"Hello? Can I check?" Cheng Xiaorui snapped back to reality. The customer was waving in front of him, looking puzzled. He quickly apologized, scanned the code, packed up his food, and finally slipped a candy to the customer.
"When I was a kid... the owner of that store was always like this." He looked down at the candy wrapper and smiled silently.
In late July, Cheng Xiaorui's life was dull, doing repetitive things every day.
While other children were still dreaming of the countdown to Disneyland, he was already squatting in the corner of a convenience store, neatly stacking boxes of drinks. His mother was counting the money at the counter, and the sound of the calculator "zero, zero" was like a countdown, reminding him: no miracles will happen this summer.
Outside the window, sunlight shone like molten gold on the road. Occasionally, a peer would speed by on a bicycle, a swimming ring in its basket, their laughter like a string of bubbles blown away by the wind. Cheng Xiaorui lowered his head and continued to wipe the dust off the shelves. His fingers brushed against the dusty glass, blurring his face.
It doesn’t matter, mother will always make something sweet.
During the hottest afternoon hours, when there were few customers in the store, Cheng Zhixu would pull out a cardboard box from under the counter containing a Swiss roll. His mother would smile and say, "Chengcheng, take a break and have something to eat."
The goods are sold out, but there is always another batch. Bills are like weeds, they can never be cut and they keep growing.
One day, he was squatting at the door of the store, eating a popsicle, when he saw a snail slowly crawling across the cement floor. He suddenly found it funny - it turns out that some lives in this world are born to move slowly.
However, when the setting sun dyed the whole street orange, his mother secretly put a candy in his pocket and said, "You have worked hard today." He looked at the bicycles speeding past the window and thought:
“Some people’s summer is colorful, while mine is transparent. However, transparent things can reveal more light.”
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