Chapter 45
"I want to go to the store first. Can you take me there?" Zhou Yue walked out of the iron gate with her schoolbag on her back. The man looked down at her and lowered his hands respectfully, saying, "Yes, ma'am."
The bougainvillea trees were in bloom, like clusters of fiery red fireworks blooming among the green leaves that blocked out the sun. Zhou Yue stood under the swaying shadows of the trees. The steps were covered with petals and leaves, and there was no sound when she stepped on them.
"One, two, three..." She lowered her head and jumped up one step at a time. She wanted to count how many steps there were in this long staircase that seemed to have no end.
The sun shone through the lush treetops, and tiny but translucent spots of light looked like stars in the sky, floating on the moss-covered concrete steps when the wind blew. She remembered playing hopscotch in the Audit Office's staff quarters when she was a child, and she would jump for the whole afternoon. Kang Xingxing would move a small stool and sit under the tree to read, blending in with the tree's shadow, his brows knitted like iron lumps, concentrating. But every time she looked at him, he would immediately raise his head and smile at her with his big white teeth bared under the tree's shadow, like a little ghost afraid of the light.
She was always angry with him and scolded him during that period. Thinking about it now, it was the first time that little Zhou Yue at that age developed strange feelings for this ugly little black boy who ate and slept with her. She just wanted to sing for him alone and wanted him to be like he was when he was six or seven years old, with his chubby little black hands supporting his chin, lying on the stage and looking up at her in ecstasy. But he was different. Whenever it was time for the rehearsal of the evening party, he would hide in the last row of the small auditorium, turning into a huge black shadow, standing there motionless, leaving the front row seats to that group of smelly and annoying slugs.
He gave her everything, but never once said "I love you."
"Ten." She lowered her head and counted softly, her black leather shoes not moving at all on the steps.
She suppressed the heat in her eyes, looked up and smiled: "What a coincidence, it's exactly the tenth step."
He stood in the shadow of the tree, so thin that his cheekbones protruded, his face and eye sockets were sunken, his dull eyes and gray eyelashes drooped as he looked at her, his clear and dark pupils, like a calf waiting to be slaughtered, reflecting her evasive eyes, but he was clean-shaven, without a single stubble, and his black shirt was stained with the scent of toothpaste and shaving water.
"Madam, you should wait at home from now on. It's not safe to run around outside alone."
She looked up at him, her little fox eyes, which had been dancing with joy, drooped. He looked at her and his eyes drooped even more, his eyelashes blinking softly and slowly. "I'm saying it's better not to. It's not safe." He raised his head to look at her, the faint smile on his lips like an illusion cast by the shadows of the trees. "I'll pick you up."
Zhou Yue didn't say anything or nod. She turned around, folded her arms across her chest, lifted her legs high, and stomped her feet down. She stomped down the ten steps one by one, and walked silently on the quiet path in the early morning. Her blue skirt swayed left and right, like an angry butterfly, rushing across two streets and disappearing around a corner.
His car was still parked in the same spot. She rushed in first and slammed the door shut, lying down hard. The leather seat hurt the back of her head. She covered her head as she watched a large dark figure get in. He closed the door, not looking at her, but only at the front. His voice was like soft sand bathed in the sun, "I thought you were going to sit in the back again."
"Why should I sit in the back row? It's pitch black, I want to bask in the sun!" Zhou Yue yelled angrily at the white wall. After yelling, she heard no movement behind her. She turned her head and found that he was looking at her. He immediately lowered his eyes when she glared at him fiercely. The left corner of his mouth raised obediently and lostly, making the weird curve of the right corner of his mouth even more cruel. This time, Zhou Yue avoided her gaze and looked back at the wall. The vines on the wall were like scaly wounds. The wind blew and the whole body moved, and the pain went from outside the wall to her heart.
"I bought a lot of canned cat food for Xiaocao." He pointed to the back row and said with a smile. Zhou Yue turned her head and looked back. There was a cardboard box and two large bags of cat food, both printed with ZIWI. She glanced at him quickly and muttered, "It's such an expensive brand, just spoil her."
"I want the best for her."
"Humph, Xiaocao is a wild cat. Do you think it will remember you just because it ate Peak? Tomorrow, the neighbor's family is grilling hairtail fish, and you ran away without even looking back. You, on the other hand, are like a fool."
"Then when she runs out of fish to eat, she can still eat Peak Cat Food."
"Silly." She looked out the car window, raised her hand and quickly wiped away her tears, then looked down at her hand. The old scar was so itchy, as if it were alive, like a fish swimming in the water, flicking its tail and causing ripples. Shenzhen had been raining continuously for many years, and now it had finally stopped. The four seasons in the subtropical climate had become vivid and distinct.
A black glove covered her tear-stained eyelashes, with the smell of smoky leather, and then hot, dry lips covered her tear-soaked lips, taking away the bitter tears and bringing sweet syrup, "You taste like chocolate." She smiled with her eyes closed.
The kiss stopped. She took her hand away from her eyes and met a pair of eyes that were dark as a stone. His kiss was burning, but his eyes were cold. Half of his face was filled with crazy love for her, while the other half was filled with deep hatred for her. Her eyelashes brushed against his, and her delicate, soft eyelashes wrapped around his rough lashes. Tears flowed into his eyes, sliding down from the corners of his eyes, which were pockmarked by gunpowder fragments, like rain flowing through cracked fields...
"Xiao Yuan, little monkey," she licked his lips intoxicatedly, and his chin and Adam's apple were still stained with the fragrance of shaving water, "Do you like me?"
His smile turned vicious, and the left corner of his mouth was as split as the right corner, and the scar that was cut in half seemed to have cut his entire face apart.
"The first time I met Mr. Jiang, he asked me if I was willing to do something big with him. I didn't know what big things were, but I just wanted money. He said yes and waved his hand and gave me 500,000 yuan. But at the beginning, my job was very simple. I just drove him, took him to the company, took him home, and occasionally took him to some places, but these places were different every time. The women who opened the door were also different. Some were pure, some were wanton, each more beautiful than the other. The place they lived in was also very beautiful, with gardens, villas, and mountain villas... I was only fit to guard outside the door. The noise inside was so loud that I couldn't leave. I could only stand there and listen.
Mr. Jiang spends a fortune on his beloved, but I don’t understand. No matter how beautiful she is, she’s just a face, like a doll in a department store, just plastic with different makeup.
But one time, Mr. Jiang asked me to drive to a residential area. There was no one there. It was actually a half-finished building. The staircase was dark and dusty. I was very curious why Mr. Jiang would come to such a place. The door opened, and I stood at the dark staircase and looked up..."
He smiled and stroked her fair face and black hair with his palm. "I can't describe her as beautiful, she's alive. When she opens the door, everything comes alive."
He wiped the tears from her face and gently stroked her trembling and sobbing throat with the back of his hand. "I stood at the stairs. I could hear everything in the darkness. I could hear her singing. As she sang, she started crying. She kept crying. But President Jiang always came out with a smile. He sat in the car and sang the songs she sang, and he even rolled down the window to enjoy the evening breeze."
"After I'd been with Mr. Jiang for a while, I gradually went to those places less and less. Then I stopped asking and just drove to the unfinished building. Mr. Jiang was very happy and praised me for being smart and understanding."
He smiled and held her face in his hands, but his eyes lingered sadly in hers, "But I'm not smart at all. I want to see her. She has to open the door twice, once to welcome Mr. Jiang and once to send him off. That way, I can see her twice. Sometimes, she'll glance in my direction, frown, and turn away, but I'm still so happy."
She buried herself in his chest, her heart-wrenching screams and cries swallowed by his scarred chest. Her fists pounded against his chest, making it thud. His fingertips dug into her flesh through her torn black shirt, drawing a handful of boiling hot blood. But he only stared blankly at the white wall on her side and continued, "Later, I finally became Mr. Jiang's close friend and was able to spend a day with her in Shanghai. I wanted to go shopping with her, look at the novel gadgets on Sinan Road together, buy her perfume and refrigerator magnets, and eat crab meat dumplings together. But she never even looked at me. She was afraid of me and disgusted by me, but I was still so happy."
"Why are you crying?" The white wall reflected in his dark eyes was gray and hazy, like a glass marble forgotten in a corner by a child who had grown tired of playing with it. "You asked me if I like you. Does my liking you make you so miserable?"
…
At the end of the white wall outside the car is a small door. Entering through the small door is a narrow abandoned staircase left over from the construction. It is covered with rust and dust, but it leads to every corridor on the building.
Zhou Yue jumped onto the insect-eaten sofa, stomped her feet twice, kicking up a cloud of dust, then jumped onto a moldy table. She stretched her arms to keep her balance and stepped on the table legs to cross the ruins like walking on a tightrope. But she was not afraid, because he was below with his arms open to hold her. She jumped into his arms, like a colorful blue butterfly fluttering its wings back into the embrace of the sky, dancing freely among the clouds.
"Welcome home." She stood in front of the doormat, her skirt stained with mud, and raised her head to give him a wicked grin. "I'm going to turn your house into a mud puddle!" She put her arm around his waist, her fair skin still stained with tears, her eyes still delicately red. After entering the door, she asked carefully, "Do you welcome me?" He looked down at her, without saying a word. The curtains were still drawn in the living room, letting out no light. Only a pair of bright black eyes could be seen, like an iceberg melted by fire. His palms, covered with gun calluses, kneaded her waist and hips, causing a tremor. She tiptoed and kissed him on the mouth...
There were muddy footprints of all sizes and messy clothes everywhere. The dress was draped over the back of the chair, covered by the black shirt, with only a wet corner of the skirt exposed. A small table lamp was on in the bedroom, and the orange light turned into a hazy misty moon in front of her tearful eyes.
The violent shaking of the water shattered the moon's shadow, breaking it into a thousand little stars, which, along with a small pool of rippling sweat, swayed out from her shallow belly button, flowed across her naked, sweaty chest, raised neck and tense jaw, and flowed into her scattered hair along with her tears.
The messy hair was like a willow leaf that was blown up by a storm and then slammed into the water. It floated back and forth in the rapid and dull collision, and beads of sweat fell on the ground.
Even at such a time, he remained silent, only glaring at her fiercely with gritted teeth, as if he hated her to the core. His large, vein-baring hands gripped her waist, beads of sweat pattering on her face, making her speech incoherent. She kicked and bit him, cursing that he had "never seen a woman before." Her vine-like, slender legs, however, remained wrapped around his waist, and she kept calling out to him, while looking upside down at the torn packaging bag on the ground. Her soft fingers slid across his rolling Adam's apple, his sweat-soaked collarbone, and his wet chest muscles. With a wicked grin, she asked, "Why do you have this at home? Who have you used it on?" But as soon as she finished speaking, she screamed and threw away her armor in a storm. Through her tearful eyes, he looked at her solemnly, his voice tinged with lust, "Are you qualified to ask me this question?"
Outside the window, birds were chirping happily, but the corners of her mouth, which were raised, drooped painfully. She cried and stopped looking at him. She tilted her neck and let the tears flow. In the long silence, she could only hear his heavy breathing.
"Angry?"
"No." She choked and shook her head. After a while, the light in front of her eyes was blocked by a dark shadow. He stretched his head to look at her carefully and whispered, "I haven't touched other women, really."
She almost laughed out loud, then asked sternly, "Then why would there be one?" He remained silent. She sneered, "Humph, so you've had this evil intention for a long time?"
This time he also smiled, lying on her chest, the scar on his lip rubbing against her skin, making her skin itchy and furry, and she let out a muffled "hmm".
…
The boarding student who was never late for school was late today. She was very beautiful, spoke softly, and listened to the class more attentively than anyone else. She would smile innocently when anyone asked to borrow her notes, and say "OK" while tucking her hair behind her red ears, as if she felt happy that someone was willing to read her notes. All the classmates and teachers in the class liked her, so no one blamed her when she slipped in from the back door with her schoolbag in her arms, her face flushed with shame.
There is always a man wearing a black mask following her. Not only does he wear a mask, but he wears everything black, a black shirt and black pants. When it's cold, he wears a black suit. He looks like a big Tibetan mastiff, and his muscles look like steel even through the fabric.
Students from other colleges who knew about the situation would always say with certainty and disdain that the day students from the Faculty of Arts were the boss's concubines and that the Tibetan Mastiffs were bodyguards hired by the boss to protect his darlings.
The story told by such people shows that the world is in decline. Now that they have a rich sponsor, prostitutes dare to pretend to be cultured and put on a show. They can easily get a diploma from a prestigious university by just flipping through a few pages of a book and attending classes only one day a week. What's more, when they see her in the library, they refuse to touch the seat she sat in or the books she read.
"They are right, that's exactly what happened." The day student and the big Tibetan mastiff walked one after the other in the sunset campus, basking in the golden sunset. Rumors came with the evening breeze and were blown away by the evening breeze. However, she was jumping and strolling under the century-old trees like a happy little bird, dancing in the deserted octagonal pavilion and the ancient bell garden. She turned in a circle, and her blue skirt fluttered like a butterfly's wings, dancing lightly and gracefully, with every step blooming. The melodious singing echoed in the quiet woods and drifted into the cracks of the red brick wall of the Hundred Years of Solitude.
No one knew who she was dancing for, or who she was singing for. She never looked at the dark shadow behind her, nor did she talk to it. Her schoolbag and water bottle were all hanging on him, and she walked in front with her hands behind her back, like a leader inspecting work, laughing so hard that her mouth stretched to the back of her ears, and no one knew what she was laughing at.
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