Chapter 62
"Give me one too," Zhou Yue said.
Jiang Huai turned around and looked at her carefully, "You can't see clearly either?"
"Yes." Zhou Yue rubbed her eyes. "I didn't have myopia in my senior year of high school, but now I feel like I can't see things clearly." She smiled and said, "Maybe I'm getting old."
"Oh, I'm not even thirty yet, and you're telling me I'm old." Jiang Huai smiled bitterly and turned to look outside the car. It was almost Chinese New Year, and the streets of Shenzhen were busier than usual. The huge advertising screens on the high-rise buildings were switching luxury goods advertisements back and forth. The stern-faced white models were looking expressionlessly at the ant-like people under the skyscrapers. In this day and age, even when promoting hedonism and consumerism, one has to use such a cold expression. It's true that the sellers are more powerful than the buyers.
Zhou Yue's memories became small cubes, and from time to time she would open one of them. At this moment, she thought of the years after Dai Yan ran away. Every time Kang Xingxing took her to the butcher shop in the vegetable market to buy pork, the proprietress would sit on a wooden chair with her legs crossed, holding a handful of sunflower seeds, spitting out the shells, and not even looking up: "What are you buying?"
She wasn't like this to every customer, but she didn't smile at Kang Xingxing and Zhou Yue. They were all neighbors, so they knew each other. Besides, nine out of ten customers who came to pick up cheap dishes during the night market were poor and picky, so she would not be nice to such customers.
"Auntie, can you show me this piece?" "Can you show me that piece?"
Kang Xingxing's face became blurry in Zhou Yue's memory. He only remembered a dark, calm face, which looked calmly at the proprietress and pointed at the meat cut into strips on the chopping board. They came late and there were not many pieces of good meat left. He picked the only good piece, which was a little bit of skin and fat hanging from the tendons. He politely said to the proprietress, "Auntie, can you help me cut this..."
"Hey, why are you so fussy?" The lady boss chopped the meat with her kitchen knife. "If you want to buy, go somewhere else! Look at what I've done to your meat!"
People always release viciousness at some point. Maybe the boss lady was really tired and annoyed that day. Her life of getting up early and going to bed late might not be satisfactory, so she released viciousness.
Her puffy eyes moved from Kang Xingxing's face to Zhou Yue's, and she laughed sarcastically, "No money? If you don't have money, ask your sister to earn it. You're so energetic, why are you still studying? Once you climb onto the kang of some powerful person, won't you and your sister be able to rule the three northeastern provinces?"
The proprietress was domineering, but she was dealing with a young man after all. After a while, a man came out from behind with his arms crossed, staring coldly at Kang Xingxing and Zhou Yue.
The sunset that day was particularly dazzling. Zhou Yue couldn't see his face clearly in her memory. She only remembered his soft, curled eyelashes slowly blinking once, then again, and finally drooping, along with his head. His voice remained calm, "Then this one will do. Please weigh it for me. Thank you."
Zhou Yue didn't say a word in the butcher shop. She didn't dare. She would always hide behind Kang Xingxing. For herself, for Dai Yan, for anyone, she could push him out as a matter of course, let him bear it, let him sacrifice, just because he loved her, loved her very much.
But after leaving the butcher's shop, she became angry again, crying and yelling at him: "Just buy it! Why are you so picky?"
Zhou Yue remembered the proprietress's face and the face of the man standing behind her, but she could not remember Kang Xingxing's face at all.
She only remembered that evening her shadow was stretched particularly long by the setting sun, and she remembered her extreme humiliation, rushing in front alone, her tears could not be wiped away, and they fell to the ground with a crackling sound, raising the dirt.
Kang Xingxing followed her silently, carrying the piece of pork, and the plastic bag kept dripping blood onto the ground.
"You are tired from studying. You should eat something good." This was his answer. Then he said something else. He said it with a smile, as relaxed as when he picked her up from school every evening. He said that he picked up a puppy from Lin Peng's barbecue stall today. It was very well-behaved. He fed it water and meat... He said that after he sent her to school in the morning, he met the girl who had the best relationship with Zhou Yue in junior high school when he went to the construction site. He remembered that her surname was Long, but he forgot her first name. He asked Zhou Yue if she remembered it... Zhou Yue said nothing, just cried. When she could no longer cry, she walked in front with her swollen red eyes and drooped head, looking dispirited.
The two of them walked, one in front and one behind, onto the Bridge of Sighs. Kang Xingxing slowly stopped, and she, sensing the same, stopped as well. She lowered her head, watching her shadow being cut by the steps, and heard him say with a smile behind her, "Yueyue, I'm sorry for making you suffer so much."
"Yueyue, are you happy with me?"
What did she answer, what did she answer, what did she answer... In the priceless Rolls-Royce Phantom, Zhou Yue couldn't remember what she answered the day she came out of the pork shop where flies were flying everywhere.
That was when they were fifteen or sixteen. They reconciled quickly, but he never took her to buy pork again. When he came to pick her up from school, he would carry pork in his hand. When his bicycle dinged and rode up the Bridge of Sighs in the warm sunset, the plastic bag of pork swayed gently from side to side...
"I didn't even ask you."
Zhou Yue looked at the towering skyscrapers and the white model looking down on everyone. Her voice was so soft that even Jiang Huai, who was sitting next to her, couldn't hear it. He turned his head in confusion and saw her looking up at the window, her gray eyes covered with a layer of white film under the gloomy sky.
"Are you happy with me?"
Jiang Huai heard this clearly, and Liao Jie, who was driving in the front, also heard it clearly. He looked at her in the rearview mirror and continued driving.
Jiang Huai snorted with a cold face and looked forward, "How could you have lived until now if you were not happy?" He wore the Buddhist beads and wedding ring on his left hand. He tapped his knee with his fingers for a while, and fiddled with the ring with his eyes downcast, adjusting the words "Je t'aime." "What about you?" His tone was casual.
"Happy." Zhou Yue smiled like the moon, "So happy."
"You're quite good at pleasing others today." Jiang Huai snorted, and the corners of his mouth curled up a little. He leaned towards Zhou Yue and looked up to follow her gaze. "What do you like?"
Just then, the screen on the skyscraper flipped over and showed an advertisement for the Bulgari Serpenti necklace. He glanced at her and asked, "Do you like it?"
"I don't like it." Zhou Yue looked back at the car, "They are all worthless things."
"Well, your vision is better now, better than when we first met." Jiang Huai frowned, recalling how rustic and rural she looked when they first met, holding a spittoon and saying she would help him go to the toilet. It was really funny. He smiled and patted his trouser legs, lowered his head and smoothed them once, then again, the smile on his lips was as cold as fireworks.
"Ajie." He looked up and called out. Liao Jie glanced up at the advertisement screen while driving and said, "Okay, Mr. Jiang."
The shop where I get glasses is in a secluded corner. The antique eaves have been dyed black by the rain. The bamboo forest and red lanterns are swaying together. The hazy lights illuminate the duckweed and lotus leaves in the lake that are being beaten by the drizzle. A small boat is parked far away in the middle of the lake, floating and swaying in the rain.
Zhou Yue followed Jiang Huai, Liao Jie followed behind her, and there were a few familiar faces following in front and behind. The group walked past one pillar after another. She saw the bow of the small boat turn around several times. The boat was dark and there was no one in it. No one knew what its purpose was. It should be to add interest to the ancient town.
"It's right there." Jiang Huai smoothed his hair back and looked back at Zhou Yue with a calm expression. Zhou Yue followed the direction he pointed and saw a wing room under the eaves with the lights on. There was originally another person in the store, who looked like a backpacker who came to Shenzhen to play, looking around and visiting. But before Jiang Huai and the others could go in, he was asked to leave by the man in the black suit who was in the lead.
The bluestone tile floor and two rows of glass counters were spotless, and the picture frames inside were also spotless. There were no posters of any celebrity endorsements. There was only the boss, a white-haired old man wearing a moon-white Zhongshan suit with a cashmere sweater on the outside. He was standing behind the counter, carefully wiping a pair of picture frames with a handkerchief. When he saw Jiang Huai, he smiled and said "Mr. Jiang", and after hearing Jiang Huai's "hmm", he didn't say anything else. There was no flattery in his tone. People who had been with Jiang Huai for a long time didn't have that kind of "fawning" in them.
"My wife needs a pair too." Jiang Huai lowered his head to look at the frames on the counter, his hands behind his back, gloves in hand. His voice was so soft that Zhou Yue doubted the old man could hear him, but he obviously did. He put down his things and walked behind her, bowing respectfully and saying, "Mrs. Jiang, please come in. We'll go get our eyes tested."
"Okay." Zhou Yue turned around and took a look. Jiang Huai must have seen something he liked. He took off his frame, squinted his eyes to compare, and whispered to Liao Jie behind him in Shanghai dialect: "This one is quite good. There is a women's version (this one is good, there is a women's version too)." Liao Jie smiled and nodded. Both of them were in a relaxed state.
The optometry room was pitch black, with a faint smell of alcohol, but more of a faint floral fragrance. Zhou Yue took off her scarf, gloves, and coat and handed them to the boss. The boss turned and left. She stood at the door, her eyes adjusting to the darkness, staring at the person behind the instrument. After a long moment, she walked over and sat down.
"Put your chin here," he said. "Can you see the lawn in the picture?"
"visible."
"What else can you see?"
"I can't see clearly."
The instruments clicked and clattered. "Now then."
"A house with a red roof."
"Hmm." He lowered his head to write down the words. In the dark light, there was only the sound of the pen tip swishing. Then he handed over a piece of paper and a SIM card across the table. There was a string of phone numbers on the paper.
Zhou Yue slowly leaned back in the chair and looked at him calmly. He was Xingxing's master. Zhou Yue was nineteen when she first met him, and now he was twenty-seven. He no longer had the kind of righteous and evil debauchery of the old policeman who had been walking on the edge of good and evil for many years, nor did he have the kind of slick and ruffian masculinity that was very attractive to women. His handsome face was no longer recognizable. The drug dealers drilled holes and peeled off his skin on his head like graffiti, and carved the words "pig" and "dog" on his face with a knife. Scars were all over his face like earthworms crawling. Zhou Yue felt that they didn't really care whether he confessed or not, just like the demons and monsters in the mud could not look directly at the sun. Only by brutally and permanently destroying a person's faith and spirit could they feel a moment of victory. They were just beasts in human skin, more disgusting than the filth in the sewer.
She lowered her eyes, stared at the number for a second, and swept the things on the table into the trash can.
The man was not surprised to see this. His smile made his face even more ferocious. He laughed twice, his voice hoarse: "It's not worth it for him to do this for a thing like you."
Zhou Yue listened, as if listening to flattery, and chuckled, "Yes." After laughing, she looked up at him, leaned close to him, and whispered, "What about you? He is the orphan of your comrade, and you sent him to die. This is the meaningful thing you asked him to do."
His smile disappeared, his mouth was open like a puppet, his eyes were white, and he looked almost dead.
Zhou Yue stood up and stopped at the door. The boss was holding a tray outside the door. Jiang Huai picked up the picture frames on the tray one by one and looked at them. The store was full of Jiang Huai's people.
"He told you the time and place, and you all let him get away." Zhou Yue smiled, feeling helpless and desolate. The light came in from the crack in the door, but her eyes were gray and dry, and she was almost blind.
She held the door handle. Liao Jie, who was standing behind Jiang Huai, was still smiling and agreeing from time to time, but his eyes, as dark as a venomous snake, were already looking at her.
"Don't let your people come again. We were born and raised by our parents. It's not worth it for us to die in vain." After she said this, she opened the door and walked out alone.
When she was leaving, she passed by Liao Jie. He smiled and said, "Madam, are you done with the examination?" and walked over to push open the door of the optometry room.
Zhou Yue stood there, but soon she saw a young boy coming out with an eye test form. Liao Jie lowered his eyes and smiled at the yellow form. Without saying anything, he returned to Jiang Huai.
Zhou Yue hid the SIM card in her sleeve with her hands behind her back and returned to Jiang Huai.
"Look at this pair of frames. Are they nice?" Jiang Huai took the frames and showed them to her. After looking at them for a long time, he finally took a fancy to the one he had just seen.
"It looks good." Zhou Yue took his arm and smiled like the moon.
It takes two hours to make glasses, so Jiang Huai simply took Zhou Yue out for a walk. Jiang Huai said that Zhou Yue's temper improved after going out, and she no longer spoke in a sarcastic tone. He said that she could go out more often in the future, and he and Liao Jie would take her with them when they were free. Shenzhen is not big, so it would be nice to go out for a walk.
"Where do you want to go?" Jiang Huai asked, took off his gloves, and stroked Zhou Yue's hand that was holding his.
"Look, right there, take a look around." Zhou Yue pointed to the stacked wooden-framed doors under the eaves. The doors were carved with hollow plum, orchid, bamboo and chrysanthemum. The wafting sandalwood became damp in the rain, giving it a bit of an ancient private school feel, but it was actually a bookstore.
"I've finished the elementary level of painting." Zhou Yue smiled at him smugly, "It's time to learn the intermediate level."
"Hmph, what is that painting?" Jiang Huai frowned as he looked at the bookstore, probably remembering the portrait. Zhou Yue wondered if he would ask her to draw another one, but he didn't say a word. He just gently patted the back of her hand, let her go, and said, "Go."
Jiang Huai said he would take her to a restaurant for lunch and he would go and order the food first.
Liao Jie followed Zhou Yue in the bookstore. She remembered that year when Xiao Yuan followed her like this in the Shenzhen Book City. He made her angry that day. She was so scared that she didn't dare to say a word. She just kept saying that he had a lot of money and she could buy any book she wanted.
Only today did she understand that what he meant was that she no longer had to sit on the cold marble floor of the Xinhua Bookstore, secretly reading "Wuthering Heights", which had been removed from the plastic wrap and was originally intended for customers, under the equally cold and harsh gaze of the female clerk.
"Madam wants to read the painting books. They are over there." Liao Jie pointed to the bookshelf by the window.
"Is it not okay for me to just take a look?" Zhou Yue took two identical copies of "The Kite Runner" and tilted her head to compare them.
Men will subconsciously stay away from women who are deliberately looking for trouble. Liao Jie is no exception. He raised his eyebrows, smiled, and said, "Okay." He took a step back, stood behind her, and said nothing.
Zhou Yue didn't bother to talk to him, just walked and looked casually. He followed from a distance, but didn't take the book from her hand. When they reached the bookshelf by the window, they stopped. Zhou Yue handed him a stack of books in her arms. He took them, his face expressionless, and whispered, "Buy all of these."
"Yes." Zhou Yue took an intermediate sketching book from the bookshelf with a cold face, turned the page and took a look, then turned back and saw him take the stack of books, directly tore off the plastic wrap, and flipped through the pages one by one. After finishing one, he threw it on the low bookshelf beside him with a bang, and then turned to the next one.
Zhou Yue looked at him, then turned her head and looked at the wall by the window, where there was a forest map of Shenzhen City.
Her gray eyes stared at the map for one second, two seconds, three seconds, four seconds...
Liao Jie turned halfway through the book when he suddenly looked up as if he had suddenly realized something. He saw Zhou Yue still holding the sketch book, concentrating on watching the TV hanging on the beam of the bookstore. "Black Cat Sheriff" was playing silently on the screen.
"Did you watch it when you were a kid?" she murmured to herself.
Liao Jie stared at her, and slowly the murderous intent in his eyes faded. He became nonchalant again, casually looking up at the TV and saying, "I haven't watched it." He smiled at Zhou Yue and said, "When I was a kid, I was happy just to have a bite to eat. I didn't have these hobbies."
Liao Jie picked up the books one by one and stacked them up, holding them lightly in his arms. He spoke lightly, "Madam, it's best not to mention this in front of President Jiang. President Jiang hasn't seen the cartoons we watched when we were young." He looked at Zhou Yue deeply and said, "He doesn't like it either."
"Okay." Zhou Yue shrugged, closed the book in his hand, picked up a few picture books specifically teaching how to draw plants, and walked towards the cashier.
After buying the book, Liao Jie took Zhou Yue to Jiang Huai's restaurant. The restaurant also served the same Jiangnan cuisine. She had been with Jiang Huai for almost ten years, but she still couldn't tell the difference between good and bad.
At the dinner table, Jiang Huai said that the two children were at Songzhu's place, but they couldn't stay with her all the time. They had to be taken to Zhou Yue's place. However, Aunt Xu was not there, so he meant for Zhou Yue to move in with him. Aunt Wu was still there and could help.
"No." She said firmly and peeled a crab.
"Why?" he said, lowering his head and drinking his porridge with an unchanged expression.
"I can't get used to living here. Your place always smells musty and spooky. I'm scared."
She was scorning him, but she poured the greasy crab paste onto a small plate and handed it to him. He stared at her smooth movements, his gloomy expression softening slightly. He held the spoon and was about to speak, but in the end, he just said, "Whatever."
After dinner that day, Zhou Yue went to OCT Creative Park again. Compared with the elegant bohemian atmosphere of Sinan Road, this place was completely industrial retro style, everything was mechanical and modern.
Zhou Yue stood by the graffiti wall and looked at the names of couples written on it. Kang Xingxing and Zhou Yue's names would never appear on it in their lifetime. Soon no one would remember them, their unknown life and love.
There are also handicrafts and handicrafts here, including unique Shenzhen commemorative badges and blue and white porcelain refrigerator magnets, small ceramic bowls and teacups, and colorful handmade fabric bags...
But nothing looks good anymore. It's just a shoddy pile of scrap metal, gray and oxidized within a few days of purchase.
Xiao Yuan was nowhere to be found following her. When she reached the end of the alley, she looked back and saw only a blank wall with "I love you" scribbled on it in red ink. Tears blurred her eyes as she ran out to see what was happening, but all she saw was a young boy in the open space, his hands to his mouth, shouting with all his might to the girl upstairs:
"I love you! I love you! ..."
"I love you!"
…
Soon after that day, Jiang Huai sent the two children back to her, meaning that she had played enough and it was time for her to take care of the children. He was also somewhat angry with her and ignored her for several days and did not go home. But fortunately, the younger brother grew up slowly and no longer cried all night. Instead, he learned to act coquettishly and rubbed against Zhou Yue's arms like a spoiled child, asking her to hold him, and kept calling "Mommy, Mommy..."
What's more, she has a capable little helper who is very smart and silent.
Zhou Yue turned off the lights anyway and walked around the living room in circles holding her brother in the dark, watching the car lights go up the mountain and disappear into the dense forest.
"Tiantian." Zhou Yue called softly, and Tiantian appeared out of nowhere, with only the sound of trouser legs rubbing against each other. He walked up to her and grinned at her with his teeth bared, his two small fleshy hands behind his back, "Mom, I'm here."
"Hold your brother and go to sleep." She finally hugged her brother's soft and sweet little body tightly and handed him to Tiantian. Tiantian hugged his brother and looked up at his mother blankly, watching her walk slowly into the darkness with her back to him and his brother.
"Mom, I love you." Tiantian didn't know why he said this. Zhou Yue turned around and was a little stunned, but soon smiled and said, "Mom loves you too."
"Go ahead," she said. "Mom has to work."
She walked into her bedroom, locked the door, walked to the table and sat down, put on her glasses, picked up the paper on the table and looked at it under the light. It was a complete forest map of Shenzhen City. Sometimes she thought that maybe there really was such a thing as fate. Her photographic memory was supposed to come in handy here. Cause and effect, reincarnation, everything was arranged.
There was also an open picture book on the table, with the page about Selaginella truncatula, which read, "The highest growth altitude is 1,000 meters, but for large-scale growth, it usually needs to be maintained at an altitude of around 500 to 800 meters."
Facing the light, she looked at the forest painted red on the map. Its radius was only a few centimeters, but its actual area was very large. Jiang Huai had more than one manor and villa in that forest, but only one of them made him exhausted and sleepless all night.
"Where exactly is it..." She held up a map, "Where exactly is your drug factory?"
Zhou Yue felt unprecedented anxiety. If nothing unexpected happened, that should be Jianghuai's last batch of goods. He was in a hurry to go to Thailand. If he missed this opportunity, everything would be buried forever.
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