Fate and destiny
"Let's separate."
When Fang Huai heard Li Xuan's words, the expression on his face froze. He would rather believe that he had heard it wrong than to believe that these words came from Li Xuan.
His throat was dry, his tongue was numb, his stomach was churning, and the urge to vomit made him lose control.
For the first time, he found it difficult to speak. His tongue was numb and stiff, and he had to force it out between his teeth. He hurriedly picked up the teacup at hand and used the scented tea to suppress the nausea.
"good."
"Um."
In front of him was the meal Fang Huai had longed for, but now he had lost his appetite. He sat in his chair, not moving his chopsticks. Li Xuan had also lost his appetite, staring blankly at the blood-red sunset.
Caiyun Town was very quiet, and this restaurant was also very quiet, so quiet that Fang Huai could hear his own heartbeat.
He slowly reached out his hand to cover his chest, feeling the beating inside his chest through the fabric, thump, thump, thump... very slowly, very slowly.
It was so slow that it was the same speed as the setting sun, and so slow that Fang Huai had not yet come to his senses when he returned to the hotel.
Li Xuan took a lot of photos today, all of which featured Fang Huai. He waved his camera and said, "I'll develop the photos and give them to you when we get back."
"Or, I can give you the negatives."
Li Xuan had a relaxed smile on his face. "It's inconvenient anyway, right?"
Fang Huai sat on the sofa, holding the concert ticket tightly in his hand. When he heard Li Xuan's distant voice, he raised his head, and his clear eyes sparkled with tears.
"The concert is on the last day of the trip. Are you still going?"
"Are you still coming with me?"
The smile on Li Xuan's face paused. He stood in front of his bedroom door, his shoulders slumped slightly, and said softly, "I'm not going."
"No, I have to go back early. My family is returning home that day, and I want to go back to be with them."
A polite and distant smile hung on Li Xuan's face, which looked strange in Fang Huai's eyes.
Fang Huai put down his hand, placed a ticket on the coffee table, looked down at his toes, and smiled with a forced smile, "Okay."
"Can I keep that ticket?" Li Xuan pretended to be casual, walked to the coffee table, bent down and picked up his ticket.
Fang Huai avoided meeting Li Xuan's gaze. He stood up, quickly wiped his eyes, and walked towards his bedroom. "Sure, this was your ticket."
"As you please."
"Maimai."
Fang Huai didn't look back.
Li Xuan held the ticket and said helplessly, "Aren't you used to this name yet? Xiao Huai."
He said to Fang Huai's back, "According to the plan, we are going to visit the ancient city tomorrow, so we should rest early."
"good evening."
Fang Huai opened the bedroom door and walked in: "Good night."
Back in the bedroom, Fang Huai threw himself on the bed and murmured, "We are all the same."
Just like the protagonists in a movie, they have to separate before the journey is over.
They welcomed their bed ending.
Fang Huai slowly took off his shoes and sat on the bed with his knees hugged. His heartbeat seemed so loud in the quiet room. He put his palm on his chest again, and it - returned to normal.
When Li Xuan asked him to break up, he felt nauseous and wanted to vomit. But after agreeing to break up, Fang Huai's heart beat very slowly, so slowly that he had the illusion that his heart had stopped beating. What about now?
There was nothing unusual now, as if... his heart was ready, as if he had been prepared for it for a long time.
"Like?" Fang Huai blinked in confusion, looked at his ceiling, and muttered to himself: "Love?"
"Li Xuan?" His heartbeat was normal.
He hesitated and said the other person's name, "Kong Lingyu?"
My heart skipped a beat.
Fang Huai was unwilling to believe the facts before him. He clutched the cloth on his chest with both hands and shook his head, "Impossible."
"No way, I don't like him."
Fang Huai repeated over and over again: "Impossible, I don't like him!"
It seems that if I say it a few more times, everything will be back on track.
"Do I care about him?" Fang Huai asked himself doubtfully.
Li Xuan felt that his liking was admiration, that he was imitating her. So...what exactly was liking? What was love?
Fang Huai stretched his hand into the air, and the soft fabric slid down to his arm, revealing an arm as white as moonlight. He grabbed a handful of fabric in the air, held it tightly, and slowly withdrew his hand.
Fang Huai didn’t understand, he didn’t understand.
At the age of three, Fang Huai was abandoned by his biological mother at the entrance of an orphanage. Kong Lingyu, who had slipped out, picked him up. By the time the director and the police found Fang Huai's biological parents, they had both committed suicide in their cramped rented apartment. Fang Huai only remembers the house filled with the smell of blood and decay, and his mother, who would never look back, lying on the ground, smiling, her face covered in corpse spots.
He was adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Fang at the age of five. He thought he had love, but the love he thought of disappeared too quickly... Love became countless quarrels between his adoptive parents, hysterical insults and burning slaps. "Love" became a festering back and the despair of wanting to die but not being able to die immediately.
In his senior year of high school, he asked Li Xuan for help, and Li Xuan became his brother and benefactor.
After work, he becomes his lover again, a lover he needs to work hard to catch up with.
He is slow and dull in emotions, like a stumbling child in front of the relaxed Li Xuan.
Fang Huai didn't understand what love was, how to love someone, and he didn't know how to love. He tried to imitate Li Xuan's love, but the results were obviously unsatisfactory. Not only did he not learn to love, but he also didn't learn to be like Li Xuan.
"Then do I like Kong Lingyu?" Fang Huai talked to himself, and as soon as he finished speaking, he had the answer in his heart.
dislike.
He simply longed for a passionate, unconditional love. Coincidentally, Kong Lingyu was the only person he had ever met who possessed this kind of love.
Kong Lingyu has the ability to love, and he has a passionate heart that Fang Huai does not have.
Fang Huai longed for unconditional favoritism, like the scorching sun in summer melting the thin ice that wrapped around him, without hesitation, without looking back or weighing the pros and cons.
Li Xuan is different. He is cautious in everything and weighs the pros and cons. His ideal lover is obedient.
Maybe they are really not suitable.
......
There are two dragon trees with the same roots in Caiyun Town. They have survived for hundreds of years. The two trees are intertwined and cover half of the sky. Locals affectionately call them: Big Dragon Tree and Small Dragon Tree.
There are countless red strings hanging on the lush branches and leaves, which were hung by the fortune-telling grandmothers asked by the young couples who came here to pray.
"Do you think this grandma's fortune telling is accurate?"
"What if we still can't be together in the end?"
Many young couples would say something similar before asking for the red string, but no matter what the outcome of the discussion was, they would walk to the grandma's stall together and say sweetly, "Grandma, please help us calculate it."
The ancient city is not really old. To put it another way, the only things that have a touch of "ancient" in it are the weird imitations of ancient buildings. If you really want to say "ancient", it's probably only the two old trees that have lived for hundreds of years, and the old lady in front of the old trees who smiles and asks young tourists to tie red ropes.
Fang Huai and Li Xuan stood in front of the ancient tree, just looking at it without participating. After watching the excitement for a while, they walked inside.
After noon, the number of tourists began to decrease. The fortune-teller, sitting in the shade, called out to the opposite direction: "Young man, come over for tea."
"Grandma's tea is delicious."
The man in the baseball cap was tall and had a cold temperament. He came to the stall of the old lady with a hunched back, his lips were chapped and his eyes were dark.
"Tea."
The man shook his head, stretched out his pale hand, and pointed at the red rope in front of Grandma, "I want this."
Grandma had a kind smile on her face and slowly poured a cup of scented tea for the man. "Want to try it?"
The man hesitated, but still took the tea from the old lady and drank it all in one gulp. His Adam's apple rolled up and down, and his dry throat was moistened by the refreshing flower tea, and his hoarseness was no longer. "Thank you."
Kong Lingyu looked up at the two tightly entwined trees, his eyes flickering as he added, "I want all of these."
Grandma took the empty cup from his hand, slowly refilled Kong Lingyu's tea, put down the black tea, and glanced at the young man in front of her lightly.
"Young people, this is a matter of fate, not destiny."
"If there is no destiny, then it is fate. Why be greedy?"
"We are not destined to be together." Kong Lingyu drank the tea in one gulp and put the teacup on the stall.
Grandma smiled and shook her head, pulling out two red ropes from a pile of them. The two red ropes lay in her palms, "Grandma told you to tie the knots yourself and throw them away yourself."
"Listen to grandma, everything depends on fate."
Kong Lingyu silently took the red rope. His hand holding the red rope trembled slightly, and his fingers flew as he tied a complicated knot. Amid the exclamations of the crowd, he threw it high into the sky, and it hung steadily on the highest treetop.
He gave his first satisfied smile, "Thank you."
Kong Lingyu took out a thick wad of cash from his bag and placed it on the fortune-teller's stall. "It's fate."
“Young people nowadays…” The fortune-teller looked up at the red knot hanging at the highest point and shook her head helplessly.
The interior of the ancient city was like a small commercial street. Fang Huai and Li Xuan came out after walking for a while. When they came out, the fortune-teller was still there.
Seeing that the fortune-teller was staring at him, Fang Huai gave her a polite smile in return.
But the fortune-teller not far away suddenly waved to him, "Hey handsome young man, come here."
Fang Huai exchanged glances with Li Xuan for a moment and walked over.
"Grandma, are you okay?"
The fortune-teller just smiled and shook her head. Just as Fang Huai was puzzled, a gust of wind blew by, and the crown of the ancient tree shook.
bite!
The red knot hanging from the highest branch fell, landing on Fang Huai's head. Fang Huai was startled. Surprised, he took off the red knot from his head and looked at the fortune-teller in front of him for help.
"This should be yours." The fortune-telling old lady took the red knot from Fang Huai's hand, looked at the knot carefully, then put the red knot in a sachet and handed it to Fang Huai.
"Young man, this is your fate."
Fang Huai was about to refuse when he saw the fortune-teller grandma pack up her stall and run away swiftly. He didn't expect that the old woman with a hunched back could run so fast. She had run so far away in the blink of an eye. Fang Huai had just caught up with her when a tricycle drove past quickly.
The fortune-teller swiftly jumped into the car, waved to Fang Huai, and said, "Young man, this is your fate, don't miss it."
Seeing Fang Huai and the fortune-teller's strange behavior, Li Xuan also followed. Seeing the extra sachet in Fang Huai's hand, he frowned slightly, "What's wrong?"
Fang Huai smiled helplessly and said, "Grandma said this thing is my destiny and asked me to cherish it."
Li Xuan raised his eyebrows slightly and looked at the sachet thoughtfully.
Fang Huai put away the sachet and said, "Forget it, I'll find a chance to deal with it."
"Let's go back first."
Li Xuan looked up at the ancient tree covered with red knots, feeling inexplicably lost, but when he saw Fang Huai had already walked away, he followed him.
The trip to the ancient city was an average experience, so Fang Huai and Li Xuan returned to the folk customs and came to a conclusion.
In the next few days, they followed the itinerary arranged by Li Xuan, went to see the locust tree forest, ate nectar milk fans, and sang milk cakes with a milky smell.
Time passed quickly, and in the blink of an eye it was the night before Li Xuan was about to leave.
In the evening, the two of them finished their meal in silence, said good night to each other, and returned to their respective rooms as if nothing had happened.
Early the next morning, Li Xuan left early, and the suitcase made a clattering sound. Fang Huai stood on the balcony and watched Li Xuan's departing back, feeling melancholy.
Didi.
Li Xuan sent a WeChat message.
LX: [It’s cold outside, let’s go back.]
LX: [Goodbye, Xiaohuai.]
LX: [I will keep the concert tickets carefully.]
I hope you have a great time at the concert.
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