Chapter 148
Wang Jiazhi woke up, still a little groggy. After a moment's rest, she realized something furry was in her arms. It was a stuffed toy of a little white rabbit. Why was there a stuffed rabbit in her arms?
She saw the watch on the bedside table. He was back. Where had he been?
As she left the room, she saw her mother bringing tea to the door and saying, "Master is back and in the study."
"oh."
She knocked on the door and went in. He was reading a calligraphy book. She sat on his lap and they talked for a while. She went out to wash her face so that she could feel more awake.
When the little girl came in again, she clapped her hands and smiled, "She's so beautiful."
She walked over to the mirror and one of the big, plump ears of the stuffed bunny she was holding slipped from her hand.
Her hair was braided into several thin braids, with a flower woven into the knot of each braid. She looked at the vase beside the bed and wondered why there were so few flowers. With her hair full of colorful flowers and her white nightgown, she looked like she was on the cover of a fairy tale book.
Look at the kitten again, it is curled up in a ball and sleeping on the bed, with flowers all over its body like a hedgehog. It just wanted him to be covered in flowers without any resistance.
As soon as she came back, she started making such a scene, like someone catching a cat. She knew nothing about it, and her mother and the little girl saw her like this. Her mother was really cunning and kept her composure.
This childish ghost.
She washed her face, fixed her hair, and came out to tell him about the movie she hadn't finished watching that day.
"It clearly says round face, long hair, gentle and quiet, but she becomes a mushroom-haired tomboy. The skinny, pale, delicate and pretty one is also a mushroom-haired tomboy. Why are they all tomboys? It doesn't fit at all."
I saw her indignant and disappointed that the classic in her heart was destroyed.
He laughed and said, "Maybe everyone likes the way they look. I've seen two photos of her when she was younger, and she had that mushroom-shaped haircut."
Wang Jiazhi looked at him in surprise. But it seemed to make sense. She was old now, so she couldn't have a mushroom haircut anymore. But her personality was really a bit like the heroine in the movie.
Is this fulfilling her dream of being the heroine? Why not just write her own script instead of relying on someone else's novel, messing things up? Or maybe it's not that, maybe the director's idea of a perfect girl is a mushroom-haired, tomboyish girl, and she feels the heroines in novels aren't as good as she wants them to be.
He brought her a watercolor album, mostly landscapes. One depicted late autumn in the north. The corn had been harvested, the stalks cut, leaving only a short, withered, yellow stalk outside the field. The land had become a vast, desolate sea of withered yellow, a sea that seemed so lonely and silent. The trees beside the field were also quiet and lonely, leafless, standing silently beside the field. The sky wasn't a vibrant, deep blue, but a pale, dark blue.
She felt sad, yet at peace. All living things rested in the peace of the earth.
Apart from her hometown, Hong Kong and Shanghai, she has never been anywhere else. Her world is narrow and she has never broadened her horizons.
She thought of the novel she had read recently, which was also about the cold and desolate north.
She told him the story in the novel and asked, "Is it really like that?"
"It's extremely cold there. When it snows heavily, you can't even open the door the next day. People always freeze to death."
Seeing her expression, he knew she had misunderstood and said, "Some people are homeless and outside, or some are drunk and collapsed on the street. They can freeze to death even if they are not indoors. But there are people who have their ears and toes frozen off."
He talked about a teacher in Russia who was a heavy drinker. He could drink a whole bottle of wine with just one pickle as a side dish.
He spent two years in Russia and then several more years in the North.
After so many years, are those memories also vague like dreams?
She suddenly remembered something and smiled, "Is the tofu there especially delicious?"
She talked about how books always described tofu as a luxurious and delicious treat. The wicked mother-in-law would say, "I have no guilt. I've never done anything against the will of heaven or morality, and I've never eaten more than one piece of tofu." People would sometimes say, "No, buy another piece of tofu." It was as if tofu was a delicacy worth spending all your money on, a kind of karma.
"It's very delicious. The rice there is especially delicious, as are the vegetables and beans. It's because the land is different from that in the south."
Wang Jiazhi couldn't imagine living in the south her entire life. She couldn't imagine the heavy snow, the freezing cold that froze people to death, the black earth, and the delicious tofu and vegetables.
She laughed and said, "What if I were to return to the north in my next life? I wonder if you can get used to it."
He laughed and said, "How do you know you must have lived in the South in your previous life? If you don't remember anything, you won't feel uncomfortable."
Wang Jiazhi wondered about her afterlife. Where would she be, and where would he be? Would they ever meet again? They were separated, one far south, the other far north. Neither remembered the other, never to be seen again in this life or death.
Not necessarily. Isn't it said that grudges and hatreds from past lives carry over into the next life? Whatever was owed or was owed in the previous life must be settled in this life, but most of the time, it's unclear, and we end up owing or being owed again, and then the next life continues the struggle. And so it goes, never to be settled or resolved. It's clear that the cycle of grudges and hatreds among people is like that of plants and trees, endless and repetitive.
Thinking about it this way, they had a lot of grievances and hatred in their previous life, so this is why this life happened.
This means they will have intersections in their next life. I just don't know what kind of feelings they have, whether they like each other or hate each other.
Wang Jiazhi thought to herself that if it was a grudge, Kuang Yumin and the others would come back in their next life, which would be really annoying.
The way she looked at him was soft and beautiful under the night light.
He'd been to so many places, experienced so much. Now, he couldn't even leave the house, living like a frightened bird in a confined space. Would he be saddened by the past, unable to see the sun?
That night, she had a strange dream. It was winter in the north, and a night of snow had fallen, leaving a world of white ice and snow. The roads hadn't been cleared of snow yet. In the morning, she held his arm as they hurried out to work. The person in front of them slipped, and she held his arm even tighter, hoping they wouldn't slip again.
In her dream, she wondered where they were going. Were they going to the same place to work? That was really strange, they were actually in the same place.
When she woke up the next day, she remembered her dream and told him about it, laughing, "Could this be the afterlife?"
He smiled and said, "If we are together in the next life, I will teach you well."
She was a little unconvinced and said, "Why do I need you to teach me? It's as if I'm so bad."
He just smiled and raised an eyebrow.
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