Chapter 53: Cosmic Latte (5) You don’t still believe in love, do you?
Halfway through the meal, Qu Na was called back to the company to work overtime by her boss's series of calls, and Lin Xia went home alone.
When she entered the apartment building, Lin Xia's phone rang. She took a look and found a new friend request from someone named Andy.H, whose profile picture was a blue sea.
She thought it was a harassing message and didn't pay much attention to it. When she went upstairs, changed into slippers, and hung her bag on the hanger, she realized belatedly that the person should be He Chuan.
Back then, she watched many pirated discs of Hong Kong movies and was particularly fascinated by a male star named Andy Liu. She asked him to give her an English name called Andy one day, and she didn't expect that he actually did so.
The application came from a friend's recommendation, so it's easy to guess how he got to know her account.
She had forgotten when she added Tan Zhizhou. Maybe she should block him as a friend as well.
In fact, it's not that I'm not curious about why he returned to China, why he happened to move downstairs from MT, and why he was so persistent in getting in touch with her again.
All this couldn't help but make her think wildly and cause ripples in her heart.
But she didn't want to know the answer, nor did she dare to know it. She was afraid that it was a one in ten million possibility that she had imagined, and she was also afraid that it was not true.
Seven years have passed, and no one can remain unchanged.
But the boy named He Chuan would forever remain in her memories of the past, never aging, never fading, a kind of eternal perfection. Once he walked out of her memories, everything would change, collapsing in a direction she could not have predicted, until even the memories of the past would vanish into thin air.
She doesn't like this feeling.
To the point of giving rise to a vague hatred and resentment. Why on earth had he come back? Why had he broken the illusion and appeared before her again?
However, the world was always beyond her control, and it was not the case now. She refused to accept it, so the only thing she could do was to escape.
She sent the friend request several times, but was rejected several times. Finally, the other party stopped responding.
The phone was quiet, but Lin Xia's heart was completely in turmoil.
Tomorrow she had to catch a high-speed train early in the morning, and if she didn't go to bed early she wouldn't be able to get up. To prevent insomnia, she began rummaging through her drawers looking for the melatonin she had bought last time.
Suddenly, the doorbell rang.
Lin Xia's heart skipped a beat as she quietly walked over to the peephole to check. It was the dead of night, and for a woman living alone, it was crucial to be cautious.
Outside the door was an acquaintance, Wen Qianqian, who lived on the 28th floor.
"I sent you a message but you didn't respond, so I came down directly. I made Cordyceps Flower Chicken Soup today, you should try it."
She came in carrying a thermos bucket and went straight to Lin Xia's kitchen. She opened the cabinet and took out a bowl and a spoon as if she was familiar with the place.
Xixi is Lin Xia’s college roommate. She is a native of Guangdong and came to Shenzhen after graduating from college. The house that Lin Xia rents now was recommended by her.
In college, four of us shared a dorm room, all majoring in the same subject. Due to the challenging curriculum, demanding instructors, and the pressure of future careers, one dropped out and went abroad, while another was demoted and switched departments. By junior year, Lin Xia and Xixi were the only two left in the dorm, struggling through the ordeal. They forged a deep, revolutionary friendship. When Lin Xia first arrived in Shenzhen, she struggled with the climate and was constantly experiencing discomfort. It was Xixi who taught her how to adapt to local customs and maintain a healthy lifestyle.
Lin Xia didn't understand it before, but later she finally understood that the local climate and soil shape the local people, and the Guangdong people drink herbal tea and make delicious soup, everything makes sense.
"My phone was on silent, so I didn't hear it."
Lin Xia felt a little embarrassed. Seeing that Xixi was still wearing a sports vest and yoga pants, she asked, "What's the matter?"
"Did you just get back from the gym?"
Xixi is the most self-disciplined, time-managed, and self-critical person Lin Xia has ever met. She works in a telecommunications technology company, working from nine to nine every day, with almost no weekends off, but this has never prevented her from arranging her own life. She uses her lunch break every day to go home and make soup, goes to the gym after overtime, goes home in the middle of the night, and goes to bed in the early morning. Whenever she has time during holidays, she goes hiking and climbing nearby. She is so energetic that is enviable.
However, Xixi only likes to make soup and doesn’t like to drink it very much. She comes to Lin Xia to share her soup every now and then. Lin Xia has seen many ingredients that she never thought could be used to make soup, such as morels, sea coconuts, figs, and ginseng.
"Well, I had a yoga class today, so I want to take a break tomorrow. It's not too intense."
Xixi poured the soup into a porcelain bowl, turned around and handed it to Lin Xia, looking up and down at the pajamas she had just changed into:
"Are you going to bed so early?"
"I'm going to Guangzhou tomorrow for a friend's wedding." Lin Xia suddenly remembered something. "Since you have tomorrow off, do you want to come with me?"
Xixi's boyfriend works in Guangzhou, and she remembers that they haven't seen each other for a long time.
Sissi didn't answer immediately. She lowered her head and took a few sips of hot soup with a spoon. She said softly:
"We broke up."
Lin Xia was stunned: "When did it happen?"
"The day before yesterday."
"I didn't hear you say that."
"I almost forgot. I was working overtime until midnight to meet a deadline. If I hadn't remembered the soup simmering at home, I would have slept in the office. When I got home, the soup had dried up and almost caught fire. I was scrambling to clean up when his message came in. I replied and fell asleep. The next day I thought it was a dream."
Xixi laughed at herself, "Actually, we didn't say break up, we just said we shouldn't contact each other for a while and let's cool down for a while."
Lin Xia's eyelids twitched, and she didn't know what to say for a moment.
Xixi has been dating her boyfriend for five years. They started out in Shenzhen, but in the third year, he transferred to Guangzhou for work, and they began a long-distance relationship. However, their relationship has always been good, and they never expected it to end like this.
"Why......"
Lin Xia murmured, as if asking her, and also as if asking herself.
"There's no reason. It's not cheating, it's not infidelity, it's not a major conflict. It's just that we're both too busy and don't have time to maintain this relationship."
Xixi shrugged and said casually, "We don't have time to meet or chat. He's not there when I need comfort, and I'm not there when he needs to talk. We're both on the rise in our careers, and neither of us is willing to compromise for the other. We don't see a future together, so there's no solution."
Yes, there is no answer. Who should give up their career for whom, and who should sacrifice their future for whom? In the spiritual world, love is enough to satisfy one’s hunger, but in the material world, a poor couple will suffer from many sorrows, and over time, only resentment will remain.
Is there really anyone in this world who can finally find love after a long-distance relationship? Or, does love really exist in this world?
.
Lin Xia didn't find any melatonin by the end of the night, so naturally she couldn't sleep.
The next morning, she missed the high-speed train and had to refund her ticket and buy a new one. Fortunately, there were many trains from Shenzhen to Guangzhou, running every few minutes, and there were plenty of tickets.
While waiting for coffee in the beverage shop inside the station, Lin Xia sent a message to Yang Yang, telling her that she would be late.
This time she went to Guangzhou to attend Ren Zijian's wedding.
After graduating from his senior year, Lin Xia was admitted to the graduate school of his own university, while Ren Zijian was admitted to Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. After graduating from graduate school, he stayed on to teach at the university. The two met when Lin Xia went to Guangzhou for fun last year.
The wedding was held in the evening. Before that, Lin Xia arranged to meet Yang Yang at a cafe near the hotel. Yang Yang stayed in Beijing after graduating from college and currently works at an art training institution. The two of them occasionally exchanged messages to catch up on each other's recent situation, so they weren't strangers.
In everyone's life, there are always special days that leave a lasting impression, a time that is unforgettable. For many, it's college, but for Lin Xia, it was the six months she spent at the Tongzhou Art Studio. Her youth, ideals, friendships, and love all blossomed during that time, a time she will never forget. The friends she made during that time are also particularly memorable.
"Why didn't Lao Sun come?"
After seeing Yang Yang, Lin Xia asked in surprise.
Lao Sun is also in Beijing, working in a theater. He doesn't post on WeChat Moments or update his status. He's been invisible for years, and no one knows where he's at. Only Yang Yang, who lives in the same city, has some contact with him. It was originally agreed that he would come to Guangzhou this time.
Yang Yang shook his head. "He's busy. He flew to Xinjiang on a business trip. He's a very busy man now, traveling all over the country all the time. I guess he just agreed casually and didn't really plan to come."
After staying in Beijing for so many years, Yang Yang, a girl from Hunan, has actually picked up a bit of a Beijing accent.
Lin Xia couldn't help but feel disappointed after hearing this. If they missed this opportunity, they didn't know when their four-person team in the studio would be able to get together again.
The two of them sat in the cafe and chatted for a long time, talking about all sorts of things.
They used to chat like this often, on the school playground, in the beer halls in Wudaokou, on the streets at midnight, but the content was completely different. Back then, they talked about life, ideals, love, art, and everything beautiful and hopeful. But now...
Maybe there really is no story after people graduate. Everyone's life is monotonous, mediocre and clichéd, with terrible jobs and annoying leaders. Married people talk about their in-laws and troublesome children, while unmarried people talk about parents who urge them to get married and uncaring partners.
Yang Yang isn't married yet. She broke up with her first boyfriend before they even graduated from college, and she's been in a lot of relationships over the years, but nothing's worked out. Last year, she started using dating apps, and in that year, she's met a lot of people. Each one is incredibly bizarre, even more outrageous than the jokes online, leaving Lin Xia stunned.
Finally, Yang Yang sighed deeply and said with emotion: "Real good men are no longer circulating in the market. They have already married and had children. Look at Ren Zijian. Back then, when we were in the studio, I had a crush on him."
“The whole world knows this.”
Lin Xia found it funny. Back then, Yang Yang had a very obvious crush on Ren Zijian, and it was known to everyone in the dormitory.
Times have changed, and there is nothing to hide anymore, so Yang Yang simply confesses:
"I had a crush on him at first, but later gave up because I could see that he liked you."
She paused and looked at Lin Xia:
"Xia Xia, do you know? Ren Zijian once liked you."
Lin Xia was startled, very surprised:
"What? I don't know..."
"Do you remember when we went to Shenyang for training that year?" Yang Yang recalled, "The studio chartered a bus to take all of us there. Before we got on the bus, Ren Zijian specifically came to me and asked to sit with me on the bus. From then on, I knew it."
Lin Xia remembered going to Shenyang, but she had no recollection of what happened on the way there, who she sat with, what she talked about, or what she did. She had no idea that Ren Zijian had any special feelings for her. At that time, her heart and eyes were filled with He Chuan.
Ren Zijian never said anything to her. After entering college, they kept in touch during their freshman and sophomore years, going out to eat and visiting their teacher in the studio. However, during their junior and senior years, they became busy with their respective major courses and hardly met each other.
"Why aren't you two together?" Yang Yang said half-jokingly, "I thought you two would end up together. If I had known, I wouldn't have let you go."
Lin Xia laughed: "We are really just classmates and friends."
She had no other feelings towards Ren Zijian. She only regarded him as a friend, a classmate, and perhaps a competitor. Apart from that, there was really nothing else.
"That's all in the past. Everything is fine now. He's getting married soon," Lin Xia said with a heartfelt smile. "He and his girlfriend have been together for almost seven years, right? It's truly rare that they're still together after seven years of long-term love. I sincerely wish them all the best."
Ren Zijian's girlfriend is his graduate school classmate at Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts and is also a teacher at Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. She is very outstanding and beautiful. Every year on their anniversary, Ren Zijian would post a photo of them together on his WeChat Moments, and the two looked very happy.
"Didn't you read the electronic invitation carefully?" Yang Yang looked a little strange.
"What's wrong?"
Lin Xia was puzzled, she really didn't look closely.
"It's not that girlfriend, he's changed. I found it strange and asked him a few questions. He said his parents were pressuring him to get married, but his ex-girlfriend was a non-marriage advocate, so under pressure, they broke up. This one was introduced by his family, and they got together after three months of dating. They moved quickly as well."
Yang Yang clicked his tongue twice and said with emotion: "This is the difference between men and women."
.
The first time Lin Xia attended a wedding independently was when her high school class teacher Zhang Lanlan got married, and she participated in the entire process as a bridesmaid. The wedding left a deep impression on her. She thought the wedding dress was beautiful, the venue was romantic, and the ceremony was happy. She was particularly looking forward to it and even hoped to hold her wedding in that hotel when she grew up.
As she grew older, she gave more and more gifts over the years. Weddings were no longer a novelty to her, but a burden. She gradually discovered that all the ceremonies were more or less the same. They were the hotel's pricey packages with eight and six included, and the products of the wedding company's assembly line. They were all the same, with no difference. Every couple was an actor, just taking the script and performing on stage step by step.
Lin Xia didn't have any memories of the wedding. After leaving the house, she only remembered that the roast suckling pig at the banquet was delicious.
The newlyweds at the wedding were the most exhausted and busy. Ren Zijian had only exchanged a few words with Lin Xia and Yang Yang before the ceremony, and then paid them no further attention. When they left, he personally went out to see them off, repeatedly apologizing for his neglect. Lin Xia and Yang Yang didn't mind, and after a few polite words, they said goodbye.
After the age of 25, the human body's metabolism slows down. It's okay for women, but Lin Xia has never seen many men around her who are not fat. A round face is certainly a symbol of a happy life, but once the edges are worn away, the youthful spirit of the past is gone.
Lin Xia looked at the man in front of her who was wearing a black suit with a big red firework on his chest, and couldn't help but think of their first meeting in the studio many years ago. However, the sunny boy who was full of vigor and vitality and was surrounded by all the girls while painting was no match for the man now.
After leaving the hotel, Lin Xia and Yang Yang also said goodbye, one went to the station and the other went to the airport. After all, tomorrow was Monday and they had to go to work.
The two stood by the roadside waiting for a taxi. It was the evening rush hour and it was hard to get a taxi. The two chatted casually. Yang Yang saw that Lin Xia was not in a good mood and said half-jokingly:
"What's wrong? Do you regret it?"
"How is that possible?" Lin Xia sighed softly, "I just feel a little regretful."
Time is so cruel. So many people who love each other in the world drift apart as time goes by.
"There's nothing to regret. That's just how life is. If you have this attitude, you won't be able to find a boyfriend. No wonder you've never been in a relationship."
Yang Yang asked with some amusement, "Xia Xia, you don't still believe in love, do you?"
In the busy streets of Guangzhou, surrounded by a sea of neon lights, people hurrying by, and the hustle and bustle, Lin Xia stood there, her ears as silent as death, and she was speechless for a moment.
I think back to the time when people in the Wudaokou Beer House in the middle of summer were toasting with loudly “Long Live Love”. Now, at this moment, they asked her with such helpless, funny, disgusted, and childish expressions, “You don’t still believe in love, do you?”
What else can she say?
She silently asked herself, Lin Xia, do you still believe in love? Do you believe in its existence, its beauty, and its power to break through everything and overcome everything?
If subjective feelings aren't enough to answer questions, at least probability and statistics reveal objective laws. Zhang Lanlan divorced last year, Wen Qianqian broke up, Ren Zijian didn't marry the woman whose seven-year anniversary photo he shared on WeChat Moments, and even Lin Xuedong and Zhao Qianyi divorced six years ago and have each remarried and started a new family.
Maybe love is a false proposition.
It's an illusion created by novels, movies, television, and literature, a delusion we've been brainwashed into believing since childhood. In reality, in youth, we're driven by hormonal impulses; in adulthood, we're driven by desire, loneliness, the desire to continue the family line, and the need to live together. Life is a stage, and we are both the screenwriter and the actors.
Lin Xia, stop holding on to your childish fantasies and expectations. There is no love in this world.
We had dreams then
About literature, about love
About traveling around the world
Now we drink late at night
The cups touch each other
These are all sounds of shattered dreams.
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