Chapter 27. What is her lighthouse?
Xu Yichen was looking at the slightly yellowed page.
ERT: Emotional Restructuring Treatment
The handwriting he wrote six years ago is still clear.
And there was a name on the right side of the word, which he repeatedly underlined with a pen to emphasize.
He ran his finger over it gently, and the edges of the letters began to blur.
[Ke Fan]
Her name.
It was during that snowy winter in New York City that I realized I had unusual feelings for her.
As Yi Lingjia narrated, he found himself becoming more and more interested in this girl.
"This lighthouse on the rubber band is... very special. Is this your rubber band?"
"It's hers."
"who is she?"
"She's a very important person in my life."
The boy opposite covered his face with his hands, tears streaming down from between his fingers, wetting the black rubber band he had been holding in his palm. The red and white lighthouse pendant was soaked by his tears, reflecting a little warm light in the sunlight.
When he finally calmed down, Xu Yichen asked:
"...Would you like to tell me about her?"
This sentence seemed to turn on the switch that Yi Lingjia had suppressed for a long time, and he was finally willing to start talking.
"...The first time I confessed my feelings to her, she got mad. She said:
Confessing your feelings in public is moral kidnapping to a certain extent, unless the two people are 100% sure about the relationship and just want to go through the motions of romance. In other cases, don't you think it's putting the other person on a pedestal?
I really didn't understand anything at the time, I just thought this girl was really unique. Even though the corridor was so dark, she seemed to be glowing.
"I've never met a girl like her, always calm and serious. There are so many people in the library, but I can always find her at a glance..."
"Then I pursued her for six months, and she finally agreed to me."
"During my junior year, we went on a trip to the seaside because she said she loved lighthouses. Unfortunately, the weather was bad that day, so we didn't really see the lighthouse clearly..."
"Why does she like lighthouses?" Xu Yichen asked softly, his heart moved.
"Because her favorite book is called 'To the Lighthouse.' It's a book by a British author. I found it later and read it, but it's too obscure to understand."
"On the first day of school, the icebreaker question was: What's your favorite book? I don't know why, but I answered this book. The teaching assistant was a little surprised and told me it was a difficult book even for native speakers. That's when I realized how profound her inner world was, and how shallow I was."
Xu Yichen was slightly stunned.
In the United States, few people actually read this kind of serious literature.
But this happened to be his favorite book, and it was even now on the desk in his dormitory.
But his is the English version.
"To the Lighthouse".
The author Woolf is a pioneering British feminist writer. In an era when women were not allowed to write or paint, her thoughts and writings were inevitably accompanied by a deep pain.
If a person longs for a lighthouse, then she must have been or is still in the darkness.
It was as if a traveler met a companion, and a sudden tremor arose in his soul.
Ever since Xu Yichen could remember, a similar pain has been faintly evident in the underlying tone of his life.
He is a second-generation Chinese immigrant. Like many other Chinese immigrants, his parents used some "methods" to go abroad in their early years. After obtaining their status, they brought him to the United States.
My parents don’t speak English well, so they can only work in a Chinese restaurant, serving dishes, washing clothes, and bowing and nodding every day.
But whenever they talked about their choice of America, there was an incoherent sense of pride in their parents' words, and they reiterated their expectations for him, as if they were fanatical gamblers, placing all their bets on him:
"We came to America for your better future. Ethan, you must achieve great things."
He was unable to speak out about the bullying against Asians in school, how he always felt like an outsider, and how maybe you shouldn't have brought him to the United States.
You can only work hard to earn that "great success", as if it is a lighthouse guiding your voyage in the darkness.
Many years later, he really did it step by step.
The view from his high-rise office in downtown New York was stunning, with large patches of sunset glow falling on his spacious private office, but he suddenly felt a little lonely.
Xu Yichen put down the yellowed paper in his hand and picked up a ID photo tucked between the pages of the book.
The photo looked worn and rubbed, as if a layer of soft mist filter had been added to the girl.
Her already pure and beautiful facial features appear even more ethereal, like a fairy in the clouds, ethereal and out of reach.
On the other side of the earth, unknown to this girl, there is a person who, because of her existence, feels the warmth of heading towards the lighthouse with her companions.
What is this girl's darkness and what is her lighthouse?
*
When Ke Fan pushed open the door, the room was quiet. In the dim light, only a bedside lamp emitted a faint light.
Liao Qingmei was half leaning against the headboard of the bed. Seeing her, a smile broke out on her pale face: "Xiao Fan is back. How was your school today?"
Ke Fan walked over and silently took out a bright yellow certificate from his schoolbag. The words "Three Good Students" in bold font were very eye-catching.
The frail woman in front of her smiled even more brightly, and a pair of weak but warm hands gently rested on her head: "Well done, Xiaofan. Promise your mother that you will always study hard and read well, okay? Don't be like your mother..."
"Before Mom got married, she wanted to be a free and easy writer. Unfortunately, at that time, it seemed like a great sin for a woman not to marry and have children. Your grandparents and all the relatives around came to persuade her not to, and your grandmother even forced me to go on a blind date."
"I was able to hold out for the first few years, but later on, I was forced into a situation where I had no choice but to go once or twice. It was during that time that I met your father. He promised me that after marriage, I could still do whatever I wanted, and I was so obsessed that I believed him. But you see..."
Liao Qingmei looked at the book "To the Lighthouse" on the pillow, which had been flipped to the edge, and her voice was so soft that it seemed like a sigh:
"Xiao Fan, do you remember what your mother said to you when she read this book to you? --
Be the painter Lily who finally reaches the lighthouse, not Mrs. Ramsay who sacrifices everything for her family, okay?"
Ke Fan leaned against the bed, tightly clutching the certificate, the edges of the paper wrinkled into a ball.
The woman's figure was even thinner than the paper in her hand. Along with the dim light, it gradually dimmed and was about to be swallowed by the boundless darkness.
The certificate fell to the ground. Ke Fan reached out anxiously, trying to pull Liao Qingmei out of the suffocating darkness, but everything in the room shrank rapidly and faded into the void.
"Mom!" Tears welled up in her eyes.
She stretched out her hand but found nothing. She felt a sudden pain in her heart and opened her eyes.
The luxurious hotel room, messy bedding and sofa, hinted at the unrest of last night.
Ke Fan sat up, her eyes still unfocused and motionless, as if she had blocked out reality and was still immersed in a dream.
I dreamed of my mother again.
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