Gear stall
The afternoon sun shines into the spacious and bright living room of Wen Lingyi's house, and the air is filled with the mellow aroma of fine black tea.
Wen Lingyi leaned gracefully against a comfortable sofa, holding a delicate bone china teacup. Her eyes were less distant than usual, a gentle, almost imperceptible smile playing at the corners of her lips, and she exuded a sense of relaxation.
On the coffee table, the exquisite snacks were almost untouched.
Su Qing, holding the teacup, keenly caught Wen Lingyi's unusual state.
She put down the cup, and came closer with a wicked smile: "Oh, our beautiful Wen looks so happy today, but something is wrong. Tell me, do you have a new crush? Look at the corners of your eyes and eyebrows, you can't hide it at all~" She deliberately dragged out her tone, and her eyes scanned Wen Lingyi's face inquiringly.
When Wen Lingyi heard this, the smile on her lips deepened a little.
She gently swirled the amber tea in her cup and said calmly, "What nonsense! At my age, I'm no longer interested in childish games like romance."
She raised her eyes and glanced at Su Qing. "Dating?" She sneered softly, as if talking about something extremely far-fetched and unrealistic. "It's a pure waste of time and energy. It's totally unnecessary."
Su Qing agreed wholeheartedly, leaning back comfortably, her posture carefree and uninhibited. "That's right! Dating is such a burden. Sincerity is the least valuable, and it can easily hurt you. It's so good to be like us, free and unfettered. Are you lonely?" She shrugged, her tone light, "Find someone you like, and we can both get what we want. It's neat and tidy, how great!"
She changed the subject and naturally cut in: "By the way, speaking of that 'legendary' ex-girlfriend of yours, Zhu Yang? I remember you back then..."
Wen Lingyi's fingers holding the teacup paused slightly, and the smile on her face faded a barely perceptible arc, but her tone remained calm and unmoved, and no emotion could be heard: "Why bring up such trivial matters?"
"Oh, isn't this just a small talk? I'm checking in on you!" Su Qing didn't notice the subtle change in her friend's aura. She excitedly took out her phone and swiped the screen. "What a coincidence! I saw her the other day when I was bored and scrolling through my Moments. I forgot to tell you."
As she spoke, she clicked on a photo and turned the phone screen towards Wen Lingyi: "Here, look, she just gave birth to a big fat boy. Here, this one, she's holding a pink ball, with the caption 'Finally became a mother, life is complete'. Wow, look at how happy she is..."
On Su Qing's mobile phone screen, Zhu Yang was clearly shown holding a swaddled baby with a bright and beautiful smile, her whole body filled with the satisfaction and happiness of being a new mother.
Wen Lingyi's gaze fell on the face on the screen, brimming with worldly happiness. In an instant, the remaining gentle smile on her face was swept away by the cold wave, instantly frozen, shattered, and completely disappeared without a trace.
Her eyes instantly grew sharp and cold, and the knuckles on her fingers gripping the cup handle turned white from the sudden force, and she even trembled slightly. The originally relaxed atmosphere in the living room seemed to be instantly drained away, freezing like an ice cellar.
Su Qing was still sighing to herself, "...You said, she kept it a secret back then, playing you around like a drum, and even had the nerve to cry and try to get you to stay. Now, she's having children as planned, and her life is going smoothly and peacefully... Hey? Lingyi? What's wrong with you?"
She finally realized that Wen Lingyi's face was terribly gloomy and her eyes were fixed on the phone screen.
"Get out." Wen Lingyi's voice was low and cold, without any warmth.
"Ah?" Su Qing was completely stunned, thinking she was hallucinating.
"I said, get out." Wen Lingyi stood up suddenly, her movements so fast that they brought up a gust of wind.
She pointed condescendingly in the direction of the living room door.
The feeling of relaxation just now was gone, leaving only the biting anger.
Su Qing was shocked and enraged by this sudden anger and cold aura, and she also stood up: "Wen Lingyi! What's wrong with you?! I just mentioned Zhu Yang. It's eight hundred years old! Is it necessary to react so strongly? You can't be..."
She looked at Wen Lingyi suspiciously: "...You still can't let her go?"
"Can't let her go?" Wen Lingyi looked like she had heard an extremely ridiculous joke. The corners of her lips curled up into an extremely cold arc full of sharp sarcasm, but the depths of her eyes were like a bottomless, lifeless cold pool.
"Su Qing, listen to me carefully. The best ex is a dead ex. I feel that even the word "hate" towards her is a waste of my emotions and saliva." She spoke each word clearly, each word like an icicle, "Now, immediately, take your things and get out.
Su Qing was shocked by the undisguised coldness and anger that she had never shown before. She opened her mouth and wanted to say something, but was ultimately blocked by the powerful sense of oppression.
She grabbed her handbag angrily and aggrievedly, glared at Wen Lingyi fiercely, her high heels clattering on the floor, and slammed the door and left.
"Bang!" The heavy sound of the door closing echoed in the empty living room, adding to the silence.
Wen Lingyi stood there, her chest heaving slightly, her fists clenched. She stared into space, as if Zhu Yang's happy face was still swaying before her eyes.
Although he no longer had any remaining feelings for that woman, the scar she had carved with her own hands had never truly healed.
The shame of being deceived, betrayed, and fooled like a fool by the person you trusted the most, and the subsequent complete disillusionment and deep-rooted distrust of the illusory emotion of love, were torn open again at this moment by that "perfect" photo.
Hatred gnawed at her heart like a cold, poisonous snake. She hated Zhu Yang's hypocrisy and heartlessness, and even more so, she hated herself for being so foolish and naive back then, letting her true heart be trampled upon.
That betrayal was like a devastating hurricane, completely reshaping her emotional world. She was no longer the Wen Lingyi who would risk her life for love and give her heart without reservation.
Sincerity? Love? It's nothing but a deadly poison wrapped in sugar, a fragile castle built on quicksand, the most ridiculous and vulnerable lie in the world!
All she has now is the interest in hunting "prey".
Observation, probing, ambiguous teasing, and the subtle pleasure brought by controlling the rhythm... these are safe, controllable games that will not make her fall into the abyss again.
For example... that little maintenance worker Zhou Jianxing, whose mind is as pure as a blank sheet of paper and who blushes easily.
Thinking of Zhou Jianxing's focused look on repairing things last night, and that clumsy sentence that unexpectedly touched her heart, a very faint fluctuation, which she herself was not even aware of, flashed across her cold eyes, but was immediately covered by a deeper ice.
Just prey.
Just an interesting prey that can temporarily dispel her boredom and bring a little novelty.
She would never fall in love with anyone again, ever.
Now she just had to think about how to make this hunting game more interesting and last longer, until she got tired of it.
Wen Lingyi walked to the wine cabinet, took out a bottle of liquor, and poured herself a full glass. The amber liquid swayed in the glass, reflecting her cold and calm profile.
She tilted her head back and downed the spicy liquid in the cup. The liquor burned her throat and all the way into her stomach, but it couldn't warm the vast, desolate tundra deep in her heart, completely frozen by the past.
·
Night falls again, and the halo of the desk lamp gently covers the desk.
Zhou Jianxing's fingertips unconsciously stroked the cover of the "Autumn Leaves" reissue album, and the melody of jazz seemed to still linger in his ears.
The secret throbbing in my heart is like a stone thrown into the lake, and ripples spread out in circles.
She pulled her hand back abruptly, as if she'd been burned. No, this can't happen.
To dispel these inappropriate thoughts, she stood up and walked towards the storage room.
Deep in my memory, my grandfather's old record player, which has also been silent for many years, is now lying in a corner.
With some effort, she found it from the pile of old things.
The fuselage was covered in dust, and the wood grain looked dull in the dim light. It had been my grandfather's treasure, and he used it to listen to my grandmother's favorite Yue Opera excerpts.
After my grandma and grandpa passed away one after another, the machine seemed to have run out of energy. One day, it suddenly stopped working and was eventually taken here by my father.
Zhou Jianxing carefully moved it to the living room floor. She found a soft cloth, dampened it, wrung it out, and began to wipe the heavy wooden shell bit by bit. The dust was brushed away, revealing a warm luster underneath.
She opened the top cover, revealing the delicate mechanical structure inside which was also covered in dust.
Zhou Jianxing likes repairs.
This liking for her not only stems from her fascination with precise mechanical structures and her enjoyment of the clear and straightforward restoration process, but also from a deeper reason that has become extremely clear at this moment - she wants to bring those forgotten and abandoned old objects back to life.
An item you've used for a long time is like a family member. It accompanies a family or individual, experiencing countless laughs, tears, trivial daily routines, and important moments, and is imbued with irreplaceable memories and emotions.
Zhou Jianxing thought, if these repaired objects could speak, what they would most want to say would be that they want to continue to accompany their owners for a longer time.
In this breathtakingly fast-paced world, where "if something breaks, replace it with a new one" has become the norm, Zhou Jianxing, like a stubborn contrarian, can't help but feel a pity for those old items washed away by the tide of time, abandoned by their owners. The stories they carry shouldn't be lost.
Recovering from her thoughts, she carefully inspected the internal components. The drive gears were badly worn, the belts were old and broken, and a key shock-absorbing rubber pad was shattered... there were many problems.
She disassembled it carefully, her movements as gentle as if she was treating a sleeping old man.
In this moment of concentration, a thought suddenly struck Zhou Jianxing's mind: When I was repairing Wen Lingyi's record player last night, she had seen shock-absorbing rubber pads of similar specifications in her spare parts box... Even the model of the drive gear looked...
If I could get that part, maybe...
She even subconsciously reached for her cell phone in her pocket.
However, the moment the fingertips touched the cold screen, they suddenly retracted as if they were scalded.
She recalled the details of every meeting with Wen Lingyi.
The gentle gaze of Wen Lingyi in her silk nightgown at the door, the breathtaking distance she kept approaching in the bathroom, the strange throbbing sensation brought by the touch through the towel, the electric-like numbness and trembling brought by the touch of their fingertips...
She found herself secretly looking forward to Wen Lingyi's next call.
However, Wen Lingyi's touching, approaching, sharing records, and even the affectionate and teasing "fool" seemed to be natural and normal interactions in the eyes of the other party, normal contact between a rich lady and a female maintenance worker.
Zhou Jianxing's mind involuntarily drifted back to the depths of his memory—the striking photo of the two of them on the low cabinet in the entrance hall of Wen Lingyi's home. It was a silent yet incredibly clear landmark.
"She's married." This realization was like a basin of ice water that instantly extinguished the spark that had just ignited in my heart, leaving only the biting cold and heavy sense of guilt.
Zhou Jianxing has never liked anyone. What does it feel like to like someone?
A racing heart? A flushed face? A constant yearning? These unfamiliar, surging emotions made her panic.
Zhou Jianxing tried to find a safe explanation: Maybe she just thought of Mrs. Wen as a gentle older sister? Or maybe it was the recent heat that had made her mood fluctuate? She clumsily deceived herself.
Deep down, a voice warned her: What would happen if she continued this way? Things beyond her expectations, things she might not even be able to control… Just imagining them made her feel suffocated with fear and shame. She couldn't do this, and she shouldn't do this.
Zhou Jianxing took a deep breath and suppressed the thought about the parts. She stopped trying to touch the phone and instead cleaned the inside of her grandfather's record player more carefully and gently.
Using a cotton swab dipped in special cleaning oil, she meticulously wiped the tips of each gear, maintaining the aging bearings. She seemed to hear the whispers of this silent machine, recounting the long years it had shared with grandpa and grandma: the humming of Yue Opera on cool summer nights, her grandfather's attentive cleaning of it under the warm winter sun, and her grandmother's gentle smile as she hummed along...
She was not repairing a machine, but carefully wiping away a piece of sealed warm time.
In the end, she simply cleaned every corner carefully, oiled the maintainable parts, and carefully packed up and put away the worn gears and broken belts.
She did not ask Wen Lingyi for help.
That name, along with that secret throbbing, was locked away in the deepest corner of her heart, determined not to touch it again.
Zhou Jianjun came out of the kitchen and saw his daughter sitting on the floor, staring at the old record player that was polished to a shine but still silent, with tools and cleaning agents scattered around.
"Xingxing?" Zhou Jianjun was a little surprised. He walked over and squatted down. "Why did you dig out this antique? This thing broke a long time ago, and no one listens to records anymore." There was a hint of confusion in his tone.
Zhou Jianxing raised his head, with a trace of complex emotions still lingering in his eyes, but more of it was tenderness when facing his father.
She lowered her head, her fingers unconsciously digging into the cracks in the floor, her voice muffled: "Dad... I just... miss grandpa and grandma."
A few simple words, like a key, instantly opened the floodgates of memory.
The gentle smile on Zhou Jianjun's face froze, and his eyes turned red almost immediately.
He looked at the record player that bore the imprint of his parents. His throat rolled, his voice a little hoarse. He raised his hand and gently patted his daughter's shoulder: "...Yeah. Dad knows. I miss Dad and Mom, too."
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