53/Within five seconds
Back in the dormitory, Su Wangqiu was nowhere to be found. He sent a message, and it took more than ten minutes for her to reply.
Su Wangqiu: I'm sorry, Mianmian. He heard I wasn't feeling well, so he came all the way from Shanghai to see me. I'm at the hotel with him right now.
It was only then that Chen Mian realized that everyone around her seemed to be in love. After leaving high school, hormones were no longer restrained. The young men and women who had just entered university were bold and direct in their interactions. Deng Momo often didn't go back to the dormitory. The word "hotel," which was something that she was too shy to say in high school, could be openly used in university.
It seems to be a symbol of some kind of growth and freedom.
The medicine I bought was placed on the table.
Chen Mian's spirit, which she had been holding up all day, finally collapsed after she sat down. She had a dull pain in the back of her head and felt dazed, as if she had sunk into a swamp. She filled a cup with hot water from the water dispenser, drank it, and then went to bed to rest.
Then I fell into one disjointed dream after another.
She dreamt that she was in a cold, damp room, with the sound of water everywhere she went, and all around her was darkness, until the sound of chains came from all directions. An indescribable panic enveloped her, and at the same time, she heard familiar voices calling out to her in unison from the direction of the chains.
—Chen Mian, do you think you can escape? Do you think you'll be free once I'm dead?
—I am your father, Chen Mian.
—My blood flows in your veins.
The light seemed to shine upwards from underwater, a hazy, indistinct glow, carrying a chilling cold. She was like a dismembered person, not knowing where her hands and feet were, unable to move. Only a pair of eyes could see the fragmented Chen Song bound by chains in the light, calling out her name.
He stretched out his hand, which had no fingers left, and walked towards her.
One step, two steps, getting closer and closer, just as those hands were about to grab her, the scene suddenly changed.
Everything around her quickly transformed into a prison scene, with a stainless steel workbench in the center. Chen Song's head was placed on it, without lips or a nose, his face was flat, and only a pair of eyes stared intently at her. Beside him was Ruan Yanmei, wearing a red dress, holding a machete and chopping off Chen Song's arm.
"Die! Die! All of you die!"
Blood splattered on Chen Mian's face. She raised her hand to cover her eyes, but Ruan Yanmei, holding a cleaver, turned around, her eyes bloodshot, and sneered at her, "You die too! Chen Mian, you die—"
Holding a knife, she strode quickly toward Chen Mian.
Chen Song's face, devoid of features, was smiling.
Ruan Yanmei wanted to kill her.
Chen Song didn't let her go even in his dreams.
Chen Mian closed her eyes. The knife was about to fall on her, but it was interrupted by a sudden burst of light.
The phone's violent vibration felt like an invisible hand, dragging her out of the swamp of nightmares.
Her hair was completely wet, her breathing was unsteady, and her chest heaved violently. It took her a long time to regain her senses in the dark dormitory.
I picked up my phone and saw an unfamiliar number on the screen.
She answered the call, and there was silence on the other end, only the sound of the wind whistling past.
Chen Mian sat up straight and looked out the window at the darkening sky.
A long time passed, so long that it felt like the call had lasted for more than an hour.
She sighed silently, her voice so soft it seemed it might be swallowed by the wind at any moment.
It was quiet over there, with only the sound of the wind shuttling back and forth, as if time had been taken back to the intimate kiss on the mountainside of Suibei.
Then, snap, the call was disconnected.
This phone call, which ended the nightmare, felt more like a dream than a nightmare itself.
Chen Mian sat alone in the darkness for a long time.
She had just washed her face in the bathroom when she saw her pale face in the mirror under the light. Her eyes were red. She wiped the moisture off her face with a towel and stared at herself in the mirror for a long time until she heard Deng Momo and Yu Yu talking outside the door. Only then did she finally stop staring at herself, hang up the towel, and return to the light from the bathroom.
That evening, Zhao Lili called Chen Mian.
Chen Mian stood on the balcony, the cold wind blowing as she listened to Zhao Lili sharing her recent situation on the phone. She muttered to herself that the school food wasn't appetizing, and then mentioned recently running into Liu Junjie in Shanghai. "It's so strange," she said. "He wasn't very tall when we graduated, right? But the last time I saw him on the street, he was a head taller than me! Did he take hormones to grow taller? I really—"
"Lily," Chen Mian interrupted her, then asked, "Do you like him?"
There was a long silence on the other end before someone laughed, "You found out."
It was a cheerful tone. The exposed crush was like a pretty little flower. Once the veil was removed, it immediately swayed and showed off its beauty in the sunlight.
Chen Mian lowered her eyes, looking at the couples reluctant to part downstairs at the girls' dormitory, and asked Zhao Lili with some confusion, "But isn't liking someone a superfluous thing?"
There are many things to do in life. The time spent reluctantly parting with your lover can be used to do the important things that you should be doing at this age, such as reading more academic papers or books. You can also do a part-time job during your date time. Once love squeezes into your life, it's like a locust swarm, invading all other time, crawling into the cracks of all time, and gradually becoming the whole of life.
It also carries too much uncertainty, and the future is always unpredictable. You may walk together for a while, but you never know when the other person will go down a different path. Perhaps, with the passage of time, they will become completely different people from what they were before. They may also be restricted by years of relationship or a marriage certificate, and waste their lives in vain. There are too many bad examples to count on two hands. Every one of them has repeatedly told Chen Mian that once you have expectations of someone, you are destined to be hurt by disappointment.
It's better not to invest any emotions in the beginning, to stay detached from all emotions, and to always remain rational. In this way, you will never be hurt by emotions and will not end up on the same path as Ruan Yanmei and Song Ai.
"You're too pessimistic, Mianmian. How can liking someone be a superfluous thing? Liking someone and being liked are both beautiful things. I like Liu Junjie, and it's not for any complicated reason, or even a reason. It's just that one morning during self-study, I was so sleepy that I couldn't keep my eyes open, and he turned around and tapped my desk with his pen. The moment I opened my eyes, I saw sunlight streaming in from behind him!"
"Can you imagine that scene, Mianmian? It was like the sky only brightened up because he turned around. At that moment, I thought, wow, Liu Junjie is so handsome! But actually, he's just average, unremarkable, and he even likes someone else. But liking someone is something that has no reason, no logic."
"But if we can't find any reason or logic, doesn't that prove that this is something that can be done entirely at will? If you like him, you go to him; if you don't like him, you stay away from him. Isn't that a kind of freedom?"
Chen Mian asked softly, "What freedom?"
Zhao Lili laughed on the other end of the phone and replied, "The freedom to love and be loved."
The door to the dormitory balcony was pushed open a little, and Deng Momo poked her head out and asked Chen Mian, "Want to go out for a late-night snack, Mianmian? Wang Qiu said her boyfriend is treating."
Upon hearing this, Zhao Lili said to Chen Mian on the phone, "Go ahead, go ahead, participate in more activities and make more friends. You're only eighteen, Mianmian, you don't need to push yourself so hard. I'll only feel at ease if you make more friends and have more fun!"
It sounded like the tone of an elder, yet it carried the most sincere sincerity, and Chen Mian couldn't refuse.
The dinner wasn't arranged near the school, but at their hotel.
Chen Mian and Deng Momo took a taxi there. After arriving at their destination, Chen Mian's headache still hadn't subsided, and her appetite was also poor. She forced herself to eat a little something and then told Su Wangqiu that she was going to the restroom.
As early winter approaches, water feels icy cold when it touches your hand.
Before leaving home, Chen Mian applied some lipstick to cover her unpleasant complexion, but a lot of it rubbed off during the meal.
The person in the mirror had delicate and beautiful features, but looked like a lifeless doll. Her face was frighteningly pale, her lips were pale, and her almond-shaped eyes were bloodshot.
Chen Mian calculated the time; the dinner party inside would probably end in another half hour.
So he turned off the tap and walked straight out of the restaurant from the restroom.
On weekend nights, people are enjoying their leisure time. The bustling streets are teeming with people. On the roadside, vendors selling candied hawthorns and roasted chestnuts stand side by side, while an old man pushing a cart selling roasted sweet potatoes searches for his own stall.
The cold wind finally relieved my headache a little.
She rummaged in her pocket, pulled out a ten-yuan note, and walked toward the roasted chestnut stall. Every two steps, she heard a familiar voice calling her name with some surprise from the roadside.
"Holy crap, am I seeing things or is that my imagination? Is that Chen Mian?"
She stopped in her tracks.
Only through blurry vision did he see You Huai standing next to the sports car behind all the mobile stalls, and Shen Yu, who was wearing a gray hoodie behind him.
He kept his head down, his phone screen lit up, and his fingers swiped, still looking as busy as ever.
It was the most ordinary scene, seemingly no different from any other day.
There was no fountain or any music, only the radio on the old man's car playing over and over again: "On stage, they sing of life and death, fleeting prosperity; off stage, they encounter the coldness of human relationships, right and wrong, truth and falsehood."
The wind flows through the middle, carrying the sweet aroma of all the food.
Shen Yu glanced up, his gaze indifferent as if the phone call from not long ago was nothing more than a dreamlike illusion, before quickly looking away.
Streetlights and all the light sources are what allow them to see each other clearly.
Of all the factors, he casually remarked, "I'm leaving."
Then he pressed the car key in his hand, and the sleek black sports car next to him made a sound. He opened the driver's side door and sped away into the night.
"Young lady, are you still going to buy it or not?" The old man's voice broke Chen Mian's silence.
She lowered her eyes and handed over the banknote in her hand, "Buy."
You Huai was caught off guard by this scene and stood there stunned until Shen Yu's car had disappeared from sight before he put out his cigarette.
Without even having a chance to say a word to Chen Mian, he hurriedly drove off in his car.
There was no small talk.
The eye contact didn't last long enough to blur everything around them.
Everything happened in just five seconds.
/
There's one more chapter, but you'll have to wait a bit.
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