Chapter 39: Seaside Town "Pei Zhiyu almost set the house on fire."...
The wooden door was half open, and the light in the shop was still dim.
Zhui Lian stood at the door dragging her suitcase, looking at the tall and thin woman standing next to the old TV and changing the channels.
White Eye Mask was still wearing her simple gray windbreaker and black trousers. Her long hair, which usually hung loose, was casually tied to the side with a rubber band today, and it was hanging in front of her chest.
"Come in."
The woman didn't even turn around, but she recognized the person at the door and said, "Is Pei Zhiyu finally willing to let you go?"
The suitcase was placed by the door, and Zhui Lian nodded when she heard this.
She seemed to be searching for a suitable title to address the woman, and after a long while she hesitated before speaking: "Sister Eyepatch..."
The man with the white eye mask walked back to the counter piled with miscellaneous items, looking at her with his slender eyes, as if he thought the name was interesting.
"What a strange name." The man with the white eye mask sneered, "Sit down. What's going on?"
Zhui Lian tilted her head, pointed at the suitcase by the door, then pointed at herself and said, "Can you do some special tests here?"
Even though she had carefully checked everything before leaving the villa, she still couldn't let go. She was always worried that Pei Zhiyu was hiding something bigger, or if there were any drug residue or tracking devices somewhere...
The man with the white eye mask stood up quickly without asking any questions.
She has a wide range of business and does have some unusual equipment.
"Come with me."
She said so.
*
The test results once again surprised Zhui Lian.
Very clean.
The box was clean and she was clean too.
Zhui Lian sat in the small room of a few square meters inside the convenience store, with a look of great bewilderment and confusion on his face. Is it true?
Did Pei Zhiyu really decide to let go and let her live the life she wanted?
No matter how I think about it, it feels like a dream.
"What? Are you disappointed? Are you not used to not giving you the drug?" The man with the white eye mask took out a disposable paper cup from the cabinet, filled it with some warm water and handed it to her.
Zhui Lian took the paper cup, but didn't drink it. She just held the cup of water with both hands, as if thinking about something.
She shook her head and whispered, "It's just... a little bit unbelievable."
The man with the white eye mask didn't say anything else. His slender hands were typing away on the computer keyboard, and he didn't seem to be bothered by the presence of an outsider like her.
"Eyepatch sister."
Zhui Lian turned his head to look at her. When the white-eyed mask heard this name, the corners of his mouth twitched slightly, but he didn't stop her in the end and continued to listen to her.
"Can I sleep at your place tonight?" she asked. "I'll pay."
The man with the white eye mask kept tapping away on the keyboard. He glanced at her from above the screen and said, "There's a camp bed in the back utility room. Make it up yourself."
"Forget about the money. Be frugal. You'll need it a lot more in the future."
"There are still many places to spend money?" Zhui Lian seemed a little confused. "Why?"
The house in Heping Community was bought in full by her before her marriage. Not counting the money Pei Zhiyu gave her over the years, she still had hundreds of thousands of yuan in her card, which was enough for her to find another job and live independently in this city.
The keyboard sounds stopped.
The man with the white eyepatch leaned back in his chair, his single eye examining her as if he was weighing something.
"You're not leaving S City?" She seemed to have discovered something new and interesting. "This place is so rotten to you, and you're not leaving?"
Silence spread in the dim light.
"Xunli..." Zhui Lian was silent for a moment, then said in a low voice, "He's still here."
His cemetery, his tombstone, his ashes, and their agreement... are all still here.
The car accident in which he died is also here.
The warmth of the warm water was too much to penetrate, and my fingertips were still cold.
Zhui Lian mustered up the courage and asked, "Sister Eyepatch, you... told me last time that I wanted to find out more than just who Yu Peizhi was... so what else..."
The white eye mask answered quickly, without even waiting for her to finish the rest of the sentence: "I know a little about what you want to ask."
"Not much, and not necessarily what you want to hear."
"tell me."
Zhui Lian's voice was soft, but it was filled with a resolute stubbornness.
"Three years ago, Pei Zhiyu came back from England. Did you know?"
She doesn't know.
At that time, she was in England, and the only things that kept her company all day long were the jingling of the silver chain on her feet and the lifeless and cold apartment.
Oh... and, it seemed that Pei Zhiyu was not at home from time to time at that time, so I bought her a bird.
She forgot what kind it was, but it was a very rare variety.
The bird is pure white, but its feathers are extremely colorful.
It was locked in a carved golden cage in the living room, said to be for her entertainment. When she was bored, she curled up on the sofa and watched it. The bird had a fierce temper and fluttered a lot.
It kept banging against the cage and making shrill cries.
Zhui Lian reached out to comfort it, but was pecked by it instead, and blood oozed from the tip of her finger.
When Pei Zhiyu came back, she wanted to hide her hand behind her back so that he wouldn't see the wound, but she still couldn't hide it from him.
He took her finger between his lips and sucked the blood for her.
"Did this beast do it?" He glanced at the bird in the golden cage with a somewhat unfriendly look.
Strangely, when Pei Zhiyu was around, the bird didn't dare to make a single sound.
But feeling pity for it is a bit like feeling pity for yourself.
She quickly shook her head: "No... no, I stabbed myself accidentally."
"Chasing pity."
Pei Zhiyu turned her face over, gently holding her chin with his palms, and laughed as if he was angry. "I have had all the sharp objects in this apartment thrown away. Even the flowers were brought in with the thorns removed. Did you prick them yourself? What did you use to prick them?"
Zhui Lian was speechless.
Later, the bird was sent away for a while. When it came back, it was very quiet. I don’t know what torture it had suffered.
Zhui Lian looked at it and for some reason found it even more annoying than the bird's daily shrill cries.
When the two of them were being affectionate, she panted slightly and said to Pei Zhiyu, "I don't like that bird anymore. Please release it..."
"Hmm? Lianlian doesn't like it anymore?" Pei Zhiyu's hand gently stroked that part of her spine, climbing up bit by bit, and he laughed softly, "Then kill it."
"Pei Zhiyu!" she screamed in horror, "No!"
Halfway through the incident, Pei Zhiyu suddenly burst into laughter, as if he had encountered something very interesting. It was a bit of a spoiler, but he was laughing really happily.
"Baby." He called her gently, "You are so cute."
Meanwhile, the man with the white eye mask continued to speak in a calm and even voice.
"After Pei Zhiyu came back, he met Qiao Xunli once, or maybe more than once. In any case, the last meeting was a bit awkward."
Zhui Lian suddenly came back to his senses and asked, "Where did you meet?"
A flash of inspiration came to her mind, and she had heard the two drunken fishermen say something when she was hiding in the bottom of the cabin -
"That imposing young man we met at the dock the other day seemed to have come here a few years ago, right?"
"They look very similar, but I always feel like there's something different about them!"
"Elegance!" the fisherman shouted back, "He has the same temperament now as when I was with him... Hey, hey, don't steal my wine, you old man!"
…
That imposing young man, and with him...the two fishermen saw them at the dock at that time, should be two people.
Logically, one should be Qiao Xunli, and the other... should be Pei Zhiyu?
The white eye mask in front of him paused.
She seemed to be reminiscing, and after a while she shook her head: "I'm not sure about the exact location, but it's not in S City. It seems to be in some property owned by the Pei family."
"After the car accident, all I knew was that Pei Zhiyu had a big fight at home and almost set the house on fire."
"As for why they're making such a fuss? No one knows. In short, when it comes to the Pei family, there's only black and white. White—"
She snorted in an ambiguous tone, "It's already gray."
*
There are many tombstones in the suburban cemetery.
The air in the early morning was cool, and Zhui Lian tightened her coat.
She walked deeper into the cemetery. Even though she hadn't been there for a long time, she could still easily find the burial place of the gentle boy in her memory who was forever frozen at the age of twenty-three.
She squatted down and gently placed the large bunch of white daisies in her hand in front of the tombstone.
"I'm sorry, Xunli..." Zhui Lian drooped her eyelashes gently, "I've been back for so long, and this is the first time I come to see you."
"I'm always like this, always trying to escape, but it's all because you were so nice to me before. You told me that there are always people who like to play ostrich, and it's nothing..."
That year, the boy's soft hair was gilded with the afternoon sun. He took a pen and tapped Zhui Lian's forehead, who was avoiding the same type of math problems.
"You, you," he said with a smile in his voice, "never mind, we have to allow some people in this world to be ostriches, right?"
“When you encounter a problem, just bury your head and pretend not to see it, as if the problem will really disappear on its own.”
She raised her head and glared at him.
Qiao Xunli was not annoyed.
He was as gentle as a spring lake. "It's okay, just be an ostrich. But you have to promise me you'll keep your head down for a while. Once you've recovered, you'll have to keep trying."
"If you can't do it once, try it twice. If you can't do it twice, try it ten times. I'll be with you. I can't really be an ostrich for the rest of my life, right?"
With a click.
Now the tears rolled down without warning and hit the base of the stone tablet.
A small patch of dark color spreads.
"So I always feel like, if I don't come to see you, you're still somewhere in the world, living a good life in that seaside town we once agreed to go to together..."
Zhui Lian covered her face with her hands, tears that could not be stopped kept flowing from her eyes, click, click, click... The small patch of dark color spread wider and wider, and finally seemed to soak the entire base of the stone tablet.
I can't stop the tears, I can't stop them no matter what I do.
"Are you...Zhui Lian?"
A somewhat hoarse female voice came from behind.
With some hesitation.
Zhui Lian hastily wiped the tears from her face and turned around.
A middle-aged woman in plain clothes stood a few steps away. She looked a little haggard and old, but her outline was obviously similar to Qiao Xunli.
She also held a bouquet of white chrysanthemums in her hand.
Zhui Lian was stunned and nodded: "I am...you are?"
"I am Xunli's mother." The woman walked forward and gently placed the flowers in her hand in front of the grave.
She looked at Zhui Lian with complicated eyes.
Sadness, scrutiny, and a hint of understanding.
"I've seen your photo. It's in the back of Xunli's wallet. He always keeps it." She touched the back of Zhui Lian's hand, sighing and caring like an elder. "In that photo, you were still in your school uniform. You've grown up so fast."
yes.
It was almost eight years ago that she and Xunli went to high school.
Zhui Lian suddenly felt that she could not breathe.
"Where are you going?" Qiao's mother looked at the suitcase at her feet, a little surprised. "Back to England? When Xunli was still alive, I heard him say that you went to study in England after graduating from high school."
"No." Zhui Lian whispered, "That place is not auspicious. I won't go back."
Mother Qiao opened her mouth, but seemed to not know what to say.
But after a moment, she seemed to have made up her mind and grabbed Zhui Lian's hand.
She lowered her voice and said softly, "Come on, child, go home and sit for a while. It's been... a long time since anyone could talk to me about Xunli."
The Qiao family's living room was simple and tidy. It was not as quiet as Zhui Lian had imagined, but still maintained a lively atmosphere. There were brand new tourist attraction refrigerator magnets on the refrigerator, a new brightly colored TV cover... But there was a small room that was forever sealed for the young man named Qiao Xunli.
Yes, that person is gone.
Those who are alive should always look forward.
No one has the obligation to stop time for anyone, not even herself.
Mother Qiao took her into Qiao Xunli's room, took something out of an old wooden box, and gently pushed it to Zhui Lian.
It was an old notebook.
Zhui Lian recognized it at a glance.
That was the notebook they used together in high school.
The title page bore their initials side by side—
Zl & Qxl
Inside were several stamps from different cities. Under one of the azure stamps, there was a handwriting of two people communicating:
"I like it here, the sea is so blue!" These are the words of Zhui Lian.
"Okay, when we have saved enough money, we will live here together in our old age." This is Qiao Xunli's handwriting.
Mother Qiao slapped her head, as if she suddenly remembered something. She turned around and walked to a cabinet, opened the drawer, and took out a cowhide envelope.
"It seems he painted it himself. It seems to be a seaside somewhere... I thought you might know more about it than I do."
Zhui Lian took the envelope.
Her hands were almost unsteady, and her fingertips trembled as she pulled out the paper.
It was a pencil sketch, a birthday gift she had given to Qiao Xunli.
A quiet bay, a white lighthouse, a few small fishing boats swaying with the waves, and seabirds flying across the sky.
At the bottom of the picture, two little figures were added with unskilled brushstrokes without anyone noticing.
A man and a woman.
The girl's long chestnut hair was flying, and the boy's eyebrows and eyes were gentle and handsome.
They were looking at the sea side by side.
Tears blurred my vision again.
Zhui Lian clutched the thin paper tightly. She suddenly looked up, grabbed Qiao's mother's hand, and said anxiously, "Auntie, Xunli's death...is there anything..."
"child!"
Mother Qiao immediately interrupted her and held her hand.
She gripped Zhui Lian's hand a little tighter, and it was unclear whether the look in her eyes was more sorrowful or pleading: "Don't ask... Don't ask any more."
"Let's all live our lives well. He's gone. Even if...even if something really happened, what can ordinary people like us do?"
At this time, a little girl about five or six years old ran out happily from the inner room. She had a pair of small pigtails and looked playful and cute.
She hugged Qiao's mother's legs and said in a clear voice: "Mom! When are we going to the park?"
The sadness on Qiao's mother's face was quickly replaced by a complex tenderness.
She patted the little girl's head and gave Zhui Lian a forced smile: "...You see, life must go on."
Zhui Lian looked at this scene, and all the questions he wanted to ask were stuck in his throat.
She understood.
She bowed deeply to Qiao's mother and carefully put the sketch away.
"...Thank you. Take care."
The broadcast voice echoed in the airport hall.
Zhui Lian held the plane ticket to the southern coastal town represented by the blue stamp tightly in her hand. She also had the sketch and a few simple clothes in her backpack.
It's almost time to board the flight.
She thought of Qiao's mother's sad yet silent eyes, and suddenly felt exhausted both physically and mentally.
Am I really too persistent and selfish?
What can we gain by pursuing a truth that may never have an answer, other than disturbing the peace of the deceased and the tranquility of the living?
This city that carries so much pain and struggle——
She didn't want to look back.
The plane climbed and rushed into the sea of clouds.
She rested her forehead gently against the cool window and closed her eyes.
She held the backpack in her arms, as if the warmth of the sketch could still comfort her.
The scent of the sea breeze seems to be faintly tangible.
The desire to pursue the heavy truth was temporarily buried in her heart and flew away from S City with her.
On the other side, Pei Zhiyu was also not idle. His hands were on the steering wheel, driving the car towards Qingjiang.
He couldn't use the same tricks anymore.
He wants to try a different approach.
A way to make Zhui Lian truly fall in love with him, pity him, feel sorry for him, and be willing to return to him.
This gift about Qingjiang, which had not been given away at the time, was a good entry point.
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The author has something to say: This chapter seems to have more flashbacks TAT Pei Gou will be back in the next chapter!
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