Wine for teenagers
A frozen night. Extreme darkness. Never breaking the rules of gentleness for anyone.
The gray world is unreasonable.
The rental house was without electricity or water, and was a ruin. Bai Luo simply wiped the boy's cheek, which was stained by his clean blood, with a wet wipe.
She stared at the cold phone in a daze, the screen reflecting her unfocused eyes.
The chat box is empty.
Bo Yi has not replied to the message.
Her heart sank little by little.
Worry about him.
Very worried.
I huddled into a small ball in the corner of the sofa, as if the coldness of the basement when I was eleven years old had returned.
Cloudy. Tidal. Despair. Collapse.
The rain of time is the cold breath of the world.
She opened and closed her eyes, awake as if in a dream, and awake in a dream. Her body temperature fluctuated like the temper of a rainstorm, sometimes fast, sometimes slow.
Dull pain in the heart, numbness and insensitivity.
She opened her misty eyes, and her look was empty, the light was dead, and the life was extinguished.
In the center of the living room coffee table, an exquisite photo frame stands. Not to honor the dead, but to seal the past.
It freezes the image of two young men growing up facing the sun.
The cold, wet moonlight pierced through the violent sound of tonight's rain and fell onto the glass frame covered with a layer of water-colored mist.
Bai Luo wiped it carefully with a tissue, erasing the glorious past and leaving behind a precarious future.
She saw it.
The two poor children with cold facial features in the photo were crying uncontrollably for some reason.
I cried so hard that my lungs were broken, as if I had been abandoned by the whole world.
But is crying useful?
The world never listens to the cries of the weak. No one can hear their mourning.
The clamor of the outside world is a nightmare that cannot be awakened. Neon lights are the blood of the city, flowing across the skyline.
The dilapidated rental house looks so cold and fake.
She gently turned the photo frame over. It was facing the sky. It was facing the ground.
I won’t watch it anymore. I don’t dare to watch it.
Afraid of a glance that lasts for a thousand years. Afraid of a glance back.
Bai Luo's icy blue hair shone with coldness. She lighted a mint cigarette.
The cold flame extinguished its breath. The gray mist lingered between its fingers, fading.
Cigarettes are the sleeping pills that keep you tossing and turning at night.
She is a soul struggling to survive in the darkness.
I am used to sitting alone at midnight, staring at my shadow.
I am used to burying myself in the darkness, like burying a dead body.
Bai Luo held up her slender swan neck, her eyelashes stained with gray smoke, like snow that had fallen all night, or rain that hadn't fallen all night.
The tears that didn't flow turned into ashes and fell into my eyes. It didn't hurt, just cold.
The moon outside the window hangs quietly, as perfect as a lie, like a cooling heart, having jumped, loved, and now only an empty shell remains, hanging in the sky, pretending to be alive.
Tonight, the moon is full as if it were a vow, and people are dispersing like smoke.
For some people, a lifetime is just a turn away.
Some moons, when they are full, will soon disperse.
She didn't cry or feel sad, she just lit another cigarette.
The cigarette butt burned to the end, scarlet as blood, but he chose not to put it out. He let it burn quietly, burning out a little pleasure, burning out a little madness.
The world is too boring, she would rather burn it out than compromise.
*
I spent five hours in a daze.
Bai Luo walked into the darkened bathroom at five in the morning. The sound of rain outside the window was muffled and heavy, syncing with her heartbeat.
Heavy. Sluggish. Gloomy. Sticky.
The clean glass mirror reflected her sickly little face, her brows lowered, and her eyes looked cold, as if she had never been kissed by the sun.
She scooped up a handful of cold water and patted her cheeks.
The man woke up for a moment.
I want to go to the hospital to see Bo Yi.
She didn't know his family very well. He kept his mouth shut, she kept her eyes shut. Their tacit understanding was like a thin layer of ice.
He pieced his world together with just fragments.
My parents divorced and started their own families. The family affection has long been cut off and there is no signal anymore.
Her younger uncle is his half-brother.
It was his half-sister who called him to go to the hospital last night.
His mother abandoned him when he was eighteen, but there was a hidden story.
Because she had cancer and her life was hanging by a thread.
Some love dies in silence.
Some secrets, hidden in blood, are colder than rain.
At five o'clock in the morning of a falling autumn day, a cold flash of lightning flashed, and it seemed that the sky was in pain.
There was a bloody mark on Bai Luo's heart.
Her boy also didn't escape this bad game.
The same miserable fate, the same things not going as planned.
Fate never favors anyone, but they all happened to win the lottery.
During countless sleepless nights, she counted her breaths, her heartbeats, and the wind outside the window.
Finally, count the pills.
A small white particle.
Over time, the body learns to forget.
Forget the pain, forget how to sleep well.
Gradually, the medicine stopped working, and I became numb. The blood in my veins became clogged, dark, and cold.
Her skin was so white that it was almost transparent.
She told herself.
"It doesn't matter. As long as the blood is still flowing, the person won't die."
You can't die.
Just a breathing corpse.
The heartbeat is fake and the eyes are empty.
Half dead, barely breathing.
Sniffing his nose, Bai Luo picked up a black baseball cap and put it on his head.
She was never used to wearing a baseball cap. After wearing it for a long time, it would weigh down her hair roots, ruin her outline, and destroy her beauty.
But Bo Xi had long been accustomed to the hat.
Whether it is sunny or rainy, day or night, he always has a black hat on.
The brim of the hat cast a black shadow, half covering a pair of arrogant eyes.
It’s not about covering, it’s about hiding.
Hide your eyes. Hide your emotions.
Hide your eighteen-year-old self.
When he was in high school, he never wore a hat.
Who wouldn't be jealous of someone with a face that everyone admires?
But after he was admitted to university, the baseball cap became his second skin, with the brim pulled down low.
It's not that he wore a hat, it's that he buried himself with his own hands.
Now he is no different from a stray dog rummaging through trash cans on the street.
It's not the appearance that's similar, it's the youthfulness that has long been rotten and fermented into rancidity.
People no longer look up, but take a detour.
It wasn't fear. It was disgusting. I disliked the decadent smell he had on me. Like damp cigarettes. Musty. Stinking.
He stood in the sun, yet seemed to be in the shadows.
The brim of the hat presses down, as if pressing down the entire youth.
Ridiculous, pathetic, and even despicable.
You were the light, but now you are afraid of the light.
It’s not the world that has abandoned you, it’s you who betrayed yourself first.
Youthful spirit is like a cicada in summer. No matter how loud it chirps, it only lives for one season.
Later, in autumn, it died, leaving only an empty shell. When the wind blew, the empty shell made an endless sound.
*
The prosperous Hangzhou Port was hit by heavy rain and gloomy wind.
At five o'clock in the morning, there is a line of sky, half of it is foggy blue and half of it is smoky pink.
The desaturated skylight was sparse and ambiguous. Under the shadow of the century-old ginkgo tree at the entrance of the alleyway of Qianxi Building, a silhouette slowly passed by, holding an umbrella.
The back figure is thin, cold, alienated and aloof.
The stench of decay permeated the garbage can, like a festering wound in the city. A black stray cat fled in panic, its paws splattering water.
At five o'clock in the morning, the early bus stop in Hangzhou and Hong Kong was empty, and there were no taxis in the old city. She walked to the online car-hailing point on Neon Avenue.
Walking through the old-fashioned alleys, with mottled walls and faded signs on both sides, it feels like walking into a pile of discarded film reels.
Looking up, the low-latitude light on a rainy day is cold and gray, and the light feels soft.
Dark but not black, faint but not extinguished.
The wet eyes turned cloudy and blurred.
The color drained from Bai Luo's face. His lips turned pale and his whole body trembled.
My heartbeat is out of control, painful and miserable.
The past flickered in her eyes. The tyrant of memory.
It's him.
The man in the photo that Chang Liu showed her last time at the bar.
The more inexpressible the existence is, the more it shakes the soul.
She looked at him as if she was looking at her own life being torn apart and then stitched together.
In the cold and gloomy basement, there is no light, only the coldness of the iron chains and the murky sound of human voices.
She curled up in the corner, the darkness swallowing up the silence inch by inch.
She remembered it so clearly. As clear as yesterday. So clear that it hurt. So painful that it ached.
Death is the end, but living is a long torture.
The drug dealer's shadow was like a vine, entwining her and strangling her, its roots digging into her bones, unable to be pulled out or broken.
She escaped. Escaped to the village in the city. Escaped into the early morning. Escaped to a deserted place. Escaped to the end of time.
But I can’t escape this look. I can’t escape this rain.
There is no escape, and there is no end to the sin.
Bai Luo shifted his gaze lightly, as if the momentary freeze was just an illusion.
The knuckles holding the umbrella ribs turned white and blue bit by bit, as if they were going to crush the umbrella to pieces.
But she refused to do so. She just watched coldly, watching the rain, the sky, and the world.
She walked along the deserted dark street, her steps heavy as if carrying the weight of ten years of rain, ten years of night, and ten years of escape.
In a split second, a voice brushed against my ears.
It is a cold and silent old dream that crawled out from the ground.
"haven't seen you for a long time."
“001.”
Bai Luo's whole body trembled, the tip of the umbrella tilted, and the bone umbrella slid down and fell into the accumulated water, splashing a circle of cold light.
The solitary lamp reflects the rain, and the light and shadow are broken.
Her chest was empty and her mind was in a storm.
They found her anyway.
Ten years of hiding my identity, ten years of hiding in the dark, ten years of pretending to be someone I am not.
Can be numbered and never expire.
She will always be 001.
The world's breath was cut off.
The rain drenched his cold eyes, turning them red. His despair solidified into a scab.
Bai Luo curled his lips, his smile cold, disgusting, almost mad. But in his eyes, there was an unresolved bitterness, a pain that could not be hidden.
"About ten years."
The voice was soft, as soft as if asking the eleven-year-old self.
A pair of eyes that see through the world sees the world as a flashy performance.
Half is the dawn of hypocrisy, half is the abyss of corruption and evil.
If I can't escape, I won't run away. I'm tired. I'm exhausted.
Look directly into the eyes of fate and never be clouded by dust, even if a storm is sweeping in.
The wind and rain could not dampen the wings of dreams. She was determined to crash through the south wall and create a ray of light.
The world was struck, and a way of survival was created for her.
She was like a butterfly flying against the current, and a flap of her wings startled the entire season's rainstorm.
He turned around and plunged into the desert of light.
There is no escaping evil. There is no escaping punishment.
She knew, always knew.
But she wanted to escape for another day, hide for another moment.
Pretend they didn't find her.
But it's too late.
*
The white building of the city hospital was lit with pale lights. When the wind blew, the whole city coughed, coughing up the pain of the past.
Bo Yu stumbled all the way, and his phone fell into a puddle of muddy water, the screen shattered and completely scrapped.
He didn't care about his cell phone and rushed into the inpatient department in a panic, panting, his collar wet with rain and his hair flying.
Someone was waiting for him at the front desk.
Autumn in the south is so bleak.
It is the coldness that seeps into the bones and blood, it is the fallen leaves rotting in the street corners, when the wind blows, it is all filled with the smell of decay and fate.
The white building at night was filled with so many sounds: the groans of patients, the ticking of instruments, the sighs of caregivers.
The hospital sees all kinds of human life, life and death brushing shoulders.
Bo Xi hates hospitals. He hates the smell of disinfectant.
Pungent, false, and clinging.
But he forgot that he almost died in the operating room.
They used tubes and electric currents to drag him back from the darkness.
Said: "Survived."
＿＿
The white corridor was cold and bright, reflecting empty shadows.
At the age of eighteen, Bo Xi was just a body of cold bones supporting a shell.
The emergency passage on the fifth floor was dark. His eyes were filled with fatigue as he looked down coldly.
It's snowing all over the Northern Hemisphere, and Hangzhou and Hong Kong are no exception.
Pure white snow covers the filth, evil thoughts, addictions and sins of the world layer by layer.
The world is turbid and evil. People are worthless and their lives are worthless.
It wasn't the first time he hated the world, but today, he especially wanted to smash it to pieces.
Because the family was broken up, the love collapsed, and his mother abandoned him.
He didn't move. The wind blew in, the snow drifted in. His heart gradually became soaked, and then gradually became cold.
Some people just leave when they want to.
Some winters never end.
He closed his eyes, and the snow settled on his eyelashes. It was cold.
Like a mother’s last kiss, but it’s not a kiss, it’s a farewell.
It's still snowing all over the world.
But he was already soaked.
From head to toe. From heart to bones.
＿＿
The woman with big wavy hair looked at her brother with red and swollen eyes.
"Mom is still in the operating room."
"This surgery...is her only hope."
She spoke slowly, afraid that if she spoke too quickly her hopes would be dashed.
The eye sockets are too shallow to hold back the tears, which fall one by one, hotly onto the floor.
"Come up with me."
Bo Xi's face, bloodless, was completely devoid of emotion. The veins on his neck bulged, each one like a snake struggling beneath his skin.
With fists clenched, knuckles white, he walked into the elevator like a zombie, and the metal door closed.
The light dimmed. The world shrank.
The elevator went up, the numbers ticked, fifth floor.
It was just a dozen seconds, but it felt like half a lifetime.
The glass windows at the end of the corridor were filled with rain and water, which scattered a beam of dazzling light.
The boy's eyes suddenly turned red.
It didn't turn red slowly, but suddenly became stained with blood.
The red is deep, the red is heavy, the red is terrifying.
Without any warning, the kind and cold face of my mother emerged in my memory.
＿＿
After the college entrance examination, his grandfather told him.
My father and mother had a business marriage, a respectable partnership where each side got what they needed.
There is no love. Only interests.
My mother is from a noble family and has high expectations.
My father, the heir to an ancient chaebol, is cold and noble.
Initially, the mother disdained and looked down on the father. But with the family in imminent danger, she had no choice but to bow her head, step on her high heels, and step into a marriage that was destined to be heartless.
What the two families are waiting for is an "orthodox" successor.
Little did they know that each of them had an illegitimate child outside of their marriage.
But no one expected that eight years later, Bo Xi would suddenly appear, an unexpected surprise arranged by his grandfather.
His mother's love for him was never lukewarm, never pretended to be gentle, and always came with a sharp doting attitude.
She taught him how to play chess, pressing him step by step and never letting him win a single move.
When telling fairy tales, the ending is always cold and hard.
"Winners live, losers die."
When she smiled, it was not the gentle pursed smile of a beautiful girl, but a raise of her fiery red lips.
Family infighting, business sniping, undercurrents, she took them all on, and fought back in every round.
She never cried and complained about her grievances. Late at night, she would just light a cigarette and talk to Bo Xi.
"Son, this world doesn't respect the weak. You either stand tall or get trampled in the mud."
Mother’s love is not candy, it is a gun, a shield, and pride engraved in your bones and blood.
She didn't teach him to be kind, she taught him to live like light in the darkness.
So Bo Yi is never weak.
Because he knows.
The blood he shed is the pride given by his mother.
＿＿
The door of the operating room is the dividing line between life and death, separating the two worlds.
Above the door, the three red words "In Operation" lit up silently, staring coldly at the people outside.
Rows of waiting chairs were neatly arranged, filled with innocent victims.
They are not patients, but they are more terminally ill than patients.
Some clutched their phones, their screens flickering on and off. Others lowered their heads, their faces in their hands, their fingers trembling uncontrollably.
I am afraid that once the door is opened, what awaits us is not a reunion, but a farewell forever.
Bo Zhuo leaned listlessly against the cold, hard white wall, feeling extremely depressed. The ceiling was pale, not even a vague reflection.
Aside from his sister with wavy hair, he didn't recognize anyone. Perhaps they were distant relatives, their blood ties as thin as the dust of eight hundred generations.
Time slowly stretches, twists, and tears apart.
A second is a thousand years, an hour is eternity.
With a "click".
A ray of light shone through the crack in the door. It was thin, but eye-piercing.
Everyone raised their eyes instantly, their gazes focused.
Waiting for a miracle, waiting for the words "the operation was successful".
But everyone knows.
——No.
A doctor in surgical gown walked out, his face covered with a mask, revealing only a pair of tired but calm eyes.
His eyes swept across the crowd and finally landed on Bo Qi. His voice was low and slow, but it carried an unquestionable weight.
"Your mother...is breathing her last breath. She wants to see you. Go in."
A rare, chilly wind suddenly blew outside the window. The neon lights flickered like the night lights of a mental hospital, red, green, and purple, flashing madly, flashing hypocritically, and oozing with colorful pus.
When a group of relatives saw him, they were shocked.
The young man's body was cold and prickly, with a lingering murderous aura between his brows. His face was sinister, and his black eyes were a terrifying scarlet.
Just like his arrogant mother.
Bo Yu's breath hitched, a chill ran down his spine, and he froze in place. The world before him seemed distorted, like an unreal dream.
It is absurd and false, and does not deserve to be called reality.
The doctor patted his shoulder helplessly.
"Go quickly, she's waiting for you."
Tears instantly filled her eyes, and she couldn't help crying.
He walked into the operating room with unsteady steps, like a zombie.
“Drip…drip…”
The sound of an electrocardiogram. Faint and intermittent.
On the blue operating table, my mother lay quietly, her face pale, her cheeks sunken, her skin thin and translucent.
It has been a while since I secretly went to Hong Kong Island to see her.
Too busy. Too self-righteous.
During the summer vacation, he was deeply involved in the "Dark Night Operation", without seeing the sun for two months, and was on the verge of life and death.
After returning, he was overwhelmed with tasks and his superior said, "You are not allowed to leave Hangzhou Port."
But he forgot that people will grow old, get sick and die.
But love can't wait.
Three months.
We hadn't seen each other for just three months, and when we met again, it was a farewell.
Every time I secretly went to see her, she was healthy, noble and inviolable.
How come... I got cancer?
Under the oxygen mask, the mother's lips trembled and her whispers were swallowed by her breath.
On the ceiling, the shadowless lamp is like a cold sun, reflecting white light.
Bo Xi rushed to the bedside, knelt on one knee, and held his mother's weak hand tightly.
"mom……"
He spoke, his voice trembling.
"I am coming……"
Say it again.
"I am coming……"
Uncontrollably, his tears fell, scalding onto the back of his mother's hand. Like his regret.
Her eyelids fluttered, opening a crack. Her pupils were cloudy, yet luminous, reflecting a faint, blurry outline.
The blurry shadow was the last person she wanted to see.
She moved her fingers with difficulty, hooking her fingertips with his, just like when he held the corner of her clothes when they were children, and like when she held his hand when he first learned to walk.
Now, it was her turn to use all her strength just to hold his hand once more.
"...Ying'er..."
The sound of "阽儿" became the sourest, most bitter and most painful echo in his heart.
Bo Yi leaned over and put his ear against her lips which were about to go out.
"Don't... blame Mom..."
The sound is intermittent.
"Mom...has always been...proud of you..."
Tears welled up in her eyes. Bo Yi held her hand tightly, as if he wanted to use his body temperature to pull her back to the world.
"Mom...I don't blame you..."
A tear rolled down the corner of the mother's eye and she slowly closed her eyes.
The ECG monitor let out a long beep, and the line that had been beating for his entire life broke, collapsed, and became silent.
"mom……"
Tears blurred his vision, his throat felt sore and dry, and sobs made it difficult for him to breathe.
Those three absurd years were the darkest night of his life.
He always dreams of that evening when it hasn't snowed yet.
His mother held his hand and smiled tenderly.
"Ying'er, go home."
At that time, the snow had not yet come. The pain had not yet occurred.
He is still that boy who looks up at the sky and thinks he can fly.
But later, the snow fell, the house collapsed, and the dream was shattered.
How he wanted to hear her call him "阽儿" again.
How he wanted to see his father frowning and glaring at him again, with a look that said, "If you keep messing around, I'll beat you up."
How I wish I could sit in the old courtyard with my grandpa again and watch the stars slowly climb up into the night sky.
Everything has become a scar in my heart.
There was no bleeding, but it still hurt.
Once touched, the pain floods in.
But fate only gave him one taste.
——Sour and astringent.
Like snow water seeping into the bones, year after year.
Refuse to freeze, refuse to melt.
But the saddest thing is never tears.
It's the memory of the meals she cooked.
It’s hearing someone calling “Mom”.
It was a dialog box, and her last voice message was: "Remember to eat."
Even though I love her so much, even calling her "Mom" has become a taboo.
He hated being powerless and having no control over his own behavior.
Hate everything in the world.
I hate myself even more.
I hate myself for not being a good son.
I hated myself for being such a loser that I couldn't even tell she was sick.
I hate this body even more. I am clearly alive, but I feel like I am half dead.
A bitter taste swirled in my throat.
Swallowing it, it became the most bitter draught in my life.
One sip, a lifetime of pain.
Drink for a lifetime, suffer for a lifetime.
He suddenly laughed.
The smile was very faint and extremely bitter.
Because his mother truly left him.
"Mom, I was wrong."
"I was really wrong."
But she said she couldn't hear it.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com