At the foot of Mount Fuji
The night rain in Hangzhou and Hong Kong is still heavy and endless, as if it is going to soak this old city to the bone marrow.
When Bai Luo returned to the box, Wu Kai had a cold expression on his face and was surrounded by the crowd.
As the knife cut through the cake, cream splashed and the candlelight flickered in the damp air.
The rain marks on the floor-to-ceiling window glass were reflected into a flowing rainbow.
The twilight with a rainbow.
I was about to withdraw to the dark corner of the dessert area, but was suddenly stopped in my tracks by a woman's voice.
"Bai Luo, sit here."
She turned around and saw Concubine Lu, wearing heavy makeup. Under the neon lights, the sequins on her eyelids shimmered.
"Thanks."
After hesitating for a moment, he finally took a step forward.
When the boys and girls around saw that it was Concubine Lu waving at her, they stopped teasing her.
They knew that Concubine Lu was someone they couldn't afford to offend, not only because her boyfriend was Shen Cisi, but also because of her prominent family background.
The beloved little princess of a wealthy family in Hangzhou and Hong Kong.
But that didn't stop them from whispering.
"Alas, I heard that it was her younger brother who came to school that day."
"Isn't it said that parents give birth but not raise them?"
"If it weren't for her brother, would she have eaten with him?"
"I heard that her childhood sweetheart taught her a lesson in private?"
"Is this true? Wouldn't his childhood sweetheart be so jealous?"
＿＿
It's exactly as they say.
Yin Shuanghui did look for Bai Luo privately, and they met by chance in the supermarket.
But before she could open her mouth to lecture him, Bai Luo had already retorted coldly.
"He's not my type. Not only am I not interested in him, I hate him."
Yin Shuanghui guessed that she didn't dare to have any thoughts about Bo Qi, so she glared at her with contempt and left with her little sisters.
Bai Luo was standing in front of the cashier scanning the code when he suddenly felt a pair of eyes behind him, seemingly fixed on him.
The long rays of sunlight fell on the glass door of the supermarket, and she couldn't help but look back.
As luck would have it, across the long line of checkout people, I met a pair of icy eyes in the last row.
Bo Xi stood leaning against the air conditioner, the cold air ruffling the hair on his forehead.
Dazzling white.
The next second, the phone that had scanned the code lit up, and a flash of light passed through her pretty, guilty eyes.
A line of words pierced into the bottom of the pupil.
[You still hate me, my little bedmate.]
“…”
Escaped in panic.
Run faster than a rabbit.
The gaze behind her followed her like a shadow, lingering on the corners of her fleeing clothes.
＿＿
When Wu Kai handed her the cake, she lowered her eyes to avoid his gaze.
The words of explanation were hard in his throat, and he maintained a perfect silence.
After all, they are just ordinary friends.
The cake for Concubine Lu was cut by Shen Cisi himself. He knew her preferences and appetite very well.
After taking the cake from her boyfriend, she didn't eat it, but spoke softly and presumptuously.
“Can we add a contact?”
Bai Luojue sensed her cautiousness and a dimple appeared at the corner of his lips.
"Can."
She had a very good impression of Concubine Lu. She was a bright and flamboyant young lady, without any scorching aura, which made people naturally like her.
"bite!"
The green sign lights up.
Bai Luo added the notes with one hand and cut off a corner of the cake with a knife and fork.
The sound was noisy, and I could faintly hear a singing voice.
"I want to be by your side"
“I forgot how long this road is.”
"I want to watch the seasons change slowly with you"
Wu Kai was coaxed into singing a love song. The lyrics were straightforward, but the meaning could not be hidden.
Laughter and applause were mixed in the box, and everyone knew where the gentle gaze was directed.
Bai Luo lowered his eyebrows and checked his WeChat messages.
Bo Yi: [Is the song good?]
[?]
I thought he was still stranded in the damp darkness of the safe passage.
Bo Xi: [Look up.]
He didn't understand why, but he just lay on his back as he was told.
Looking up, I saw the person who had come into the box at some point sitting on the sofa in front of the bright floor-to-ceiling window. He was hunched over lazily, leaning against the window in the dim moonlight.
Between the cold white fingers, there is a touch of dazzling silver.
It's her heart-shaped hairpin.
When did it fall into his hands again?
The hair tie that disappeared last month also suddenly appeared on his wrist.
I can’t guess what his little quirks are, but he always likes girls’ small things.
The cold night was thick with mist. In the shadow of the sofa, Bo Xi played with a hairpin and butterfly diamond, staring back at her.
The raindrops outlined the contours of two people, overlapping in the hazy lights of the city outside the floor-to-ceiling window.
He always made her look up without any warning, which was more sudden than a rainstorm, but it gave her a strange sense of certainty.
A group of people teased Wu Kai by singing a song and started a new round of games amidst laughter.
Bai Luo remained silent about the commotion around her. Concubine Lu was eager to chat with her, but she declined with a simple remark.
Without his girlfriend, Chen Ci Si seemed to have lost his bones and muscles. Bored, he caught a glimpse of a person with his eyes closed on the sofa.
Feeling playful, he casually picked up a cigarette box from the coffee table, twisted it with his fingertips, and threw the thin box to the side of Bo Xi's hand.
"Bang!"
The cigarette box fell onto the gray and white tiles.
The sleeping person was annoyed and frowned, glaring at the culprit with a fierce look in his eyes.
However, Chen Cisi had already pretended to be submissive, with his palms pressed down in a gesture of surrender, and his words were as slick as ever.
"Come and play for a while."
As soon as the words came out, some people sneered and ridiculed him.
"Ah Si, can you scream? When has he ever played games with us?"
"That's right, don't waste your energy. If you really scream, you won't be able to play the game or drink the wine. You're asking for trouble."
Wu Kai, dressed in a white shirt and with gentle manners, spoke unexpectedly.
"Bibi."
She smiled and raised her wine glass towards him.
Wu Kai was filled with fear.
At that time, in the market stall, when Bo Xi mentioned Bai Luo, his brows were filled with indifference, as if they were strangers.
Now the two of them actually have something in common, which is really hard to understand.
It is clear that both of them have extremely cold personalities and strangers should stay away from them.
Anyone could have something in common, except them.
"Sure. I'm thirsty."
A cold shadow suddenly pressed towards the group of people.
"Fuck, it's really coming."
"Quickly give up your seat, the main seat must be given to Qie."
Several boys were having fun.
"start."
With a hand with distinct bones, he casually drew three cards.
The person who sits in a normal manner, with silver hair and dark eyes under the light, are all in the ultimate color.
He pulled the corner of his lips lightly and flipped open a card.
Everyone became interested because of his joining the game.
Some people were less skilled but had hidden tricks, such as hiding their cards or pretending to be drunk to avoid alcohol, but none of them could handle it as calmly as he did.
Only Wu Kai accompanied him silently, smiling and speaking quietly.
Shen Ci Si, who was standing aside, was either drunk or confused, and blurted out the fact that Bo Qi had lost his first kiss in the third year of high school, which was known to everyone.
"You guys probably don't know this, but I lost my first kiss in my senior year of high school."
He seemed to care about his brother's reputation and was angry about it.
"I don't know who took my brother's first kiss. Which girl at Nanhuai No. 1 Middle School didn't like him at the time? If that girl had admitted it, she might have become your sister-in-law."
At the end, he chuckled, almost sighing.
"That girl is just unlucky. She doesn't have a boyfriend as good as him."
The person in question concentrated and sneered, his facial features half bright and half dark in the dim light, and his ear bone stud flashed.
"It's really unfortunate."
His voice was slow and lazy, and his eyes were cold and arrogant.
Bai Luo in the dessert area fluttered her eyelashes.
The phone flashed with a cold blue light and felt hot in my palm.
You can know who it is without unlocking it, and you can also know how the words and sentences will be arranged and combined.
In my ears, I could hear Concubine Lu chattering about interesting things that happened in high school.
The phone buzzed again, and she glanced at it casually.
[Isn’t it lucky? I think so.]
[If I get drunk, take me back.]
[Is this okay, little bedmate?]
With the cool moonlight outside the window, Bai Luo looked at the foggy floor-to-ceiling window.
He must have lost the game. The young man in a loose black T-shirt tilted his head back to drink, his three-dimensional and clear Adam's apple was sexy and charming.
Caught off guard, in the seconds when he lazily lowered his eyes, the two of them looked into each other's eyes through the drunken mist.
The lights in the office building opposite were dim, the night wind ruffled the ginkgo leaves, and green waves of varying shades rolled in the rain.
The city is brightly lit.
Who is in front of you.
Concubine Lu beside her noticed that she was uneasy and waved her hand in front of her.
Bai Luo slowly came back to his senses and calmed down.
She knew what he was thinking.
Everyone listened with great interest to Chen Cisi's talk about his youth, but he seemed to be standing out from the conversation, indifferent and impatient.
The memories of the downtrodden are like roses with thorns. It hurts to hold them, and it hurts even more to let them go.
I have curled up in the dark night of the rental house countless times, and the neon lights outside the window were not as bright as the sunset at the school gate back then.
The cracks in Nanfeng Lane seeped with rainwater, and also with his festering dignity, silently but harshly.
There were many brave people among the crowd who curiously asked him whether he had someone he liked in high school, whether he had ever climbed over the wall, skipped classes, or fought.
Some curious people even asked him why he gave up studying diplomacy and chose drug control instead, their eyes burning with curiosity.
He smiled without saying anything, but just took the drink handed to him and drank it all in one gulp.
It seems that only through the anesthesia of alcohol can I pick up the courage and look back at my irreplaceable eighteen years old.
Desolation is the reflection of youth, the clearer it is, the more painful it is.
No one knows that the current silence is because the talkative youth of the past has become hoarse.
No one has ever seen the real motivations and stories behind choosing drug prevention studies.
Today's regrets fill the fearless gap of eighteen years old.
The questioner could not get the answer in the end and could only remain silent in disappointment.
On the coffee table, empty wine bottles were scattered around, making clinking sounds, just like the chaotic accompaniment of a game.
At first, dozens of people gathered around the gambling table, and some people were arguing about the rules at the top of their voices. But after a few rounds of fierce fighting, drunkenness and fatigue overwhelmed their will.
Some people collapsed on the sofa, snoring heavily, while others staggered out, holding onto the wall.
The rest of them forced themselves to keep their drooping eyelids open, holding on to their last breaths in despair as they watched the fun.
Wu Kai and Bo Yi became the final opponents.
The former focused his attention and planned carefully, taking every step carefully.
The latter seemed like an outsider, lazily leaning against the back of the sofa, hooking the corner of the card with his fingertips and picking it up, but he didn't even look at it before the card fell in front of him.
"Raise."
Wu Kai threw three chips, and the veins on his forehead bulged slightly due to the alcohol.
He held the Ace of Clubs and the King of Hearts in his hands, with the Queen of Spades as his bottom card. The prototype of a straight flush gave him great confidence.
The people watching around were excited, and Afeng, who was drunk and staggering, even slammed the table and shouted.
"Wu Kai has it down! He must be pretending."
Upon hearing this, Bo Xi didn't even bother to move his lips, and just flicked the ash into the empty wine glass on the corner of the table.
Carelessly reveal the cards.
——Ace of Diamonds.
The onlookers immediately booed.
"That's it? You're going to clash the Ace of Diamonds against the Ace of Clubs? I'm afraid you'll lose your mind."
Some even laughed out loud, as if they saw the ending was already decided.
But Bo Qi slowly spread out his cards, and everyone was surprised to find that he was holding the 10 of Diamonds, the Jack of Diamonds, the Queen of Diamonds, and the King of Diamonds.
A hidden straight flush of diamonds!
Wu Kai's face suddenly changed, and cold sweat soaked his palms.
"and."
Bo Qi pushed the chips out with a sound so soft as if he was killing time.
Wu Kai smiled and bet all his chips.
The dealer draws the last card.
——9 of Diamonds.
Bo Xi's cards suddenly formed a perfect straight flush, but he looked too lazy to celebrate and just brushed off the cigarette ash on his finger bones.
Wu Kai stared at the five diamonds in silence for a long time, his voice deep.
"You win."
Before everyone burst into cheers, Bo Qilan gathered his chips and whispered a provocative remark in Wu Kai's ear while holding the wine.
"She was the one who took my first kiss."
Defeat is a false proposition.
The winner is never predetermined; reversal is his home turf.
Wu Kai's pupils suddenly shrank, and the moment he understood, he followed his playful gaze and looked out the window at the rain-soaked night.
The glass became a liquid mirror, reflecting the shadows of the dessert area.
Bai Luo leaned quietly on the sofa, his chin raised in a cold expression.
Concubine Lu's flamboyant smile made her smile knowingly, and her clear eyes curved into small crescents.
He was clearly alone, yet he attracted everyone's attention.
Wu Kai's expression remained calm as always, and he took a deep breath without leaving any trace.
"I thought you didn't care."
Cold-hearted. Proud. Heartless. Thoughtless.
It doesn't matter to anyone, I don't care.
It just happened to happen to be a girl.
He chuckled quietly without losing his composure, and finally uttered a sentence with a sense of reluctance.
"The decision is hers, isn't it?"
Whoever falls in love first loses the game.
But Bo Qi and he had already stood on the same dangerous starting line without realizing it.
The decision lies in Bai Luo's hands.
Who wins and who loses remains a mystery.
The darkness of night engulfed the box. The crowd stumbled out, their shoes squeaking over cigarette butts on the tiles.
Outside the tall buildings, night rains were rolling among the trees along the roadside of Hangzhou and Hong Kong.
The neon road is crisscrossed in the rain, and the shadows of water are flooding all the way.
Concubine Lu insisted on sending Bai Luo home. Bai Luo refused, but was persuaded by her gentle voice and had to wait in the hall.
A group of people gathered at the elevator door. Some of them hadn't had enough of drinking, so they pulled their friends along and chatted until they were completely drunk.
Wu Kai seemed to have disappeared and his whereabouts were unknown.
Bo Xi leaned against the cold marble, holding a half-smoked cigarette in one hand, as if he had drunk too much.
Chen Cisi slumped over the trash can, retching repeatedly, cold sweat dripping down his jaw, and his messy hair stuck to the side of his neck.
The night wind ruffled a puddle of rainwater at the door, and Concubine Lu parked the car under the eaves of the club.
He took a few bone umbrellas from the trunk and threw them into the palms of a crowd. He also picked up a large silk umbrella and handed it to Bai Luo, indicating that she should get in first.
Bai Luo saw that the car was only a few feet away from the porch, and there were few umbrellas, so he pushed the umbrella handle into someone else's hand.
The light in the middle of the night is gray, and the rain has made it obscure, turning it into a dark gray.
There was a cool breeze in the car, and the air flowed in gusts, and she shivered suddenly.
The rain blurred the car window and slid down in streaks.
“Boom boom boom!”
Someone knocked on the window.
Bai Luo thought it was Concubine Lu carrying the drunken Chen Ci Si, so he pressed the unlock button with his fingertips and the car door slid open silently.
What came into view was a face of cold and dangerous features.
The light from the street lamps penetrates the layers of rain and rolls down onto the corners of the bright red eyes of the person nearby.
The pair of half-drunk and half-awake eyes under his brows looked like a lost dog in a stormy night.
So pitiful.
It made Bai Luo lose his mind.
On countless rainy nights during her freshman and sophomore years, whenever she passed him, a question would always unconsciously pop up in her mind.
"Has he been abandoned too?"
Everything in the old town is shabby, and the old buildings left over from the millennium are inhabited by two types of people:
One type is migrant workers who come from other provinces to make a living among the bricks and tiles in a foreign land.
One type is the wanderers who go south for their dreams, mortgaging their youth.
And people like them who are just living in misery.
She actually admired Bo Xi very much. He ran a bar by himself and the bar was packed with customers every night and business was booming.
Rich, good-looking, and a bunch of bad friends.
Only there is no love.
But she is completely different.
Almost all the income from part-time jobs was transferred into my mother's account, and I only have a handful of friends who truly treat me well.
Except for a plain face.
But what's the use? She is slandered by rumors because of her beauty.
Everything about her backstabbed her.
The only exception is Bo Xilai.
She will always remember every kindness he has shown her.
Hangzhou Port. Old Town. Nanfeng Alley. Rental house. Teenager.
It is the only light that will never rust in her life that is broken beyond repair.
I don’t know what to give back, except for my sincere heart that I’m eager to offer.
But it’s really too expensive.
She couldn't afford the gamble. She couldn't afford to risk his life for hers.
Right now, I can only take it one step at a time and wait for Chang Liu to come find me...
She could not see through the road in the fog, nor could she see the dawn ahead.
Shen Ci was deeply drunk, and with every breath he took, the closed carriage was filled with the thick smell of cigarettes and alcohol.
The cramped back seat was filled with damp darkness.
Bai Luo looked at the night scene full of lights as if he was taking a quick tour, and suddenly felt his shoulders sink.
She turned her head a little too slowly, and the other person's wet hair was messy and stuck to her forehead.
A little itchy.
During the days of living in the same room, they had long been accustomed to each other's breath and warmth.
At this moment, in the enclosed space where the third party's eyes were roaming, the unintentional touch actually gave rise to a sense of ambiguity.
Is it the crampedness of the carriage that amplifies the sharpness of the senses?
While he was dazed, Concubine Lu's surprise and Wen Yi's reminder echoed in the dark night.
"Lolo, don't wake him up. I apologize to you. He's very irritable when he wakes up. Waking him up might..."
The sound was still lingering, and Bai Luo nodded thoughtfully, expressing his understanding.
＿＿
As for the so-called hostility, she actually felt that he was soundly asleep.
One morning, her cell phone rang suddenly, and because it was on silent mode, it woke them both up.
Facing his sleepy eyes that seemed to show a hint of irritability, she cautiously said "I'm sorry".
Bo Xi just remained silent, stood up, put on a sweatshirt, and walked straight out of the bedroom.
When she walked into the living room, fried eggs and hot porridge were already on the dining table.
Violence and tenderness are contradictory coexistence.
＿＿
The car sped along the bumpy roads of the old city. Shen Cisi was dazed and yelled that he wanted to vomit because of the violent shaking of the car.
Concubine Lu's eyes darkened, and she ruthlessly braked the car to a stop at a puddle on the uphill road.
Without paying attention to the drizzle outside the window, he quickly turned off the engine, turned around and pushed open the passenger door.
He hurriedly grabbed his collar and half-dragged him out of the car, then staggered forward with him until they reached the shadow of a trash can with the smell of rust.
In the car, it was unclear whether Bo Yu was really asleep or just pretending to be asleep. His wet and sticky arm was pressed against Bai Luo's forearm, and his moist body temperature seeped into his blood through his skin.
His hair was very soft, and the lingering scent of jasmine lingered in her nostrils.
Outside the carriage was a gray night.
Bai Luo saw that Chen Ci Si looked very uncomfortable, and since Nanfeng Lane was only an arrow's throw away, he felt embarrassed to trouble Concubine Lu again.
When he wanted to wake up the person beside him, he woke up without knowing when. He rested his head comfortably on the side of her neck, staring at her with a pair of charming eyes.
It scared her.
"You're awake."
Bai Luo breathed heavily, and his drooping eyelashes cast a small shadow.
"Where are we?"
One does not know whether he is sober or confused, the drunkenness has spread to the cold white cheeks with a faint rouge color, and the wine has entered the eyes, making them shimmering, hazy and gorgeous.
"We're still a ways off, let's walk back."
Bai Luo glanced at Chen Cisi who was leaning against a bucket and vomiting in the rain and fog, lowered his eyes and made a suggestion.
She guessed that he was not yet completely drunk and could still walk.
The drunken man seemed to be aware of something, and suddenly pushed the car door open and jumped into the drizzling rain.
Bai Luofang was about to call out to Concubine Lu across the street when two sky-blue taxis came speeding through the rain.
The mist blocked the blurred vision.
On the other side, Bo Qi was walking alone, staggering into a bluestone alley.
She was uneasy and followed him quickly, hurriedly delivering a message to Concubine Lu.
[I'm leaving now. Thank you for taking me back.]
She was startled again when she turned into the crumbling streets.
A beam of dim light filtered through the ceiling of the old factory building, and a tall figure leaned lazily against the mottled old wall.
The sound of wind passed by his eyes, sweeping away a transparent tremor on his eyelashes.
Across the vast fog and rain, the two looked at each other silently.
"Bai Luo."
"Do you think we're on the same path?"
Bo Xi's pupils were a highly concentrated black, wet like a sea of fog.
The evening breeze blew against his cheeks, and Bai Luo's black eyelashes fluttered.
The ice-blue hair was wet, completely softened by the water, and became sticky and hot.
She stood in the shadow of the moonlight, quietly looking at the young man in the dark shadow on the ceiling.
A world flooded with monochrome tones and filled with shadows.
But who overlaps with you?
For some unknown reason, she shook her head.
She and he do not overlap.
It's hard to tell whether they are questioning whether they are on the same path, or tacitly acknowledging that they are going in different directions.
Late at night, an old lady was returning home from her stall, wearing a raincoat and riding an open-top tricycle.
The dim lights passed over the colorful posters on the telephone poles and over two hard-to-ignore faces in the streets.
The young man in a black T-shirt was standing against the wall, with a cigarette between his fingers.
Bloody sparks, burning coldly and wildly.
“Tsk.”
"Let's go home."
He held the cigarette in his mouth and walked closer against the tide of light.
Rebellious and unruly, always eighteen years old.
The sky was gray, the rain was drizzling. His fingers clasped her wrist with the same strength as that night.
He held Sui Sui in his arms and waited for her figure at the bottom of the stairs when she came back late. The ground was slippery because of the rain, and she stumbled and climbed onto his arm.
The same trembling finger bones, the same whitening knuckles.
One person is in front and the other follows.
They stepped on the moonlight in the muddy puddle, getting hurt with every step, and suffering with every step.
Bitter summer.
Everything is damp, and along with the senses, mold grows.
How much fun it would be without too many worries and without layers of constraints.
Unfortunately, the night fog swallowed up all the forks in the road, and the future became a one-way street, with the self in the mirror at the end.
Since we can't see the future, we might as well become decadent and degenerate together.
Decadence is a painkiller for the city's sleepless stomach.
A long, silent night, waiting for a dawn that never comes.
When they see through the mist in each other's eyes, when they see clearly what they truly desire in their hearts:
Love. Family. Friendship. Career. Ideals. Life.
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