Singapore Sling
The new year is just another round of time's pretense.
The dead branches are covered with new green leaves, and people are covered with old wounds.
Winter ends and spring comes, death follows rebirth.
Bai Luo cut his hair short and dyed it back to pure black.
and agreed to receive psychotherapy.
Time in Nanyang is a melancholy Möbius strip.
For more than half a year, she has been letting herself go to waste.
Either wander aimlessly in the streets and alleys of Nanyang, or stare at the sea level in a daze, forgetting everything else.
Every building in Nanyang speaks for itself.
Haikou's century-old arcades, the old bones of a colonial era. Young people, holding up their phones, check in for "Southern Country Raw Coconut Latte."
The old tea drinkers at Shangnan Hall sip the partridge tea, and with every sip, they experience the ups and downs of half a lifetime, the true soul of Nanyang.
Between the mottled walls of the Overseas Chinese Letters Museum, there grow the colonists’ English poems and Teochew dialect.
NUS, Asia's top university, nestles between mountains and rivers. With no fortified entrances or high walls to keep people out, it's an open academic oasis.
Malacca, a mirror of the old Nanyang era, winds its way through the city. Jonker Street, on the riverside, epitomizes the Chinese people's memories of Nanyang.
Coconut trees, ocean waves, mottled light and shadow, the endless summer of Nanyang, the same frame every year, reunited every year.
The equatorial doldrums blow across the entire South Pacific summer.
When Bai Luo stared at the sea, the world automatically turned off its noise.
Close your eyes, the sound of the tide surges, and the white noise covers the noise in your head.
The blue of the sea is an emotional painkiller.
One shot into the soul, and the pain disappears.
It paralyzed the shadows of drug dealers, paralyzed the humidity of Hangzhou and Hong Kong, and paralyzed the young military enthusiasts.
But paralysis is not forgetfulness.
She just temporarily buried the pain in the sea.
The wind from the Pacific Ocean, carrying the kiss of the sea, ruffles the dreams on the other side.
The port lights shine brightly throughout the night.
Bai Luo stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window that offered a panoramic view, the glass reflecting her thin yet slender figure.
The world unfolded before her, but she only focused on one coordinate: Hangzhou and Hong Kong.
She wants to go back.
Take another look at the clear water of the Hangzhou River flowing eastward, and listen to the whistle of the cargo ship piercing the fog in the sky.
The boy who made her heart warm just by seeing him from afar.
Outside the window is tropical green, with layers of palm trees and banana trees.
She made a long-distance call.
The signal traveled across thousands of mountains and rivers, leaving only a single word, calm and firm.
"Uncle."
"I want to go back home."
The island was the sea's prison. She was no longer its prisoner.
Don’t be trapped in the past, don’t be bound by obsessions, and don’t be PUA’d by memories.
The world is a closed loop. The equator is a line. Draw a line on the ground to create a prison.
No matter how far you run, you will eventually return to the starting point.
She wasn't going to be a deserter anymore. She had to get out of the prison of her heart.
The past can’t kill her, and obsession can’t trap her.
When Shang Yu arrived at the manor, it was already noon the next day and the sun was shining brightly.
She sat on the soft sand with her knees hugged, listening to the breathing of the sea.
The shadows of towering coconut trees fall obliquely, and time is trapped in the old dreams of the equator.
She said nothing, and he said nothing.
Mutual understanding is the highest level of companionship.
Bai Luo's white shirt was pulled by the wind, and it swelled into a pair of cold white wings, carrying her through the equatorial rain.
Melancholy is the underlying color of Nanyang.
She thought that she would probably never go back to Southeast Asia again.
She won't be depressed anymore.
The sea breeze roars in from thousands of miles away, salty and foggy, strong and powerful, blowing the pulse of the entire Pacific Ocean.
Her heart sailed through thousands of realms.
A-ji.
I miss you so much.
The crowds are rolling in, and I miss the chance to live.
But she no longer waited, no longer endured, no longer hid.
Love is love, thinking is thinking, and madness is madness.
So, she came to see him.
*
"Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. The plane has landed at Nanshan International Airport."
"Local time: 7:29 PM. Temperature outside: 23°C."
"Welcome to Hangzhou Port, and wish you a pleasant journey."
A familiar night. A familiar city. A familiar pain.
Nothing has changed.
Only they were separated.
Shang Yu, dressed in a cold manner, stared quietly at the cold eyes of the girl under the baseball cap.
The lights in the terminal were always on, and the security checkpoint was crowded with people.
Bai Luo tilted his eyes to the side and spoke in a low and slow voice.
"I want to walk alone."
Under Shang Yu's thin eyelids were a pair of dark eyes, surging with a suppressed storm.
The coldness that penetrates the bones is not anger, but the exhaustion and clarity that comes from seeing through everything.
When I answered her call at that time, my heart sank to the bottom after I heard her say "I want to go back to my country".
She wants to go back.
For that name - Bo Yi.
For the "brother" whom he could never replace.
For the light called "salvation" that he could not give.
She is not escaping, but returning to her destiny.
For him, it was like stripping away bones and blood.
Is it funny?
No. It just hurts.
The night is slightly drunk.
Shang Yu clenched his cold fingers, and the noisy sound of the crowd was mixed with a calm male voice.
"Okay, call me if you have anything."
Between them lay a vast ocean. Silent. Raging. Impassable.
The girl's thin figure gradually disappeared.
He stood among the lights, like a forgotten old shadow.
Said calmly:
"I actually..."
"What I want to say is never good."
The night is so long.
It seems like a lifetime.
But they will never have a "later" again.
*
On the top floor of the city hospital, the air is as quiet as the blue sea.
There was only one room on the entire floor that was lit.
——Bo Qian.
Hanging on to life in a way that is almost obsessive.
The night in Hangzhou is deep. The cicadas' chirping cannot wake the sleepers.
It's another thin summer.
In June of the previous year, they were just strangers passing by each other in Nanfeng Lane.
In June this year, they became each other's most familiar strangers.
The ward door was embedded with a rectangular piece of glass, which blurred the girl's tearful eyes.
She didn't cry out loud, but the whole corridor was suffocated by her.
Memories are broken and painful.
They had been separated for nearly eight months, and the boy had become extremely skinny, with his thin hospital gown loosely supporting his frame.
The wind in the corridor cannot blow away time.
Bai Luo lay motionless in the cold white shadows.
She wanted to rush in, touch his face, hold his hand tightly, and be willful like she used to be.
But it doesn't work.
There are some boundaries that, once crossed, lead to destruction.
The shaky figure was brought back to his senses by a phone call.
It’s Shang Yu.
I guess he was urging her to go back, because if she didn't go back, she would miss the flight.
Finally, he took a deep look at the unconscious boy.
"Ah, I'm sorry."
"I can't wait until the day you wake up."
“Live for yourself.”
He taught her the rules of survival, and now she uses it to kill herself.
Bai Luo turned around, his back was decisive and neat, leaving no room for maneuver.
Little did he know that the person on the hospital bed moved his fingers tremblingly, as if trying to grab something.
The dry evening wind kept coming in through the window, blowing through the boy's stiff fingers.
He failed to catch the girl.
I only caught a handful of empty wind.
It was just like the fate between them, which they had never truly grasped.
The two of them parted ways like that.
Before he could make any preparations, they separated without any warning and in a hurry.
In a moment, we are at the ends of the world.
But that finger was trembling slightly as if it was not giving up.
Like saying.
Don't go.
But she couldn't hear.
After leaving the hospital, Bai Luo took a taxi to the Hangzhou River Bridge.
Suddenly, a thick night fog arose.
The fog in Hangzhou and Hong Kong is a damp worry that she cannot escape.
I blinked my eyelashes, and the reflections of the city on the river surface struck my pupils frame by frame.
The river across the sky is vast and endless.
It's like a gray-blue scar, stitching up both sides but unable to sew back the past and the present.
It has been flowing for thousands of years, and has seen countless people crying and heard countless names sink to the bottom of the water, but it is neither sad nor happy, it just keeps moving forward, flowing with a silence that does not belong to the human world.
The greatest luxury in the world is never a house full of gold and jade, nor overwhelming power.
It’s a winter night when I go home and someone warms the bed for me.
It was a rainy day, and he tilted the umbrella towards you.
The lights are friendly and there is someone to accompany you until old age.
I sent a message late at night, and he replied immediately, "I'm here."
However, there is no one to accompany her through this life. She is left to walk her way step by step, stepping on memories.
The black butterfly flying against the wind and crossing mountains and rivers will eventually usher in its own spring.
Bai Luo stood there for a long time.
It was so long that the moon hid, the shadow faded, and she herself almost became a part of the river.
There are countless subway lines in this city, so it's no wonder they got separated.
In the distant sky, fireworks exploded, and the sky was filled with light and fire, like someone's laughter and crying.
She turned a deaf ear.
All I could hear was the sound of my heart breaking, inch by inch.
The lights along the coast formed a hazy belt, but it emitted a dead light.
Her tears fell silently into the shadows, like abandoned stars.
No one should let the sunny days of his life get wet because of the rain of the past.
She took away the seasons, but left behind eternal spring.
When taking a taxi to the airport, Shang Yu, dressed in black, stood out in the surging crowd.
In front of the ward door, Bai Luo stared at Bo Yi for a long time, and he imprisoned her in front of the surveillance screen for a long time.
Not a frame was missed. Not a glance was moved.
Do you like him that much?
Are you so devoted to him that you can't live without him?
"Let's go."
Bai Luo didn't notice the change in his expression and said it lightly.
In a split second, a gust of night wind blew in from the airport entrance without any warning.
Cold, sharp, and penetrates directly into the bones.
It was just like the wind that finally blew through the broken window of her rental house when she left the city.
This year's summer is too good at raining, just like people are too good at saying goodbye.
The surging river cannot wash away the memory of blood.
She thought to herself.
There will probably never be another Bo Qi in this world, a young man as dazzling, paranoid, and utterly mad.
The white plane flew across the vast sea of clouds. Looking out from the window, the lights of the city that never sleeps, Hangzhou and Hong Kong, flickered.
The darkest area is Nanfeng Alley, a scar of the old city.
Year after year, there are no electricity or water, and they are forgotten by the light. Year after year, there are wanderers who camp in the darkness, carrying tattered bags and rotten stories.
But there will no longer be proud and passionate young men.
The cold world cannot tolerate the second kind of heat.
The cold cabin air covered my skin. The gentle stewardess smiled and handed me a soft blanket and a pack of tissues.
"Try to get some sleep. When you wake up, everything will be fine."
I don’t know what the girl went through, but tears kept rolling down her face.
She has a pretty face, but she cries so painfully.
Bai Luo was stunned for a moment, then hesitantly said "thank you".
There is no mountain that cannot be climbed, no night that cannot be endured. The rain will eventually stop, and the day will eventually dawn.
No matter how dark the tunnel is, there is light at the end.
After drifting for ten hours at an altitude of ten thousand meters, I felt at ease the moment I landed.
Like a drowning cold butterfly, it finally climbed ashore.
Outside the cabin, Zurich's blue rain was hitting the runway.
Bai Luo took a deep breath, and the humid air was filled with the smell of freedom.
This time, they cried for their common new life.
Her moon shattered on a rainy night in the country, becoming a rain in her heart.
The sound of the rain is gentle and painless, but it makes the memories moldy and hot.
Some choices are not right or wrong, they are just destined.
There are some seas you can never swim to the end of. There are some people you can never spend the rest of your life with.
Later, she finally learned to live for herself.
But why, even if I live like the wind, I can’t warm a home?
She goes against spring.
She goes north, spring goes south. She goes to death, spring goes to life.
The mountains are high and the waters are far, we will never meet.
*
When the wind blew, Bo Yi fell into a coma.
But Bai Luo has already walked very far.
In the rain, in the wind, in a world without him, slowly walking away.
Walking away into a back view. Walking away into a memory. Walking away into herself.
But Bai Luo forgot that Bo Xi was not a reasonable person.
I don't want to be let off by the world, and I'm not willing to stay in my proper place.
Even if she is gone and becomes a memory.
He insisted on turning memories into a reunion.
*
December 31st, New Year’s Eve.
The top-floor VIP ward of the city hospital was packed with a group of friends crying with joy.
"Yun, if you don't open your eyes, I'm going to treat you as dead and burn paper money for you."
"You don't know, Shen Cisi comes to your bedside every day to report on time, and you haven't seen the ghostly howling."
"Ash's birthday is coming up. He said he'll wait for you to cut the cake. We agreed to do it together, you can't break your promise."
"Today is New Year's Eve, and tomorrow is New Year's Day. Put away your sad faces, everyone! The weather has woken up, so why should we worry? Let's be happy!"
The night sky is filled with broken stars, and the fireworks waterfall blooms blazingly, illuminating the shadowy first snow under the night lights.
It was the moment when Bo Yi, who had been imprisoned in a dream for 463 days, slowly woke up. Suddenly, the first snow fell in the ancient subtropical city of Jiangnan.
It seemed as if the timing was wrong, but it just happened to come true.
It was just like that cold winter, the New Year's Eve when he took her in. The boundless white snow drifted into the lives of the two people who were twenty years old.
The boy's vital signs had returned, but his gaze was empty, unfocused and unfocused. His perception was dulled. His five senses were rusted.
To him, the world is like an old film soaked by a rainstorm: the colors are blurred, the light and shadows are swaying, and the noise is broken.
The lips are dry and cracked, the tongue is covered with thick and greasy coating, and the mouth is filled with the taste of medicine and the bitterness of lying in bed for a long time.
Until the doctors and nurses left and a group of noisy "brothers" broke into the ward, Sese blinked.
There was a very thin mist on the eyelashes, I don’t know if it was tears, or the first touch of moisture from the air after being closed for a long time.
He became an orphan of time.
463 days are enough for the seasons to roll by and for people to come and go.
Outside the window, the first snow in Hangzhou and Hong Kong was falling heavily, and adults and children all over the city were frantically taking pictures.
Last winter was mild. The first snow fell through, leaving the entire city waiting in vain. It was a real pity.
This year, global temperatures have dropped rapidly, and Hangzhou and Hong Kong are so cold that they are comparable to the old Northeast.
The white snow shattered the foggy glass, creating an authoritative ice flower.
In the blurred vision, a restless figure swayed back and forth.
But the boy's first thought after waking up was about only one person.
——Bai Luo.
Not a gift. Not a greeting. Just her.
People came one after another to visit the patient, smiling and asking about his health.
Only the girl was nowhere to be seen.
It's like a frame from an old black-and-white Hong Kong movie, with all the supporting characters having a happy ending and getting their beautiful girl, but the protagonist suffers a horrible fate.
The noise from the group of people made his head hurt. Bo Xi squinted his eyes and could only hear a lot of nonsense.
The voice, which had not spoken for a long time, was hoarse and raspy when it spoke.
"What about her?"
The two words "light and airy" silenced the noisy and bustling crowd.
The world has quieted down.
Everyone looked at each other, their hands unconsciously touching the back of their heads, not daring to look directly at the violent young man lying on the hospital bed.
They know it very well.
The one he was waiting for was only Bai Luo.
Where is Keren?
No trace, no contact, no trace.
The gray night light surrounds the falling snowflakes, scattering the vitality of the young man who is slowly returning.
"say."
The voice in his throat was extremely hoarse and cold.
"What about her?"
It's not a question, it's a pressure. It's not anxiety, it's the extreme suppression and loss of control.
Snow is falling all over the southern country, and the world is covered in white.
Someone's heartbeat has already lost its temperature.
He no longer needed an answer.
From the very beginning, I saw through the ending.
In the end, Shen Cisi told the truth.
"You were both unconscious at the time, and the doctor saw that you were still holding hands, so he arranged for you to sleep together."
"A week later, Bai Luo's uncle came and said that Darknet was looking for her and took people away directly."
"We don't know her exact location. We only know that she woke up last year and hasn't contacted us since."
As for whether they don’t want to contact or can’t contact.
They know it clearly.
People always love to deceive themselves:
When the first snow falls, lovers will meet again.
But when he opened his eyes, what awaited him was a silent ending.
We clearly hooked our fingers together and promised to never leave each other.
She clearly said "I believe you", but in the end, she was the one who turned the most cruelly.
"I want to be discharged."
Four words, like freezing point, extremely cold.
No one dared to stop him, no one dared to persuade him.
They knew him too well.
——The calmer it is, the crazier it gets.
One thought is heaven, one thought is hell.
A pair of world-weary eyes, the light has long been extinguished, leaving only obsession.
A group of people went through the formalities in a hurry.
Chen Cisi dismissed Concubine Lu and everyone else and drove the car himself.
The black tires crushed the pure white snow, dragging one broken moonlight after another.
The night is long.
The young man in the passenger seat closed his eyes, disheartened. Half of them were extremely black, and the other half were sickly white.
Shen Cisi glanced sideways, took a quick glance, and seemed to want to speak but stopped.
An eye-catching sports car braked across the dilapidated entrance of Nanfeng Alley.
Bo Xi opened his eyes lazily.
What catches the eye is the familiar old photos from the millennium.
The precarious window on the fourth floor is the only dead window amidst the brilliant sea of lights.
For over a year, there was no breath, no temperature.
Shen Cisi's gaze drifted to the neon lights outside the car window. After a few seconds of silence, he spoke calmly.
"Forget her."
"Just think of it as doing it for her own good."
What a considerate excuse. What a respectable exit.
Bai Luo's disappearance was not ruthlessness, but an escape.
He used dark web resources to investigate and found out that she had already become the "number one asset" in the eyes of hunters around the world.
A living bounty is the ultimate prey that every madman dreams of.
Who wouldn't covet it? Who wouldn't salivate over it?
Her life was a bloody storm.
The young man was on the verge of collapse, his flamboyant silver-gray hair had grown longer, coldly covering one-third of his vision.
He said three words without any warmth.
"impossible."
Many things in life can be forced, except the heart, which does not obey orders.
Even if he forgets the sky, the earth, and the mundane world, he will never forget her.
Snow flakes pattered down the sky, scattering across a sliver of sky. The person who opened the door and got out of the car, his solitary figure reflected in the crystal-clear snow.
His life was hanging by a thread.
But he just refused to stop.
The streets and alleys are like a mirror, reflecting all kinds of living beings.
The uncle was wearing a military coat, with his shoulders hunched, shivering as he bought cheap midnight snacks.
The old man, with his back hunched and a cane in hand, moved towards the darkened room, panting heavily with every step.
Life in this world is just like this.
Bo Xi's face was filled with anger and his whole body was cold. He looked out of place in the wild first snow night.
Mold entangles the bluestone, its shadow as faint as smoke.
The stone road was dimmed by the light of snow, covered with moss, and empty of echoes.
Suddenly, a dirty orange cat called Shadow rubbed his cold ankle affectionately.
Lower your eyes and focus your perspective.
It’s every year.
It was when he was looking for Bai Luo that he searched the entire city like crazy, and finally found a human figure under the Hangzhou River Bridge, along with a poor kitten.
My nasal cavity suddenly felt sore.
He refused to admit it and insisted that the snow was too cold and irritating.
The girl was gone, taking her and her memories with her. Even the years they had raised were left behind.
She doesn't want them anymore.
Holding the cat roughly by the scruff of the neck, he climbed up the stairs one step at a time. The stairs were long, like the endless past.
The window frame on the fourth floor, with a missing corner, was completely shattered. The fierce snowstorm surged towards the dark corridor with unstoppable force.
A man and a cat pounced, both covered in cold snow vapor.
The rusty lock is inserted into the rusty lock cylinder with difficulty.
It's like a rusty feeling, falling and oxidizing on the first snowy night.
It rots when it encounters snow.
After turning it back and forth three or four times, the door panel opened with a creak.
The odor of a quintet of decay hits your nostrils.
Faded neon. Wet fog. Cold, damp walls. Weathered smoke. Moldy dreams.
Taste is the gateway to emotions.
One sniff, and the senses are surrounded by the ruins of memory.
The young man seemed to be broken, leaning dejectedly against the mottled cold gray wall.
Everything in the rental house remains the same.
There wasn't a single crack on the wall, not a single speck of dust on the table.
The only thing missing is the girl's living flesh and blood.
He rolled his eyes slightly.
Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, neon lights connect to the night sky, and thousands of lights bring spring.
He was the only family in Nanfeng Lane, with the lights off and lifeless.
At the end of the alley, a damp, snowy wind blew away the floating dust of the city. It blew across the crumbling balcony, sweeping away the dust that had fallen over the year.
The dejected and world-weary boy went back to his bedroom to change his clothes.
In the cold winter with snow all over the sky, some people only wear one piece of clothing on their upper body, while the person they like buys a sleeveless black T-shirt.
It’s okay to be cold.
Just a whiff of her.
Even if it's just the jasmine scent lingering on the fabric.
Ming Yang walked into the dark New Year's Eve with the first snow.
It was like a beam of black light that shouldn't exist, cutting through the false tenderness of the festival.
In front of the rusty iron gate, a middle-aged woman and her grandson were making a snowman.
The naive little boy's face was red from the cold. In his chubby little hands he held an ugly snowman, with a crooked nose and squinting eyes.
A pair of small black eyes stared strangely at the ferocious-looking big brother, and one hand grabbed the corner of grandma's clothes.
"Grandma, isn't this brother cold?"
The middle-aged woman glanced at the boy coming down the stairs with disgust and hopelessness.
He dragged his grandson upstairs quickly in a bad mood.
"Don't look! He's a lunatic."
"Stay away from him, and don't learn his useless behavior in the future."
It seems that "learning from him" is the most terrible sin in the world.
In the empty corridor, a cold and sarcastic laugh echoed.
"The snowman is so ugly."
The little boy realized it later and loosened his grip.
“Bang!”
The snowman fell onto the cold, grey cement surface, breaking into pieces.
With a cry of "Wow", he threw himself into his grandmother's arms and sobbed.
The middle-aged woman cursed, and every word she said was full of thorns.
"If he says it's ugly, then it's ugly."
"Why did you bother him for no reason?"
"You unlucky thing, born to be unlucky, always causing trouble for others!"
The old neon lights flickered and burned the blood-stained figure of the lonely man.
The winter snow mixed with the biting wind pierces through the clothes and the disguised strength.
He is indeed a madman, a madman who only cares about Bai Luo.
As if fighting for his life, Bo Xi was squatting back on New Year's Eve when Bai Luo was kicked out by the landlord.
The same first snow, the same dilapidated alley, the same dim lights.
Can I meet the homeless girl again?
Can another ray of light fall on him?
He never asked for much, just Bai Luo.
The young man living in the subtropics unlocked his phone and opened WeChat.
The pinned avatar is grayed out.
The girl logged out of WeChat.
I checked the phone book again and found the only number with a note.
"Zhao Zhao"
From beginning to end, the notes he gave her never changed.
After a few seconds of pause, I dialed the number, feeling as if I were in another world.
The call was connected and hung up in one second.
"Hello, the number you dialed is unavailable."
A cold female voice slowly echoed in the snowy sky.
The street light flickered, reflecting the faint irony on the corner of his lips.
It's not a smile. It's pain, the pain hidden beneath the skin.
The girl is so fucking cruel.
But the more cruel she was, the more addicted he became.
As if not giving up, he found Bai Luo's card 2 again.
That year the snow fell heavily, fiercely and mercilessly.
But the girl softened her heart and was willing to be taken home by him.
That year, he had a home and light.
What about this year?
Can you be soft-hearted again?
Take him home?
The dim light of the street lamp shone on the thin folds of his eyelids, and Bo Xi dialed the number without hesitation.
One second.
Two seconds.
Three seconds.
…
…
Half a minute is as long as half a lifetime.
"Hello, the number you dialed is currently busy. Please try again later."
Suddenly, a cold laugh pierced the silence.
Tsk.
The girl didn’t log out, which means she is still using it.
The young man's unyielding strength rushed forward.
He didn't believe she was indifferent. He didn't believe she no longer had him in her heart.
The night is dark and without light.
He is the brightest shadow in the dark night.
Even light is born in pain.
He no longer flies, but who says that an eagle that lands is not an eagle?
The night in Nanfeng Lane is filled with the dial tone over and over again.
"On the phone now."
"On the phone now."
"On the phone now."
Almost hung up in a second.
But the more he fought, the crazier he became, and the more he enjoyed it.
You know exactly what my temper is like.
Why don’t you answer the phone?
I miss you, baby.
It’s almost midnight, and I want to say “Happy Birthday” to you.
The cold snow was so cold that my internal organs cramped and my limbs festered. The biting wind frostbite bruised my flesh and blood.
But some people are unwilling to give up, are stubborn and insist on making a phone call.
Baby, please.
Answer the phone, okay?
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