My 26-year-old female tenant: Gufan on the Island

I tried to imagine a scene like this: a butcher opened a stall selling pork in the vegetable market. The butcher was holding a boning knife, smelled of blood, and had a cold and heartless heart. Not long ago, a new pet shop opened opposite his stall. The owner of the pet shop is a young woman in her early twenties. She is particularly keen on adopting stray cats and dogs and giving them meticulous care, making these previously unavailable pets The cats and dogs at home gradually became cheerful and lively, jumping up and down...

Finally, the butcher saw these scenes in his eyes. He was lost in the pile of scraps and minced meat at his hand, but he could no longer put down the butcher knife easily; so he could only look at Miss Pet and her opposite him every day. Those cats and dogs trying to find some inner comfort...

……

This kind of substitution made me feel a little uncomfortable, so I put out the cigarette in my hand and said to Le Yao: "Do you know how many pigs a professional butcher has to kill a year? ... Just the cats and dogs you rescued, There is simply no way to balance sin and merit."

Le Yao looked at me first, and then said to me seriously: "The real meaning of what I do is not to find a balance between sin and merit... What I want is a kind of gentleness, awakening The tenderness of a butcher’s heart.”

I laughed: "I understand, you want me to be a gentle butcher... But don't you think this is contradictory?"

"Are there not enough contradictory things and contradictory people in this world?... On the contrary, I feel that only with contradictions and contrasts can there be romance. For example, a beggar in ragged clothes is holding a bouquet of red as bright as fire. Roses like clouds are imagining the love of his life on the street." After a pause, she asked me again: "Zhaoyang, what do you think is romance?"

Without thinking, I replied: "I think depravity is romance...getting drunk on the dim sofa, getting drunk among the lights, and getting drunk on women every day."

"It's so shameless. It's the first time I heard that going to a KTV to find a girl sounds so fresh and refined."

“I just fucking love going to bars.”

"That's right. A person who can't save a thousand or eight hundred dollars despite all his efforts will have no spare money to hang out in KTV."

"This meal is really boring!"

After I sighed like this, Le Yao came close to me again and said with a smile: "Since you like to fall so much, then I will fall with you." After a short pause, she said seriously: "However, after completely Before you fall, don’t forget that I also tried to give you a little strength to move forward in the midst of difficulties.”

"You are right to have such an awareness, but no one in this world can change me..."

"Yes, how can it be so easy to put down the butcher knife that has been raised... It is a pity that your butcher knife is pointed at you from beginning to end, not others."

This time, I fell completely into silence. Le Yao also picked up the chopsticks that had been put down in my silence. She put a few pieces of meat into my rice bowl and motioned for me to eat quickly. She said that when I finished eating, she would go to the bar with me to find the so-called depravity and the happiness that breeds in depravity.

I didn't refuse, because I hadn't drank for two days in a row, and I needed some wine to numb myself. In fact, I could only stop thinking about Jian Wei when I was completely drunk.

……

This night, I got drunk again in the bar. While drunk, I parted ways with Le Yao. I don't know where she will go to settle down in this cold early morning, just like she doesn't know where I will go.

In fact, I don’t even know why I come here. I am obviously tired of the day-to-day work and the repetitive work content.

But apart from here, I really have no place to go, because I have long been afraid to go to the moat when I am drunk. I am afraid that I will lose control after drinking, remember too many past events, and then do stupid things.

I didn’t want to go home either. Unless I could fall asleep immediately, lying in bed would be a torture. I knew very well that everyone in the room could not speak. The only one who was still breathing and had kinetic energy was me. People who are drunk but can't sleep.

So, I came to the place where I worked, probably because it had been a long time since I had seen what it looked like after it closed. I think it will look more lovely after bidding farewell to all kinds of busyness and business disputes during the day.

So, I sat under a billboard, lit a cigarette, took out the transparent film on the cigarette case, put it in front of my eyes, and looked at it in a daze...

I saw a lot of stars. They seemed to be very close together, but they seemed so lonely. I changed the angle and continued to look up, but this time, they were blocked by the billboard. I only saw one on the billboard. Slogans encouraging people to return home and buy property.

I couldn't help but feel lonely in my heart. I thought about Jian Wei again and the time when the New Year was about to come. I didn't know if she, who was in the United States, would come back to celebrate the Spring Festival.

Before we broke up, she once told me that she might come back because she really misses me; it is not easy to come back from abroad. If you miss this Spring Festival, you will have to wait until next year.

Yes, for a Chinese, if he doesn’t even come back for the Spring Festival, what better reason is there to come back and get together with the people he wants to see?

So, I fell into a self-torture fantasy again, imagining that at a corner of the street, I would meet Jian Wei who came back from abroad to celebrate the New Year; if there is still such a fate between us, maybe, I will Try to put down your pride and try to save it again. But this is impossible. Not to mention that Suzhou is very big. Even if Jian Wei comes back, she will only go to Shanghai to reunite with her parents. Suzhou has long been a forgotten place for her. Therefore, fantasizing about something that is impossible to happen is not a kind of self-torture.

The only thing I can be sure of is that in the city of Suzhou, there will be some other people who have lived abroad for a long time and will choose to come back to celebrate the Spring Festival this year, because homesickness is also a feeling that can never be circumvented in life.

……

I don’t know how long it took, but I finally put down the transparent film in my hand and breathed in the cold air vigorously. This would make me sober. It was time for me to go home. Only when I am sober can I not forget the way home.

But the price of being sober is vomiting, especially after breathing in the cold air.

I hurriedly found a trash can, and then vomited as if I was emptying myself; I choked on the vomit, and coughed violently, bringing out my tears. These tears did not contain any emotions, just A chain reaction after a severe cough, it was the tears that blurred everything in front of me; so when I raised my head, I could no longer see clearly the Zhuomei Shopping Center across the street.

I could only vaguely see a woman standing under the sign emitting psychedelic lights, looking thoughtfully...

Zhuomei has always been a very busy shopping mall, but after early morning, she was the only one standing there, just like me lying alone on the trash can of Polaroid Department Store.

We are equally lonely, and we become the same people who don’t want to go home in the early morning and late at night.

I wanted to talk to her, but the street with guardrails seemed to have become an insurmountable time and space barrier; no, what really trapped me was not the street that had always existed, but my gradually clear thinking. , I realized: As a drunkard like me, if I strike up a conversation rashly, I will definitely be regarded as a gangster with ill intentions. I don’t want to scare her, and there is no need to do such a meaningless thing.

People are lonely. Even if they strike up a conversation with a stranger, they cannot escape the curse of loneliness.

……

In a blur, my feeling of vomiting came again. After I finished vomiting, I raised my head again, and the figure had disappeared into the light and shadow. When I could finally see clearly, I only saw "Zhuomei Shopping Center". "The shopping mall signboard stood in the deserted night and suddenly became the brightest presence.