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

On the rooftop of the 22nd floor of the hospital, Robben and I each lit a cigarette. He leaned over to look down, while I looked up at the starry sky. At this moment, the neon lights of the city and the stars in the sky were the light sources that illuminated the city, and the two of us were two plants that tended to the light, just like the green plants I planted on the balcony, always stretching their branches and leaves towards the side where the sun shines... as if that was the inner desire, the pursuit of survival regardless of good or bad...

It took me a long time to turn around and look at Robben. He was not wearing a mask, so I could see his distorted facial features again. The neon lights shining on his face seemed to distort it as well, forming a path that led directly to his heart. Under the lights and starlight, he was in so much pain.

He took a long drag on his cigarette, then smiled and said to me, "I don't think I've ever been happy... I don't think you think I'm being pretentious by saying this."

"Too pretentious!"

Robben exhaled all the cigarette in his mouth, then drew a smiley face with his fingers on the armrest that was covered with a layer of dust.

At this time, I opened my mouth and said, "Two years ago, I felt that I was a very happy person, and I was happy every day..."

"You mean to say that your happy life was destroyed by a woman."

I closed my eyes, took a deep puff of smoke, and said with a smile: "Before she disappeared completely, I never felt so vulnerable... But this year and more..." I tried to explain my feelings clearly, but my brain seemed to have activated a self-protection mechanism. After a burst of fear, I no longer wanted to recall the pain of being torn apart; so, after a silence, I spread my hands and said: "Nothing I say will help... But I am still different from you. As long as I have a glass of wine in my hand, I still feel happy... So, I have come to a conclusion: the culprit of pain is sobriety. If you are willing to be half drunk and half awake, you can make do with anything, you can make do with it, live a make-do life, and die a make-do life..."

After saying that, I also drew a smiley face on the dusty armrest; but the wind tonight was blowing quite strongly, and in a blink of an eye, the two smiling faces were blew into pieces. I subconsciously looked at Robben beside me, looking at his distorted facial features corresponding to the incomplete smiling face, and suddenly I seemed to understand why he said that he had never been happy.

"Zhaoyang."

I don’t know how long the silence lasted, but Robben finally called me like this.

"Ok?"

"I think Le Yao is a good girl..."

I laughed, "You just complained about her being a big mouth and were afraid she would tell CC the reason why you got into a fight."

"This is not the same thing..." After a short pause, he said to me seriously, "Although being half drunk and half awake can make you forget a lot of pain, you still have to be sober when you need to be sober... A good woman is like a flower. Flowers have their blooming period. She blooms in your heart, but if you fail to discover her beauty, she will slowly wither."

"I see, you want to bring us together?"

"Can't you?"

"You deserve to be unhappy. You're too nosy. There are eight out of ten things in life that are not satisfactory. With your personality of looking for trouble, it would be a miracle if you can be happy."

Robben was at a loss for a moment, then smiled and said, "There is nothing to worry about in the world, only mediocre people worry about it, right?"

"Don't talk nonsense. There are so many things in the world, but some of them are related to you, and some are not... You should take care of the things that are related to you, such as the fact that I paid your medical expenses... Hurry up and return the money to me, I am waiting for it to be used."

Robben looked even more unhappy. After a while, he took out a set of car keys from his pocket, handed them to me and said, "This motorcycle is the only thing on my body that's worth some money. Please sell it. It may not be enough to pay you back, but every bit counts."

Of course I didn't reach out to take it. I just patted his shoulder and said with a smile, "I was just kidding you... Take good care of your injuries... Then think carefully about what to do about your relationship with the Bar Association... I suggest you don't chop off that bastard's hand. It's fun only when you chop it off, but you'll be even more unhappy after that because the next thing you have to face is the law. You know the law? The law is a weapon, not a regret medicine. Once it's aimed at you, the first thing it kills is your personal freedom."

……

The feud between Robben and the bar association affected me. I squandered the last money I won from the lottery, so I couldn't go to the bar as carefree as before, so I had to go back to my old house.

I have to worry about my livelihood again. This is the uncertainty in life, so that plans cannot keep up with changes. It is very likely that I will not be able to go to Luoyang in the near future to see the "Sky City" with only a signboard.

But I really want to go and see it, because this is the first time in my life that someone has done something serious for the unrealistic dream in my heart. Even though there is only a signboard, it still rekindled my yearning for the "Castle in the Sky".

Then, I thought of Le Yao again...

I don't know how to evaluate her. I just feel that she is like me reflected in the mirror. I have nothing, but I have so many unrealistic fantasies in my heart, just to make myself suffer less. But I am never willing to really light a bright light in my heart.

The lights of the city are intertwined and lingering, but they are always indifferent. At least, I have never seen its warmth. It seems that its existence is just to let me see the prosperity and decadence of the night, but never let me touch it.

Therefore, in a city that is like a steel forest, only the light in your heart can truly bring warmth. Although it is very weak, it can help you identify the road ahead...

It seems that both she and I are people who need to be saved, but because we don’t have that bright light in our hearts, we cannot save each other.

……

These were what I thought about after I went back home and lay in bed; then, my thoughts were interrupted by a message from Le Yao.

"Do you care about Robben's affairs?"

"Of course I can, but I don't have the ability to infiltrate the bar association and disband it."

"Are you mocking me for bragging?"

"I don't know if I'm bragging, but I admire your ability to find a new way... A few days ago, I was cheated by a bartender in a bar. They didn't care about the chaos in the industry, but banned a talented singer because of their own selfishness. I don't think this bullshit bar association has any need to exist."

"A fly won't bite an egg without cracks. If you hadn't been so bold in going to the bar all day, how could you have attracted those bar touts?... I think people like you also need to disappear from this industry together with the bar association."

"You can even talk about me? This is the first time I've seen someone want to settle accounts with the victim."

After thinking about it, I sent her another message: "Don't say anything about me. You're not much better... because you're just a wine-selling scammer."

"I ignored you and you just took it as my consent?... You are really the funniest person I have ever met!"

"Are you really not?"

This time, Le Yao replied after a while: "Now is not the time to start an internal conflict. Let's unite the front first, and after we have dealt with the enemy, we can then deal with the issues between us."

"Take a good look at the chat history. Did you start this incident first? And then you turn around and blame me for the internal strife and lack of cooperation?"

It is probably a common trait among women not to be willing to admit their mistakes, so Le Yao did not choose to face it squarely. Instead, she replied sarcastically: "Smart people are already formulating battle plans; stupid people are still struggling with a little internal contradiction."