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

I turned to look at Le Yao, her expression was so complicated, just like my mood at the moment, neither up nor down, so I longed even more for a ray of light that could illuminate this world shrouded in darkness.

I finally sat down on the river bank and closed my eyes tightly, not wanting to sense anything around me anymore; but the breath around me became clearer and clearer.

This is Le Yao's scent. She seems to be very fond of a certain brand of shampoo, so I have smelled this refreshing fragrance more than once. Whenever she sits next to me, there will be such a fragrance.

The last time was that night in Luoyang.

Just because of this fragrance, she at this moment has become everything in my spiritual world... I seem to gradually see an isolated island, a lonely sail and a thin figure; she tried very hard, but the sea was too vast, and just a big wave came over, and she and the lonely sail were washed back to their original place.

The sea water soaked her body. She was depressed and helpless. She looked helplessly into the distance. The sea and sky were one color, accompanied by a storm.

I think she will never reach shore in her life.

……

"Zhaoyang, where has your city in the sky floated to?"

Those fantasies ended, and I finally opened my eyes, looked at Le Yao, and said to her after a while: "It has already crossed the ocean, and I don't know where exactly."

"Oh……"

She responded, and after a moment of silence, she continued, "You've been drifting around all the time. If you drift back to the sea and see an island and a lone sail, please stop... There's someone there that you need to take with you."

"Then you must first have a pair of wings to fly to this city."

"If I had a pair of wings, I could fly to the shore by myself. Why would I need to rely on your uncertain castle in the sky?"

"So... so... what you need is a sailor, an experienced sailor."

After that, after a moment of silence, I began to hum: "When I was young, I liked to be alone at the beach, with my trouser legs rolled up and barefoot on the sand. I always imagined that there was another world at the end of the ocean, and I always thought that brave sailors were real men. I always looked weak and cowardly, and when I was bullied, I always heard the sailors say: He said, in the wind and rain, this little pain is nothing, wipe away your tears, don't be afraid, at least we still have dreams..."

"It sounds better sung than spoken."

Le Yao smiled, leaned on my shoulder and closed her eyes. I lit a cigarette, and when I finished smoking it, she fell asleep.

Watching her sleeping, I subconsciously paddled. The wind blew over, and the water on the moat flowed. I took Le Yao and seemed to be following the water and drifting away...

……

A week later, Chen Qianyu returned to China with Chen Bailu's ashes; we met at the gate of the old neighborhood where she and Chen Bailu once lived. I had been waiting for her.

When I heard that she was coming back, I came and waited from the evening until dark.

……

She was wearing black clothes and holding a wooden urn in her hands. The urn was covered with black cloth. Chen Bailu's life was forever frozen in this small urn.

"Thousand fish..."

Chen Qianyu stopped about one meter away from me. She seemed to have no more tears. After a long while, she called out, "Brother."

"Can I...can I have a hug?"

I looked at Chen Bailu's urn and asked...

Another gust of cold wind blew over, passing through my body and into my heart. My heart was like a piece of rotten wall, falling off as the wind blew... What fell off was the pain, the grayness that could not be described, and the helplessness of facing reality...

Chen Qianyu finally handed me the urn. I reached out to take it. It was a little heavy, but it couldn't fully summarize Chen Bailu's life. Then, some images related to Chen Bailu came to my mind again. In these images, I was no longer so stubborn. I took him to the bar... We indulged in the bright lights and wine together. I drank whiskey and he drank beer...

He even talked to me, saying: I'm so happy! Brother Zhaoyang.

How could he possibly speak?

I suddenly came to my senses, sniffed, and tears began to fall...

In the end, I didn't even fulfill such a small wish.

Chen Qianyu laughed at this time and said to me: "I am finally free. I don't have to worry about whether he has eaten or been bullied when he goes out. Will he be like a normal man and start a family in the future? He is very annoying and has a weird temper. Especially a few days before he went to the United States, he always threw things in front of me for no reason..."

I looked at her in astonishment, I couldn't believe my ears.

But after a moment of silence, she burst into tears: "But, Senior Brother... there is no one who will hold an umbrella and wait for me at the school gate when it rains... There is no one who will send me a message when I land, asking if I am tired and if I have eaten well... He will also secretly put lollipops in my bag, saying that eating lollipops will make me feel better... He is actually very well behaved... Really very well behaved..."

"Brother, I don't have a younger brother anymore... I don't have a younger brother anymore..."

Chen Qianyu just sat down on the ground, covering her face and crying...

Only then did I realize that when facing a painful life, tears will never flow completely, just like pain, which can never be completely erased.

……

I no longer have the ability to describe what kind of mood I was in facing all this on a night like this; I went drinking again, until I was dizzy, and in the end, the only thing left in my mind was Chen Qianyu's figure and what she said to me before we left.

She said: Just pretend that we have never known each other. Never mention them in front of other people, and don't think about them anymore.

I promised her and asked her how she would live in the future?

She said that since she had never met her, she shouldn't care about how she would live in the future.

……

I am a human being, not a machine. How can I forget something just like that?

I followed the follow-up news about Chen Bailu.

The latest news did not provide a definite solution or explanation for this matter; instead, public opinion was in an uproar because in a newly exposed video, Chen Bailu did not panic when facing a police officer with a gun drawn. The corners of his mouth turned up, as if he was about to laugh...

Foreign media said that this was the most evil smile of the year!

I thought about it for a long time, and I seem to understand...