Zi Feiyu

Ye Qiao returned the paper figurine to Gu Chen, Gu Chen took it, and said that when he came back, he met an old lady in front of the house, holding a book, and weeping.

After lunch, Ye Qiao followed Gu Chen to visit the old lady.

The old lady lived in an old house decades ago, dilapidated and vulnerable.Gu Chen took Ye Qiao to find the old lady's room, and knocked lightly on the door.A boy opened the door.Wen Yan, who often chatted with another boy, chatted nonsense, and wasted time.Wen Yan looked at Gu Chen, and asked Ye Qiao next to him: "You guys... what's the matter?"

Ye Qiao hesitated and didn't know how to answer, so he asked Gu Chen for help.Gu Chen smiled: "It's okay."

Wen Yan lowered his head: "Oh." He lowered his eyes, "My dad lives here."

Gu Chen lowered his head and looked at the very temperamental old lady who was walking towards them.The old lady smiled at Gu Chen and Ye Qiao, and made a gesture of invitation.Ye Qiao was a little dazed, Gu Chen strode in, and he said: "You often go to my house, and I'll come to your house too, are you all right?"

Wen Yan frowned, "Ah", and looked at Ye Qiao who was as confused as him: "Oh!"

Although the house is small, it is very clean and there is no smell of old bricks.Gu Chen picked and picked a chair with four legs for Ye Qiao to sit on, and he sat on a low stool at will.The four legs of the low stool are of different lengths, and it is a bit bumpy to sit on.Gu Chen simply shook up.Wen Yan was a little embarrassed, but he thought that Gu Chen was always abnormal, so he didn't care about him, he just moved a chair and put it next to Gu Chen, so that he had enough bumps, so he could change it.

Ye Qiao wanted to explain the reason for coming here, but couldn't find a suitable reason to explain it.He watched the old lady busy in the house, but Wen Yan knew nothing about it.How to explain it, or not explain it.

Gu Chen said, "Little poor boy, why don't you pour water?"

Wen Yan heard the sound, oh.Thinking about it, I think it is unnecessary, and I am not an invited guest, and, should, probably, you guys, this is breaking into a private house?

But I still found two cups, poured them cold and offered them in vain.

Ye Qiao took the water and took a sip.Gu Chen didn't drink, just kept shaking.Wen Yan gritted his teeth for a long time, and finally spoke, but his voice didn't fluctuate much: "What's the matter with you?"

Gu Chen smiled: "I said it's all right." With a wave of his empty hand, Wen Yan shook his head, frowned, rubbed his temples, walked to the desk, sat down, took off his glasses, and lay on his stomach.No one knocked on the door, no one entered the house, no water was poured, his father went out, he was at home, read his father's book for a while, read it, and fell asleep.

Ye Qiao winked at Gu Chen: "Gu Chen, you—"

Gu Chen shook his head: "Don't worry!"

After finishing her work, the old lady walked over with a book in her arms, and sat on the chair that Wen Yan brought, "I didn't expect you to come." She said, handing the old book with a kraft paper cover to Gu Chen, "Dozens of It happened years ago, I... only found out." The voice was desolate.

Gu Chen took it and opened it.The following paragraphs appeared in front of himself and Ye Qiao——

After the test was successful, we were all immersed in the joy of victory, but after the joy, there was endless pain.Suddenly a lot of people came and they arrested us all, including the leaders.The new leader accused us, saying that there was another faction among us, and then began to report and stand in line.There was a lot of trouble at that time, and we were put on the team that was not their own, pushed to the conference table, and accepted their criticism, insults, and reprimands.Then came the ransacking of the house, rummaging through boxes and cabinets.Some were not, all were copied, turned over, a mess.We are intellectuals, how can we bear this kind of insult, we want to report, but there is no way to report, resist, there are soldiers and robbers among them.

They turned the research and experimental factory into a temporary prison, one small room at a time, with no windows, no beds, and only one iron door with a monitoring hole on the iron door.They put us in separate rooms.We sat in this hellish little room, waiting and hoping.But it didn't work.Not only did we not wait to be innocent, but we were also charged with trumped-up charges.No food or drink, they ask and investigate every day, and when they see that we are failing, they whip us and beat us with whips and sticks.Some of us, unable to bear the insult, committed suicide.However, there is no place to bury him when he dies, so he dragged them out and left them in the wilderness.Moreover, the cause of death was falsified by them, such as death due to physical discomfort or illness.There are also some people who didn't even write the cause of death, and disappeared completely.

Subsequent developments intensified.They start firing.Inhumane, insane massacre.Some of us, fearful, rebel.More, it hit the muzzle.I remember that the first one to die was a young man I brought with us, from our hometown, he was just married and transferred here on the third day.He often tells me how beautiful and smart his wife is, and how much he misses her.But, all of this now is so... cruel.

——Gu Chen closed the book and didn't read any further.

The old lady was already in tears.Gu Chen and Ye Qiao lowered their heads, neither needing to ask nor willing to ask.When the old lady met Gu Chen in the early morning, she told Gu Chen that she wanted to go to the place in the book.Gu Chen didn't give an answer, he returned the book to the old lady with a small bottle of sake.He didn't want to tell the old lady the truth, he couldn't help her, and he couldn't go to that place in the book.After waiting for decades, ten years of fear, and decades of pain and suffering.After waiting for so long, waiting for the cause of death, waiting for the result, but in the end, nothing came.Delayed for too long, unable to reincarnate, waiting too long, unable to dissipate, in the house, waiting and waiting, in the end it is despair, pain, and emptiness.

Ye Qiao closed her eyes and clenched her fingers unconsciously.Gu Chen squeezed Ye Qiao's tightly clenched hands and looked at Ye Qiao. Ye Qiao opened his eyes, met Gu Chen's eyes, and shook his head.It's okay, I'm okay, I know you're by my side.Gu Chen smiled and clenched his hands even tighter.

The old lady hugged the book to her chest for a long time.In the end, the tears on his face dried up, and he put the book on Wen Yan's lying desk.Holding the small glass bottle full of sake in both hands, looking at Gu Chen, he didn't ask what the wine is for, but just clenched it tightly.

At this time, the door opened.The sweaty Wen Yan's father came back.Holding a large bag of books borrowed from the library in his hand.Wen Yan hadn't woken up yet, so his father put the book by the wall and didn't wake Wen Yan up.Raising his hand to wipe his forehead, he found a fan and fanned the sweat off Wen Yan's forehead.

Ye Qiao moved his fingers, reminding Gu Chen that he could let go and leave.Gu Chen smiled, moved his buttocks, and jumped up.The low stool was thrown to the ground, vacated, rotated, and with a "bang", it fell over.Ye Qiao frowned at Gu Chen, Gu Chen shrugged and pointed at Wen Yan's father.Wen Yan's father kept fanning the wind with one hand, his eyes fixed on the low stool.When did this stool learn to somersault?

But the sound woke Wen Yan up.Wen Yan rubbed his eyes, and asked sleepily, "Dad, are you back?"

The father responded, and patted his son's shoulder with a fan: "I want to sleep in the room, there is a fan, it's cool. Look at you, you're sweating profusely."

Wen Yan nodded in a daze: "Oh. Dad, buy an air conditioner, it's such a hot day."

Father threw the fan on the desk: "Why buy an air conditioner, it's a waste of money. This room looks old, but it's quite cool."

After speaking, he raised his arm and wiped his sweat.

Wen Yan bit his lower lip, said nothing, picked up the temples of his glasses, and put them on.He stood up and gave up his seat to his father, who was a literary worker. In the past few years, he had been looking for the footprints of another person with the same name and surname as him decades ago.That man, survived the war, and took a set of shocking photos.But after the war, he disappeared.He searched through a stack of books, and finally found a clue, the man's son appeared in an old book with a brown paper cover.Father touched the cover of the book and sighed heavily.

Ye Qiao reached out and tugged at the corner of Gu Chen's clothes. Gu Chen smiled and looked at the old lady holding the sake bottle.The old lady lowered her head, the corners of her mouth were tightly closed, unable to speak.Ye Qiao looked at the book under Wen Yan's father, looked at the old lady, and stretched out his right hand.There is a five-petal flower in the palm of the right hand.With a smile in his mouth, he climbed onto the old lady's hand.Ye Qiao said: "'He' can accompany you. I miss 'him'. Talk to me."

Leaving the old house, Gu Chen said: "The flowers can still talk?"

Ye Qiao shook her head: "It's just a hallucination. The hallucination of curing heart disease."