Attempted first love

After getting in the car, the driver asked for the address, and Lu Zhouyu said, "The family home of the municipal unit."

The family courtyard is in the center of the old city, and it takes less than 10 minutes to reach the destination.

An old man was guarding the gate, sitting on a rattan rocking chair, his eyes narrowed behind reading glasses, and he looked them up and down, "What building and unit are you in?"

Lu Zhouyu said, "Unit [-], Building [-]."

There are few new faces in the old family home, so the uncle asked again: "Which household? Who are you looking for?"

Lu Zhouyu answered patiently: "Xihu on the first floor, Zhou Man."

Zhou Man's name was known and talked about by everyone in the Municipal Family Court.

Because she has a respectable father, a radiant appearance, and a rich and rich artistic cell.Also because of her weird temper, and because of the ridiculous marriage threatened in the legend.

These are all things that Lu Zhouyu heard from other places after he was 15 years old.Before that, Zhou Man was just a mother who loved to cry and told stories in his heart.

Before the age of ten, Lu Zhouyu's world was only mother, mother and child depended on each other, living in the family courtyard.

Even if she doesn’t go out and has no guests—there are almost no guests in their house, she still does her makeup and eyebrows every day, wears bright dresses, sometimes sits in the garden and plays the cello, sometimes paints and draws on the weeds that sprout after the rain, doing At the same time, he also told stories to Lu Zhouyu.

In her story, the flowers will fall in love with the gardener who prunes the branches and leaves, the weeds will fall in love with the farmers who spread poison, and the burning tree will not love the fireman, but will secretly love the arsonist until it is burned to a handful of ashes.

Before the age of ten, Lu Zhouyu did not enter school, learned knowledge systematically, and had no playmates to play with, but his childhood was still colorful, because Zhou Man taught him to draw, play the piano, read poems, and weave many stories.

When he first talked about love, Lu Zhouyu couldn't understand it, so Zhou Man picked him up and chanted the greatness and movingness of love with a choir-like tone.

Until before going to bed, she would wear a lace-trimmed nightdress, walk into Lu Zhouyu's room lightly, squat by the bed, and draw a touching and poignant ending to the story they made up together today—or die alone Either that, or both are dead.

"Baby," she said, "Love can both seduce and destroy. You never love and you're always free."

When he said this, Zhou Man's face would reveal a girlish innocence and sadness, and his eyes would be wide open, making Lu Zhouyu hug the pillow unconsciously, thinking of what he saw in the encyclopedia, the huge black hole of the Milky Way galaxy, inside A boiling river that flows continuously.

"Okay, Mom" ​​is the button that stops the cosmic explosion.

On the day of her tenth birthday, her grandparents who had immigrated suddenly returned to China. When checking Lu Zhouyu's academic performance, all the stories she had woven fell apart.

The two old men severely corrected Zhou Man's behavior, sent her to the hospital, and forced Lu Zhouyu into the school.

It should be hysterical that day, but the strange thing is that Lu Zhouyu doesn't have a deep memory of that period, probably because he was locked in the room by Zhou Man when the incident happened. Release it.

Not long after, Lu Wenyuan suddenly appeared, took Lu Zhouyu away from the family home, and took him to undergo psychological correction.

I don't know whether it is luck or misfortune, Lu Zhouyu's memory before the age of ten did not record pain, so it cannot be corrected.

Lu Zhouyu inherited most of Zhou Man's genes, whether it was his appearance or his artistic talents, and he seemed to be born to whitewash everything.

After returning to school, the missing knowledge and social interaction were quickly made up, just like a flawless childhood memory.Naturally, because of his appearance, family background and personality, he became a very popular person in the school.

For many years, although Zhou Man's parents and husband believed that she had a serious mental illness, Lu Zhouyu always felt that she just liked to tell strange tragic stories, so he often took the opportunity of cram school to visit her in the hospital .

The accident happened when she was 15 years old. During a routine visit, Zhou Man hugged Lu Zhouyu and broke down crying, crying in despair, "She's back!", "I'm going to kill them!" until the nurse gave her a long injection After taking care of the medicine, he calmed down and fell asleep in Lu Zhouyu's arms.

The 15-year-old Lu Zhouyu has already begun to take the shape of an adult, with broad shoulders that can fully embrace her.Zhou Man's appearance was almost the same as the mother in memory, as if she would continue to sit in the garden and play the piano when she opened her eyes.

For the first time, Lu Zhouyu had the idea of ​​protecting his mother, but Zhou Man's condition continued to deteriorate.When she was awake, she asked Lu Zhouyu to visit her every day. When she was not awake, she hugged Lu Zhouyu and called Lu Wenyuan's name.

Seeing Zhou Man lose her freedom for love, even though Lu Zhouyu finally admitted her illness, she still agreed with her theory about love.

The first deviation from the theory occurred in .

At that time, while Lu Zhouyu couldn't forget that Zhou Man had depended on him for life, at the same time, he was overwhelmed by her high-handed restraint.

After another visit, Zhou Man insisted that Lu Zhouyu follow Lu Wenyuan all the time to ensure that he would not cheat and go find "that woman".

Lu Zhouyu didn't know who she was talking about, most likely it was the villain imagined in the story, so for the first time in his life, he said "no, mom" to her, and then carried the drawing board on his back and went to the mountains outside several provinces to draw pictures .

Although there are very few memories, that time was once put into a box and preserved completely.

Not long after arriving on the mountain, Lu Zhouyu received a call from Zhou Man. The crying on the other end of the phone was rapid and long, as if he was blowing up a balloon, making him more and more inflated. Before the explosion, he hung up the phone and felt his consciousness drifting away.

The summer in the mountains is not tactful, the chirping of cicadas and the hot air are annoying, and there are unsightly creatures blocking the way at the door of the studio.

The man was bent over, with his hands on his knees, and the shoulder blades on his back trembled, like a butterfly about to spread its wings.The calf exposed under the shorts is thin and strong, and it is the best-looking type in the drawing.

Good-looking should not get in the way.

Lu Zhouyu walked over slowly, resisting the desire to break the butterfly's wings, and said to him, get out of the way.

After taking two steps, he heard a sound behind him, but he didn't turn his head.It wasn't until I walked into the room, wrapped in air-conditioning, that the whole person calmed down, that I turned back again.

The person at the door was struggling to stand upright, panting heavily.Before Lu Zhouyu apologized, he raised his head and glared over with arrogance.

That afternoon, Lu Zhouyu learned his name during the presentation of his homework.

On the corner of the drawing paper, "Xia Yan" was written casually with a pencil. The strokes were a little scribbled, but the structure of the two characters was simple and could be clearly identified.

Xia Yan.

Lu Zhouyu has always believed that there are inextricably linked contradictory connections between names and individuals.For example, a person with a gentle name has a big temper, while a person with a mediocre name hides something deep...

For example, my own name, my parents' surname and good expectations, but in reality it is far from it.

He sat in an almost diagonal position and looked at Xia Yan.

In order to light the models in the studio, all the headlights were turned off, leaving only a few beams of strong warm light.The face light passed over the model, revealing a narrow strip, which just shone on Xia Yan's body, making his whole body seem to be soaked in the sun.

Like a story-like coincidence, they were assigned to the same dormitory, and they gradually intersected. Lu Zhouyu knew that he loved candy, didn't like smoking, was afraid of the dark, and had a lamp in the shape of a rabbit.

He also knew that he liked watching action movies more than art movies, because every time they watched a movie together, Xia Yan would fall asleep if the progress was less than halfway through.

In the beginning, Lu Zhouyu used various methods to wake him up and let him go back to the upper bunk. From some unknown day on, he stopped waking Xia Yan up, and even offered one shoulder occasionally for him to put his head on.

It's just that there seems to be a "boring detection" radar in Xia Yan's body, once the lengthy video is over, he will wake up automatically.

At such moments, there will always be an inexplicable emotion that grows from the bottom of Lu Zhouyu's heart.

Until the eve of the end of sketching, they climbed out of the window and sat side by side on the hawthorn tree to watch a movie.

It's a lively youthful love story, halfway through it, maybe because it's rare to get involved in it, Xia Yan shook his legs and asked, "What's it like to be in love?"

The strange thing is that Lu Zhouyu got an answer to this question from Zhou Man before he was ten years old, but at that time he felt his throat was blocked.

At that moment, all the stories he had heard in his childhood swarmed up, breaking through his fortified theory.

"Falling in love is troublesome," he said, "but kissing is easy, do you want to try?"

Without warning, the skin and bones collided, sharp, soft, flinching, and impulsive.

The night wind is fluffy, and the hawthorn tree spreads its luxuriant wings, covering the rich moonlight and its irregular pulse.

After that, lying back on the bed in the dormitory, Lu Zhouyu vaguely guessed that maybe love is not as scary as Zhou Man said.

At dawn, Xia Yan on the upper bunk turned over, and his rabbit lamp fell off the bed. Lu Zhouyu picked it up, adjusted the brightness to sleep mode, and raised his hand to put it back beside his pillow.

At the same time, the cell phone that had been silent for many days suddenly rang, and Lu Zhouyu quietly walked to the window to connect, "Mom."

On the phone, Zhou Man said good morning peacefully, and then talked about her recent life in the hospital, new stories, bad weather, etc., and finally said, "Mom can't live anymore, I'm sorry."

Before Lu Zhouyu could digest her meaning, the sound of fists hammering on the iron door suddenly came from the mobile phone, and he heard Lu Wenyuan's distant but very fierce shout: "Calm down! Open the door! Do you hear that?! Zhou Man!"

"Zhou Man... Manman," the gatekeeper raised his sleepy eyelids, and his gaze stayed on Lu Zhouyu's face for a while, "Go in."

I haven't been here for more than seven years. Not long ago, the Haicheng City Government promoted the renovation of old communities, and the Municipal Family Court was one of them. The buildings were uniformly painted in a warm brown color, and the circulation of the community was also remodeled.After going the wrong way twice, I arrived at the door smoothly.

The iron door is closed tightly, and the small advertisement on the door is like a scar, and the old scar has not healed and a new wound is added.

There were traces of cleaning at the keyhole, Lu Zhouyu spread out his palm and said to Xia Yan, "Give it to me."

Xia Yan was standing in the narrow corridor, looking at the "Glorious House" sign on the door, he was startled when he heard this, but he still passed his hand, "What's wrong?"

Lu Zhouyu pinched the knuckles of his index finger, estimated it, staggered his body, and pointed to the hollow iron bar on the door, "Try to see if you can get it in, there is a key inside."

The door was opened smoothly, and the warm light reflected from the crystal on the roof, warmly covering the whole room.

Zhou Man is a very clean person, the wooden floor in the house is always polished.After she was hospitalized, for many years, for unknown reasons, Lu Wenyuan kept asking someone to clean it regularly.

There was a crisp sound behind him, Xia Yan threw the brass key into the porcelain plate in the entrance, he seemed to have many questions, his lips moved.

"Don't you want to smoke?" Lu Zhouyu pushed open the balcony door, walked into the garden, and sat on the steps where Zhou Man often sat.

Sitting down side by side, Xia Yan took out the cigarette case of Hongqiqu and handed it over, seemingly casually asking: "Have you ever smoked this brand again?"

Taking one out and biting it between his lips, Lu Zhouyu said, "No."

Xia Yan stretched his legs, looked at the lush garden, and asked: "Who is Zhou Man?"

"My mother, this is her home."

In this room, from Zhou Man, Lu Zhouyu obtained a wonderful childhood that others could not understand, and also experienced how love gradually destroys people through the way Zhou Man cut open the artery with a knife blade.