Manhattanhenge

"All the cherries are gone."

Su Hui touched his pocket.

"I still have more." Ning Yixiao gave him his own, everything in his pocket.

"You don't like food?" Su Hui tilted her head.

"Yeah." Ning Yixiao said, "I don't really like it."

"Okay, let's compare rock-paper-scissors again." Su Hui raised his hands to his shoulders, ready to move, "I don't believe I will lose."

Ning Yixiao had no choice but to compare with him, perhaps because he was still lingering in his imagination just now, a little bit lost, and he actually lost to Su Hui as he wished.

Bubi Scissors, Su Hui won the belated victory with perseverance.

"Don't you win two out of three rounds?" He began to play tricks.

Ning Yixiao was almost amused by him, "Okay, but I don't have much talent."

Su Hui looked at the liar, "Your words are not convincing."

"I didn't lie to you." Ning Yixiao said, took out the medicinal wine he just bought from his pocket, squatted down, "pull up your pants, let me see what's wrong with your knees."

"Ning Yixiao, you're really good at changing the subject." Su Hui pursed his lips, lowered his head, and a small shadow fell from the brim of his hat, his tone was soft, "Then say something impressive."

"Let me take a look at my knees," Ning Yixiao changed the topic, his tone was very light, "I can't even walk well."

Su Hui had no choice but to be obedient, bent over and rolled up her trousers, exposing her bruised knees.Ning Yixiao didn't ask him what happened, but calmly and meticulously smeared the medicinal wine on a cotton swab, and said, "The bruise is very deep, and the effect of removing the bruise will be better if you press it."

Su Hui nodded.

Ning Yixiao covered his injured knee with gentle fingers and kneaded the medicinal wine as lightly as possible, but he still heard Su Hui's soft inhalation.

"Does it hurt?"

"A little bit." Su Hui said truthfully, "You...slow down."

Ning Yixiao lowered his head, pressed his fingers on the bruise, and said in a low voice, "Well, if it hurts, just tell me, and I'll stop."

The wind was almost still, and the hot air enveloped the two of them. Su Hui pursed his lips, feeling the heat.The smell of medicine surges up little by little, suppressing the sweet and sour cherries, stirring up a strange sweet and greasy smell.

Ning Yixiao felt that she was approaching the most dangerous critical point step by step, but the frightening thing was that she was aware and willing.

For the purpose of alerting oneself, or to let Su Hui know how big the gap is between them.

"Su Hui, do you still want to hear it?"

Ning Yixiao spoke suddenly, making Su Hui a little confused, "What?"

"The punishment just now."

"Oh." Su Hui came to his senses, "I think." It hurt a little from being pressed, and he flinched subconsciously.

Ning Yixiao paused for a moment, then said, "I remember you said you like the sea, I grew up by the sea. But it should be different from what you imagined, it is a very dangerous sea, sometimes some men go out into the sea , I can’t come back.”

Su Hui's thoughts spread, and it seemed that Ning Yixiao was suddenly pulled into the blue sea, and the waves almost swallowed him.

"Will your father go to sea?" He was a little curious, "Have you ever been?"

Ning Yixiao smiled, it was different from all his previous smiles, it was very cold, very bitter, the taste of potion cherry.

He smiled and said, "It's just me and my mother in my family, so I haven't been out to sea."

During the few hours spent with Su Hui, a strange and pessimistic thought always popped up in Ning Yixiao's mind - the next time I meet this person again, I don't know when it will be.

Perhaps instigated by such emotions, he cut himself apart extremely rarely.

It can also be regarded as a self-admonishment. Where did he come from, and how heavy a burden is on his body, he cannot be forgotten by short-term happiness.

Ning Yixiao got up, sat back beside Su Hui, and said in a very flat tone: "I grew up in a fishing village, where my mother gave birth to me, and because I didn't have a father, I was always bullied by the older children there. It was a small, dilapidated fishing village, underdeveloped, and most of the people depended on the sea for their livelihood. Going out to sea and fishing was the biggest productive force of the whole village. Those who could fish had the right to speak. No one in my family could say anything. talk."

His mother was weak, and she had a beautiful face that didn't match her fate. She couldn't bear the erosion of the waves on those fishing boats with the men who almost swallowed her alive.She can only survive by selling eggs and weaving fishing nets.

"There is only one school in the village, and there are no grades. Children of different ages go to elementary school together. I am one of the youngest in it."

Ning Yixiao looked at the students who were still laughing and playing not far away, and his thoughts drifted far away, returning to that bumpy and poor village.

"I still remember that it was about this season. It seemed that when I was eight years old, there was a boy in my class who was five years older than me. They called him Dacheng. Dacheng's uncle was working in the cherry orchard outside and went back to the village to visit them. He brought a box of cherries, and he packed a bag with a net, and brought it to the class to distribute to everyone."

I can't say why, Su Hui seems to have guessed what will happen later, that kind of imagination is very real, as if he has experienced it himself, standing next to little Ning Yixiao.

"He gave all the good and big ones to others, and gave me the rotten ones."

Ning Yixiao was as calm as if he was telling a fictional story, "Of course I don't want to eat it, the weather was very hot that day, and the smell of rotten cherries was terrible.

But they forced me, two of them grabbed me and pressed me against the red brick wall, the other tied my wriggling legs with a fishing net, and Dacheng stuffed those rotten cherries into my mouth one by one, forcing me to eat them go down. "

"I threw up at the time, so they went to the teacher to complain, saying that I wasted food." Ning Yixiao chuckled, "No matter what I explain, the teacher believed them and made me stand under the sun for two hours. Later, I suffered from heat stroke, and my mother carried me home."

Ning Yixiao lowered his eyebrows, "I still can't forget that rotten taste, as long as I taste it, I will recall it."

After speaking, he asked Su Hui, "Is this something impressive?"

Su Hui also stared at him blankly, without saying a word.

The night was like water, Ning Yixiao saw his gradually reddened eye sockets and moist eyes, couldn't help laughing, subconsciously reached out, wanted to touch the tip of his nose, but suddenly realized how appropriate, he just pointed, "How is that?" Looks like you're going to cry."

Su Hui shook her head, touched her body with her hand, finally found out her own cigarette case, and handed it over, "Do you want to smoke?"

Ning Yixiao found him interesting and said to him, "Su Hui, I'm not sad."

"You have." Su Hui looked into his eyes, "You are sad right now."

Ning Yixiao couldn't just look at him like this, and was defeated after a few seconds. He took out the pack of cigarettes from his hand with lowered eyes, stared at the blue-green light on the black cigarette pack, "Really?"

"Ning Yixiao, you don't have to pretend."

Su Hui's voice seemed to have some sort of spell, he was like the sweetest trap in the world, even though Ning Yixiao had received advice from countless people in advance, even though he knew that they were not the same, he still couldn't help being bewitched by it.

"What am I pretending to be?" Ning Yixiao threw up the cigarette case, and the case fell back into his hand.

Throw up—

"You obviously don't like to laugh, but you laugh every day."

Fall.

In the warm wind, Su Hui's voice was soft but stubborn, "You are obviously tired of your current life, but you still pretend to accept it enthusiastically."

Throw up—

"Actually, you don't like calling the wind and rain in the crowd at all, you don't like too many people around you, you don't like to please the teacher, you don't like working so hard..."

fall back.

Ning Yixiao gripped the cigarette case tightly.

He didn't smile, he took out a cigarette and lit it with a lighter, took a puff, exhaled the smoke, then turned his head to look at Su Hui, and said lazily, "Then tell me, what do I like?"

Su Hui paused.This beautiful face glows under the street lamps, surrounded by smoke.

"You are actually very cold, and you may not like anything."

He also took out a cigarette and asked him for a lighter, but was rejected, Ning Yixiao put his hand holding the lighter far away, but his face was facing him.

Su Hui didn't try to snatch it, but just took a cigarette in his mouth and bit the popcorn. The spicy peppermint dazzled his head. He leaned over and said in a soft voice, "Stingy."

The slender white smoke meets Ning Yixiao's burning cigarette end, like a compensatory kiss.The transferred fire, soaked mint, and ambiguous breathing were all sucked into Su Hui's lungs.

After parting, he asked Ning Yixiao: "Why are you willing to tell me about you?"

Ning Yixiao stared at Su Hui's expensive sneakers and expensive cigarette case in the gray smoke, and replied vaguely, "Because I lost."

The core of indifference was pierced, and that ambiguous night ended in a way that almost broke up.

After smoking a cigarette, the two quietly returned to the bonfire party without a bonfire, participating in social interactions that they didn't care about.

Su Hui continued to talk with that male classmate, smiling heartily from time to time, while Ning Yixiao continued to pretend not to care.

It's just that in the next few days, things were different from Ning Yixiao's imagination. Su Hui didn't disappear because of his indifference, on the contrary, he appeared every day.

Whenever Ning Yixiao came back to school from the company where she practiced, and came to the study room or laboratory, Su Hui was almost always there.

What surprised him even more was that Su Hui would bring him different cherry desserts every day, including cherry almond tart, cherry cake, or cherry cream puffs, cherry wine pound cake, and cherry chocolate parfait.

A week later, Ning Yixiao saw Su Hui again. He was waiting for him under the tree on the school's lover's slope, holding a delicate dessert box and humming a song.

It was a beautiful evening, the sky full of burning clouds reflected the large and empty lawn.

On the lawn, there is another couple taking wedding photos. They are wearing purple academic gowns, and the girl is wearing a white veil, holding a small bouquet of lilies of the valley.

Perhaps they were too happy, but Su Hui, who was not far away, was alone, a little pitiful.

After meeting, Su Hui asked him where he was going to eat. Ning Yixiao was too tired, so he suggested sitting on the lawn, so the two ate dessert while looking at the newlyweds taking pictures.

Ning Yixiao took a bite and felt that his level had improved, unlike the cake with broken egg shells in the beginning.

"They are so cute without wedding dresses and suits." Su Hui leaned against the tree trunk and smiled.

"Want to get married?" Ning Yixiao teased him.

Su Hui laughed, and said seriously after laughing, "I probably won't get married."

"Why?" Ning Yixiao asked.

On the lawn, the photographer ended a period of shooting and said [Happy Newly Married] to the couple, and the bride smiled shyly.

Su Hui watched with calm eyes, "Because no one can bear to be with me forever."

Ning Yixiao put down the box in his hand and wanted to say something, but Su Hui quickly preempted it.

"But watching other people get married is really satisfying, and so is the wedding. It should be the happiest moment when the newlyweds take their vows. It's a pity that I haven't even attended a wedding. It's good if I don't get sick."

Ning Yixiao looked at Su Hui, seeing that he was staring at the newcomer who was taking pictures seriously, he was very relaxed, very happy, and seemed to be very sensitive.

"What about you?" Su Hui asked suddenly, "What kind of wedding do you like?"

Ning Yixiao showed no expression, and replied very succinctly, "I don't like weddings, and I don't like marriage either."

After finishing speaking, he changed the subject habitually, "Why do you make so many desserts?"

"Do you not like it?"

Su Hui looked at him, with a slight complaint in his usual soft tone, "I learned to make this from the dessert master's instructional video. Making desserts is really too difficult, and it took too long. Enough sleep."

This time Ning Yixiao was not confused by his nonsensical answer, but asked repeatedly, "Why do you bring it to me every day? Could it be that there is a plan to open a dessert shop recently, and you want me to help you try dishes?"

Su Hui shook her head, borrowed his spoon, and took a mouthful of the parfait that was about to melt, "Ning Yixiao, do you think it's delicious?"

Ning Yixiao nodded.

"That's good." Su Hui put down the spoon, leaned lazily against the tree, and smiled lightly and sweetly.

"I want you to think of cherries in the future, they all taste delicious."

Ning Yixiao froze for a moment, her heartbeat seemed to stop.The red sun, which was about to sink, illuminated Su Hui's plump cheeks, like a happy peach.

"But I also know that people's memory is not so easy to change."

Su Hui's voice was very soft, as if he was stroking a stray dog's head and speaking softly, "I've been thinking these days, if I grew up with you and lived in that village near the sea, then we It's very similar.

Because I don't have a father who can take me out to sea, and I don't even have a very healthy body, they might like to bully me and tie me up, if that's the case..."

As he spoke, he laughed innocently.

"Ning Yixiao, I'll eat the rotten cherries with you."