A gentle trap is one that people fall into without being prepared, and they are still unaware of it...
Professor An was used to Xiao Ba's waiting.
Xiao Ba has gotten used to Professor An's return.
They are like a pair of partners with the most tacit understanding, and they can always understand each other's intentions at the first time.
If there is any flaw, it is probably that Xiao Ba is never willing to pick up the ball.
Other people's dogs will pick up the ball thrown by their owners.
This is the way to play and interact.
But Xiao Ba is not keen on the ball-picking game. He would rather play with Professor An than show any interest in the round balls.
that's all.
The days go by.
I don’t know when, but Professor An has been wearing a pair of glasses on his nose and his hair has turned gray. He can no longer play freely with Xiao Ba like he used to.
Xiao Ba is still full of energy.
It still sends Professor An to the bus every day, and still waits for its owner's return in a corner of the station, as if they had an agreement with each other.
This day.
Professor An went to the station to prepare for work as usual, but unexpectedly found that Xiao Ba was following him closely with the ball that he never liked to play with in his mouth.
"You want to play?"
Professor An was extremely surprised. He tried to throw the ball to a place not far away, and sure enough, he saw Xiao Ba bring it back.
“Well done!”
The professor seemed to be a few years younger. He picked up the ball again and threw it farther, and Xiao Ba caught it back without hesitation.
Professor An was particularly happy.
This day.
Xiao Ba, who had always been reluctant to pick up the ball, suddenly was willing to play the ball-picking game with him. Professor An missed the first bus for the first time and was completely immersed in the sudden joy.
When the people at the station saw this scene, they also smiled.
Professor An and Xiao Ba played for a long time before reluctantly going to work.
Even on his way to work, he would hold the little yellow ball tightly in his hand.
At this point, this gentle trap finally spread out its huge net that it had been waiting for for a long time!
In fact, it’s not that there are no vigilant people.
Some of the theater representatives present frowned slightly, thinking about the meaning of this shot, and felt a little uncomfortable.
And next to Ye Hongyu.
Yang An quietly clenched his fists, feeling inexplicably irritated. Why did this turn of events happen? Was there any special reason why Xiao Ba was willing to play ball
At this time, Yang An suddenly saw Ye Hongyu put down her legs which had been raised.
The uneasiness in his heart was rapidly growing!
The movie goes on.
Professor An, who is a music teacher by profession, started to tell his students about his understanding of music after playing a piece of piano.
Time has made him gradually older, but his temperament has become more restrained. This man seems to be more charming, but this charming man seems a little naughty.
He was teaching his students, but in his hand he was holding the small yellow ball that he and Xiao Ba played with before work.
If you squeeze the ball from time to time, it will make a cute sound.
"us… "
Professor An glanced at Piqiu and spoke with a smile, but his expression suddenly changed. He covered his chest and held the piano.
“Buzz.”
As if the black and white keys were pressed, unsystematic piano sounds suddenly rang out, attracting the attention of all the students, and then under everyone's gaze? Professor An fell to the ground with a bang.
Crash!
The students stood up in panic...
In the slow-motion shot with out-of-focus processing? The yellow ball is still tightly held in the professor's hand? But it no longer makes any sound due to the force? It's as if Professor An, who collapsed in the classroom, never woke up again...
Professor An is dead.
Does it seem like a carefully planned plot by the screenwriter? Or does it seem like a sudden accident
The light from the big screen shines on the faces of the audience.
Countless pupils were shrinking.
Everyone's expression changed from disbelief, to panic, to sadness, and finally to overwhelming sorrow.
That is a small gap deep in the soul, which is slowly expanding and eventually leading to a complete collapse.
At this moment? Everyone's mind is blank!
Just like a piece of wood that can't think.
And when people realized what was happening, some viewers were already overwhelmed by the sudden rise of despair!
The big screen suddenly went dark, just like everyone's mood at the moment.
There was nothing in the darkness, nothing could be seen.
Boom boom boom…
There was no pretentiously sentimental soundtrack, only the sound of heartbeats gradually rising in the darkness, slower and slower, until it completely disappeared.
Crunch.
That was the sound of the ball making a weak sound.
The big screen lit up again in an instant, but the expressions of all the audience formed a sharp contrast with the few seconds before the darkness.
Those are faces, with tears streaming down their faces...
The camera cruelly switches to the station. Xiao Ba is still squatting on the flower bed opposite the old station. The view slowly rises into the air, leaving only Xiao Ba's helpless back in the long shot.
Lonely and sad.
"Xiao Ba..."
In the back row, Yang An's tears were like a flood that could not be stopped.
Perhaps Ye Hongyu was the only one who held on. It seemed that keeping calm was her belief. However, her lips turned white due to biting too hard, but she still did not let go.
Yang An couldn't see this.
In his ears, the entire cinema was whimpering. When the gentle trap began to close, there were only a few survivors.
In a cinema like this, tears are the cheapest way to release emotions!
The uncles and aunts who set up stalls at the train station went off work one after another.
The man in the security room looked down at his watch, then looked at Xiao Ba who was squatting on the flower bed. He called out to him tentatively, but Xiao Ba did not respond.
at this time.
The sky had completely darkened, and all that remained for Xiao Ba was the ice and snow that had not completely melted this winter.
The camera zoomed in quickly, and Xiao Ba's lower jaw was close to the ground. The sound of sniffing became heavier and heavier.
In the end, Professor An's daughter took Xiao Ba back home.
The lights in the house were not turned off that night.
Xiao Ba was unwilling to enter the study.
It seemed to have returned to the day when it first entered this family, looking at this black and white world through the not-so-big gap, like a homeless poor creature.
The only difference was that Mrs. An cried all night long.
The next day, people held a grand funeral for Professor An.
Xiao Ba did not show up.
As usual, it squatted on the flowerbed opposite the station, watched the early morning train go off into the distance, and watched the passing crowds as usual...
What is it looking for
What is he waiting for
The answer to this question seems meaningless, just like Xiao Ba's aimless waiting, which is also meaningless to many people.
That night, heavy snow fell again.
There was a thick layer of snow on Xiaoba's body.
The man in the security booth at the train station walked towards Xiao Ba and whispered, "You don't have to wait any longer. He will never come back."
Xiao Ba didn't move.
On a snowy night, I couldn't tell whether it was light or moonlight reflected in its eyes.
The man in the security booth shook his head, gently brushed the snow off Xiao Ba's body, and turned away.
There was sobbing in the cinema.
Even the crowd that originally tried to suppress it no longer forced itself to do so.
Ye Hongyu's eyes were filled with red, as if illuminated by fire.
Yang An then discovered that Ye Hongyu's body was trembling slightly, just like him, his throat was blocked by something, and he could only use an almost awkward way to slow down the digestion of those surging tears.
That year, Mrs. An sold her house and seemed to want to escape from the city.
Professor An's daughter took Xiao Ba back to her home, but Xiao Ba escaped that same day.
Professor An's daughter then realized that the little Ba in front of her was no longer the little cub that her owner could not drive away or scold her.
There is no color in the world of black, white and gray.
It ran breathlessly amid the fleeting scenery.
It passed through the forest of dead branches and leaves, and also through the endless fields, and returned to the home where he used to live. He will always remember this road.
However, this house already has a new owner.
"Are you lost?"
The new owner of the house looked at Xiao Ba, just like when Xiao Ba and Professor An first met. The man leaned over and asked tenderly:
Little guy, are you lost
It returned to the flower bed opposite the old station, as if adhering to a promise that never existed.
Sometimes when it gets tired of squatting, it will lie down to rest, but its eyes seem to be able to speak, never leaving every train that leaves and every crowd that arrives at the station.
In some places, it may never get lost.
But is the person it is waiting for lost and unable to find the way home
Professor An's daughter took it home again and tried to tie it up, but Xiao Ba refused to eat or drink and resisted by going on a hunger strike.
A few days later.
Professor An's daughter suddenly understood something.
She chose to release the chain that bound Xiao Ba, opened the closed door, and smiled with tears in her eyes: "Maybe I can understand you."
This was the first time that Xiao Ba didn't run away madly.
It looked at Professor An's daughter, as if saying goodbye seriously.
Camera switch.
It was still the flower bed opposite the old station, and Xiao Ba was still squatting in the same position. He returned here.
The passing trains always cheer Xiao Ba up at first sight, but the familiar smell is gone among the passing crowds, so he is always greeted with disappointment.
Its fur is dirty.
The black, white and gray of the world actually represents despair and coldness.
At night, it slept under the wheels of an abandoned train car.
Every morning when the first train woke it up, it would run to the train station as usual, sit upright on the steps opposite the door, and wait for him to come home.
Whether it is windy, rainy, or the familiar heavy snow falling from the sky.
No one brings it into the study anymore.
No one brought out blankets to keep it warm.
Only time passes quickly and people live in a hurry.
Only trains will still blow their whistles, only the rising sun will turn into setting sun, and only the bright moon will turn into a dim moon.
One year, two years, three years...
The people around him will provide Xiaoba with the food he needs to survive.
Everyone was moved by Xiao Ba's loyalty to his master. Even newspapers published the news that Xiao Ba had waited for his master to return for several years. Some people even donated money spontaneously...
"Xiao Ba is old."
One day, the security guard who was still working at the station said softly.
It began to walk slowly, and its long-dirty hair became increasingly sparse, no longer as shiny as before because no one had taken care of it for a long time.
Spring, summer, autumn and winter, the four seasons rotate.
Xiao Ba is still waiting for someone who seems to never come back—
The distance between life and death is something a dog cannot comprehend.
It only believed that its master would come back, and so its life, like a stream of water, flowed away bit by bit on the bluestone platform of the station, year after year.
As a dog, this is his duty to wait.
Birth, aging, sickness and death, never leaving or abandoning, it has taken ten years to become a thorough landscape.
Many years later, when Mrs. An, who was no longer as charming as she used to be, came to the small town station, she saw Xiao Ba at first sight.
Xiao Ba, it's so old that it can only crawl there, and doesn't even want to waste the energy to move.
After that glance, Mrs. An's tears smudged her makeup.
Just like Ye Hongyu, who claimed to be able to remain calm forever in front of the movie screen, for the first time in her life she took the paper handed to her by Yang An and cried until she was out of breath.
————
ps: Thanks again to the face expression leader for the reward, thank you very much, and apologize to everyone for being a bit lazy in some places on this picture. I can't say too many witty words today. I was reading what I wrote before while re-watching the movie. I ended up crying even more miserably than the people in the book. There will be revisions later. Let me write the next chapter first, it may take a while.