"Quilt, New Year's Day is coming soon."
Oh! He still remembered this. "Don't worry, all the posts that were sent out have been recalled."
"I did not mean that."
"What does that mean?"
"How about hanging out tonight?"
Ah! When will Li Shuming come to Chongqing? It seems that he still has the intention to come back, but I don't plan to forgive him straightforwardly. Who made me wait for so long in a gloomy mood? Feelings are a ghost thing that will torture people to death. I silently pulled the telephone wire and twisted it around.
"I'm about to be assigned to Europe permanently, so I came to see you before I leave, Qinqin. We haven't had a good talk for a long time."
At that moment, it felt like a big hole was dug out in my heart, blood gushed out, and my head felt heavy and I almost couldn't stand.
It turns out that he doesn't need my forgiveness at all.
The whole thing came out of his mouth so suddenly that I hung up the phone before he could finish. My eyes were sore and tears were about to fall. I took my bag and stumbled out of the office. My heart was in a mess. How could he do this? After all, we were engaged. How could he make such a big decision without saying a word? No, no, it turned out that I didn't understand him at all!
It's over for me and him! This thought came to my mind immediately.
As soon as I got into the elevator, I started to regret that I should have listened to him and arranged to meet him to finish what I wanted to say. This way, we could have broken up cleanly. My phone buzzed in my bag, and I answered it without hesitation.
"Yangzidao Hotel, the old place, I'll wait for you." Li Shuming was not vague.
"Okay, see you later."
Shuming was waiting for me at the window seat we used to go to. When I went over, he was holding a teacup and staring at the neon lights outside the window. He was wearing a sky blue and gray sweetheart-collared cashmere vest over a striped shirt. One button on the cuff of his shirt was unbuttoned, hanging loosely on the table. I had never seen him so casual.
I don't know when the restaurant was renovated. The lights were red and it was a little dim. The music flowed into my ears like a small stream of water. The whole atmosphere gave me a feeling of both reality and fantasy, gorgeous and romantic, and it didn't seem like a place to break up.
I sat down, not having any appetite, but ordered a large table of dishes as if to spite myself. Shuming placed his hands on his knees, looking at me quietly, with fatigue emanating from the corners of his slightly red eyes. He obviously prepared a lot of things to say to me, but he moved his lips several times, but the words were still on the tip of his tongue. I sneered in my heart, when has Li Shuming ever been so embarrassed? Breaking up is the most difficult thing for him? I can't believe it.
"When are we leaving?" I pretended to be relaxed to break the deadlock.
"Next month. Qinqin, our business—"
"Huh! I've never heard you say you wanted to go out to work, but you made the decision so quickly after coming back this time!" I interrupted him.
Li Shuming looked distressed, "Many things are not what I want. Really, not what I want..."
Is it necessary to be so long-winded when saying goodbye? It's not like his usual style. But at this moment, I suddenly didn't want to pursue anything anymore. I raised my glass of freshly squeezed papaya juice and drank it. I choked on the water and my face turned red. Shu Ming stood up and walked around the table to pat my back. I subconsciously avoided him and waved my hand, "It's okay, it's okay," I looked up and smiled at him, "You always know how to seize opportunities."
Li Shuming said sadly, "Qinqin, I'm sorry. At this moment, I really don't know what to say. I'm sorry to you, and also to aunt and uncle."
"You two, play catch." I grinned, but my heart felt extremely sour.
He sighed and lowered his head slightly, "Maybe we can't tolerate each other."
"Can you really let it go?" I stared into his eyes. That child, could he really let it go? How could he be so cruel to her
He suddenly raised his head and looked at me in surprise. He wanted to say something but didn't open his mouth in the end.
"Forget it, let's stop here. I wish you a bright future."
What awaits me is still silence.
Since there is nothing to say, then let it be. I took my bag and left, and he did not chase me out. When I was about to leave the restaurant, I looked back and saw Li Shuming sitting there, staring at the glass cup with a little papaya juice on the bottom, as if he was mourning something.
After that, I didn't see Li Shuming again for a long time. He only spoke to me on the phone on the day he arrived in Frankfurt. At that moment, in that tone, it seemed that our relationship was the same as before, exactly the same as when he first went there on a short business trip.
There was no contact after that phone call. It was as if a wonderful stage play had come to an abrupt end. I suddenly realized that those moments of heartbeat, sleeplessness, excitement, longing, weakness, sweaty palms, surprise and joy related to Li Shuming had finally become history. The moment of dancing barefoot on the white sand beach hand in hand, facing the pleasant sea breeze and accompanied by the sound of waves, would never come again.
But even my heart was numb and I felt no pain at all.
My father and mother returned to the state of strangers, each taking care of their own things, as if they were just two roommates living together. My father in particular only came home once every three or five days without any explanation, and my mother was isolated from his life.
I moved out of my home and moved into an apartment that my father bought two years ago.
Xu Nanfang came to Chongqing to visit me every now and then. I solemnly reminded him that I didn't want to fall in love for the time being. During the Qingming Festival, the Xu family returned to the county town to visit the grave of Grandpa Xu. After returning to the city, Xu Nanfang brought a girl with round eyes, white skin and a slender figure to see me, saying that he had business matters to discuss with Uncle Xu and asked me to take this cousin around for him.
I met Li Wanhong, the youngest sister of the Xu family, who was still studying in Taipei. At first glance, Wanhong was a girl with a bright and intelligent mind, with a crisp voice and very pleasant words. I took her to the porcelain market, and she stayed in a snuff bottle shop for half an hour and refused to move, as if she was looking for something.
"What is Wanhong looking for?" I asked her.
"A snuff bottle with a pattern." She looked up at me and said seriously, her face was as smooth as porcelain and her pair of big, crystal eyes seemed to have thousands of words to say.
"What does it look like?"
"Two young people, a boy and a girl, were sitting in a bamboo forest and talking in private."
"Oh, come, sister will help you find it."
We crouched down and picked up hundreds of snuff bottles to look at them one by one.
"That year, I went to San Francisco with my mother and saw one like this in Nanfang. I had never seen such a beautiful and unique thing before. I was so fond of it that I accidentally broke it. It roared at me for a long time like a mad lion." As she spoke, Wanhong turned her head and glared at me, imitating Nanfang's angry look, and laughed as she imitated it.
"I bought it here with him that year." I said in a low voice.
"So there's an allusion to it!" Wanhong blinked at me, "I remember there were two lines of poetry on it: The lover came riding on a bamboo horse, playing with green plums around the bed. Living together in Changganli, the two children had no suspicion of each other."
Yes, yes. I said to myself, feeling a sour heat in the middle of my nose. The scenery around me began to recede and spin, and everything returned to that early summer when we walked hand in hand on the sandalwood-scented Ciqikou Old Street, immersed in the prosperity of a thousand years ago.
"Found it!" Wanhong shouted excitedly, pulling me back from my thoughts. She handed me a small pot to look at. Yes, it really is! But if you look closely, you can find that the poem is still the same poem, but the pattern is different. Two teenagers are leaning against each other and reading the same book.
Wanhong was still very happy and asked the boss for two more, "This one is for you."
I took it and looked at it carefully, feeling a little dazed for a moment. She looked at me seriously and said, "Sister should be happier."
Am I unhappy? Even I am surprised. The girl in front of me is smiling and her eyes are shining. I can almost see my thin and haggard self in her dark and bright eyes. I was shocked. Once upon a time, I was also such an innocent girl.
It was life that changed us, Father, Mother, Nan Fang, me, Shu Ming, everyone.
It was at this moment that I realized how deeply I had felt pain, as if a part of my body had been cut off. The pain was so severe that I would rather die, but I had to live on.
The night Nanfang came to pick up Wanhong after finishing his business, we went to a KTV in the city that never sleeps to sing. Wanhong had an excellent voice and sang Angela Chang's songs vividly. Nanfang sat in a corner of the small bar and sang a song with a slightly dull melody into the microphone propped up on the ground:
Want to go back to the past
Try to keep the story going
At least I won't let you leave me anymore
Distracting time attention
I'll hold you tighter this time.
I don't know how to keep it like this
It's too late
… ..
At that time, my emotions and tears were out of control and flowed out under the dim light.
Soon, I was seconded to the head office for a month. At that time, I learned that Li Shuming had been officially appointed and promoted half a level. However, our bank did not have much business in Europe, and he was doing quite well here, so it seemed that he was being exiled to the frontier. Wang Biyun took over Li Shuming's position and was promoted to the second in command of the department. I also met Wang Biyun in person, a charming, shrewd woman with a lot of charm in her every frown and smile. She is a single mother and has never been married... ..
My greatest pursuit is still to chat and laugh with the person I like and watch the stars on a cloudless night. Unfortunately, Li Shuming is not the one who watches the stars with me.
How many couples can have a beginning and an end? This is life.
A year later, Nan Fang, like the male protagonists in many TV dramas, held up a red velvet jewelry box and begged me to be with him. I agreed to marry him. He was so happy that he jumped around the room with tears on his face, and he almost knelt on the ground and cried excitedly on my knees.
We received blessings from the priest under the statue of Jesus in the white church.
A new cycle begins, and we should have a new life. (To be continued)