From the day Li Chuan broke up with me, I sent him at least one email a day, but never received any reply. The day after he left, I called him once in desperation, only to be told it was an empty number. I called Ji Huan, who knew nothing about the matter. He asked Li Chuan's company for me, and the answer he got was that Li Chuan was urgently transferred back to the CG European headquarters, and the design drawings in his hands would continue to be completed in Europe. So he is still the chief designer of CG, although it is only a name to a large extent. CG needs his fame to attract business.
Ji Huan said that because Li Chuan is extremely protective of his privacy, all he knows about Li Chuan mainly comes from a few brief introductions on the CG website. It's pretty much the same as what I found on Google. Wang Lichuan, a famous young architect. Born in Bern, Switzerland, graduated from the Department of Architecture of Harvard University in XX, and has won the following awards: the first prize of the Swiss Young Designers Competition in XXXX, the US/A Gold Award in XX, and the French AS-4 Architectural Design Award in XX. Representative works: City C Gymnasium, Royal Museum of M Province, resorts of various names, commercial centers, concert halls, convention centers, etc.
These glittering resumes are not the Li Chuan I am familiar with. The Li Chuan I am familiar with is the one who sent me home late at night, accompanied me to buy train tickets, and got a big bag because of being scolded by my father. Li Chuan took good care of me everywhere, without any airs. Also, Li Chuan walks with me on a cane. If he walks a long distance, he will complain of being tired; if he is sick and cannot get up, he will beg me to pour milk for him at night. One night when I was writing a paper, I lost my train of thought in the middle of writing, and drank coffee in pain. He actually asked me if I wanted his "sexual services". We made love very romantically, and then, at one stroke, I wrote until the wee hours of the morning, getting top marks for my essay.
That day, Li Chuan and I parted ways in the parking lot, it only took five minutes. When I came back from Longjing, it felt like a thousand years had passed.
I went back to the dormitory in a daze, and met Xiu Yue at the door. Two days later, the news that I broke up with Li Chuan spread throughout the dormitory. Xiu Yue found me and asked me if I still wanted the sixpence when the moon was gone. I shook my head firmly at him.
For two years, I didn't care about it, and frantically studied and selected courses. At the end of my junior year, I suddenly found that I had completed all the courses. I asked the counselor what to do. He said, why don't you take the postgraduate entrance examination? He recommended Feng Jieliang to me—the father of Feng Jinger, the most senior professor in the English Department, and an expert in Lawrence. If the school hadn't worked so hard on his wife, he would have been poached by Peking University long ago. I have taken Professor Feng's "Modern British Literature". He liked me a lot and gave me a top score. So I went to the office to find him and asked him about the postgraduate entrance examination. The old man patted me on the head and said: "Don't take the exam. You are very good at English, and you definitely don't want to memorize politics. I will save you this test." I was notified soon that I was recommended for graduate school because of my outstanding grades. and so on.
Graduate students do not pay tuition fees, but the monthly subsidy is only about 200 yuan. Even with the scholarship, I still have to work part-time. Dad doesn't send me money anymore. Because after my brother had a big fight with him, he was admitted to the clinical department of Zhongshan Medical University. Tuition is twice as expensive as mine, and my father is getting more and more financially stretched. Xiaodong studies very hard. After school, like me, he works around to earn tuition fees and living expenses. My dad sent him one hundred yuan a month, which was definitely not enough. I saved money and planned to send him 300 yuan a month, but he returned it. During the winter vacation, I went to Guangzhou to see him. The young man was dark and strong, and he sold flowers for a flower shop on a bicycle. I felt distressed, and forcibly left him 2,000 yuan. But on the second day after I arrived in Beijing, I received a remittance from Xiaodong, 2,000 yuan, sent back every cent. "Sister, I have enough money, you can keep it for yourself."
My days are very monotonous. I get up at five o'clock in the morning to memorize vocabulary, and besides attending classes and part-time jobs, I go to the library. Every Monday, I made up my mind not to write to Li Chuan again. On weekends, I reverted to my old ways and couldn't help but go to the Internet cafe to check my mailbox. Seeing the word 0, I was stimulated again and couldn't help but write another letter. In the first two years, I still asked him in letters, how are you? What are you doing? Gradually, my letters only wrote about myself, and sometimes it was a study report, such as: "I took four courses this semester, intensive reading, oral English, writing, and Shakespeare. I got the highest score in Lawrence's paper last semester. I Lectured in class about how Mrs. Chatterley could have mistreated Clifford like this. Made my teacher half dead." Sometimes it was a book report, like: "Today I went to the library to check out a really esoteric book— "Lotus Sutra". I spent a week reading it, but looking back, I didn't understand a single sentence." Sometimes it is food or meteorological records, such as: "Beijing is really dusty this year, I bought a big scarf." or " Do you still remember the Mandarin Duck Forest in our school? Now, in the middle of the forest, a pool has been built, and a Hunan restaurant has opened next to it. The braised pork in it is really delicious.”
I feel that I am not writing a letter, but planting a clump of spring grass in the electronic mailbox. "Spring grass is just like leaving hatred, going further and further back to life."
In the past three years, I seldom went home because of my studies. I only go back for a few days during the Spring Festival every year. My dad and I had a cold war for about a year, and I finally told him that I broke up with Li Chuan. Dad didn't speak for a long time after hearing this, and finally asked me, then, are you sad? I said it's over. Just take advantage of this wind, turn grief into strength, and come back with scholarship every year.
In the summer of the year when I was just a graduate student, before school holidays, I received a call from Xiaodong: "Sister, go home and see Dad. Dad is critically ill."
Dad had dilated cardiomyopathy. When he was sent to the city hospital, the school colleagues didn't know the details, so they thought Xiaodong was studying medicine, so they called him first. In fact, Xiaodong is only a first-year medical student, and he knows nothing but worrying. My dad passed out in the classroom, and a critical illness notice was issued the day he was sent to the hospital. For the next few days, he remained on medication for life support. In the first few days, the school kept sending checks. Gradually, they sent someone to explain to Xiaodong that the school could not afford his father's medical expenses. The doctor in charge said that the hope of this disease is very small, except for heart transplantation, basically there is no cure.
I asked Xiaodong how much the heart transplant would cost.
"The operation fee is 200,000 yuan. The operation is very risky. Even if it is successful, it will cost thousands of yuan for anti-rejection medicine every month." Xiaodong was worried.
"Dad... can he still talk?" At this time, I even forgot what it was to cry.
"I did wake up once," Xiaodong said, "I didn't tell him the truth. He was feeling tight in the chest, flustered, and out of breath. He probably guessed that his condition was not good, and said he wanted to see you."
"Xiaodong, go and find out who is the best heart surgery expert in Yunnan right away, and I'll get money to do a heart transplant for Dad." I put down the phone, took a taxi and went straight to Longjing Garden, Li Chuan's apartment.
I still have the key to the apartment in my hand. Open the door, everything is still, spotless. The management fee of the apartment is very expensive, so someone comes to clean it every day, and all the furnishings are still the same as when Li Chuan left. My heart was so full that I had no time to be sad or recall.
I found the envelope on the coffee table and dialed the number on my cell phone. The phone rang twice, and a man's voice came:
"Hello. Chen Dongcun Law Firm."
"I'm looking for lawyer Chen Dongcun."
"I am."
"Hi. My surname is Xie, Xie Xiaoqiu."
"Oh, Miss Xie. I haven't contacted you for a long time." He still remembered me. "What do you want me to do?"
"I need money." I said it bluntly.
"Can you please come to the law firm? It's not convenient to talk about money on the phone."
"Where is the law firm?"
"You know Longjing Garden, right? Our office is on the second floor, No. 204."
I breathed a sigh of relief, it's really convenient, it's just downstairs. I went downstairs and found that room, a middle-aged man greeted me and invited me into his own office. He obviously has a lot of experience in the industry. The location of Longjing Garden is excellent and the rent is expensive. It is not a small expense to work here.
"Miss Xie, I need to see your ID to confirm your identity." He is from Beijing, seems to have graduated from a language institute, and speaks standard Mandarin.
I showed him my ID and student ID. He nodded, went to the safe next door and took out a wooden box. Then, he took out a checkbook from inside and asked, "How much does Miss Xie need?"
"How much can you drive?" I didn't know what to do.
"It's up to you." He glanced at me. "Or, you can take the check book and keep it for yourself."
"250,000." 200,000 for surgery and 50,000 for medicine.
He wrote the amount on the check, asked me to sign it, made a copy for the file, and then gave me the original. I looked at it, and Li Chuan had already signed it in advance.
I put the check in my wallet. Chen Dongcun asked again: "Miss Xie doesn't want to go through the transfer procedures of the two properties at the same time?"
I said, "I don't want real estate. I borrowed the 250,000 yuan from him. I will try to repay it in the future." As I spoke, I wrote an IOU and forced it into his hand.
Chen Dongcun smiled, took it, and put it in the box: "Miss Xie, if you still need money at any time, please call."
Sure enough, he is a veteran in the battlefield, not lukewarm, not pushy, and knows how to speak.
My dad's heart transplant was performed in Kunming. He was too sick to fly to a better hospital in another city. That day, several experts worked by his side for more than four hours. The operation was quite successful. However, immediately after, Dad's body had a severe rejection reaction. With a glimmer of hope, we cared for Dad as best we could. He struggled to survive for twenty-five days, but he still left us. In fact, we already know that surgery is very risky. But until the funeral was over, we still couldn't believe that Dad left so soon.
In the summer vacation of that year, thousands of trees were overgrown and the sun was scorching like fire. Suddenly, only Xiaodong and I were left in this world.
"Sister, are we considered orphans now?" Xiaodong asked me.
"Don't you still have me and you? Fortunately, your mother gave birth to you back then."
My younger brother was a superborn because my father didn't want my mother to have an abortion. As a result, Dad lost all his promotion opportunities in this ordinary middle school, and it took a lot of trouble for his younger brother to get a household registration. We found several passbooks in Dad's drawer, and all the money in them was added up, and there were 20,000 yuan. That's about all of our family's savings. We used the money to choose a better cemetery for Dad.
During the long summer vacation, Xiaodong only stayed for half a month before going back to school. I felt exhausted, so I continued to stay in Gejiu. I want to make some adjustments to cope with the unknown life. In July, my high school classmates came to ask me to have a dinner at my old school, and I went to see the teacher. I was in a bad mood, so I pushed back and forth. The classmate persuaded me: "No one else can go. If you have the highest score in the school, if you don't go, the teacher will sad."
Helpless, in the evening, I rode a bicycle to the gate of Nanchi Middle School. Aunt Zhang, who guards the gate, knows me, and even more so, my dad. My dad used to be a teacher at Nanchi Middle School, but he was demoted to a lower-level middle school in a small town because of the super student. Aunt Zhang waved to me from a distance: "Xiaoqiu! Come here to play during summer vacation?"
"Yes, class reunion."
"I heard that Mrs. Xie..." She touched my face, "Oh, I'm a good person, how can I just leave."
She didn't mention it, but when she mentioned it, tears rolled in my eyes. I bowed my head and tears fell to the ground.
"Hey, it's my fault. After a long time, I brought up this matter again." She took my hand and forced me an apple.
So I ate apples and waited for my classmates at the gate.
After a while, Aunt Zhang suddenly asked again: "By the way, a few years ago, someone came to the school to look for you. I told him your address. Did he find you?"
My hands trembled, and I asked, "Who is looking for me? Auntie, do you remember what he looks like?"
"Why don't you remember? The young man is so handsome, he was so impressed by the young female teachers who just entered the door. However, he seems to have a bad leg and walks with a limp."
I pretended to be calm and asked again: "Do you remember when that happened?"
"Well... three years ago, before the Spring Festival, after the winter vacation. He also asked me if there was any place to sell souvenirs from Nanchi Middle School. I said, you think this is the Forbidden City in Beijing, what souvenirs! There is a stationery store at the door, selling Some paper and pens and the like. Then, he asked me, is the street in front of the door called Ximen Street. "
I really can't mention sad things to sad people, and my tears welled up again. It turned out that Li Chuan had been here, my hometown.
"He asked me if I remembered you. I said, why don't I. I remember their family. Xiaoqiu was naughty when she was in elementary school, and she was punished by the teacher every now and then. Who would have thought that she got such good grades later that she became the champion of our school? .” She thought I was sad about Dad, so she hurriedly said the words to a more relaxed place.
I wiped away my tears and smiled at her: "He is a friend of mine, from Beijing."
"Maybe what I said made him happy. At that time, my grandson was crawling on the ground, and he gave me 300 yuan, saying it was to buy candy for my grandson." Therefore, Aunt Sun firmly remembered Li Sichuan.
These unreasonable words aroused my whole heart. During the dinner that night, from the beginning to the end, I didn't say a word, just drank and got drunk. When I woke up, I found myself sleeping in a heap of vomit.
Li Chuan ignored me for three full years. Why do I still think about him, why do I still send him emails? Anyone with a discerning eye knows that I am being sentimental. I'm so stupid and stupid that I'm hopeless.
Love someone, no luck; hate someone, no reason.
If you want to escape, you have no place; if you want to degenerate, you have no courage.
I have always been a good student.
After my father passed away, I was devastated physically and mentally, and I didn't write a letter to Li Chuan for a whole month. Back at school, I couldn't help but go to the Internet cafe again. There is still a "0" on the inbox. So I wrote a very short email:
"Hi Lichuan, my father passed away. In order to operate on him, I lent you 250,000 yuan, and I will gradually pay you back as soon as I start working. Maybe you don't use this mailbox anymore. But I still want to say , thank you for helping me at this critical moment. I am very grateful, Xiaoqiu."
Two weeks after this email was sent, one day, I received a call from my supervisor, Professor Feng. He said he had a letter in his hand, addressed to me. But the address said "Office of the English Department of Normal University", so it was sent to the department. It happened that he recognized me and put it away for me. Ask me when it is convenient to go to his office to pick it up.
I was a little afraid to meet Mr. Feng, he liked me very much and hinted many times that I wanted to take his Ph.D. And I am tired of studying. I secretly plan to finish my master's degree as quickly as possible and find a job after graduation.
Li Chuan can speak Chinese fluently and knows a lot of Chinese characters, but he can't write many Chinese characters. He said it was because his grandfather taught traditional Chinese, and he thought the strokes were too complicated, so he didn't pay attention to learning them. So I never saw him write Chinese. The characters on the envelope are indeed in traditional Chinese, and they are not smooth. Fortunately, the strokes are still complete and the size is about the same, so it is not too ugly.
Although there was no return address on the envelope, it was affixed with a Swiss postage stamp. I opened it hopefully and found a delicate card, slightly lavender-scented, with a lavender background, and a bunch of white lilies hand-painted in the middle. No words, no signature, nothing.
Well, he received all my emails.
I held that card, preoccupied. The female secretary in the department smiled and asked me: "Xiaoqiu, do you collect stamps? Do you still want this stamp?"
I was still in my own thoughts: "Oh, what? Stamps?"
"Yes. My son collects stamps. Children don't understand anything, but they like foreign things."
"Here, here you are, I don't want stamps." I handed the envelope and the card to her.
"Hey, the card in this envelope is delicious, don't you want it?"
"No more." I smiled, "If your son likes it, give it to him together."
That day, I went to a jewelry store. Five piercings were made in his own ears, plus the original two, for a total of seven piercings. Three on the left and four on the right. The guy who pierced me said, "Alas, a good looking beauty has become a Taimei." Then I went to another store and got a gold ring on my navel.
I threw away all the clothes I used to like and went and bought a bunch of stockings, the mesh kind. Every morning when I wake up, I spend more than an hour on makeup, using purple and black eye shadows, and draw the circles under my eyes to bottomless depth. On weekdays I either wear a leather jacket or a little waistcoat that shows off that little gold ring on my navel and feels sexy. I like dresses that are thick and exaggerated. I learned to smoke, and my addiction was getting bigger and bigger. I went to the bar to drink on weekends, and I often passed out. The man who helped me took the opportunity to touch my body, I smiled and joked with him, it didn't matter.
Since I received Li Chuan's "condolence" card, I never wrote to him again.
Two years later, I got excellent grades and graduated with a master's degree one year ahead of schedule. My mentor looked at me with regret on his face.
I handed my resume to five translation companies. All five companies invited me to interview. Naturally, I chose the one with the largest salary, the best salary, and the strongest qualifications in this city: Jiutong Translation Company.