[Maya].
The plane was delayed for half an hour, the temperature in Derry was steaming, and I dragged my luggage among the crowds, groggyly looking for the transfer station.
Nearing the afternoon, I stood in the middle of two khaki-colored buses to make a choice, and I chose the right.
No one wanted to queue up obediently, so I squeezed into the car with some effort, and a second later someone took a seat beside me, silently. He only carried a travel bag, wore a light-colored plaid shirt, was clean, and had a straight Asian face.
I wrapped my arms around my backpack, wondering if he was Chinese, but I was worried that it would be abrupt, so I swallowed the words a few times.
Unable to hold back, I leaned towards him cautiously, "Excuse me, are you also Chinese?"
"Ah, yes." He smiled genially at me. The sunlight brightened half of his eyelashes.
There were still people pushing up near the car door, I leaned against the back of my chair comfortably, and it was nice to meet fellow villagers here.
"Are you coming to India on business or..."
"It's summer vacation, come out and relax."
Only teachers have winter and summer vacations.
"You are the teacher." I concluded.
"Yeah." He nodded, then added, "It's the geography teacher."
Oh, geography teacher.
The geography teachers in my mind are all produced by the assembly line, with Mediterranean hairstyles, belt trousers, a bunch of keys hanging around the waist, a globe on the desk forever, and the sound of lecturing makes people sleepy.
"Obviously I'm not a geography teacher for that one." He winked at me, "but I do have a globe on my desk."
"It's amazing. When I was in school, my geography score was the worst." I sighed, "I don't know where the strong wind is blowing and the dense contour lines are so boring."
"Maybe you haven't met me." He said slyly, "Some people study the unreachable starry sky, and some people study the earth under their feet. They are just as interesting."
His speech was slow and gentle, and I listened carefully, "I think you are a very good teacher."
The young teacher smiled, "Maybe."
He said that his name was Shen Xu, the three-point water Shen, and the old Xu.
"Mr. Shen." I said.
Shen Xu rolled her eyes and smiled, "Everyone calls me that."
"There is a Jin in my name, you can call me Xiao Jin."
The bus veered at an odd angle to the sun, dizzying glare from the scratched windows.
"Mr. Shen, why do you want to come here?" I asked him suddenly.
"Because you are here."
I looked at him inexplicably.
Shen Xu tapped out the window with his fingertips, "You, sit upside down."
I looked out in a panic, but had no idea where I was.
"No tourists will take this route, it's getting farther and farther from New Delhi." Shen Xu retracted his long legs, bowed and left his seat, "Follow me."
I jumped out of the car with him with a big bag and a small bag in between. The dust was blowing in my nostrils. I narrowed my eyes under the scorching sun and asked Shen Xu if she often came to India to play.
"Yes, many times." Shen Xu looked at me quietly, smiling inexplicably sad.
He doesn't look like a bad guy, and I feel like I'm really causing trouble for people, "I'm sorry, my sense of direction is so bad, I still can't tell the difference between east, west, north and west, turning the direction is still up north down south, er, left west Right East."
If there is no Shen Xu, in which street and alley will I be robbed of all my belongings at night.
I thanked him.
Shen Xu turned her face, "It just so happens that I'm also alone, otherwise, I'll be your favor—"
The bell rang.
At the other end came a line of Indian women, with cinnabar foreheads and brass bells tied to their ankles, they collided, the spices entered the nose, the road was filled with yellow dust, and the orange and purple sari had no bones and went loose in the air. Swimming, the dancer winked at me through the cone-shaped slit, then flashed past like a surly female leopard.
"Xiaojin." He called me softly.
"Um?"
"where do you live?"
I subconsciously reported a string of addresses.
Shen Xu shook his head, "When you go out alone, you have to be careful."
"But you are my guide!"
He was at a loss for words, as if he didn't expect me to agree so readily, "That can't be... let go of vigilance like this."
I thought he was right, and retyped the address and said, "Near Jal Vihar."
It was so hot that there was a slippery layer of sweat on the nostrils, and the air was twisting in the space close to the ground, but too hot in India seemed no different than too cold in the North Pole.
Shen Xu lowered her body and helped me pick up a soft bag, "Let's go, I'll take you there."
My attention was focused on the dancer just now, and I didn't notice a fiery red bouncing car parked nearby. At first glance, it seemed to appear out of thin air.
Shen Xuren is gentle and elegant, and his English accent is also very soft, which sounds like singing. Despite this, he can still haggle ruthlessly in half, saving me 200 rupees.
He has such a good heart.
The luggage was tied to the roof of the car. The driver was a dark-skinned, muscular man. Sitting behind him, he could count how many vertebrae he had. The road was so hot before, but Shen Xu didn't sweat much. He just raised his head slightly. Unbuttoning a few buttons with his long, pale fingers, he asked me why I suddenly wanted to come to India alone.
"Actually, the original plan was not like this." I said frustratedly, "I had an appointment with my boyfriend, but he let me dove."
"Boyfriend." Shen Xu cast a clear look, "I will be your guide, won't your boyfriend mind?"
The road suddenly became bumpy, the driver screamed, and then the tires clearly ran over a deep ditch. The car sank and bounced again. I was unprepared and hit a soft object without injury.
Only then did I realize that Shen Xu's hand was on the roof of the car earlier, keeping a very polite distance, the blow must have been solid, but he just raised his eyebrows a little and said it's fine before I cared about him, it doesn't matter .
The concentration of embarrassment was too high, I looked at him gratefully, and when the phone received a few signals, I opened the chat box and said that I had landed and met a Chinese who has come to India many times and is now my guide .
male.
Very handsome, very careful.
I deliberately sent them separately, just to piss off my wooden boyfriend.
"If it was me, I would mind." Shen Xu lowered her eyes and looked at her toes, "I will be so jealous when my beloved travels with another stranger."
His words are very strange, I don't know how to answer, maybe seven or eight hours of flight confuse my judgment, I can't tell whether it is right or not.
The hotel is nestled among white walls, raised square bricks and coniferous plants, our driver saw that this was an upscale hotel and desperately tried to increase the price, insisting that he had said two hundred and fifty rupees instead of one Hundred and fifty, Shen Xu stabilized his position, and with his mouth "Naduli, Naduli" messing around with him, the fierce and muscular man also let us go.
I changed the room I booked with my boyfriend to a double bed. I wanted to bear the cost for Shen Xu as a reward for his role as a guide, but Shen Xu insisted on sharing it with me.
"Just be a friend." He rolled up his sleeves in the tiled lobby, "Xiaojin, room number?"
I went up to the winding second floor, twisted my wrist and unlocked the door, and the ultra-saturated room came into view, as if all the unsalable fabrics in India had been shipped to decorate the place. There are only two beds, pure white.
Color is not a holiday-like color, it is deep in red, and we step into it as if we are stepping into a painting that is repressed and has serious mental problems.
Putting down my luggage, I sent the photos I took today to my boyfriend: a flank of an airplane, the clouds are blurred, but the focus is on the richly layered sky;
One is the figure of the group of Indian dancers, the limbs are bent into an extremely exaggerated and tight posture, almost broken, but it has a sacred feeling like a stone sculpture, like offering sacrifices.
There is noise living in the colorful picture—
Bell, bell, bell.
I stared for a while at their towering headgears and simulacrum in their hands, typing to ask if my boyfriend was here to seduce the soul.
He didn't reply, maybe because of the jet lag - even though India and China were only two hours apart.
Pulling up the chat history, my green chat box took up most of the screen, and I asked him what he ate at night, whether he had a night study session today, when he would come back, and where would he be staying in New Delhi.
And he, no matter what I said before, will always answer the last sentence.
He said sorry, Xiaojin, you can arrange it, okay
Going forward, I complained that he was too indifferent, and guessing if he was in a bad mood, he replied with a string of unclear hahaha, saying no or no.
A ha has two "mouth" characters, like the boring bubbles spit out by a boring fish.
He wasn't like this before.
So I often wonder, what is it that grinds such a warm and interesting person into a numb teaching tool.
"What's the matter? Your boyfriend, does he often ignore you?" Shen Xu's eyes fell on the screen of my mobile phone as if reading her mind.
"He's busy." In front of outsiders, I still defended my boyfriend and quietly adjusted the screen to an angle that Shen Xu could never see, "Maybe I'm busy with students."
In his heart, students are more important than me.
"Is your boyfriend also a teacher?" Shen Xu turned her back and unzipped her travel bag with a casual tone.
"Yes. He's the head teacher of the liberal arts class, called—"
My brain was blank, and I couldn't find any trace of him. I used all my brain cells to think hard, digging three feet to think, but whenever I felt like I was about to come up with it, the blank dragged me back to a daze.
"I don't remember." I frowned in confusion, an invisible force blocking my every nerve to think of him, "I know it's weird to say that, but I really can't remember, what's his name. "
Shen Xu's back froze in place.
If my boyfriend could message me more, I wouldn't be as embarrassed as I am now, and I wouldn't be acting like an emotional liar who can't even remember his boyfriend's name.
He is the real emotional liar, and he is also an expert at raising pigeons. I really can't figure out how someone would be willing to give up pigeons even when they came to India this time.
However, he was clearly looking forward to it. I thought.