This was five years ago in Chi Jixia's life.
The boy peered out from the backstage window.
The stage before the opening was very quiet. The audience was full of guests, whispering. The dim lights shone on the red velvet curtain.
The boy felt his blood boiling.
This is where he will perform.
The performance depends only on himself.
"System..." He shouted to the sky and hesitated.
Then he turned on his cell phone happily.
A WeChat box.
A WeChat account that I added recently.
"I get to go out on stage and perform, by myself and only me. I'm so excited."
…
… Don’t you need me to make you so happy
"Haha, brother, you definitely don't understand what 'relying on myself' means... You can't tell me now! Because I haven't fully proved myself. I'm acting in a war movie, and I'm acting on my own. When this war movie is finished and I win an award, I'll take the trophy to you and mom. Then, I'll tell you this little secret."
"You will definitely be shocked then, haha."
… Should we tell others even the secrets that only belong to us
"I no longer think that other people's way of doing things is a better way. I don't intend to imitate others anymore... Because I am who I am, and I am so good. Because I am good, I can and I can completely rely on myself, right?"
The boy pressed the send button.
then.
"Chi Jixia!" someone called, "Get ready to go on stage!"
Chi Jixia, wearing a costume, fell into the joyful crew, like a drop of water falling into the ocean of joy that belonged to him. This was an experimental theater troupe, and he was surrounded by people of his age. Their props were simple, their looks were ordinary, they had no resources, no promotion, and no dazzling titles.
But that's what teenagers are supposed to do, isn't it
In one summer, I dreamed with my peers in a simple theater, ran along the flooded river bank, chattered on the desks lined up side by side, and wrote down my dreams on colorful sticky notes.
We are still young, the world is so big and we are still so small, so we still have a lot of time to talk silly things and dream together. We don't need to achieve success at this age.
The crew passed the paper crown to Chi Jixia one by one. The young boy shrugged pretentiously and was pushed to the stage.
Let’s begin, little prince.
Everyone is waiting for Chi Jixia.
"Then you won't need me anymore."
"is that so."
In the endless darkness, the system said this.
…
And now.
Chi Jixia only had it again. Just like a long time ago, in the empty corner, when the child desperately reached out to it.
But the system is not happy at all.
…
A pair of shoes stopped in front of Chi Jixia.
Chi Jixia didn't even bother to lift her eyelids.
"Come in with me, please, Chi Jixia."
It's a negotiating tone.
The man repeated it again.
"Now, come in with me, will you? Chi Jixia."
“… What are you going in for?”
"Tell your mother about you and Chi Xu. Tell her. Before it's too late."
"… "
"… "
"Chi Jixia."
Bo Jiang opened his eyes wide.
In the dim corridor, the handsome young man finally raised his eyes. Bo Jiang was furious to find that he was actually smiling.
In mockery.
"In time? What do you mean by in time for everything?" He laughed hissingly like a poisonous snake.
When An Yelin arrived, he saw Bo Jiang pushing Chi Jixia against the wall with red eyes.
Countless “￥￥… …” scenes flashed through An Yelin’s mind, and he subconsciously stopped Yi Wan behind him.
Yi Wan: “?”
An Yelin: "Based on my experience, when two people are interacting like this, it's better for others not to go in."
Yi Wan took a look and said coldly: "But Bo Jiang obviously just wanted to hit someone, not force a kiss."
An Yelin: "Then..."
Yi Wan: "Let's wait until Bo Jiang hits Chi Jixia in the face before we go up..."
Chi Jixia's voice came from the other side of the wall: "I heard what you said!!"
When he turned around, he found that Bo Jiang's originally majestic eyes seemed to be deflated.
So the pair of phoenix eyes looked dark and weak.
"It's not too late, Chi Jixia." He lowered his head and said, "Your mother is not dead yet, right? If you see her once a year, how many times can you see her next time?"
Chi Jixia was stunned.
It's rare that he didn't say "I've seen this joke on the Internet a long time ago."
"What you missed can be recovered, but what I missed can never be recovered." Bo Jiang laughed at himself, "Forget it."
He left too.
Chi Jixia was the only one left in the corridor. After a long while, he asked the system: "What do you think I should do?"
One minute.
Two minutes.
Five minutes.
The system did not respond to him.
Chi Jixia leaned back against the wall. He was struck by a strong sense of fear and was unable to breathe for a while.
Until he saw Yi Wan appear in front of him.
Yi Wan wore a white sweater. The white sweater held up his chin, as clean as a piece of white paper. Chi Jixia's Adam's apple moved, and he closed his eyes tiredly.
"Are you here to persuade me too?" His voice was very low.
Yi Wan shook his head.
"You come to laugh at me?"
Yi Wan also shook his head.
"Then what are you doing here?" Chi Jixia smiled bitterly, "Just now Bo Jiang..."
"Bo Jiang was just using your incident to vent her anger, that's all."
Chi Jixia:
"I thought you would say that what he said makes sense, and that I am just born with a silver spoon in my mouth. Haha." Chi Jixia looked at the ceiling, "Actually, I think so too..."
Heavy shackles pressed down upon me.
Disrespectful, unkind, and unfilial.
Was there a moment when you felt it would be better to transform into the puppet that others expected of you
"And you, what are you doing here?" Chi Jixia looked at him, "You know it better than anyone else."
"—Stop pretending, Yi Wan who once appeared in my dream."
Come and tell me who I should play in my life and what I should do.
Let me depend my life...on someone's opinion again.
Yi Wan squatted down.
He looked at Chi Jixia, his eyes like black mountains and white water. These eyes reminded Chi Jixia of the winter when she was a child.
In the winter of that time, he seemed to have no system and no brother. The winter was very cold and his legs hurt a lot.
His legs hurt... On whose back was he carried
On whose body
"Chi Jixia. Let me tell you, you can do whatever you want."
"… "
"You can go into the room if you want, or you can leave if you don't want to. You can forgive your mother if you want, or you can leave if you don't want to forgive her."
"You can think of Chi Xu if you want to, or not if you don't want to. No one stipulates that you must think of him, or that you must bear the heavy burden of a person's life—even if that person is yourself."
Just like now.
"You can listen to my opinions or not. You can play a certain role or not. Your opinions don't need to be good enough to be respected. It's okay if no one respects your opinions. You don't have to be active, you don't have to be happy, you don't have to be the protagonist. You don't have to follow the opinions of any system."
"You can be whoever you want."
He seemed to remember.
It was not summer, but winter. He and his mother pushed their boxes and left Xu's house.
Leave the house with nothing.
It was cold and windy. The woman, wearing a black down jacket, walked with her back to him, limping.
The woman was very sad.
He said, "Mom. My legs are tired."
He added, "Mom. My legs are tired."
The woman paused.
“… Come up,” she said.
His mother had a beautiful voice, and he leaned on her back, not realizing that her steps were even slower than before. When crossing the street, he saw his mother staring at a poster on a bus stop, in a daze.
He vaguely remembered that his mother often stared at the cover of a movie in a daze. His father once laughed at her and said, "Don't watch it. You broke your leg at that time anyway, so you couldn't act. Even if you acted, do you think you could win the Best Actress Award like her?"
The woman in that poster looks exactly like the woman on the cover of the movie.
The snow was very cold. He could only put his cheek close to his mother's ear and whisper, "Mom."
"Um."
"I will become a movie queen in the future," he said.
"Boys can't be movie queens."
They are waiting for the bus.
"But I want to be one," he said.
"… "
"I want to be the best actress, I want to be the best actress, I want to be the best actress." He started to act like a spoiled brat.
How could mom not trust him
The bus pulled into the station with its huge flashing lights on. In the distance, a long whistle sounded. On this winter day when the snow seemed to never end, the woman said:
"Okay. Xiao Xia will become the queen of the movie."
"When will Xiao Xia become a movie queen?" he kept asking.
The woman moved him and the box into the car.
"Wait until summer comes," she said.
It turns out he was the one who said it first.
But she had a lame leg, so why did she agree to carry him
Moreover, he couldn't remember whether the woman was being perfunctory at that time.
Still really laughed.
It's not winter, it's summer. Sunday afternoon, traffic jams.
The ambulance took a long time to squeeze into the traffic.
The woman who ran with him in despair.
"As long as Xiao Xia can get better, I don't want anything..."
A system that keeps beeping.
What a noisy system, he thought.
I can't even hear my mother's voice.
Why did you forget all these things
Why do I remember so many stories about other movies and other people, but forget my own story
I was not a gifted toddler who could sense the sadness of her mother being kicked out of the house.
I am not a child genius who can know my mother's true feelings.
I didn't know that my mother had already decided to just let me be happy, but because my father's family wanted to take back custody, she started putting pressure on me out of spite to them.
I didn't know my mother could be a... failed woman.
She can't handle emotions well, she has experienced despair several times greater than me, she once faced hope but was unexpectedly thrown into the abyss, she once believed in love but was defeated by reality. She made mistakes, just like everyone can make mistakes.
I didn’t know that when she was my age, she was also a naive girl who was looking forward to happiness.
I am not like the one in the novel, a young man who can be magnanimous, forgive everything, and handle everything perfectly until everyone is happy.
There are two of us.
I'm just Chi Jixia.
…
Hospital, corridor.
"I think I cried." said Chi Jixia.
"It's good that you cry for yourself," said Yi Wan.
"..." Chi Jixia lowered her eyelashes, "What kind of person is my brother?"
"It's very ordinary, with limitations, but very gentle."
"… "
Chi Jixia looked down at the address book.
The number that belongs to my mother and has never been broadcast.
"The nurse said she asks someone to top up her phone card every month. How funny, I've already topped up 20,000 yuan for her, which is enough to last her a lifetime." He spoke slowly, as if he had walked a long way in the sound, "So she's waiting for her brother to call her? Or maybe, she's waiting for a voice message, the day when she can hear it again."
"But she seems to have always been so stupid. Just like she believed my father's promise and married him to quit the entertainment industry. Or, in order to save the marriage, she gave birth to me even though she knew my father was cheating on her. "
"Why didn't you treat Chi Xu better when he was alive? Why didn't you treat me better when you were still clear-headed? We in the Chi family are so ridiculous, always waiting for someone we can never wait for..."
"… "
Yi Wan dialed Liu Chen's number and turned the phone to Chi Jixia.
Unexpectedly, the call was connected very quickly.
Liu Chen did not resist at all. He was on the other end of the phone, breathing softly.
It was as if all the remaining goodwill in the world was gleaming for this moment, waiting for this moment... to open the world to them.
"... Liu Chen." Chi Jixia used a voice line, "Do I sound like Chi Xu?"
Liu Chen was silent.
He could have been angry and hung up the phone, just like he did when he first faced this extraordinary boy band.
But he didn't. The rapport at that moment was like fate.
"Chi Xu has a younger brother... a person he never dares to mention and rarely tells me about. It's like he feels that he is no longer worthy of being that younger brother's older brother." He said in a sighing voice.
"… "
"No, it's a little lower."
"Is that so?"
Another changed voice.
"No, the ending sound should be a little muddier."
"Is that so?"
…
The fallen leaves fluttered down in the wind. Yi Wan looked out the window and saw Bo Jiang sitting alone on the balcony.
It will probably snow a lot this winter, right? he thought.
Because after winter comes spring.
The last voice of Liu Chen was heard in my ears.
"Sometimes I wonder why I remember Chi Xu? Is it because he and I are good friends, and I want to save school girl Xiong again? Or is it for this moment?" Liu Chen laughed and cried on the phone, "Why can an ordinary person like me still remember him... Now it seems like it's just for this moment. It's like fate."
"Chi Jixia, your brother loves you very much. Your brother also loves his mother very much and has forgiven her."
In fact, Liu Chen was wrong.
In fact, Chi Jixia's story is just a very ordinary one. A pair of brothers with different fates and a mother who is exhausted, that's all.
Liu Chen's memory is only for Liu Chen's memory, not for the purpose of fulfilling Chi Jixia's story.
He turned around and saw Chi Jixia walking towards him. Chi Jixia held her hands behind her head, pretending to be nonchalant.
Yi Wan said: "Are you done?"
"Liu Chen still remembers my brother's mobile phone number. I asked for help... Your brother Chi has some connections in the entertainment industry after starring in bad dramas in recent years." Chi Jixia touched his nose and said, "In the end, I sent the voice clip of me imitating Chi Xu's voice to that mobile phone number."
Sent to voicemail.
"This way, she can hear the voice he left when she calls again. But I added a sentence at the end - he was sent by the country to carry out a secret mission, and he can't return to the country or make phone calls in the short term. Do you want to tell the truth? But it's too cruel, let's wait, until we all have the courage."
"I still haven't acted well in movies on my own, but I did perform a voice role. It can be considered a career transition from a movie actor to a voice actor." He smiled, but there was no self-mockery in his eyes.
This was the best performance in Chi Jixia's life, relying on herself.
But life is still long and he will have many stories to tell.
"As for my forgiveness... It's still far from the time when I can forgive her, so I don't want to go in yet. But it's still early, right? Everything will get better slowly." Chi Jixia said, "It's autumn now. The next summer and the next winter will come soon."
There will also be movie posters at the station.
There will also be the sound of a train whistle.
There will also be buses with two big eyes driving into the station.
Don't be too anxious, don't rush to play the role you need to play, don't rush to do what you should do.
Time is long, the stars change, and every world will have its own spring, summer, autumn and winter.
"But I'm troubled. I suddenly want to challenge a new theme of acting." Chi Jixia sat down next to Yi Wan and said with his head raised, "I haven't figured out how to write the script, how to write the character setting, how to write the character analysis..."
"Who is it?"
"Of course it's me." Chi Jixia blinked.
Yi Wan: "Oh, you just need to continue to be a bitch..."
Chi Jixia: …
There is no need to break the touching atmosphere like this.
"But being able to be yourself is good enough, right? Many people live their whole lives without being able to be themselves, and without paying attention to their own stories." Yi Wan lowered his head and kicked the can from his left foot to his right foot, "Just like this can, being kicked around by life."
An Yelin in the distance was dumbfounded: "Yi Wan, you haven't thrown away the can that we kicked just now?"
"Well, we Yi people have this kind of mutual sympathy..."
"Don't have strange character empathy for the can." Chi Jixia complained.
They left the Bailu Sanatorium just as the sun was about to rise, with An Yelin walking in front and Bo Jiang walking in the back.
As soon as An Yelin went out, he saw the black nanny car parked in front of the sanatorium.
An Yelin: Looking at the familiar company logo, I trembled.
The car window rolled down, and it turned out that it was Ding Biehan who was driving. The cold-faced cool guy looked at them with a dark face, pulled down his sunglasses and said, "Let's go."
An Yelin: "?? I remember now."
Song!!
Shouldn't they go out for a night just for the song
"It's done, and it's a success." The cold-faced cool guy said, holding up his phone, "Look, there are still no new songs on the Blu-ray website."
"It's great that the plan was successful, but are you sure you didn't record the sounds of poop and fart into the song?" An Yelin complained, "To be honest, as a musician with 20 years of work experience, I can't stand it..."
Ding Biehan's face darkened: "It's good enough that there is something to eat, but you still complain about it."
An Yelin: "You used the word 'eat' very badly..."
The two people in front were chattering. Chi Jixia looked at the rising sun in the distance, and then glanced at the Lushan Sanatorium behind him.
"Mom. It's neither summer nor snowing today."
He whispered.
Among all the happy people, only Bo Jiang stood in the shadows. He looked at Chi Jixia who was not far away.
“It seems that even having a golden finger didn’t bring them any happiness.”
The voice was quiet and stealthy, and Bo Jiang seemed to suddenly wake up from a half-asleep state.
"Is this an illusion..." He thought while scratching his forehead.
At this moment, Yi Wan floated past him and threw the can into the trash can.
The four of them got on the bus one by one. Yi Wan consciously sat in the last row. An Yelin kept asking Ding Biehan about the source of the modified audio in the passenger seat. Bo Jiang and Chi Jixia sat in the second row, one on each side, looking at the sky.
Today's Rainbow Group is just as peaceful.
An Yelin: "Ding Biehan, what audio did you use..."
Ding Biehan: "Don't bother me while I'm driving."
Yi Wan: "Maybe we should put the message that Chi Xu recorded that night in the song. That would be good too."
Chi Jixia: "Come on, Xie Ziyu, that idiot, do you expect him not to steal our song out of guilt?"
Yi Wan: "Because that is something that shouldn't appear in our timeline."
Ding Biehan: "Wait, is there anyone who can listen to my question? Where did you go and what did you do this evening? Who is Chi Xu and what is his relationship with Chi Jixia?"
Bo Jiang just stared out the window in silence. As the car passed the Children's Palace, his eyelashes trembled, and he thought of Xie Ziyu's words.
Gu Ruchao, Shen Zhong.
This car is... a "monster".
“It seems that even having a golden finger didn’t bring them any happiness.”
"If you were given a chance, would you want to go back?"
Would you want to go back
When the car passed the Blue Light Building, everyone was silent. Ding Biehan slid the car to the square of the Blue Light Building and did a drift, showing off his driving skills.
Chi Jixia opened the car window and spat towards the square.
Chi Jixia: “Pah.”
Yi Wan: "As the male lead, he has some qualities."
An Yelin: “That’s right.”
Chi Jixia yelled, "You just said that I can't let the character setting determine my life."
Only Bo Jiang opened his eyes. He saw the woman in red walking out of the blue light. She was standing on the other side of the square, waiting for the bus, tired but with her back straight.
Very stubborn.
He remembered this woman. Once at the auction of the Bo family, and once at another wealthy family gathering.
Qin Xuexin thought he didn't see her. But he had noticed it. She looked at him inexplicably, her eyes full of anger.
Why? He hadn't done anything to offend her.
Bo Jiang moved his eyes away. He thought he didn't need to pay attention to this woman anymore.
According to Xie Ziyu, the man whose fate was saved by Yi Wan chose to join Blue Light.
No one will refuse the opportunity to be the heroine, and no one will refuse the benefits.
Everyone is the same.
In the gap in time and space that no one could see, the silk thread above Youchi Jixia's head began to loosen.
A little bit, and a little bit more.
Ding Biehan started to drive fast. He planned to drive back to the AT as fast as possible, and everyone was amazed at his driving skills. Chi Jixia suddenly changed her depressed and frustrated attitude and yelled at him not to forget that he would have to pay a ticket for speeding.
"We can't debut just because we collectively violated traffic rules!" Chi Jixia screamed.
An Yelin said, "Ding Biehan, why do I feel like you're in a particularly bad mood today?"
Yi Wan: "So we shouldn't have left you in the company and gone out to do things by ourselves..."
That's not the case.
Ding Biehan thought.
That’s not the case, Yiwan.
Especially you shouldn't say such things to me.
The boss's words from yesterday were still ringing in his ears. Ding Biehan silently suppressed all the words in his heart.
Then at the next street light, continue to accelerate.
In the darkness, the system silently watched Chi Jixia. It watched him, just as it had watched him since he was eight years old.
Chi Jixia...
The system's world was filled with all the movies that Chi Jixia had watched and acted in, and it was filled with this amusement park that it had prepared for Chi Jixia to escape from reality. Whenever Chi Jixia was sad, it would always say, "Take a nap."
Come into its world, talk to it, and take a nap.
But Chi Jixia didn't know that in the corners of the cracks in the system world, there were many small photos hidden.
A photo of eight-year-old Chi Jixia reaching out to the system.
A photo of twelve-year-old Chi Jixia with cake smeared on her face.
A photo of 14-year-old Chi Jixia when she won her first award.
A photo of 18-year-old Chi Jixia crying for no apparent reason at her coming-of-age ceremony.
There are also photos of Chi Jixia moving into the Hongtuan dormitory.
The system silently hid them one by one in the depths of the system world. Only one photo of Chi Jixia when she was eight years old remained.
A photo of them when they first met.
Maybe what Chi Jixia needed was never to be kidnapped. "I came to find you just to make you leave me happily."
Perhaps this is the relationship between the host and the system.
The best relationship.
It wants to.
Maybe what it misses is just dreaming together and talking about everything.
…
The car was parked in the parking lot of the at agency. As soon as the few people got out of the car, they were dragged away by the staff who were ambushed here, and each of them went to prepare for the new album. Brother Liu was jumping on the spot in despair: "I didn't keep an eye on you all night, and you ran away again!"
Chi Jixia comforted Brother Liu: "Brother Liu, why are you in a hurry? Haven't we finished everything?"
Brother Liu: "After finishing the work, you can run around? Well, you can run around."
Yi Wan looked around, no one came to pull him, so he simply lowered his head and took out his phone to check...
The screen was blocked by a hand.
Zhang Jianhua.
"Don't be nervous about this matter, because it should have nothing to do with you." Zhang Jianhua pulled him and hurriedly walked down the aisle. "The police may come to question you later. Don't be nervous, just tell the truth."
Yi Wan: “What’s the matter?”
Zhang Jianhua looked at him again and said comfortingly: "Don't feel moral pressure. This kind of thing is normal and common."
Yi Wan:
"Even if you are in a relationship with Yu Rongshi and Yu Qichen at the same time, don't feel psychologically pressured. Nowadays, it's normal for a person to be in a relationship with a pair of brothers at the same time." Zhang Jianhua comforted.
... It was totally not comforting, and what the hell was this. Yi Wan was silent for a moment, then said, "I left with Yu Qichen last night... What's wrong? Is cheating against the law?"
His original intention was "Even if this was cheating, it was not illegal enough for the police to interrogate him", but Zhang Jianhua really misunderstood. Zhang Jianhua was visibly hesitant to speak, and then accepted this fact.
Zhang Jianhua said softly: "I just thought it was a misunderstanding, then... you have to hold on."
Yi Wan: "What happened?"
Zhang Jianhua took him into his car.
"Yu Qichen had a car accident at the intersection last night." Zhang Jianhua said, "It collided with a large truck."
Yi Wan’s mind went blank for a moment.
"… But fortunately, he turned in time and crashed into a tree and flew out, saving his life. The car did not explode, but was deformed and destroyed. The overloaded truck overturned and the driver was also rescued." Zhang Jianhua said, "But Yu Qichen is now."
"What's wrong now?"
"Unconscious."
"I don't know if I can wake up."
"It is very likely that he will become a vegetable."
"And you." Zhang Jianhua started the car, "You were the last person captured by the surveillance camera to see him."!