Shen Zhong heard a "bang". His whole body was shaking until he realized that it was the sound of a glass bottle falling from a height, hitting the cement board, and completely shattering.
"Gu Ruchao!" He shouted at the top of his voice.
That sound was the anger and shouting after the heart bungee jump. Gu Ruchao was laughing on the other end of the phone. He laughed with a grunt, as if he had used up all his strength. Shen Zhong heard Gu Ruchao's gentle voice: "Do you know what will happen if a glass bottle is thrown from the fifth floor?"
Glass bottle... throw it down, no, the point is the fifth floor!
The fifth floor... The fifth floor... Where are there fifth floors? Schools, game halls, internet cafes...
“…it will break.” Gu Ruchao said, “This is the law of physics. It is an unchangeable law of physics written into the laws of nature.”
Echoing the beginning and the end!
"You are in the Children's Palace!" Shen Zhong shouted into the microphone, and his pale and calm face finally showed no expression. Emotions spurted out from his voice and every expression like paint. That expression was shaking, gritting teeth, and full of infectiousness.
Children's Palace. Gu Ruchao discovered the beginning of his "gift" and also the end of his "fate" chosen by him.
Shen Zhong added: "Don't worry about the glass bottle, I'll come find you now!"
The Internet cafe is not far from the Children's Palace. But for the first time, Shen Zhong felt that this distance was so long. He ran as hard as he could, with the whistling wind and the gazes of passers-by as if they were being carried away by a conveyor belt. He just wanted to go faster and faster.
But Gu Ruchao didn't seem to have the intention to jump down for the time being. He continued to speak slowly: "A glass bottle will break if it falls. Do you know what will happen if a person falls down?"
"…will die." Shen Zhong said, "Because life only comes once."
He finally arrived at the Children's Palace. He saw the high blue sky and the Children's Palace with white walls and red tiles under the blue sky. The blue sky was cut into neat squares by the roof of the Children's Palace, like an artificial picture frame.
He saw Gu Ruchao just at the edge of the frame.
Gu Ruchao was at the edge of the frame. He stood on the edge of the rooftop, swaying, sometimes entering the picture, sometimes leaving. The Children's Palace was in class, so no one could see this swaying figure. Except Shen Zhong.
Shen Zhong felt that he had a lot to say. The thoughts entangled in his mind and eventually turned into incoherent mumbling.
"I met that bad boy, do you remember the billboard..."
Shen Zhong described what he had seen and heard incoherently. He had never felt such a strong desire to express himself. However, what he described was always a phenomenon, not a mood.
But he wanted to tell him that the bad boy survived. He was lame, but he still had friends, he was no longer a gangster, and he drove a fruit cart... Several friends laughed and joked, teaching him how to chase the girl he liked. That's right, a lame fruit vendor also had a girl he liked...
But? Gu Ruozhao said.
"People die," he said, "and I ..."
"Will? Rebirth."
Everything was torn apart.
"A desperate counterattack, finding a completely new path out of all the regrets. This is a rebirth story." Gu Ruchao said, "I have met all the conditions for rebirth. Now, I want to go back to the time when nothing happened yet."
"What rebirth... What are you talking about..." Shen Zhong seemed to have seen a monster, "Gu Ruchao, you stand there..."
But Gu Ruchao's voice regained its former sunny and proud tone. But Shen Zhong felt that the voice sounded more like madness than pride. Shen Zhong ran upstairs at the fastest speed possible like a madman. He heard Gu Ruchao say, "Shen Zhong, I saw you running for me."
"You only live once. It's never over..."
Gu Ruchao smiled, with relief and innocent happiness in his smile: "It won't end, Shen Zhong, don't worry. At the end of my life, I see that I still have a true friend... Shen Zhong, I will remember you"
At that moment, Shen Zhong suddenly remembered a painting in an art gallery.
The painting was divided into two halves in the middle, with the man and the woman standing in different worlds. At this moment, he felt that he and Gu Ruchao were also like two people who existed in two different worlds, separated by an invisible wall.
He suddenly remembered a lonely whale he had seen in a popular science magazine. Whales communicate through sound waves of a certain frequency. The only sound waves they can emit and hear are those that exist within that frequency.
But that whale has special vocal cords that exist on a different channel. The frequency it emits cannot be received by other whales. It keeps sending out sound waves in the vast seabed, and thousands of whales come and go. They watch this idiot floating in the sea water, mouth open, and communicate what this idiot wants to do.
No one knows that idiots are desperate.
Shen Zhong once thought that Gu Ruchao was the whale, but at this moment he found that the real whale was himself. He stopped running and stopped talking about his future. He just held his phone and stared blankly at the sky above his head. He heard Gu Ruchao say: "I haven't given up my future. Shen Zhong, see you in the next life, we will still be friends... If I am reborn again, what kind of superpowers will this world give me? I think it would be best if I could change time..."
His voice was firm and full of confidence.
See you in the next life
Gu Ruchao is going to be friends with Shen Zhong in the next life... But? What about Shen Zhong in this life
Gu Ruchao went to pursue his perfect next life... But what about Gu Ruchao in this life
What about the people who knew Gu Ruchao in this life? What about the life that Gu Ruchao should have had in this life
Why did Gu Ruchao delete these lives
Shen Zhong was in a daze again. He looked up at the blue sky framed by white bricks and red tiles. The canvas was azure blue.
Gu Ruchao finally became a part of this painting.
His body was torn apart, but his soul was gone. Shen Zhong tried his best to open his eyes and look at the dazzling sunlight, and finally found traces of the silk thread in the sunlight.
Gu Ruchao was right. The silk thread existed, and the "hand" that controlled the silk thread existed. People around him came and went, but no one knew this fact. They chatted among themselves, completing the logic, allowing all the stories to go on. No one went to investigate, and no one tried to understand the reason for Gu Ruchao's death.
Either the world is crazy, or he is crazy.
Shen Zhong wanted to shout, he wanted to yell and tell everyone that the world was crazy. But he finally found that he was the lonely whale. Finally, he returned to the classroom in silence and took away his test paper.
He was not sad. It was strange. He was just angry. Gu Ruchao had abandoned him in this life for the sake of rebirth. Although he smiled and said before his death that he would treat him as his best friend in the next life, he had been abandoned in this life.
So he won't be sad.
But Gu Ruchao's death still brought a lot of crying. There were his parents and his juniors who had a crush on him. Shen Zhong stood in the corridor, watching them come and go indifferently, crying at the bloodstain on the floor tiles that had solidified for many days.
Would Gu Ruchao feel sad for them
—He won't. He will make it up to them in his next life.
Shen Zhong spoke to himself using his mouth.
Since the frequency can no longer be transmitted, it is meaningless to speak or not. But Shen Zhong finally found that he had begun to be watched by something. After Gu Ruchao's death, the first place in the past was naturally transferred to him. Now, even if he is silent, he can no longer avoid being seen.
"I just realized that Shen Zhong is also a cool and handsome guy."
"How amazing! Why didn't I notice this before?"
Gu Ruchao's death was just lightly revealed. Instead, Shen Zhong became the focus of the topic. His running and roaring on the stairs seemed to have made "Heaven" discover some potential in him.
These attentions and abilities are the reward.
At the same time, his aunt also changed. The woman with a sharp tongue but a soft heart became more and more sarcastic. She was hysterical and unreasonable, pushing Shen Zhong away from his family step by step. There was no longer hot soup on the stove in the kitchen, but only a woman crying secretly at the table.
"I don't want to say this to Xiao Zhong... What's wrong? Am I in menopause? Mom..."
"I can't control myself, I really..."
Everything is changing.
Shen Zhong, who had gotten up at night, hid in the bathroom. He stood in front of the sink, quietly listening to the crying in the restaurant. He looked up and looked at himself in the mirror.
At that moment he saw the thread.
A similar silk thread to the one he saw that day and that Gu Ruchao had tied.
—God will reward every life that “it” feels is wonderful.
What God rewards is not life, but stories... This thought flashed through Shen Zhong's mind like lightning, almost making him tremble all over.
The world is unkind, everything is treated as straw dogs, the importance of human nature, the Renaissance, stories, scripts, life... all the concepts are rumbling in my head like a washing machine.
What God wants is a personality rather than a person.
What God wants is a story, a plot, not a life.
The boy under the billboard...
Will his aunt also lie under the billboard
After his aunt stopped crying, he opened the door and tiptoed out.
He knew there was a bridge about one kilometer away from his home, and there was a river flowing under the bridge in the dark night.
…
"And then?"
Yu Rongshi felt his throat tighten. He knew that Yi Wan was sitting here, which meant that he had not died that night. But he still felt suffocated.
He noticed that Yi Wan glanced at him very quickly, and soon Yi Wan said calmly: "Then I went home."
"—I found someone and gave the 'gift' to her."
There is no room for two tigers in one mountain. Lin Meng is very clear about this. She follows the method given by Gu Ruochao, works hard to manage her own life, and tries every means to select the right tool for herself.
"The entertainment industry is the best choice because there are enough audiences there." said the child who was almost a demon.
However, her personal ability and class were limited, and she never found a way to enter the entertainment industry. Otherwise, she wouldn't have to stay here and help her cousin take classes.
She casually gave the students a composition topic - "My Friend". Then she began to search the Internet for secrets that she might need. Somehow, a piece of entertainment news appeared in her mailbox today. It told the secrets and troubles of the Gu family. It was said that the grandmother of the Gu family was furious and wanted her grandson to get married before the age of 27, otherwise he would not be allowed to inherit the family business.
Unfortunately, Mr. Gu doesn't have the right person.
The email address for sending news is unknown.
Before she knew it, a class had passed and the last child had left. Lin Meng woke up from her dream and began to sort out the test papers. The title of the composition at the bottom caught her attention.
"My Friend Shen Zhong?"
Of course she knew Shen Zhong, the most famous child in the entire Children's Palace since Gu Chaosheng's death. But the signature of this essay, "Yi Wan", was puzzling.
Lin Meng had never heard of this person.
She packed up her test papers and was about to leave when a ticket slipped out. Lin Meng picked up the ticket and saw that it was for an art exhibition tonight.
An art exhibition hosted by the Gu family.
Her eyes suddenly flashed and she carefully picked it up and put it into her bag.
Half an hour later, she changed into a pure white dress and prepared to walk towards the gallery, but she saw a young man standing on the street.
The young man was wearing a baseball cap and staring at a puddle of water, as if he was looking at his own reflection. Lin Meng felt that he looked familiar and asked him with concern: "Are you okay?"
"Not bad." said the boy.
"I think I've seen you before, you are..."
"Yi Wan." said the boy.
"Oh... Yi Wan."
The name Yi Wan had left an impression on her from Lin Meng's story. She left Yi Wan and drove to the gallery.
The boy looked at her back quietly.
How many social connections can one person have
How many steps are needed to erase yourself
…
Uncle's family was in unprecedented silence because Yi Wan was going to attend another full-time boarding private school on the other side of the city.
"Shen..." To this day, the uncle is still not used to the boy's name change. He smiled awkwardly and said, "You study hard over there."
He and his son waved together, while his wife stood quietly by. The uncle breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that this was all right.
He had long been tired of the long war between Shen Zhong and his wife.
The taxi was about to leave, and Shen would be left alone in the school. But the woman stopped the driver at this moment. She hesitated for a long time, and finally said, "Take good care of yourself."
"Um."
"You have to drink milk every morning and before going to bed at night, do you hear me?" The woman reminded him, "Only by drinking more milk can you grow taller. I heard from your teacher that there is a microwave oven in the grade office. You can heat it up there before the end of the evening self-study get out of class and take it back in a thermos..."
"Mom, putting milk in a thermos will make it smell..." her son interrupted.
But the boy listened very seriously. He nodded his head, as if this was some kind of warning to the world.
His mother told him she loved him via email. His father told him about his wonderful love for his mother and what a beautiful love child he was.
But only such a materialistic and mean woman would tell him that if he couldn't sleep well at night, he should drink milk.
The woman kept talking, but it was time for Xifeng to leave. Finally, as the car was about to start moving, she said, "Little... Evening."
"Um."
"Why did I have to change my name? Why did I have to go to a day school?" She said with tears in her eyes, "It's because of my aunt..."
"Because I hope you will always be the same as before."
I hope that in that room in that tube-shaped building, there will always be a family, not a theater.
I hope you can be a mother, a wife, a daughter, a professional woman with a bright smile, a bad temper, but who can make chicken soup.
But he is not just a cannon fodder with a vague face.
Hope it's not too late.
The taxi was hidden in the twilight. He hid his blessing in his heart.
This is the whole story of Shen Zhong, and it is also the whole story that Yi Wan can tell Yu Rongshi. Yi Wan turned and entered the school. But what he didn't know was that in the corner he couldn't see, there was also a story happening.
for example…
Street corner, black car.
The black-haired, black-eyed young man stared at the boy as he left, his face gloomy. The driver asked cautiously, "Zi Yu, are we leaving now?"
He didn't dare to provoke his boss. His boss's personality suddenly changed overnight a few months ago, and he also possessed talents that ordinary people could not reach. This talent made the company want to hold this singer who was once ignored in their hands and burn incense devoutly.
"… Let's go." After a long while, Xie Ziyu sneered, "Before that, let's go to the Children's Palace first."
"ah?"
"Let's go there first and have a good cry for my cousin who jumped to his death," he said.
In the rearview mirror, Xie Ziyu's smile was innocent, warm and proud. He didn't look like a young man, but a boy blessed by God. The driver didn't dare to refuse his wish and drove away quickly.
All this happened in a corner that Yi Wan was still unaware of.