It took me an hour to finish writing the stack of about 20 postcards. My mood fluctuated as I poured my heart into each one. I almost used up all my cultural knowledge, transforming my feelings into lyrics and poems on these postcards. Although I was quite satisfied with the result, I was unsure whether Mi Cai would understand these messages—sometimes intentionally profound, sometimes sincerely emotional—when she received the bouquet of flowers with the postcards tucked inside.
Xiaojun carefully tied up all the postcards I had written with a rubber band. Then she asked me for Mi Cai’s address in the U.S., offering to take care of sending the flowers. I insisted that I would try my best to send them myself whenever I had time because I believed doing it personally showed more sincerity.
At ten o’clock in the evening, as usual, Xiaojun locked up the flower shop. After spending so long that night, I finally felt hungry again. Thus, once more, the two of us—Xiaojun pushing her bicycle and me smoking—were walking along this old street.
We walked in silence, as Xiaojun couldn’t type on her phone while pushing her bike. I smoked and absentmindedly flipped my lighter over and over between my fingers. I was, indeed, quite skilled at playing with lighters, so Xiaojun watched with interest as I performed various non-repeating tricks with it.
Finally, I asked Xiaojun, “What do you feel like eating?”
Xiaojun glanced toward the noodle shop across the street, seeking my opinion on whether I would like a bowl of egg noodles.
…
Inside the noodle shop, we sat by the window, waiting for our order. As usual, Xiaojun took out her notebook to tally the day’s accounts, while I absentmindedly stared outside at the night view. Before me stretched the dry, rundown scenery of the old district, including a still-working soil compactor.
Finally, I asked the Xiaojun across from me, “Do you like this old district?”
This time, Xiaojun directly wrote her reply in the notebook: “No, but I belong here…”
I nodded, then turned my gaze back outside. The world seemed to be displaying the atmosphere of this old district tonight. In my line of sight appeared a beggar holding a bamboo pole, searching through a trash bin for food. In a moment, he moved on to another trash can I couldn’t see, dragging his pole and sack behind him, stirring up dry dust on the ground.
Suddenly, the world became three-dimensional in my mind again. Just a few hours ago, I had met a group of people thriving in the entertainment industry, and the golden couple Leyao and Cao Jingfei, born with silver spoons in their mouths. I never expected that just a block away, there were people living on the edge of survival, unaware even of loneliness or solitude, their only purpose being to find food scraps in trash bins to relieve their hunger.
I pinched my nose, which had become itchy from the dryness. I lit another cigarette and didn’t speak again. Suddenly, I disliked this world that was splitting apart into classes, unwilling to recall Leyao and Cao Jingfei, the golden couple shining with the brilliance of high society. Thus, my world became silent amidst the boiling noodles nearby… Finally, I muttered, “This pretentious world,” and the shop owner brought us two bowls of clear soup egg noodles.
…
I carried my steaming bowl of noodles over to the beggar who was still rummaging through the trash bin. Even though it was winter, his body emitted a repulsive stench. I took a deep puff of my cigarette, trying to mask the smell, and said, “Hey man, wait a second, I’ve got you a bowl of noodles.”
The beggar turned his head, looked at me timidly, and thinking I was going to hit him, quickly turned back and continued searching through the trash. Realizing he might be mentally unstable, I placed the bowl on the ground and sat nearby, by a repair shop piled with old tires, watching him.
My departure made him feel safe. Eventually, he turned around again, looked at the bowl on the ground, and then threw his whole body down, using his hands to shove the eggs and noodles straight into his mouth. I had to approach him again to tell him he could sit up and eat with chopsticks!
But he ran off in a flash…
I didn’t know what to feel; I kicked the bowl, still containing the soup noodles, into pieces… I felt extremely tormented living in this “pretentious world.” Wasn’t the world pretentious? If it dared to divide the living into different classes—superior and inferior—why didn’t it grant those superior people immortality?
According to my logic, this was indeed a pretentious world, because it gave certain groups the ability to act superior, yet arranged the same fate for them as for that beggar. In the end, we all end up as a handful of dust in an urn! Yet our descendants continue to thrive generation after generation in this pretentious world.
In the cold wind, I gasped amidst the roaring sound of the compactor…
…
I didn’t know when Xiaojun had arrived beside me. She seemed to have witnessed everything and typed on her phone to ask me: “Are you feeling really bad?”
Only then did I calm down, rubbing my temples heavily with my palm, and apologized to Xiaojun, saying, “I just hate certain phenomena!”
“I always feel like you live uneasily and struggle a lot… Could it be that you have anxiety?”
Xiaojun didn’t understand my true inner feelings at that moment, so she suspected I had anxiety. Actually, I didn’t. My actions just now were similar to when some rock singers smash their guitars in frustration while performing songs filled with struggle and tearing emotions. In the past, had it not been for the guitar that Jian Wei gave me—so precious and filled with my emotions—I would have smashed it into pieces long ago during a bar performance!
Xiaojun looked at me with concern a few more times. I shook my head at her, indicating that I was fine. Then, shedding the warmth from my recent emotional release, I took off my leather jacket, removed every ring and necklace that had been binding me, and finally put out my cigarette while gasping for breath… Looking toward the brightly lit giant hotel in the distance in the new district… Tonight, how many people who felt superior in this world would seek the most primitive physical pleasures in luxurious rooms that reflected twisted human nature?
Who would still press their souls against the glass to see the beggar beneath shattered tires, burying himself in trash bins searching for food scraps?
The night deepened with the sound of the compactor…
…
The phone in my pocket, indifferent to the mood, pierced through the depth of the night. I wiped off the cold sweat and took out my phone, feeling as if the world and the distant neon lights had frozen in that moment… The call was from Leyao.
I unbuttoned the cuff of my shirt and answered the call, asking, “What’s up?”
“Come to Kongcheng Restaurant and drive me and Jingfei to the hotel. He’s too drunk!”
“What about Luoben? Let Luoben drive, or CC or Wei Manwen!”
“They’re all too drunk… Not only do you have to drive us, but you also have to drive them all back safely… This is our pre-wedding gathering, and everyone must go home safely… Hurry up! Come quickly!”
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