That night, I eventually failed to find the note with contact information the woman had left behind. Finally, I reluctantly escorted Leyao back to CC’s place. After giving her a few instructions on how to properly take care of someone who was drunk, I let her take the elevator upstairs. But suddenly, I felt like going nowhere else myself. I simply sat on a stone bench downstairs, watching the light in CC’s room flickering on and off, on and off again… I knew she was painfully vomiting again.
At this moment, I seemed to see the emotional wounds CC had suffered in love, and her pitiful appearance while vomiting, which made me increasingly fearful of love in a way I couldn’t explain. However, this fear didn’t entirely come from CC; her failure in love was only the trigger. The real reason was that I recalled how I had given up on myself years ago. Back then, I wasted my emotions, my youth, and even the career I should have pursued during my prime…
It was now 8:30 PM, which meant it was 7:30 AM in New York. I knew Mi Cai wouldn’t be awake yet, but for the first time in my life, I disregarded her schedule and dialed her phone number from across the ocean… Unfortunately, I only received a response that the phone was turned off. Hanging up, I suddenly felt the unevenness of this night. The lights were spinning, the cold wind blowing westward was flat, the road surface was bumpy, the beer was cold, the heating pipes were hot, and human emotions were lonely yet longing. Everything was so irregular, yet ruthlessly compressed together by this world, making all the sights in my vision so twisted and tilted…
I took off the black leather gloves on my hands, went to a convenience store and bought a cup of hot soy milk and two slices of bread. Thus, this night was settled by the warmth I gained through loneliness and luck.
…
At 9:30 PM, I drove to the moat, not expecting to meet Jian Wei, but merely treating this place as a reliance and a source of comfort in my loneliness. In fact, this place had indeed given me a lot of solace, deeply imprinted with memories.
As usual, I lit a cigarette, watching the moonlight penetrate the withered vines, reflecting on the river’s surface, making the world pierced by the moat sometimes real, sometimes illusory. I remained immersed in it, unable to find an exit.
A familiar perfume scent drifted into my nose along with the cold wind. When I turned around, she was already standing beside me, tidying her hair that fell over her shoulders, saying, “I had a strong feeling you’d come here tonight, and sure enough, you did.”
I rubbed my congested nose and said to her, “In such a huge city, there’s always a feeling of being lost, so I came here hoping to see if I could find a way out.”
Jian Wei smiled, “Did you find that way out here?”
“No, I only saw this moat stretching far into the distance… God knows whether the end it flows to is the way out I’m seeking!”
Jian Wei didn’t respond further but shifted the topic after a silence, saying, “By the way, for this Christmas event, all the advertising resources needed by Zhuo Mei have already been prepared by our Sima Advertising, and some have already been put into use. I have to say, Fang Yuan is really a capable man. All the advertising resources he planned have been used effectively. Judging from the current feedback, the advertising effect has been quite impressive!”
“He’s always been capable!”
Jian Wei looked at me for a while before saying, “That’s exactly why I always believed he’s chasing after a stage so vast it has no boundaries. He’s an ambitious man!”
“Don’t all men need ambition?”
“There’s a difference in ambition. Some men can control their ambitions, while others are dominated by them. I think you belong to the former. That’s why you dared to design such a grand artistic path, yet walked every step cautiously, making those around you hardly feel your ambition!”
I smiled without saying much, only gazing at the moat that seemed both real and illusory, searching for my way out in its flow.
Unexpectedly, Jian Wei asked me, “Zhaoyang, after so many years, do you really think you understand Xiang Chen and Fang Yuan?”
“Why do you ask that?”
“I just want to know what these two brothers you value most appear like in your eyes.”
I replied, “Do you know that time can sever everything?… I feel I’ve already grown distant from Xiang Chen, and even more so after you went to America. We don’t even contact each other for an entire year. We were indeed as close as brothers during college, but now we’ve basically lost all common ground, so there’s no need to comment anymore… Even the word ‘brother’ applies only to the past. Although I often don’t want to admit it, our attention towards each other no longer matches the meaning behind the word ‘brother.'”
Jian Wei seemed to agree with my view that time had severed our brotherhood with Xiang Chen. She nodded and then asked, “What about Fang Yuan?”
“I’m too familiar with him, so familiar that I don’t know how to evaluate him. But I’ve always envied him, envied him for having Yan Yan, a partner he could love for his entire life…”
This time, my answer didn’t seem to be what Jian Wei was looking for, but she didn’t ask further. Instead, she remained silent, facing the wind blowing from the river. I looked down at the cigarette I had been holding between my fingers but had forgotten about, took a quick puff, and said to her, “I’m really looking forward to Zhuo Mei’s Christmas event. It will be the first real collaboration between me, Fang Yuan, and Xiang Chen since we separated after college… Do you remember? Back in college, the three of us formed a team and won many marketing-related awards organized by the university and society. Those days were truly full of youthful vigor!”
Jian Wei looked at me with a complicated expression, and after a long pause, she said, “Even though you’ve grown distant from Xiang Chen, and even Fang Yuan to some extent, deep down, you still long to repair your relationships with them, but you’re just at a loss for an opportunity, right?”
“Maybe. But just like a shattered glass bottle, even if you miraculously mend it, the cracks remain. I no longer expect to regain the kind of bond we once had, especially with Xiang Chen. I’m sure he feels the same way.”
Jian Wei didn’t respond to my reflection but elevated the conversation to another level, saying, “Zhaoyang, I hope you remember this: when facing interests and benefits, sincerity is a very luxurious thing. Never expect everyone to approach interests and handle emotions with the purest attitude… Because this is a world tainted by desire!!”
Before I could fully grasp Jian Wei’s words, my phone rang from my pocket. It was Mi Cai calling. At this moment, she had finally woken up in the morning of New York, probably having seen my missed call notification.
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