I sat on the floor by the wall. This room was very small. I measured it and found that I could walk through it in 20 steps. There was a small window on the south wall. The sunlight shone on me from there, making me feel warm for a moment. This room imprisoned my freedom. No one could hear me even if I shouted.
When I was locked up in this room, I thought a lot. I wondered if I would ask Gu Yue to embezzle the 15,000 yuan if I were given another chance. My answer would still be yes. But if someone asked me, would I still pick up the brick and hit Zhou Sijie on the back of the head? I don't know, maybe I would. At that moment, the fear, anger in my heart, and worry about Gu Yue all exceeded my brain's control over my limbs.
But now I think, maybe I would have tried a different method, a method that would not have led me to this point, pushing Zhou Sijie away; shouting for help in the alley; or running outside to find an adult when Zhou Sijie swung the first stick. Any of these could have prevented me from falling into this situation, but I chose the dumbest one, and so I got the worst ending.
Footsteps sounded outside, and the sound of keys was particularly crisp, which might mean that I could temporarily leave here. Is someone coming to visit me?
Sure enough, the key was inserted into the lock of the big iron door that trapped me, turned, and then the door was opened, and the person at the door looked straight at me.
I raised my head indifferently, then turned away with disdain.
"What are you looking at?" the man asked, with an angry look on his face, as if he wanted to hold me accountable for my unreasonableness to him, "Come out!"
Humph, I snorted in my heart, slowly stood up, and patted the dust off my body. I walked out, and the moment I stepped out of the iron gate, the sun was shining brightly, as if I were in another world.
I faced the dazzling light and finally shed tears. Many times I didn't say it, but I knew in my heart that I regretted it. I regretted that I ruined my life because of a mistake...
A finger poking my head brought me back to this world. I tilted my head and looked at the "prison boss". The "prison boss" looked at me helplessly, poked my head and said, "Why do you have such a strange expression? What are you thinking about?"
I looked out at the city in the distance and said in all seriousness, "Imagine myself in jail."
The "cell boss" looked at the narrow storage room, slapped me on the head, and said fiercely: "Zhang Yuanyuan, you better be reliable! Don't think about violent scenes like you hurting people. With your chicken-like strength, who can you hurt?"
I made a big mistake yesterday. The words "I smashed it, I smashed it" scared everyone. I told them everything, including what Deng Yi told me that Zhou Sijie had died of his injuries. But when I finished speaking, the police officer said, "When I say seriously injured or dead, I mean someone who could die of his injuries at any time. I was talking about Guo Qingjun's brother, the brother who broke up with me."
I turned my gaze to Director Guo, and Director Guo nodded in my hope. A huge surprise quickly hit me, and ecstasy exploded in my mind. When I saw Gu Changxing, I knew that this matter had nothing to do with Gu Yue, and Liu Sulan's medical expenses did not need to be anxious. Instead, I was the only one left, and I smashed someone's head with a brick. Zhou Sijie was seriously injured and died. I couldn't afford anything, only my life. But what did I hear? All this turned out to be a misunderstanding!
It was a false alarm, and my back was covered in cold sweat. I suddenly thought that there is no more beautiful word in the world than a false alarm. After experiencing a turbulent situation and facing an ending that I thought was certain to die, I came back from the dead and was safe and sound.
Even facing the sunshine today, I still feel scared. How nice it would be if all the turmoil in youth was just a false alarm? But let's not have any more turmoil. This one alone has already scared me.
Gu Yue was still looking at me with a fierce face. He was very angry that I concealed the text message from him yesterday and rushed into the office and tried to take responsibility for it alone.
I ignored his expression and kicked him: "Why are you still angry? If you hadn't gone out to answer your dad's call and didn't hold the iron door, I wouldn't have been locked in the utility room."
"Is that what I'm talking about?" Gu Yue smiled instead of getting angry, as if he was going to get to the bottom of this. But after a moment, he said awkwardly, "What did you mean by that yesterday?"
I was only focused on what I wanted to know, and said, "What did your father say to you on the phone?" Gu Yue had just received a call and nodded and hummed for a while, but suddenly his face became extremely embarrassed. He hurriedly let go of his hand that was supporting the iron gate and ran to a distance to answer the phone.
Gu Yue became even more awkward, but pretended nothing happened and pushed me away: "Nothing happened. My dad said he paid back all the money grandpa owed, and also paid for my mom's medical expenses..."
"That's it?" I looked at Gu Yue curiously. Yesterday I told him the reason why we stole the money. I didn't explain it in detail, but just gave a general idea of ​​the situation in the hospital and the woman's attitude. Gu Changxing squatted down almost as he listened. He knew less about Liu Sulan's past years than Gu Yue. This man, who was taller than Gu Yue, squatted on the ground, his face flushed, and he said "Yueyue, good son" after a long time of slowing down.
"He even apologized to me." Gu Yue said this calmly, "He said he wanted to find a time to have a good meal and have a good chat." His current expression was just like the nostalgic expression that flashed across his face on the train that day. I think his father was indeed "very nice" as he said. This boy who used tit-for-tat and trouble-making to get his father's attention, after his family broke up, finally found a way to get along with his parents and realized that he had never been abandoned by anyone and that they still loved him.
A hand covered my eyes, and I stepped back unexpectedly, but was held down by another hand.
"That look again." It seemed like a sigh.
What? I was confused and didn't understand what Gu Yue was saying. I tried to pry open Gu Yue's hands that were covering my eyes, but he let go the next second. Gu Yue and I were face to face, very close to each other, he lowered his head, and I raised my face, as if he could touch the tip of my nose if he got any closer.
"That day in the corridor, you looked at me with this look." Gu Yue pressed my shoulders and looked straight into my eyes.
I was a little flustered, and suddenly I remembered what Gu Yue said to me: "Don't look at me like that, I don't need your sympathy, don't look at me with such pitying eyes." I still remember the feeling of my heart bursting when Gu Yue said this, he didn't even allow me to explain, and just ran away like that. But such a look is not sympathy.
As if to get a closer look, Gu Yue slowly moved closer to me and said, "You said you like..."
My face turned red as I realized he was talking about the same thing I had said in the hallway yesterday.
As I watched Gu Yue getting closer and closer to me, all I could hear was the throbbing sound of my heartbeat...
"This is the sixth floor! I'm carrying two buckets of water up to the sixth floor by myself, and you two are hiding up there talking about love. This is too unfair!"
The sudden sound scared me so much that I took a few steps back.
Gu Yue turned around and shouted at the person who made the noise: "Zhou Sijie, if you don't speak, no one will think you are dumb! Don't you think about the fact that the whole school is on vacation, and we are still cleaning these rotten tables on the rooftop? Who is to blame?"
"Is this my fault?" Zhou Sijie put down the bucket, touched the back of his head and said, "You two are fine, but I have a brain explosion!"
"Yes, the one who hid at home and tried to cover up the wound with safflower oil and Band-Aids." Gu Yue said sarcastically.
I tugged at Gu Yue's sleeve to signal him to stop talking. Facing Zhou Sijie, I still felt a little guilty. Zhou Sijie's injury was not as minor as Gu Yue said.
Zhou Sijie initially tried to fool people with safflower oil and band-aids, and the bleeding stopped. His mother did not go home the night before, and when she found out the next day, she could no longer hide it. His mother took him to the hospital for three stitches, and because of a mild concussion, he stayed at home and let his mother take care of him for several days. Zhou Sijie always got into fights, and his mother didn't notice anything wrong, and was even relieved that he was well-behaved. When his mother received a call from Director Guo, she realized that Zhou Sijie was not well-behaved at all, and he was clearly guilty.
"How would I know you were so bold as to run around outside with 10,000 or 20,000 yuan! Those two guys panicked when they saw me fall down, and then when they saw the stack of money in my bag, they immediately threw it at me, said it had nothing to do with them, and ran away." Zhou Sijie touched his head and lamented that he had made the wrong friends.
Many things start out just for fun or out of boredom, with the desire to teach the other person a lesson, but when things get too complicated, we realize that we were terribly wrong from the beginning.
After receiving the call, Zhou Sijie's mother immediately dug out Zhou Sijie's tightly hidden handbag from under the bed, grabbed Zhou Sijie's ear and rushed to the school. Just like my aunt was worried that people would hold me accountable for assault, Zhou Sijie's mother was also worried that we would hold Zhou Sijie accountable for robbery.
Zhou Sijie robbed the money but I didn't hit his head, or I hit his head but he didn't take the money. If only one of these two things happened, we couldn't get along with each other calmly in the same space. No one wants to be a bad guy. If you are willing to let my child go, I won't necessarily send your child to the police station. In addition to not wanting to hurt both sides, it all comes down to the fact that everyone thinks we are still young.
Because we are still young and ignorant, we will do things impulsively that we will regret. Sometimes we can get away with it, but sometimes we lose our youth because of a mistake. How many times will we survive a disaster? How many false alarms can youth withstand? We can still stand here today and say we are lucky, but how many people will really be unfortunate from now on?
I looked at my right hand, and it almost made me really unlucky, but fortunately, it was just a false alarm.
As if by telepathy, my right hand was held by another hand. I looked up from that hand and saw Gu Yue with an unhappy look on his face, but he held my hand tighter.
I pursed my lips and smiled. If I didn't have even a hint of impulse, I wouldn't have met this boy named Gu Yue.
"Hey! Start wiping the table, okay? I was punished by Director Guo to do the cleaning, not to see you guys being affectionate! Don't bully me for being single, okay?" Zhou Sijie was yelling again, "You're number one in the grade, and falling in love will affect your studies! Don't forget your dad promised my mom that he would let you help me with my lessons..." Zhou Sijie changed his words in dismay under Gu Yue's fierce glare, "I won't say any more, okay? I won't say any more. I'm too lazy to look at you. I'm going to go in and check the utility room!"
After saying that, Zhou Sijie walked towards the utility room with an expression of disbelief, shaking his head .
Gu Yue glanced at me, his eyes full of teasing and cunning.
I stepped back, and together with Gu Yue, I slammed the iron door of the utility room, then ran downstairs laughing. Zhou Sijie was left alone in the utility room, banging on the iron door and shouting, "What are you doing ? Why are you closing the door? Let me out! Let me out! Someone, let me out!"
Zhou Sijie's miserable wails hovered over the school. Gu Yue grabbed my hand and ran downstairs quickly. We laughed and felt very proud.
We are still young and have the best years of our youth.