I really want you to know that I am very sad. I am terrible. I am like a dead branch stranded in the sea, covered with scars. The sea breeze blows over me, but I cannot grow any leaves. Do you think there will be butterflies landing on it at night?
Qi Beichen01
It seemed as if all the moisture in my body was about to flow out in the form of tears.
No one turned on the lights in the dark. I sat on the ground, the depression in my heart like a snowball, getting bigger and bigger, pressing on my heart until it almost stopped beating.
Brother Chen, I was hit by a car.
I am dead.
In a trance, a voice in my mind spoke mischievously, and finally turned into an unwilling scream, as if it wanted to take my life.
I held my head and tried not to listen to the voice. A pair of shoes appeared in front of me. I raised my head and saw Qi Xiaofeng standing in front of me in the dim moonlight.
He blocked the only starlight, and my eyelids twitched.
"You were the one who told her!" A dark shadow fell towards me.
Books, desk lamps, mobile phones, data cables, all fell on me, and the sharp pen scratched my arm, leaving a deep bloody mark.
"Who did this good deed? Don't you know it very well?" I jumped up, grabbed Qi Xiaofeng by the collar and pushed him against the wall. I saw Qi Xiaofeng puffing up his cheeks and the blue veins on his forehead kept throbbing.
"But you promised me!" Qi Xiaofeng's shoulders kept shaking, his face hidden in the shadows, and I saw tears sliding down his cheeks.
"You promised me..." His whimpering voice softly hit my heart, more painful than the wound on my arm.
I unconsciously loosened his collar. He slid to the ground and buried his head in his knees. He lost the strength to cry. His body trembled as he repeated the words, "You promised me..."
Every word uttered with a tearful tone was like a sharp dagger, stabbing heavily into my chest.
What did I promise?
It was also a dim moonlit night. The door opened with a bang, and Qi Xiaofeng, with an unsteady step, helped the drunk Yin Shuitong home.
They staggered into Qi Xiaofeng's room.
Qi Huatian went out to discuss business, my mother went out to attend a cocktail party, the servants had all gone to bed, and in the room, only Qi Xiaofeng and I were awake.
At first, I thought Qi Xiaofeng was not drunk, but just took the drunk Yin Shuitong home and arranged for Yin Shuitong to sleep. As time passed, I felt something was wrong and walked to the door of Qi Xiaofeng's room. I heard a loud groan.
Yin Shuitong was calling my name in a half-asleep state, and Qi Xiaofeng was calling her angrily and sadly.
Through the door that was not closed tightly, you could vaguely see the messy clothes on the floor, high heels, women's underwear, skirts, men's jeans, short-sleeved T-shirts, and underwear.
I reached out and pushed open the door. Qi Xiaofeng let out a low roar, and it was obvious that after being extremely excited, his whole body seemed to have lost all its strength, and he fell limply on Yin Shuitong.
It was like a bomb was thrown into my head, and the whole world was in turmoil.
Qi Xiaofeng turned sideways and saw me standing by the door. He was so startled that he rolled off the bed.
“Brother, brother…” Qi Xiaofeng crawled over and tugged at the corner of my shirt, like a stray dog ​​wagging its tail for mercy, “Please, please, please…”
He reeked of alcohol, his tone was unclear, and he cried and begged me: "Please don't tell Xiaotong, I will die, she will kill me, she will definitely..."
"You!" I was so angry that my face turned pale, "You useless coward, how can you be a man if you are irresponsible?"
I pulled the corner of his clothes that he was holding tightly and kicked him hard on the back.
"I will tell her myself, and when she can accept it, I will tell her. Brother, please promise me and help me, brother, help me..." Qi Xiaofeng knelt on the ground and kowtowed to me.
The sound of my forehead hitting the ground again and again made me feel a little soft-hearted.
It was this kind of soft-heartedness that ultimately killed Yin Shuitong.
Qi Xiaofeng told me that he would find a way to be with Yin Shuitong, and when Yin Shuitong accepted him and fell in love with him, he would tell Yin Shuitong the truth.
He begged me to keep this a secret for him for the time being.
I had thought about how to deal with Qi Xiaofeng countless times, but when he knelt on the ground, crying and calling me "brother", and begging me to help him, I couldn't bear it. Damn it, how could I not have the heart to do it?
Finally I agreed to keep it a secret for him.
But the fact is, it seems like God is deliberately playing a joke on us, and everything is developing in an unpredictable direction.
Just like that morning, Qi Xiaofeng helped Yin Shuitong clean up, changed into pajamas, and walked out quietly, hiding from Yin Shuitong. I walked into the room to see her. After she woke up, she looked at me quietly, with a glimmer of light in her eyes: "Brother Chen, thank you for taking care of me all night."
"Why is my whole body so sore? I remember I dreamed of a man lying on top of me. Could it be..." Yin Shuitong checked her body. In the silent room, there were her rapid breathing and my suffocating heartbeat.
"Brother Chen, you treat me...you..." Her face flushed with excitement.
"Brother Chen, I love you!" Yin Shuitong rushed down from the bed, hugged my neck and shouted in surprise.
In the silent room, I saw Qi Xiaofeng carrying breakfast into the room. Seeing Qi Xiaofeng coming in, Yin Shuitong's face changed instantly and she shouted at him: "What are you doing here? Don't disturb us!"
"I'm sorry." Qi Xiaofeng put down his breakfast, looked at me guiltily, and walked out.
"Wait a minute." Yin Shuitong said again.
"Thank you for sending me to your house yesterday."
Qi Xiaofeng stopped stiffly holding the door handle, nodded, and fled.
The sunlight outside suddenly surged in, almost blinding my eyes. My hands in my pockets unconsciously clenched again and again.
Since that day, Yin Shuitong became a woman immersed in her own happy world. She liked to pester me more and more. She served me wholeheartedly, but she could not see Qi Xiaofeng's lonely figure.
I avoided Yin Shuitong everywhere. Yin Shuitong felt my alienation and gradually her sadness turned into resentment and brutality.
Xiang Qianlan is currently making her final preparations for her exams. I hope she can concentrate on her studies, but I’m also worried that Yin Shuitong will vent her anger on her, so I proposed to break up with Xiang Qianlan.
I was almost driven crazy by the crazy Yin Shuitong. Finally one day, Yin Shuitong found me and slapped a hospital examination form in front of me.
She said, “I’m pregnant.”
I felt very upset. After Yin Shuitong knew that I was pregnant, she seemed to have a trump card in her hand and threatened me unscrupulously.
She was convinced that I had done those dirty things to her.
After school on Wednesday, Yin Shuitong talked to me about getting engaged again and insisted that the child was mine. She said her parents forced her to have an abortion, but she kept it a secret from her parents and didn't tell them that I was the father of the child.
I seemed to see Xiang Qianlan's figure, but when I walked a few steps and looked back, there was nothing there. I was almost going crazy, I was afraid that she would know about this, even though I was wronged.
What Yin Shuitong should never, ever, do is transfer her hatred towards me to Xiang Qianlan.
She said: "Qi Beichen, if you treat me like this, I will not let her go."
Then the scene in the cafeteria happened.
I've had enough, enough of Yin Shuitong's unreasonable troubles, enough of this crazy woman. Why should I pay for her and Qi Xiaofeng's bad fate? So I said such cruel words, I destroyed Yin Shuitong's innocent fantasy.
Yes, I don’t like her and I don’t love her.
Qi Xiaofeng, that coward, should bear the consequences himself.
It's not my business.
It was like one wrong step led to all the wrong steps. I sent Yin Shuitong away, told her the truth, and pushed her to the brink of death.
Yin Shuitong did not go to find Qi Xiaofeng. She aborted the child herself, drank all day, and finally got into trouble. I have always wondered, did Yin Shuitong die in an accident? Or did she hit the car on purpose? Yin Shuitong was driving under the influence, but there was no surveillance at the accident site. Everything was so perfect that no one could find any flaws. The case was quickly closed.
I'm afraid only God knows the answer.
Yin Shuitong became a needle in my heart, running through the surface of my heart full of grooves and ravines. Whenever I thought of her, I was tormented with excruciating pain.
The voice in my ears became clear again. I looked at Qi Xiaofeng who was curled up and talking to himself, and suddenly I felt pity for him.
"You promised me, why do you go back on your word..." Qi Xiaofeng raised his pale face and looked at the night sky outside stiffly and negatively.
I said coldly, "You shouldn't have done it in the first place. If you did it, you should admit it. You and I are both to blame for Yin Shuitong's death. You can never get away with it."
After seeing the tears in Qi Xiaofeng's eyes, I could no longer mock him.
Dark clouds covered the sky, as heavy as a black eulogy.
I went to the attic and stayed alone. I opened my phone and found only one person in the album. All the photos were secretly taken. The protagonist was Xiang Qianlan without exception. There were photos of her working in the store, propping up her chin and squinting her eyes; there were photos of her walking on the campus, with a lonely back; there were also photos of her looking at the camera, frowning and asking "What are you doing"...
I miss her so much.
A dark tide was surging in my heart. She rose from the bottom of the water and turned into a small lamp, so that I didn't feel so lonely.
For several days, I drank in the bar and called her over. Only when she was by my side did I feel that the world was not so empty.
Why? Why is this? Xiang Qianlan.
In the end, Yin Shuitong never told her family that it was Qi Xiaofeng who did that to her. The Yin family just thought that Yin Shuitong was ignorant and didn't pay attention while driving, so she got into an accident. When the Yin family held the funeral, Qi Xiaofeng and the others all went except me.
I turned off the light and fell headfirst onto the bed.
I heard Qi Huatian and my mother arguing outside the door.
"It's so easy for kids nowadays to learn bad things! I wish Xiaochen was like Xiaofeng! You should keep an eye on him!"
I wish I could be like Xiaofeng.
I pulled the quilt up and covered my ears.
I was thinking, if they knew that it was their beloved son Qi Xiaofeng who indirectly killed Yin Shuitong, would they go crazy?
What does it matter? There are so many people in the world who live with masks, just like my black butterfly. Doesn’t she look different from her appearance?
The noise stopped.
I stuck my head out from under the quilt, looked at the cold moonlight outside, and my body felt like it had no temperature at all.
Why did this happen?
Why?