Li Chongyang went to the milk tea shop, bought a few cups of hot milk tea and stuffed them into our hands before leaving reluctantly. Before leaving, he asked for my phone number and said that we would keep in touch in the future. When he looked at Xu Meng'er, he hesitated again and again but still didn't open his mouth, and turned and left.
When I got back to the dormitory, the milk tea was cold, but my body had returned to normal temperature. Shi Shuxia comforted me for a long time before I went to take a shower. Before she left, she said, "I hope you can tell me what happened to Wang Zijia after I come back."
The name Wang Zijia has been dormant in my memory for a long time. I have never dared to mention it. Every time I think of it, I think of those dark days and nights, those days when I was pointed at by others, and even when girls poured cold water on my head.
At first, this was a somewhat immature story of secret love.
It was not until my second year of high school that I found out there was a person named Wang Zijia in my class. He was a person with a relatively weak presence, and if no one had mentioned him deliberately, I would have completely forgotten his existence.
He is very thin and of average height, neither tall nor short, just average. His academic performance and family conditions are also average. In short, he is a mediocre person in all aspects, without any special features.
I remember him because of an accidental heroic act that saved a beautiful girl.
Ren Xiaoqi skipped class that day, and I was stopped on my way back alone.
As the saying goes, if you walk on the road at night too much, you will always encounter ghosts. If two people act arrogantly for a long time, they will always encounter people who don't like us. The three in front of us are one of them.
"Are you Cun Zhiwei?" The girl with small dreadlocks standing in the middle asked me with raised eyebrows.
I nodded.
"Where is Ren Xiaoqi?" asked the man with long black hair next to the dreadlocks.
I shook my head.
"I'm asking you a question, so speak properly." Dreadlocks yelled at me angrily.
"Oh, I'm Cun Zhiwei. I don't know where Ren Xiaoqi went. Sisters, if you want to rob me of my money, I don't have any. If you want to rape me, we are all girls, I don't have any special hobbies. How about you go and intercept the boy next to me?"
I swear, I was going to point at a muscular guy passing by, but the guy suddenly ran forward for a while, and when my finger passed, a skinny boy walked over.
This boy is Prince A.
"Cun Zhiwei, don't change the subject. We are here to see you today!" Dreadlocks yelled at me, and when he saw Wang Zijia turned around and yelled at him again, "What are you looking at? Haven't you seen a girl before?"
Prince A scratched his head and said, "I've seen girls before, but I've never seen girls like you."
This silly boy was dragged into the "battle" inexplicably because of a sentence. I thought he would cowardly beg for mercy and then leave in disgrace. He came over and stood in front of me, stretched out his arms to block me and shouted at the three girls in front of him: "If you want to hit me, hit me, don't hit her."
While I was laughing at the boy's arrogance, I was also touched. Apart from Ren Xiaoqi, he was the first person who was willing to stand in front of me and protect me.
"Get out of here!" Hei Changzhi said.
"I haven't learned how to roll away, so I can't roll away, but I definitely won't leave." Wang Zijia stiffened his neck and said, "It's wrong to use the majority to bully the minority! If you don't leave, I'll call someone. My uncle is the local police officer in this area, and he's more than enough to catch you guys."
"Don't scare us!"
"Why should I scare you!" Prince A replied unyieldingly.
Three against two doesn't have much of a chance of winning, although I'm not sure if it will be three against two. If the girls rush forward and the guy runs away, I'll have to go ahead anyway.
"That's right, he's not trying to scare you." I said, sticking my head out from behind Prince A.
The three girls discussed quietly for a while, and finally the one with dreadlocks spoke out harshly: "Cun Zhiwei, don't let us see you again in the future."
After they left, I walked around to Prince A and said to him, "Thank you!"
He didn't respond to me. I looked up and saw that his face was pale, with beads of sweat on his forehead. He was frozen in place, as if he was frozen in time.
"Hey, are you okay?" I pushed him uncertainly.
"Ah!" He screamed, and when he saw that I was the only one in front of him, his face suddenly turned red, and he said a little embarrassedly, "I... I was scared."
“Hahahahahahaha…” I patted his shoulder and sighed, “Dude, you’re really nice.”
"Um... classmate Cun Zhiwei, my name is Wang Zijia." He was a little shy and stuttered when introducing himself.
"Hey? You know my name?" I was a little surprised.
"We...are in the same class."
I tried hard to search my memory but couldn't find the boy, so I felt a little sorry and didn't know how to answer.
Instead, he smiled and said, "I know you don't remember me, but I hope that from today on you can remember that there is a male classmate named Wang Zijia."
"Of course, of course, you are my savior!"
If I could choose in life, I would not point fingers when I see dreadlocks, I would not let this boy stand in front of me, and I would not remember that there was a boy named Wang Zijia who was my classmate. In this way, perhaps the tragedy would not have happened later.
Things are moving forward step by step according to the trajectory that God has already laid out. We have no foresight and don’t know what will happen in the future.
Later, during a break in class, I greeted Wang Zijia when I passed by his seat, and this greeting was the beginning of the tragedy.
After this greeting, rumors started to spread in the class that Wang Zijia and I were having an affair. Whenever someone came up to tease him about our relationship, he would just smile and not refute or argue.
Ren Xiaoqi also asked me what was going on between Wang Zijia and I. I told her everything, but she just didn't believe it. She thought there was something going on between us, just like everyone else.
Later, I couldn't help but find him and prepare to talk to him. When we met, there were obvious bruises on his face. Seeing that I was staring at his wound, he turned his head and lied that he accidentally hurt himself.
I felt a little sorry for him, he saved me but ended up getting into a lot of trouble, but he just smiled and said he didn't care. He was very happy that he could be so brave to stand in front of me and help me block that fight, although I still get scared when I think about it later.
He is such a kind person, no matter what others say or do, he can face it with a smile. When I want to defend him, he always holds me and shakes his head gently, saying that rumors can't be stopped, so it's better to face them easily.
I never thought that a boy like this would choose to end his life by suicide.
When I got the news, I was discussing with Ren Xiaoqi in the store which spicy strips were more delicious. Don't doubt it, Big Sister also loves spicy strips.
Then I heard people around me saying:
"Have you heard that Prince A from Class 2 committed suicide?"
"Yeah, my cousin lives in the same neighborhood as him. I heard that he swallowed a lot of sleeping pills on Saturday night and was already dead when he was sent to the hospital."
"What did you say?" I rushed over and grabbed the girl's collar and asked fiercely.
"I...I said..." The girl was so scared that she couldn't speak. In the end, Ren Xiaoqi forced me to leave the store.
I was in a daze the whole way. Others didn't know, but Ren Xiaoqi knew. I went to see Wang Zijia on Friday night after school. He hesitated for a long time before saying to me: "Cun Zhiwei, I like you."
Wang Zijia said that it was not an accident that he passed by me at the school gate. He heard that there were girls blocking me at the school gate and rushed over. He was actually scared to death, but he couldn't let me get hurt.
He said that in fact, every time someone mentioned that there was something ambiguous between us, he was happy. He would secretly glance at me, and when he saw me smiling, he would smile too.
He said that he once saw a lonely girl crying while attending a relative's funeral, and he regretted not having the courage to step forward and hand her a tissue.
He said he liked me and hoped to make me laugh forever.
I was too immature at that time. I always felt that I would never fall in love with someone in my life, and that the ending of all love would be the same as that of my parents.
I rejected Wang Zijia, and I still felt a little sad. Ren Xiaoqi stayed with me for a long time that night, and I could feel that she was hesitant to talk. I didn't ask any further questions, and she didn't say anything either.
See, I am going to say that there are not so many ifs in life. If I had asked, maybe Wang Zijia and I would have a different ending.
After Shi Shuxia came out of the shower, I told her the story as calmly as possible so as not to make her worry. When I finished, she grabbed my hand with a sad face and said, "Zhiwei, you must have suffered a lot, right? His leaving you like that was also a kind of hurt to you."
Yes, after leaving the store, I felt so guilty that I couldn’t stop thinking about him, so I found a corner and cried.
Within two days, the truth about Wang Zijia's death spread to every corner of the school. People had many speculations. Some said that he suffered from depression, some said that he died because of his parents' quarrel, and more said that my rejection made Wang Zijia lose the desire to live. They even vividly described a scene in which Wang Zijia confessed his love to me, and they even imagined every word I said.
Rumors have been circulating for a long time and new rumors will appear to cover the old ones, but when people mention Cun Zhiwei, there will always be one or two people who will remember that she killed a boy named Wang Zijia, and then they will exaggerate the events as if they had seen them with their own eyes in response to other people's doubts.
"What happened next?" Shi Shuxia asked.
A sad story naturally would not end so easily. Later, we were promoted to the third year of high school. Later, on the eve of the college entrance examination, Ren Xiaoqi was expelled. Later, when I returned to school to fill in my application form after the college entrance examination, I heard another version of this story.
Ren Xiaoqi had long seen that Wang Zijia liked me. Although I couldn't say I liked Wang Zijia, I valued him. She was very unhappy and always brought people to pick on Wang Zijia when I wasn't looking, bullying him in every way. She was always very careful not to leave any scars on his face so that I wouldn't notice, and she would always warn Wang Zijia not to let me know after bullying him.
Wang Zijia is so gentle, how could he bear to let me know all this and bear it all alone.
Because it was Ren Xiaoqi, other people who saw it dared not say anything, not to mention that she would warn everyone who saw it.
I then remembered that the evening when Wang Zijia confessed his love to me, he had not been to school for several days in a row. I went to him to ask why he had not been to school. The bruises on his face had mostly disappeared, leaving only some traces. I asked him about the origin of the bruises, but he refused to tell me. He just grabbed my hand and told me that he liked me when I was about to leave.
Maybe... he didn't want to live anymore at that time, he just wanted to tell me his feelings before leaving.
Maybe... my rejection was the last straw that broke the camel's back.
Maybe……
The truth has been buried deep in the ground with the death of Prince Jia. Since then, I often have dreams in which he always smiles at me tenderly. I cry and say sorry, and then wake up from the dream, covered in sweat.
Because of this, I never contacted Ren Xiaoqi again. I didn’t know how to ask her about the past, and I didn’t know how to face her, who was once my best friend.
Shi Shuxia hugged me and patted my back. I didn't cry at first, but when she said, "It's really not your fault," I burst into tears, as if I wanted to shed all the tears I would cry in my life.
For such a long time, I have kept the matter of Wang Zijia a secret, and my emotions have been suppressed in my heart for a long time without being able to vent. This time, Ren Xiaoqi gave me a chance to cry bitterly.
Maybe from now on, I can face the past with more ease.
I went to the coffee shop with panda eyes. A few days before the New Year's Eve party, I told Sister Su that I would go back to work after the party. Xiao Chen was also very happy that I could go back to work as soon as possible to help her relieve some of the burden. Of course, she also didn't forget to gossip about my panda eyes.
I could only tell her that last night's show was so touching that I couldn't help but watch another tragedy movie after I went back home. After hearing this ridiculous reason, Sister Su curled her lips, and Xiao Chen grabbed me with emotion and said, "Sister Weiwei, I also like watching tragedy movies."
The little girl is so easy to fool.
Ji Suting appeared when I was about to get off work in the evening. I was wiping the table. Unexpected people always appear unexpectedly when I am wiping the table.
I looked up and saw him standing outside the glass window looking at me. Our eyes met and he waved at me .
I packed up everything, said hello to Sister Su, and went out. I thought he had left, but he was trying to grab a doll in front of the claw machine at the entrance of the coffee shop. His claws moved up and down, but he couldn't catch anything. He put in coins again and again, but failed again and again. He put in coins again and again, but failed again. I wanted to pretend that I didn't see anything and leave, but my feet seemed to be fixed in place and couldn't move.
"Here you go." He handed me a purple plush rabbit, lowered his head, and was a little afraid to look me in the eye.
"Why are you here?" I didn't take the rabbit and turned my head to ask him.
"I wanted to go in for a cup of coffee, but I was afraid that it would embarrass you, so I hesitated at the door for a while. I didn't expect you to come out." When he lied to a point where he didn't even believe himself, he could only smile awkwardly.
I know we need to have this conversation, it's unavoidable.
We stood face to face, with the dim light from the claw machine shining on each other's faces. It didn't feel like a melodramatic romance drama, but more like a horror suspense drama.
"I'm sorry," he said suddenly.
“I don’t blame you,” I responded.
Suddenly, silence fell between us. He didn't speak and I didn't start any conversation.
"Would you like to sit down and talk?" He couldn't help himself.
If we just walk all the way back to school, I'm afraid that our gossip tonight will spread in every group on campus. After thinking about it, I pointed to a small park not far away and said, "Let's sit there!"
Maybe it’s because people are particularly prone to sadness at night. Looking at Ji Suting, I still can’t stop feeling sad.
Thinking back to the days when we were planning the party, we would find a place to sit down after running around for sponsorship, and we could talk about one topic for a long time. When he talked about the things he liked, there were stars in his eyes, and that was what I liked most about him, shining brightly, illuminating me who had been in the dark for a long time.
How can you hate a boy like this?
After what happened, I am no longer qualified to look at him like that, and I will no longer give myself any hope.
"Zhiwei, I didn't mean to hide the relationship between Siyu and me from you," he said to me.
"But you still hid it." I said sadly. He really hid it from me so badly.
"I'm sorry." He still lowered his head.
I didn't want to see Ji Suting like this, and I didn't want to see myself clinging to the past, so I decided to make a break. I said, "Senior, thank you for your help during this period. I have benefited a lot. I don't want to blame anyone for that matter, and I don't want to hear you bow your head and say sorry in front of me over and over again. You didn't let me down, but we all let Senior Sister Hua down. Some things, if they are wrong, should be stopped in time, right?"
"Zhiwei, I really am..."
"I want to go back." I was afraid that after he said the following words, I would not be able to leave, and the mistake would snowball and become unresolved.
I stood up, and when I turned around he grabbed my wrist and asked me, "Are you really not going to listen to me finish?"
"Senior, it's meaningless to finish now, and I don't want to waste time listening." I shook off his hand, bit my lip and answered resolutely, "In the future, if it's not about class matters, we won't meet. I'm afraid it will cause unnecessary misunderstandings. After all, people's words are scary."
"Let me take you back, for the last time." He also stood up.
"No need, it's not too late yet, I can go back by myself."
I had my back to him, and even though we were so close, it seemed like a world away.
I no longer have the position to accept any goodness from him, nor am I qualified to tell myself that we are all competing fairly. From the moment Hua Siyu appeared in front of me, I was banned from this "game" for life.
"Zhiwei... "
"Senior, goodbye."
I had imagined that one day I could address him without adding the word "senior". What should I call him then ? Ji Su Ting? Su Ting? Or should I just call him "baby" or "dear" in a cheesy way?
I thought about this question when I was standing in front of him and preparing to confess my love for him, but I still couldn't come up with an answer.
When I heard him sighing behind me, I felt really sad. I wasn't sad that we couldn't be a couple. What was more sad was that we didn't even have the qualifications to be alone in the same space.
During the preparations, I liked to sit in the front row of the auditorium and watch him direct a group of people to set up the stage, discuss the process, and check the script.
I like Ji Suting when he smiles at me quietly. I also like him when he is working and busy like this. He is so dazzling and so heart-warming.
I didn't actually leave, but found a corner to hide. After watching him leave sadly, I returned to the seat where he had sat and sat gently beside him, as if his warmth was still there.
Cun Zhiwei, when did you become so pathetic?
I covered my face, tears dripping from my fingers. I tried to suppress my voice so that he, who had already left, would not hear it. My chest felt like someone had hit me, and it hurt so much that I grimaced.
When I returned to the dormitory, I had calmed down. Shi Shuxia thought my eyes were swollen because I cried too much last night, so she didn't ask too many questions. She just told me to remember to apply ice before going to bed. Xu Meng'er looked up at me as usual, said "You're back", and then went back to her own things.
After washing up, I lay on the bed and looked at the ceiling. Yan Wenbo sent me a text message asking, "Did you see Su Ting?"
"Yeah." I replied.
"He just came back and wasn't in a good condition. I guess he went to see you... Weiwei, are you okay?"
"I am fine."
I didn't pursue why Ji Suting returned to the dormitory just now. Maybe he went to buy something, or maybe he went to meet Hua Siyu. In any case, it had nothing to do with me.
When I close my eyes, I still feel sad. It’s not a good idea to end my love for someone for the first time at the age of eighteen in such a way.
It is said that first love is the most beautiful. How can I describe this relationship that ended before it even began?
Died of no illness?
Is imperfection beauty?
God may be training me, allowing me to understand what love is and how to love through repeated setbacks.
I thought of Prince A again. What would happen to us if he were still alive?