I was on the empty stage, screaming at the top of my lungs, feeling so embarrassed that I had nowhere to hide.
How grateful we are for this tragic drama that time has given us.
How fortunate I am that the memories have become a desolate grave and I have finally emerged from the cocoon as a butterfly.

Qin Xiaosi stared ahead and stepped on the accelerator to drive away.
Xia Chan gave the fruit in her hand to an old lady sitting next to her, got off the bus, hailed a taxi and followed closely behind.
Qin Xiaosi steered the car very fast. Xia Chan urged the good-tempered driver and lied that the person in front was her sister who had just broken up with her boyfriend, and she wanted to follow her because she was afraid that she might not be able to figure out what was going on.
In front of the Third Municipal Hospital, Qin Xiaosi stopped the car, passed by the porridge shop downstairs, bought a bowl of porridge and walked into the hospital.
After paying the money and thanking the master, Xia Chan followed him in.
Jiang Huainan is sick? She thought hesitantly.
Xia Chan did not go up to question her, but followed Qin Xiaosi, watching her turn into the fourth floor and walk into . Ten minutes later, Qin Xiaosi came out, and the smile on her face disappeared the moment she closed the door.
The sound of high heels
When the sound could no longer be heard, Xia Chan walked along the wall to look at the room where Qin Xiaosi had stayed. Through the small window, she saw Mother Jiang sitting on the hospital bed with a pale face, drinking porridge carefully.
This turned out to be the reason. Jiang's mother was hospitalized, but Jiang Huainan did not leave, so Qin Xiaosi also stayed.
Thinking of Qin Xiaosi's cold smile, Xia Chan felt cold in her heart. For someone like Qin Xiaosi, the only person she really cared about was Jiang Huainan and herself. Even her concern for others was just a show.
She turned around and walked up the stairs.
The sun had already set, and clearly defined patches of fiery clouds covered the horizon, just as bright and dazzling as the sky over the factory area that day, making people feel cool.
Qin Xiaosi sat on the edge of the rooftop, her face tear-stained with sadness. Her feet were dangling in the air, her royal blue ankle-length pleated skirt swaying in the wind, a faint smoke rising from her arms. Xia Chan's eyes fell on her hands and she found a cigarette between her fingers painted with red nail polish.
Qin Xiaosi actually smokes.
Xia Chan was slightly stunned, looking at her eyes that couldn't hide the dark circles even with eye shadow, and wondered what was wrong with her.
"Oh, it's you..." Qin Xiaosi was in a daze. When he saw Xia Chan, he was stunned for a moment, and then changed his face to a mean face, "It's been a long time."
"It's been a long time since we last met. I thought we would never see each other again." Xia Chan said.
Qin Xiaosi's expression changed again and again. She looked at the vehicles passing by on the road downstairs without saying a word.
Xia Chan stared into her eyes and asked calmly, "Don't you have anything to say to us?"
"We? Which we? Are you referring to that dead lunatic?" Qin Xiaosi had a cold smile on his face, and said, "Qin Yue is really reassuring in his work. I said you can't mess with me, I said I will be happy, do you believe it now?"
There was no regret or self-blame in her tone, only the proud boasting of a winner.
"Why is happiness crying?" Xia Chan asked.
Qin Xiaosi restrained his smile, took a puff of the cigarette, slowly exhaled the smoke ring, and glanced at Xia Chan.
She lowered her head, flicked the ash off her cigarette, looked into the distance and smiled: "My grandfather is dead. He raised me for so many years, so shedding a few tears is not too much."
Qin Xiaosi's grandfather lost his son and daughter-in-law in his later years and was devastated. He treated Qin Xiaosi like a treasure in his palm. Qin Xiaosi could not tolerate any mental stimulation during that period.
This is what Jiang Huainan said.
The so-called happiness may really be cursed.
She didn't know whether Qin Xiaosi's sharp tongue and indifference were really what she thought and wanted.
"Hehe..." When Xia Chan was lost in thought, Qin Xiaosi suddenly stood up, staggering along the edge of the rooftop, muttering to himself, "Do you know that you actually won..."
Qin Xiaosi's fickleness left Xia Chan confused.
Qin Xiaosi took off her high heels and put them on the ground, then stood barefoot on a palm-wide cement beam, glaring at her sideways with hatred: "Xia Chan, don't you know that you won!"
Somehow, Qin Xiaosi at this moment reminded people of Ella. Seeing her swaying figure, Xia Chan reminded her: "It's dangerous there, you come down first."
"What do you care! You are just being nice!" Qin Xiaosi frowned and glared at her, his eyes full of madness, "Why should I read his diary? I want to pretend that I know nothing. He likes you, he likes you!" As she spoke, she shed tears and took a few more puffs of her cigarette. In the smoke, her expression was determined.
Xia Chan looked at her with shock in her eyes, not knowing what she had seen or what had stimulated her.
Jiang Huainan was like a memory from her past life. From their secret crush in their youth to their honesty in later life.
Only now did she understand what kind of existence Jiang Huainan was.
It is a kind of loneliness clinging to another kind of loneliness, like a person walking in the dark following the direction of a lighthouse. She longs for an exit in the most confused night, and she always follows him, thinking she has found the light.
Until she met Monet.
If Jiang Huainan is her lamp, distant and cold, then Monet is the wind, the fire, and the oxygen. It is the wind that carries her away like a butterfly, it is the fire that accompanies her to find warmth, and it is the oxygen that gives her a second life.
Humility is not love, equal growth is.
Unfortunately, she understood it too late, and when she understood it, it was already lost.
She raised her head, looked at Qin Xiaosi who looked unwilling, and said slowly and firmly: "I like Monet, no, maybe... I love him."
"No, you are lying! You are a cunning woman. You are so greedy that you are manipulating other people. You obviously like Huainan and you are lying to me! How could you like someone else? How could you like someone else? Then what have I been fighting for? Am I fighting with myself?" Qin Xiaosi laughed crazily and shook his head, unwilling to believe it.
"Xiao Si." Jiang Huainan's voice sounded behind him.
Xia Chan and Qin Xiaosi turned around and saw him standing there with a cold look on his face.
He looked past Xia Chan without even glancing at her, and met Qin Xiaosi's gaze, smiling, "It's you I like. Come down first, okay?"
His voice had the power to bewitch people. Qin Xiaosi stood there, her skirt blown high by the wind, and she began to cry sadly.
"I don't believe it, I don't believe it...Brother Huainan, you lied to me too. My parents are dead, my grandfather is dead, and you don't want me anymore. I have nothing...I saw it all, I saw it all..." Qin Xiaosi became incoherent, bent over, and almost collapsed. "You must dislike me because I'm still sick, but I've tried hard, really...I'm willing to talk now, I'm not the same person I was when I was little..."
Qin Xiaosi covered her face and cried, her eyes blurred. She tried to stand up, but suddenly she stumbled and slid straight down from the rooftop.
Screams and cries for help rang out simultaneously.
Jiang Huainan rushed over and grabbed a corner of Qin Xiaosi's skirt tightly.
"Come and help!"
Cold sweat broke out on his forehead and he roared loudly at Xia Chan.
Xia Chan staggered over, but her outstretched hand was powerless.
"Qin Xiaosi, you are not allowed to die! You still owe me and Ella a debt!" Her roar was filled with fear that even she herself was afraid of. It turns out that in the face of death, everything can return to dust.
Be it hatred or resentment, nothing is more important than living well. Seeing Qin Xiaosi fall, Xia Chan found that her fear was no less than hearing the news of Ella's death.
No matter what happens to a person, it will pass. Being alive is good. At this moment, she finally understood how Monet felt when he said this.
"Brother Huainan, will you love me if I die?"
Qin Xiaosi was like a fallen leaf in the wind, with a strange and sad smile on her lips.
"Brother Huainan, I'm so tired too..."
Qin Xiaosi looked at him, tears streaming down her face, falling onto her skirt one by one, her expression broken and desperate.
Jiang Huainan's face turned pale, and the hand holding her skirt gradually became weak. Inertia and gravity carried Qin Xiaosi's body down little by little.
Suddenly, Jiang Huainan growled in pain, and the skirt in his hand fell away.
Someone screamed downstairs and someone roared in my ear.
The thin figure fell to the ground on the balcony of the sky garden on the floor.
The world is quiet.
There was a roar in Xia Chan's mind, Qin Xiaosi and Ella's faces overlapped, and the world was dead silent.
At the moment of falling, Qin Xiaosi's eyes were unfocused, and her eyes without any attachment seemed to be saying, "I'm sorry..."
Enough, really enough, let those past resentments go with the wind. The heavy price paid by those lives that grew old before they had time to be innocent is enough.
Nothing matters anymore.
Her heart was filled with despair and fear. Qin Xiaosi's body did not fall on the ground, but on her heart!
The door to the rooftop slammed loudly, and Jiang Huainan ran down frantically. Xia Chan wiped her tear-blurred eyes, held onto the wall, and also ran downstairs.
On the balcony of the sky garden, Jiang Huainan held Qin Xiaosi's body with trembling hands and kept shouting "Doctor".
More and more people in white coats were coming, and stretchers were pushed in and out. The doctor took Qin Xiaosi away, and Jiang Huainan ran after the doctor with red eyes.
Xia Chan stood aside, being bumped and pushed by the people coming and going. People kept shouting in her ears, "Make way," but she felt that the world was so quiet that only the sound of death remained.
The bright red on the ground stung her eyes and her sensitive nerves. The sun had set, and a moon hung in the sky, its cold moonlight shining on the pale earth.
She looked at the white moonlight, the red blood, the yellow street lights, and all the colors began to become dazzling, and the sky and the earth were gray.
“Someone fainted!”
Someone was shouting in panic, and footsteps hurried past her ears. She looked at the gray night sky, her eyes went dark, and she fell straight to the ground.
"Asha, what's wrong with you? Asha, Asha..."
In the dream, Monet called her name gently, with a rogue smile on his face. He waved his hands vigorously in front of her eyes, and she scolded him and wanted to hit him.
She opened her eyes and saw Jiang Huainan, who was tucking her in. When he saw her wake up, there was a hint of relief in his eyes.
"Where is Qin Xiaosi?" Xia Chan sat up, lifted the quilt and wanted to go out.
Jiang Huainan held her hand, his eyes full of fatigue: "She is in surgery, you lie down first."
She raised her head and looked at him with red eyes.
Jiang Huainan sat down on a chair next to the bed and looked at the alley outside. It was dark and dark, with no street lights.
"I just found out about Ella..." He didn't have the heart to continue. He looked at the moonlight outside with a sad face. "Qin Yue just came. He watched Xiao Si grow up. He sent someone to do it. He will turn himself in. He said that Xiao Si just wanted to hire someone to intimidate you at first, but he didn't expect that the people Qin Yue hired would be so cruel. You..."
Xia Chan listened quietly and interrupted him: "I don't want to talk about this anymore."
"I just think you have the right to know the truth." He withdrew his gaze from the alley entrance, looked at a tree in the moonlight, and answered lightly.
She smiled sadly: "Everyone is gone, what's the point of seeking the truth."
Jiang Huainan didn't say anything. He looked out the window with sadness in his eyes. His whole body was filled with deep sorrow.
After a long while, he lowered his head and said softly, "Before the operation, the doctor said that Xiao Si would most likely need amputation... The most optimistic scenario is that he can save one leg, but the other one will be gone..."
His voice became lower and lower, his whole face was buried in his hands, and there was a sound of sobbing in his tone.
She looked at him, her heart was cold. She couldn't see her own expression, nor could she see Jiang Huainan's expression at the moment. The only sound in the air was "need to amputate".
Her chest began to ache violently again, and the pain gradually increased from mild to severe, enveloping her entire body layer by layer.
Falls, deaths, cancer, amputations.
These words used to be so far away from her, but in these few short months, the disasters that beset them made her feel as if she had lived her entire life.
"I don't know..." She stammered, her words barely forming a sentence, tears streaming down her face that she couldn't wipe away.
She didn't know that fate had taken revenge on Qin Xiaosi in this way.
It shouldn't be like this. It shouldn't be like this.
"Axia?" Jiang Huainan called her softly, his tone filled with a heart-wrenching sadness, "Forget it..."
Tears gathered together, blurring out, sobs spreading through the words: "Okay..."
She regretted it now. The moment she saw Qin Xiaosi falling, she was scared and forgave him.
She didn't want to hurt herself, didn't want to hurt Qin Xiaosi, didn't want to hurt Jiang Huainan, didn't want to hurt anyone. Hurting doesn't make people happy, it only makes people confused in the fog.
After lying down for two or three hours, she removed the IV and left the hospital.
Jiang Huainan stayed by Qin Xiaosi's side all night, from the time she finished the operation to the time she lay in bed with a pale face. Qin Xiaosi was in a coma, calling out the names of her parents in a daze.
In the end, she still lost one leg. Her left leg was amputated completely below the knee. The empty trouser leg was painful to look at.
Xia Chan did not go to Qin Xiaosi's ward. She thought Qin Xiaosi probably didn't want to see her.
For the last look, Xia Chan lay at the door of the ward, looking at the sad young man who was covering his face, and the lifeless girl who was lying there with only the slight rise and fall of her chest proving that her life was still going on.
She walked to the rooftop, bent down to pick up the pair of bright red high-heeled shoes, wiped the dust off them with the corner of her clothes, and returned to the door of the ward.
Her tears fell again, hitting the surface of her shoes, one by one.
Sometimes life is just a choice from beginning to end, from life to death to a pair of shoes. Qin Xiaosi chose a path, and there is no chance to go the other way, and there is no turning back.
Qin Xiaosi’s youth was once as bright and eye-catching as this pair of red high heels, but it will never be like that again.
She paid her debt with one leg.
Some things cannot be redeemed. They will only drag you into darkness, haunt you and torture you until you are reduced to ashes.
After returning from the hospital, Xia Chan threw away all the flat shoes in the house, canvas, sports, and ladies' shoes. She started wearing high heels, all red.
She went to the barber shop to cut off her waist-length black hair. Her hair had always been fine, thick, black, long and smooth, like a black waterfall hanging in the air.
While sitting in the store, she looked carefully at the person in the mirror. His oval face was white and thin, and his dark eyes were like a calm sea. There were no more flowing starlight in them, only fog as cold as winter.
The old lady in floral cloth looked at her, holding up the scissors, with deep regret in her eyes: "My girl, it 's such a pity to cut such beautiful hair."
She stared at herself in the mirror without moving, and smiled: "Grandma, it's okay. Your hair will grow back, just cut it."
Hair can grow back after being cut, but some things, once lost, are gone forever.
The old lady shook her head and gestured with the scissors above her head.
With the sounds of "click, click", strands of black hair fell on the white floor, cutting off the devastating past one by one.
She looked at herself in the mirror. Her short black hair was clearly layered, with the ends covering her earlobes and full of agility. Her straight bangs were slanted over her forehead, slightly covering her eyes. The person inside gradually showed a refreshing and neat look. The old lady's craftsmanship was very good, and the whole look was capable and fashionable.
The sun was very strong when she went out. She stretched out her hands to block the glaring sunlight, but her hands were still empty.
Until now, it turns out that she has nothing.
In September, Jiang's mother recovered from her illness, and Jiang Huainan and Qin Xiaosi went abroad together.
When Jiang Huainan left, he put a period on their youth over the phone . He said, Axia, you still have a long way to go, you will meet many people in the future, you can live the life you want, but I can't.
He said, Asha, goodbye.
The diary that Qin Xiaosi mentioned will forever remain a mystery, buried in his complicated and broken past.
Whether he ever liked her or tried to accept her, only God knows the answer.
The city is full of golden osmanthus flowers. The tiny stamens are hidden among the lush green leaves, bathing in the early autumn sunshine and sparkling with tiny bits of light.
They fully display the beauty of life. When the wind blows, the petals fall and flutter. From a distance, it looks like a farewell rain.
The sky is as blue as a transparent mirror, and everything under the vast dome looks so small.
She looked up and watched the wings of the plane pass through the sky, cutting through their hurried past, carrying other people's stories and never returning.
Goodbye, Jiang Huainan.
Goodbye, my boy.