Love story

The autumn of 1977 was about two teenagers. On that bright day, they took a bus that creaked to somewhere forty miles away. The boy had bought the ticket, and the girl had been hiding behind a cement pole outside the station. All around her, falling leaves and dust fluttered, and the hum of the concrete pole covered the intricate sounds. The girl's heart was now as monotonous as a page of text. She peered secretly at the little open door of the station, her eyes as calm as water. Then the boy came out of the station, his face white and haggard. He knew where the girl was hiding, but he didn't look at her. He walked in the direction of the bridge, looking nervously from side to side as he passed. Soon after he came to the bridge, he stopped uneasily, and then looked at the girl there. He saw that she was looking at him now, and he gave her a hard look, but she still looked at him. He turned away very angrily. For some time after that he stood on the bridge. He did not look at her. But he felt that she was watching him all the time, and the thought frightened him. Then he made sure he didn't know anyone, and went up to her. She knew nothing of the terror with which he passed. She saw the fair young man walking in the sunshine, looking very attractive. There was a little excitement inside her, so she smiled. When he reached her, however, he expressed his anger at her smile, saying in a low voice, "Can you laugh at a time like this?"

He destroyed her beautiful smile before it could grow. She looked at him nervously, for he looked fierce. This ferocity continued now, and he said: "How many times have I told you not to look at me, you must pretend not to know me. Why are you looking at me? What a nuisance." She made no sign of resistance, but silently averted her eyes from his face. She looked at a yellow leaf on the ground and heard his voice coming through her teeth. He told her, "When you get on the bus, take a seat. If you don't know anyone, I'll sit next to you. I'll stand by the car door if I know anyone. Remember, we don't talk to each other." He handed her the ticket, and when she held it, he walked away. Instead of walking to the waiting room, he walked to the bridge.

This girl, nearly 30 years later, sat across from me. We sat together in a twilight room, which was our apartment. Our curtains hung at either end, and the light of the setting sun floated on the windowsill. She was sitting in a chair by the window, knitting a sky blue scarf. Now the scarf was longer than she was tall, but she was still knitting it down. Sitting across from her, I had gone with her forty miles away in the fall of 1977. We had known each other since we were five years old, and that knowledge, after a long journey, led to marriage. We had our first sexual experience towards the end of our sixteen years. That's when she got pregnant for the first time. How could I look into her eyes with passion when she had been sitting in the same position at the window for five years? Over the years, I've seen her dangle in front of my eyes, and it frustrates me. My biggest mistake was not realizing the night before my wedding that she was going to spend her whole life in front of me. That's why my life is getting old. Now while she was knitting her scarf, I was holding a letter from the writer Hong Feng in my hand. Hong Feng's wonderful experience moved me, and I felt that there was no reason for me to continue living like an old newspaper.

So I repeated the present words as she repeated the sitting position, and what I kept pointing out to her was the horror of childhood love. I asked her again and again,

"Don't you think I'm too familiar?"

But she kept looking at me with a puzzled expression.

I continued, "We've known each other since we were five years old, and we're still together over twenty years later. How can any of us expect the other to change ourselves?"

She always shows some panic at this point.

"You are as clear to me as white paper on the wall. And am I not the same with you?"

I saw her look silly when she cried.

I continued: "The only thing left for us to do is to remember the past. But too much recollection makes our past as predictable as our daily breakfast." We had our first sexual encounter towards the end of our sixteen years. On that moonless night, on the grass in the middle of the school playground, we hugged each other trembling because we were scared. Not far down the road, people with electric torches passed by, their voices sharp as daggers in the night sky, and several times I almost ran away. Just because I was held tightly by her, so that I now recall the original scene, did not obviously see his distress.

I can't think of that night without feeling the moisture of the dew on the grass. I shivered from the warmth of her body as my hands invaded her dress. My hand went down her belly, and I began to feel the wetness of the grass. At first I didn't want to do anything. I thought a touch was enough. But then I wanted to see it very much. I wanted to know what it was all about. But on that moonless night, all I could smell was a flat smell. The smell in that dark, damp place was like nothing I had ever smelled before. However, the smell was not as exciting as I had expected. Nevertheless, I did it before long. The indomitable desire almost destroyed me, and for many days after that, I designed various suicide and escape schemes. As she grew more and more pregnant, my near-breaking despair made me hate what had been a whirlwind of joy for only a few minutes. On that autumn day in 1977, I went with her forty miles away, hoping that the hospital on the side of the road would prove that it was all a false alarm. Her nervousness in the face of difficulties did not come with the same intensity as mine. When I suggested that I should go to the hospital for a check-up, she immediately remembered that place forty miles away. I was secretly surprised by her calmness and reason. The location she suggested suggested to me a minimum of security, so that no one would know about this mysterious examination we were undertaking. But then she spoke with a passion of having been there five years before, and her description of the streets, and the lyricism of the decommissioned ships moored on the seashore, made me very angry. I told her that we were not going for pleasure, but for a deadly inspection. This test is about whether or not we're gonna live. I told her that if the results of the test confirmed that she was pregnant, we would be expelled from school and expelled from our respective parents. Rumors about us will last as long as dust in the streets. We ended up with: "Suicide." It was only then that she seemed to panic. When she told me a few years later, I looked horrified. She was clearly taken aback by my design of our ending. But even when she was panicking, she was never really desperate. She believes that at least her parents will not drive her out of the family, but she admits that her parents will punish her. She comforted me:

"Punishment is better than suicide." I was the last one to get on the bus that day. I watched her from behind and she kept looking back at me. I asked her not to look at me, reminding her that it was always a blank page. The car had already started when I got on. I did not go to my seat at once, but stood by the door. My eyes wandered from face to face in the car. I saw at least twenty faces I had seen before. So I couldn't walk to my seat, I had to stand in the moving car. I watched how the dilapidated highway played tricks on our cars. I felt like I was being bottled and shaken. Then I heard her voice calling me, and her voice filled me with sudden terror. I was so angry at her lack of understanding that I did not answer. I wished she would stop, but her annoying cry went on and on. I could only turn my head, knowing that my face was as horribly green as the weeds on the road. But there was an innocent smile on her face, and her feigned surprise showed that she had met me by accident. Then she invited me to sit in the empty seat beside her. I had to walk there. As I sat down beside her, I felt her body touch me. She said a lot of things, but I didn't listen to any of them. I had to keep nodding to hide it. All this upset me. At that moment she secretly squeezed my finger, and I immediately shook her hand away. It drives me mad that she should behave like this at such a time. Now she took my anger seriously. She said no more, and naturally did not extend her hand. She looked away, as if aggrieved, at the scene of carnage outside the car. But her silence did not last long. After a violent tremor in the car, she burst into a giggle. Then he leaned close to me and said secretly, "The baby in the abdomen shook out."

Her jokes only intensified my anger, so I leaned close to her and whispered through gritted teeth, "Shut your mouth." Then I saw several ships lying on the shore, two badly disassembled, and only one intact for the time being. A few grey birds were hovering over the seaside weeds. About a few minutes after the bus pulled into the station, the two boys came out of the exit. When a truck drove past them, the dust kicked up and their bodies were altered.

The boy's face was livid now, and he walked on without a word. The girl followed him fearfully, peeking at his face from time to time. When the boy came to a hutong entrance, he walked into a hutong instead of the direction of the hospital. The girl went in, too. The boy did not stop until he reached the middle of the alley. The girl also stopped. They watched a middle-aged woman coming, and watched her out of the alley. Then the boy growled in a low voice:

"Why did you call me?"

The girl looked at him aggrieved, then said:

"I'm afraid you're too tired standing." The boy continued yelling, "How many times have I told you not to look at me? But you always look at me, and call me by name, and pinch me in your hands." At this moment, two men came from the mouth of Hu Tong. The boy did not speak, and the girl did not explain herself. The two men gave them an interested look as they passed. The two men walked past, the boy went to Hu Tong Kou, the girl hesitated a moment also followed.

They walked in silence along the street leading to the hospital. The boy was no longer angry now and looked more and more worried as the hospital approached. He turned to look at the girl next to him. Her eyes were looking ahead. From her slightly confused eyes, he felt that the hospital was just ahead.

Then they reached the foyer of the hospital, where the registration office was empty. The boy, now suddenly timid, stepped out of the hall and stood outside. He had a sudden fear that he would be caught, and he had no courage to enter the present adventure. When the girl also came out of the hall, he found a reason to hide his timidity. He wanted to leave her alone to have an adventure while he was ready to run away. He told her that it was too dangerous for him to keep her company any longer, and that it would be obvious at a glance what the boys had done. He asked her to:

"You go alone." She made no objection, nodded and went in. He watched her walk to the window of the registration office, showing no sign of nervousness as she took the money out of her pocket. He heard her tell someone inside what her name was, that she was twenty years old. The name is fake, the age is fake. He didn't plan it out. Then he heard her say, "Gynecology." The two words made him shudder, and he felt the weariness of her voice. Then she turned from the window to look at him, and went up the stairs. The chart she was holding wobbled up the stairs.

The boy watched her figure disappear up the stairs, then looked away. He felt his heart grow heavier and heavier, and it became difficult to breathe. His eyes on the street were now disorganized. He stood there for a long time. Someone always came down the stairs, but she never did. He began to feel frightened. He felt that what he had done had been exposed in this building. The thought became more and more real, and so he became more and more nervous. He decided to get away from the place and walked across the street. He looked very distraught as he crossed the street. When he came across the street, he did not stop but ducked into a shop.

It was a grocery store, and an ugly young woman was standing at the counter looking like she was doing nothing. Two men were pulling at the glass on the other side, so he moved closer and looked at them. And now and then looked across the street at the hospital. It was a piece of blue glass, and both men were smoking, so there were small piles of soot on the glass. The unpreoccupied boredom of the two men weighed him down even more. He watched the diamond make a white mark on the glass, and the sound echoed like a crack. Soon after, the girl appeared across the street, standing by a sycamore tree and looking for the boy. The boy saw her through the dusty window of the shop. He saw no suspicious person standing behind the girl and went out of the store immediately. She saw him as he crossed the street. When he came near, she gave him a bitter smile and whispered, "Yes." The boy did not move for a while like a tree. The only glimmer of hope was completely destroyed at that moment. He looked at the sad girl in front of him and said:

"What can I do? The girl said softly, "I don't know."

The boy continued, "What can I do?

The girl comforted him, "Don't think about it. Let's go to those stores."

The boy shook his head and said, "I don't want to go."

The girl stopped talking. She looked at the traffic on the street. A few people came by laughing. When they had passed, the girl said again:

"Go to the store and look." Again the boy said, "I don't want to go."

They stood there for a long time before the boy said weakly, "Let's go back." The girl nodded. Then they walked back. Not too far away, in front of a shop, the girl stopped, took the boy by the sleeve, and said:

"Let's go in and have a look." The boy hesitated for a moment and then went into the store with her. They stood for a long time in front of a white school dress. The girl kept looking at it. She told the boy, "I like this dress very much."

A girl's voice has settled down by the age of sixteen. For more than a decade, her voice rang in my ears almost every day. This all-too-familiar voice has swept away my passion. So now, in the evening, I look at my wife sitting opposite me and feel more and more tired. She was still knitting her sky-blue scarf. Her face was the same as before. But now the face has lost the elasticity of the past. The wrinkles on her face grew under my eyes, and I knew them like the palm of my hand. Now she's paying attention to what I say.

"I knew what you were going to say before you spoke; Every day at 11:30 noon and 5:00 p.m., I know you're coming home