let me look at you

Chapter 56
Many things can be repeated, the leaves will turn green again when they are withered, and the forgotten things can be remembered again, but people will not be resurrected after death, and youth will never come back again when they are gone.

Xie Ju Nian finished telling a story. In the simple and narrow beef noodle restaurant, only the old electric fan was still blowing towards them.Zhu Xiaobei is not a silent person, but under the guidance of Ju Nian, she seems to have truly walked through the old days.Those people, those things, and those faces are so vivid in her memory that she can close her eyes and outline in her mind every subtle change on the boy's face at that time... She felt that everything should not end here, and Ju Nian The story is really over.

Only then did they notice that it was completely dark, the time for dinner had already passed, and the small shop that was crowded with people had already been shopped out, except for the proprietress who settled the accounts under the dim light and was busy packing up leftovers and preparing to close. They were the only waiters left. The beef noodles in front of the two of them had already cooled like ice, covered with a layer of red oil. Zhu Xiaobei felt that his heart was also covered with such a thick layer. It looks stuffy and greasy.

"Wu Yu...he just died like this? You just went to jail like this?" It took Zhu Xiaobei a long time to squeeze out such a sentence, although she already knew about Ju Nian's criminal record, and from what she learned Looking at all the signs, she couldn't find any other possibility, but she still felt that it shouldn't be like this, it shouldn't be!The two children running hand in hand under the sun, the pure white boy and girl under the pomegranate flowers, they are so beautiful, so kind, they have nothing to contend with in their own little world, why did one end up dead and the other imprisoned in the end? The fate of being in prison.

There was a faint smile on the corner of Ju Nian's mouth, and the broken shadow of her short hair covered her eyes, "Xiaobei, you should also read martial arts novels. In the novels, all the protagonists who fall off the cliff will be rescued by experts. Or by chance, one learns peerless martial arts and is reborn forever. But in the real world, most people are not so lucky, and if they fall, they will really die.”

Before Zhu Xiaobei could recover, Ju Nian beckoned the waiter to come over to collect the money, "I'll treat the meal as agreed."

In front of her smile, Zhu Xiaobei felt that resignation was a very boring thing, so he also smiled and pushed the bowl in front of him to the side, and said: "The lady boss didn't chase us away, she is a strange person. Ju Nian , take this meal as a farewell farewell for me!"

"Do you really want to go?"

"of course."

"Then here..."

"You mean Han Shu, right?" Zhu Xiaobei understood quickly, "Don't let me see him now, if he shows up now, I can't wait to slap this kid into outer space."

Ju Nian smiled, thought for a while, and said, "Xiaobei, that is him in another story after all, and it's all in the past. He's not bad, you..."

"Stop talking, I know what you mean. Before you told me, I always thought that something must have happened between you and him in the past, and he was the hero in those stories of yours. The funniest thing is that he probably I thought so too. Damn! In fact, he is just a passerby. Right, Ju Nian, that’s why you forgive him easily. Similarly, for Han Shu, I am also a passerby. The grass-roots team you set up, let it go away. Find a good man to marry, hehe, it’s like buying a lottery ticket, it’s no wonder that if you win the lottery, you won’t be punished by God.” She half-jokingly spread her palms towards Ju Nian, “Master Xie, Help me look at the palm prints and calculate my marriage, is it true that I have to wait until the day I retire and my first night at the age of 55?"

Ju Nian closed Zhu Xiaobei's hand, "Life is getting thinner and thinner." She also laughed and comforted, "Xiaobei, you must be blessed. When you are really depressed, just think about it. People who are even worse, like me."

"I can't compare with you, really, if I were you, I don't know how many times I have died." Zhu Xiaobei told the truth.

Ju Nian said: "Death is hard, but easy is not easy. If you can't die, then you have to live."

If you can't die, then you can only come back to life.

During the years in prison, Ju Nian also said this sentence to himself repeatedly.

After leaving the beef noodle restaurant, Ju Nian and Zhu Xiaobei waved goodbye at a fork in the road not far away.Ju Nian looked at Xiaobei's slender shadow stretched by the street lamps, the normally unfettered and incomparably sharp woman had a somewhat desolate taste.Ju Nian knew that perhaps the purpose of Xiaobei's trip was to seek an ending, and Xiaobei was an open-minded person after all, she would be able to come out one day, all she needed was time.

Only time is invincible.

However, the Orange Year did not win the forgiveness of time.It was only because it happened so suddenly that her little monk left just like that, leaving her the whole world empty.Maybe it was just a second, just a moment ago, he said in the softest voice: "You never said it", and in an instant, he was covered by a boundless sea of ​​blood.She didn't have any defenses, as if she had stepped on a flat road, and there was no trace to be found, she just fell, fell...until she was doomed.Nightmares came one after another, and she couldn't cry or relax because she hadn't had time to wake up.He left, leaving only her, who also went back.

Regarding the details of those years in prison, Ju Nian seldom mentioned to others, even in the stories she told Zhu Xiaobei, she didn't mention a single word.She doesn't want to say a lot of things because she doesn't expect anyone to understand. It's like you should never try to let a healthy person experience the despair overflowing on the hospital bed. A healthy person says "health is really important", but in fact Like squandering health, you will not really understand the pain of illness.

Including Ju Nian herself, she rarely recalled that period of time, she only knew one thing - there are only two things in the world that are forever irreversible, one is life, and the other is youth.Many things can be repeated, the leaves will turn green again when they are withered, and the forgotten things can be remembered again, but people will not be resurrected after death, and youth will never come back again when they are gone.Wu Yu couldn't survive, and Xie Ju Nian's youth also died 11 years ago.Now that she has been released after serving her sentence, she is like an ordinary 29-year-old single woman, living an ordinary life. The old waves and the years behind bars seem to have left no obvious mark on her.It's just that she wakes up every morning and looks at her smooth and firm skin in the mirror in the cool bathroom. Those eyes tell her that she is no longer the girl she was back then.

There is a saying in life that says: God will open a window for you when he closes a door.When in prison, every time Ju Nian thought of this sentence, he would laugh.The door of the cell was closed tightly, leaving only an inch-sized iron window. Doesn’t this justify God’s sense of humor?

Prisoners who have just been sent in are called "new recruits" in the prison. "New recruits" are the most helpless group in that closed world. Apart from going through the initial training in prison and the "education" of old prisoners, the hardest part is yourself.There is no free person who will not feel the despair of the world after being imprisoned. You are no longer a normal person, a dignified person, or even a human being.Twelve people squeezed into a small cell, with heavy labor quotas that make people breathless every day, a life that cannot see the light of day, psychologically distorted roommates, harsh prison guards... the "new recruits" There are not a few people who wash their faces with tears as soon as they come in, and even look for life and death.

Before meeting Zhu Xiaobei at the beef noodle restaurant, Ping Feng, who was sitting with Ju Nian, was imprisoned in the same batch as her.Ju Nian had just passed at that time, and he was one of the youngest prisoners in the prison, while Ping Feng was one month younger than Ju Nian, as thin as a fifteen or sixteen year old child.At that time, they were locked in the same cell, and every night, Ju Nian could hear Pingfeng's cries.

Ju Nian seldom cries, she just can't sleep.

The prison in the middle of the night is deathly black, without a ray of light.Ju Nian slept on the bunk closest to the window, and couldn't see where the window was.She always sat, facing the direction of the window, listening to Pingfeng crying, quietly in a daze.Sometimes the time of a night passes quickly, sometimes it passes slowly, and time seems to be meaningless.Due to a series of procedures in the criminal proceedings, when the verdict was officially issued, Ju Nian had already spent nearly three weeks in prison, and she still had at least 800 more nights to spend like this.

That night, Ping Feng was tired from crying and gradually fell asleep, when Ju Nian suddenly heard a slight crackling sound coming from the direction of the window.She knew it was the sound of insects beating their wings.There are flies, mosquitoes, and fleas in the prison, but they are all small bugs, and the bigger ones rarely fly in.Listening to that sound, it was weaker than dragonflies and beetles, but stronger than small flying insects. Wandering and struggling, they couldn't find the exit.Ju Nian couldn't see it, she thought, maybe it was a butterfly.Why doesn't a butterfly that has transformed from a caterpillar wander among the flowers, but return to this corner where the sun doesn't shine?
Wu Yu, is that you?

Ju Nian recited silently in his heart.Is it because you finally broke out of the cocoon, but you couldn't bear to part with me, so you came back to take a look at me?

She groped and stretched out her hand blankly, but it never stopped in her palm.

All night, Ju Nian just leaned against the iron bed support, listening to the sound of the wings flapping, feeling indistinguishable from joy to sorrow.She hoped that it would stay and spend a little more time with her, and she also hoped that it would fly away, go to the place it longed for, and never come back... The sky gradually dawned.

The prison stipulates that people get up at [-]:[-] am in summer, and change it to [-]:[-] am in winter time.After waking up, you must fold the quilt like in the army, and then sit neatly on the edge of the bed and wait for the prison guards to open the prison door—they call this "kaifeng".Next, each cell took turns to go out to wash and go to the toilet, and then returned to the cell for breakfast.There are no toilets in all the cells. The toilets are located at the end of the corridor on each floor. They are usually locked, and they are only opened at specified times, once in the morning and at night.The first ray of light in the morning shone into Ju Nian's cell, and the whole prison was already getting up, but it wasn't their turn to unseal the cell yet.Ju Nian eagerly took advantage of the light to find the butterfly, and sure enough, she found it at the edge of the barred window.

There was no butterfly there, but a gray moth.

It is ugly, dirty and mottled, with a bloated body, and the most hopeless thing is that it has deformed wings, which apparently just broke out of the chrysalis, somehow landed here, and are destined to be unable to fly of.

Ju Nian remembered the story Wu Yu told about caterpillars.Yes, he was right, every butterfly turned into a caterpillar, but he also forgot that not every caterpillar can turn into a butterfly.Maybe it will die in a cocoon, never to see the light of day, or struggle like death before it realizes that it is an ugly moth without perfect wings.

Ju Nian found sadly that he understood what Wu Yu wanted to tell her. However, if he knew this was the ending, would he be willing to go on a blind date with another caterpillar in the deep underground, and carefully share that point? Poor sunshine?Or maybe he was destined to leave, no matter how cruel the ending was, it was his choice.

However, Wu Yu's story was not finished. He didn't talk about whether the colorful butterfly waiting for him above would fly away if he couldn't become a butterfly.He can't fly with her, and he can never go back to the caterpillar, but the butterfly can come and go freely.Nor did he say how, without one caterpillar, the remaining one should spend the next few years alone in the dark.

Ju Nian couldn't bear to see the moth struggling uselessly, she stretched out her finger lightly, trying to push it, but it was useless, as soon as her finger touched it, it fell from the window sill to the floor On the ground, before she had time to do anything else, a big foot wearing a shoe fell across the sky, and immediately crushed the moth on the ground.When the big foot was lifted, Ju Nian only saw a small puddle of disgusting slurry and half of a broken wing.It is so difficult to live, but so easy to die, without even a chance to struggle.This is the tragedy of being a worm.

Ju Nian groaned in his heart, and raised his head to look at the person who was underfoot.

"Why, are you upset?" the man asked her.

Ju Nian lowered his head and shook slowly, "No."

(End of this chapter)