Chapter 24: The Price of Growth
Already away from the old community, I dragged my luggage on the streets of the city. After walking for a long time, I found a stone bench for rest in a square.
I put my luggage on one side of the stone bench, lit a cigarette and sat down. Looking at the neon lights attached to the high-rise buildings, I felt a sense of panic in my heart.
Hurrying to avoid the light and shadow under the city, I looked up at the sky, looking for the "city of the sky" that had been peeled off from my body.
I don’t know when, a group of square dancers with fans came to the square. The sound of music immediately drowned me. I was even more unable to see the "city of the sky" in my suffocation. Maybe it had been hidden behind the moon, maybe it had been blown away by the passing wind just now...
But this night, I will eventually find a place to rest in this city.
I took out my cell phone from my pocket and called Robben. He lived near the train station. I happened to take the train to Hengdian tomorrow, so I just stayed with him this night.
Amid the noise, Robben answered the phone: "Zhaoyang, is there anything you need to ask me for?"
“Still performing in the bar?”
"Yes, it's time for us to join the band right away."
"Oh...that, I want to stay there overnight, is it convenient?"
Robben smiled and said, "What's inconvenient? Come to the bar now. Let's go back together when I get off work."
"I'll go directly to where you live, I won't go to the bar."
"Come on Sa, I'll invite you to drink. I still have several purchase coupons here."
"I really won't go." After saying that, I hung up the phone and left Robben with the doubts about why I didn't go.
After leaving the square, I took a taxi directly to Roben's residence. I looked at it early, so I went to the train station to buy a train ticket from Suzhou to Yiwu tomorrow morning.
...
Robben didn't come back from the bar at about 12 o'clock in the evening, and I was already asleep in the corridor with my luggage.
Robben woke me up and said in a complaining tone: "You guy has changed your sex recently! You are not happy to ask you to go to the bar, so you are willing to sleep in the corridor and wait stupidly!"
I just smiled without saying anything.
Robben asked me as he opened the door, “Have you moved?”
"Yes, I haven't found a suitable house yet. I'll get a business trip in Hengdian tomorrow. I'll just come to you for a night!"
"Live, how long will it take!" After saying that, he looked at the luggage on the ground and asked, "Where is your awesome guitar?"
I felt a little depressed. After all, it was a guitar that had been with me for several years, but I said to Robben as if nothing had happened: "I'll pay off the debt!"
Robben widened his eyes and sighed, "Have you paid off the debt? How miserable are you doing! I used to play with you several times before, but you didn't borrow it like a treasure, and you actually used it to pay off the debt!"
"Don't mention this, help me move my luggage in."
...
Robben lives in the small attic on the top floor, only a narrow room. There is a large balcony behind the house. There is a bathroom shared by many people and a clothesline. The living environment is not good.
When I turned on the light, I saw a few leather jackets hanging on the hanger, a guitar in the corner, a few pairs of Martin boots on the shoe rack, and a few boxes. There was no unnecessary decoration. Apart from the messy beer cans scattered on the table, it was not too messy.
After placing the luggage, Robben took out two buckets of instant noodles from a box and soaked a bucket of me and him for a night snack.
After a short moment, the instant noodles box that had been eaten was upside down on the abandoned flower pot under the balcony. The two of them put a few cans of beer next to them and sat on the guardrail of the balcony.
Each tore a can of beer, Robben and I met one, raised our heads, and immediately half filled the beer and drank it.
"Zhaoyang, I think you are quite depressed recently. What kind of blow has you been? You don't even go to the bar?"
"I live freely and freely, what blow can I take?" I said and drank the remaining beer in the can, but looked blankly in the distance.
In the distance, the lights dotted on Maxwell's giant billboard are still flashing in the early morning of the night.
Robben did not ask any more, and looked into the distance with my eyes. After a long time, he patted my shoulders with empathy. We were all people struggling on the edge of this city. Some of the pain was connected, but there was no need to say it too clearly.
The wind whistled past us with the coldness of the night. Robben and I were still sitting on the guardrail and looking at it, drinking another can of beer.
On a quiet night, people always think more. Robben seemed to remember someone and tore open a can of beer, but I stopped him. It would be bad to drink too much. I almost jumped into the moat yesterday because I drank too much.
"Do you miss a woman?" I asked Robben with a smile.
"Yes, just drink some wine and think about it." Robben said straightforwardly.
I knew Robben had a girlfriend who was very deeply in love, so he pushed him and said, "Do you still have a photo of your girlfriend? Take it out and take a look."
Robben took out his wallet from his pocket, took out a photo from the mezzanine and handed it to me. I saw the woman in the photo clearly through the light from a distance. She had good facial features and was a very intellectual and elegant woman.
Robben was a little lost and said to me for a long time: "We have been breaking up for almost three years, and now she should be married, right!"
"Why did you break up?"
Robben smiled sadly: "She was born in a teacher's family. Her parents are both university professors and a scholarly family. I am a musician, and I have no stable income. I live one day and don't want to delay her."
"So you ran from Beijing to Suzhou with her on your back?"
Robben nodded and said for a long time: "Actually, she chased Suzhou later, and we lived together for another half a year..."
"Why did you break up?" I asked in confusion.
"Her parents have asked me to ask me to arrange work at a university in Beijing and asked me to let her go back to Beijing."
"You little fool just let it go?"
Robben nodded: "Let me go, I tell her I have another woman."
"Can she believe it?"
Robben smiled and said, "She definitely doesn't believe it..."
"That……?"
"I found a lady, right in this room, in front of her..." Robben didn't say anything, but there was still a smile on his face, but under this smile, I saw a heart that was already dead.
I sighed heavily and said, "Why do you have to do things so utterly!"
"I don't do this. She won't leave. It's better to have a long pain than a short pain..." Robben raised his head and drank the beer in the can, but part of the liquid flowed down his neck into his clothes.
I was silent. Although Robben said it lightly, I saw a heart-wrenching love in helplessness. I knew Robben would never forget that woman in his life.
"Stop talking about me, take out the photo of your girlfriend, and take a look." Robben also pushed me and said.
I also took out Jian Wei's photo from the mezzanine of my wallet and handed it to Robben. In fact, we are not willing to forget the past because it is too precious!
The light projected on the opposite side was insufficient, Robben lit the lighter and looked at Jian Wei in the photo with the burning flames.
"Your girlfriend is pretty, not ordinary beauty!"
When I heard the word "beauty", the face of my female tenant suddenly appeared in my mind, but this did not surprise me, because I had never seen a woman more beautiful than Micai in my life. In just a moment, I returned to reality. Taking advantage of the flames that had not yet been extinguished, I looked at Jian Wei's familiar and unfamiliar face in the photo, and my heart stinged. I thought: It won't be long before she will marry Xiang Chen.
Robben returned Jian Wei's photo to me and asked, "Where are you, why did you break up?"
I recalled, saying for a long time: "A year after she went to the United States, she called and broke up with me."
"Why did she break up with you?" Robben asked.
"I don't know, she didn't say it." I replied with the same smile as Robben just now.
"You didn't ask?"
I nodded, and I really didn't ask why Jian Wei broke up with me, because I think: If Jian Wei wants to say that if I don't need me to ask, she will tell me. Perhaps I subconsciously don't believe that we can go to the end, and we will break up one day in the end. But what if you want to find a result if you are expected?
"Aren't you afraid of any misunderstandings between you?" Robben reminded me.
I was stunned and said, "What are the misunderstandings?...Love just passed by, I won't talk about this anymore! Go and bring the guitar, let's have a song, forget all the messes!"
Robben took the guitar from the house, tried the tone and asked me: "Use your key or my key?"
"casual."
Robben plucked the guitar strings, and a melody floated in the sky at night, which was Lee Zongsheng's "The Price of Love".
"...Let's go, let's go, people always learn to grow up. Let's go, let's go, life will inevitably experience pain and struggle. Let's go, let's go, find a home for your heart. I have also been sad and crying, and I have been heartbroken. This is the price of love. Maybe I still miss her occasionally, and I will inevitably think about her occasionally. Just think of him as an old friend, which makes me feel distressed and care about me. But there are no more sparks in my heart, so let the past go with the wind..."
The singing floats out of our mouths, full of vicissitudes, but I don’t understand whether the price of love is just sadness and tears and sadness, but I know that the price of growth is the love that has passed away in the flow of time.
In this late night when I should see through, I regretted the love I lost, Robben and the unknown Beijing girl!
...
The next morning, I took the train to Yiwu. After arriving in Yiwu, I had to transfer to Hengdian. I knew what I should do for myself. I took the promotional poster for the opening, and my career will usher in the first progress in my life.
Being promoted to the leader of the planning copywriting team, my monthly salary will be over 10,000 yuan, and maybe my life will stabilize as a result.
Sitting on the train heading south, I said to myself for the first time: "Try hard, Zhaoyang!...Don't let anyone look down on you anymore!"
Chapter completed!