Zhang Baotong, a passerby of life, 2018.11.1

I often think of life as a shopping trip. I stood on the street and watched the passers-by and watched them walk past me in different clothes and with different smiling faces. Sometimes, I see a young and beautiful face that delights and fascinates me, and that face looks at me with joy and fascination. So, I really wanted her to go shopping with me.

I had this experience when I was in college. I met a girl in my class that I liked very much, she was young, beautiful, very smart, and the same age as me. Maybe she was born in a cadre family, which gave her a good temperament, confident and assertive. The two of us were younger in the class, studied hard, and had outstanding grades.

I sat in the last row of the classroom, and she sat in the third row. During class, I often look at her with my eyes, and every time I see her, I feel a feeling of comfort and brightness in my heart, like taking a breath of fresh air. And every now and then she would turn her head and glance at me. So, our eyes will often meet and then we will smile heartily. I don't know how much motivation and good feelings I have to learn. I think she felt the same way. In order to be able to be with her, after two classes in the afternoon, the classmates went to the playground to play ball and activities, but I saw that she was still sitting there studying, so I wanted to sit in the classroom with her. A lot of times, the two of us were the only ones left in the education, so she turned around and asked me, "Why don't you go out?"

I'm tempted to say, "I want to be there for you." "But I'm not one of those who can tell jokes, for fear that such words will make her think that I am frivolous. So, I said, "Why don't you go out and do activities?" because I know she loves activities as well.

She smiled at me and said, "I want to understand this in the book." ”

Of course I know it's a pretext, and for a smart girl like her, this is what the book does.

So, she came over and sat across from me and talked to me about my life in the countryside and my experiences in middle school. Our experiences have many similarities, except that she is in Xi'an and I am in Hunan. But we talk about English the most, because we're English majors. I remember the most memorable time when we were talking about the Scottish poet Burns, and when we talked about the excitement, she couldn't help but sing "The Good Old Times". To express my love for her, I recited Pence's famous poem "A Red Rose." The content of the poem is:

Ah, my love is like a bright red rose

It blooms in June

Ah, my lover is like a light happy song

Playing beautifully and harmoniously

You are so beautiful, dear

I love you so much

I will always love you, darling

Until the four seas are exhausted......

We are often together, and the time together is always sunny and beautiful. So, she always liked to be with me, to talk to me about all kinds of things, and to listen to me talk about all kinds of legends.

At that time, the classmates in the class were crazy about finding a partner, because many of the students who entered the school after the Cultural Revolution were already very old. There are quite a few boys and girls in their twenties, sixties, seventeens, and eighties. Although she is only twenty years old, because she is smart and beautiful, and her bearing is extraordinary, she has become the object of pursuit by many boys. However, she always explained to others frankly and generously that she was still young and wanted to devote more energy to studying.

Of course, there were three or five girls who were about the same age as me who told me, but I just pretended not to understand what they meant. Later, everyone knew that the two of us were often together, so they regarded us as lovers, and no one pursued us anymore.

Her family lives in Xi'an, so she doesn't have to go to school for self-study at night or on weekends. However, like those of us who live in dormitories, she has to come to school in the evenings for self-study and on weekends to study in the classroom consciously. When there was no one in the classroom, we sat together and conversed in English. If there are people in the classroom, we go to the grove behind the library to memorize the text or practice conversation.

Time flies, and before I know it, it's the eve of graduation. I noticed that she seemed a little apprehensive. She told me that because she was a candidate from Jingbian, she might be assigned to Jingbian as a teacher after graduation. Because she was a middle school teacher there before she took the exam. But it was the Loess Plateau, the wind and sand were very strong, and life was very hard, and she really didn't want to go back there. And her family is also in Xi'an. In order to reassure her, I wrote a long letter to confess my love for her and said that I would be by her side wherever she went.

However, to my surprise, she asked someone to return my letter to me. I also showed my letter to several female classmates. It made me very embarrassed, annoyed, and even incomprehensible. I tried to question her, but she kept avoiding me. Soon after, I was told that she was soon going to marry a male classmate from her neighboring class. The man's father worked in the provincial party committee and held a very high position. I immediately understood that she was trying to use the power of that classmate's father to place her in a good place when she graduated and was assigned.

I can understand her thoughts and pursuits, I am a child of a poor family, except for hardships and struggles, I don't have any resources and abilities, let alone arrange her from the northern Shaanxi Plateau to the city of Xi'an, I just feel that she should not let me have illusions about her. It was one of the most emotionally saddling relationships I've ever had, and it made me doubt love for a while.

Later, I figured out that life is just a shopping trip. I love watching people walk past me in beautiful clothes and with different smiling faces. I may see a certain young and beautiful girl, whose face and smiling face delight and fascinate me, and who is looking at me with joy and fascination. So, I asked her to accompany me shopping. However, after shopping, she said that she was leaving me. I was very nostalgic and reluctant, but I couldn't help it, because she was just a passerby in my life, and I was also a passerby in her life. We can be friends, or soul mates, or even lovers, but not lovers. Because we only know each other's surface, we will eventually leave each other.