Alley (novel) Zhang Baotong

It's one of the city's most common alleys, so ordinary that many people don't know its name no matter how many times they walk through it. However, such a scene appears in the alley every morning. Every morning at seven o'clock, a young woman walks through the corner of the alley with a handbag. This woman is quiet and beautiful, neatly dressed, and has a jade and ice clean bearing, very much like a female student during the May Fourth Movement.

Not far behind the woman, a young man followed. The man was tall, thin and sunken, wearing a wrinkled white shirt and half-worn jeans. He kept a short distance from the woman, following him from the depths of the alley to the mouth of the alley. Watch the woman walk down the street from the entrance of the alley and stand at the bus stop waiting for the bus. It wasn't until the car came, and the woman got into the car, that he slowly turned around and walked back.

This man's name is Xu Kai, and he is the woman's classmate in college. At that time, he was a talent, she was the school flower, and she was called a golden boy and a beautiful girl by her classmates. However, after graduation, Xu Kai was assigned to Hanzhong, while Wanqing stayed in Xi'an and taught in middle school. Hanzhong is more than 600 kilometers away from Xi'an, and it takes at least six or seven hours by train. This gradually widened the distance between the two lovers. At first, they kept writing letters, but after a long time, Wanqing didn't reply to him very much, and he didn't even call him on the phone.

Xu Kai has not been able to contact Wanqing, and felt the crisis, so he quit his job at the school and came to Xi'an. However, when he came to Xi'an to meet Wan Qing, Wan Qing told him that she was already married, and her husband was a scholar in the UK and taught at a university. Xu Kai learned from her classmates that Wanqing loved her husband very much, and her husband loved her very much. However, Xu Kai still couldn't let go of his deep affection for Wanqing, after all, they had been in love for four years in college.

He applied for a job as an editor at a newspaper and wrote novels in his spare time, reminiscing about the best times of his life. Maybe it was the loss that made him feel sorry, and he felt that he was more obsessed with Wanqing than ever. In order to see Wanqing every day, he rented a small two-story attic in the alley. Although the small attic is a little old, there is a window in front of the attic, from which you can see Wanqing walking downstairs on the opposite side every morning. That way, he can go out to meet her.

However, he was afraid that she would find out that he lived in the alley because he wanted to see her every day, and that she would be disgusted by her knowing that he was watching her not far away every morning. Therefore, every time he goes out, he is very careful and keeps a distance from her. Before I knew it, three years had passed.

However, no matter how cautious and cautious he was, he could hide it from Wanqing, but he couldn't hide it from another woman. That's the owner of the small shop at the entrance of the alley. The shopkeeper was a young woman of twenty-five or sixteen, with a beautiful countenance, a good figure, and a high voice. Every time Xu Kai came to the front of the shop, she would look at him with curious eyes.

Once, she asked him, "Is she your wife?" so that he didn't know how to answer, so he gave her a disapproving look, and turned away. Another time, she said to him, you are such a good man who is hard to find in the world. He ignored her.

This morning, the weather was very hot, and he stayed up late last night, he felt very uncomfortable as if he had a heat stroke. However, the car Wanqing was waiting for never came, so he kept standing in front of the shop and watching her wait for the car. After a while, he couldn't bear it anymore, felt dizzy, his body collapsed, his eyes turned black, and he fell to the ground at once.

When he woke up, he saw himself lying on a chaise longue, surrounded by a beautiful young shopkeeper who was fanning him with a magazine. When he opened his eyes, he said What's wrong with you, you almost scared me to death. He was embarrassed to say that he might have stayed up late last night and didn't sleep well. She handed him a loaf of bread and a packet of milk, saying that it might be low blood sugar and that it would be better to eat something. He refused to eat it, but the woman said, "If you don't eat what I bought for you, I'll throw it away." He was indeed hungry, and when she said this, he ate bread and milk.

From then on, as soon as Xu Kai arrived at the entrance of the alley, the female shopkeeper was afraid that he would be hot or frightened, so she beckoned him to let him into the store. Because the two of them are a little familiar, they talk much more casually. The female shopkeeper often said how this woman had such a good life, she was married, and there were people who loved her like this. Then she scolded her boyfriend for being unkind and made her wait for him for six years, but as soon as she finished graduate school, she married someone else. Although these words were praising Xu Kai, they also made him feel embarrassed, because everyone was married, and he still loved others so reluctantly, making people feel that he was not sick in the brain. But there is no way, he just can't give up on Wanqing, and if he can't see Wanqing for a day, it's like he is sick.

But Wanqing still moved away, and I heard that her husband's school had divided the house. Xu Kai lay in the small attic for two days in a row, and didn't go out, as if he was sick. That afternoon, there was a knock on the door. He thought it strange because he had never been in contact with his neighbors, and no one had ever knocked on his door. He opened the door, and it was the female shopkeeper at the corner of the alley. This surprised him very much, and said, How do you know I live here? The shopkeeper said, I searched the whole alley.

The female shopkeeper said, I was flustered when I couldn't see you, thinking something had happened to you. Xu Kai said that she moved away and heard that her husband's unit had been divided. The shopkeeper asked worriedly, "Are you going to move out too?" and then she said in a pleading tone, "Don't you go?" As soon as you leave, I won't be able to see you every day.

The female shopkeeper also said, I am heartbroken because of my broken love, and I feel that there is no real love in this world at all, but your behavior has been comforting me and telling me that there is indeed true love in the world. Xu Kai also said frankly and ashamedly, maybe I'm too obsessed and make you laugh. The shopkeeper said, I have never laughed at you, I have always admired you very much, and I think you are the best man in the world.

When the female shopkeeper saw that there was almost nothing in this room except a bed and a table, she frowned and said, "Why do you live in such a place?" Xu Kai was a little embarrassed, smiled very self-deprecatingly, and said, I am alone, and I live the same life.

At this time, the female shopkeeper took his hand warmly and said earnestly, otherwise, you can live with me, in fact, I am also a good woman. But Xu Kai said with some embarrassment, I know you are a good woman, but I have almost nothing, and you and I will be poor. Because he knows that women want to marry themselves to rich men. But the female shopkeeper said, I am not rare that you have thousands of family properties, as long as you can love me for the rest of your life like you love that female classmate, I will be satisfied.