When I woke up, it was already bright, and it was as clear as yesterday. The hour hand pointed to nine o'clock, and I slept long enough that my mother didn't know when to go out, and breakfast lay quietly on the glass table in the dining room. I walked to the bathroom, showered off the sweat from my body, and shaved my beard carefully in front of the mirror. Change into a white shirt and jeans that were ironed by your mother yesterday.

It was still early to make an appointment with Catwoman, and after eating in the morning, I pulled out Haruki Murakami's "Strange Bird Walk" from the book wall embedded in the wall, and lay down on the sofa to read it. There is also a strange cat named "Blue Arrow" inside, which has come back again after getting lost, and there seems to be something wrong with its tail. But I don't know if the cigarette butt will be intact when it comes back, if it can be recovered or come back on its own?

I thought about my wonderful classmate again, and for some reason, every time I sat next to the couch or sank into the couch.

At first, our relationship was relatively good, because our mother was a colleague, and the town was not as outrageous as it is now—I remember when I checked the town's records, the population had grown from 60,000 to 300,000 in just ten years, and the residential area occupied most of the arable farmland in the surrounding area—so there were many opportunities for us to see each other, and the relationship was not separated by distance.

And just as the train arrives at a certain terminal, some people get on the train and some people get off, and our relationship also falls apart at a certain point. Even when they meet each other, they don't greet each other, but it's not out of discord or disgust for each other, it's just that there is no need to greet people who have gone to two parallel worlds in different dimensions. At the same time, the previous memories have been put aside for the time being, friends and sometimes lovers.

Later, I went to the northernmost university in China, across the river from Blagoveshchensk, the second largest city in the Russian Far East. I lost contact with many of my classmates in junior high school and high school, and the spider silk that connected and intersected was torn off by the distance in space. Although this was not my intention, it made me feel inexplicably relaxed, as I said before, I could not fit into any circle, I existed like an alien in the same kind of circle, and I existed like another alien in a different circle.

"You seem to be surrounded by jelly-soft but impenetrable solids," Qiu Yu said as he handed over a beer when he first came to Qiu Yu's bar in his sophomore year, and then he lit a cigarette, "I'm a few years older than you, so I can't see you're close, and I'm not far away." ”

I pressed my lips to the rim of the beer bottle, listening to the wonderful tones of the loud rock music on the record player and Qiu Yu's voice.

"Those who are close will be bounced far away when they go further, and those who are far away will feel very soft and try to get closer. ”

"You don't need me to stretch out my left hand, can you take a closer look?" I teased.

"I didn't mean to speak ill," Qiu Yu extinguished a cigarette.

"It's bitter. ”

"Yes. ”

I smiled and drained the beer in front of me.

It was 11:10 a.m., and I drove to the supermarket to buy a bottle of Perrier-Jouët champagne and rushed to Catwoman's house. As soon as she entered, Catwoman was cleaning up the dining table surrounded by a white tablecloth in the living room. The living room is not big, and there is no extra furniture, but it is a little rich to live alone. Creamy white wallpaper, a small chandelier with six light bulbs hanging from the ceiling, a 42-inch TV hanging on the wall, opposite the TV is a leather sofa and a solid wood coffee table, and the dining table is located between the TV and the coffee table. As she placed the white porcelain cutlery on the table, I unscrewed the cork of the champagne with my hand.

"It's all delicious," I said as Catwoman brought me the steaming beef stew. Maybe it's because at home, she only wears a long T-shirt printed with Mickey Mouse, the edge is just between the hips and knees, and the white paper-white calves are exposed, like glass to reveal a sensitive luster. The hair was scattered and should have been steamed by the water vapor from the beef stew, the ends of the hair were a little damp, some stuck to the forehead and cheeks, no sunglasses, and a faint blue light from the eyes.

"Did you sleep well last night?" Catwoman brought two glasses, and I poured champagne each.

"It's like carrying a mountain on my shoulder. ”

"And now?"

"The mountain was removed. ”

"When?"

"After seeing such a sumptuous lunch," I took a sip of champagne. Catwoman smiled toothlessly, her expression and tone unexpectedly released.

"Is there any news about cigarette butts?"

"It's alive," Catwoman said as she drained the champagne from her clear glass and poured herself some more.

"How do you know?"

"Naturally, a god told me, 'What should appear will appear at the right time.'" ’”

"Could the gods have been a little clearer?"

"The reason why the gods are called gods is that mortals cannot guess the meaning of the revelation. In short, just keep waiting. ”

"Don't you look for it anymore?"

"It's nowhere to be found. ”

I nodded. "The monster?"

"I can't help with this," Catwoman took out a piece of beef and handed it to my plate, "I lost the ability to talk to cats." ”

"Because of the gods?" I was surprised.

"'What should be, will come at the right time.'" In the same way, what should be lost is lost when it should be lost. ”