When everyone raised their glasses together, I was the only one at the table with the tea, and some people objected, saying that I shouldn't be like this, and it was unfair to everyone. I said that a toast is a matter of meaning, not form, and told them that I never drink. The whole meal lasted for more than two hours, during which the students discussed all kinds of things, and the only thing that was never mentioned and discussed was painting. One time they were discussing Western literature, and several people expressed opinions that were not in the right mouth, and I didn't want to speak, but after listening to their fallacies, I couldn't help but have to say a few words. I refuted their three views one by one, and quoted scriptures and scriptures, and quoted them from the side, and I did not talk about the Tao at the beginning, and I did not talk about it once. When they ask questions, I can also explain and refute them with ease, like an invincible debater in the world. In the end, when it came to impassionedness, I even stood up and made all kinds of gestures and movements, and at that time, I didn't think that Helen was by my side at all. It was like a warm-up, and a debate on literature allowed me to quickly integrate into their discussion and stop being reticent. I used to read a lot of books, and I was always able to deliver a fatal blow from the most critical places, which surprised and amazed the students here. I noticed that the girl next to Hai Linlin had been paying attention to me, interjecting a few unnutritious words from time to time. I saw a look in her eyes that was very familiar, and the young mother I met at the training school had seen me with that kind of look at me at first, and when I thought of her, I was reminded of her variety of skills and initiative that I could not resist. And it also gave me a new feeling for Hai Linlin's best friend.

The next day, I went back to school for the first time in seven years after graduation, and I felt nostalgic just by walking to the door. Several tiles had fallen off the wall with the school's name inscribed on it, and a large yellow no-stop sign was painted on the doorway. Everything else has not changed, the doorman is still the three old men, who don't care about the people who come in and out, they only look at us when we go in, and they don't think that this group of people with a sense of vicissitudes on their faces that students don't have are not school students, they are like that when we go to school. The summer heat and weekends made the campus less crowded, and we were like a tour group, attracting the attention of a more competent security guard. It wasn't until we made it clear to him who we were and what we were for, and he took out a register as if by magic and asked us to fill in everyone's information. In the end, we only filled in the squad leader's personal information and got rid of his entanglement. The campus is a place for everyone, everyone reminisces about every inch of the place and every landmark, and reminisces with each other about what happened here.

The woman who had a good relationship with Hai Linlin paid special attention to me and often ran to my side to ask questions, while Hai Linlin would silently follow the team alone. When I walked through the corridor of the office building to the library, I remembered Mr. Ou, whose office was on the fifth floor of the office building, and when he graduated, he bought my graduation work, and I gave him the portrait of Hai Linlin. At the entrance of the library, there were significantly more students coming in and out than there were when I was there. It was here that I had my first formal conversation with Hai Linlin, and I walked alone in the direction of the south side of the library, and through the window I could see the same table I used to sit at regularly, and it was at that table that Hai Linlin took the initiative to sit opposite me. With this in mind, I went to look at my classmates' team and searched for her as hard as I could, hoping to see the changes on her face because of the memory. But I found out she wasn't on the team. It wasn't until we passed under the training building that I saw her again.

I also wanted to see from her face how she faced the building, where we spent a long time, watching her paint in a studio where no one was around, and I painted her portraits. But she never seemed to be moved by anything, and the expression on her face was the same as usual, which made me sad and deeply hurt. When we walked to the venue of the graduation exhibition, I felt even more that the past was irrevocable, and it was always irretrievably lost. I didn't dare to look at her again, I was afraid that she still had an indifferent expression on her face. I broke away from their group and stood in front of the wall where our two paintings were hung, staring at them for a long time. I judged the exact location of the painting from the beams above my head, and then I stood on tiptoe to touch it, and in the summer the wall was warm, like stroking a warm water glass. The space seemed wide, their voices faded away, and summer made the whole venue quieter, except for the light and the white walls that were nothing, everything felt the same as that night more than six years ago, when she came to me to help her take the painting down after the sound of a car passing by. I also want to have another car passing by on the road outside at this time, so that I can feel the irretrievable reality of that time again.

There is also the garden at the bottom of the dormitory, and the path from the dormitory building to the dining hall is filled with the scent of osmanthus flowers every September. On the edge of the road between our dorm building and theirs, the bench on which I had sat waiting for her all night had been torn down and planted with an evergreen arborvitae tree—all planted beside the road, and standing upright, I wondered when they were standing. I crouched on the bench where I had waited for her, looking at the soil at the roots of the arborvitae, trying to find the clues that had been left for my wasted time, and I hoped that I would be alerted by the alarm bells. I'm also curious to know if a group of them have passed through this place, if Hai Linlin has passed through this place, if this place can't make her expression change, then things in this world are too lacking in rich color.

We re-tasted the food in the restaurant, and many of the blocks had changed businesses. There is a company that sells knife-cut noodles all the time, and I used to eat their noodles when I was in school, and the boss remembers me very well. Once, when I was cooking, I said that their chicken nuggets were delicious, and he would occasionally give me a few more nuggets in the days that followed. Unexpectedly, the owner of the house still remembered me, and when I appeared in front of their stall with a makeshift meal card, he stared at me for a long time.

"Yo, it's you. He excitedly said, "You've been gone for five or six years." ”

I told him that it had been more than six years since I had left, almost seven years, and asked him to get me a chicken nugget rice. The cost of food has only risen by one more than when I graduated, and a bowl of noodles only costs five yuan and five, which is equivalent to no increase compared to the rise in prices in the whole country. The rice tasted the same as before, except I forgot to tell him not to put coriander. When I was in school, the boss remembered that I didn't eat coriander, and every time I didn't have to say it, I didn't put it, but this time it was really long, and he really forgot about it. The squad leader bought each of us a drink - he was the richest of us, and he was not stingy, and everywhere he had the demeanor of a big boss and a rich man. I asked for a glass of orange juice, and Hai Linlin asked for a glass of orange juice. When I finished drinking, I chatted with my classmates next to me and chewed the straw in my mouth over and over again.

"Why are you so cruel. Hai Linlin's best female friend said, "Do you have a grudge against this straw?"

Everyone looked at me, and I took the straw out of my mouth, and the upper end was already bitten beyond recognition. She asked me why I was biting the straw, and I said I didn't know either, I just wanted to. They began to talk about why people have the habit of biting straws, and there were various conclusions, the most convincing of which was the theory of biological instinct. A male classmate said that people are born with the instinct to bite things. I don't know anything about this, and his statement makes everyone think that it is the most scientific explanation.

"But. He said: "Most people who love to bite straws are too obsessed with life, and they are not necessarily a good thing in life." ”

The same thing was said by Mr. Feng, who was studying German with me, and he committed suicide with a gun at home shortly after saying this, and the classmate who said the same thing when he analyzed the reasons for biting straws from a biological point of view, I was a little surprised that two completely unrelated people gave the same explanation for the same thing, and I had to believe that they were correct. I remembered the suicide of Boss Feng, who had only learned half of his German and was about to graduate from that training course. I still live up to the promise I told him to recite the original German version of Faust, and I've memorized half of the book, although there are a few places where I might need a hint. I once told Helen in the school library that I was going to reread Faust, but I hadn't learned German yet. When I decided to reread and memorize, I memorized the Chinese version translated by a famous scholar, which was the better one I had picked out of several translations. When I went to the city by the sea, I took it with me and gained a certain amount, and the familiarity with the Chinese version made it much easier for me to memorize the original German text.

In fact, during the whole day and night class reunion, whenever everyone was together, I was always worried about one thing, that is, whether the class president would tell the story of me and Hai Linlin. Although he didn't know what happened between me and her, he knew that I was so attentive to Hai Linlin when he graduated, and now, Hai Linlin and I have gone through the baptism of time and life, sitting at the same table to eat. Logically normal, he would have asked, or at least mentioned. But like the empathy and clarity of his schooling days, he never mentioned a single word, as if it had never happened in his life. And Hai Linlin's best friend often looked at me with a strange look, and when my eyes met the look, she quickly looked away and continued to discuss a topic of interest to Hai Linlin.

The party ended after a sumptuous dinner, and the whole party class leader alone bears 25% of the expenses, and the rest of the students who participated in the party share 300 yuan each. The squad leader will stay in the city for another night, and I will stay in a room with him on the plane back the next morning. When it was just the two of us, I wished he had asked me and Hai Linlin about the story, and he already knew what was going on. And until then, I had never told anyone the story between me and Helenlin, sometimes I felt the need to confide in me to make myself more comfortable, and sometimes I felt that I had to keep it a secret, because it was a failure, and there was always a little bit of shame on me because I made the mistake of being shy because I was young. There were a few times when I almost confided in Yingxiu and Qiupei in the seaside city, telling them distant stories that had happened to me, but in the end I didn't tell them, and when the desire to talk was completely gone, I felt deeply glad that I couldn't say it in the end. For the class leader, he had a certain role in facilitating the initial occurrence of this incident, and I wanted to tell him the story of me and Hai Linlin more than ever, and I needed a point that led me to speak—that is, he took the initiative to ask me, and then I took the initiative to answer him. If he doesn't ask, if I take the initiative to talk about it, it will always seem that I am a little unbreathable and abrupt, and I am afraid that he will laugh at the person who has been established for a long time, and he is still depressed about his children's private affairs. He is married, has a two-year-old child, and naturally has a different view of love and marriage than I do. In the end, he didn't ask, until the next morning he got up to catch a flight, and I thought the desire to say to him was completely gone, and I was glad he didn't ask, and I didn't say.