Along with the resignation, there was also Yingxiu's phone call. At 3:30 a.m. that day, I had just survived the hottest hour and was falling asleep soundly when Yingxiu's phone call woke me up. Ignoring the fact that the wee hours of the morning were not a good time to make a phone call, his voice was loud on the phone, as if he were giving a speech.

"Yu Qi." He said: "I'm getting my stuff ready to pick me up at the airport at 12 o'clock at noon." ”

I felt that everything was too sudden and asked him if he was coming back.

"Yes." He said, "I'm going to get out of this rotten place." ”

No more superfluous words.

Almost all the people at the exit of the airport were carrying a big bag or pulling a suitcase, Yingxiu only carried a crossbody bag, and his thin figure stood out in the crowd, so I recognized him at a glance and waved to him. He complained that it was so hot everywhere he went, and then asked me to take him to where I lived, he just wanted to get a good night's sleep. He slept from two o'clock in the afternoon until twelve o'clock the next day, lying motionless in my bed, and at night I had to pull the mattress out and sleep outside.

Nearly a day and a night of sleep made him feel much better, and we told each other about how each other had been for almost a year. He was silent about his situation in the last year, including why he had left the city. As for the reason why he chose to return to the city as well, his answer was that he had been out for too long and wanted to work in a city close to home. He disposed of almost everything he had in that city, computers, hard drives, books, bank cards, change in a shoebox, and even the electric piano I gave him for a low price of 900 yuan. The crossbody bag he was carrying contained only a T-shirt, a pair of shorts, a pair of socks, and a phone charger.

He had only seventy-one dollars left on him when he bought the plane ticket, and I helped him by lending him the money I had done when I had gone to him. He quickly showed his talents and hobbies, was curious about the city, and at first asked me to take him out to play, and then he took me out to play, and he quickly became familiar with almost all the places in the city. Although I studied in the city for four years and worked for more than a year, I was not as good as him for a month. Nothing has changed, his personality is as good as ever, his memory is still surprisingly good, and the unfamiliar numbers on the billboard are unforgettable. Aware of his current financial constraints, he no longer flatters girls, but he still finds a hidden place in the city frequented by flower seekers.

None of us have jobs, and the money I saved as a teacher is about to be squandered by us. This also made me go back to my previous attitude towards life, and the dream of having to do something when I was a painting teacher disappeared. I asked Yingxiu if this was depravity and self-destruction.

"You'll find out when you get a new job." "Everything is not what you think," he said. ”

We all started to look for jobs, Yingxiu has a lot of work experience, and has been a leader, and the interview invitations are one after another. And because I wanted to completely abandon my painting-related work, I always submitted my resume and did not receive an interview invitation. He was hired to work in a traditional food store as an information worker, responsible for all electronic and system-related work. I struggled to find a job, so I eventually relented to reality and went back to art classes to teach the children how to draw.

I've always believed that Yingxiu has a bigger goal in mind, and that working in this traditional pastry shop is only forced by life. When he first returned to the city, he had to start from scratch, and he had applied for two better positions, with enough pay to make him live a well-off life in the city. But both interviews failed because of one question. He always refuses to answer one question asked by the interviewer about why he left his last job. I asked him this question when he had just returned from the beach, but he kept it silent, wondering if his silent heart had been enchanted, whether he had seen in that city something he would never recall—or a mystery that he would never forget. I never knew why he left the city, only that he had learned to smoke when he left.

But his ability to work is unquestionable, and he does the work of a traditional pastry shop with ease, in the words of the boss, as if he was born to work for it. But over time, the problems that he used to make in his work also followed, praise and reward, reward and punishment often almost went hand in hand. But he didn't mind. He once watched me teach the children in my classroom, and during recess he said that I had changed back to the way I used to be, and I kept telling him to treat life and work correctly, and to work hard to live a better life.

"You're going back again." "Even though you're teaching painting, you look like a scholar again," he said. ”

"Life shouldn't be like you." I said, "Maybe you should stop looking for dew and marry a daughter-in-law to take care of you." ”

I have been working in the second palace of the painting training class until the beginning of the next spring, and I will leave the year again. That spring, I don't know how many times I secretly decided that I must find a job that I can do with peace of mind for the rest of my life. But it backfired, and the dream always floated in the air, swaying, and drifting far away every time, as if it wasn't that I couldn't achieve my determination, but that the goal I was determined to refer to was always going to leave me.

Once again, I was forced by life to enter the Oshiyama Cultural Research Center, which was the only company that had nothing to do with painting and art and sent me an interview invitation after receiving my resume. I didn't have much hope, I just wanted to go through the motions. With a certain fluke mentality, I hope that the salary and benefits can make me feel at ease and continue to do it. But there was nothing that attracted me to the so-called research center, the only thing being that it was my first time doing formal work that had nothing to do with painting – fishing and crab wearing should not be counted. Curiosity was also a big part of what kept me there.

The day before I received Boss Feng's suicide, Yingxiu and I went to the Black Dance Hall. The next day, two policemen told me that Boss Feng had committed suicide, and a few days later I fulfilled my promise to resign from the Fufu Mountain Cultural Research Center.

The dancer who resembled Helenlin reminded me of the past, and as I waited for her at the door of the Black Ballroom one night, I calculated in my mind how much time had slipped away from me since the last time I saw her. At first I always thought of her, and then I thought of her occasionally, and then I thought of her often, intermittently, over and over again, and the shadow of my memory was like a pendulum. And in the same city, seeing a woman who resembles her makes the memory of the passing even more unbearable, as if everything is predestined.

During that time, I continued to learn German every day, and with the promise I made to Boss Feng, I began to read and recite the original German text of "Faust" with the help of my German teacher, which was very difficult, stumbling, and made me almost give up. My German teacher always encouraged me to persevere, and in order to give me confidence, she took the time to memorize the Preface chapter and showed me in person that she had memorized it accurately. The German teacher is thirty-five years old and has spent five years in Germany. I got the school to adjust my curriculum so that I could study both day and night. At night, I often go to the door of the black dance hall to wait for the dancer who looks like Hai Linlin. Sometimes I saw her, sometimes I was disappointed, and one day, I saw her pass by and into the darkness of the Black Dance Hall. I sat on a bench under the maple tree across the street, looking at the ticket seller at the door of the Black Dance Hall in the warm summer evening breeze, and thought to myself the question - why should I come to see her?

In that city by the sea, I thought I was gradually filling in the death hole that Hai Linlin had left in my life, and many times, I saw that victory was within reach. Sometimes, I can't even think of her for most of the day, and although I still have a reluctance to remember it, I believe that things have been moving for the best. The combination of the dancing girl who resembles Hai Linlin, and the unique flavor of the city, has made all my previous efforts go to waste. Many times, when I went back from the door of the ballroom to sleep at night, I dreamed of Helen Linlin, not the dancing girl, and the dream was always the same, like the same movie playing on a loop. I dreamed of helping her pick up a painting at the graduation exhibition, and when I took the painting off the wall and turned around and handed it to her, she was gone, and I was the only one left standing on the table holding the painting in the whole exhibition venue, like a lonely sailboat floating on the sea.

I knew that drinking to quench my thirst was never the best policy, and I needed to restrain my desire to see the dancer, but the unwillingness to the past would always shatter this restraint impact, and I was driven by myself to go to the door of the black dance hall again and again. That's when I really knew why I wanted to see her all the time. The chasm that was about to be filled in my heart was just an illusion, and the deepest truth buried in it had been waiting to be rushed. I always sought to forget, but the dancer made me forget to forget, knowing that memories were so appealing, and I kept going to see her for a simple reason - just to make the memories more real.

On a night after a rainstorm, the air was humid, pedestrians were rushing, the yellow striped blind roads were soaked in water, and cars drove by splashing stars. I saw the dancer walk into the ballroom at the door of the ballroom, and I followed her and bought a ticket at the door for ten yuan, entering the black ballroom alone for the first time - to make the memory more real.

I ignored the staff who had followed me all the way to the drink, and sat in the non-consumer area, looking for her. She was as always a casting from the same mold, and she wore the same clothes every time she came to the Black Dance Hall. A lot of dancers dress scantily for business, but she always wears a pair of skinny jeans and a white skinny T-shirt. The last thing other dancers do in the ballroom is to change their clothes, and she wears the same clothes inside the ballroom as she does outside. That night, her business was good, except for a few songs that were not brought onto the dance floor. As I left the ballroom, I followed her to the bus stop and boarded the last bus with her, and there were only seven of us on board. The bus made nine stops, made four turns, and waited for five traffic lights. I got off the train with her at a station with a strange name, and when I got off, the driver was the only one on the bus, the streets were deserted, and the streets had dried out after the rain. I followed her with my hands in my trouser pockets, and twice she looked behind me, and I pretended not to let her be suspicious—she didn't. I walked with her into an urban village, which was very noisy and noisy, in stark contrast to the street outside. She turned three corners, and I walked three hundred and fifty-seven steps, and saw her open a red iron door with an electronic lock, and as the red iron door closed slowly and automatically, I saw her walking upstairs in the light of the voice-activated light.