I woke up to the morning sun and began to let myself forget about last night, I just had to remember the moment of the event and know that I had experienced something of great significance. I got up to clean up and I received an interview call from a large company three days ago, and I really liked this opportunity, which was one of the few times that I was invited to interview for a position in a company that had nothing to do with painting. When I stood in front of the mirror with my newly bought razor to shave, I realized that I had forgotten to cut my hair, and my hair was unkempt on my head. I knew that such a company didn't like interviewees with this look at all, but it was completely too late to go out and get a haircut again, and I gave up on the idea of rejuvenating myself, didn't shave, and maintained the same casual and messy temperament as before. I tried to be as good and perfect as I could in everything else, I borrowed some money from Zi Ye again and bought myself a neat suit, with a shirt collar as white as snow. I put my resume in a document bag, and when I went out, I folded it back and filled it with three of my better drawings, which might be somewhat useful.

My resume was filled out truthfully, without the slightest hint of falsehood, and I wrote all the occupations I had worked in, including fishing and crab wearing. At the beginning, a resume was simple and straightforward, with only one page; But in the end, considering that I was applying for a job that required some manual labor, it was a good idea to write about the jobs I had previously found in the labor market. By the time the decision was made, the resume was three pages long, but it was well organized and meritorious. There were three interviewers that day, and I interviewed fifteen people, and I didn't think that the competition for this kind of job would be fierce, but I didn't expect that only three of the fifteen people who passed the interview that day. When I found out about the results, I was very glad that some of the people I was competing with had been doing such jobs before, that I could squeeze them down and make me look up to myself.

The interview process was formal and rigorous, but I was the only one wearing a formal attire, which looked out of place among the other casual interviewees. Each interview lasts only ten minutes, and after the previous interviewer, a middle-aged man with glasses will open the door and poke his head out to call out to the next interviewee. I was in seventh place, everything was going well, there was no stumbling in the stumble, my work experience they were indifferent and seemed to only care about whether I was able-bodied or not. Because I often have to work outdoors, the salary is a little higher than the average salary in this city. After working for one year, you can apply for regularization and pay insurance. But in the end, I learned from the old employees that no one in our position can be turned into a regular within a year, and the fastest is three years.

At the end of the interview, I turned a corner from the corridor and walked towards the elevator in the corridor, the corridor of the office building was empty, there was no sound at all, and it was as empty as late at night. Facing the light shining in from the window at the end of the hallway, I remembered the backlight that my eyes came into contact with when I met Hai Linlin at the graduation exhibition, as if it had just passed yesterday - clear and real. I seemed to see her walking against the light, and unlike that night, there was a sound of her high heels hitting the ground, at first I thought it was the sound of my leather shoes, but it was not the sound of my leather soles stepping on the floor tiles. I believed that everything was just a memory, but when I was about to reach the elevator, because the phantom produced by the memory was still there, and it was gradually approaching, and the smell of shampoo that I couldn't get rid of since a few years ago gradually became stronger, I realized that all this was not an illusion, but a fact.

It was a real person, and the figure and walking pace were exactly the same as Hai Linlin's, which made me mistakenly think that I was just hallucinating, especially the smell of shampoo made me even more difficult to restrain myself, and my nervous palms were sweaty and trembling slightly. I arrived at the elevator button more than a second before her, but I was afraid that she would see my trembling hands, so I didn't dare to reach out and press the elevator button, nor did I dare to look up at her. She leaned slightly towards me and reached down the button to press the downstairs button. The feeling and the afterglow told me that she didn't look at me. I sneaked a look at her side face, and everything was the same as when she had her graduation exhibition a few years ago, the same hairstyle, the same figure, the same smell. I have painted portraits of her, and my sensitivity to facial features and professional habits allow me to distinguish them clearly and perfectly in the slightest moment, just by sneaking a glimpse.

At that moment, I deeply felt the impermanence of fate, there were too many coincidences in the world, and I thought that seeing her back through the ventilation window of the corridor when I left school would be the last time I saw her in my life. I consoled myself with the fact that I had just recognized the wrong person, and I knew someone in the Black Dance Hall who was very similar to Hai Linlin, and there were so many similar people in the world. I turned my back to her slightly until the elevator doors opened, and I wanted to slip away, but that would make her pay too much attention to me. I didn't let her, stepped into the elevator first, pretending to look at the corporate display board on the elevator wall, with my back to her. The enclosed space made the smell of her shampoo even stronger, and she stood at the elevator doorway with our backs to back. I turned around again and pretended to be natural, facing the elevator door and seeing her back.

At that moment, I knew that there was no room for any doubt, she was Hai Linlin, and she had not changed anything. I felt like the years after graduation were disappearing on the time axis of my life, as if time had crossed over directly from the time I left school to the present. The surprise and excitement made me feel even more frightened and helpless, and I felt like I was left with nothing but a shell. My eyes were on her back, her hair hanging down to her back, the smell of shampoo attacking my fragile psychological defenses again and again, and my hands clutching a folder on my chest, just like the same temperament she exuded when she held a book in the library five years ago. I was afraid that she would recognize me, so I didn't dare to take a breath, and stood like a sculpture, standing still. The most terrible thing was that my heart beat faster and worse, and I was sure that I could hear the thump and thump, and there seemed to be an echo in the closed and quiet elevator, and she must be able to hear it. But I overlooked an important issue that I didn't realize until a long time later, the stainless steel doors of the elevator were faintly reflective of her face, and I could vaguely see her looking at me through the reflection of stainless steel. This discovery frightened me even more, and I consoled myself that after a long time, the reflection of the stainless steel door was more blurred; What's more, my image at this time has changed a lot from when I graduated, at that time, I always had the same short hair, shaved every day, and had an orthodox and well-behaved appearance, and I believe that I will always be like this in her impression. I also believed that I was now protected by my long, tousled hair, and the moustache around my mouth, which she might feel familiar in the blurry image reflected off the stainless steel door, but never recognizable, never dreaming that the man who had made her feel insulted so long ago stood behind her, in the projection of the elevator door in front of her. At that moment, I was just praying that she wouldn't turn her head away because it felt familiar. The elevator only ran eleven floors, but I think it was the longest I've ever been in an elevator of my life. Until the first floor, the elevator door opened, and she calmly stepped out of the elevator door and turned right.

I quickly fled the entire company campus, and in a daze, I was almost hit by a car at the intersection. After leaving the company park, I walked for more than three hours in one breath, as if I had just woken up from a dream, and needed to make sure that I was indeed not dreaming, but experiencing a fact that had been laid out in front of me. I sat by the moat until sunset, I didn't feel hungry, my heart beat was back to normal, my mind was calm, and I could start to analyze and judge things with normal logical thinking. I found that there are too many questions waiting for me to analyze clearly. Why is she in this company, he is wearing the company's overalls, and he is obviously an employee of the company; Her dream since she was a child was to be a successful painter, and this company obviously has nothing to do with painting; When she graduated, she learned a foreign language and said that she had the opportunity to study abroad, but whether she had it; When did she return to the city, or, she never left the city; The most important thing is whether she recognized me or not.

My fear and helplessness had vanished, and I was surprised by the glimmer of joy and anticipation. I thought I had made the decision to never see her again years ago, I believed that I would never see her again, and my story with her ended on the morning when I almost froze to death, and from the moment I saw the letter she was tucked between the book, I convinced myself that all the light had been extinguished, and only the embers remained. But seeing her again made me feel like I was resurrected, which I never expected, and while I deeply blamed myself for being spineless and principled, I also deeply felt that God had taken care of me.

She was wearing a company uniform and was undoubtedly working for the company I was applying for. I was afraid to see her again, and I wanted to observe her in the dark, so I stayed up all night, wondering whether I should work at that company or not, until the dawn flashed and the idea of going to work for that company prevailed. This determination stems from the fact that I have finally figured out a question that has plagued me for a long time—whether I like or fear her, and the most fundamental fact is that I am afraid of her because I like her, and this fear has kept me constrained and suspicious at school. Like a philosopher, I think and explain the basic philosophy of this matter, that she and I should be two separate individuals in spirit and personality, rather than a whole connected by likes and fears, each with its own life and choices. If my appearance influenced my decision about my life because of her appearance, then the life I had lived after graduation and the courage I had accumulated from life would be of no use, and my life would be five years less. With a renewed confidence in life washed away from fear and worry, I was determined to leave the past behind and face a new life.