After finishing the call with Yu Xin, I sat down on a bench in front of the office building, but I never put my phone back in my pocket, and Yu Xin sent Qiu Zi'an's contact information via WeChat a moment later.

I held my phone tighter, and then I scanned everything around me, I knew my heart, but I had to do something I didn't like.

The night came quietly, making me even more unrecognizable in the direction of the city, its prosperity is far better than Nanjing, and I am just a man who is a little sensitive in it, I care about the lights and windows floating in the distance, I always feel that there will be many happy people there, and I am lost, I am a person who has been swallowed and dissolved by modern civilization, and I am more like a drunk floating on the street in the early morning. I hate that feeling.

I bent down and tightened my shoelaces, then looked at my phone and stored Qiu Zi'an's mobile phone number in my phone book. I smoked a cigarette and used the time to think about a lot of things before I dialed the phone.

As I thought, not long after dialing, the phone was answered by Qiu Zi'an, and he asked me on the other end, "Hello, who are you?" ”

"I, Jiang Qiao."

Qiu Zi'an was silent for ten seconds before he replied with a smile: "I'm really surprised, because in my consciousness, we are already two people who can't intersect, but now you are calling me!" ”

"That's what I think, too, but fate is sometimes so unreasonable, because there's something I have to ask you for help with."

"It's hard for me to imagine how much more I can do to help you."

I let out a breath that felt hard to speak......

He asked me again, "Are you in Nanjing now?" ”

"In Beijing, what I want your help to do is caused in Beijing."

Qiu Zi'an was a little surprised that I was in Beijing, and he replied: "I'm also in Beijing, if you are really sincere, don't you mind inviting me to dinner, right?" ”

"Don't mind, you can choose the place to eat, I'll go over now."

Qiu Zi'an thought for a while and replied: "The redwood tree hot pot restaurant on Gulou East Street. ”

Hanging up the phone, I tucked my collar, and then a picture appeared in my brain: it is difficult to describe what kind of sense of touch, from the frozen lake of Shichahai, the old record and clothing stores on Gulou East Street, or the lonely vermilion in the gray and cold buildings of the East Forty Strips, there is a cold feeling of the north wind...... And those real and imaginary imaginations are all about the texture of an era......

Before I went to meet Qiu Zi'an, I seemed to be gradually getting used to the city, whether it felt light or heavy. So, I quickly found the subway line to Gulou East Street, and then followed a group of office workers who were busy running around the city to go to the place where I needed to go.

……

Moments after I arrived, Qiu Zi'an arrived as promised, parked his car in a nearby parking lot, and walked to the hot pot restaurant, where we met face-to-face for the first time in more than a year in his own city. And the first time we met in our lives, it was in my city, and what he wanted to find was the woman I loved, but now this woman has nothing to do with us, which is somewhat embarrassing. So, he will definitely talk to me about Chen Yi......

After sitting down, I glanced at this hot pot restaurant, the decoration is very old, and the consumption level is also very low, it is hard to imagine that a person of Qiu Zi'an's status would choose to eat here.

Qiu Zi'an took the initiative to pour me a cup of hot tea, and then said to me: "I remember that you have a habit of smoking, if you want to smoke, you can smoke, this hot pot restaurant does not smoke." ”

"I don't smoke anymore."

Qiu Zi'an nodded, and then looked around the hot pot restaurant as I did when I first came, and in the process, I took the initiative to say to him: "I heard that you and Le Yao are shareholders of the same media company, you should have a little friendship with her, right?" ”

Qiu Zi'an looked at me and replied, "I can't talk about too deep friendships, but it's still possible to make an appointment to have a meal together." After a pause, he asked, "That's what you're asking me to help you with?" ”

"Hmm...... I got into a little trouble in Beijing, Cao Yang and Zhao Zhongming are both people in your circle, you should know ...... Last night, they took Xiao Ai out to dinner, and then I went to find them, and also started with Cao Yang, Cao Yang let go after this, to make Xiao Ai can't mix in this circle, I think about it, this matter can't be left alone, and I don't want to affect Xiao Ai's future in this industry because of my impulsiveness, so I want to find someone who can talk and mediate from it. ”

Qiu Zi'an nodded after listening, and he replied: "It's right for you to look for Le Yao in this matter, because Cao Jinfei favors her, so she has a lot of weight in talking in the Cao family." ”

"So can you help with this?"

Qiu Zi'an replied without much hesitation: "If you just want me to help you and Le Yao pull a line, then for me, this is a very small matter, so I will definitely help with this effort." But if you want me to help you settle Cao Yang, then I can't help it, because people won't necessarily give me this face. ”

I looked at Qiu Zi'an, and suddenly felt that it was very easy to talk to this kind of person who was particularly clear about the relationship between interests. So, I nodded and said to him, "You just need to help me contact Le Yao and make an appointment to come out for dinner, and I'll take care of the rest myself." ”

Qiu Zi'an said "no problem", then took out his mobile phone from the bag he was carrying, and made a call directly to Le Yao, and after a while, he covered the microphone of the phone and asked me, "When do you want to eat and where do you want to eat?" ”

I thought for a moment and replied, "At the Metropark Hotel where I'm staying now, of course, the sooner the time to eat, the better." ”

Qiu Zi'an nodded, then smiled and said to Le Yao on the other end of the phone: "Then tomorrow at half past eleven noon, Metropark Hotel will have lunch, okay?" ”

I don't know how the other end of the phone answered, but when Qiu Zi'an said "see you tomorrow", I knew that he had done it for me, and I said "thank you" to him for the first time in my life.

He sighed softly, and then looked at the plane tree outside the window a little intently, and I followed him, but I felt that everything in front of me had a little familiarity, and I couldn't say how this intimacy came about.

After a while, Qiu Zi'an finally spoke to me and said, "Do you know why I asked you to come here for dinner?" ”

"I thought about this question just now, but I couldn't figure it out, and I think what can be explained may not be feelings, or it carries your memories of a certain period."

Qiu Zi'an nodded, and then his face showed pain, which made me think that he might need cigarettes more than me, so I put the cigarettes I carried with me on the table, but for a person who does not touch cigarettes, cigarettes do not solve any pain.

After a while, he said to me again: "Today is the 427th day of Chen Yi's marriage, and it is also the 427th day that I have lived with pain......

The pain of love is real, so Qiu Zi'an, who has always made me feel hypocritical, has also become real at this moment, I know that he still has something to say, and there must be memories of him and Chen Yi here.

He looked out the window again, and I happened to see his sideburns, which already had a few white hairs, and I don't know if this was due to the pressure of work or the trauma of love.

He actually took a cigarette from my cigarette case and lit it, and after taking a puff of it not very skillfully, he said to me: "The memory of this hot pot restaurant happened in the winter of our sophomore year, we went to the Central Academy of Drama to do activities together, and after the activities, the two of us looked for a place to eat nearby. Chen Yi was fascinated by this place at a glance, she said, she likes the plane tree in front of this hot pot restaurant very much, and there is a very Nanjing feeling......" Speaking of this, he smiled bitterly, and then said: "I didn't know until a long time later that he didn't think about Nanjing, but about you...... In the past few years of our relationship, she thinks about you the most, so every time she comes here for dinner, the topic she talks to me the most is your past, and I am just a listener, but I am willing to listen because I love her very much and remember the name Jiangqiao...... Ironically, in the end, she didn't marry you or me...... And I still haven't figured out if I'm in love with her or the kind of feeling I'll never get...... It really hurts me! ”

I looked at him, and then I looked out the window, and I finally knew why I had become familiar with this city in such a short time, because there was a woman who had thought about me a thousand times in this city, and it was probably not the city that made me feel relatable, but she who had lived in this city for four years. My heart was aching, and I didn't want to think of a few years ago, when she and Qiu Zi'an were sitting somewhere in this hot pot restaurant, but they talked about me.

I lit a cigarette after Qiu Zi'an, and then fell into a complicated silence. I even forgot who I met with Qiu Zi'an, a person who would never have crossed paths, today. And he seems to be proud of his career, but I am afraid that he has degenerated into a person who has insomnia at night for a love that he can't get......

After a while, he put out the half-smoked cigarette in his ashtray and said to me: "After attending her wedding and returning to Beijing, I became seriously ill, and I lay in the hospital for a week, and during this week, I thought about everything I could. I think that the most regrettable thing in a person's life is that he has not been able to live with the person he loves for a lifetime, and the so-called fame and fortune are really not worth mentioning in the face of this regret...... It's just that I don't know, if I hadn't insisted on choosing to start a business in Beijing back then, would she have stayed by my side because she pitied me for my deep affection for her? ......" Speaking of this, Qiu Zi'an's eyes were a little moist, and he continued: "In this life, I haven't been able to love her in the right way, and even in order to get her, I didn't hesitate to do things that damaged her career, thinking that she would return to me because of her despair, but I really don't know her well...... But believe it or not, if she is willing to divorce now, I, Qiu Zi'an, are still willing to marry her, and I am still the man who loves her the most! ”

At this moment, the tight string in my heart seemed to be torn off, it turned out that Qiu Zi'an, who seemed to be full of scheming, was a man with deep affection, and I didn't mention it, because I was never the man who loved Chen Yi the most!

Back then, I took the train to Beijing alone to see Chen Yi, I'm afraid it was only me who moved, Chen Yi was not with me, no matter how you look at it, it's a kind of luck, because I have never been as firm to her as Qiu Zi'an. Although, at first, I thought I had given up on her in order to fulfill her. However, as Qiu Zi'an said, if you can't even keep the premise of being with the person you love for a lifetime, what can you talk about?

I'm sorry for Chen Yi, and I failed her!

……

This night, I returned to the hotel as if I had changed as a different person, and stood alone at the door of Xiao Ai's room for a long time, but did not knock on her door......

During this long process, I received a call from Qiao Ye, who came to Beijing one night earlier, and after he asked me which hotel I was staying in, he came non-stop. He said he was also experiencing a lot of confusion and wanted to talk to me.

He came just in time because I would bring a beer, take him to the rooftop of the hotel, and talk to him about all these years and the women who have appeared over the years. I think that's what he's going to talk to me about!

Now, we seem to be free and easy, but we can't live like Qiu Zi'an at all, because we have never been truly firm, or in other words, our firmness only comes from ourselves, not from love!

……

At ten o'clock, Qiao Ye came to the hotel, I invited him to the restaurant for a supper, and then went to the rooftop with the unfinished beer, and I told him everything that had happened in Beijing in the past few days. He was still very righteous, and said that he would join me tomorrow and invite Le Yao to dinner, and then go to meet the gentleman named Cao Yang together.

Then we fell into silence again, but the wind of the night blew us more and more awake. I don't know what Qiao Ye thinks, but I want to forgive everything that can be forgiven on such a night...... At the same time, I also saw a sick self, and Qiu Zi'an, a man who used to hate me, has become a mirror today, allowing me to look at myself inside and out. Although I'm not sure if this will have an impact on my future, it does make me understand...... What is the true meaning of love?