Chapter 4 (46) (I)

It is said that hundreds of years ago, there was a fallen emperor who fled from the north in the turmoil, and ran here, and then received the good news that the rebellion had been quelled in this place, so he happily went back to be his emperor, and since then, "Huilong" has become the name of this place. Of course, this is just a folk legend. According to the research of the local cultural center, the word "Huilong" is just a fallacy of the ancient Wu sound "Guo family", in history, since the Southern Song Dynasty, this neighborhood has always been the gathering place of the Guo family, in the west of the town, there is still an ancestral hall of the Guo surname clan, after the war and several movements after the liberation, the incense is still not broken, and it is more and more prosperous after the reform and opening up; Two years ago, a Kwok clan in Indonesia made a special trip back to recognize their ancestors and raised funds to renovate the ancestral hall.

But the incense in the ancestral hall all day long did not bring more benefits to Huilong Town. Since the opening of the high-grade highway connecting the county town and downtown Shanghai a few years ago, the old highway that runs through the town is no longer the busy scene of the past, and Huilong Town has gradually lost its beautiful face and fresh breath in the past.

Nowadays, walking on the only street in the town, that is, the old man's road, people can still see the traces left by the prosperous season in the past: the highway is lined with high and low shops and restaurants, and their façade extending to the road still stubbornly occupies the space of the road; All kinds of signboards and banners can be seen everywhere, but most of them have been covered with dust, some of them have been defected, leaving only the words "drunken fragrant rice" or "Zi Restaurant", and a closed door of the shop with a roller shutter door still holding a banner high, but the black strip of cloth cannot make out the background color at all, let alone distinguish the original content. Many of the shops that are still open show no signs of opening, and there are no busy people in sight, and the glass cabinets in the doorways are empty, and the white gauze used to keep mosquitoes and flies out is a disgusting black and yellow; Although there were people sitting at the doors, they did not look like they were doing business, but more like they were enjoying the shade, and three or five mothers-in-law and aunts gathered together, busy with the odds and pieces at hand, and at the same time there were no words to say; Not far away, a man rolled up his vest high, arched his sweaty belly, and lay on a bamboo chair to snort loudly; Some restaurants don't even open, and the roller shutters have long lost their metallic luster and are only covered with a thick layer of earth. From time to time, cars would whizz across the highway that barely allowed two trucks to run side by side, rolling up clouds of gray dust on the road that had already been crushed with cracks and potholes, and all sorts of indescribable garbage flew along with the dust. Beyond the tiled roofs on both sides of the road, you can see that most of the buildings near and far are tiled houses of the same color and style, and these unplanned houses are tightly packed together one after another, looking chaotic and dilapidated, like the sunset on the horizon. High and low TV antennas stand on the roofs of every house. In this tile gray, there are also many small double-storey western-style buildings with white walls. Across the Huilong Bridge, which divides the town into two, there are more double-storey western-style buildings on the east side of the town, and the white of the walls is brighter. There are also several taller and more eye-catching buildings. The town government office building is one of the town's most iconic buildings, and perhaps some district government buildings in Shanghai can't compare to it in terms of grandeur. The Huilong Town Center School, diagonally opposite the town hall, is much less impressive, but the school has the only four-story building in the town, which barely makes people feel a little relieved that the children's education has not been neglected. Further east, there is a circle of five or six three-story buildings at the entrance of the town; They all belong to a secondary college, and the hundreds of students there are by far the most stable consumer groups in the town, keeping the town afloat until it finds a new and reliable way out.

In the evening, a dusty bus waddles into town from the direction of the city.

As soon as the residents of the town saw the bus, they knew that it was time for CCTV to broadcast the news broadcast. This bus line connecting six or seven towns along the way between the county and downtown Shanghai runs every three hours, and the last train from the direction of the city arrives in the town at about seven o'clock in the evening, sometimes earlier, sometimes later, but as long as the road conditions are normal, the time it reaches will not be too outrageous, so many dolls who have no concept of time take it as a standard, and when they see the bus, they greet each other and go home, one by one, they can generally have dinner immediately, if they go back late, If you don't have a hot meal, you might even get a beating......

The bus stopped at the entrance of the secondary school, and down came a young man, a young man we had just met in Wuhan a few days ago.

On this evening when the sky was full of sunset, the dusty Zhang Chi dragged his tired legs back to the League B club where he is now playing.

At the moment, he didn't seem to believe that he had returned, and he was still standing on the side of the road with his travel bag, staring at the lush French plane tree on the side of the road with a trance-like expression.

Always coming back.

A sour taste came over him, and he lowered his head in pain.

It was here that he had boarded a bus to the city four weeks earlier and set out on a journey to find a way out for himself, and although he had expected the journey to be full of twists and turns, he still had at least some hope in his heart; But twenty-eight days and nights later, he returned empty-handed. The travel and fatigue along the way, the time and money paid, in the end, only reaped deep disappointment again and again. No! For him, "disappointment" is no longer an apt description of his current mood, or "despair" is more appropriate......

He swallowed a mouthful of dusty saliva with difficulty, so that his burning throat would feel better. For a moment, his psyche refused to even admit that he had returned, and at the same time refused to admit that he had failed. If there was a stool beside him at this time, he would definitely sit on it without hesitation. In fact, he felt that his two legs could not support his body at all. It's just that he still has a little sobriety, knowing that he can't do it in broad daylight, so he can still stand tenaciously. But he no longer had the strength to move his feet.

You should have known it would end like this! He said with a sneer to himself inwardly, mocking his weakness mercilessly.

A small white car pulled out of the school and stopped next to him, and a man poked his head out to greet him.

This is a teammate who shares his dormitory, about the same age as him, and because both of them are "redundant" people in the team, they are more speculative when they talk, so they have a good relationship.

After two or three ordinary greetings, the teammate asked bluntly, "How's it going?" ”

Zhang Chi shook his head with his lips pursed. The news that he is going to get out of the team is a completely public thing, and everyone knows what he is going to do for a month, he doesn't need to hide anything, and he doesn't need to use lies to protect his face, anyway, if he doesn't leave for a day, it means that he hasn't found a new owner, of course, even if he leaves, it doesn't mean that there is a place to take him in......

The teammate grinned, took out a cigarette from his shirt pocket, handed him one, and said, "Have you made up your mind about what I told you last time?" ”

"I'll think again." Zhang Chi said. He leaned over his teammate's lighter and lit a cigarette cigarette, glancing at the car. There was also a teammate in the back seat, but he had had a few minor fights with the guy and had a fight, so the two of them looked at each other coldly like strangers.

The teammate said, "Hurry up and make a decision!" I've called a few times over there, and seeing that the registration deadline for the second division is approaching, people can't keep waiting, and if you don't want to go, I have to give them a reply and say that this matter is over. ”

"I'll give you permission tomorrow and the day after tomorrow." Zhang Chi perfunctory his teammates. The deadline for entries for the second division is just a week after the summer transfer market closes, and teammates are now just babbling around. And he doesn't want to play in the second division. As Gao Jinsong said, the second division league is intensive, and clubs usually do not care about the players' bodies in order to promote, and they are easy to get injured. He had to think more about his future; So he won't consider a second division club until he has to. But he couldn't block the road right away, so he changed the subject, "Where are you going now?" As he spoke, he straightened up and looked into the school gate, and asked, "Just the two of you?" ”

"Go into town to eat, and go dancing after eating." He squeezed his eyes at Zhang Chi. "This round is an away game, and the team drove to Yanbian the day before yesterday, leaving a few brothers to take care of the house. Those guys ran away early yesterday morning, and they haven't seen anyone yet. Lao Liao and I wanted to play cards to kill time, but we couldn't get enough people, so we had to find two girls to go into the city for a walk. The teammate hesitated for a moment and asked him, "Are you going?" If you want to go, I'll find you another girl. ”

"I'll forget it. One by one, I just got off the plane and sat in the car for half a day, and I was so tired that I didn't want to move, so let's go play. Zhang Chi smiled and declined the kindness of his teammates. From the position where the two of them were sitting in the car, he knew that the two girls in his teammates' mouths must be female students from a secondary school, because he was afraid of classmates talking and school punishment, the two female students must be waiting for them somewhere in front. He asked, "Then who is in charge at home?" ”

"Mr. Xia, but I'm not at home now, I went into the city to do errands in the morning. And Hou Jingye, that old bastard! As he spoke, his teammate flexed his middle finger and flicked most of the remaining cigarette rolls towards a pile of garbage on the side of the road, but unfortunately he didn't have his head, and the cigarette rolls flew crookedly to the side.

The teammate muttered a foul word, then turned his face back and asked him, "Are you really not going?" ”

"Nope."

Seeing his teammates' cars leave, Zhang Chi walked into the school.