"What if there is a tomorrow? How do you want to dress your face? If there is no tomorrow? How do you say goodbye? ”

She often had the feeling that this song was the last piece of music that flashed through her mind at 10 o'clock in the evening on June 19, 1995, when she declared that her teacher had become a ghost after being killed.

December 21, 2012.

The end of the world in the Mayan calendar.

Late at night, on the top floor of the 30th floor, you can overlook the small half of the city, and the air outside the window is close to freezing. The boy's copycat mobile phone rang "If there is still tomorrow", but it is no longer the original song from 1990, but a mixed version of Xin and Xue Yue. Twig sat cross-legged on the windowsill, the heat in his mouth constantly clattering on the glass, turning into a blurry white shadow. He poked his finger at the white shadow, first drawing the shape of a cat's eyes, and then putting a pair of glasses on the cat.

"Si Wang, don't be naughty!"

She poured another cloud of white air on the glass, and devoured the kitten in the blink of an eye.

"I'm affirming."

"Tonight, I asked you to come here, and it has nothing to do with the declaration."

This is Ouyang Xiaozhi's apartment rented alone, a small one-bedroom house, cleaned up and concise,

They didn't speak for days, and even when they saw it in class, they couldn't look at each other. Early in the morning, she received a text message from Si Wang: "Xiaozhi, I want to see you, if there is still tomorrow?" ”

It happened to be a Friday, and Xiaozhi dragged it until the evening, when it was as dark as midnight, before sending him the address. In addition to being the end of the world, tonight is also the winter solstice of the Chinese, and it is also the longest night and the shortest day in the northern hemisphere. In previous years, they had to go to the grave to pay respects to their relatives and ancestors. Legend has it that this is the day when the yin qi is at its heaviest, and after dark, ghosts often haunt the scene, and everyone must go home as soon as possible.

Si Wang didn't go home after receiving the text message, so he walked out of the subway halfway, turned off the phone function of his mobile phone, and came to the apartment on the top of the 30-story building.

"In the morning, your homeroom teacher, Mr. Zhang, talked to me and asked me not to have any more personal contact with you, even in the teacher's office."

"*Loose?" Si Wang drew a dog on the white air of the window pane with his fingertips, "Why is he?" ”

"In the afternoon, the principal also talked to me, and said the same thing, which was the decision discussed by the school's party committee."

"Does everyone say that?"

"Including all the teachers and students, and soon your mother will find out."

But what's the point? If, there is no tomorrow? ”

She leaned over the window again to blow a white mist: "It would be nice if tonight was the end of the world—I'm sorry, that's not what a high school teacher should say." ”

"Xiaozhi, after so many years, why haven't you gotten married yet? There must have been a lot of men chasing you, right? ”

"What do you want me to answer? I want to say that I haven't forgotten to declare the teacher? Guilty about his death? You are wrong, for eighteen or nineteen-year-old boys and girls, it is nothing at all! ”

"You're lying."

Ouyang Xiaozhi pinched his nose, as if he was still a primary school student: "When you grow to my age, you will understand." ”

"Don't forget that I'm seven years older than you."

"Shut up—"

Before she could finish speaking, Si Wang had already kissed her tightly on the mouth.

After a short struggle and resistance, the twig gradually softened, and he gasped and said, "I'm sorry. ”

"I warned you - any man who gets too close to me will die!"

Her lips had just been bitten by Si Wang, and she was dripping blood, and she really said this sentence like a female vampire.

"Can you tell me why?"

"Actually, the name Xiaozhi was given by myself."

"It doesn't matter what your name is, for example, I'm both a priest and a statement."

"I was originally an abandoned baby, and someone picked it up in a garbage can by the Suzhou Creek. I don't know who the biological parents are? I don't know where I was born? I don't know how old I was, I followed a group of homeless people around, hungry and full every day, until I was almost eleven years old, and came to the shanty town opposite Nanming High School. I help people pick up garbage for a living, living in a world that everyone looks down on. I stole a chicken leg out of hunger, and my classmates locked me up in the witch quarter, and if you hadn't rescued me, I'd have become a scrawny corpse underground. ”

"I still remember your face to this day."

Twig rested his head against the windowpane as if floating in the air: "I didn't even have a name then!" Although, during the few days I was locked underground, I had a strong desire to survive, and I am very grateful to you for saving my life. However, when I returned to the homeless and continued to pick up filthy garbage every day, swallow cold and hard steamed buns, and be beaten from time to time, I resented why you saved me. Wouldn't it be better for me to die silently underground? So that all the pain is written off. ”

"You want to die—so?"

"I'm sorry! I caused that fire! It was I who used a match to set fire to a pile of garbage in the house, and I just wanted to lock myself up and burn to death, and I didn't expect anyone else to suffer. I was only eleven years old, so naïve and stupid, I didn't expect the fire to spread, and in the blink of an eye, it was out of control, and the whole shanty town was set on fire......"

She closed her eyes, tears sliding down her cheeks, as if they were burning again.

"It was June 1988, and all of our classmates had come out at night, and before the fire trucks arrived, I heard the constant cries for help from the flames, so I rushed in desperately - in fact, I didn't come to save you, but just wanted to rush in, pretending to save people, even if I was burned in the flames."

"Aren't you afraid of being burned to death?"

"I'm not afraid! Because the college entrance examination is coming in a few weeks, you have to know how difficult it was to get into the university that year? What's more, I applied for the Chinese Department of Peking University, and tens of thousands of talented students across the country are vying for a place! In the face of the fire, I thought that if I could act bravely, even if only one person was rescued, I might be able to get a chance to be escorted. Actually, I'm the most selfish person! During my junior year of high school, I fantasized every day about the fire, or a sudden flood, putting the whole school in danger, so that I could go out of my way to save people and get the city's commendation...... It's me who should say I'm sorry. ”

"No, you saved me, and I set fire to so many people, including the homeless people who brought me up. I'm a murderer, or at least an arsonist. But I never told the secret. ”

He looked at the apocalyptic crowd under the window and smiled bitterly: "I already knew your secret - when I rescued you from the fire, you had a box of half-used matches, and I quietly hid it in my pocket." And what you said to me at the time, the fear in your eyes, told me the truth. ”

"Why don't you say it?"

"I don't want to see your life ruined! There is also a selfish reason, if you are not a victim, but an arsonist, then there is no point in me saving you - who would give the honor of righteousness and courage to a guy who saved a murderer? ”

Xiao Zhi touched his chin sympathetically: "Teacher Shen, I remember that seventeen years ago, you said to me in the wilderness on Nanming Road - we are all the same kind of people. ”

"It's like two meteors flying from far outer space at the same time, rushing towards the same blue planet, but they all collide with the atmosphere and burn into ashes and fragments."

"Affirmation, I still have to thank you for saving me. The incident has attracted public attention, with some reporting on high school students saving people from the fire, and others caring about the lonely little girl. An officer came and adopted me because his wife was barren. I became the daughter of a soldier, at least I had no worries about food and clothing, I put on new clothes for the first time, I could eat white rice every night, and I no longer encountered disgust and hateful eyes. The day after I arrived at my new home, my adoptive father was urgently summoned to the battlefield in Vietnam, and by the time I saw him again, he was already a martyr. ”

"Twig, I don't need to know that."

She seemed to say to herself: "From then on, my adoptive mother began to distance herself from me, feeling that I, a wild child who escaped death from the fire, brought death to her husband. But after all, she is the wife of a soldier and receives many pensions, and I am a child of martyrs and can enjoy all kinds of preferential treatment. I regained my educational opportunities and was unusually recruited by Bayi Primary School. I studied very hard, skipping a few levels in just a few years, and quickly kept up with the academic qualifications of my peers, until I was admitted to a key school in the city. Later, because some thugs targeted me, I ran to the school gate to harass me, and I was forced to transfer to Nanming High School. ”

"Then, we met again."

"I didn't expect you to recognize me."

"How could you forget? In 1988, the first time in the underground in the middle of the night in the witch area, the second time in the little girl in the flames on Nanming Road. Although, after six years, you have grown into a beautiful girl, and you have become a completely different person - except for the eyes. He gently touched the corner of the twig's eye, hiding two wrinkles, "I know you are an arsonist, and you have set fire to so many people, although you didn't mean to. ”

"If this secret is known to others, maybe I will be in prison, at least not today's fate."

"Liu Man knows."

Ouyang Xiaozhi shook his head and sighed: "I should have guessed a long time ago." ”

"On June 5, 1995, just before she was killed, she stopped me alone in the study hall and said that she had discovered the secret between me and you—she said that she was your best friend, but it was just an illusion, but in fact she had been deeply jealous of you, because of your arrival, she was no longer in everyone's attention, and every boy quietly paid attention to you, and perhaps the person she liked."

"Liuman approached me with the purpose of pretending to be my best friend, so he wanted to discover my secrets?"

"I think all the rumors about you in the school were deliberately spread by her. Liu Man said that just a few days ago, she found out your true identity - it turned out that the child who was adopted in 1988 was the only survivor of the fire that year, and the person who rescued you from the fire was me. ”

"The rest is up to her imagination."

"Yes, Liu Man said her speculation - the teacher must like Xiaozhi, there has been a relationship between me and you, as a class teacher and a student, there has been a relationship between men and women, of course I flatly deny it!"

"Actually, I've never had anything with you, I haven't even stepped into your dormitory, Shen Ming, teacher."

The look on her face when she said this, I don't know if it was relief or regret?

"Early the next morning, I found out that Liuman was dead, and I-"

Si Wang wanted to say something more, but his mouth was sealed by Xiaozhi's hand: "Don't say anything." ”

After a long time, he broke free: "Thirteen days later, I also died." ”

"What was 1995 like for me? After the death of my teacher, I was admitted to the Normal University, and after graduation, I went to teach in the poor mountainous areas of western China, because like those children, I had a childhood of hunger and schooling. ”

"I don't need to know about your past, there is only one doubt left for me - no matter what, it is difficult for me to speak, and I am afraid that if I tell this secret, you will disappear from my eyes forever."

Ouyang Xiaozhi covered his face: "I know what you're thinking?" On June 19, 1995, why did I ask you to meet at 10 p.m. in the Witch Section? Why did you get killed and I didn't show up? Is it just a thunderstorm? Why didn't I tell the school and the police after you died? Instead to lie to everyone? ”

"You're hiding something from me, are you?"

She stopped answering Si Wang's question, and turned her head to look out of the window on the thirtieth floor.

The copycat mobile phone is still ringing, "If there is really still a tomorrow, whether we can get everything done, whether everything will disappear, if there is no tomorrow......"

Midnight, twelve o'clock.

When he woke up from a dream of killing people one after another, it was the early morning of December 22. The steel forest outside the window hasn't changed, just snowflakes floating all over the sky.

Sure enough, there is tomorrow.

Ouyang Xiaozhi stood in front of the window, already wearing a cotton nightgown, his hair scattered on his face, looking at the city in the snow and stunned.

And he was exposed behind her in full view, and he no longer dared to touch her shoulders, just buried his head in the fragrance of her hair.

Suddenly, she looked back at the young man's eyes, her lips were close to each other, but she shook her head: "Si Wang, please go, your mother is waiting for you to come home." ”

She's chasing him away.

And he didn't say the word "I am affirmation" again, put on his clothes without saying a word, walked behind the door and grabbed the handle, and took one last look at her back, like a hazy cloud of smoke that would disappear at any moment.

How do you say goodbye?

Si Wang had already walked on the icy snow, and the snowflakes flew in front of him, and for the first time after the end of his life, the city made people feel friendly, and even the steps of stepping on the snow became lighter.

When he came to Suzhou Creek, or on the Wuning Road Bridge, he picked up the railing full of snow, looking at the surging river of life and death under the bridge, countless snowflakes fell in, and melted in a blink of an eye......

When the sun rose, he returned to his home in the slum and woke up his mother, He Qingying, who was sitting at the door, had not slept all night, her eyes were red, as if she was several years old.

"Where have you been?"

Facing his mother's almost fierce gaze, Si Wang took off his coat, poured a glass of water, opened the refrigerator and took bread to satisfy his hunger.

"Wang'er, I waited for you all night, and I didn't dare to call your head teacher, for fear that he would punish you if he knew that you didn't return at night. I went to the Public Security Bureau to find Officer Ye Xiao, who was also looking for you everywhere in the city, and went to Nanming Middle School in the middle of the night. ”

He Qingying grabbed his collar frantically, almost tearing the sweater he knitted for his son: "If you don't say it, I'll die to show you!" ”

"I'm with a woman."

Finally, he replied lightly, sat down and continued to nibble on bread.

Mom was dumbfounded, trembling for a long time, and made a call: "Hey, is it Teacher Zhang?" Sorry to bother you early in the morning on your day off. I'm Si Wang's mom and I want to tell you one thing, last night my son didn't come home all night and he said he was with a woman. ”

There was a sharp voice from the other end of the phone, He Qingying put the earpiece close to his ear, hung up the phone in silence after a few minutes, slowly walked up to his son, and slapped him.