Chapter 1: Xiamen

1

Xie Yi'an hesitated in front of the phone screen, she wanted to dial the number, but she didn't dare. If it's a trivial matter, she can make a phone call to her parents to be coquettish; But this is not a big deal, she is just choosing whether to go to work in her own company after graduation and show all the things she has learned in college, or whether she should choose to follow her heart and study abroad to study design.

As early as the beginning of last year, the two roommates looked up information on the Internet about studying abroad, and some of them had already learned simple Italian in China and passed the B1 test, so that they could go to Milan or Florence in Italy in August.

But this problem bothered her for four years, because her sister studied art, and in her opinion, she had to study Jingguan, because her father had a small fishing company in Xiamen; But after half a year of studying, she found that she liked art like her sister and had no interest in finance and business management.

My sister has been away from home for five years and has never returned, and no one knows how she is doing, but Yi Anxin thinks that with her talent in vocal music, she will definitely have a prosperous life in Europe, where art is strong. But if you become an artist and become famous, why can't you get any news about her?

Yi'an forgot about this uncontacted sister for the time being, and thought about her next plans.

Because it is a family business, Yi'an is completely led away, and it is completely unable to pursue his own desires.

She turned off her mobile phone, took off the hanging bachelor's gown and looked at it again, and took graduation photos tomorrow, the four years are really over, but when she was interning, she felt that she couldn't adapt to work at all, she got up early and worked hard at night, mental work, and intrigue between colleagues were tiring.

Lying in bed with worry, she suddenly remembered that her boyfriend who had just broken up last year, because he wanted to challenge his life, he went to Nepal to complete BCD, he said that he was influenced by the American writer Jon Krakauer's "Survival in the Wilderness: Death in Alaska", the novel is about a typical American boy with a good family condition, but still earned travel expenses through his own labor, went to Alaska, but died of starvation in the ice and snow due to an accident.

There is no way for Yi'an to understand such a life.

With the confusion peculiar to adolescence, I fell asleep in a student apartment at Tsinghua University.

Yi'an, who finished his studies, packed his luggage and prepared to return to his hometown Xiamen, and at the same time received a distant letter from his family in Beijing, in which his father informed his sister Xie Yihua of the news of his death.

She is the youngest in the family, and she has listened to her parents for everything since she was a child, and her father has always decided which school to apply for and which major to study. Maybe she had the power to make recommendations, but she never did.

Xie Yihua is different, she likes to sing and music, so she went to London, and it is said that the tuition for the first year of that year was earned by joining an orchestra to participate in the tour.

Yi'an recalled the last time she saw her sister, she had just returned from London, and she walked to the beach alone every day, and did not go home for dinner until sunset, and went back to her room to rest without saying a word. No words, no laughter, a melancholy look all day long. Mom and Dad didn't say anything, the family reunion should have been happy, but the atmosphere at home was always weird.

At that time, Xie Yi'an was still in his third year of high school in a private school, and he was childish and bookish. The days when my sister came back happened to be bi-weekly, and she stayed at home for two days, and every time she saw Xie Yihua, she was at the dinner table. She thought that her parents were better for her sister, so she consciously stepped aside and never did anything perverse in front of her parents. Living in such a family will be very tiring for each other.

At 4:05 p.m., she boarded the train at Beijing South Railway Station, where the green train sprawled long onto the tracks in front of her. She deliberately chose the green train, perhaps to stall for time.

Most of the pedestrians around him are mediocre low-level workers, carrying large bags and small bags to the hard seat of the air conditioner. Times have changed, everyone is used to taking bullet trains, and the hard seats of the train are reserved for those low-level workers. She has taken the train so many times, whether it is first class or second class, it is not as humane as the people on the hard seats of the train. The air-conditioned hard seats are always filled with the smell of peanuts and instant noodles, with a vivid mix of accents, while in the first class seats, passengers are always neatly dressed and try to converse in the most standard Mandarin and sometimes in Chinese English. Work wears them out and forces them to move from city to city, apathy and numbness.

However, Xie Yi'an is still self-aware, and instead of choosing a hard seat for a day and a night, he bought a soft seat. She chose a soft sleeper, bunk beds, a small room for four people, a door that could be disconnected from the narrow aisle outside, and an outlet below to charge.

She tucked her red suitcase under the bed, took a bottle of mineral water from her backpack, and poured it down. Looking out the window, a dusty and handsome man, dressed in black, holding a blue train ticket in his hand, looked into the window in confusion.

He seemed to be looking for a carriage. Standing at Yi'an's window, he stared back and forth a few times, and dragged his suitcase out of Yi'an's sight.

The car door didn't close, and the man walked in, and Yi'an secretly paid attention to him until he sat down across from Yi'an.

"Can you help me see if it's this seat?" He handed the train ticket to Yi'an.

Yi'an took it with his hand, looked at it seriously, and replied to him: "It's this." ”

"Oh, thank you." After he finished speaking, he coughed a few more times.

"Did you just come back from abroad?"

"Yes." He wondered, "How do you tell?" ”

"The white stripes on your luggage, and your British pronunciation."

The man laughed.

He stood between two small narrow beds and put his suitcase under the bed. With every move, Yi'an smelled the smell of CHANEL perfume on his body. When he sat back on the bed, Yi'an asked, "Do you work abroad?" ”

"Almost. I went to university in London. ”

"London?"

"Yes."

He didn't seem to be used to such a crowded space and facing a strange woman, so he put his bag inside the quilt and went out.

Yi'an was a little embarrassed, took off her shoes and lay down under the white quilt to take a nap, and the sound of the train rubbing against the rails came to her ears one after another.

The train went all the way south, and there were still eleven hours before it reached Xiamen, so long, even pressing step by step.

When I woke up, I saw the man sitting on the bed with a book in his hand. She could see the man's face clearly, with thick black eyebrows, a coldness and sadness in his eyes, thin lips, an average figure, calluses on his hands, maybe a writer.

Yi'an sat up and tied her long hair back together.

The sun is about to set.

"Where are you going? Fujian? She asked. Idle is idle anyway.

"Yes. Xiamen. ”

"I'm also going to Xiamen. Where is your hometown? ”

"No, I... I just went to see a friend. ”

"Oh." Yi An said, "Really? ”

Facing Yi'an's questioning, the man smiled awkwardly, "What are you lying to?" ”

"Because the train is too slow, if you come back from abroad to see your friends, you should choose a plane."

The man thought for a moment, and still said gently, "I didn't grab the plane ticket." ”

"Okay."

"What about you? If you know the train is slow, why take it again? He also came to be interested and asked deliberately.

"I... Private reasons. ”

The man smiled and continued to read, saying no more.

Yi'an realized that he had just lost his sense of proportion, so he offered to invite him to dinner, and he agreed.

The man followed Yi'an out, the aisle was narrow, Yi'an led the way in front, and the man followed behind. The people on the carriage spoke with different accents, the smell of instant noodles lingered on the tip of the nose, and the sound of eating melon seeds and playing cards was endless.

"The restaurant should be in car 11. It's that the price is more expensive than the restaurants outside, and the things are not so delicious, but it's okay for simply filling your stomach. ”

"I've never been on a train." Yi'an said in one word.

"Yes."

Ten minutes later, after dinner, she said: "Actually, it's quite interesting to take the train, you see these people from all over the world, everyone has a story." I often wonder if I could get a chance to listen and write their stories. ”

"You write on your own?"

"Yes." Yi'an was a little silent, and was quiet for a long time before saying, "Actually, I'm studying business administration now that I don't like, which my family asked me to study, saying that I can find a good job in the future." They look down on the liberal arts and feel that it is not interesting to chew on words. But I won't go to the Chinese department, I want to go to Europe to study fashion design, do you know this major? I especially like the clothes of the MOSS family, I like to look at paintings, I think fashion design is the same as painting in a way, but so far I have only seen Van Gogh and Yayoi Kusama. This is not boasting. She added.

"You said I should stick to my own ideas, I want to drop out." After she finished speaking, she looked at him expectantly.

This question seemed to be a little difficult for him, and after a while, he said in a trance: "As long as you don't regret it in the future, it's good to choose whichever one." ”

"That's the same as nothing."