When Ai Weili woke up in the sun the next morning, she had half a minute without realizing where she was.

The curtains were covered with a thick layer of ash, so she didn't dare to reach out and close them last night, for fear of stirring up dust in the room. The strange sun illuminated the strange wooden window frames; Under the coat that was used as a quilt, the legs that had been curled up all night were faintly stiff and sore.

Ai Weili sat up from the creaking wooden bed and cast a hairy reflection on the ground.

Unconsciously, the life trajectory she set by carefully imitating others disappeared. She used to anxiously think about studying like everyone else, going to college, getting a job, getting married and having children...

Looking back, it's as if you haven't lived.

Looking to the future, she doesn't know what the right way to live in the future.

When she was a child in class, she would always look out the window and imagine that a dragon would suddenly descend into the sky and hover over the playground; Teachers would tell students to sit still and rush to the window to look out. At that time, the dragon will suddenly speak, and her name will echo in the school - "Where is Ai Weili?" I'm here to take her away! ”

"Why did you take Ai Weili away?" There will be bold teachers who ask.

"Because she's special, there's a different world waiting for her," the dragon would reply.

At this moment, Ai Weili raised his head, only to see a spider web hanging from the corner of the ceiling.

It's a spider and not a dragon; She now knows that she is not very special. Maybe growing up is a process of peeling off illusions and gradually giving birth to hard calluses, but I don't know why, it seems that only she hasn't had time to grow a suitable shell.

She didn't need the dragon to take her away now, she could drive herself on the road, but she never seemed to be able to leave. Although what she wanted to escape from, Ai Weili didn't know.

While at home, she ran away from school; When she went to school, she couldn't wait to escape to society; Now that she is a social person, she finds that she finally has nowhere to escape.

I looked at my phone, and I was still a few hours away from work; Ai Weili had nothing to do, nowhere to go, she was stunned for a while, and finally urged her to stand up and go out, but she was still hungry with pantothenic acid.

After going to see his car, Ai bought a loaf of bread and a bottle of yogurt from the convenience store and ate it while walking aimlessly down the town streets. Since she's probably going to spend at least the next few months in this remote town, she might as well familiarize herself with the terrain.

Wild Deer Town, like her new apartment, is small and old, but it has a lot of things.

Surprisingly, the town is much more lively than yesterday - a few mothers with their children gather in the park to chat, there are many shops of all kinds open on the shopping street, post offices, auto repair shops, churches...

Although she walked slowly, after two or three hours, she had also circled the whole of Wild Deer Town; When he was about to return to the convenience store, Ai Weili suddenly found that about a kilometer away from the convenience store, it was a junior high school.

…… It's just different from the school that most people have in their impression.

The only thing that seems to have something to do with junior high school is the words "Yelu Middle School" on the sign; In addition, whether it is the gate or the school building, it looks like a pair - Ai Weili has never found it before, and it turns out that the word "anemia" can also be used to describe buildings.

She looked down at her phone time; Before she knew it, it was almost time for her to go to work, and it was also the time when school was about to end.

She remembered that when school was about to end, it was obviously the most noisy and restless, and even the air was full of children's enthusiasm to leave. But there was no sound at all in Wild Deer Middle School at this time, and through the gate railing, the school also looked empty, and for some reason it reminded people of the abandoned empty anthill.

"It's a closed school...," Ai Weili muttered.

The convenience store is located on the side road that connects Wild Deer Town with the highway, hanging on the edge of the town, and perhaps because of this, the nearby traffic has almost dried up. Before, it was clear that the town was quite popular, but at this moment, under the warm golden sun of the afternoon, on the cracked roads and the sidewalks lacking red bricks, everywhere was silent and empty, and only Ai Weili was walking slowly.

When she turned the corner, she finally saw another town-dweller—an old lady carrying a plastic bag.

The old lady had a small round face, flat and full of lines, and at first glance it looked like a face imprinted with a seal. The corners of her mouth hung down long, like a zipper in a pocket, and when she pulled it, her entire mouth and chin would open and fall off.

Ai Weili glanced at the old lady, then turned his gaze away, lowered his head and continued to walk forward.

The old lady's two feet, "rustling" against the ground, dragged past her.

From the plastic bag in her hand, there was a sour smell of yogurt, as if it had been left for too long.

Ai Weili quickened his pace, and walked for a few seconds before he looked back—the old lady was gone, perhaps turning another corner and going home.

With a slight sigh of relief, she turned around again and found that she had the right time: the convenience store was just a block away, and she had just fifteen minutes to get ready for work. She's never worked in a supermarket, and she's still alone, so it's a bit of a bit to think about it-

When she thought of this, her thoughts somehow interrupted slightly. There was a slow rustle on the sidewalk behind him, as if someone was dragging his feet up. The road is not wide; Ai Weili subconsciously took two steps to the side, wanting to let the people behind pass first.

In her peripheral vision, she first saw the back of her head with sparse white hair, revealing a gray scalp like a wound that had been opened up.

The old lady carrying the plastic bag, dragging her feet, walked backwards step by step, shoulder to shoulder, and walked side by side beside Ai Weili.

On her little face, which was covered with lines like a seal, the corners of her mouth were still pressed deeply, and the plastic bag rattled beside her; Under the drooping thick eyelids, an eyeball rolled towards Ai Weili.

Ai Weili gasped, and her voice was so sharp that she was startled even by herself—the old lady twisted her head and looked at Ai Weili.

The pair of cloudy eyes, as if looking for something, rolled around Ai Weili's face a few times, and slowly opened his mouth like a zipper, as if to speak.

"Hey!" Suddenly a greeting sounded from behind him, "Don't hurry home yet!" ”

Ai Weili was startled, and unconsciously turned his head in the direction of the scream; On the second floor of a private house not far from the street, a window was opened, and a woman leaned into a teenager who was running desperately and shouted, "What are you doing, come in quickly!" Only come home at this time to see how I clean you up..."

Before she finished her words, she seemed to feel Ai Weili's gaze and turned her head to glance at it.

As if sensing his mother's gaze, the boy in the junior high school uniform followed suit; A mother and a son upstairs and downstairs, at the same time as seeing Ai Weili, suddenly turned their heads as if they had been slapped in the face.

"Quick, quick, come in," said the woman, and disappeared through the window—the boy did not dare to delay, rushed into the house, and slammed the door with a "thud".

The cylinder turned loudly, and then there was no sound.

Ai Weili was in a short dazed moment, and suddenly realized something.

For half a minute, the old lady had been standing in front of her from an angle she couldn't see.

A layer of cold sweat broke out on her back, and when she turned her head to look, she found that the old lady was gone; The latter was carrying a plastic bag and walking slowly—forward, not backwards—and the old lady walked slowly, but in the blink of an eye, she disappeared from the corner.

Ai Weili's sternum was about to be hit by his heart, but he didn't understand why.

She saw an old lady, who first passed by her, and then followed her backwards; A mother is scolding her child for coming home too late, even though it's not even five o'clock; Then, the old lady was gone, the child was home, and the convenience store was on the next street...

At this moment, the town was floating in the warm golden sunset, everything was warm and lazy, and she really didn't know what to fear.

Although the old lady is indeed a little strange, it is just that she walks backwards, is it some superstitious health care method of the old man? Aren't there often elderly people who still slap their hands and slap their hands while walking?

When Ai Weili walked into the store, he found that the store was empty and there was no one.

There was only a note on the counter, which was left to her by Apan - "I have something to do temporarily, so I won't wait for you, you can just follow what I wrote." ”

Even the store door is not locked, and the person leaves?

Isn't he afraid that someone will come into the store and steal something? And this is my first day, not to mention helping her transition hand-in-hand, why should I stay and take a look to avoid problems, right?

Ai Weili hurriedly took out the blue vest and put it on, hurriedly walked around to the cash register, and did as much as he could do what he should do in the shift according to the instructions on the note and the memory of yesterday; As for whether it was done right, whether the money was miscalculated, and what was missing, only God knows.

When she looked up, it was only five twenty on the clock in the store.

"Hello," a guest in a suit walked coldly around the shelves, startling Ai Weili - when did he come in? - He placed a new-colored shopping basket on the counter in front of her and said, "Checkout." ”

This is the first person to be cashier in Ai Weili's life.

She was a little nervous for some reason, and she wanted to be polite and professional, but she was still surprised that there were people in the store, and she was busy for a while: "Okay, right away, oh, two boxes of ice cream, one lighter..."

"You don't have to report them all," the man laughed.

"Ah, yes," Ai Weili picked up another bag of peaches, pressed back the sentence "a bag of peaches" in his throat, and said embarrassedly, "This is my first day on the job, so I'm a little scrambling..." ”

For some reason, she scanned the barcode on the peach bag several times, and the price didn't pop up on the cash register.

"I'm so sorry, I don't know what went wrong,"

After trying several methods and running to the shelves to find the price, Ai Weili had no choice but to apologize to the male guest again and again. "Well, can I trouble you to come back tomorrow to buy peaches? I will definitely give this feedback to the store manager. ”

The male guest was quite kind, and although he understood, he could not hide his disappointment, and quickly left—and when he pushed the door to leave, Ai Weili realized that he had not bought the rest of the things on the cash register.

Maybe I came here to buy peaches, but without peaches, I don't want to buy anything else.

Yes, the code is scanned, what is the operation of canceling the checkout?

Ai Weili let out a long breath, picked up the goods, and put them back in place one by one. As she was about to take the peaches back and put them away, something suddenly occurred to her.

"Huijia Convenience Store" does not sell fresh fruits.