Rebirth Aftec Death

Back to the intersection

Li Chishu is like this: tall, thin, fair-skinned, taciturn, restrained and polite, with a bit of inferiority in his bones. When he was in school, he was a "nerd" who would be praised by teachers with grades in front of him, but shook his head when mentioned behind his back. He speaks softly to everyone, and even says "sorry" after getting angry - in short, he is like most excellent left-behind children whose parents are not around in traditional Chinese families.

As for me, my name is Shen Baoshan. Don't look at me talking arrogantly, I am a serious person.

I was born into a wealthy family, thanks to my parents. I have a harmonious family, which is an innate advantage. My grades are not bad. When I was in high school, Li Chishu was the first in the grade, and I was the second in the grade. Occasionally, I was in the third, fourth or fifth grade, depending on my mood. I am more popular than others, and I am quite popular among teachers and classmates.

That's right, otherwise how could Li Chishu secretly like me for ten years.

Now I have known him for more than ten years. I cannot say that I have known him. When I was in high school, Li Chishu was just a name to me. I knew there was such a person in my grade, but I could not recognize him even if he passed by me.

After all, I am such a bachelor, who can I care about?

I did a good job of saving face. I was polite and enthusiastic to teachers and got along well with classmates. In fact, I felt that no one was better than me. I felt that Shen Baoshan was such a person who was in heaven and on earth.

Now the only one who was in heaven and on earth was Li Chishu.

Shen Baoshan, how arrogant.

No one came to Li Chishu's funeral. His parents died when he was younger than he is now. Cement bricks fell from the construction site, breaking the backbone of a family. His mother went to make a scene and finally jumped off the building. Such a big son has been accompanied by a meager pension since he was seven years old. The year before last, I went with him to see off his grandmother who had been suffering from dementia for many years. I did not inform his colleagues and friends. For so many years, I have never heard him say that he had any friends.

I was mentally prepared, but I did not expect it to be so deserted.

Only then did I realize that I came too late.

No matter how lush the tree of Shen Baoshan is, it can't save Li Chishu's poor life.

I sat beside his portrait in a suit and tie, looking at this black and white face and silently counting every glance of Li Chishu that Shen Baoshan missed over the years.

Li Chishu and I entered the same high school at the age of fifteen. I was in Class 21 and he was in Class 25. As I said before, I had no impression of him in the three years of high school.

At that time, Shen Baoshan's ambition was higher than the sky. He felt that a person could be better than him in some aspects, but it was impossible for someone to be better than him in all aspects.

So he never took the three words Li Chishu seriously.

But according to Li Chishu, he knew me earlier than I knew. I asked him how early it was, but he always refused to tell me.

Later, I remembered that it was college. I was a person who would go wherever there was a lot of fun. When I studied at Jianda University, the first thing I did before school started was to join the hometown group.

At the beginning of the school, we had a group building and a private dinner. I heard people say that there was a person from the same province in the neighboring Institute of Construction Engineering, named Li Chishu. He was good-looking, but he was a loner and was not in the hometown group.

I got excited and asked my high school classmates for his contact information. I sent him a WeChat application and he accepted it five minutes later.

I didn't even bother to say hello, thinking that I had noted my name when I sent the application. How could Li Chishu approve it directly if he didn't know who I was.

So I said: Let's eat.

After a while, he asked: What?

At this time, my initial enthusiasm had disappeared, and I replied to him boredly: Hometown group building, at the entrance of Gate No. 3, Dengxian Lao Hotpot, come and eat.

He didn't move.

After half an hour, he was late.

But he was not the type to warm up the crowd. He sat at the side, only concentrating on eating. He would not respond to anyone’s comments. He would only smile with a red face when people praised him. He only nodded when I asked him if he wanted to drink beer. Later, Li Chishu told me that he had a very uncomfortable meal, felt redundant and disappointed.

I asked him if he regretted going.

He thought about it, lowered his head and smiled, saying that if it happened again, he might still go with a thick skin. That was the first intersection of my life trajectory with his.

At that time, Li Chishu had been secretly in love with me for four years.

Then it was the sophomore year. In today’s words, I was a real social gangster. People from other colleges who had nothing to do with me could find some connections if they were put on my contact network.

At that time, a friend from my School of Civil Engineering found me and asked me to help him with a little favor. The general meaning was that their group had offended several cadres of the school student union because they did not cooperate with the activities. As a result, there was something going on in the college, and they had to pass some documents to the school student union for approval. That group of people would definitely not approve it, so they asked me if I could help make a trip.

The group of people in the student union, who used feathers as a token of authority, could make enemies with people for the smallest things. I didn't want to get into trouble, so I asked how many people there were in their group.

When they reported it, they said there was a Li Chishu.

I agreed immediately.

A few days later, Li Chishu contacted me for the first time in two years of being WeChat friends with me, saying that he would treat me to a meal to thank me for my help.

I thought it was discussed by their group, so I set a time and place with him. When I got there the next day, Li Chishu was alone.

He didn't explain, so I didn't ask.

This guy really ate when he ate. He ordered five dishes seriously. He didn't drink any wine. He drank two glasses of boiled water and slurped down two bowls of rice. I sat opposite him and watched him eat silently. After he finished eating, he paid the bill in one go without even touching the glass with me. The number of words he said to me in more than half an hour could be counted on one hand - and I have to add the "bye-bye" he said after the meal.

When we were together and recalled this incident, he told me that he was so full that he couldn't sleep for half the night. He got up at one o'clock in the morning to buy two boxes of digestion tablets at the school hospital. He went back and sat in his seat until dawn before he could barely feel comfortable.

Mainly because the sentence he sent to me on WeChat, "Do you have time? I'll treat you to dinner this weekend", had squeezed out all the courage he had accumulated for many years before he dared to gamble everything on it.

How could he have the courage to look up and chat with me?

After that, it was a natural progression. During college, I was not close to him, but we occasionally interacted. After graduation, I found a job first. Later, when we chatted, I found that his workplace was close to mine. We immediately rented a house together and often had dinner together after get off work. No matter when I asked him, he had time. Apart from that, he seemed to be making money like crazy when he was not sleeping.

Until one day when they came back from a dinner, Li Chishu was drunk and knocked on my door with red eyes. He said that he had 3 million in savings and asked me if I wanted to try to be with him.

I didn't think about the money. 3 million was nothing to me. But it was very important to Li Chishu, who had nothing since childhood.

He always felt that he was far from me, and the only way to build his ladder to me was money. Lots of money.

At this time, more than ten years had passed since I met Li Chishu.

There were still three years before he left this world. I don't understand what caused his illness to break out suddenly. Maybe it was my promise to be with me that broke the tight string in his heart. Since then, all the pressure and pain in the past broke out and corroded his already empty spiritual world.

At first, he became dull. He was always lazy, unwilling to eat, unwilling to go out, and unwilling to get up.

Occasionally, he would use his mobile phone to browse some travel push notifications and said to me: "I really want to go to Puzhehei."

When he said this, I was rushing to plan in front of the computer. I nodded without thinking and said: "Okay."

Forgot it as soon as I heard it.

When I remembered it again, it was many months later in the winter. I asked him: "Didn't you want to go to Puzhehei last time?"

He smiled and shook his head: "Forget it."

Not long after that, he began to feel inexplicable pain in some parts of his body.

Sometimes it was his arms, sometimes his back, and sometimes his thighs.

Maybe at this time his illness was not very serious and he was willing to tell me. I took him to the hospital for a physical examination, and the examination found no problems.

I said no, let's go to another hospital, but he pulled me and said, "Forget it."

At the same time, he began to be afraid of the dark, couldn't sleep all night, couldn't eat, and lost weight. When I found out that he was secretly taking medicine, Li Chishu had lost weight to 110 kilograms.

A person of 1.78 meters tall was just skin and bones. Later.

Then on this night, I cried loudly while holding his urn and fell asleep in the empty funeral hall.

——

When I was awakened by the bell for class, I thought I was dreaming or just going through a revolving lantern.

The class was very noisy, and everyone was walking out the door. A few people in front changed their uniforms. I guessed that the scene of this dream was physical education class.

But in short, I was stunned for only two seconds, and then I rushed to the door of Class 25.

When I rushed to Li Chishu's class, everyone in the class had left.

A man came out of the balcony holding two basketballs. I looked familiar, but I couldn't remember his name.

I asked him, "Where's Li Chishu?"

He was obviously a little surprised. I didn't know if he was surprised that I was looking for Li Chishu or that I suddenly talked to him.

I asked again, "Where's Li Chishu?"

He was stunned: "Downstairs... for physical education class."

I remembered that in the third year of high school, our two classes had the same physical education class.

I always looked for their class to play basketball together.

I wanted to run when I heard that.

The man threw a basketball in his hand to me: "Your ball!"

I ran with the ball in three steps at a time. I ran to the playground and bumped around like a headless fly. When I passed the basketball court, I heard someone calling my name.

But it wasn't Li Chishu's voice.

There was another shout: "Shen Baoshan! Here! What are you doing!"

I took a look and it was Jiang Chi, asking me to go over and play basketball.

I ignored him, and the bastard kept shouting.

He even ran over and pulled me over.

As I was pulling, I saw Li Chishu.

Across the tennis court, the little bastard was leaning on an empty ping-pong table to recite English words.

I pushed Jiang Chi away and walked straight to the ping-pong table in the glaring sun.

Li Chishu was still the same, a white T-shirt, a pair of clean canvas shoes, short nails, a lot of hair, a little long, with his head down, the broken hair on his forehead almost made me unable to see his eyes.

I walked slower and slower, and when I was a few meters away from Li Chishu, I threw the basketball in my hand and it landed right next to his feet.

Li Chishu's feet moved, and then he looked up.

I took a long breath and stared at him coldly.

"Hello, Li Chishu."