I have already left that old neighborhood far behind. I walked on the streets of the city with my luggage for a long ti before finding a stone bench in a square where I could rest.
I placed my luggage on one side of the stone bench, lit a cigarette, and sat down, looking at the neon lights flickering on the tall buildings. A wave of panic surged in my heart, unsure of where to go.
Hastily avoiding the lights and shadows of the city, I looked up at the sky, searching for the "Sky City" that had already been separated from my body.
I don't know when, a group of square dance aunties with fans arrived at the square. The music imdiately overwheld , and I couldn't see the "Sky City" clearly anymore. Maybe it was already hidden behind the moon, or maybe it had been blown away by the passing wind...
But tonight, I still had to find a place to rest in this city.
I took out my phone from my pocket and dialed Robben's number. He lived near the train station, and since I was going to Hengdian by train tomorrow, I decided to stay at his place for the night.
Amidst the noise, Robben answered the phone, "Zhao Yang, do you need sothing?"
"Are you still performing at the bar?"
"Yeah, our band is about to go on stage."
"Oh... well, I want to stay at your place for the night, is that convenient?"
Robben smiled and said, "There's no inconvenience, why don't you co to the bar? Wait for to finish work, and we'll go back together."
"I'll just go directly to your place, I won't go to the bar."
"Alright, I'll treat you to a drink. I still have several drink vouchers left."
"I really won't go." I hung up the phone, leaving Robben wondering why I didn't want to go to the bar.
After leaving the square, I took a taxi directly to Robben's place. It was still early, so I went to the train station and bought a train ticket from Suzhou to Yiwu for tomorrow morning.
...
It was almost midnight when Robben returned from the bar, and I had already fallen asleep in the hallway, leaning against my luggage.
Robben woke up, complaining, "You've changed recently! You didn't want to go to the bar, so you'd rather sleep in the hallway like an idiot!"
I just smiled and didn't say anything.
As Robben opened the door, he asked , "Did you move?"
"Yeah, I haven't found a suitable place to live temporarily. I have to go to Hengdian on a business trip tomorrow, so I thought I'd crash at your place for the night!"
"Sure, you can stay as long as you want!" After saying that, he looked at the luggage on the floor and asked, "Where's your aweso guitar?"
I felt a bit down in my heart. After all, it was a guitar that had accompanied for several years. But I casually said to Robben, "I used it to pay off a debt!"
Robben widened his eyes and sighed, "Paid off a debt? You're really in a tough spot! I've borrowed it from you a few tis before, and you treated it like a treasure and didn't lend it to . But you actually used it to pay off a debt!"
"Forget about it, help move the luggage inside."
...
Robben lived in a small attic on the top floor. There was only one narrow room, but there was a relatively large balcony behind the room. The balcony had a shared bathroom and a clothesline. The living environnt was not good.
Turning on the light, I first saw a few leather jackets hanging on the hanger, a guitar in the corner, several pairs of Martin boots on the shoe rack, and a few suitcases. There were no other decorations except for the beer cans scattered on the table, which didn't look too ssy.
After arranging the luggage, Robben took out two buckets of instant noodles from a box and made one for each of us as a late-night snack.
After a short while, the empty instant noodle boxes were placed upside down on the abandoned flowerpot under the balcony. There were several cans of beer next to us as we sat on the balcony railing.
We opened a can of beer each, clinked them together, tilted our heads back, and half of the beer went down our throats.
"Zhao Yang, you seem quite depressed recently. Did sothing happen? You don't even go to the bar anymore?" Robben asked.
"I'm living carefree. What could possibly make depressed?" I said, finishing the remaining beer in the can in one gulp, but I looked absentmindedly into the distance.
In the distance, the lights on Maxwell's giant billboard were still flickering in the early morning of this quiet night.
Robben didn't ask any further questions and followed my gaze into the distance. After a long ti, he patted my shoulder as if he understood, and we were both struggling on the edge of this city. So pain was shared, and there was no need to explain too clearly.
The wind, carrying the chill of the night, whistled past us. We continued to sit on the railing of the balcony, looking into the distance, and drank another can of beer.
In the quiet night, people tend to think more. Robben seed to think of soone and opened another can of beer, but I stopped him. Drinking too much alcohol was never good. I almost jumped into the moat yesterday because I drank too much.
"Missing a woman?" I smiled and asked Robben.
"Yeah, I think of one when I drink." Robben said straightforwardly.
I knew that Robben had once had a girlfriend whom he loved deeply. I pushed him and said, "Do you still have a photo of your girlfriend? Show it to ."
Robben took out his wallet from his pocket and handed a photo from the compartnt. I looked at the woman in the photo, her features were good, and she was a very intellectual and elegant woman.
Robben seed a bit absent-minded and said to after a long ti, "We broke up almost three years ago. She should be married by now!"
"Why did you break up?"Robben gave a wistful smile, "She was born into a family of educators, both her parents are university professors. I'm just a musician with no stable inco, living day by day. I didn't want to hold her back."
"So you ran away from Beijing to Suzhou without telling her?"
Robben nodded, after a long pause, he said, "Actually, she followed to Suzhou later, and we lived together for another half a year..."
"Why did you break up then?" I asked, puzzled.
"Her parents ca to , they had arranged a job for her at a university in Beijing, they asked to let her go back."
"You really let her go, you fool?"
Robben nodded, "I did. I told her I was seeing soone else."
"Did she believe you?"
Robben chuckled, "She definitely didn't believe ..."
"Then...?"
"I hired a prostitute, right in this room, in front of her..." Robben didn't continue, his face still wore a smile, but beneath it, I saw a heart that was already dead.
I sighed heavily, "Why did you have to be so ruthless?"
"If I wasn't, she wouldn't leave. Better a short sharp shock than a long-drawn-out agony..." Robben tilted his head back and drained the beer can, so of the liquid trickling down his neck into his shirt.
I fell silent. Despite Robben's casual tone, I saw a heart-wrenching love story born out of helplessness. I knew Robben would never forget that woman in his lifeti.
"Enough about , show a picture of your girlfriend." Robben nudged .
I pulled out a photo of Jian Wei from my wallet and handed it to Robben. We were both reluctant to forget the past because it was too precious!
The light from the opposite side was dim, Robben lit a lighter, examining Jian Wei's photo in the flickering fla.
"Your girlfriend is beautiful, not just ordinarily beautiful!"
Hearing the word 'beautiful', the face of my female tenant suddenly appeared in my mind. But it didn't surprise , because I had never seen a woman more beautiful than Mi Cai in my life. In just a mont, I was back to reality, looking at Jian Wei's familiar yet strange face in the photo by the dying fla, my heart ached. I thought: It won't be long before she marries Xiang Chen.
Robben returned Jian Wei's photo to , and asked, "What about you guys, why did you break up?"
I recalled, after a long while, I said, "She called a year after she went to Arica and proposed the breakup."
"Why did she want to break up with you?" Robben asked further.
"I don't know, she didn't say." I replied with a smile similar to Robben's earlier.
"Didn't you ask?"
I nodded, I indeed didn't ask Jian Wei why she wanted to break up with , because I thought: If Jian Wei wanted to tell , she would, without asking. Or perhaps, deep down, I didn't believe we could make it to the end, that a breakup was inevitable. What's the point of seeking an answer for sothing expected?
"Aren't you afraid there might be so misunderstanding between you two?" Robben reminded .
I was taken aback, "What misunderstanding could there be?... Love is just a fleeting cloud. Let's not talk about this anymore! Go get the guitar, let's play a song, forget all these ss!"
Robben fetched the guitar from the room, tested the sound and asked , "Your key or mine?"
"Whatever."
Robben strumd the guitar strings, a lody wafted into the night air, it was Jonathan Lee's "The Price of Love".
"Let's go, let's go, one must learn to grow up. Let's go, let's go, life is inevitably filled with pain and struggle. Let's go, let's go, find a ho for your heart. There were tis when I cried, tis when I was heartbroken, that's the price of love. Maybe I still think of her occasionally, inevitably missing her. Just treat her as an old friend, she makes worry, she makes care. But there's no spark in my heart anymore, let the past go with the wind..."
The song floated out from our mouths, filled with vicissitudes. I didn't quite understand if the price of love was just tears and heartbreak, but I knew: the price of growth was the love that had faded away with the passage of ti.
In this deep night when I should have seen through everything, I still regretted the love that had passed away, for Robben and that Beijing girl whose na I didn't know!
...
The next morning, I caught a train heading to Yiwu. After arriving in Yiwu, I had to transfer to Hengdian. I knew, I had to do sothing for myself. If Le Yao could agree to co back and shoot the opening poster for GUCCI, my career would take its first step forward.
Promoted to the team leader of the planning and copywriting team, my monthly salary would exceed ten thousand, perhaps life could stabilize.
Sitting on the southbound train, I said to myself for the first ti, "Work hard, Zhao Yang!... Don't let anyone look down on you!"
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