In the two years since Lin Shu moved here, he has spoken no more than twenty sentences to his neighbors across the street.
He knew that her surname was Shen, that she had single eyelids, walked very lightly, and that the clothes hanging on the balcony were always dark.
She probably knew that his surname was Lin, and he worked as a technician. He occasionally worked overtime and came back very late, and he closed the door very softly.
That's all they have together.
Until one November night, he was driven to collapse by his mother's seventh marriage call. He stood at her door and knocked three times.
The door opened.
He said, "Let's make it work, okay?"
She was silent for a long time, so long that he was ready to say "pretend I didn't say it".
Then she spoke.
"Okay. But I have conditions."
——
This is not a story about love.
At least not at first.
This is a story about two ordinary people who shined a beam of light on each other in the gaps of life, and then found that the light was too warm and neither one wanted to turn it off.
There are windbreakers for autumn and cotton-padded jackets for winter.
There is late-night ginger soup and soup in a thermos.
There is the gentleness of knocking on the door three times and leaving.
There is also a sentence of "I love you" that I have been holding back for three years before saying it.
——
Heat slowly. There is a knife. The fireworks are heavy.
If you have lived in an old community where the voice-activated lights are not very sensitive, and you have heard the sound of cooking next door late at night——
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