I knew Sheng Zhiqiu much earlier than Gu Jingming.
On the afternoon of her second year in junior high school, she was amused by the story she made up in the corner of the library, her eyes curled into crescents, and the sun fell on the tips of her hair. At that moment, my world of basketball, sweat, and all the noisy joy suddenly made way for her. My secret love started quietly and grandly.
But I never told her.
Because I know who her eyes will stop at—that guy named Gu Jingming. He doesn't play basketball, he solves math problems; he doesn't tell jokes, he excels silently, like a snow-capped mountain that operates precisely and is out of reach. And Sheng Zhiqiu, this girl who always loved to write and draw in notebooks, quietly and stubbornly wrote all her secret joys into a novel with him as the male protagonist.
My youth is like a noisy one-act play. I am the supporting character who is always running around on the court and responsible for making everyone laugh. I watched her carefully hide her love in reality, and then pour out all the tender words for him in fictional chapters.
Gu Jingming is her "rhetoric". It is the most gorgeous and accurate metaphor she uses to describe the stars, the sea, and all ultimate beauty. And I am probably the lively metaphor used to adjust the atmosphere in her story - essential, but never the subject.
The summer after the college entrance examination ended, the wind was filled with the smell of farewell. We all know that there are some roads that can only go so far.
Strangely enough, none of us cried in the end, and there were no bloody confessions or arguments. Just like three stars running along a predetermined orbit, after briefly intersecting and illuminating each other's boyhood, they calmly slid into the depths of their respective universes.
Afterwards, we never met again.
The novel she never finished, the name she never announced, and my heartbeat that started under the sunshine in the second grade of junior high school were all left behind in that summer that I can never go back to.
This is our story, "The Rhetoric of You." A story about her writing him as a metaphor, and me, spending my entire youth practicing how to nonchalantly play a comedic supporting role.
I hope that when you read it, you can smell the sunshine, test papers, and a clear scent of regret that can never be replicated again.
—— Lu Xingye
On an ordinary night when I think of you
Concept: Everyone has a unique and unforgettable youth
