Gardenia in the Reeds

When Shen Zhi was seven years old, a wild child came to Reed Lane. Meng Wei lived under a bridge, rummaging through rubbish to eat, and was beaten to death by his alcoholic father, leaving not a single piece of good meat on his body. Shen Zhi gave her half a piece of steamed bun, so she took it. They painted flowers and reeds in the reed bushes, shared the glass marbles they picked up in the bridge cave, watched pornographic discs on the old quilts in the attic, and clumsily learned to kiss and touch. Later, Shen Zhi said, "I will support you from now on." Meng Wei was stunned for a moment, then leaned over and kissed the corner of her mouth. That was the first time they knew that the word "like" can make people's hearts beat so hard that they can't breathe. But Reed Lane is too narrow to accommodate the ambitions of the two girls. Shen Zhi was admitted to the nursing school and went to the provincial capital, while Meng Wei stayed in the county town, going from a hair salon apprentice to a barber shop proprietress, living in the fumes and broken hair. The gasps on the phone from a different place, the hurried entanglement in the toilet cubicle of the train station, the orgasm with the mouth covered in the duty room of the nursing school... The wind in the county town blew them away and then back, for ten years. Shen Zhi said: "It seems that we have been saying goodbye all our lives." Meng Wei said: "Then don't sue." They returned to the old location of Reed Lane. The place has become a small square, the reeds are gone, the bridge holes have been filled in, but the iron shed deep in the ruins is still there. Meng Wei pressed Shen Zhi against the rusty iron sheet, intertwined his fingers with hers, and said, "This place belongs to us." From the age of seven to twenty-four, from half a piece of steamed bun to a wire ring. Two county girls grew up in the mud and found a home in each other's bodies. This is a story they wrote over ten years - moist, hot, and full of each other's names. Concept: The county town is the rust on their bodies that cannot be removed, and they are each other's only hands that can scrape off the rust. In the damp and cramped corner, between the corruption and poverty of their parents, the two girls confirmed each other's existence with the most primitive physical contact - it was not desire, but evidence of living. From an early age, they learned to use their body temperature to fight the cold, use kisses to mark their belongings, and use the trembling of climbing to the top to tell the world: Although we were born in the mud, we have each other. This is about how two low-class women grow into each other as their only hometown in a situation where they have nothing. About those moments crushed by life and put back together with love. About the unique, rough and hot way of life of county girls. They don't know how to talk about love, but their bodies remember: every touch is "I am here", every entry is "don't be afraid", and every orgasm is "it's good to be alive". This is not a story about escaping from the county town, but how two people used each other's lives as a way out in the county town.