Phoenix Has No End

September in Fengli is as hot as a steamer. I stood at the door of the classroom of Grade 1, Grade 3, looking at the faded class sign above the door frame, my palms all sweaty. Fengli Middle School is the worst junior high school in this small county town. How bad is it? No more than five people can pass the county No. 1 Middle School every year, and the rest either go to technical secondary schools or just join the society. It took a lot of favors from my mother to get me in. Before leaving, she told me with red eyes, Xiaodong, study hard and don't be a bad person. I nodded, thinking, what bad things can I learn? I have trouble even talking to people. The classroom was noisy, and the seats in the front row were already occupied. I slipped in through the back door and found a corner against the wall to sit down. The tabletop was covered with words such as "So-and-so I love you" and "So-and-so is an idiot." I touched the engraved marks with my fingers, thinking that the person who carved these words must have worked very hard when they were engraved on them. Then I raised my head and saw Huang Jingxuan. She was sitting two rows diagonally in front of me, with a high ponytail and a thin, white neck. The sun shone in from the window and hit the side of her face, and you could see the thin down on her ears. She was looking down at a new notebook, moving very gently, as if she was afraid of crumpling the paper. The noise around her seemed to have nothing to do with her, so she just sat there quietly, like a small white flower growing among the rocks. My heartbeat skipped a beat. How can I describe that feeling? It's like you have been living in a gray world, and suddenly someone tore a hole in the curtain and let in a beam of light. You know that that beam of light has nothing to do with you, but you just can't move your eyes away. I stared at the back of her head for the entire class, not listening to a word of what the head teacher said. I only remember that she turned her head once and her eyes swept across my face without stopping, as if she was looking at the air. But those few seconds of looking at each other made my ears burn for a full ten minutes. In the first week of school, I learned a lot about Huang Jingxuan's basic situation. Her family opened a canteen on the old street of the county town. Her father had bad legs and her mother was a very thin woman. She is the only child in the family, her grades are average, she doesn't talk much, and she either sleeps on the table during class, or stands alone at the end of the corridor watching the playground. Like a pervert, I kept every observable detail in mind. She likes to use black gel pens, not ballpoint pens. When she drinks water, she unscrews the cap and smells it. When she smiles, she has a very shallow dimple on the right side, but not on the left. The white canvas shoes she wore on Monday had new laces, one white and one light pink. I dare not talk to her. Every time I passed by her seat, I had to take a deep breath and pretend to walk over without looking away, but in fact my peripheral vision was focused on her. Once she accidentally dropped the eraser and it rolled to my feet. She bent down to pick it up. When she raised her head, she looked at me for a second and said, "Sorry." I opened my mouth and wanted to say "It's okay", but my throat felt like it was being strangled and I couldn't utter a single word. In the end I just nodded stiffly. She turned around and left without paying any attention. I lay on the bed in the dormitory that night, tossing and turning, unable to sleep, and repeated the phrase "I'm sorry" hundreds of times in my mind. Her voice was exactly as I imagined, soft and slightly nasal, as if she hadn't woken up. Before the National Day, I made a bold decision - I wanted to confess to her. The decision made no sense. I couldn't even talk to her normally, but I actually wanted to express my love to her. But at that time, all I could think about was her. I thought about her in class, when I was eating, and when I was sleeping. If I didn't say those words, I felt like I was going to explode. I spent three nights writing a love letter, tearing it up and tearing it up. The final version only had four lines of words - "Hello, classmate Huang Jingxuan. I am Yang Xiaodong from Class 3, Grade 1. I am sitting diagonally behind you against the wall. I think you are very good-looking and want to be friends with you. If you are willing, I will wait for you at the table tennis table behind the playground after school on Friday." I folded the note into a small square and stuffed it into her pencil case when she went out during class. After stuffing it, I was shaking all over. When I returned to my seat, my trouser legs were soaked with sweat from the palms of my hands. When the school bell rang, she came back from outside, opened her pencil case, and saw the small ball of paper. She was stunned for a moment, took a look, and then—— She crumpled the note into a ball and threw it into the drawer. He didn't look back at me, and he didn't react at all. It was like he had received a piece of waste paper. I sat in the back and felt like someone had dug a hole in my chest, and the cold wind was blowing into it. But I was still comforting myself, maybe she was just too embarrassed to turn back on the spot, maybe she would go on Friday. After school on Friday afternoon, I was the first to rush out of the classroom and ran to the table tennis table behind the playground to wait. The table tennis table was made of cement and had many pits. The net was gone long ago and was separated by a few bricks. I stood nearby and watched the sun sink little by little. The number of students on the playground decreased from many to few, and finally there were only a few senior students playing basketball. I waited for almost an hour. Huang Jingxuan did not come. I walked back with my head lowered. When I passed the corner of the teaching building, I heard a burst of laughter from the basketball court. I glanced up subconsciously and stopped suddenly. Huang Jingxuan stood on the edge of the basketball court, holding a bottle of mineral water in her hand, looking at a boy on the court with a smile. I know that boy, Wang Shaohui, who is in the third grade of junior high school and a well-known gangster in Fengli Middle School. His father was a gangster on the street, and he had been exposed to it since he was a child. Fights were commonplace, and the teaching director would avoid him when he saw him. He is not handsome, but he has a savage energy about him. He shows his white teeth when he smiles, with a kind of arrogance that is not afraid of anything. Wang Shaohui finished playing and walked towards Huang Jingxuan covered in sweat. Huang Jingxuan handed him the water, and he took it and took a big sip. Then he threw the bottle aside and put his arm around Huang Jingxuan's shoulders. Huang Jingxuan did not hide, but leaned against him and smiled sweetly. That smile was completely different from the way she usually looked in the classroom. The eyes were sparkling, as if they were filled with stars. I stood there, the blood all over my body suddenly rushed to the top of my head, and then completely retreated. The October evening was already a bit cool, but I felt like my face was hot enough to fry an egg. I stood there and watched the two of them walk out of the school gate arm in arm and disappear around the corner of the street. Huang Jingxuan's ponytail swung behind her back, as if saying goodbye to me. I forgot how I got back to the dormitory. I just remember lying on the bed motionless, staring at the bed board on the upper bunk, my mind going blank. After a long, long time, a dull, dull pain spread from my chest, as if someone was slowly stirring it with a rusty knife. I can't figure it out. I can't figure out why she likes someone like Wang Shaohui. Wang Shaohui smokes, fights, swears, and fails in every final exam. How can he be worthy of Huang Jingxuan? That girl who is clean, has only one dimple when she smiles, and is afraid of crumpling the paper even when flipping through her notebook, how could she be with Wang Shaohui? Later, I slowly understood a truth - at that age, badness was a fatal attraction. Wang Shaohui's unruly and fearless spirit is something completely foreign and full of temptations to students like us who have grown up from obedience to adults. Huang Jingxuan looked at him with admiration, fascination, and a sense of pride that "I am different from others." She felt that being with Wang Shaohui made her special. I didn't give up. This is the most fatal thing in my character, accepting death. I identified Huang Jingxuan and felt that she should be with me. Wang Shaohui was not good enough for her. I would make her understand this sooner or later. I started looking for every opportunity to get close to her. When she was on duty, I took the initiative to stay and help her clean the blackboard. I was the first to pick up her homework book when it fell on the floor. When she forgot to bring her textbook, I lent her my own. I did these things very clumsily, and my palms became sweaty every time because of my nervousness, and my words were awkward, but I still had the courage to move forward. Huang Jingxuan's attitude towards me has always been neither salty nor cold. She is not the kind of mean girl and would not directly show her face to me, but her polite and distant politeness makes people feel more uncomfortable than her face. When she said "thank you" to me, she used the same tone as she said to everyone else, without any unnecessary emotion. She doesn't hate me, but she doesn't see me at all. And Wang Shaohui saw it. People like Wang Shaohui, who grew up on the street, are much better at observing people's emotions than I am. He soon discovered that there was a boy in the first grade of junior high school who was not quite right with his girlfriend. It was a Friday afternoon in mid-November, a day I will always remember. After school, I lingered as usual, wanting to wait for Huang Jingxuan to pack her schoolbag and pretend to go out of school with her. As a result, as soon as Huang Jingxuan stood up, the back door of the classroom was kicked open. Wang Shaohui walked in with two people. He was wearing a junior high school uniform, with the zipper open, a black T-shirt underneath, and a chain of unknown material hanging around his neck. He walked straight towards me, and the two men followed and blocked the back door of the classroom. There were still a few students in the classroom who hadn't left. Seeing this situation, they immediately packed up and ran away. No one dared to meddle in other people's business. Huang Jingxuan stood next to the seat, her expression changed, but she didn't say anything, she just took a step back. Wang Shaohui walked up to me, half a head taller than me. He looked at me condescendingly, with a hint of a smile on his face. "Your name is Yang Xiaodong?" He spoke, his voice not loud, but with a contempt that sent chills down the spine. I was sitting on a chair and wanted to stand up, but my legs wouldn't work. I clenched my fists, digging my nails into my flesh, and forced myself to look up at him: "It's me." "I heard that you like to pester my girlfriend?" He said the word "girlfriend" very hard and looked at me with his head tilted, as if he was watching a joke. I glanced at Huang Jingxuan. She stood two meters away, her head lowered, her expression unclear. "I didn't pester her." I said, my voice was trembling a little, but I still finished the words word for word, "I just... Like her." Wang Shaohui was stunned for a moment, and then burst into laughter. The two people behind him also laughed, and the laughter echoed in the empty classroom, as harsh as someone scratching a blackboard with their nails. "Did you hear that?" Wang Shaohui turned back and raised his chin towards Huang Jingxuan, "This guy said he likes you." Huang Jingxuan did not raise her head or speak. Wang Shaohui had had enough laughter and turned around, the smile on his face slowly faded away. He bent down and got close to my face, and I could smell the smell of cigarette smoke and sweat mixed with him. There was no smile in his eyes, only a cold menace. "Boy, I don't care if you like her or not, just remember this -" he said word by word, "Huang Jingxuan is my Wang Shaohui's person. If you dare to look at her again, I will make it impossible for you to stay in this school. Do you understand?" I said nothing. I'm not stubborn, I'm just so dry that I can't say a word. My heartbeat was so fast that it felt like it was about to jump out of my throat, but I stared at him without looking down. When Wang Shaohui saw that I was silent, the expression on his face became even more ugly. He straightened up, turned his head and looked around, then grabbed me by the collar and pulled me up from the chair. "I'm asking you if you understand!" His voice suddenly rose, and spittle sprayed all over my face. I was dragged by him and staggered a few steps. I knocked over a desk and the books on the desk fell to the floor. My hands instinctively pried off his fingers, but his strength was too great and I couldn't do it at all. "Let him go." The speaker was Huang Jingxuan. Her voice was not loud, but the classroom was so quiet that everyone heard her clearly. Wang Shaohui turned his head to look at her, and I looked at her too. Her face was a little pale, her lips were pursed tightly, and her fingers were holding the strap of her schoolbag until her knuckles turned white. "Don't hit people in school," she said. "It's not good if the teacher finds out." Wang Shaohui stared at her for a few seconds, then let out a "tsk" sound and let go of my collar. I staggered back two steps, my back hit the blackboard, and chalk dust fell all over me. "Okay, give my girlfriend some face." Wang Shaohui clapped his hands as if slapping away something dirty. He walked up to Huang Jingxuan, grabbed her waist, and led her out of the classroom. When he walked to the door, he turned around, raised a finger at me, tapped his eyes, and then tapped me. The meaning is clear - I'll be watching you. They're gone. I was the only one left in the classroom. I slowly slid to the ground, leaning against the blackboard, and the chalk dust was still falling down, landing on my hair and shoulders. My collar was pulled out of shape by him, and there was a red mark on my neck, which was burning and painful. But what hurts more than my neck is the area on my chest, as if someone has stepped on me hard and then crushed me. It wasn't because Wang Shaohui hit me, but because of the way Huang Jingxuan looked at me at the end. She was worried about Wang Shaohui. She was afraid that the teacher would catch him if he caused trouble in school, so she was thinking about him from beginning to end. As for me, I was just a wretch who overestimated his abilities and needed her sympathy to avoid a beating. The look she gave me was not even pity, only a kind of light, condescending indifference, as if to say - look, this is the gap, do you understand? I sat on the ground for a long time, until the sky outside the window turned completely dark. The voice-activated lights in the corridor went out, and the classroom fell into darkness. I sat in the dark, buried my face in my knees, and my shoulders began to shake uncontrollably. I didn't cry. At least I don't think I cried. But my face is wet. That night, instead of going back to my dormitory, I climbed over the wall and left the school, walking alone on the street all night. The November night wind was so cold that it felt like a knife cutting my face, but I didn't feel cold at all because my whole body was numb. I walked through the old street and passed Huang Jingxuan's canteen. The rolling shutter door has been drawn down, and dim light shines from the second-floor windows. I stood across the road for a long time, imagining what she was doing at the moment, whether she was sending text messages to Wang Shaohui, and whether she had that dimple-filled smile on her lips. The feeling is indescribable. You like someone to the core, but the person she likes is not you. The person she likes tramples you under his feet, while she watches from the side without even frowning. I swear I hate her. But that oath was broken less than ten minutes after it was sworn. Because I found that I couldn't hate her at all. When I thought that she would still be sitting in that position tomorrow, wearing a ponytail and exposing her white neck, my heart softened again. I'm just so worthless. I didn't go to class the next day. I went to the table tennis table behind the playground alone and sat there all day. The concrete platform was cold and covered with dead leaves. I picked them up one by one and put them down one by one, repeating this process countless times. When school was over in the afternoon, I heard noises coming from the teaching building, and students were walking out in twos and threes. I hid behind the table tennis table and saw Huang Jingxuan and Wang Shaohui walking out of the school gate from a distance. Wang Shaohui put his hand on her shoulder, her head leaned slightly towards him, and the two of them disappeared around the corner while talking and laughing. Exactly the same as yesterday. The same thing happens every day in this world. Happy people are happy, sad people are sad, and no one affects anyone. I carved a line of words on the table tennis table. I used the stones I picked up to carve stroke by stroke for nearly an hour. The stones had scratched the fingers, and blood mixed with cement dust stuck to the scratches, making them look dirty. The words in that line were - "Yang Xiaodong likes Huang Jingxuan." After I finished carving, I stared at the crooked words for a long time, and then smiled. Laugh at yourself for being stupid, laugh at yourself for being stupid, laugh at yourself, even though you know there will be no results, you still want to carve this sentence on the stone, as if it will become true if you carve it. Later, the words were washed away by rain, covered by fallen leaves, and smoothed by time. Just like when I recall those days many years later, many details have been blurred, but the dull, dull pain has always stayed in a corner of my heart. Occasionally, it still hurts faintly. I have not given up liking Huang Jingxuan. This is my sorrow and my destiny. The fight that day was just the beginning. Wang Shaohui will not let me go, I know that. But what I know better is that even if he maims me, I still can't help but look at Huang Jingxuan sitting in the sun the next day. Once a person is sure of something, it is difficult to look back. Especially at that age, when you still don't know what "stop loss" means, when you feel like you will love someone until you die. The end of the story has not yet come, but the ending has been written from the beginning. It's just that I don't want to admit it. Intention: Puppy love