The phoenix trees are still there and the white roses are blooming again. The young man who met in the alley cannot be forgotten.
When he was sixteen years old, he was thrown to his cousin's house in the county town. Her parents divorced and the family broke up. She dragged her blue schoolbag into the new classroom alone. His deskmate Lu Yu is the crush of all the boys in the school. Chen Jinye, who is in the third row, runs to the last row with a smile every day - delivering water, pens, and plum candy, saying "Help Lu Yu."
Xie Weixi was too lazy to care about this. She climbs over the wall to smoke, takes copywriting orders to make money, and takes photos for people on weekends to save living expenses. She has seen that daily life is expensive, so she doesn't expect or trust anyone. Everyone knew that Chen Jinye was chasing after Lu Yu, but when she lowered her head to write on the blackboard, a hand would always reach out from her side, trace her words along her strokes, and say, "I can't even draw your words." He said the hairband was made by his grandma, said the photo was from when he was a child, and said "please help me check my voice" - but he looked into her eyes much more seriously than when he said those words.
Lu Yu smiled softly one day and said, "Did he come to the wrong person?"
Xie Weixi didn't answer. She knew in her heart that the person who pretended to chase someone else was looking for the wrong person from the first day. In other words, I made the right mistake, I just took a long detour.
Later she left first. It's not that she doesn't like it, it's that she is too used to being alone, and anything that might leave is pushed away in advance. Chen Jinye didn't catch up. They were waiting for each other to speak first, for summer to pass, for graduation, for each to go their separate ways.
A few years later in Mexico City, Xie Weixi was taking a cultural portrait in an alley, and there was an extra person in the frame. Short hair, dark jacket, and a scar on his brow bone. He turned around and saw her, the ends of his eyes curled up, exactly the same as when he was in high school.
Three years. He searched for three years.
"Why are you running?" He asked.
"Tired."
"Then don't run away."
She responded with silence. But he dug out all the things he had accumulated over the past three years and threw them in front of her - his palms, his breathing, his strength, and the words he had suppressed for a long time.
She didn't leave anymore.
——Those things that come close to you after taking a long way around are all waiting for you to recognize yourself in the depths of time.
Purpose: Flowers bloom from ruins