Citrus Aurantium When Half-Ripe

When they first met, Lin Zhi saw the shadow of his neighbor's wrist in the floating chalk dust in the classroom, like an embossed flower shaken out by accidentally turning the page of a book. Shen Xiwei - the dewdrops and dust that were about to dry in the morning light caught her blurting out her self-reflection: "Lin Zhi, the sour fruit of Zhi Zhi." The oil on the eggplant box in the canteen dazzled the eyes, and the ginger grains floated like old thorns stuck in the throat. Lin Zhi had a habit of peeling off the bitter flesh: "My family always says that ginger can dispel cold, so mince it and mix it into the soup base and make people drink it." Shen Xiwei used the tip of his chopsticks to poke away the oily bits: "Ginger is the best at hiding it." The residual warmth in the picking fingertips melted through the first hard shell of Lin Zhi's seventeen years of life. They separated and reunited three times, like half-ripe green mandarin oranges rolling on the blade of a knife. First love matured on the eve of the college entrance examination: Shen Xi gently kissed the beer foam from Lin Zhi's lips, and the dew on the playground soaked the sibilant sound of "forever"; The first time we broke up and indulged in the rainy season: Lin Zhi poured out the sobering ginger tea that had been simmering for three hours and watched the condensed water droplets on the edge of the porcelain bowl fall into a rain curtain; The second reunion was wrapped in sugar-coated poison: Shen Xiwei helped her clean up the festering sores in the workplace, and when the blade backfired, it rusted into the seams of her own bones; The last time we sat together in late autumn: in the early morning at the Erhai Lake, the smell of ginger melted into the soup base with the loosened molars of the thirty-year-old. Shen Xiwei's birthday gift was a jar of stained green plums. The label on the glass jar was stained with water: "Half-ripe citron fruit regulates qi, take one pill when pain is relieved." Lin Zhi bit open the plum flesh, and the honey-soaked acid surged up to the base of his tongue, while the core was still biting his gums - their relationship was finally marinated: it was not ripe jam, nor bitter citron used as medicine, but two old cores placed in a pottery plate named after a friend, making a dull sound when they touched. Purpose: Don't lose the courage to live