Short Story | Xie Luoxuan: What We Saw in Crisis (Selected Readings)

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Original Edition, Shanghai Literature, April 2022

What we saw in the crisis (optional reading)

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One

It was not easy to find the crack, and only when she settled her mind and stabilized her gaze could she recognize its subtle undulations through the golden floral wallpaper.

When he got the news, Lin Fen was in a trance.

In her view, only old houses without separate bathrooms, waiting to be demolished, or cement houses in the countryside can cause these problems to occur. She couldn't imagine how her house had suddenly cracked in the core. But she soon realized that this might be an opportunity to solve another, more complex problem.

It is the end of the year, although the company has not taken a holiday, but it has been impetuous. Lin Fen took a leave of absence without any effort.

Two hours later, she boarded the high-speed train from Shanghai to Wuhan.

Only then did she notice messages from tenants. He said they were gone, and the key was hidden under the floor mat in the doorway as she said. When the car was about to start, a couple with gray hair came up one after the other and wanted to change seats with Lin Fen. As soon as they opened their mouths, Lin Fen stood up with interest. When the three of them sat down, Lin Fen found that the two actually asked her to separate them. Lin Fen slightly raised the corner of his mouth, sent a circle of friends, and simply wrote down this small episode.

At the time of the release, she deliberately blocked He Chao. She swiped the screen boredly and saw that the two tenants had sent a circle of friends at the airport in the morning, using the same photo and the same text. One word, fly. For the tenants, Lin Fen only went through the video with them once at the beginning, and immediately agreed. Lin Fen felt that like them, it was difficult to emotionally not want to have results. On the other hand, she didn't know how much He Chao's income was until now, he just gave her a fixed amount of money every month to use it, and if there was an extra need, she had to ask him. Lin Fen rarely spoke, her own salary was still passable, and she did not expect He Chao. The problem is that even if he spends the money he earns, He Chao still has to take care of it. He was particularly suspicious of Lin Fen buying clothes, and often accused her of buying exactly the same clothes.

It's my style and I'm only suitable for wearing this. Lin Fen said.

It's not interesting anyway. He said.

The last time there was a disagreement over such a thing was ten days ago, and the two are still in the Cold War. At that time, Lin Fen was interested in a coat, and the mall did a discount for the New Year. Lin Fen dialed the video to show He Chao, He Chao is still that sentence, what is the difference between this and your other coats? Lin Fen thought, resigning the old and welcoming the new, even if the purchase is exactly the same as before, whether it is a new peach for an old charm, or different, the price is not unaffordable, how can not buy. However, she was still as usual, hesitant, and did not buy it after all. Also as usual, because he felt depressed, he did not say a word. He Chao was also stuffy. Neither of them paid any attention to the other.

Speaking of which, as early as when she was just married, Lin Fen noticed that she and He Chao did not deal with the concept of consumption, she was uncomfortable but had luck, and she did not expect that day by day, the problems were accumulating more and more. Slowly, problems become habits. Every time there is an incident, the basic trend is to freeze and freeze, and in a few days, the two will be like no one. But it wasn't really okay, the unpleasant feelings were superimposed again and again, never disappeared, and gradually became heavy. This time to catch up with the New Year, Lin Fenyu felt aggrieved.

It was at this time that the crack in the house came, and although it was a bad thing, it seemed to come just in time.

Lin Fen quietly looked out the window, thinking about his thoughts. It is reasonable to say that she lives in Shanghai now, but this trip, if she does not get it, she will never go back. The so-called opportunities are double-edged swords, just like when she went to Shanghai, she also thought it was an opportunity, but now it is to solve the problems over there, and when she returns to Wuhan, it is an opportunity. If Lin Fen had a second choice at that time, would she and He Chao still be married? The answer may not be 100% negative in Lin Fen, but it can also be divided into at least half of the probability, she has thought many times, if there is this half probability endorsement, she will at least not let the other party look down on herself because she is too dead-hearted.

Looking back at the two, they were romantic at the beginning and met at an industry conference. After talking in a different place for a year, Lin Fen always felt that He Chao had a gentle personality, a vague attitude, and was far away from her, and it was not very realistic to come together. When she was about to propose a breakup, He Chao said lightly, or you come over. At that time, Lin Fen was already thirty-four, and he was always worried about whether he would become a lonely person. Such times. When the man said such a thing, she agreed without hesitation.

He Chao has a suite in Shanghai, not big, more than seventy square meters, Lin Fen suggested that it is better to sell it, plus his own house in Wuhan, after changing hands can be changed in Shanghai for a larger one. He Chao had been vague and could not come up with an idea. Buying a coat is such a small thing, but when it comes to the house, it is complicated. Lin Fen thought that if he listened to her, he would have sold this house early, cracks or something, where would these things come with him.

This is definitely a thing that can be played by the topic, and if used well, it can uproot the problem between her and He Chao. Of course, there are risks, if it does not work, even the remaining bit of conjugal love may be lost. It doesn't matter. Just take a gamble.

Thinking like this all the way, Lin Fen gradually jumped over the problem of the crack itself, only thinking about how to use this problem to solve another problem. When she realized that she had left her cold home and left Shanghai, a feeling of excitement suddenly arose in her heart.

At five o'clock in the afternoon, the car arrived in Wuhan.

A thick layer of damp twilight had been piled up outside the platform, and all that was swallowed between the breaths was the dense water vapor.

Lin Fen quickened his pace and blended into the crowd in a blink of an eye.

Two

The crack appears in the middle of the west wall of the bedroom and belongs to the longitudinal penetration type.

When the little couple found it, they were about to return to their hometown in Shandong. Before leaving, they carefully looked around the rooms to see if they had forgotten anything. Looking at it like this, there is a problem. The two immediately connected with Lin Fen, letting her see the crack in the wall. They said that they had checked it, and if the transverse crack was fine, the vertical one was more troublesome. But after the property was inspected, it was said that this wall was not a load-bearing wall, and the problem was not big.

In their shots, the cracks are hidden under wallpaper, hidden and deep, presumably the same is true of the neighbor's house. Lin Fen asked them if they had gone to the next door to have a look, and they said that they had knocked on the door, but there was no one in sight. This is not surprising, Lin Fen has lived there for many years, and has never seen the owner of the suite, the tenants have seen some, the faces are changed back and forth, the connection period is often very long, so vacant.

Lin Fen found a housing safety appraisal company on the Internet and agreed that after she arrived in Wuhan, the other party would send an engineer to check it out and determine whether the crack was harmful.

The engineer came over just before Lin Fen had time to put down his luggage.

His hair was fluffy and clean, and he stood backlit as if he were topped by a rim-haired aperture. Seeing that the door was open, he took a step back and asked politely, is there a shoe cover? Lin Fen rummaged through the shoe cabinet. The engineer stood outside the door rubbing his hands coldly, and he explained that there was something wrong the next day, only this time there was time, too late, forgive me. Lin Fen couldn't find the shoe cover and let him come straight in.

They went to see the crack together.

Lin Fen had just entered the door and didn't know where the crack was. From the cartoon electronic scale in the entrance to the red sofa cover in the living room to a one-meter brown doll bear on the bedroom bed, the territory that originally belonged to her has been transformed into a strange territory by many objects. Lin Fen walked hesitantly, which made her feel terrified of the crack she was going to see next.

The engineer found the crack before she did, and he stared closely for a moment, then stepped back and moved his gaze up and down. After observing, he took turns pounding his fists on each wall. He had a serious expression and quickly concluded that it was all right. He said some very professional explanations, such as this wall is a pouring wall, the crack is because the house has sunk, but it does not matter, this house has been built for seven or eight years, this situation is very normal. Then there is, if it is not good to make up, you have to open the wallpaper, fill it with cement, scrape it flat, lay the wallpaper, it takes a lot of effort, but it will not be long before the wall will crack. The solution is to knock out the entire wall and re-build it, which involves neighbors, has to negotiate, and the existing decoration will be completely destroyed, and a lot of costs will be incurred. He even felt that there was no need to even issue an appraisal report. He said that the content of the report is what I am telling you now, and I said that there is no charge for you to listen to it, and that the report will start at three thousand, which is not necessary.

Lin Fen couldn't believe that the problem could be solved in a way that didn't have to do anything, which was equivalent to the problem not coming.

However, the crack in front of you at first glance looks like a river, and when you look closely, it is clear that it is a deep mountain canyon, with terrible rugged and unbelievably long. It's clearly real. If a small worm passes through this crack and falls, then for this little worm, the reappearing world is the house next door. Will it climb out of the east wall of the house next door and camp there from now on? And she herself, in fact, had fallen into a crack in nothingness that could not be seen or touched but was real. When she understood that it wasn't the crack in the wall that made her really afraid, she stopped asking the engineer childish questions of the layman.

She videotaped with the tenants, explained the situation to them, locked the door in front of them, and made a gesture of leaving. When she hung up, she folded back, took out her toiletries, and found a corner in the bathroom to set them up. Then she took a bed of cotton wool from the closet and put it on the quilt cover she had brought. She carried the quilt to the couch. When she removed the cushions on the couch, she took a picture so that she could leave in a few days and put it back as it was. She had to try not to leave traces of habitation.

She premeditated and pretended that the problem was complicated and needed to stay here to solve until He Chao's attitude changed substantially. She guessed that the time would not be too long, after all, it was about to be the New Year, and He Chao could not be indifferent to her "disappearance". It is not that she has not considered staying in a hotel, but she is a woman's home, living in a hotel, and in the absence of any witness, she asked Back He Chao, afraid that she could not explain it clearly. It is not impossible to live in a friend's house, but she thinks it is better to hide a little, she does not want her private affairs to become the talk of friends, nor do she want to be guessed by them, she just wants to wait alone for a while to see if things will be like cracks in the wall, without her doing anything, basically lost the threat.

Three

On this night, as Lin Fen expected, He Chao broke the silence of the past few days and took the initiative to talk to her.

What about people? He sent a WeChat message to ask her.

Lin Fen forwarded the video taken by the tenant to him.

What's the situation?

You see.

What is it? Where are you?

In Wuhan, the wall of the master bedroom was cracked, and I came to have a look.

Tell me in advance.

Lin Fen no longer replied, thinking, why didn't I say it in advance, didn't you count in your heart?

He Chao also said nothing more.

Lin Fen couldn't stand He Chao not speaking. When you are happy, you don't speak, you just laugh; when you are not happy, you don't speak, you are stuffy, as if there is a processor in your stomach, and if you have any words, you will break it, and it will seep into the flesh and blood, and you don't have to pour it out. Lin Fen can't do it, she is like water, the temperature is so hot that it has to smoke. But this is often the case, it doesn't matter who is right, endurance is everything. The two sides are at war, and the first party to open its mouth is always passive because it seems eager to solve the problem. In the past, Lin Fen was the passive person.

This time we grind slowly. She thought.

She simply ran into the bedroom and took a picture of the bed so that she could compare it to recover later. She jumped on it, stretched her limbs and lay down comfortably.

Let's have a protracted battle. She secretly encouraged herself.

The reason that Lin Fen had used to come back was that the crack that did not have to be dealt with was close at hand. She raised her face slightly, found it, and looked up. As it climbed, she sat up slowly. Then she looked down from above, imagining how it stretched little by little, becoming dangerous little by little. She looked at it and felt that it seemed difficult to become more dangerous, but it could not disappear, and for a moment it was like a fish in her throat. The sensation made her hang her head down heavily, and she collapsed on the bed.

The next day I went to sleep, and it was midnight again. This time she saw He Chao's WeChat message.

How's it going? He asked her.

She tugged at the horns over her mouth and let out a muffled and painful whimper.

He saw that she did not reply, and then said that when it was time to gamble.

It took a while for her to know what he had come to ask her.

Wuhan was locked down.

But her mind was not on it. He finally had a word. She felt that for the first time she was in the initiative in their relationship. As she expected, He Chao sent a link to ask Lin Fen to buy the coat.

Four

Buy it, Wuhan in addition to food and epidemic prevention materials, other express delivery can not go in, coats can be sent to Shanghai first, waiting for you to come back to wear. He Chao said.

Not sure when to go back.

Lin Fenmu chatted with him. She was very unaccustomed. She found that it seemed that the problem between her and He Chao, like the crack in the house, was solved without doing anything. Or rather, it was the pandemic that helped them displace the context of the problem. The background is so exaggerated compared to the problems between them that the problems can be negligible. It reminded her of White Tassel and Fan Liuyuan. Between these two people, and between her and He Chao, the real thing is just because they are bound by feelings, and how big is the element of thinking of reviewing their own kindness to each other?

Can't be taken seriously. Lin Fen thought.

Always pass, think of something happy, so that time will pass faster. He Chao said. Extreme hospitality.

Everything he said now made Lin Fen feel uneasy. The better the more uneasy.

Does The plum quench its thirst? She coped.

At best, it is a delayed gratification. He punched out a smiling face.

Lin Fen hesitated, but He Chao immediately transferred the money to buy clothes, which made her completely doubt whether the person standing on the other end of the phone was him. She videotaped him, and he revealed a slightly puffy face. She asked him what he was thinking, and he looked like he didn't understand, and asked, What? She gave up and asked him if he hadn't slept well. He said it was okay. Then he asked, is there enough money?

This serious sentence between normal husband and wife, when Lin Fen heard it, made her feel ashamed. She didn't know where the feeling came from, but it did correspond to her weak side, as if if she answered "not enough", it meant inferiority. She longed, and timidly. She needs an unthinking actor. If a man really wants to be good to a woman, ask her what she does if she has enough money, and think of this problem, he will directly transfer money. That's her understanding of the problem. Finally she thought that since he was still at odds with the ideal man she had in mind, he was mostly real, but perhaps because of the current special circumstances, he had become alienated and willing to care about her. There is also a possibility... She flashed a thought: she was running out of time.

From the beginning, death spread like a drop of ink to the waters to which it plunged, and it was gray and black. Where tomorrow is a concern for everyone in this city. The onlookers outside harbored the most basic sympathy for the people here, and every sound they made seemed to feel empathy. Compassion is so unified in this day and age. He Chao is one of the onlookers and will inevitably fall into the vortex of collective emotions. That is, he deeply sympathized with her. Perhaps he, as an outsider, had observed something more keenly.

The more Lin Fen thought about it, the more nervous he became. She subconsciously clicked on He Chao's head picture, a photo of a distant mountain scenery, a little blurry. At this moment, she looked and looked, and felt that she had never seen him clearly.

Five

Trapped in the house, Lin Fen kept an eye on the current affairs news on TV. Her mind was tense at times, and sometimes she followed the report into the distance. For a while, her body and mind were haunted by this seeming anxiety. One day, she took a broom to the bathroom to clean up, and when she went in, she found that the corner was very clean. It turned out that the afternoon before, she had already cleaned up.

After two weeks of groggy, Lin Fen asked He Chao when he was a head, and He Chao came up with his usual tricks. He said, "If not, you'll see what else you want to buy." He called the goods "something to look forward to" and thought they helped her relax. That time, Lin Fen tried to choose a pair of leather shoes to wear in the spring.

Merchants are as difficult to walk offline as everyone else, so they try to make a bigger splash on the Internet. No matter what Lin Fen picked and how many pieces he picked, He Chao said good. Lin Fen gradually became bolder, and sometimes he could buy several pieces at a time. Each time she didn't believe that He Chao would be unanswered, and after each time he really had no opinion, she tried a new temptation.

Husband, how much have I spent?

No more, no more. He always replied to her like this.

One day she videotaped him, showed him dinner, cooked instant noodles, and put in two pieces of ribs left over from the previous day, with no greens left. She participated in the group purchase, and the next day she could send it over, so she used pickled cucumbers instead, and the taste was surprisingly good. She had thought it was funny, but his eyes were red and flashing with tears, as if she were eating something terrible. She looked at him carefully in the video, and his untrimmed, sideburns-out hair graced his square face very well, making him look like he had a literary temperament that had not been completely absent before. She took a screenshot and looked at his new image over and over again. His eyes were strange and intriguing.

This time she asked him directly if she was dying, so that's why he was so good to her.

He Chao was very surprised and said, what do you think, isn't the situation getting better and better?

So why have you changed?

I've always been like this.

Lin Fen stared at He Chao on the screen of his mobile phone and looked directly into his eyes. He didn't notice anything out of the ordinary, and naturally repeated what he had just said. I've always been like this.

Where have you been willing to spend money like this before.

I didn't reluctant it, I just felt that some of the expenses were unnecessary. In the current situation, of course, it is not necessary to consider the necessity from the perspective of living a life as usual.

Is it over?

I'll talk about it later. He Chao shook his body a little and retreated from the front of the mobile phone screen to a little farther away.

Lin Fen stared at him, trying to see why he was dodging.

It was almost then that one day, shouts came from the next door.

A woman, who should be older, has a dry voice and a sense of dying that has sucked away a lot of water. Lin Fen walked alertly to the door and looked out through the cat's eyes. There was nothing on the aisle. The shouting did not stop, but it seemed to abate. Lin Fenluo knew that it was the wrong direction as soon as he could tell. She walked to the balcony, which was close to the bedroom. Sure enough, the shouting became louder, one after another, sounding miserable and intense. Listening closely, behind this voice, there seems to be a male voice, also some age, rustling, dry and tasteless, issuing a coherent deliberate low-pitched rebuke.

The voices of the two men were intermittent, sometimes at six or seven o'clock in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon, and around eight o'clock in the evening. And no matter what time it was, the four sides were empty and deep, as if there was no one, making this strange movement close at hand particularly prominent. Lin Fen felt trepidation. Once she chose shoes on her mobile phone and slowly fell asleep, not knowing whether in a dream or in reality, she was shocked by the scream of the woman's elongated voice. She got up from the bed, eyes close to the crack. She used a toothpick to make a small hole in the wallpaper covering the crack. In an instant, the cry seemed to cross over, and the air rushed into her ears like a stream of air. This time she could even hear the man's cursing. Men say, with you, just together, say nothing, do nothing, is torture, too torturous, it is better to die. Lin Fen immediately covered the hole with his hand, as if this would blind the privacy of the old man next door. She also heard some fluttering claps. The woman immediately cried out in pain. Are you uncomfortable too? But you never say. The man said. The voice was sharp, and the throat was hanging up to the ceiling.

When she faintly heard their voices again, Lin Fen looked around for the small holes she had opened along the cracks covered by the wallpaper, but she couldn't find anything. It was only after she had fallen asleep, when she was half asleep, when she was half asleep, that the little hole would appear, that it was not much larger than the eye of a needle, and that she could not see anything in that little hole, but she knew that something subtle, imperceptible, would circulate freely through it. In addition to the sound, she also smelled a sour smell that only the elderly had, like something had been steamed off.

It was the smell of decay.

……

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