sunk into the earth

Chapter 68

Cheng Sheng's mother's injury was not serious, she just sprained her ankle, and returned to the hospital after a short rest.At that time, Cheng Sheng had just finished today's psychological consultation with his doctor, and he was in the same state as ordinary people. When he saw Zhang Chen helping his mother in, he immediately put the purchase materials at hand on the cabinet, and got out of bed to help Zhang Chen support his mother. Moved to the accompanying hospital bed.

Zhang Chen glanced at the stack of documents on the cabinet and asked, "Are you still working?"

Cheng Sheng had a guilty conscience, and after knowing it, he put all the materials into the cabinet, and quibbled: "After I am discharged from the hospital, I will go back to the company for a meeting, just take a look."

Zhang Chen didn't accept his tricks, and retorted: "You say that you are serious about cooperating with the treatment, and put the rest aside."

This time, Cheng Sheng had no excuses. Like frost beating an eggplant, he dug out the documents in the bedside table in twos and twos. With a blank face, he handed the stack of documents that Frank just sent two days ago to Zhang Chen, "You keep it, okay?"

Zhang Chen was happy to keep his work materials, took them and put them in his bag, and said, "I'll read it for you, and I'll pass it on to you when the time comes."

That afternoon, Cheng Sheng didn't think about anything about work anymore. Zhang Chen accompanied him to bask in the sun all afternoon in front of the window sill. On Zhang Chen's shoulder, looking through the window glass at the pedestrians coming and going on the trail in the distance.

At dusk, Cheng Sheng raised his head suddenly, realizing that they had been nestled together for several hours, got up and patted Zhang Shen: "Go back, don't you still have a lot of work to do?"

"It's okay, stay up late at night and do it."

"Don't stay up late." Cheng Sheng held his hand, looked at him and said seriously: "Go back quickly, nothing will happen this time, nothing will happen if you stay here, I will die of guilt."

Zhang Chen was urged by Cheng Sheng, and he didn't stay in the ward for long. There was still a lot of work behind him, the production of the new album was stuck in the middle, the re-arrangement of the songs for Saturday's performance, and some sporadic contact matters. Time to take care of Cheng Sheng's delays, all gathered together and piled up.

After sending the mother and son away, Zhang Chen finally had the time to drive back to the recording studio. The red lights kept stopping along the way. Zhang Chen took advantage of these gaps to fall into trivial thoughts. He always dreamed of wearing a hospital gown these days. Cheng Sheng, standing in the wind, the thin cloth swaying constantly with the wind, he was a little dazed after waking up, and felt that his head was filled with an eager desire to turn it into a melody, so he thought about this morbid song in his dream. Wrote a new version of the song in the image of .

This is Zhang Chen's first time writing a song about people. He doesn't like to write lyrics, but the difference between narrative and narrator is extremely obvious in his creation. Zhang Chen's narration is like sitting in the middle of a lake covered with thick ice and telling stories. Braving the air-conditioning, he narrates, constantly stacking up until it explodes. Zhang Chen wrote that he put a fire into the rules, and all chords were completely burned by the fire. He wrote indiscriminately, and the beginning directly The outbreak subsided again, and he hadn't figured out where he would end up, so he only wrote a semi-finished product.

When it comes to scribbling, Zhang Chen has some talents in "blindness" and "chaos" in the music world. This is not his self-righteousness, but a jazz guitarist's own evaluation of him.

The master who played jazz guitar came to Beijing two years ago to give a small-scale recital, and the venue was set at the Laoqin Bar. It happened that Zhang Chen came to pick up the equipment that day, and the master who had just finished the rehearsal was improvising on the stage alone. , Zhang Chen stood on the second floor, leaned against the fence and listened for a while, but finally couldn't hold back the desire to compete, and went down with his electric guitar in his arms. Regardless of other people's eyes, he rushed straight to the stage and jammed with the master for a while.

A group of staff members who are familiar with Zhang Chen have their blood pressure soared by his appearance, but they are not angry, they are more worried about him-Zhang Chen has never entered a professional music academy, let alone a genre, he His guitar skills are actually figured out by himself. They first came from an acoustic guitar and a yellowed and wrinkled music theory book. Later, it was the textbook of the conservatory of music, and then he searched for it on the Internet. For some professional papers on fingering, print them out and take them with you, and read them whenever you have time.With so much knowledge, isn't it a show of embarrassment in front of serious professional jazz masters?

But after the impromptu performance of the song, the master suddenly patted Zhang Chen on the shoulder when he turned to leave.

Zhang Chen, who was holding the guitar, looked back and found that the master had a satisfied smile on his face and gave a thumbs up.

Zhang Chen wanted to say thank you, but the master didn't give him the chance, put an arm around his shoulders, and praised him continuously for his impromptu aura.This evaluation is just an exaggeration for the time being. After Zhang Chen used the computer to play a few songs he had written to him, the light in the master's eyes became brighter. To put it bluntly, he is born to eat this bowl of rice, so he must cherish his talent.

The master spoke loudly, but Zhang Chen didn't believe it. He didn't believe in any compliments. He was praised for his good looks since he was a child, but he never felt that way when he looked in the mirror. Infinite, he felt that this was like farting.

However, Zhang Chen tried to figure out the matter of talent for countless times in the past few years, but he never really figured it out.This concept is as empty as the "love" and "family" in his heart, like a cloud of light mist, no one is qualified to define it, and no one can grasp it.

But until now, the concept of talent has become more unpredictable than "love" and "family", because the latter two concepts have gradually taken shape in his mind.Thinking of this, Zhang Chen took a few photos of the studio and sent them to Cheng Sheng. He was afraid that Cheng Sheng would be bored in the ward, so he also sent the demo of the new song he had just confirmed.

In the hospital, as soon as Cheng Sheng turned on the computer, he received a song he had never heard before. Cheng Sheng heard the first four albums of Zhang Chen and his band by heart. When he heard the unfamiliar melody, he thought it might be the song included in the new album. He took out his mobile phone and sent Zhang Chen a text message: Songs from the new album?Nice to hear.

There was a quick reply to the message, but there was only a short "oh".

Cheng Sheng had long been used to Zhang Chen's tone of voice when he sent text messages, so he didn't care, but was tickled by the melody, and suddenly wanted to go to the scene to listen to Zhang Chen playing the piano.He didn't know about this matter, but he still sent a text message asking Zhang Chen: I want to go to your performance on Saturday, can I sign a leave note with my doctor.

The other side returned quickly, but the content was not very pleasing. It said: Take a good rest and come to our music festival in April after being discharged from the hospital.

Cheng Sheng put the phone next to the pillow and collapsed on the hospital bed.

It will be a year in a few months before he and Zhang Chen meet again, but he has only seen Zhang Chen's performance once. At that time, Zhang Chen played four songs, two fixed pieces, and two encores. , Later, when I thought about those two encores, they were very unusual. No one would propose encores in the middle of nowhere for no reason. Cheng Sheng guessed that they were probably songs for himself.Thinking of this, his heart was scratched again, and he wanted to find a chance to sneak out to watch Zhang Chen's performance again.

At noon on Saturday, Cheng Sheng made a special trip to find his doctor, and asked with a glimmer of hope if she could issue him a leave request for going out. As expected, he received a refusal.

Cheng Sheng was not discouraged, he had long thought of a solution.

At nine o'clock in the evening, he slipped from his single ward to the end of the corridor. This corner is connected to another corridor, behind which is the bathroom on this floor, and directly opposite is a large glass window.

Cheng Sheng opened the window, and the cold air outside instantly awakened his chaotic mind. He only had a thin blue and white hospital gown on his body. When the wind blew, his hands and feet trembled from the cold.But he didn't pay much attention to it, and let his upper body lean out of the window, and the back of his hand was frozen unconscious after a while.

The downstairs is very quiet, there is no one, only a few bare trees can be seen clearly, Cheng Sheng looked down, and felt that the fourth floor is not particularly high, there are drainage pipes outside, and there are several places to stay, climb down by yourself Probably not a problem.

Just when he put one leg on the window sill, a voice suddenly sounded from behind: "Are you going to commit suicide?"

Cheng Sheng didn't expect that there was someone here. He was so frightened by the sudden movement that he sat back on the floor. Taking advantage of the moonlight outside the window, he turned his head helplessly.

Sitting in the corner was a tall and chubby man with exactly the same hospital gown as him. He tilted his head and looked at Cheng Sheng on the floor carefully with an expression on his face.

The two looked at each other in the air, and Cheng Sheng didn't speak, maybe because the hospital gown on this strange man gave him a sense of security, and he wasn't afraid.

Seeing that Cheng Sheng was silent, the man picked out a pack of original flavored potato chips from the two packs in his arms and handed it to Cheng Sheng. He said with a smile, "Don't die here, and find a place to die after you are discharged from the hospital. You jump from here today." Go down, tomorrow all the windows of this building will be sealed at night, and I will no longer be able to blow the night breeze here."

The bag of potato chips appeared in Cheng Sheng's field of vision, but he didn't take it. He opened the man's hand with a snap and said, "I don't eat what others give me."

The man didn't respond to him anymore, he just tore open the package of potato chips and started chewing.

The wind outside came in, and neither of them proposed to close the windows. Cheng Sheng was silent for a while, and suddenly said: "Today, my wife has a performance, and I want to see him, but the doctor won't give me a leave of absence, and the door downstairs is locked." .”

The man who was chewing potato chips stopped his mouth, and laughed: "So you are looking for your lover."

Cheng Sheng said "hmm", "He has a performance at twelve o'clock tonight, I want to go see him secretly, come back after watching, and then climb up from here, the nurse will definitely not find it."

The man curled his lips after hearing this, "You're not afraid of falling to your death."

"Impossible. I knew how to climb trees when I was a child. It's so bare that it's hard to find a foothold. I can climb to the top."

"How can climbing a tree be compared to climbing a building? This is four floors high! A few days ago, my mother read the newspaper to me and said that in a community not far from us, a man jumped from the fifth floor and fell to his death. gone."

"That's my neighborhood."

Cheng Sheng raised his head. He didn't take a good look at the man in front of him just now. Now that he looked carefully, he suddenly found that this face looked familiar.The man had a solid frame, a square washbasin, and his exposed wrists were full of scratches and spots of bruises.

Cheng Sheng looked at him suddenly, and realized that this was the big man who was pinned to the floor by several male nurses and tied with ropes when he passed by a certain ward on the first day of his hospitalization?

The man saw him looking at him with an unrestrained look of surprise, he didn't mind, he stuffed potato chips into his mouth piece by piece, he moved slowly, and said vaguely in the middle of chewing: "If you want me to tell you, don't go I'm looking for your lover, why do people like us disturb the lives of normal people? Isn't it a crime! We will be truly happy without them."

As soon as he finished speaking, he was picked up by the collar of his hospital gown, and he fell forward uncontrollably, and even the potato chips in his arms fell to the ground, spilling all over the ground.

Cheng Sheng, who was sitting on the floor just now with a calm face, pulled him in front of him, with an expression of wanting to kill him, a layer of red around the eye sockets, the eyeballs were almost protruding, and he was tightly clutching the man's collar hand Even burst into layers of blue veins.

The man was almost suffocated by him, but there was no look of fright on his face, instead he smiled, panting and saying to Cheng Sheng: "I'm telling the truth, you can take it easy on me? "

These words made Cheng Sheng lose his strength for an instant, and he realized what he had just done. He sat back on the floor with a bang, and his hand relaxed. Nothing else was said.

The man straightened his ripped neckline, glanced at the bewildered Cheng Sheng on the way, and casually asked, "How old are you?"

Cheng Sheng looked up at him, and didn't resist his question, but his tone was much colder because of the dispute just now, "28, we'll be 29 after the Chinese New Year."

The man said "Oh" and shook his head, as if feeling emotional: "You are still very young! You will have to suffer in the future!"

"I feel like my life is over."

These words caused the man to burst out laughing, followed by bursts of suppressed laughter. His brows were knit together, his mouth was wide open, and his chest heaved and heaved from the laughter, almost tearing the hospital gown on his body.

"I thought the same way when I was your age, but I am now 45 years old. I have been in the hospital for nearly [-] times over the years, but I still haven't been cured! Every time I meet the discharge standard, I think I will be saved. Two months later, I was sent in again, and I had seizures again and again, and I was discharged again and again, and the cycle went on and on, and I never lost my head!"

Cheng Sheng listened silently, sniffed, touched his knees, and waited until he had finished speaking before uttering a question: "How did you get in in the first place?"

The man shrank his neck, pointed to the window behind them, and commanded Cheng Sheng openly: "You close the window and I'll tell you, it's freezing to death!"

A gust of cold wind gushed in from outside after a while, and Cheng Sheng was so cold that he lost consciousness. He realized that the window behind him was still wide open when he heard his command. Guan Yanshi sat back on the floor again.

"Have you decided not to go find your lover?" The man glanced at Cheng Sheng, seeing that he was unwilling to answer, he didn't care too much. Following what he promised him just now, he told his past story, "I came in because Because I was guilty, I killed my girlfriend, and deserved to be tortured for the rest of my life."

Cheng Sheng didn't speak, but the hands on his lap kept trembling. The man who told the story didn't look at him, and mentioned himself as if he had entered another world. He said that when he was young, he met a girl in a night school. It was in the [-]s thing?None of them had much money, so when their girlfriend got pregnant, they went to a black clinic to have an abortion, and then the girlfriend disappeared.

Speaking of her, such a rough man had tears in his eyes. He said: "We made an appointment to travel together, but we didn't make it in the end. The owner of the clinic is not an ordinary person. He paid the protection fee. I didn’t get caught. As for me, I was hunted down by my girlfriend’s family from all over the world. They came to my unit to make trouble, and I lost my job. But when I moved to the next place, they could still find me. In the end, no one The local government wants me, but I can only stay bored at home and have nightmares every night. The dream is full of her bloody appearance. I was arrested and taken to the hospital after a while, but my mother heard that there are always abuses of patients in the mental hospital. , fearing that I would be bullied, she insisted on coming with me, I was admitted to the hospital 22 times, and she stayed with me in the hospital for [-] years."

The man's two withered and sallow hands covered his eyes, and he continued: "Have you seen my mother? An old lady with white hair, very thin, and her back is like a rolled steel plate. I can’t straighten it. But she was so beautiful when she was young, with fashionable curly hair, and there are many cheongsams in the old cabinet at home, all of which were bought by my mother when she was young, but unfortunately she can’t wear any of them now.” , the man pulled up his cuffs and wiped his face, "I thought about committing suicide a long time ago. When I was 23 years old, I purposely found a river far away from home. I planned to jump into the river when there was no one at night, but that night my mother I scrambled a large plate of tomatoes and eggs, and filled two large bowls of white rice. Her dry hands clasped mine together and said to me: "Son, a big man wants to eat two bowls of rice. There is something wrong with his brain. There must be nothing wrong with your body, otherwise how will your mother live? I can't die anymore, so I have lived until now."

Cheng Sheng leaned against the wall, his arms tightly hugging his knees, he coughed several times because of the cold wind just now, stopped and asked him: "Then do you want to live forever?"

The man gave a "drink" and laughed: "My mother has not lived for a few years, and when she is gone, I will finally be able to choose the path I should take."

He glanced at Cheng Sheng who was shivering against the wall, took out a pack of pills from his pocket and handed it over, and said mysteriously, "Is this the first time you've been hospitalized? It looks much more painful than an old man like me. Do you want my private collection? When I came in, the nurse searched my luggage twice but failed to find it. I am too experienced in Tibetan medicine."

Cheng Sheng glanced at the pack of loose pills in front of him, seeing that it was not a good thing, he quickly waved his hands, and said seriously: "I'm different from you, I want to treat my illness well, if I don't take this kind of thing, my parents and My lover is waiting for me."

The man on the opposite side stopped asking for trouble, withdrew his hand, and sneered: "Your parents and your lover are waiting for you? Do they know that people like us can't be cured at all?"

"My lover loves me, and if he stays with me, I will be fine."

"Love is a fart!" The man laughed loudly: "You are so young, do you understand that the most useless thing in the world is love? What is love, and how can it cure you? Why don't you tell me?"

Speaking of this, the man suddenly stopped laughing, and hit his chest hard with his fists clenched. He was so happy, he raised a finger to point to the position of his heart, and said to Cheng Sheng: "Only by opening here can we really be cured, can we be cured?" Let’s start over, but who come here, who can open it? Those of us who are mentally ill are like people who are circling in a dead end, and we can’t get out by ourselves even if we hit our heads and bleed.”

"But—" the man dragged his tune, showed a relieved smile, and pointed at Cheng Sheng's back in a daze.

Cheng Sheng looked back, and behind him was the window that he wanted to climb over. The window was covered with dust, and there were fingerprints and dirt marks on the glass. Through it, he could see the dark street scene outside. Cheng Sheng knew what he was referring to.

Sure enough, the man spoke again, and he said: "The moment the scar is printed on the body, it is destined to be with you forever, and it will never be erased. The only way out is there. Only in the next life can we start again."