Boneless Incense

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 17

  Lolita, the light of my life, the fire of my desire, my soul, and at the same time my sin.

   I knew Xiao Miao when I slapped her.

   And the last time we met, Xiao Miao slapped me hard.

  She didn't know, but her slap hurt even more.

  I will always remember that morning, Xiao Miao was wolfing down fried dough sticks dripping with soy milk, and asked me vaguely, how old are you?

   It took me a long time to remember it, and I will be forty in a month. Like most middle-aged men, I had a slightly fat belly and started to show signs of going bald.

And you? I asked. She smiled and stretched out her hands, making a one with her right hand and an eight with her left hand, and raised her chin brilliantly and said, I am eighteen.

  The tip of her pointed index finger shone like a star. I thought maybe it was her clear nail polish.

  Wan Qiu never paints her nails. Her hands are covered with calluses due to digging the soil to plant flowers and endless housework. The skin on the back of her hands is loose, the nail caps are slightly distorted and deformed, and there is a faint scar on her wrist.

  When I go to sleep at night, I always used to hold her hand tightly. I spent several months of salary to buy the best anti-scar serum and repairing milk to apply to her, but it still leaves a faint mark.

  Banqiu and I met through a friend’s introduction. At that time, I had been working for two years, and work was the whole of my life. I go to and from get off work alone every day, sleep and eat alone, and the days are as dull as water. I am a lively person, I want a home, I want a child, so I am going to find someone to marry.

  I was surprised that Wanqiu would like me to be with me. She is a school girl who is two years younger than me. She said that she liked me when she was in college, so she asked a friend to introduce me.

  In the second year after our marriage, Banqiu was diagnosed with infertility. Compared with my disappointment, she was hit harder. I comforted her and told her that I didn't like children and that we could adopt one if she liked.

  Days are back to normal, but a family without children seems to be incomplete after all. I put more effort into working hard, but the domineering boss, scheming colleagues, huge financial pressure, all my dreams and ambitions seem to have been wiped out in the boring life day after day, and I have become Silent and withdrawn.

  Banqiu is a good woman, she is perfect as a wife, but I always feel that something is missing. For so many years, she has never quarreled with me or made a fuss. I am afraid that she is accommodating in every possible way because she feels guilty towards me, but she seems to be such a gentle person who has almost no personality. Her only hobby is planting flowers and raising grass every day, so I will buy all kinds of flowers as gifts during New Years and holidays. To her, but all rooted.

  I have loved painting since I was a child, and people around me praised me for my talent. I used to want to be a designer, but now I'm just an ordinary engineer who does nothing, drawing boring drawings from morning to night.

After finally saving enough money, I bought a house and thought about designing it myself. But when the house was renovated, I suddenly realized that the talent, inspiration, enthusiasm and creativity that I was so proud of when I was young have long been completely unknown. There is nothing left of the trace.

  One day when I was thirty-three years old and I was in the seventh year of marriage with Banqiu, I was working when the tunnel collapsed and I was buried underneath. People outside rescued those who could be saved first, and those who were missing and could not be located did not dare to dig randomly for fear of causing a bigger landslide. At that moment, I was conscious, but I didn't call for help. I didn't want to die, I really didn't, but I suddenly felt tired, and I didn't want to move or answer.

   I was trapped for three days without a drop of water in. When I felt like I was about to die, I heard a mess outside and a woman crying vaguely. I was suddenly a little frightened, and I beat the stones to make a sound for help. Apart from me and Panqiu, who were rescued and taken to the hospital, she committed suicide by cutting her wrists where I was buried.

  I was shocked and frightened. I never knew that she, who looks soft on the outside, can actually be so decisive. I thought we were just dependent on each other, but I didn't expect her to love me deeply. It turns out that after living together for so many years, I still don't know her at all,

  Days continue to move forward silently. I used to think that choosing death was my right to retain the last bit of dignity, but in order to save the autumn, I could only continue to live like this.

  Year after year, just when I thought this was a lifetime, Xiao Miao appeared.

  Because she was about to take the college entrance examination, she was under too much pressure. She played games all night in the Internet cafe by herself. When she came out, she was followed by a few gangsters. I was on my way to work at the time.

  I don't like to be nosy, my heart has long been numb by mediocre life, I am the kind of person who squeezes the bus every morning and won't get up to give up my seat when I see an elderly person.

  But Xiao Miao’s frightened and helpless eyes at that time softened my heart. I frowned and walked over to give her a slap, and shouted loudly: "Where did you go, your mother and I have been looking for you all night!"

  Xiao Miao burst into tears at that time, probably because of the severe pain, and squatted on the ground covering her face and began to cry.

   It is estimated that my aura is quite capable of bluffing people, and a few young people walked away in embarrassment. Otherwise, I really can't do anything about them with my old bones.

   "I'm sorry." I took out a tissue and handed it to her, then turned and went to work. In these years, I have never been late once, never asked for a leave of absence, and never traveled once. Even when he was admitted to the hospital, he went to work with a limp after less than half a month of rest.

   I didn’t expect to see Xiao Miao in that place again the next morning, this time she was squatting on the side of the road waiting for me in her schoolbag and school uniform. I saw that half of her face was still swollen, and I felt a little sorry for the heavy hand. When she saw me rushing up aggressively, I thought she was going to slap me too. Unexpectedly, she stepped on me hard and said that I should buy her breakfast to apologize.

  I was so entangled by her that I couldn't help it, so I bought her soy milk and fried dough sticks at a roadside stall. She was chattering and asking questions while eating. As a result, I was late for the first time.

  After that, she walked this way to school every morning, waiting for me to invite her to have breakfast by the side of the road. Although I was a little hesitant, deep down in my heart I might still expect a little change in my life, so I didn't refuse.

  We meet in the morning, eat different breakfasts, and chat on QQ at other times. I didn't know how to use QQ before, it was something for young people, and I mostly sent and received emails through mailboxes. Instead, she applied for one for me, using her birthday as the password.

  Having a habit is a terrible thing, just like I am used to her waiting for me by the side of the road, and I am used to waiting for her on QQ.

Xiao Miao looked at me with a little admiration and fascination. I knew that in her eyes, a man of my age seemed to be mature, stable, and full of charm. What's more, I rescued her from the sky. Li constantly perfected the encounter with Shinhwa that day, just like the plot of a TV series, thinking that he had met the right one.

  Actually, only I know how mediocre, incompetent, and boring I am.

  I was not surprised when Xiao Miao confessed to me, but I didn’t have the courage to think of the wound on Wanqiu’s wrist. In the morning, she couldn't wait for me anymore, and couldn't get through to my phone, so she could only desperately leave me a message on QQ.

  I am not worried about her. The love of a young girl is always turbulent and ruthless. I am just a passer-by in her life, and I thank her for bringing a little vitality and color to my boring life.

   But seeing her leave a message saying that she will die if she doesn’t see me again at any time, it still makes me worry. The wound on Wanqiu's wrist is always flashing back and forth in front of my eyes. I don't know if she is telling me to scare me or if she is serious, but the decisiveness of the previous woman makes me dare not gamble, not to mention that she is just a child, and it is very likely that she was really impulsive take things too hard.

   I went there until the last moment, and half of her body was already out of the building.

  I knew you would definitely come, her face was full of tears, but triumphant. Kiss me happily, her lips are as soft as the cotton candy she always secretly stuffs in my pocket.

  My hands trembled slightly because of my fear. Why was one of the women beside me like this, and so were the two?

  —This is the fourteenth year that Banqiu and I have been married. We survived the first seven-year itch, but we couldn’t survive the second.

   I'm always careful when I have **** with Xiao Miao, she is still so small, not even an adult. I am happy and miserable, which is redemption and deeper sin.

  But I didn't expect that she was still pregnant. I almost lost my mind, but Xiao Miao refused to kill the child. We had one heated argument after another over it.

  God knows how much I want a child of my own, not to mention that the child was born by my beloved Xiao Miao.

But Xiao Miao herself is still a child, she is in love now, she doesn't care at all, but in the future, let's not talk about whether I will leave Banqiu to be with her, and what to do after the child is born , the most important thing right now is that she has to take the college entrance examination!

Everyone will grow up, I will be old, and she will leave, go to other places to study in college, meet better boys, and find out that I am just a bad old man, and my feelings for me will gradually be forgotten . Although she regards me as the whole world now, by then, she will regret everything she has done.

  Emotions can be indelible and disappear. If you say you don’t love, you don’t love, and if you say leave, you leave, but what about children? I'm not afraid to keep this child, and I can even muster up the courage to divorce Ban Qiu, but I don't want Xiao Miao to hate me one day.

  I can fulfill her absurd love when she was young, but I can't ruin her life.

  Xiao Miao was crying all the time, and almost knelt down to beg me, saying that she would keep this child, not afraid of suffering and wronging. But maybe my firmness and the cruelty in my eyes made her despair, she actually packed her things and ran away from home alone.

  I found her before her family members who knew nothing about her, pretended to promise to keep the child and brought her back, but put drugs in her drink, pretended to be her father, and took her to the hospital to have an abortion.

  I knew she would hate me and never forgive me, but I had no other choice.

   Waiting in the corridor of the hospital, this is the first time I have cried in so many years of life. I killed my long-awaited child with my own hands, and also killed my love with Xiao Miao.

   I, who had been alive for so many years, finally broke down at that moment.

  Xiao Miao was temporarily rented in our former love nest, weeping to death. The hero she once thought of is now a cruel, terrifying, and inhuman devil.

   I slapped so hard that I almost lost consciousness in pain, so I could only stagger away without falling down.

  But if I choose again, I will still not regret it, time will heal all wounds, she is still young and will live well, but I am dying, my heart is like a dead city, and no grass will grow.

  (end of this chapter)