Chapter 25: Collarbone Bodhisattva

There is a saying in Buddhism about reincarnation. All encounters are reunion, and all departures are return.

From childhood to adulthood, Shi Lei had only one friend and died on the way to school.

That morning, fog was everywhere, and Shi Lei and his friends went to school together. The green light on the sidewalk was on, and Shi Lei squatted down to tie his shoelaces. The friends took the lead. A Santana Bridge car broke through a red light and knocked it down. He dragged it forward for more than ten meters before stopping. The wheels pressed on one arm, and there was a bright red blood on the road, which was shocking. There was a friend who was talking and laughing just now, but suddenly died in front of him. Shi Lei was stunned and completely frightened.

The last thing my friend said to him was: I'm waiting for you on the other side of the road.

From then on, Shi Lei had nightmares every night, dreaming of his friend's smiling face again and again. He wanted to say: Stop, don't leave.

From then on, crossing the road became what he feared the most. The car was like a tiger, and it seemed that it would rush over to knock him down and chew him down at any time.

At that time, Shi Lei was only ten years old. Every time this child crossed the road, he would follow the crowd. If there was no one around, he would stand in front of the zebra crossing on the sidewalk and wait. Even if he was late for school, he would stop and could not muster up the courage to cross the street alone. Once, he followed a girl across the road. The green light on the sidewalk flashed a few times and turned into a red light. The girl in front ran over quickly, leaving him in the middle of the road, surrounded him with traffic.

The child stood there and did not dare to move, and cried loudly because he was too scared.

The girl looked back and ran back, holding his hand and leading him across the street.

The girl was Diewu. That year, she was also ten years old. Diewu and Shi Lei were neighbors and were in the same elementary school, but they were not in the same class. Diewu developed early, was very tall, and looked like a junior high school girl.

The street is a river, and people are like duckweed, so they know each other.

She didn't ask him what he cried or was afraid of. She didn't say anything. She just held his hand and walked across the street and walked through the journey of life. This seemed to be a tacit understanding that the two people had after they had been separated for many years. The first time they met was like they had known each other for a hundred years. From then on, he followed her every day at school and after school.

In the morning, the sun was rising and the sky was covered with colorful clouds. He always waited quietly in front of a video store to cross the road together. He hid behind a telephone pole, and then suddenly appeared behind her.

At noon, his hands crossed the iron guardrail in the park, and the roses in the flower beds were quietly blooming. He looked back to see if she had come.

In the afternoon, he stepped on her shadow, kept a distance away, walked across the zebra crossing, and walked through the Chuhe Hanjie of life.

Shi Lei and Diewu never talked, and seemed to have no acquaintance. Until a cloudy day a year later, the rain wet the flowers in the park on the roadside, wet the hair and clothes of pedestrians. The sparrow fell on the wires, and all the eaves were dripping with water. The two children walked in the rain. He coughed a few times, mustered up the courage, and asked carefully, "What are your name?"

Diewu said, haha, I don’t know your name either!

He thought her name was beautiful, and it seemed to have some kind of fragrance. He wrote her name on paper, wrote a page, and threw it away quietly, feeling that he had done something bad, so when he saw her the next day, he was very unnatural, his heart beat hard, and his face blushed to his ears. He didn't know why he was like this.

If you have had first love, you know the full meaning of blushing!

The initial love was so beautiful, some words had a fragrance, such as "first love". In my ignorant youth, not understanding the mood of loving someone was destined to be unspeakable. Until many years later, in the peaks of the past, in the days when we never returned, we suddenly remembered that a sigh stopped in the summer of that summer, and a figure remained in the deepest of the most beautiful time, and never walked away.

After graduating from elementary school, Shi Lei and Diewu went to the same middle school. They were already used to each other's existence. The two of them walked through the wind and rain together and walked through the four seasons together. There were rumors in the school, thinking that they were having a partner, and the teacher also talked to Diewu for this and asked her why she went to school and got off with Shi Lei every day. Diewu didn't care at all, and she said to the teacher, you don't understand. A bad boy spread rumors that he saw Shi Lei and Diewu kissing at the corner of the corridor, and Shi Lei quarreled with the boy. Then, Shi Lei was beaten and cried. While resisting the bad boy's fists, he cried to defend his innocence with Diewu.

Diewu pulled Shi Lei away and stared at the boy who was beating. The boy looked provocative and was not afraid at all.

Diewu made an amazing move. She didn't move her fists or scold people. She stepped forward and hugged the boy.

The boy was stunned and then frightened. He never dared to bully Shi Lei again. After all, it was embarrassing to spread the reputation of early love.

She used hugs to fight hatred and resolve conflicts with compassion.

That night, it was said that there was a meteor shower once in a century. Shi Lei and Diewu did not go home after evening study. The two sat under a cherry blossom tree in the park looking up at the night sky, waiting for the meteor shower. The starry sky was bright, the gentle wind blew, and the moonlight shone on the flying cherry blossoms in the sky, which was simply a dreamlike fairy tale world.

However, the meteor shower never appeared, only cherry blossoms fell one after another.

Diewu said: Meteor shower may be a lie.

Shi Lei said: Wait a little longer, I seemed to see a meteor just now.

Diewu said: Then you have to make a wish quickly.

Shi Lei said: I don’t know...how to make a wish?

Diewu said: Thinking in my heart.

Shi Lei said: Don’t you need to say it?

Diewu said: We can write down our wishes, put them in bottles, and bury them here.

They dug a hole with branches under the cherry blossom tree, wrote their wishes on a note, put them in a bottle, and buried them. They didn't know what the other party wrote, but just naively thought that if a meteor shower appeared, they could realize their wishes.

When they returned home, the streets were empty at night, and she grabbed his hand and walked across the road.

They smiled and said goodbye at the entrance of an alley.

If she knew that this was a time of separation, how could she let go of his hand? How could he smile and say goodbye?

Many years later, he realized that he had fallen in love with her when he was ten years old and would spend his whole life recalling her.

The next day, Shi Lei did not come to school, and he was not seen at the familiar intersection. This happened for several days. Diewu asked others and learned about it and learned that Shi Lei could not come to school in the future.

Butterfly Wu asked: Why?

The answer is - because he is a disabled person.

Although Shi Lei was fourteen years old, his body was still in the stage of a ten-year-old child, and he suffered from dwarfism. Perhaps, from the day he knew Butterfly Wu, he had not grown up, and everything was stuck in the busy street. She turned around, walked over, and held his hand through the surging traffic.

My parents took Shi Lei to a hospital in another place for treatment. Several months have passed and the disease has not been cured.

During that time, Diewu moved. After graduating from junior high school, she went to a technical secondary school. The three words "disabled" were imprinted in Diewu's heart.

Many separations in life are just a short distance. When you turn around, you will be farewell forever. When you look back, you are thousands of miles apart, and it is difficult to meet again.

They separated from each other and never met each other again. Ten years passed by in a flash...

In those years, a lot of things happened to Diewu and Shi Lei. Shi Lei's family was demolished. Diewu once looked for Shi Lei, but she couldn't find her. He was still the timid little boy who dared not cross the road. Diewu had grown up. Shi Lei learned to sew curtains with his mother, and he almost never left home because every time he appeared on the street, someone would call him "little man turtle", "dwarf", and "Wu Dalang".

We must admit that discrimination against disabled people in this society is common in this society from the laughter of the audience caused by a comedian imitating the disabled.

A very ugly mute, as long as you start from the age of eighteen, treat others kindly, face the world with a tolerant and understanding heart, and persist for thirty years, you can become an ugly middle-aged mute.

Shi Lei usually doesn't like to talk and becomes taciturn. In order to make him adapt to this society, his parents found him a job as a hotel doorman. He stood in front of the door, wearing a somewhat funny red uniform, and said to every guest: Welcome.

他有时会想起蝶舞,这是他的初恋,很显然,也是最后一次恋爱.

Shi Lei sometimes takes the bus home, and he can already cross the road alone, but on the bus, he needs the courage to withstand other people's strange gazes. Everyone looks at this adult who looks like a monster.

Once, at a crossroads, Shi Lei felt familiar, and he and Diewu had walked here.

A song called "River" came from the audio shop on the side of the road:

This should be fate.

Life's footprints are with you step by step,

How many times have tears in laughter?

It has been gathered into an ocean and put into memory luggage.

This should be called life,

It changed again before I could keep it.

How many times have you laughed in tears, intertwined time,

I feel aftertaste in my dream and can't help but sigh,

On the river of life...

We will all meet the first person in our lives, accompanying us for a while, and then disappearing into time. The hazy love, after many years, only to realize that this is a kind of love that has never officially begun. Love comes from nowhere, but it is nowhere to be found, just like those flowers, those waters, and those passers-by in the past.

Shi Lei lived quietly. After ten years, at the intersection where traffic was running, he suddenly saw a familiar figure through the glass of the bus. He recognized Butterfly Wu from his walking posture. His heartbeat suddenly accelerated. He wanted to shout to ask the driver to stop the car. He wanted to run to her. He wanted to pass through the cold and realistic world that separated them. His chest was fluctuating due to rapid breathing. He was so excited that he was about to cry... However, he did not get out of the car, but just sat quietly, watching her walk out of sight, gradually fading away, and disappearing into the sea of ​​people.

Shi Lei said to himself: Is it her?

Maybe, I recognized the wrong person.

Perhaps, she can only accompany her for a long journey in the long river of life.

If they meet, what can they do? When they walk together, they will be treated as mother and son by passers-by. He is very inferior and would rather not see him.

However, a few days later, after several inquiries, Diewu finally found Shi Lei.

At a intersection, she held his hand, walked through the crowd of contempt around her, and walked through the surging traffic.

They went to the park, sat under the cherry tree, and spoke quietly, telling about their experiences over the years.

Shi Lei said: A few days ago, I saw you on the street...

Diewu said: Then why don’t you call me?

Shi Lei said: I dare not.

Diewu said: You are no longer the kid who is afraid of crossing the road.

Shi Lei said: Diewu, I want to marry you. If it weren't for the fact that you had an incurable disease, I wouldn't dare say this to you.

Diewu said: I told you everything, I have AIDS.

Shi Lei said: That's how I dare to ask you.

Diewu said: You are so stupid, but I read you right. I know that you are the only one in this world who cares about me the most.

Shi Lei said: Yes, no one in the world wants you, I want it.

Diewu said: I had a dream, dreaming that I was a Bodhisattva who came down to earth to save sentient beings.

Shi Lei said: When you die, I will become a monk. I am willing to spend my whole life with you.

Butterfly Wu said: Fate will be determined by heaven.

Shi Lei said: I still can't believe how did you get the disease?

Diewu said: It doesn’t matter now. How can I get AIDS? It’s all destined to be. I don’t want to pursue anything.
To be continued...