Wild Fire Bids Farewell To Summer Chapter 28
by2 before winter solstice
8:51.
Wei Zhiheng was sitting by the window in the fourth row of the examination room on the third floor of Miluo Building.Cracks on the surface of the plastic seat radiate against the back of the thigh.He tried to adjust his sitting posture, and felt a cramp in his waist. He jumped, stopped, and jumped again.It’s not pain, it’s soreness, pushing up from the depths of the ilium and reaching the lower edge of the ribs, where it gets stuck.
There is a piece missing in the upper left corner of the field of vision.The upper right corner of the blackboard disappeared, swallowed up by a solid black shadow that had begun to expand three days ago.He stared at question 11, the standard equation of a hyperbola. The numbers were distorted at the edge of the black shadow, like printed words soaked in water.
The sound of papers being turned came from the left.The boy sitting next to him was making corrections, and the eraser made a tiny rustling sound as it rubbed against the paper.Wei Zhiheng smelled the smell of ink, the benzene solvent smell of fresh test papers, mixed with the smell of moth balls on the collar of the boy on the left, settling in the lower part of his nose.He sniffed, the smell of blood rising from the back of his throat, the sweetness of rust overpowering the ink.
The upper gums were swollen, as if a small stone had been stuck in them, and they were being pushed one by one with the pulse.
He holds the pen.The shaking in my right hand is not an obvious shaking, but a subtle tremor in the muscles under the skin. It starts from the inside of the wrist, jumps and jumps, and is transmitted to the knuckles.Touch the tip of the pen to the answer sheet, fill in option A, and black graphite covers the printed letters.The edges of the traces are uneven and jagged, the paper fibers have been scraped up, and subtle rough edges can be seen under the light.
There was no warning when the blood gushed out.First, the nasal cavity becomes warm, and then the fluid fills up, overflows from the nostrils, passes through the upper lip, crosses the red edge of the lip, collects at the chin, and falls.
Tick tock.
Hit it on the answer sheet.The white paper surface instantly absorbs water, and the fibers swell, forming a round spot, about two centimeters in diameter, dark red in color, with irregular edges and a moist center.The blood drops swelled on the paper, the surface tension maintained a hemispherical shape, and the pale light refracted inside.
Tick tock.
The second drop falls next to the first.The two drops merged, and the circular spot expanded, covering the answer area for question 11.The blood continued to flow, and the flow rate was faster than the previous times. The warm liquid continued to gush out of the nasal cavity and dripped along the chin, forming a continuous red dot on the answer sheet, connecting into a line, soaking the hyperbola diagram of question 12.
Blood dripped on the table.The terrazzo tabletop is smooth, and when blood droplets hit the surface, it makes a crisp sound, like a second hand moving, but heavier and duller than the second hand.
Wei Zhiheng raised his head.The blood flows back from the nasal cavity, irritates the throat, and forms a sweet, rusty smell that settles on the base of the tongue.He didn’t wipe it with his hands. There was graphite on his hands and they would get dirty.He raised his right hand, his index finger hovering in the air, the joints were stiff, and the fingernails were tinged with light purple.
“Change the card,” he said.The voice was squeezed out of the blood-moistened throat, muffled and filled with liquid, as if he was speaking with half a mouthful of warm water in his mouth.
The invigilator came over.He was a middle-aged man in a gray shirt with old brown stains on the cuffs, which were iodine or old blood.He looked at the answer sheet and the blood-soaked paper.The blood has spread, covering the answer areas for questions 11 and 12. The black printed words are covered with red blood. The paper wrinkles after absorbing water, and the edges are raised, forming a crust, and the surface is tight, like a scab.
The teacher handed over a new answer sheet.White, clean, fibers dry.Wei Zhiheng took it and rubbed his fingers on the surface of the paper, feeling the dryness and coldness of the fibers.He places the new card next to the old card, juxtaposing the two.One was soaked in blood, hard, with raised edges, and was dark brown; the other was blank, flat, and white.
The blood is still flowing.Tick on the table, tick, tick.
There were footsteps in the corridor.The rubber soles rubbed against the terrazzo, making a rapid crunching sound from far to near, but stopped at the entrance of the examination room.There is a piece of glass on the door, frosted glass, revealing the outline of a figure with broad shoulders and a black sports vest. It is Huang Jinye.
He can’t get in.The school rules are strict. No one is allowed to enter the school thirty minutes after the exam starts. Make-up exams for the physical education class are downstairs.He stood in the corridor, leaning against the wall by the window, two meters from the door.Cuntou stood next to him, leaning against the wall, pretending to be looking at the playground outside the window, holding a bunch of keys in his hand, which jingled as a lookout.
Huang Jinye took out a wet wipe from his trouser pocket.White non-woven fabric, soaked in liquid, wrapped in a piece of ice.The ice cubes are transparent, irregularly shaped, with sharp edges and bubbles in the center.He walked to the window. The transom was open a slit, ten centimeters wide.He stuffed the ice cube through the transom, then inserted his fingers, hovering five centimeters above the back of Wei Zhiheng’s neck.
Wei Zhiheng turned sideways, facing away from the invigilator.Huang Jinye’s fingers fell and pressed on the back of Wei Zhiheng’s neck.Skin contact.The back of Wei Zhiheng’s neck was cold, like a corpse; Huang Jinye’s fingers were hot, with the astringency of stone powder and the sourness of morning glutinous rice.Press your fingers on the spinous process of the cervical spine to force your head back at a precise angle.The old scar from the tiger’s mouth rubbed against the collar of the school uniform, making it rough.
Ice cubes touching skin.Wei Zhiheng’s carotid artery beat under the skin, and the blood flow was rapid.The ice cube pressed against the carotid artery, the temperature dropped sharply, and the pain was sharp, like a needle prick.The blood vessels contract when exposed to cold, and the flow of nosebleeds becomes slower, changing from continuous to dripping.
Wei Zhiheng closed his eyes.The black shadow in his field of vision spread and swallowed up Huang Jinye’s fingers.He felt the pressure on the back of his neck, felt the sting of the ice, felt the blood congealing in his nose, forming a clot that blocked his airway.He coughed, and blood clots came up from the back of his throat. They were thick and jelly-like. He spat on the corner of the table and hit the terrazzo with a muffled sound.
Huang Jinye didn’t move his fingers.He hovered two centimeters above Wei Zhiheng’s Adam’s apple. There was white stone powder on the edge of his fingernails, which was scraped from the barbed wire when he climbed over the wall yesterday.His breath blew against Wei Zhiheng’s ear, hot and rapid, with the pungency of eucalyptus sugar.
The invigilator stood aside, looking at Huang Jinye’s shoulder outside the window and the key in Cun Tou’s hand.He took a step back, his back pressed against the podium, and the fabric rustled.He didn’t shout or stop, he just watched.
Huang Jinye moved his hand.The ice cube was left on the side of Wei Zhiheng’s neck, and Wei himself held it down.The ice melted, and water stains flowed down from the neck, along the collarbone, and into the collar of the school uniform, forming dark marks on the white cloth, as cold as turpentine flowing on the canvas.
Huang Jinye bent down and picked up a pen from under the transom.The 2B pencil has a yellow hexagonal barrel with tooth marks on the surface and is uneven.It fell from Wei Zhiheng’s hand, rolled to the wall, and stopped at Huang Jinye’s feet. Wei Zhiheng’s blood was sticky on the pen barrel, which was dark red.
Huang Jinye held the pen.The barrel of the pen was cold and stained with Wei Zhiheng’s body temperature and blood.He did not hand it to Wei Zhiheng, but stuffed it into his trouser pocket and put it together with a piece of eucalyptus candy.The candy paper is green, with gear-like indentations, and has softened and deformed.The metal rubs against the candy wrapper, making a rustling sound.
He retracted his hand and disappeared through the transom.Footsteps sounded again, one heavy and the other light, heavy on the right and light on the left, disappearing in the corridor, mixed with the footsteps of inches, going downstairs.
Wei Zhiheng pressed the ice cube on the side of his neck.The tingling is constant, like an electric current.The ice cubes melted, and the water flowed down his neck, soaking the collar of his school uniform, making him shiver from the cold.He opened his eyes, and the black shadow in his field of vision receded slightly, but the text on question 12 was still blurry.
He looked at the two answer sheets in front of him.The one soaked in blood has solidified and is dark brown, with a wrinkled and hard surface, and raised edges, forming a scab; the blank one is clean, flat, and has dry fibers.
He stretched out his right hand and hovered over the blank answer sheet.The fingers were shaking, and the fingernails were tinged with light purple.When your fingertips touch the paper, you feel the dryness and coolness of the fibers.He didn’t have a pen – the pen had been taken away by Huang Jinye.He could only use his index finger to draw across the paper.
He marked his name.Wei Zhiheng.Three Chinese characters.The strokes are crooked and trembling. At the vertical hook of the word “Wei”, the fingertips poke through the paper, forming a black spot. The ink penetrates and raises a raised mark on the back.The “mouth” part of the character “Zhi” is not round, broken, and divided into two strokes.The last horizontal line next to the word “王” in the word “heng” was too long, scratching the edge of the answer sheet and leaving a shallow trace of grease on the table.
He stopped paddling.The finger hovers above the paper, three centimeters away from the paper.Blood gushed out from the nose again, dripping on the blank answer sheet, just on the last stroke of the name, forming a red dot, covering the last point of the word “Heng”.The paper absorbs water, the dots enlarge, and the edges become irregular.
Tick tock.
The sound is crisp and clear, like a bell.
He retracted his hand and clenched it into a fist. His nails left four crescent-shaped indentations on the palm of his hand, pressing against the coin-sized piece of purpura.The pain was sharp, counterpointing the sting of the ice in the carotid artery.
From the playground in the distance came the whistle from the military training of the first year of high school. The copper whistle had a high frequency and pierced the air.The whistle and the sound of blood dripping on the table were offset by half a beat, forming an irregular rhythm.Wei Zhiheng listened to the voice and did not move or hand in the paper. He just sat there with two answer sheets in front of him. One was soaked in blood and hardened, the other was stained with blood spots. His fingers were separated in the middle, hovering in the air. The joints were stiff and the fingernails were tinged with lavender.
Outside the window, the pale sunlight before the winter solstice shone on the blood stains, changing the color from dark red to almost black.The only smell left in the examination room was the smell of ink, the rust of blood, the smell of water stains from melted ice cubes, and the lingering sound of distant whistles, which settled in the air, sinking to the ground level, spreading upward over the edge of the table, and flooding the chest.