Chapter 1 - The Demon in her Heart
Luo Zhi sat at her desk staring at the blank new diary in front of her.
She did not know how many times she had picked up the pen, and then put it down again. Finally, she decided to write down the date first. It had been a long time since she last wrote.
A while ago, her roommate, Jiang Baili, who was on the phone, suddenly rushed out of the door and left the half-eaten instant noodle cup on the desk. The smell lingered in the dormitory for a long time.
Luo Zhi dumbly stared at the diary, and the odour of the instant noodle became even more pungent.
In this morning, Jiang Baili sat in her bed and drew a tarot card, as a monthly routine, to predict her love fortune. Without a reason, she pushed Lou Zhi to draw one card. Luo Zhi couldn't stand her pestering, so she drew the card and gave it back to her without even looking at the card; lowered her head and continued to read the Dongye Guiwu detective novel.
After a while, Luo Zhi suddenly heard someone scream from the bed. "Why won’t you listen to me?”, I said, "Be patient, be patient! Patience is the making of wise counsel!"
Luo Zhi raised her head, looked at her languidly and said, “I’ve been forced to transform into a super patient lady since I lived in this dormitory with you."
Jiang Baili had been studying tarot card reading since high school, but her mastery of fate did not seem to change her chaotic life state. She also agreed on this.
"Because you're just waiting for God to save you and forget to change yourself." Luo Zhi thought silently in her mind.
Luo Zhi didn’t believe in fate. She was afraid that she would believe in fate and forget about man-made misfortunes. Man-made misfortunes are hateful and confrontational. What can a man hope when he has believed in fate?
However, what Baili said was not all wrong: “Wise decision needs patience, and patience is indeed necessary."
In fact, no one knew this better than Luo Zhi.
She looked up at her watch. Half an hour has gone by, and she was still fantasizing. The white paper before her eyes was even more dazzling without anything on it.
Suddenly she stood up and the legs of the chair made a shrill wail on the concrete floor. Luo Zhi picked up Baili's bowl carefully to prevent the soup from spilling out and slowly walked to the toilet to empty it.
Then she came back to the room, she opened the windows and doors to air the room. Then she took a deep breath and turned on the lamp again. She finally grabbed the pen and wrote,
"15th September, Sunny.
I met him. But very far. The first sight was of his back. Following it was a large persimmon that descended from the sky."
Two hours ago, she was walking in the school.
In early autumn, Beijing had the best weather of the year, with the hazy sunshine through the red and gold autumn leaves.
She bowed her head as she had done when she was a child, with every step, trying to tread on the cross-mark in the centre of the tiles.
When she was a child, her family had a hard time. In order to make ends meet, her mother worked as a deliverer in the wholesale furniture market. She’d always followed her mother. Unfortunately, she struggled at the back, and her feet ached with bruises.
Her mother looked back at her, her eyes red and aching, but her mouth said, "You try to step on the little cross that is in the middle of the tile at every step of the way."
She tried to follow the rule like a game, forgetting the burning sun above her head, the aching of her feet and the long summer journey really came to an end unconsciously.
Gradually, it became a habit in her life.
All of a sudden, the wind blew and she stopped subconsciously and looked up.
Two or three meters ahead, at the fork in the road, a man came round, walking right in front of her.
Even when everything had changed, it was still the back that she could never mistake in her life: a few restless strands of hair stood on the back of his head, good posture, straight but not pretentious.
When she fell in a daze, a large persimmon suddenly fell from the sky。 Just a meter away, she was almost hit. If she hadn’t stopped right in time, it would have landed right in her head. But Luo Zhi still got splashed by the juice - It was bad, be it the persimmon or her.
He heard it and turned back. At the next moment, Luo Zhi also turned hastily and ran away before his gaze shifted to her.
Even while running, she was wondering whether he would laugh at her or not because of her strange acts.
She kept running, steps by steps up the stairs, pushed open the door of the dormitory, and finally remembered to gasp for breath.
As soon as she calmed down, she changed her coat and trousers. Opening the closet, which was all cold-hue clothes
For her, coloured things were just incongruous.
In no time, she cast her mind back to the day before the college entrance examination. After submitting the medical checkup results to her teacher, she carried her schoolbag, walked along the longest shopping street in the city, reluctant to go home. Along the street, there were a huge number of fashion shops. At that moment, one thing caught into her eyes. It was a dress in a bright yellow colour.
That day she was also in a bad mood. In her schoolbag was a large copy of the past year questions and exercise paper. It represented a challenge invited from the National College Entrance Examination. She was not afraid of the exam, nor was she looking forward and excited about being released from high school life. Luo Zhi was perplexed, moving carefully step by step, after all, was she closer to happiness or farther?
The inexplicable anxiety in her heart could not be extinguished, and she was, as usual, urging herself to be patient and content, but it did not work.
She lingered for a long time, then rushed into the shop, and said vaguely to the listless shopkeeper, to let her try on the skirt. She looked her up and down and got up impatiently.
In the small fitting room, she tried it on with slight expectation to turn out nice. As soon as she opened the door, contradictory to her expectation, she saw a dull, pale-faced girl in the mirror opposite, looking closer, she then saw a timid village girl, with a ten-year-unchanged ponytail against the beauty of this bright yellow dress.
She was overwhelmed with embarrassment, but miraculously calmed her down and said, “You should know who you are, what you should do, and what you should fit into."
She went up to the shop assistant and returned her skirt back. Then took the bus home, sat down at her desk and opened the book and went on with her revision. No one could believe that she would mock herself with a bright yellow dress; a teenage girl who had decided to practice again so hard because of this little yellow dress.
She lay against the pillows with persimmon juice stain, she was too panicky, just as suddenly as she had that day.
She had been too quick to avoid him, but now she could recall the moment clearly just a second before she ran; his eyes were moving from the persimmon to her ankles. At that time, the boy was with a half-smile and a white neck connected to the lower jaw, what a beautiful shape.
Though she thought she felt panicky. How did she see all of this?
Even if she did, why can't she write it down on her diary?
In high school, Luo Zhi did write a very thick diary, the diary had only one content and the words only described a person. Somehow she lost it on the day of graduation.
She stopped writing for too long, long enough to forget how to write again, long enough to forget how to describe the beautiful jawline and the smiley surprise that he left in her mind.
She turned her head and fixed her eyes on the mirror, lean back a little, and she saw herself in the mirror: slightly pale skin, sharp jaws, bright eyes that can't bury the beauty of her smile.
It had been so long, so long that she didn't even realize she had not that village girl anymore. Every girl who's buried in high school goes through a change in appearance when she goes to college. Because she seldom kept in touch with her old classmates, she didn’t have to go through the usual pleasantries of the class meeting and heard, "Oh! You've become so pretty." So, she was almost imperceptible about her change.
Her heart was beating too fast; that feeling returned back to her again.
“Now I’m not a village girl anymore, am I?” She thought.
“So some stories, should be the turning point?”
After all, it’s no longer the age where she can subdue demon with a bright yellow dress.
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