Summer in the World of Grown-Ups

Young  张洋子 220110703

1

The wind was filled with a faint mist, mixed with a feeling of stuffiness and heat. Black clouds covered the sky. The weather in summer was unpredictable, and showers always came very quickly. The rainwater outside the window accumulated in the low-lying areas on the ground, becoming more and more diffuse and towering, making the sky dim.

I suddenly remembered a female cat that had just given birth a few days ago in a corner outside the company. I grabbed the umbrella and ran out. When I rushed there, there was already a figure in the corner of the wall. The rain, not hindered, directly hit her back, her dress tightly pressed against her thin back - a 16-year-old girl with an umbrella, but not covering herself - the mother cat and her five children were safe and sound under the umbrella.

The girl's back emitted a golden furry halo under the sunset, and I walked through the rain curtain, holding the umbrella in my hand over her head. She lifted her head and looked at me with surprised eyes.

A pair of very energetic eyes.

Clean and clear, as if washed.

In an instant, the delicate eyebrows curved, and the pupils were brighter than the sun, moon, and stars.

I brought six cats home and also had brought the girl back. All of them were soaked by the rain, so I helped her wipe her hair and found a set of clothes that I had worn in high school for her to change. She said that her name was Alice and she was 16 years old that year. She came over to help me set up a cat's nest. Because I used to have a cat, I have a cat nest that had been unused at home. The kittens were still too young and could only snuggle under their mother's belly to breastfeed. The mother cat lovingly licked the furry hair on the heads of the five children. This kind of environment was obviously more reassuring for cat mothers than wandering outside.

Alice squatted next to me, watching this scene, silently shedding a tear. My heart trembled, and the tip of my nose slightly soured. She was indeed a girl of sixteen or seventeen years old. Her emotions were so delicate that even a small matter could make her eyes red. Unable to resist, I reached out and rubbed her soft yet still drying hair. I stood up and said to her, "I'll go cook first. When the rain stops, you can accompany me to buy cat food."

"Em." She didn't nod, just a silent "Em". Afraid of nodding and shedding tears, afraid of being seen by others when feeling sad.

After dinner, we went to buy cat food for our mother cat. On the way back from the supermarket, we saw a disabled person begging on the street. The streets at six or seven o'clock are bustling with traffic, which  exactly when there are many people. Countless feet passed by him without stopping. People had become so numb that they turned a blind eye and were too lazy to give him even a small glance.

Just a small episode of the noisy city, I thought.

But someone else didn't think so.

Alice, who had been closely, following me, suddenly stopped walking and stared steadily in the direction of the beggar.

I lowered my head and twitched the corner of my mouth, "Why, do you also want to give money to that beggar?"

She didn't speak; she just stared straight at me with her tearful eyes. I looked at her as if looking at myself from ten years ago through her eyes. I didn't know how to face those eyes, a pair full of anger and hatred but also sincerity. She asked me, "Do you have someone you love?"

My heart missed a beat. "No, I never loved anyone else, I only love myself."

I couldn't hear any other sound except for the sound of the mother cat eating and the cicadas chirping outside the window after the rain.

I only remember that night when I had a dream, a long one that made me feel like I would never wake up.

This world is completely different from the perspectives of children and adults.

2

"For most of us, life is like this - full of unpleasant trivialities rather than great tragedies, with various weak and hopeless expectations, but without the courage to abandon everything in history or novels and love stories full of dramatic variables."

I am a killer. When I was 16 years old, I received a mission to assassinate a high school student. I don't know what he did to anger someone and cause murder. All I knew is that if I succeeded in doing this, I would receive generous rewards, including money and status. I have survived through these years.

I transferred to his high school, disguised myself as one of his regular classmates, approached him, and killed him. The high school campus is very large, filled with the damp smell of tall trees in the hot summer. Far from the city center, it gives the impression of a paradise. Ten years, a hundred years will pass, and this place will still be like this, forever unchanged.

I waited for him to come home with me in the pitch-black night. Pulling sleeves. Cheeks brimming with smiles. The dazzling sunshine at ten o'clock in the morning. Food and milk were suddenly handed over. Mutually recommended songs. Chatting online, we gradually deepened our understanding of each other from interesting moments of life to topics. Squatting together at the entrance of the small shop, feeding the chubby cat in the school. These tiny details slowly fermented, and emotions slowly brewed in the gradually cooling air, then spread to more distant places.

Everything happens naturally, slowly and densely.

Until December.

The whole school was covered in silver, as if buried in a corner of the city by snow. But what could not be filled with white was the lively atmosphere of red lanterns hanging high. The new year was coming soon. I turned my head and looked at his flushed face. I was going to take action.

We went to the snack street for a meal, where the smell of fireworks was strong and the food street was bustling with people.

The aroma of various foods mixed in the smoke lingers at the tip of the nose.

In front of me was a face that laughed recklessly.

The sunset reddened most of the clouds in the sky.

When we returned, I sat in the car listening to his calm breathing, like a sponge absorbing all the noise in the city. It was the sleeping pills that I had placed in the drink that I had given him, and the dosage was just enough to cover the distance to that abandoned factory.

I took out a knife. When I was about to take action, he woke up and looked at me incredulously, "Why?"

"There's no reason."

I had done all the preparations and was indifferent as if I had changed to someone else.

"Was everything you did before a lie to me? Have you ever loved me?"

"I never loved you; I only love myself."

Hands up and knives down, clean and sharp. The bright red and hot blood splattered all over my face. I did like you, but that liking is not enough to resist my upward climbing of the steps.

My end work has always been the best within the organization. No one has ever doubted me, and I am gradually disappearing into this place.

The sunset rapidly sinks towards the horizon, dispersing as it sinks. The world is chaotic, and the distant wind cannot depict the clear outline of anything. Under the sunset, the sea is reflected in red, layered and shimmering with ripples. I stand alone by the seaside, and the sound of the tide is like a new world whispering to me.

The book says that things in the world will start over again after 129,600 years.

I continue to miss you day and night, wherever you can see or cannot see me. Until life burns out.

I wake up from a big dream.

3

My name is Alice, a 16-year-old girl. I met an older sister while feeding cats on a rainy evening. But later someone told me that she was actually a professional assassin and asked me to stay away from her; that she was a dangerous and terrifying devil who had killed many people. I don't believe it; she is very kind to me and also to cats. I believe she is a gentle and kind person. People have many faces, and she will always be the older sister who appears in my world with an umbrella on rainy days, gently wiping my hair, forever.

But she told me to grow up slowly, that the adult world is not as good as I imagine, love and hate are not pure, and many choices are involuntary.

I haven't seen Susan for a long time, and I still hope to grow up quickly. I want to see what the world in the eyes of adults like Sister Susan looks like.（张洋子）