The beginning of the book is still a photo of the author.
But the original photo of him wearing a hospital gown has disappeared.
Instead, he was wearing a dark blue prison uniform, with an unkempt beard, sunken eye sockets, half-white hair, and no smile on his face, full of unwillingness and vicissitudes of life...
I have to say that the angle chosen by the photographer was excellent.
The small room, the simple furnishings, and the only iron window that let in the sunlight.
The gloomy and dark atmosphere is full!
Meng Lang sat paralyzed on the ground, staring blankly at this photo that represented some kind of future for himself, with endless confusion in his eyes.
I once thought that with an elegant split jump, I could jump over the big pits in life. Unexpectedly, I perfectly avoided pit A, but when I landed, I plunged into another, even deeper pit B.
In the pit...
The turning point in life is not a three-way intersection with only two choices, one leading to darkness and the other leading to light.
It has countless possibilities, perhaps one leads to darkness, and the other leads to deeper darkness...
He finally understood that the future can change, but it may not necessarily be for the better, it may be worse!
After all, he continued to live in his "miserable life" for 18 years, right?
This time it was even worse. He had been receiving lunch for 10 years, setting a new record for the shortest survival time.
Life is full of traps, and it is really difficult to live peacefully until the end of your life...
…
"Hey, prodigal son."
"Axian, are you free at noon?"
"Yes, what's the matter?"
"Suddenly I want to talk to someone. Let's have dinner together. I'll treat you."
"Huh? What's wrong with you?"
"It's okay, I just feel sad."
"Um...are you sure you're not buying insurance from me?"
"..."
"Okay, okay, then let's go to the same place?"
"No! Health-preserving people, health-preserving souls, health-preserving people don't eat Malatang."
"Pfft! Why are you talking to me about health care? Just you? Don't eat Malatang?"
"Yeah! I just quit!"
The person on the other side was silent for about ten seconds. "It seems like it's not a big deal, okay, then where do you want to eat?"
"It's the vegetarian restaurant downstairs from me."
"Well……"
…
Half an hour later, "Liuhe Zhai" vegetarian restaurant.
"Sir, what would you like to order?"
In her late forties, the charming landlady spoke in an unusually gentle tone, and handed the menu to the opposite side of Meng Lang... with eyes full of admiration.
"My friend, let's order some." Duan Xian pushed the menu full of unfamiliar dish names in front of Meng Lang with a strange look on his face.
Duan Xian, Meng Lang’s college roommate and best friend.
In the annual public selection of the campus network that year, he ranked No. 2 in the list of "Top Ten Campus Heroes of HKUST"!
Long legs, a height of 1.8 meters, a body with golden proportions, plus Andy Lau's eyes, Aaron Kwok's eyebrows, Tony Leung's nose, Takeshi Kaneshiro's mouth...
The woman looked at it and wanted to commit a crime, and the man looked at it... and wanted to put a size 42 shoe print on his 24K pure and handsome five-star high-end face.
In short, a natural friend of women and a peerless killer of both young and old!
By the way, the person who ranked first that year was the son of the director of the Political and Education Department.
Just looking at the infatuated look on the landlady's face and the few nearby waitress girls who are looking here frequently, you can tell how lethal this guy is to the opposite sex.
Meng Lang was already used to this.
I took the menu and looked at it twice before starting to name the dishes.
"One portion of steamed potatoes and radish, one portion of boiled cabbage, two bowls of chestnut porridge, and a portion of fresh vegetable salad.
Less sugar, less salt, less oil, no MSG or chicken essence, thank you."
"Well……"
The proprietress was stunned for a moment by Meng Lang's exquisite and demanding "personalized customization", but she quickly restored her charming professional smile.
"Okay, please wait a moment!"
The landlady personally ordered the dishes, and it didn't take long for all the dishes to be served.
The crystal clear potatoes and radish are steamed, the cabbage cut into lotus shapes blooms in the crystal clear soup, the carefully matched salad, and the chestnut porridge exudes a sweet and waxy alluring aroma.
There are also sweet-looking waitress girls waiting around. Just wave your hand and you can rush to serve.
One of the benefits of dining out with this guy is that no matter where you eat, you will most likely enjoy Michelin-level VIP treatment.
Duan Xian was speechless after looking at the exquisite dishes without even a trace of oil on them, and then at Meng Lang who was sterilizing the cups and tableware with hot water with a serious look on his face.
Could this product have been swapped?
Please bring back that normal best friend who can yell to fight with the next family the next day after eating gutter oil and having diarrhea!
He finally couldn't help but tortured Meng Lang's soul.
"So you are planning to turn back and escape into Buddhism? Why?"
Hearing this, Meng Lang, who was wiping his chopsticks with his orchid fingers, looked calm.
"Because of the damn desire to live."
"..."
Duan Xian, who had only recovered his language organization ability after a long time, asked tentatively, "What happened?"
Meng Lang silently picked up the salad with chopsticks and chewed the tasteless spinach in his mouth. The corners of his eyes twitched and he swallowed the food with great effort.
Slowly put down the chopsticks, and then let out a long sigh. "Alas!"
Both times he died of late-stage gastric cancer, which made Meng Lang realize how important it is to eat healthily.
It's a pity that there was no sense of it in the first "Le Miserable", and there was no condition at all in the second "Mein Kampf".
Therefore, keeping in good health is a must, and it ranks as the first priority of "changing your destiny".
If you don’t maintain your health, you won’t even be able to survive your sentence. How sad!
He was also planning to find time to go to the hospital for a checkup and a gastroscopy.
Well, preferably painless.
"It's okay, I just encountered a hurdle in my life that I couldn't overcome, and I suddenly felt the preciousness of life."
Do you feel the preciousness of life? Hearing this somewhat familiar line, coupled with Meng Lang's weird behavior and low mood, Duan Xian suddenly looked shocked.
"No way? Could it be that...you have a terminal illness? You can't be so bloody, right?"
Meng Lang glanced at him lightly.
"Not yet, but it should be soon."
"I……"
Duan Xian had a basketful of troughs, but he didn't know where to spit them out.
What does "should be fast" mean? Can this thing also be fast?
In fact, Meng Lang has basis for what he said.
He just took the time to talk to his mother. Gastric cancer is a malignant tumor in the stomach. It usually takes one to two to three to five years to develop from the early stage to the late stage. The process is very rapid.
Therefore, even for the "Mein Kampf" version of Meng Lang who has a shorter survival time, the normal time of onset should be five years later, and this is still under extremely harsh living conditions.
Meng Lang is probably still in the "mild gastritis" stage now, which is a sub-healthy state that can still be rescued.
Duan Xian saw that Meng Lang looked serious and didn't look like he was joking. He was not sure what happened to Meng Lang, so he could only comfort him.
"You just need to be poor! Seeing as you can still tell jokes, the situation shouldn't be serious. The boat will be straight when it reaches the bridge. There are no obstacles in life that you can't overcome!"
Hearing this, Meng Lang asked seriously, "But what if it's a hurdle after passing it?"
"Still a hurdle? Then take another step! If one step fails, take another. You don't only have one leg!"
Meng Lang was stunned for a moment, silent for a moment, and nodded slowly with a relieved look on his face.
"Well! What you said makes sense. I feel much better."
"That's right, come and talk to your brother about what kind of difficulty you encountered, but first let's talk about it. If it's about a woman, then don't talk!"
"Yeah! I understand the rules!" Meng Lang nodded.
To talk about Duan Xian's establishment of rules, we have to start from the time in college.
Once, a good buddy of Duan Xian fell in love with a school girl. This guy was also a thief and wanted to act like a hero saving the beauty.
But it's a pity that I didn't hire the right extras and actually asked Duan Xian to help me make up the number.
The ending is very obvious.
Although she was playing a bully, her appearance exceeded the stockings.
In the end, the school girl fell in love with the bandit and suffered from severe Stockholm syndrome. The hero cried and fainted in the toilet.
Although Duan Xian repeatedly refused the girl to express her position, the two eventually turned against each other and broke up.
Since then, Duan Xian has been autistic.
Later, he let himself go and changed his girlfriend frequently, which may have something to do with this.
Meng Lang thought about his words for a moment before saying.
"Actually, it's like this. Things are quite complicated. There are many things that I can't explain to you. I'll keep it simple and tell you the ones that can be explained."
"Well! Tell me!" Duan Xian looked like he was listening attentively.
"I'm short of money."
"..."
What are you most afraid of, the sudden silence of the air, and the sudden concern of your friends?
After being sluggish for a long time, Duan Xian's complexion first turned from green to white, and then from white to black. It was a wonderful scene.
He stared at Meng Lang expressionlessly until he looked away in embarrassment.
"You have been laying the groundwork for so long just to borrow money?"
"That can't be said. I came to you to talk to you because I was really distressed. Now that I feel better, I can think of business." Meng Lang said with a guilty conscience.
Duan Xian resisted the urge to put boiling water and cabbage on his head.
"How much do you want to borrow?"
"Then it depends on how much our friendship is worth."
"Can our friendship be measured in money?"
"If possible, I hope... you can give it an estimate."
