CHAPTER 1

After finishing the final exams, the first year of high school began a long summer vacation.

Zhang Man finished correcting the last test paper, packed her things, and left the office with her bag. She was locking the door, and the phone in her pocket suddenly vibrated. She took out her phone and glanced at the screen. It was her mother Zhang Huifang.

"Hey, Mom... well, it's a holiday today, I'll be back this weekend... I know."

I don't know when it started. Most of the conversations between the mother and daughter ended with urging marriage. Zhang Huifang said that if a woman like her in her thirties does not fall in love or get married, she will completely lose her hormones and will never be tempted.

Zhang Man felt that this was right, but it was wrong.

She did not feel at all for the men around her, but in recent years she has dreamed of someone more and more frequently. When I woke up from a dream, my heartbeat seemed to repeat the throbbing of my youth.

As soon as I walked downstairs to the teaching building, I met the director of teaching Zhou Wenqing: "Ms. Zhang, are you free to have a meal at night?"

Zhang Man instinctively wanted to refuse. Thinking of Zhang Huifang's increasingly anxious urging, he changed to: "I have time."

The man was a little surprised when he heard the words, and turned to a happy expression: "Then wait for me."

Zhang Man nodded, standing at the top of the stairs holding her bag, and sighed inwardly as she watched him walking upstairs in a hurry.

She didn't know what Zhou Wenqing meant. In all fairness, he is a calm and down-to-earth man with strong working ability and a sense of responsibility in life. Although he was a few years older than her, and he was divorced, it was a good choice for her.

There are very few people around her who are not married yet.

He quickly came down and changed into a very vigorous shirt, but the slightly drooping statutory lines on his face made him look a little tired.

The two went to a Sichuan restaurant next to the school.

Zhou Wenqing chose a corner position and wiped the table and chairs with a tissue before asking her to sit down.

Very gentleman.

"Ms. Zhang comes to order, madam first."

Zhang Man hooked up a dry pot of Chiba tofu and a spicy chicken as usual.

However, as soon as she ordered and handed him the menu, he crossed it out and chose two other new dishes.

Zhang Man was a little surprised, and looked up at him.

Zhou Wenqing smiled and said: "I guessed you would order these two dishes. I still remember when you first came to our school, you ordered these two dishes for the first teacher dinner, and they have not changed for so many years. Zhang Man, life is not static. Sometimes people may stay in their comfort zone and don’t have the courage to jump out. But changes are not always a bad thing, why not try? Whether it’s food or people."

Zhang Man lowered his head, feeling a little shake in his heart, knowing that he meant something, but he didn't know how to answer the conversation. Fortunately, Zhou Wenqing didn't trouble her and changed the subject.

Halfway through a meal, Zhou Wenqing is quite harmonious, and Zhou Wenqing is very good at driving the atmosphere. Even if she doesn't speak much, the atmosphere between the two is not awkward.

At this time, the mobile phone on the table rang, it was a WeChat prompt, and it rang several times continuously.

"Sorry, let me read the news."

She turned on the phone and found that it was her best friend Chen Feier.

[Where are you Manman? Look at the first hot search! ! ! ] [! ! ! ! ! 】

. ...

Chen Feier hit several rows of exclamation marks.

Zhang Man thought to himself, the high probability is that the little fresh meat she has eaten is gone. She absently opened Weibo and glanced at the hot search.

This glance made her whole person freeze instantly.

The number one in the hot search turned out to be... his name, with a boiling word in front of it, just like when he became the first Chinese theoretical physicist to win the Nobel Prize three months ago.

But the latter two words were printed in her sight clearly, and the violent and turbulent impact made her incomprehensible for a moment and completely lost the ability to understand.

[Li Wei suicide]

suicide? What do you mean.

She suddenly couldn't understand the simple and direct message, the literal meaning that could be understood without thinking.

The brain seems to have stopped turning, or it has activated its self-protection mechanism, giving every cell in the body a buffer time.

Zhang Man clicked into the hot search and looked back and forth for a few minutes. The numbness and sluggishness gradually disappeared. The brain has not been able to accurately receive this information, and the heart has started to disrupt the usual beating frequency unexpectedly.

"Hey!" The sound of the glass falling to the ground cracking sharply, she recovered and found that the glass in her hand fell to the ground.

Zhou Wenqing quickly greeted the waiter to clean up and looked at her with some worry.

"Ms. Zhang, what's wrong with you?"

Zhang Man opened his mouth and was speechless. She started to shake unconsciously, the temperature in her body gradually lost, as if she had been sucked out of a black hole, and she fell into an endless panic. Before all the emotions overwhelmed her, she squeezed her bag and stood up abruptly: "Zhou... Teacher Zhou, I am not feeling well, and I will leave first."

She walked out of the restaurant quickly, the car lights on the street exploded, making her dizzy for a moment.

The phone was still vibrating, she subconsciously turned it on and saw Chen Feier sent her several more messages.

[...Manman, are you okay? 】

[Manman, where are you now? 】

Zhang Man wanted to reply, tried a bit and found that his hands were shaking so that he couldn't type at all, and he simply gave up.

Walking unconsciously, the strength of her whole body was only enough to support her to walk to an empty street corner, which was the back door of a convenience store.

She slowly squatted down against the wall, panting deeply, trying to inhale some cool air to relieve the pain in her heart. The temples throbbed uncontrollably, and the entire respiratory tract was sore from violent sobbing.

But the most painful thing is that even though the body has lost control, the thinking is so clear and terribly clear.

With trembling hands, she opened Weibo, holding the last trace of luck.

It must be a mistake, it must be a rumor. He just won the prize, how could he commit suicide?

However, the cause and effect of the incident are clearly analyzed on Weibo, and no doubt is allowed.

Li Wei died and was found to have committed suicide at home, the day before the award ceremony.

He wrote in a letter to his PhD student Jackie before he died: "...You are a very talented student. I have recommended you to Professor William. I am sorry for the inconvenience that will be caused to you... I've been doing one thing crazy all the time, physics is everything to me. In fact, long ago, I had a foreboding that on the day it ended, darkness would completely engulf me."

Later, Jackie accepted an interview: "When I received this e-mail, I felt something was wrong and called the police immediately. Unfortunately, when the police arrived at the professor's house, everything was too late. The most dazzling genius of this century left us forever. "

The researchers who worked with him in Princeton also claimed: "Mankind has lost a great genius."

His psychiatrist revealed that Li Wei suffered from severe schizophrenia since he was a child, and has been suppressing it with drugs for these years. However, the end of his research work caused a violent outbreak of mental illness and he finally chose to commit suicide.

"Li's inner world is actually hundreds of times richer than others. He often imagines things that don't really exist in the world, and easily lose control of emotions due to external stimuli. This is what we usually call delusions. At the same time, Li is a keen and intelligent person. These mental illnesses made him feel a strong sense of powerlessness beyond his control, and finally chose to give up his life."

Zhang Man saw this place with tears in his eyes, shaking his hands and flipping through the disclosures of other insiders, and some things that had happened after many years suddenly became clear.

Schizophrenia, delusion, so it is.

It turned out that those things back then were really not what he did on purpose, he didn't lie to her.

He is just sick.

A series of pictures were connected in her mind.

At that time, she felt weird about his deception and asked him aggrievedly. After receiving a negative reply, she uttered a bad word.

She really didn't know, she didn't know that he was actually sick.

I still remember that in the last period of their relationship, he seemed to be extremely depressed, hollow and gloomy like a lonely soul.

Zhang Man opened his mouth, and the suppressed choking in his throat finally couldn't be restrained, and it became a heart-piercing cry.

Some things she couldn't let go of for so many years, but now they all have explanations, but so what, he is gone.

——

While packing things in his hometown two years ago, Zhang Man found a love letter sandwiched in a physics book, signed by Li Wei.

He wrote in it: "Human cognition of the universe is like the glow of fireflies in the boundless darkness. There are so many unknowns that we can't see or touch. I want to come closer to that piece of land. Unknown, feel the darkness. Zhang Man, would you like to accompany me?"

Only then did she know that he really liked her back then, just like she liked him.

The paranoid and lonely genius boy actually had a gentle side. He stretched out his hand to her so carefully, wanting to pass all his tenderness and sincerity to her.

It was her failure to keep the gentleness in his eyes, which made him now choose to run to the darkness forever.

If, if you can go back to the year...

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