Farewell, colorless flower season

  The city's temperature had already reached thirty degrees in early June, especially at 4 or 5 o'clock in the afternoon when the setting sun was still scorching. The last exam had just ended and the young boys and girls who were just ten years old and in their blooming season were released from the warning zone, each with a different expression on their faces.

  Luo Lian was the last one to come out of the classroom, dawdling and seemingly savoring the brief sense of liberation and pleasure that came with walking out of prison. She walked out of the examination building, stopped at the entrance, and slowly untied her hair bun on top of her head. Classmates and teachers who had never seen her with her hair down passed by her side, all stunned and staring foolishly at her. Her hair cascaded down from her shoulders, falling to cover her knees, fluttering loosely in the wind, shining golden in the sunlight. Even the teacher who had once ordered her to cut her hair couldn't help but admit that this was indeed a rare and beautiful head of hair, one they had never been fortunate enough to see before.

  Lian Lian also heard a sentence she had never heard before: "Lian Lian, you're really beautiful! I hadn't noticed before."

  Another female classmate came over and asked her: "Classmate, where did you get your hair done? What shampoo products do you usually use? What nutritional supplements do you take?"

  Lotus has a dumb mouth and no words, she herself is about to starve and malnourished, but her hair is so dense and shiny, except for the old sky, who can give an answer.

  Luolian walked out of the school gate with big strides. The parents who were more nervous than the children outside the examination room rushed to surround her, asking questions in a flurry of voices, making the previously quiet scene outside the examination room suddenly noisy and chaotic. It seemed that all students had their parents come to pick them up, but Luolian didn't have anyone, nor did she mind. The school gate was packed with various cars, motorcycles, and bicycles, and Luolian squeezed out from among the vehicles and crowds, running home in small steps.

  Passersby were fully armed with umbrellas, sunglasses and veils, only the lotus was completely exposed to the scorching sun. There were long-stemmed flowers planted on the side of the road, she picked a handful of colorful ones, made them into a bouquet, held it in her hand, fiddling with it while walking.

  As soon as she arrived home, she opened the door with a jingling key and went in. As usual, there were only her elderly grandparents at home, who rarely went out. Her grandfather liked to listen to the radio half-asleep, while her grandmother lay silently beside him. They always seemed to be awake but had actually fallen asleep long ago, with only the radio still blaring loudly. Luolan went straight to her own room. The so-called "her own room" was actually shared with her mother, and there were only two rooms in this small house - one for her grandparents on the east side and one for her and her mother on the west side. In their room, there was only a large yellow-brown bed, a round dining table of the same color, two folding chairs, and a crimson-colored cabinet with a lid. Everything looked old but not in a good way - the paint had peeled off in many places, and years of grime couldn't be wiped away. Luolan did her homework on the round dining table, pushing aside the leftover food and dishes to make space for her books. Sometimes she would put her books on the lid of the crimson cabinet and sit on the bed to do her work. People often said that a person's room could reflect their inner self, but Luolan thought this was completely wrong - at least from this room, you couldn't see any hint of her secret sweetness and passion.

  The lotus fell, and in an instant, she didn't rest. The first thing she did was to tidy up all the textbooks, workbooks, and mock exams, and stuffed them into cardboard boxes. She was amazed that in six years, she had gone through so many books and written so many sets of papers, filling up ten large boxes. These ten heavy boxes of books were the only things that had accompanied her faithfully over the years. From thirteen to eighteen, she had devoted all her precious time to these ten boxes. She had worked hard on these books, not because she liked them, but just to get into college and never touch them again. She sealed the boxes tightly with wide tape, like Solomon sealing away monsters in a fairy tale, sealing away the repressed things of middle school, as well as the unrevivable flower season. "Goodbye, you boring things! You colorless flowers!" She pushed the box of books to the farthest corner of the bed, tight against the wall.

  Just then, something fell from the seam of the bed head onto the floor.