Chasing Summer

Lin Zhexia hadn't reacted yet.

Chi Yao has already used his other hand to hold her hand.

The boy was soaked in rain, and exerted a little force on his wet hands. Since Chi Yao was sitting, Lin Zexia almost fell directly into his arms—

There was a "snap".

The umbrella fell to the ground.

The rain had no shelter and fell directly, icy and cold on the top of the head, but the coolness was quickly disturbed by the body temperature from the other party.

Lin Zhexia propped one hand on the edge of the bench, and she was completely dazed, besides the sound of rain falling, there was also the faint sound of someone's heartbeat.

Might be hers.

It may also be Chi Yao's.

She didn't know what this "hug" meant.

Normally, it should be understood that something happened to Chi Yao's family, and now he is very fragile and needs friends.

But the timing for him to say this was just after making a wish.

just like…

Letting him hug him is his birthday wish this year.

They're a little too close now.

Although they have been familiar for a long time, and hugging is not an overly intimate gesture.

A friendly hug between friends is... normal.

Lin Zhexia didn't dare to think too much.

"You..." After a long while, Lin Zhexia said, "How long do you want to hold me?"

Chi Yao's head was lowered, his thin chin was buried in her neck, his hair and the tip of his nose occasionally rubbed against her neck, and he said in a slightly unclear voice, "Just a little while."

After a while, how long is it.

Lin Zhexia's heart beat fast.

Because of her shyness, she hoped that this hug would end quickly, but she also hoped that this hug could last longer.

After a while.

"Is it coming soon?" she asked.

"Not yet." Chi Yao replied.

"..."

The end time of the last hug was at 12:14. The reason why Lin Zhexia could remember it so accurately was because Lin He made a phone call at this time.

"Xia Xia, what time is it, is your birthday over?"

"Hurry up and go home, it's raining so heavily outside," Lin He said on the other side of the phone, and couldn't help being suspicious, "Why is your rain crackling? Are you at Chi Yao's house?"

"Ah yes, I'll be right back."

Lin Zhexia picked up the umbrella and said in a panic, "I'll be right back."

Due to Lin He's urging, Lin Zhexia couldn't accompany him home to cut the cake, so before leaving at the gate of the building, she specially emphasized: "You must eat the cake after you go back. This cake is mine...but I paid a lot of money to buy it. of."

Chi Yao said, "Got it."

After finishing speaking, he said again, "You got caught in the rain, go in quickly."

Holding an umbrella, Chi Yao watched her enter the building, and then returned home. Instead of going to the bathroom to change out of her drenched clothes, he turned on the light and walked to the living room. On the coffee table in the center of the living room, there was a cake gift box.

He untied the ribbon, and at a glance, he saw that the cake that Lin Zhexia said was bought at a "big price" was made by herself.

There is no "big price" cake in the world that has the words "Happy Birthday" written so distorted on the cake.

He cut the cake carefully, then sat on the ground and ate it bite by bite.

Occasionally, rainwater will gather at the jaw and slowly submerge into the collar along the line of the jaw.

While eating, he looked at the card next to him.

Lin Zhexia's handwriting has not changed since junior high school.

The font is round and blunt, delicate and neat.

-I wish you all wishes come true and happy every day. I hope you will have endless courage in doing anything in the future.

He remembered that once He Yang laughed at her that this was a "kindergarten" font, and she was so angry that she ordered a set of cursive copybooks overnight, saying that she wanted to practice the calligraphy to be wild and unrestrained, so that He Yang would know what it meant to be mature.

In the end, five points were deducted for the midterm exam, and the plan was cancelled.

…

Thinking like this, Chi Yao read the line back and forth several times.

It seems that these two lines of words should be placed in the deepest part of memory with great solemnity.

After eating the whole cake, he swiped his phone away and sent a message to Chi Hanshan: I'll come over tomorrow.

Because too many things happened last night, Lin Zhexia overslept the next day because he tossed until midnight and got caught in the rain.

When she got up to check the time, it was already half past eleven.

She slid open her phone and saw a few messages Chi had sent her.

One is:

- the cake is not bad

The other two:

- i'm not here today

- go to my house and open the door yourself

Lin Zhexia looked at the sentence "I'm not here today", and guessed that Chi Yao probably went to see his parents.

"Mom," Lin Zhexia asked during lunch, "Which city is Uncle Chi's company in?"

Lin He asked while serving the meal: "I... I think I'm in Beijing, why did I suddenly think of asking this?"

Lin Zhexia is not good at geography. He heard a sentence when he was a child, but he didn't pay attention to it: "Just asking casually."

But no matter how bad her geography is, she also knows that Beijing City is far, far away from here, even farther than going to Haidu City.

It takes two days to go back and forth.

And because of the terrain, there are more resources available for development than here, which is more beneficial to the development of the factory.

Because of this, Chi Yao's parents seldom come back.

Lin Zhexia's memory of the past few days is fuzzy, perhaps because Chi Yao is not around. The next day was school, which was Monday, but Chi Yao couldn't make it back in time, so he took two more days off.

The days when Chi Yao was not around were extremely memoryless.

When school was over, He Yang specially sent her a message.

Da Zhuang: Brother Xia, I will take two stops today to find you after school.

Lin Zhexia:?

Lin Zhexia: Are you free?

Da Zhuang: ...

Da Zhuang: Brother Yao said

Da Zhuang: I don’t want to come either

Lin Zhexia froze for a moment.

Chi Yao was very careful when he was not a dog.

When she saw Chi Yao again, it was after school the next day, and she walked with He Yang. He Yang talked about his school all the way, and occasionally mentioned Chi Yao: "It's annoying me, the last sports meeting, What kind of merger competition, what kind of friendly match."

"Now I, He Yang, have lost my name in the middle school attached to the experiment, and have become 'friends of that handsome guy from the school next door'."

Lin Zhexia: "Oh."

He Yang: "Don't do it, your tone reminds me of brother Yao every minute."

Speaking of this, He Yang sighed again: "Have you noticed that sometimes the two of you unexpectedly look like each other. Not only you, sometimes brother Yao also speaks in your style, such as talking nonsense with a cold face when."

Lin Zhexia didn't realize this: "...is there any?"

She was chatting with He Yang, a little lost in thought, and then from a distance, she saw Chi Yao getting off the taxi parked at the gate of the community.

Chi Yao was carrying a black bag and a mask. His back was straight and his legs were stretched long and straight.

"Chi Yao," she dropped He Yang and ran over, "You're back."

Chi Yao let out a "hmm" through the mask.

Just a "hmm", she noticed that Chi Yao didn't seem to be in a good mood.

She followed Chi Yao, trying to follow him into the house all the way.

When he reached the door, Chi Yao took out the key to open the door, and instead of opening the door to go in, he turned to look at her: "Want to come in for water again?"

Lin Zhexia: "I'm a little thirsty."

After a while, she asked again: "Have you... seen your uncles and aunts?"

Chi Yao seldom wore a mask, probably because the air in the car was too turbid just now.

After wearing the mask, the eyebrows and eyes are more prominent. Even if the lower half of the face is covered under the mask, the outline of the bridge of the nose and chin can still be vaguely seen.

He raised his hand and hooked the edge of the black mask, and said, "See you."

Chi Yao couldn't remember how long he hadn't seen Chi Hanshan and Bai Qin.

Obviously one is his father and the other is his mother, but when they meet, they seem to be worse than strangers.

Two days ago, when he appeared in Beijing, Chi Hanshan came to pick him up and asked him, "Why did you come here suddenly?"

Chi Yao was wearing a mask, standing at the train station where people were coming and going.

It wasn't until they met that Chi Hanshan's image became clear again in his memory. They looked somewhat similar, but the wrinkles had already crept up to the corners of the man's eyes. Chi Hanshan was wearing an off-white shirt with a briefcase in his hand , with unconcealable tiredness in his eyes.

Chi Yao looked at him and slowed down his speech: "You, and my mother, how are you doing?"

Not surprisingly, Chi Hanshan laughed dryly and said, "It's pretty good."

"Very good." Chi Yao lowered his eyes and repeated his answer.

When he raised his eyes again, he said, "So, he intends to keep hiding it from me."

Chi Hanshan was stunned.

Then, he quickly realized how Chi Yao knew: "They are looking for you?"

Chi Yao was noncommittal.

Chi Hanshan was dumbfounded: "They clearly promised me that they wouldn't—"

Chi Yao asked again: "Where is Mom?"

Chi Hanshan faltered and hesitated, and finally told him: "In the hospital."

Chi Yao's heart sank little by little.

At the moment when Bai Qin didn't show up at the train station, he vaguely realized that their problem might be more serious than he imagined.

Then he met Bai Qin on the hospital bed of the First People's Hospital in Kyoto.

The woman was wearing a hospital gown and her face was very pale.

She lay there quietly, no longer the cold and stern image of the past.

This strong woman who regards work as the whole world, fell down for the first time. Mental anxiety led to a series of problems, and her illness came like a mountain. She had been busy for so many years, but she suddenly collapsed.

"I just got an injection of diazepam," the doctor said while recording, "she is in a very bad state of mind, try not to let her get in touch with work, and the patient is currently in the advanced stage of gastric cancer, but the risk of surgical treatment is still high. Existence, you have to be mentally prepared for this.”

The doctor flipped through the file in his hand, and couldn't help saying: "You people now—your body is the most important thing, you don't care about your health when you are busy, you eat irregularly, and you eat one meal at a time."

It was very noisy in the hospital today.

In addition to the voices of the passing crowd, the doctor's voice, and Chi Hanshan's voice.

"The thing is, the factory didn't buy a batch of new parts before, and the purchase method was a loan. We originally wanted to expand a new production line, but we didn't expect that the progress was not as good as expected. Now the market has cooled down, business is not good, and the capital chain has problems. ..."

Although Chi Hanshan spoke vaguely, Chi Yao knew very well what was behind the problem of the capital chain.

This is almost life-threatening.

The group of people who came to him was definitely not from the bank, but seemed to be a private lending organization. Chi Hanshan couldn't repay the loan. In order to prolong the buffer period, he could only borrow another loan to repay the previous loan. In the end, like a snowball, a hole that cannot be filled is rolled out.

…

"It's also me who is too greedy."

Chi Hanshan slowly closed his eyes: "I didn't tell you, because I was afraid that you would worry."

In the end, what Chi Yao heard was his own voice.

"I'm afraid I'm worried."

He twitched the corner of his mouth lightly, and said this sentence in self-deprecating manner.

"Perhaps it is, more should be that it is unnecessary."

He expressed his emotions for so many years together: "There is no need to tell me."

This is where he feels the most powerless and ridiculous.

"—Then what is necessary?"

In the end, he almost lost his composure: "We are obviously family members, but many times, I feel like I am an unnecessary person. There is no need to exist, no need to appear, so there is no need to tell me."

eighteen years old.

What kind of age is it.

In the end, Chi Yao sat on the rest chair in the corridor of the hospital, and his breathing became heavy and stuffy through the mask.

He raised his hand, hooked the mask, and pulled the mask down a little.

Then he smelled a very strong smell of disinfectant.

Bai Qin was lying next to him by a wall.

And he is also at the other end, beyond the age of seventeen.

It seems to have stepped into another unknown world, and the whole world can be subverted in an instant.

When he stood up again, he had returned to the way he was at the train station, and asked, "How far is it?"

Chi Hanshan didn't react: "What?"

"money."

Before Chi Hanshan answered, Chi Yao said again: "Lianyun's house is sold, so it should be relieved for a while. Don't think about me."

"As for this..." When he was speaking, he looked at Bai Qin on the hospital bed, but he felt that a long time had passed in a short period of time, and finally he said, "I'll stay."

Chi Hanshan: "You want to stay? Then your school..."

Chi Yao looked at him: "There are so many things, can you do it alone?"

Chi Hanshan was silent.

Chi Yao: "I'll stay and take care of her. Anyway, I've learned about the content of the third year in advance, so it won't delay the college entrance examination review. When the house is almost done, I'll go through the transfer procedures after a while."

Chi Hanshan was speechless for a long time.

In fact, before Chi Yao came over suddenly, he and Bai Qin had already endured this embarrassing predicament for a long time.

It wasn't illness that crushed Bai Qin.

Instead, the business that she had worked so hard for for many years was on the verge of collapse, and she couldn't accept it for a while.

"Han Shan, do you still remember?" One night, Bai Qin sat in the living room blankly, looking at the balcony and said, "When we first opened the factory, you had a friend named Liu. We all called him Boss Liu. There was a business accident and I jumped off the stairs. I couldn’t understand it before, but now, if it’s useful for me to jump from here now, I really wouldn’t hesitate at all..."

They put their heart and soul into the job.

Even the employees under the opponent are more concerned about the son who is far away in Lianyun City.

They are not good parents.

But there is really no way to balance the two. The work in hand, so many workers under him, and too many uncontrollable things still push the distance between them further and further.

When Chi Yao was sick for the first time, they couldn't go back, and then there were all kinds of absences. Missing the parent meeting, missing the birthday.

Even during Chinese New Year, less and less people go back.

Fast forward more than ten years, the sick son who was often sick when he was young, grew up where they didn't notice.

Chi Yao's attitude was more determined than his.

Although he didn't say it directly, he expressed a sentence: No matter what happens, he will face it with them.

This realization made him not come back to his senses for a long time.

After regaining consciousness, Chi Hanshan's eyes became hot.

He took care of Bai Qin by himself, and had to deal with financial issues. He gritted his teeth and held on. He didn't know when he would fall down like Bai Qin. He wanted to talk to Chi Yao about the family that day, but he immediately withdrew it the next second.

But at this moment, he was invisibly pulled by his son who had been neglected for many years.

"However, give me some time," Chi Yao finally said, "I have to... wait until after June."

"Because in June, there is a very important day for me."

…

Thinking of this, Chi Yao lowered his eyes to look at the girl in front of him.

Lin Zhexia was wearing a school uniform and carrying a schoolbag. She seemed a little nervous, afraid that something bad would happen to him in the past, and her words were cautious and tentative.

Chi Yao took off the mask: "Hello, this classmate named Lin."

Lin Zhexia said, "Here."

"June 12th, come out to me on my birthday," he moved closer to her as he spoke, raised one hand, and pressed his palm gently on top of her head, "Take you to a place."