Siheyuan, integrating everything, cultivating the city

Her tone sounded as if nothing special had happened, but Li Xiangqian sensed something was wrong from her slightly averted eyes. That subtle avoidance seemed as if she was deliberately hiding something.

Li Xiangqian stood in the living room, staring at Xiao Zhao, with a complex emotion in his heart. He suddenly felt a little tired, and even regretted his decision. Now that he was home and facing Xiao Zhao, his doubts and confusion were still not answered, but became more serious.

"Where did you go today?" Li Xiangqian's tone was a little low. He tried his best to look natural and tried to control his inner anxiety.

Xiao Zhao's eyes flickered, and he seemed a little hesitant: "I didn't go anywhere. I just chatted with a few friends and went to the supermarket."

"Hmm." A trace of disbelief flashed through Li Xiangqian's mind, and then he shook his head, "That's good. You should rest early and don't be too tired."

He said nothing more and just walked towards the bedroom. When he reached the door, he stopped and turned to look at Xiao Zhao in the living room. The anxiety and doubt in his heart that had not subsided made him feel that every decision he made was full of uncertainty.

Xiao Zhao looked at his back and sighed softly. He seemed to have something to say but couldn't open his mouth.

Li Xiangqian lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, his mind in a mess. Just now by the pond, the frogs jumping and hunting gave him a little courage to make a decision, but when he got home, he became confused again. He didn't know if he did the right thing. Maybe Xiao Zhao just went to the supermarket with her friends today as she said. But why did he still feel an inexplicable uneasiness in his heart? Why did that nervous feeling always come to his mind inadvertently?

Li Xiangqian lay in bed, tossing and turning, but sleep never came. The wind outside the window blew more violently, bringing a bit of chill, and the occasional barking of dogs made it even harder for him to fall asleep. He felt as if his heart was filled with something, and it was suffocating. Jia Zhangshi, Xu Damao, He Yuzhu - the words and looks of these people were like nails in his mind, constantly reminding him that things were far from as simple as he saw.

He sat up, dragged his tired body out of the bedroom, picked up the phone on the table, and stared at the screen in a daze. It was already midnight, and there was almost no traffic on the street outside. It was so quiet that everything seemed to have stopped. He opened WeChat unconsciously and saw several unread messages. One of them was from Xiao Zhao. The content was simple: "Rest early tonight, don't be too tired."

Li Xiangqian clenched his phone tightly, his heart slightly moved. Her words sounded so plain, but he could clearly feel the alienation in them, the kind of indifference that seemed to be separated by a layer of gauze. This made him even more upset. He knew that something seemed to have happened between him and Xiao Zhao. Even though she said it lightly, the avoidance and uneasiness in her eyes could never be concealed.

Li Xiangqian sighed, put his phone back on the table, and walked to the kitchen. There were only a few simple ingredients in the refrigerator, so he took out a bag of instant noodles and decided not to think too much. At least he would eat something to fill his stomach, which might alleviate the emptiness in his heart.

After boiling the water, he quietly looked at the boiling water, and heard the sound of the water rolling violently. He knew in his heart that this kind of loneliness at night was like the frog in the pond, full of oppression, and he was the one trapped in the night.

After the noodles were cooked, Li Xiangqian brought them to the table and took a simple bite. However, he had no appetite. He chewed the food slowly in his mouth, as if he was chewing some invisible heaviness. His mind was still wandering between those trivial things. No matter how hard he tried to relax himself, he couldn't get rid of those unsolvable mysteries in his mind.

"What am I running away from?" Li Xiangqian whispered to himself, his eyes fixed on the bowl in front of him, thinking deeply about why he was so anxious and why every single thing made him feel so uneasy.

He was almost done with the noodles, and the little bit of noodles left in the bowl seemed particularly lonely, as if symbolizing his current mood - incomplete, unsatisfied, and even a little desolate. Li Xiangqian picked up the chopsticks, but his heart was extremely complicated. Every mouthful of noodles seemed to swallow some unspeakable emotions, filling the inexplicable void in his heart. He knew that he was not hungry, but because of a certain emptiness in his heart, and he longed to find a little comfort from these ordinary things.

"Am I really eating noodles? Or am I eating my anxiety?" He chewed the remaining noodles. There seemed to be no taste in his mouth, but the voice in his mind continued to echo. That uneasiness, that omnipresent sense of oppression, seemed to enter his body along with the bowl of noodles.

He put down his chopsticks and looked at the almost empty bowl in front of him, but his heart felt empty. He no longer had the energy to continue thinking, and the last question was still spinning in his mind. He walked back to the living room, picked up his phone, and opened the conversation record with Xiao Zhao. There were a few simple messages, except for "Go to bed early, don't be too tired", there was no other meaningful content. The cold tone made Li Xiangqian's doubts even heavier.

At this moment, he had neither the energy to break through this barrier nor the courage to ask the truth behind it. Perhaps because he was too tired or because of the deep anxiety in his heart, he felt that he could not face the vague reality. So, he decided to put it all aside temporarily, even if it was just to escape for a moment.

He put his phone down, leaned back on the sofa, closed his eyes, and tried to fall asleep. But no matter how hard he tried, the uneasy feeling in his heart could not be dissipated, but became more and more obvious.

"Am I so powerless?" Li Xiangqian muttered to himself, opened his eyes, and looked around the empty room. Everything around him seemed unusually quiet, as if there was an invisible glass between him and the world, and he could not touch anything behind this glass.

He shouldn't have come to find Xu Damao, but he had an indescribable feeling in his heart, always feeling that something needed to be done, and Xu Damao was the key point.

Xu Damao is an old neighbor in the courtyard. He is a few years older than Li Xiangqian. He has a rough personality and never drags his feet. Every time people talk about Xu Damao, they sigh or talk about him in a low voice. Xu Damao has a direct personality, especially when facing difficult problems in life, he never avoids them and always solves them head-on. This straightforward style makes Li Xiangqian both awed and a little alienated.