soft hedgehog

This snow was the last one before the year, and after the snow melted and became cold for a few days, the temperature rose again.

On the night of New Year's Eve, the sky is wide and the moon and stars are sparse.In the distance, the blue and silver building is changing with colorful lights to spell words every ten seconds. The laser light shines for several miles. The glass of the balcony of the small apartment nearby is pasted with red paper for blessings. both sides.

Modernity and warmth coexist in this city.

The New Year’s Eve dinner at Jitong’s family is very rich, including Sixi Roast Bran, Grilled Lamb Chop, Steamed Sea Bass, Ginger Roasted Duck, Sea Cucumber Claypot, Lotus Pond Stir-fry, and a large plate of assorted fruit slices. Just looking at it makes people salivate. The 1.2-meter slate dining table is almost impossible to use.

After dinner at eight o'clock, Liang Yuchen and his father were in charge of washing the dishes, and Ji Tong and his mother were in charge of cleaning up the tables, chairs, dishes, and chopsticks. Then the family sat on the sofa and watched the TV party.Seeing that at 11 o'clock the old couple couldn't hold on anymore and went into the room yawning and going to sleep, Ji Tong dragged Liang Yuchen to accompany him.

In recent years, TV shows have become more and more boring, with small network jokes, singing and dancing like a national costume show, it seems that there are no new tricks.After another half an hour, Ji Tong's eyelids began to fight up and down, his head tilted, and he curled up and lay down on his brother's lap.

"Why am I so sleepy." His voice was viscous, "It's obvious that the food in my stomach hasn't been digested yet."

A burp still smells like lamb chops.

Liang Yuchen was sitting upright playing games, and there was no place to put his free hand, so he just put it on his neck, and unconsciously rubbed his chin.

"Go to bed when you're sleepy, if you don't watch the year, you can still live until next year."

"I don't." Ji Tong felt comfortable, kicked off the slippers and shrunk his feet up, but his eyes were closed, "We will set off firecrackers later, and even if we fall asleep with such a loud sound, we will wake up. It's better to wait until 12 It's half past."

Liang Yuchen didn't bother to care about him either.Keep it up, it's less than half an hour away, if you don't hear Unforgettable tonight, I'm afraid he just won't go to sleep.

The level in front of me is a bit difficult, and I got stuck while playing, and there is a time limit for each step.His thinking is quicker and his hands are more anxious, just like some people like to bite their lips when they think, a bad habit.

"What are you doing?" Ji Tong muttered, "You're acting like a stringer."

He answered absent-mindedly: "Check to see if you have a beard."

"I'm not a eunuch, of course I have a beard."

"uncertain."

"Why not?"

As a result, there is no text.

Ji Tong opened his eyes, leaned on his thighs and talked to him on his back: "Why don't you say so?"

There is only the last step left, and there are still two ice cubes that have not been removed. It seems that there is no hope of passing the level.Liang Yuchen put down his phone and lowered his head helplessly: "Do you know what it means to be a brat?"

Ji Tong hummed: "I don't know."

"You're just like that when you're wet." The callused fingertips lifted his chin lightly, "the hair doesn't even grow back."

"Bullshit." Ji Tong's watery eyes stared at it from bottom to top, "It couldn't be more perfect."

In the next second, the right hand covered his mouth: "Try talking shit again?"

"Uh, uh!"

The soft lips rubbed against the palm, and the wetness in the mouth seemed to spill out.

Liang Yuchen was slightly numb, and quickly let go.

"You want to smother me to death." Ji Tong's eyes widened, pretending to be angry and said, "Smother me to death and don't want to inherit my mother's property."

"Oh?" He raised his eyebrows, "So your mother has a lot of money?"

"Of course, there are still houses for several million!"

He leaned back relaxed and smiled maliciously.Ji Tong covered his mouth and yelled, "It's a trick!"

After all, he was still out of the hole, which was miserable.

After arguing with the Fa with their mouths, it was almost midnight, Ji Tong sat up and snatched the red envelope from Bo's relative, took the time to cast a glance at him: "You haven't sent it to me yet."

"Send what?" He still looked down.

"Stop playing, stop playing," Ji Tong said dissatisfiedly holding down his mobile phone screen, "What's the matter with getting money after clearing the game, you haven't given me a red envelope yet."

Liang Yuchen pretended to be stupid: "Why should I give you a red envelope?"

"Because you are my brother. It is only natural for a brother to give red envelopes to his younger brother. Don't try to deny it."

This answer is very reasonable.

"Who said three months ago that I was an only child and had no brother." He raised his brows slightly, "So your brother has to appear on demand, and has only obligations but no rights?"

Ji Tong coughed: "It's easy to have a short life if you have a bad memory."

"I care more about the thickness of life than the length."

"Then what kind of rights do you want? You have enough control and you still need to fight for rights..."

Liang Yuchen paused, folded his arms half-jokingly: "The right to beat you."

Ji Tong was terrified: "I can't, do I look so unbeatable?!"

Liang Yuchen nodded calmly.

What I owe is not just a little bit of beating, I'm afraid it's a slap in the face, it's best to make up for everything that was owed when I was a child.

Ji Tong turned his head silently, and watched TV quietly with his legs together.

At 12 o'clock in the morning, the bell rang, and it was the beginning of another year.

Liang Yuchen got up and Shi Shiran went back to the room. At the same time, a certain mobile phone on the table was stuck and vibrated.

Ji Tong thought it was a New Year's greeting message from an old classmate, so he happily picked it up, and when he opened it, it turned out to be a huge red envelope of [-] yuan from Liang Yuchen.

Before I was overjoyed for three seconds, I suddenly found three words on the red envelope: medical expenses.

"..."

The sound of firecrackers slammed, and he trembled in fright, his whole body was in a mess.

—

The next day, the two brothers slept until the sun was up without incident. Anyway, it was a day so boring that they hatched chickens, so it didn't matter whether they had breakfast or not.

Everyone is happy on the first day of the new year, except for the sound of the parties on the TV and rubbing hemp as usual, there should be no other sounds. Unexpectedly, after lunch, there are intermittent quarrels from upstairs.

Liang Changlei went out to meet his old buddies early in the morning. Hu Aihua thought that orphans and widows should be careful at home after all, so he went from the living room to the stairwell and looked around several times, but finally he didn't go upstairs to knock on the door.Of course Ji Tong and Liang Yuchen heard it too, and they wanted to do something but felt that it was inappropriate to do anything.Therefore, everyone chooses to wait and see. As long as the situation does not deteriorate further, outsiders do not need to intervene.

Now Ji Tong has more or less understood why Liang Yuchen didn't let him take care of this matter at that time, it was simply because he saw through a fact before himself: Zheng Beibei and her mother had already known about her father's cheating.

He didn't know why it was hidden and not revealed, but there were only a few reasons: worrying about the children, loving her husband, and survival.

When it was time for dinner, the voices gradually subsided, and the three of them thought that nothing was wrong, and that maybe any conflicts during the New Year's Eve could be covered up.Unexpectedly, just after eight o'clock, the door of Ji's house was suddenly slapped.

"Tongtong! Aunt Hu!" It was Zheng Beibei's voice, extremely anxious.

Liang Yuchen immediately walked over to open the door, and Beibei was outside the door without even a coat on. When he saw him, it was like seeing a savior: "Brother Yuchen, my mother is gone!"

"What's wrong with Aunt Xiulan?" Ji Tong and his mother arrived before they heard.

"My mother disappeared after leaving a note. I searched inside and outside the house, but I can't find it anywhere." Zheng Beibei handed them the crumpled and limp note.

It was a piece of half-lined paper torn from a textbook, on which a sentence was scrawled with a black water-based pen: "Bei Bei, Mom is gone, take care of yourself."

Hu Aihua took a look, then reached forward and grabbed her two thin arms: "When did it happen?!"

"Afternoon...or night!" Zheng Beibei's thoughts were obviously confused, his eyes were moving wildly, "They were arguing at home after one o'clock in the noon, and I was so annoyed that I hid out. When I came back at night, I saw this piece of paper on the shoe cabinet. strip."

"They" refers to her parents, of course.

"Aunt Hu, do you think my mother will—"

"No." Hu Aihua cut off the conversation, slipped his hands down to hold her hand, "Xiulan won't be so stupid, let's go out and find her now, find her and persuade her to come back, there is nothing we can't overcome. "

She tried to be gentle and comforting, but the others were still beating drums in their hearts.

What does Ye Xiulan's note mean, how long has she been out, and what's going on now? No one can be sure.

But now, Zheng Beibei, who was in a state of desperation, seemed to be grasping at a straw, hurried upstairs, put on his clothes and went out with them.

Because of her poor health, her mother doesn't usually go out much.The sky and the earth in Pingcheng are vast, and there is no clue to find it for a while.Fortunately, they had Ye Xiulan's handwritten note. The policeman was considerate of the family's feelings and agreed to help them adjust the surveillance to check. They soon discovered that she had left the door after [-] pm. She walked all the way south until she reached the moat before disappearing from her back.

There are many trees and lights on the embankment, but there are no probes, and the green corridor is four kilometers long from north to south.Several people divided into three groups, Liang Yuchen and Zheng Beibei together, Ji Tong and Hu Aihua together, and Yang Xiao who came later went alone, and started to search on both sides of the embankment separately.

It is cold outside, and the cold moon is hidden in the shadowy dark clouds. When you look up, you can see the window grilles on the glass of the building everywhere, and there are children's kicks on the ground. Two big red lanterns are hung, as if to make the flavor of the new year stronger in this way.

Such a good night and a beautiful year, but Liang Yuchen had a cold voice reminding him that not all families are celebrating the New Year.

"mom--"

"mom--!"

He came out in a hurry, the down jacket that Zheng Beibei was wearing was not thick enough and not long enough, and the shoes on his feet were not velvet. It didn't take long for his lips to turn pale from the cold and his body to tremble slightly.

Liang Yuchen had given her his scarf a long time ago, but he couldn't do much else, so he could only concentrate on looking for it, hoping that he wouldn't go to the worst step.

The two searched and shouted all the way, their high-pitched voices were particularly lonely in the dark night, and the shadows of the whirling trees swayed in the cold wind, so they found the vicinity of the old campus one kilometer away, and swept the flashlight in his hand forward, Suddenly, I found that there seemed to be a person sitting on the bench in the middle of the tree, half of his face was covered by his hair, and he could not see his face clearly as he leaned on the back of the chair.

"Beibei." He hastily said in a deep voice, "Is that your mother?"

Zheng Beibei was startled, and ran towards the direction of the flashlight: "Mom!"

He threw himself on the man's lap and brushed his hair aside to see, who is this person with tears and icicles on his face?

"Mom! What's the matter with you, Mom?!" The nerves that had been tense all night suddenly relaxed, and she couldn't help choking up just after shouting twice, clasped her hands together and rubbed her mother's hands desperately, "Mom, are you okay? Don't scare me..."

Liang Yuchen also squatted aside to check: "Auntie, what do you think? Say something to reassure us."

After repeated several times, Ye Xiulan woke up like a dream, raised her bloodshot eyes to look at him, then at her daughter, and said in a hoarse voice, "You guys came here so quickly?"

It's like waiting for them all the time, so lonely.

Zheng Beibei knelt down and wailed loudly, with his head on his mother's lap, listening to it in the cold wind was extremely sad.

For a long time, neither mother nor son asked nor answered.Ye Xiulan slowly held her daughter's head with both hands and asked her to look up.

"Don't be afraid, mom won't die, mom is timid."

After coming to this river, for an hour or two hours, she still didn't have the courage to jump down.The water below was frozen, and he couldn't drown when he jumped down. Instead, he bumped his head on the ice, his skin was ripped apart, and his death was not good.

People who are nearly fifty still love beauty, but unfortunately there are no people who appreciate it.

Afterwards, she brushed her hair back and sat on the bench without thinking about anything. She just felt numb from the cold, and the bones were bubbling with cold.

"Wrap the scarf around Auntie." Liang Yuchen reminded.

"Oh, oh." Zheng Beibei hurriedly took off the black gray woolen scarf around his neck and tied it on for her mother, and gave Liang Yuchen a grateful look.

The embankment was too narrow for a car to come in, so the two picked up Ye Xiulan, one on the left and one on the right, and carried her to the main road, intending to go to the side of the road and call a car to take her to the hospital.

Ye Xiulan's whole body was limp and she had no strength at all, she let them hold her up, with her head tilted on her neck like a dead branch stuck obliquely in a vase.

Zheng Beibei didn't have any strength in his legs, he was frightened, and his steps were messy like noodles.As she walked forward with difficulty, she wiped away her tears with her free hand, and asked with hatred: "Mom, did he hit you?"

He was referring to Beibei's father, of course.Beibei didn't believe that her mother would leave home for no reason and have the idea of ​​committing suicide.

As an outsider, Liang Yuchen was inconvenient to say more, and silently supported the elder, but his thoughts were like a fully drawn bow, fiddled with by these words.

Ye Xiulan smiled miserably and shook her head, with incoherent horror in despair: "Your father... threw all the sweaters I made for him downstairs in the afternoon, and he lost me in his heart... gone... Daughter, your father will not be with us from now on. home..."

The sound was very soft, trembling in the wind like a siren, which hurt the nerves of the three people.

Zheng Beibei was extremely angry, his whole body was shaking like a sieve, and he said in a trembling voice: "He is shameless, he is not worthy of being my father, and he deserves it if he dies!"

Liang Yuchen was apprehensive.

The husband and wife have supported each other for decades, and they have been patient when they found out that their husband was cheating. In the end, they gave up because of a few sweaters and completely gave up a family.If the sweater is still there, will the weak Ye Xiulan still swallow her anger and exhaust her efforts to manage a family that has long existed in name only?

No one knows the answer.

Walking to the side of the road, there were few cars during the holidays, so the three of them could only use the taxi app to pay for a car and then waited silently.

Not long after, Ji Tong rushed over with his mother, and Hu Aihua cried and tried to persuade Ye Xiulan in his arms, scolding her for being so stupid, why is it worth it for such a man.

Before the mood calmed down, the car arrived again, and after she accompanied Zheng Beibei and his mother up, she asked Ji Tong and Liang Yuchen to go back—there was no room in the car.

The two brothers did not follow sensiblely.

There are always some thoughtful words between women that are inconvenient for men to listen to, especially young boys, who may not understand the delicate emotions after listening to them.

The car gradually drove away, and the taillights disappeared into the night.Liang Yuchen looked away, and led Ji Tong back.Yang Xiao was the latest to hear the news, and came to meet them 10 minutes later. When he saw them from a long distance away, he shouted: "Tongtong, Tongtong!"

"Hey!" Ji Tong responded and waved at him.

As he walked forward, Liang Yuchen instructed in a low voice: "Soak your feet after you go home, you may catch a cold if you leave for too long."

But Ji Tong didn't seem to hear, and walked a few steps forward from beside him.

"You're so slow."

"Where's Aunt Xiulan?"

"I went to the hospital for an examination. My mother and Beibei are with me."

The two good friends stood side by side affectionately.

After exchanging the situation, Ji Tong turned around: "Brother, what did you just say, soak your feet? Are you old?"

She smiled at him half teasingly, half contemptuously.

The figures of the two were half hidden in the shadow of the street lamp, the upper body was bright, and the lower body was dim.

Liang Yuchen also smiled unconsciously, feeling that his younger brother was kind-hearted, and his face was still relaxed after going through such a major event.Just about to open his mouth to refute him, he glanced lightly, but the words on his lips disappeared with the smile——

In the hazy moonlight, Yang Xiao was wearing a pair of expensive blue and white sneakers on his feet.