soft hedgehog

The winter vacation has begun, and Liang Yuchen has been away for more than a month.

During this period of time, Ji Tong understood a truth. It turned out that no matter how uncomfortable a person feels in his heart, he can still pretend that nothing happened on the surface.

Sitting alone in the room on the weekend, Hu Aihua knocked on the door and came in and handed him a washed apple, asking him to add vc. He said "Thank you mom", and found the apple in his hand was heavy, with a plump and smooth skin It looks like it has been waxed.

What did Liang Yuchen say in the past?Wrinkled apples may taste better, and you can't judge "fruit" by its appearance.

After taking a few bites, he suddenly felt a bitter taste in his mouth. He took it off and saw that the place where he bit it was already black flesh.He froze for a moment, thinking it was a coincidence.Think about yourself and this apple is actually no different, the surface is intact, but the inside has begun to fester.He started thinking wildly again.It has always been like this recently, the mind cannot be free for a minute or a second, otherwise it will fall into some inexplicable emotions.

He needed to talk, and wanted to talk to Yang Xiao. Although he didn't know what to say or what to say, it might be much more comfortable to talk to his best friend.Therefore, after dinner, he went to Building No. [-]. He didn't expect to see Yang Xiao and Ji Qingyang beside the flower bed ten meters away.

Ji Qingyang seemed to be crying, Yang Xiao hugged her to comfort her, she knew she was sweating profusely without looking.

He listened from afar.

"Don't worry, don't worry! What's the big deal? My grandma doesn't like you, I like you, and my grandma won't let me marry you, so I want to marry you!"

The words were extremely harsh.

After speaking, he took out a tissue to wipe his girlfriend's tears, and raised three fingers to swear: "I, Yang Xiao, will not marry Ji Qingyang in this life. If there is even half a lie, you are welcome to be struck by lightning at any time!"

Coaxed Ji Qingyang to burst into tears and laugh: "Virtue! You have watched too many TV dramas."

It's really disgusting, Ji Tong thought, but it's also really good.

Seeing the two hugging each other generously and walking towards the gate of the family courtyard, Ji Tong turned around and went home without saying a word.

There was a lot of talking at home, and it spread through the door to the stairwell.

Ji Tong pushed open the door and unexpectedly saw Ye Xiulan's mother and son in the living room.

"Tongtong is back," Ye Xiulan was knitting a sweater again, wearing a bright red scarf, but her face was not very relaxed.

She beckoned to Ji Tong for a knitting needle: "Come and sit."

Hu Aihua on the sofa objected unexpectedly, and signaled to the small bedroom: "Tongtong, you go back to the room."

Ye Xiulan was a little embarrassed, thought for a while and said, "Beibei, you also go to Tongtong's house to play, and children should not listen to what adults say."

Zheng Beibei hadn't looked at him since he came home, and only now when he heard the words did he slowly raise his eyelids and glance at him indifferently.

"Then I'll go in first." Ji Tong pursed his lips, took off his outer coat and held it in his hand.

Zheng Beibei also stood up, followed him back to the small bedroom, and sat down on the vacant bed board without being polite to him.

"What were you talking about just now?" He vaguely felt that his mother seemed to avoid the topic on purpose.

"It's nothing." Zheng Beibei looked around the room carefully, touched the bed board, turned his palm over to wipe the dust off his fingertips, and said indifferently, "I'm talking about why Brother Yuchen left suddenly."

Ye Xiulan only got the news today, so she dragged her downstairs together.

As long as this topic is mentioned, Ji Tong is still at a loss, even though Liang Yuchen has been away for several days.His heart was so stuffy that he really wanted to say a few words to someone he trusted. Even if he couldn't tell the whole story, just saying Liang Yuchen was a kind of comfort.

He turned his head to make sure the door was closed, but Zheng Beibei stood up again, without waiting for the master's consent, went straight to open the closet, his eyes flicked up and down.After a while, a chair was brought over, and he took off his shoes and stepped on it.

"What are you doing?" Ji Tong asked.

She didn't look back: "Brother Yuchen said to give me something before he left."

Ji Tong had to stand on tiptoes to reach the top layer, but Liang Yuchen could easily hold and put whatever he wanted.Zheng Beibei dug out the dark gray woolen scarf from where he couldn't reach, and folded it into a ball with great care.

Ji Tong watched the whole process, until she sat back in front of him with the scarf and still felt unbelievable, and asked her in a questioning tone: "Did my brother contact you before he left?"

Zheng Beibei held a gun and a stick: "Is it strange?"

Ji Tong said, "He didn't contact me."

Zheng Beibei laughed: "That's not surprising."

The two good friends who grew up together did not know when they became so non-communicative, even when they sat face to face, they were silent most of the time.

Ji Tong was silent for a long time, and finally couldn't help asking: "What did he say at the time, why did he give you the scarf?"

Zheng Beibei said Qi Qi: "He said it will be hard to see him in the future, so I will keep it in mind."

Ji Tong's heart fell into a cold pool, he let out a soft oh, but insisted: "Is there anything difficult to see, it's only half a year."

Zheng Beibei said: "I hope so."

She had already got the scarf as she wished, and she didn't seem to want to be in the same room with him, so she got up quickly to leave.

"Beibei," Ji Tong held her back and looked up at her, "Don't go, just sit with me for a while."

Zheng Beibei was taken aback when he saw the expression on his face, and sat down slowly.Question: "Brother Yuchen, has he contacted you since he arrived there?"

Ji Tong said, "I only contacted Uncle Liang."

"What about you, have you contacted him?"

The air froze, he nodded first, then shook his head slowly.Zheng Beibei couldn't understand what he meant, and asked him, "Is there or is it not?"

Of course, it's just that Liang Yuchen couldn't get through on the phone.

Ji Tong often called Liang Yuchen late at night.In the dead of night, I heard one beep, and another beep, and I heard a gentle female voice announce "no answer".

He has been sleeping very poorly recently, it is difficult to fall asleep at night, and he will wake up again at five or six o'clock.It’s not like I’m dreaming, it’s just that there’s always something unfinished in my mind, I’m worried and can’t explain it, and I don’t even have a complete plot when I wake up.

After suffering for two weeks, he couldn't take it anymore, so he went to the hospital to see a doctor. The doctor said it was nothing to worry about, but he was just anxious. He prescribed sleeping pills for two weeks, combined with several large boxes of Chinese patent medicines like Dali Wan.He took the medicine home and hid it in a drawer. It was a long and thin tablet like a grain of rice, and he cut it into two pieces from the middle with a knife every night.

I dare not take more for the time being, for fear that the dosage will become larger and larger in the future.

Can't sleep, the night is like a few hours long literary movie, the main character is himself, boring and uninteresting.

After calling Liang Yuchen last night, he held his phone in the dark and didn't put it away for a long time, looking through the past chat records of the two of them.

The previous conversation stopped before his birthday, but what gave him hope was that Liang Yuchen hadn't deleted him yet.He typed the text into the dialog box syllable by syllable, and he couldn't continue to send it, and then deleted it backwards one by one.

Really don't know what to say.

In fact, sometimes he thought, if it were him, he probably wouldn't talk to his younger brother anymore.Liang Yuchen was frank and sincere, but he evaded and flinched everywhere. He didn't handle the relationship between the two of them well, whether it was family or love, so the quarrel ended disastrously.If he was willing to escape one less time at that time, even if the two of them had a good talk on the night when Liang Yuchen was stubbornly waiting for him, maybe things would be different.

Thinking of this, he went to listen to Liang Yuchen's voice again.

He had listened to the surviving voice recordings many times, the more gentle the more, the more he listened to it, and it felt like Liang Yuchen was still in the room.Of course, sometimes he accidentally clicked on the last few messages that he didn't want to listen to, and the phrase "I'm sorry Tongtong, call me when you're free."

Liang Yuchen knew that the kiss offended him, so no matter what he said, he said sorry first.

Every time Ji Tong heard this sentence, he felt breathless, especially yesterday, he couldn't hold back, and finally sent a message: "Brother, I miss you so much."

Of course there was still no reply.

—

After a winter rain, the temperature in Turner State is close to zero, and the park is sparsely populated.

Although the weather is cold, the grass and trees are still green. The crown-shaped red oak trees grow beside the fence, and the trees are covered with red leaves.This park is simple and old, with a history of nearly 40 years. When the park was built, a Chinese couple donated a bench. Now the paint is mottled, and only the brass nameplate with the pinyin name on it remains unchanged. .

In a small apartment building on the fourth floor not far away, the head of a short-haired boy poked out of an arched banana-yellow wooden window, waving his hands and shouting in the direction of the park: "Yuchen, Yuchen!"

Liang Yuchen was sitting on this bench.He has cut his hair short, and he is wearing a charcoal black down jacket, which works well to keep him warm. Right now, he is listening to the audio with his back facing the apartment, and he can't hear anything except the recording of the meeting in the earphones.

He asked for the minutes of these meetings from the organizer, and there was no one left from ten years ago to last year.At the earliest, there were only tapes, so he bought a dubber from the second-hand market by himself, dubbed it into audio files and put them in his mobile phone to listen to them from time to time.

"Hey!"

Suddenly someone tapped on the shoulder.

He turned his head to see the person coming, took off the earphones and frowned slightly: "nce, why did you put my hat on again?"

Standing behind the bench was a young man in his early twenties, named ncewu, who lived across the street from Liang Yuchen. He was a Chinese born in Turner. He was a handsome Chinese boy with single phoenix eyes and an oval face, but he couldn't speak Chinese well.

He shyly pulled down the brim of his knitted hat: "You didn't lock the door, and it's very cold."

Liang Yuchen was amused by him: "Don't add 'er' after the word 'special'."

"Where is Naga, Te Lenger?"

"No, take it off."

"Extra cold?"

"Well, it's right this time."

Nce was finally satisfied, and gave the "teacher" a grateful look, and then invited him back to the apartment: "The sweet potatoes are baked, and I even buttered them."

Liang Yuchen came here to sit for a while originally just to relax, blowing the cold wind can instantly wake up the tired and sleepy nerves.At this moment, he was awake enough, so he got up and went back with him.

As he walked, he asked, "Where's your sister?"

"go to work."

Nce's older sister, Instance, is a native of Turner State with blond hair and blue eyes. She works in a stray animal adoption center, which is five kilometers away from here, and she rarely rests on holidays. Nce is the first "little animal" she adopted, her younger brother who came by chance 22 years ago.

When I got home, the heater was turned on.Heating here is expensive, Liang Yuchen said: "When your sister comes back, she will say that you don't have enough energy."

The Chinese word nce is too complicated to understand, such as energy saving and environmental protection, so he will replace it in English.

"noher baby"

Seeing such a slightly smug expression, Liang Yuchen felt dazed for a moment.

"Come here." Nce called him again.

He made up his mind and walked over. The two of them stood beside the cooking table peeling the sweet potatoes, which was a bit hot. While peeling and pinching the earlobe, Liang Yuchen said, "You are acting like a Chinese."

Nce turned to him and sang with a smile: "My heart is still Chinese."

He learned it from watching the Spring Festival Gala on the Internet, and this sentence is particularly correct.

Although the sweet potatoes here are big, their taste is not as sweet as domestic ones. They are a bit chaffy, and nce drinks water while eating them.

Liang Yuchen asked again: "Have you thought about going back to China to find relatives?"

"Looking for relatives?"

"Just looking for your parents"

"Of course." Nce swallowed again, "But I still need to save money."

He is still a student at the Conservatory of Music, but he plays the violin well and the guitar even better, and has captured many fans with his superb fingering skills.Three to four days a week, he would go to the square a few kilometers away to sell and sing. It was legal, and he had obtained a certificate from the city government, and he was a serious street performer.In the past, he always rode a bicycle with his guitar on his back, but when Liang Yuchen came, Liang Yuchen drove him there.

Because the teacher and student Liang and Xu will stay here for two months, Professor Xu signed the contract and rented a small apartment near the conference center for him. In addition, he has an international driver's license and rented a second-hand Ford monthly.

Fortunately, he didn't have much expenses in this place. He didn't have to pay for lunch, and he would cook casually for dinner. Professor Xu also specially advanced his salary, which was very kind to him.

Liang Yuchen ate half of the sweet potato, wiped his hands with a towel, and said to nce: "The Chinese New Year will be in a few days. If you and your sister have no other arrangements, let's spend it together."

Professor Xu's wife and children are abroad, and they flew away two days ago, leaving him alone.

Nce was pleasantly surprised: "Okay, I want to make dumplings!"

Liang Yuchen smiled: "No problem."

Homesickness starts from the stomach, and to appease the stomach will also appease the restless heart.

"But..." Nce suddenly turned his head and stared at him suspiciously, "New Year's Eve is an important holiday, don't you want to go back to your country?"

"No return."

"why?"

Liang Yuchen said indifferently: "Air tickets are too expensive."

"Well..." Nce looked at him with sympathetic eyes, "We are all too poor. But it doesn't matter, we are good brothers in a pair of pants."

While speaking, she tiptoed and hugged his shoulders, and patted him comfortingly.

Liang Yuchen was funny and helpless, pushed his arm away and said, "I don't have a brother like you who can't speak Chinese well."