Burn

At noon, when Xiao Huan arrived at No. 32 Ninghai Road, under the vine trellis in the small yard, the food was just on the table.

The second dad, Tianyuan, is standing on the bench holding a camera to take pictures.He called "Dad", and Tian Yuan, who was concentrating on taking pictures, looked back at him, and asked him with a slight complaint: "Why did you arrive at this hour?"

"I drank too much at the high school reunion yesterday." Xiao Huan walked in, with the old man's nagging behind him: "Young man, drink less, it will hurt your health!"

Xiao Huan remembered Xu Ran who vomited and convulsed last night, and almost sent him to the hospital.Fortunately, he finished vomiting and stopped.He kept talking nonsense and calling his mother in the middle of the night.He was so noisy that he couldn't sleep well all night.After Xu Ran left in the morning, he took a nap.

Daddy Xiao Yimo came out of the side kitchen with dishes and was very happy to see Xiao Huan.

"Wash your hands and prepare to eat!"

"Is the food ready?" he asked.

"It's all good, it's all good, wash your hands and eat quickly!" Xiao Yimo urged him.

He went into the room, changed his clothes and came out. His second father, Tianyuan, was still taking pictures, and his eldest father, Xiao Yimo, waited cheerfully: "Did you take pictures of this dish? Hurry up and take a picture with me. I don't think the fish today It should be served on this plate, it might not look good when photographed!"

"Are you taking pictures or eating?" Xiao Huan sat down and expressed his dissatisfaction watching the two old people having fun.

"Eat, eat!" Xiao Yimo gave Xiao Huan a bowl of rice.

Tian Yuan finally put down the camera and sat down at the table.The family of three began to eat.

"How are you doing lately?" Second Dad Tianyuan asked first, the same old words for more than ten years.

"That's it." Xiao Huan also answered consistently for more than ten years.

"Why don't you move back in?" Tian Yuan asked.

Xiao Huan sighed and started the question again.This time, he didn't choose to evade, but looked up at his second father Tianyuan seriously: "I want to live my own life, and I can't stay by your side all the time."

Tian Yuan didn't buy his answer: "Before you had to go abroad to study, you said the same thing!"

"This is something I want to do by myself. I want to live alone, and I don't live far away. It's very convenient to drive over to see you, even if I have dinner with you every day." Xiao Huan changed the phrase.

"I really don't know who your child looks like." Tian Yuan shook his head, not wanting to continue this topic with him, and broke up unhappy every time.

"Then you come back for dinner every day!" Dad Xiao Yimo successfully grasped the point.

Xiao Huan thinks that it is best not to talk nonsense when Dad is around, as it is easy to be caught.He looked at his cheerful dad and said, "You all know that I am very busy at work and often work overtime. I will try my best."

"I'll come back to eat after get off work early." Xiao Yimo picked up a piece of fish for him, and another piece for Tianyuan.

"You don't talk about him. Every time you are next to him, you are always talking about what you have or what you don't have." Tian Yuan returned the fish he picked up, angry that he didn't help when he talked about Xiao Huan just now.

"You are always angry with me, why don't you eat. This fish is a good thing, you should eat more." Xiao Yimo took the fish back again.

Tian Yuan came back angrily, and after a few back and forth, Xiao Huan couldn't help it: "How can you do it, you are so naive at such an age?!"

"Look, it was a joke. If I say I don't eat it, I don't eat it. Why are you like this!" Tian Yuan finally put the piece of fish back into Xiao Yimo's bowl.

Xiao Yimo didn't take it back this time, and ate it cheerfully.When it was over, I put another dish on him: "Eat, eat, don't be angry!"

"You old fellow!" Tian Yuan scolded him.

Xiao Huan has watched this kind of drama for more than 20 years, but no matter what time it is, he always feels childish and low-level.But the two fathers still played along.He knew that this was a proof of the good relationship between the two, but he just couldn't understand it, he couldn't understand it from the bottom of his heart, and couldn't find the reason.

Just after a minute of silence, the second dad, Tian Yuan, approached him again: "When are you going to bring a friend home to show your dad?"

"Don't worry." No matter how many times he asked, Xiao Huan always answered this way.He has no idea about men and women, nor is he keen on it.Li Dongyao said that he is not normal, he thinks that the world should allow diverse existence, and he never feels strange.

"What do you mean not in a hurry? Even if you don't get married, you still need to talk about it once or twice." Tian Yuan was in a hurry.Xiao Huan grew up so old that he never had a girlfriend or boyfriend.He and Xiao Yimo have been wondering whether there is something wrong with him.

"Don't you have anyone you like?" Daddy Xiao Yimo also wanted to interject this question.

"No." Xiao Huan answered simply.

"Why not? Has no one ever touched your heart?" The two elders chased after him and asked him.

Xiao Huan recalled Xu Ran's panicked appearance when he woke up at his house this morning, like a frightened little animal, saying sorry to him incoherently, and thanking him at other times.When I left, I was also in a panic, and even fell at the door.He saw his elbow tapped against the corner of the cabinet in the hallway, bleeding.He left without saying a word.

Xu Ran likes him, to be precise, he once liked him.Before the college entrance examination, he confessed to him and said seriously that he has liked him for a long time, since elementary school.He was happy just seeing him, and he was even happier talking to him.He also said, I know you don't like me, it doesn't matter, it's enough for me to like you.

How did he answer him back then?

"Oh, so you're a pervert too!" he said.

He saw Xu Ran's hurt eyes and the tears that quickly gathered in his eyes.He has the pleasure, the pleasure of revenge, or the pleasure of simply bullying him, he can't tell.Excited anyway!

He didn't get back this pleasure yesterday because Xu Ran smiled at him.He is no longer the sobbing boy who cried at a single word, nor is he the infatuated boy who said to him, "It doesn't matter if you don't like me, as long as I like you".

Suddenly it becomes boring, Xiao Huan thought.

"Then there must be someone who likes you?" Dad's questioning interrupted his memory.

"Ghost knows." Xiao Huan rarely cared about such things.

"Who do you think this child looks like!"

In the end, the conversation ended with a rhetorical question like the second dad.

After eating, Xiao Huan helped clean up the dishes and the kitchen, and played a game of Go with Dad in the yard.He has regressed a lot in chess over the past few years, while his father has improved a lot. The two played against each other for an hour, and they were evenly matched. Neither father nor son wanted to admit defeat first, and it became a stalemate.

Fortunately, the second dad, Tianyuan, came over in time and took the two of them away to help tidy up the sundries brought back from Xingmo.Recently, the coffee and bookstore of the two fathers was refurbished, and they were nostalgic for the old days. They were reluctant to throw away any old things, and moved them all back.

Tian Yuan and Xiao Huan sat on the floor of the living room sorting out the old photos of three cardboard boxes, all of which were left by the guests during the previous activities in the store.They need to put the photos into a custom-made waterproof album, Tian Yuan is responsible for sorting the photos, and Xiao Huan is responsible for stuffing the photos into the album.

Pastoral classifies while recalling.Who is the subject of this photo, what did he do in the store, what kind of person is he, and what is he doing now.He remembers many people clearly. Although Xiao Huan thinks this kind of memory is meaningless, he still admires it.

Halfway through the arrangement, Tian Yuan handed Xiao Huan a photo: "Do you remember this person?"

Xiao Huan took the photo, which showed a middle-aged woman in a long white dress, standing in front of Xingmo's old bookshelf, smiling and looking at the camera.

"I don't remember." Xiao Huan glanced at it and stuffed the photo into the waterproof interlayer.

"Take a closer look!"

Xiao Huan took a few more glances, and then he saw the familiarity between the woman's brows.

"It looks familiar."

"That classmate's mother of yours!" Hearing that he looked familiar, Tian Yuan was very excited.

"Which classmate?" Xiao Huan didn't remember many classmates.

"You brought Xingmo's." Tian Yuan reminded that Xiao Huan didn't take many classmates home, only one, and he knew the classmate's mother, so he was deeply impressed.

"I didn't bring that with me." Xiao Huan remembered that the woman in the photo was Xu Ran's mother, and she looked very similar.When he was in high school, Xu Ran did go to Xingmo a few times, but he didn't take them with him, but Xu Ran followed them in a stern manner, and he couldn't get rid of them.

"Did that classmate go to your class reunion yesterday?" Tian Yuan asked him.

"went."

"Is he okay?" Tianyuan asked.

"Not very good." Xiao Huan replied truthfully.

"That's right, how can it be better after such a big change in his family." Tian Yuan said again.

"An accident? What an accident, his father's business went bankrupt?" Xiao Huan recalled the way Xu Ran said those words yesterday, and looked at him with a little smile.

Tian Yuan took out the photo of Xu Ran's mother from the waterproof interlayer, and put her photo on the ground to flatten.

"Although I don't like this person, she didn't make any big mistakes. It's just that she can't speak very well sometimes, and she doesn't have bad intentions."

"Her husband is really not a good person. She raised a mistress outside, and I heard that she is in some kind of state unit, and the family has power and influence. Her husband is cruel, and I don't know what tricks he used. All the debts were transferred to her. As soon as the divorce was over, the debt collectors came and took away the house, the car, and everything that her husband kindly left for her mother and child."

"and after?"

"Later? Then she rented a car and took your classmate to the mountain to commit suicide. I heard that your classmate didn't know anything at the time. He fell off a cliff several hundred meters away and was on the news. She died, and your classmate was rescued. .How does your classmate look now? I don’t know if the car accident left him with any after-effects.”

"The eyes are broken." Xiao Huan stared at Xu Ran's mother's eyes in the photo and said, he and his mother's eyes were similar, with delicate single eyelids and beautiful eye contour.The pupils of the eyes are large and black, appearing energetic.Now it has become hazy, and black-rimmed glasses block everything.

"Can't you see it?" Tian Yuan asked worriedly.

"No, it's because I have bad eyesight. I can't see anything after taking off my glasses." Xiao Huan recalled Xu Ran's previous appearance, always bluffing, looking very brainless, it seems to be hereditary.What kind of stupid woman must be to be calculated by men to the point of desperation.He didn't sympathize with Xu Ran's mother's experience, thinking that she should not drag Xu Ran even if she wanted to die.She has the right to give up her own life, but she does not have the right to deprive Xu Ran of his life.This is no longer selfish, but stupid.

"That's okay, I can still see things. It would be pitiful if I couldn't see or if my arms and legs were broken." Tian Yuan shook his head and sighed.

Xiao Huan took back the photo of Xu Ran's mother and stuffed it back into the waterproof interlayer.