Glass man

Is it? "

"no change?"

"I don't know how to explain it." Cheng Jiang struggled to organize his words, "It's just that in the same scene, similar things and patterns of occurrence will be repeated endlessly. There is no end, and only when you leave can you have a chance to break through. This feeling ,There's none?"

Shen Jiqing seemed to be thinking, and took a deep look at him.Cheng Jiang had the illusion that his eyes suddenly sank for an instant, but they returned to their usual appearance in an instant.

"Home," he said suddenly, "isn't everyone's heart's harbor?"

Cheng Jiang looked at him in surprise.Within two seconds, Shen Jiqing couldn't hold back anymore and laughed out loud.

"You're talking about a philosophical question." He added, "but I think the essence of life is a cycle...Compared with the environment, it is actually more like the influence of growth experience. For example, Kafka mentioned the influence of his native family on himself. , said that he was like a bug whose tail was suppressed. The head walked a long way, thought it was gone, and suddenly shot back. If you were that bug, how do you think about this matter? Most people are naturally and happily The ones that bounced back, didn't even pay attention to such things. Do you want to bounce back? The way I see it, if you don't want to bounce back, you have to chop off the tail."

Cheng Jiang listened in the fog for a long time, and asked:

"How?"

Now it was Shen Jiqing who looked at him strangely.

"I don't know," he replied honestly. "Anyway, I bounced back, and there's nothing wrong with it. What, you want to chop?"

Cheng Jiang was dumbfounded, as if he had finally realized the weirdness of the topic, and didn't know whether to nod or shake his head.Shen Jiqing suddenly smiled, and waved her hand in front of his eyes, then stopped on top of Cheng Jiang's head.He was puzzled and was taken aback, but Shen Jiqing took the hand touching his head back neatly.

"You're still too young, like a child." He said solemnly, "Cheng Jiang, haven't you been used to Lengwan since you left Lengwan?"

Cheng Jiang was startled, "I—"

"You have to get used to it." Shen Jiqing said, "Don't think wildly, and don't always think about something. These two sentences seem to mean the same thing, but don't care about these details. What I mean is, since you came out, you should Think about the actual future. Worrying all day long..."

Cheng Jiang touched his face reflexively.

"This is an adjective." Shen Jiqing smiled when he saw his actions, "It's not that you really have any expression. To be honest, just looking at your face, there is often nothing on it... But don't worry about it, it's full of expressions It's not a good thing either."

"I think about the future." Cheng Jiang said, "It's just that I always cause you trouble, and I feel sorry."

This time Shen Jiqing looked at him for a long time.

"That's not necessary," he said. "You're not the kind of person to be annoying."

"Then what kind of person am I?"

"Ask me?" Shen Jiqing smiled to herself, "How should I put it. You're pretty good, I can't tell you the specifics, but it's very comfortable to be together. You have a kind of... smoke and fire."

"What is, pyrotechnic gas?"

Shen Jiqing thought about it.

"It probably means it's very warm." He replied uncertainly.

Cheng Jiang still didn't quite understand his series of words.He bowed his head and thought for a while, then belatedly asked:

"Did my mother tell you something?"

Shen Jiqing was noncommittal.

"Anyway," he winked at Cheng Jiang, "it's so monotonous for me to live alone. I'm actually quite happy for you to come and live here—I can only talk here, and I'm going to reveal my truth. Good night."

After teasing the thin-skinned tenant, he stood up and was finally ready to leave.

Cheng Jiang watched Shen Jiqing go up the stairs, and suddenly called him from behind:

"Shen Jiqing?"

The man on the stairs turned around.

Cheng Jiang waited for him to turn around before realizing that he didn't know where to start.He hesitated for a moment, then said:

"Spring is coming."

Shen Jiqing blinked again.

"If you don't mind, do you need me to help you take care of the yard?"

"Thank you so much," Shen Jiqing said, "I haven't been there for a long time, the door may be embroidered. There is a back door under the stairs, you can go in there, the key is on the key chain I gave you, The smallest one. It’s been a long time since my family has grown anything.”

Cheng Jiang didn't know what to say, so he could only stand under the stairs and smile at him.Shen Jiqing didn't wait for him to reply, and went upstairs by herself.

He heard him closing the door slowly, its panels scraping against the ground with a hoarse sound.

Shen Jiqing returned to the room and closed the door.

His room was the largest in the house besides the living room.The door is facing a half-wall-high wooden bookshelf, and in front of it is a thick carpet with a transparent round table for working.The table is surrounded by three plastic chair chairs with a large open space around it.On the big bed with the head of the bed against the wall by the door, several dark gray-blue pillows were randomly folded, and underneath were gray striped quilts and sheets that almost fell to the floor.On the side of the bed near the door is a standing desk lamp, and on the other side is a small coffee table with two books stacked on it, which has been slightly dusted.Two steps away from the coffee table is a long window with a grid of glass, and there is a small sofa under it, with several cushions with geometric patterns similar to the pillow material, and there is no place to sit.

Shen Jiqing turned on the light, and the small silver button reflected the distorted face of the owner.The face is distorted by the arc-shaped mirror, but no matter what expression it was on before, it cannot be a smiling face after all.

He stood in the room for a while, seeming to recall the garden Cheng Jiang mentioned, then went to the window and opened the curtains slightly.It was still dark early in early spring, and when he looked down from his window, he could only see a hazy gray-black.

Shen Jiqing sat quietly, looking thoughtfully at a protruding shadow below.

It was the dark silhouette of his barren courtyard.

☆、chapter19

The next day, as soon as Shen Jiqing went out with her bag on her back, Cheng Jiang found the small door leading to the garden, and decided to inspect the situation of her gardening work site immediately.

It was sunny in the morning, so he brought Cynthia a baby sun hat with small floral patterns and put it in the stroller.Then he found the smallest key on the chain, and it took him a while to find the door, which was buried behind a stack of cardboard boxes.

However, not only the appearance of the door, but also the chains are rusted.

Because it was blocked by the stairs, the light at the back door was very dark. When Cheng Jiang went to touch the lock, he directly touched the rust with his hand.He reached for the keyhole with difficulty with his rusty left hand, and inserted the key carefully, but it was difficult to turn it.

At last he pulled the key out, for fear that it might break inside.

Cheng Jiang retreated back to the living room, washed his hands, and then searched for "life tips: how to open a rusty lock" on the computer.He temporarily ruled out buying special locking oil and contacting a lockpicker. He first tried a method of destroying rust with pencil dust, and then switched to using soybean oil.

The lock of Shen Jiqing's house is dark blue, no different from the lock that Leng Wan hangs outside the garden.The lock was old and looked like it hadn't been used for many years, but fortunately it was stronger, and it was finally opened.

It took him almost an hour to open the door.

"God." Although he had seen the scene in the yard from the outside the day before, when Cheng Jiang opened the door from the inside, he still gasped slightly.

For he found himself standing in a field.

It is not that Cheng Jiang has never set foot in the field of gardening before.But now he has passed many years since his junior high school days, plus every gap in Shen Jiqing's yard is filled with weeds, his job of taking care of the yard is much more difficult than he expected.

The first thing to do is to get rid of all the weeds.

He checked the information in advance and had already given up the idea of ​​manual weeding.Worried that it would affect the planting situation in the future, he didn't want to use chemical pesticides, so he had to divide the yard into many small areas and apply different methods of weed control on each area, including boiling water, salt, white vinegar and newspaper cover.He deliberately arranged the newspaper-covered part in the corner of the yard to ensure the beauty of the garden.

After a simple treatment of the weeds, Cheng Jiang also checked the dwarf tree by the side of the yard.

He couldn't tell what breed it was, only that it had shrunk and turned black.After struggling to pinch a small piece of book cover from the hard tree trunk with his hands, he found that it was completely dead.

Dead trees certainly shouldn't be left in the yard.

Cheng Jiang thought he was a serious person in charge, so while waiting for the weeds to be wiped out, he asked Shen Jiqing:

"What would you like to grow in your yard?"

"You can grow anything." He replied, "I think as long as it is a little green, it's good. But you have to be prepared, this house may be short of wood, so you can't grow flowers."

"why?"

"Anyway, I can't keep it alive. At least when I tried it before, one pot died and the other died, and it never germinated when planted in the ground. Really! This is probably why there is always a lack of vitality here."

Cheng Jiang looked down at the table thoughtfully for a while. "Speaking of which, I think your tree is dead. It must have been a long time."

"That's it," Shen Jiqing paused for a moment, before echoing casually, "It's okay, this tree is quite old. I haven't been in the yard for many years, maybe it was frozen to death long ago."

"How long has it been planted?"

"I heard that it was planted by my mother before I was born. If it is still alive, it must be as old as me."

"Aren't many trees living for decades or even hundreds of years?"

He heard Shen Jiqing sneer.

Cheng Jiang spent half a month clearing the weeds, and when digging the ground, he found a pile of small faded debris, which may be tiles, and it is unknown when they were buried in it.He then used bricks and small wooden fences to make the yard as ornamental as possible by separating many small blocks and winding paths between them.

He carefully studied the things that could be planted in the yard, and because Shen Jiqing didn't offer any constructive suggestions on this, he mainly planted vegetables.Including cherry tomatoes, cabbage, four-season radish and green onions.

Considering Shen Jiqing's unoptimistic attitude towards planting flowers, Cheng Jiang didn't buy flower seeds specifically, but just tried to plant the yellow dinner flowers that can be seen everywhere in the community with the mentality of giving it a try.He cut down the dead tree, cleaned out the dead roots, and filled the hole.Although China's Arbor Day has passed, he still asked Shen Jiqing to take care of the baby, and he brought back a class of sweet-scented osmanthus saplings from a nearby market, and buried them in the yard in another place.

The branches were empty, so he cut a lot of birds out of colored paper and hung them on the treetops with strings.

As the weather warms up, the scene in the yard is full of vitality, and even the supper flowers have sprouted a little bit.Cheng Jiang went to check the watering every day, but when there was a small piece of lush new green on the ground, he regretted that only the tender shoots of the dinner flower had died for some reason.

After several days of vain remedies, Cheng Jiang had no choice but to accept the reality, and reported the truth to Shen Jiqing.

Shen Jiqing laughed when she heard it.

"I'll just say it. However, I think it's good now. I'm still waiting for a while to eat tofu with fresh shallots."

He didn't mention cherry tomatoes because Shen Jiqing doesn't eat red food.

Cheng Jiangde admitted that Shen Jiqing's theory of "five elements lacking wood" is still convincing, but he still thinks that there may be other reasons.

"When will I change the soil from other places and try again."

"The soil in the community is all transported together."

"Could it be because there is not enough water?"

"Maybe it's because you watered too much? Look, the dinner flowers in the community are all wild, and no one waters them."

Cheng Jiang felt that what he said made sense, so he planted it again, but it still ended in failure.He blamed this failure on the fact that the planting was already hot in midsummer.

But other vegetables in the yard are growing well.Not long after, Shen Jiqing ate the mixed tofu he had been longing for, and then began to look forward to the scallion pancake.Cheng Jiang was cooking with a new sea blue plaid apron hanging around his neck. Shen Jiqing bought it back when he was going to the supermarket.

"It's one size bigger than you used to be, and you always look a little weird in your clothes," he explained.

Cheng Jiang looked at the blue shell of the milk pot, the blue indoor slippers, and the apron on his body.

"Do you like blue very much?" he asked.

"It's almost there."

Cynthia grows like a plant. After climbing for a month and a half, she has slowly learned to stand against the wall. By this time, she can stand up by herself, and even Cheng Jiang occasionally bends over. Help her take two steps.The nearly ten-month-old baby has already exceeded the weight-bearing range of Cheng Jiang's arms, so Cynthia's change is a milestone liberation for him.At the same time, she became more energetic, so when Cheng Jiang needed to do things like cooking and washing, he had to turn to Shen Jiqing for help frequently.

Compared with him, the latter seems to have more talent in raising children than he does.

Cheng Jiang's children have now begun to imitate some simple words, and can even distinguish Cheng Jiang from him with different vague pronunciations.The address for Cheng Jiang is the traditional "Dad", and the address for him is "Thank you".The first time he heard her say it, he was still at a loss, but in the end it was Cheng Jiang who figured out what she meant.

"Probably meant to address you as 'Sir'."

It was difficult for Shen Jiqing to connect it with a baby's beginner vocabulary.

"Why did she call me 'sir'?"

"I can't call you "Ms." Cheng Jiang said, and now he can make some lame jokes.

Shen Jiqing is willing to help Cheng Jiang look after the little girl occasionally, and the common scene is to take her around the living room when Cheng Jiang is cooking and tidying up in the kitchen.When he was in charge of a girl he always made sure she was having a good time.He had never taken care of a child before, but he heard that it was very troublesome, but Cheng Yue was probably the legendary "baby angel", so he didn't need much attention in general.

"I'm going on a business trip at the end of the month." He watched the girl practice reaching for heights, and said suddenly.

Cheng Jiang's voice came from the other side of the room. He was washing the dishes for the evening.

"Business trip? Where are you going?" His movements seemed to have stopped.

"Norway. All chemical engineers in the unit will go."

It took Cheng Jiang a while to reply, as if he was thinking about something.

"How long will you be there, working?"

"Yes, but the main thing is to study. The shortest is seven days, and the longest is half a month. There are some maneuvering elements in the middle, and the final decision has not been made yet....I mean, when I leave, will you stay here and take care of the children? Question?"

Babies are always prone to lose interest in long-term activities, and suddenly beat the toy aside after a while.Shen Jiqing patiently guided her to turn around and look up at Cheng Jiang's back.Naturally, one cannot see why from the back view, but the person in the distance is leaning on the sink, with shoulder blades raised slightly, as if laughing.

"I can do it." Cheng Jiang said briskly, "You don't know that when she was just born, she cried all day long and couldn't leave people for a moment. There was no regular schedule, and I was often forced to sleep as soon as I fell asleep. I have to get up again to breastfeed. I have survived those three months, and I can't always rely on you."

As Shen Jiqing listened, she felt a faint indescribable weirdness in her heart, as if part of the logic was unreasonable.However, before he could think about it, the baby turned his face and made a sound that caught him off guard.

"Mama." Cheng Yue said.

"what?"

"Mom." The little girl stubbornly repeated the almost clear syllable, and stretched out her two thin hands towards him, as if trying to grab something.

Mother?

Yes, it is mother.The "mother" role is obviously missing in Cheng Jiang's narrative.

Shen Jiqing couldn't help thinking about it.Cheng Jiang's father and daughter have lived in his house for several months, but no matter from his new stepmother or Cheng Jiang, the girl's mother never seemed to exist.

As Cheng Jiang's biological daughter, Cheng Yue has no mother at all.

This is another secret belonging to Cheng Jiang.Shen Jiqing hated thinking about such complicated things, so she carried her and walked behind Cheng Jiang to inform her of the situation.Cheng Jiang turned around suddenly, and Shen Jiqing saw that his hands soaked in the cold water twitched obviously.He shook the drops of water off his hands, and asked the girl:

"what happened?"

"Mom." Cheng Yue said vaguely, and then tried to reach Cheng Jiang again.Now Cheng Jiang relaxed again, and subconsciously spoke a sentence in English very quickly.

"Mama!" she replied happily.

Only then did Shen Jiqing belatedly realize what the little girl was talking about.Cheng Jiang turned to him a little embarrassedly, and described in a stumbling way:

"She wants to play that horse riding game, that is, you let her sit on your lap and imitate the sound of a horse's hoof bouncing up and down for a while."

Shen Jiqing took the child back to the sofa, let Cheng Yue sit on the lap with a cushion as Cheng Jiang said, and began to bounce his legs up and down while imitating funny clicking sounds without a teacher.The child giggled, but he couldn't help but recall the scene just now.The child is too young, maybe there is no concept of mother, but Cheng Jiang is only 21 years old (really amazing), she will always have another mother who is not related to her by blood.

Just like himself.

Shen Jiqing raised her head, and suddenly felt cold sweat slipping down her back.Cheng Jiang had finished washing the dishes, and began to wipe the sink table skillfully.No one has used that table since Shen Ziwei and his wife moved out from here, and the same goes for Shen Ziwei's piano in the living room.But now it's different: everything is being put back into use, even the yard has been rearranged.

Everything is the same as it was more than ten years ago: a house, three people, a strange family.

Does he think Cheng Jiang and Cynthia belong to his family?

As Shen Jiqing was thinking, a quick and soft voice suddenly sounded in her ears.Cheng Jiang straightened up by the pool, unbuttoned the blue buckle of the apron, revealing a milky yellow T-shirt with tiny folds inside.He seemed to have heard something, turned his head in a daze, and looked in the direction of the living room.

The next second they couldn't see each other: the power went out.

☆、chapter20

"I promise I'll pay the electricity bill this time."

Shen Jiqing said while sitting on the suitcase in the middle of the living room, and carefully zipped it up.Cheng Jiang sat on the sofa opposite and looked at him.

"It's really nothing." Cheng Jiang said, "It's okay..."

"No, no, it's my problem." Shen Jiqing insisted, "I don't know what it's like in Lengwan, but in fact, after the electricity bill is in arrears, the relevant department will send a text message to remind, and the light will be turned on after half a month of arrears. .I keep forgetting and ignoring those reminder texts, which is very bad. Very very bad."

"I wasn't scared that day." Cheng Jiang insisted, "I'm not afraid of the dark either."

"Are you claustrophobic? No, it wasn't a closed environment the day the power went out, but that's all I know. Couldn't be clownphobia?"

"No." Cheng Jiang hesitated, "The vitamin bottle fell to the ground..."

"Vitamins?"

"I don't like the sound of knocking." Cheng Jiang finally admitted, "Just a "boom" or something, it's not because I'm afraid, but it just makes my heart palpitate. I'm really not afraid of the dark, but I just can't see. I don't want to hit anything again."

He watched Shen Jiqing ponder for a while, and reluctantly accepted his explanation.He pulled the suitcase up, patted it a few times in satisfaction, and continued to babble at him.

"I've also checked the stock of water and gas, except for some. It's definitely enough for you to use when I come back." He listed everything in detail, "You must take the key when I go to Norway, and if you can't find it, you I can only climb the window to go home. Can you drive? No? Then I will show you the route map of the bus to the shopping mall. You have to take No. 12 opposite our community and get off at 6 stops. When you come back Remember that our place is called Yongle Street Station. If you want to go to the hospital, you can take bus 535 and get off at the Children’s Hospital station. If you go to the hospital by yourself, take bus 41 to Qinghe Hospital Station... Forget it, I’ll write it down for you. , it will be a bad thing for you to go to the suburbs by car at that time."

He went to the dining table, found an old newspaper, and began to write and draw in the margins.The margins and margins of the newspaper were so small that he could easily fill six sheets in a row.

"Is there anything else I didn't say? I forget things, you should remind me."

Cheng Jiang took the newspaper and shook his head.Shen Jiqing's handwriting is beautiful.

Then he checked the time again, and as expected, they were going out in five minutes.

Shen Jiqing was finally picked up by the car sent by the company.

Cynthia cried a lot because of this, and because she still couldn't understand the words, Cheng Jiang couldn't clearly convey to her the meaning of "he will never come back".The car drove away, and Cheng Jiang could only carry her with difficulty from the avenue back to Shen Jiqing's house, and all the way, he received other people's attention on the crying baby.

Cynthia has already grown several teeth, enough to cope with all kinds of traditional baby food, so Cheng Jiang will make her a lot of vegetable porridge, rice porridge and egg custard.After Shen Jiqing left home, the quality of his food dropped significantly, to the point where "he would eat whatever Cynthia ate".

He is particularly interested in all kinds of porridge, especially a kind of shrimp porridge, and he plans to make an adult version for him to try when Shen Jiqing comes back.

At this time the girl was nearly a year old.

She can stand, crawl, and even take a small crooked step, and her energy is unprecedented.She wanted to go anywhere, and sometimes when Cheng Jiang was distracted, she didn't know where she had crawled to.When Shen Jiqing was around, he could still help out, but during his business trip, Cheng Jiang had to keep an eye on her movements all the time.

In order to facilitate her activities, Cheng Jiang's workplace was moved from the second floor to the sofa in the living room.

He spread out cushions and pillows in the center of the living room to prevent Cynthia from directly touching the cold floor.Cynthia was used to having two people at home, and at the same time, she seemed to have forgotten the experience of crying all the way back, looking around as if she was looking for something while crawling.

When she found out that she couldn't find it, she should cry again.

Whenever he found a hint that she was going to cry, Cheng Jiang had to quickly drop everything at hand and put her first.The web page of the magazine is open to employees, and Cheng Jiang occasionally reads it, and is deeply impressed by a little psychological story about a baby.There was once a duke who did an experiment: separated some newborn babies from their mothers, put them in a single place, and only provided necessary living conditions such as milk and oxygen.In theory they could still be alive, but they all died without exception.

Someone asked, "Why did you die?"

The narrator said: "Probably because they have no one to take care of them, they feel that no one loves them, so they have no desire to live. After all, they are too weak."

The narrator also said: "Maybe the baby actually knows everything. How we treat it, it has a feeling somewhere, but as it grows up, it forgets everything."

When Shen Jiqing is around, Cheng Jiang can pretend that they are in a happy and carefree little world, and only focus on the immediate things.But when Shen Jiqing went on a business trip and took this small world away with him, he always felt that he and Cynthia were the only ones left in the world.

He watched her from behind the counter in the open kitchen and saw her blue eyes twinkle in the sunlight under the window sill.

Then she crawled into the dark, and the blue faded.

Cheng Jiang thought of the short stories in the magazine, the poems of Gray Bird, and the song "Richard Corey".He could not get into the cause of Richard Corey's death, but he always wanted to find out about her.Richard Corey had nothing to do with him, but Cynthia died in a room on the second floor.

On the other side of the new wall, why did she choose to commit suicide in the first place?

Cheng Jiang thought over and over again.Although his memory of being in the "future" is very vague, he knows that he has been thinking about it for 19 years and has never gotten an accurate answer.Bullying doesn't exist in Cold Bay, so...news?Cold Bay is full of news, little news.They were, like most of his memories, completely blank.

But who would die for a piece of news?

Only the last one remains: because of him.Because he didn't love her, she died like a baby in the experiment when she was born.A kind of spiritual death, maybe she knows that he has a responsibility to her, and it is only a responsibility.He can't even take care of himself well, so how could he pay attention to her?

So she never craved from him for something more than what was needed for survival, and in the end she didn't even want this little bit of survival.

What else could it be because of?

Cynthia is not Richard Curry, not someone whose suicide shocks people.She's the kind of girl who doesn't cry when she's young and doesn't laugh when she grows up.Among the many open autumn flowers, she is just a bud that withered quietly ahead of time and was ignored by no one.

Cheng Jiang was thinking chaotically, and suddenly a small gap seemed to be broken in the old memory, and a few words flashed out.In the memory is the girl's voice, the words are fragmented, but the background is the coast of S area.

"I used to have a lot of unrealistic... When I was young, I would say to myself... Fantasy that you love me. ... The moment I was born... I don't believe you now."

He woke up suddenly, dripping with cold sweat.

This is the voice in memory, which is completely in line with Cynthia's situation, but it doesn't seem like she would say it by herself.He only went to Area S after she died, and he couldn't connect with the scenes in his memory.Is it another hallucination?

Cheng Jiang hurriedly lowered his head and found Cynthia's location.She looked at him inexplicably, with a faint blue light in her eyes.She is no longer a person, but a witness.What she witnessed was some mediocre and unbearable past, but she didn't realize it.

He straightened her clothes.

Back in the present timeline, he's done a lot of things he didn't think to do before.He wants her to know that she is loved, too.

I fantasized about you loving me.Said Cynthia in her head.

But does he really love her?

Cheng Jiang felt something neither hot nor cold rolling in his chest, reminding him inexplicably of the gray bird in his dream.What is a gray bird?It doesn't look like Cynthia, it can't be Shen Jiqing, and it shouldn't be himself.It was one of those things that frightened him most, filled with dark, dead energy, perhaps the dead, unknown tree that had been in the yard before.

He felt an uncontrollable cold snap from his calf to his head.

He suddenly put down the thing in his hand, pushed open the door leading to the yard, and grabbed the trunk of the tree before realizing what he was doing.The trunk has been exposed to the sun for a long time, and it is warm to the touch, and the bark is soft.Only then did he realize that the dead tree had been dug up a long time ago, and next to the newly planted osmanthus tree were lush little carrots, which had just matured once not long ago.

Cheng Jiang stood up straight again, forcing himself to say in his heart: Isn't it already started again?

Let's start over and stop thinking about it.

Emotions are a strange thing.

You think they belong to you, but they don't.While you seem to be manipulating them at will, the reality is that they tend to get out of hand when you want them to do what you want them to do.

Cheng Jiang closed the courtyard door and continued to wash dishes in the kitchen with his back to the living room.However, after a moment of peace, the reciprocating distracting thoughts quietly turned back, making him almost uncontrollable to turn his head three times every time he washed a dish, and turned back only after confirming Cynthia's position each time.

But Cynthia doesn't happen to be in his sight every time.

"Yueyue? The moon?"

He scanned the room a few times and realized that the baby who had been so close to him was now out of sight.He walked back to the living room with wet hands, lowered his head, and found her under the table.

He observed her position, and because he was afraid that she would hit the table legs, he hurriedly dried his hands on the apron, and carried her back to the middle of the living room.

"Sit here." Cheng Jiang said, returned to the kitchen, and continued to wash the half-washed dishes.He washed off the oil, drained a little water, and turned his head again.

The baby is gone again.

He took off his leaky rubber gloves again, and returned to the living room, shaking the water off his hands.He looked under the piano, behind the cabinet, and under the table again.But there was no sign of Cynthia anywhere he could have foreseen.

He walked quickly into all the other rooms on the first floor and searched every corner.He even pushed the door of the room where he and Cynthia lived in the first place that hadn't been opened for a long time—the door was very heavy, and he pushed it hard, even though he knew that Cynthia would not be able to open the door by himself.

Cheng Jiang even went out into the small courtyard, and then he went up to the second floor.

He stood in a daze at the stairs for a while before he came back to his senses.How could Cynthia go up to the second floor in such a short time?

She must still be on the first floor, hidden in a corner.

He went downstairs quickly.

"Cynthia?"

At last he heard the sound of crawling in the gap between the edges of the two side-by-side sofas in the living room.The baby poked its head out and smiled sweetly at him knowing nothing.Cheng Jiang knelt down and hugged her without saying a word.His hands were still wet.

After a while, Cheng Jiang had to let go of his daughter and let her sit on the sofa by herself, because he suddenly felt something hitting his left forearm.He looked down and found that it was nothing but his right hand.The moment he lowered his head, his left arm also convulsed slightly, and a feeling of hot and cold spread to his whole body.The uncontrollable hand that appeared in his dream was grabbing his throat, making him tremble all over.

the phone is ringing.

He jumped up again, grabbed his mobile phone in a frantic manner, and put the microphone to his ear.

Only one person will call him.

After another round of greetings, Cheng Yue asked on the other side of the phone:

"How have you been lately?"

The author has something to say: I forgot to post it yesterday, sorry.

☆、chapter21

Cheng Yuegu would call him regularly.

"We're fine." Cheng Jiang replied cautiously, "Do you want to hear what Cheng Yue has to say?"

"tell me the story."

Cheng Jiang stopped the little girl sitting on his lap from waving off the phone and asked her to say a word or two.

"Nana?" said Cynthia.

"That's right, I can talk." Cheng Yuegu paused and said with emotion, "It's not easy to take care of a child by yourself, is it?"

"is acceptable."

The person on the phone sighed.

"Almost one year old?"

Cheng Jiang responded, and she received:

"You were born in Cold Bay, so you don't know many things. Many families in China will have a full moon banquet. I'm not in China, but there must be some rules. I'll send you some money when the time comes, huh?"

"Don't give me any more money, mother. I have a job myself."

"Job? That work-at-home translation position?"

Yes Yes.But under her tone, he couldn't speak, so he had to acquiesce.

"I don't want to blame you, but I still have to say that you didn't do it very responsibly from the beginning. China is not like Lengwan. The cost of raising a child is high. You should have realized it by now. It’s here—is your poor salary enough to meet the needs of your children? Just accept the money you give, don’t always think about these things, think about them—does it work?”

"I just don't want to rely on you to live." Cheng Jiang said, but his voice was kept very low so that Cheng Yuegu could not hear him.

Because what she said was true, he was originally not good at words, and now he was even more unable to refute.

But he had already contacted the magazine.If he still had to work from home, he couldn't get promoted.Being unable to get promoted means that he will never be able to escape the shadow of Leng Wan, and can only rely on others as Cheng Yuegu said.

And just as he said to Shen Jiqing a few days ago: Babies really cannot live without people.

in cold bay