under fern mountain

Is the person in front of you real?

Shi Ran stood outside the heavy smoke and looked at him. The thick white smoke turned white under the moonlight, much like the smell of gunpowder smoke.The flower tube cannon in his hand had finished firing the last shot, and it hung down quietly, with smoke still smoking from the mouth of the paper tube.A few meters away, someone clutched the nylon straps, and the heavy boots made a crunching sound as they stepped on the snow.As he got closer, he could see the gold-plated slogan on the gift box in his hand.

Pei Haojie threw the cigarette butt into the snow, and the sparks went out immediately.

"Happy New Year."

"Happy New Year." Shi Ran stepped forward, took the gift box in his hand, and the two of them walked towards the house along the gravel path. He lowered his head, "I thought you wouldn't come."

"sorry."

They seemed to have nothing more to say.

Pushing open the door, Shi's mother was the first to see Pei Haojie.Shi Ran handed the gift box to her before she opened her mouth, and Pei Haojie said tacitly: "Mom, I'm sorry, the traffic is very heavy today! There is no signal on the phone... This is for you and Dad."

Shi's mother greeted the two of them into the room with a smile all over her face. Shi's father was sitting at the dining table with Niulan Mountain and two small glass cups in his hand. Seeing Pei Haojie wishing them a happy new year, he waved to him: "Come on!" Come, come by coincidence, have a drink with me!"

"Dad, it's almost time for us to go in and make dumplings." Shi Ran said beside him.

"What's the hurry!" Father Shi filled the two small cups with wine, "It's not bad for these two glasses of wine!"

"You see, little Pei has just entered the house, and he dragged him to drink with you!" Shi's mother scolded.

"Sure, I'll have a couple of drinks with dad. However, you go and help mom make dumplings first, and I'll come with you later!" Pei Haojie said while taking off her coat, layer by layer of coat and scarf, and walked up to Shi's father. sat down.

There were more and more firecrackers outside the window. The two were sitting at the dining table, talking vaguely. Shi Ran and Shi Mu were making dumplings in the kitchen. He lowered his head, showing no emotion, but Shi Mu frequently looked out probe.

"Your dad seems a little upset...Is it okay for Xiao Pei to be there alone?"

"I'll go out and call him." Shi Ran stuffed the stuffing into the dough in the palm of his hand, pressed his hands, and immediately made a round and plump dumpling, "Dad can't drink too much."

Two people make dumplings, and a bamboo drawer will be full soon.Shi Ran held the drawer and put it in the refrigerator, washed his hands and left the kitchen.The dining table became that the two were still sitting opposite each other, talking softly, and they didn't know how many cups they drank, their faces were a little flushed.

Pei Haojie also loves to play when she was young, and there are countless drinking and meat friends who can join in the drinking game. In the past few years, her drinking capacity has gradually decreased, and it is easy to get drunk after a few drinks.

Seeing him like that, Shi Ran knew that he had drunk more than three cups.He snatched the drink before Pei Haojie took another one, and got bored for him.

"Dad, you can't drink anymore. I don't pay attention to my body, why did you drag him to drink?" Shi Ran took away the two wine cups.

"I can't drink a few glasses of wine in the New Year, it's boring!" Father Shi stood up, muttered and swayed back to the house.

Pei Haojie looked at the figure of the man returning to the house, and pursed his lips: "Your father still doesn't like me."

Shi Ran opened his mouth, and finally said softly: "No, my dad likes this cup, you know."

Pei Haojie smiled and waved her hands, got up and went to the bathroom to wash her face with cold water, rolled up her sleeves and walked into the kitchen, and started to help Shi's mother make dumplings.

At the moment when twelve o'clock approached, all the meat and vegetarian dumplings were put on the table. Pei Haojie raised his glass with tea instead of wine, and said many auspicious words of blessing.

The four cups clink together crisply.

The new year is here.

Salute also stocked up several boxes of fireworks, all of which were specially prepared for the two young people. Pei Haojie always rushed out excitedly at twelve o'clock in previous years, lighting everything he could light, and the two of them laughed while running. Like crazy.This year, however, he lacked interest, and bright red firecrackers covered the gravel road, extending to the end of the road.Pei Haojie lit a cigarette, lit the cannon without haste, and walked back to Shi Ran's side amidst the loud noise.They were too close, and the sound of firecrackers was deafening, blocking out all the sounds in the world, and the cracking sound seemed to penetrate into their brains, forcing them to stop all unnecessary thinking.

Shi Ran slowly took his hand, and then felt his fingers being pinched and squeezed into a wet and cold palm.

Pei Haojie turned to look at him, and he also turned to look at Pei Haojie.

Shi Ran's hands clenched tighter and tighter, and then trembling all over, as if he could no longer control it, he shouted at him amidst the deafening firecrackers——

...!

...!

...!

He yelled three times in a row, as if all the energy in his body had been exhausted, and he yelled louder and louder until his throat hurt.But those three words seemed so insignificant amidst the sound of firecrackers, they were covered almost instantly.He believed that Pei Haojie could hear it, he was trembling, he just believed that Pei Haojie could hear it.

Pei Haojie took a deep drag on the cigarette, the scarlet cigarette butt flashed, he pulled Shi Ran over and lowered his head to kiss her.

It's more like venting than saying it was a kiss.Depressed, distorted, angry, sad - he didn't say anything, but completely let Shi Ran feel everything.Shi Ran trembled even more, and retreated as if he couldn't bear the more turbulent emotions, but Pei Haojie grabbed the back of his neck tightly with his backhand to prevent him from escaping.He bit him, devoured him, swept him, and when the bloody kiss finally ended, the sound of firecrackers also stopped at the same time.

Shi Ran stared blankly at Pei Haojie, the two of them seemed to have survived the long bombing.Pei Haojie moved her hand from his neck to the back of his head, pulling Shi Ran towards her.

So Shi Ran pressed against his forehead, and he heard Pei Haojie say: "Let's all try again, okay?"

It was only later that Shi Ran realized what kind of struggle Pei Haojie had gone through during the three days when they had no contact.

The dilemma was the relationship between the two at that time.Retirement is both painful and unwilling.In, turning around like a headless chicken, as if suddenly I don't know how to love someone.

During the two days after returning home, Shi Ran started cleaning with Pei Haojie.

He found that a lot of things were missing in the game room, some useless games and peripherals, usually messy cables, and game equipment, many of which were missing.Also missing is the brainwave reader and CD-ROM for Messiah.

When Shi Ran asked about him, Pei Haojie just said lightly that he packed his things during the New Year's Eve.

A few days later, Shi Ran suddenly received a call from the insurance company, saying that the repair bill for the bumper of the car had come down and asked them to check it.

After asking the ins and outs, Shi Ran found out that Pei Haojie crashed into a car on the night of Chinese New Year's Eve and rear-ended her.Their car had been replaced with summer tires on a self-driving tour before, and the two of them had fallen into a trough in winter, and they both forgot to put snow tires on the car.

That night... Pei Haojie drove home for four hours on New Year's Eve and told her parents that there was a heavy snow traffic jam. Is that really all there is to it?

At that time, no one connected to his mobile phone... Shi Ran unconsciously walked behind Pei Haojie - he was taking out the egg custard from the steamer.

"Hao'er."

"Ok?"

"Tell me the truth, on the night of New Year's Eve, did you have an accident on the road?"

Pei Haojie slipped her hand holding the egg custard, and the porcelain bowl fell back into the pot again.

"Nothing happened, just hit the bumper!" Pei Haojie said, "By the way, I also want to ask, where did you put the jack in the trunk of the car? I will change the tires in the past two days."

Shi Ran did remember that the jack was used by Boss Lin that day and he casually dropped it on the back seat, probably slipped under the seat.

"I'll help you later... It's not the problem. I called you at that time, why didn't you answer it?"

"The phone has no signal."

"What about the bumper?"

"It just slipped and hit the side of the road! The insurance covered it, don't worry." Pei Haojie finally managed to take out the egg custard.

"I'm not worried about this... you... I don't even know anything!" Shi Ran pinched the bridge of her nose, and stopped talking several times, "That day... what you said to me that day, I heard it in my heart , I hope you are serious."

"I was serious."

"Then can you stop keeping things in your heart? Can you stop hiding everything from me?" Shi Ran looked straight into his eyes, "Don't make me feel stupid and incompetent."

Pei Haojie sighed, turned around and took off her apron: "Of course, if what you want is absolute honesty... I will work hard and try, but I can't promise to be perfect."

"I grew up in a complicated family environment, you know, but you may just know it, you don't understand it. It's hard for me to be unreserved, and it's not what I want. After the two of us are together, I have become stronger than before. Much better. I am also correcting, I am also learning, I do not know to what extent is your ideal 'honesty'. You always think, 'Not enough, not enough!' You always think 'Pei Haojie, you should Do better, you deserve to love someone like I do!' ... I'm really stressed."

Shi then backed up and supported the water table: "I didn't think about it that way, I never thought about putting pressure on you. I also never thought about making you...perfect."

"This is just my feeling, it may not be your original intention." Pei Haojie grabbed Shi Ran's hand on the water table and stared into his eyes, "Some words and thoughts are naturally aggressive when spoken out, I don't want that."

Shi Ran didn't sleep well for a whole week.He thought over and over of what Pei Haojie said, his brain seemed out of control, once he closed his eyes, those words resurfaced.

Pei Haojie told him a lot that day, things he had heard before and things he hadn't heard before.Some already knew, and some were astonished.

Shi Ran thought, now he can understand Pei Haojie's thoughts.

Many times, Pei Haojie didn't deliberately hide it from him, but he didn't believe that absolute honesty could bring about a stable relationship.In his world, he himself is like a huge filter, screening out things that may affect the relationship with each other or cause conflicts.Except for those emotions that he didn't even realize himself, or couldn't control.For example, their frequent quarrels broke out in the previous stage.

When you think about it, he does change all the time.

He is always full of vigor and energy, but he is surprisingly able to hide things in his heart.Now, he has begun to confess consciously, but his personality is also dull day after day.

Is this really a good thing?

On Monday morning, Shi Ran went to the Cicada House with two huge dark circles under her eyes.Tie Tou and Li Qing'er were bored in the office, and were caught off guard by Shi Ran.

"Didn't you resign? What's the matter?" Tietou looked him up and down, "Why do you look haggard?"

Shi Ran numbly pulled out the chair, sat down, and collapsed on the table three seconds later.

"I wanted to go with you to meet a client in the afternoon. This line can be used to promote Cicada Room! Now that you look like this...forget it!"

"I can, I can still do it!" Shi Ran just said a few words, but was pressed back to the table by Tietou, and Tietou said, "Come on, you are so stupid!"

After Tietou left, Li Qing'er brewed a pot of good Pu'er for him and put it beside him.

"Want to chat?"

"Li Qing'er, let me ask you." Shi Ran turned the chair and looked at her devoutly face to face, "You broke with Iron Head, how did you reconcile later?"

"Break? That's the word you use." Li Qing'er couldn't laugh or cry, "It's not considered a breakup. It's just that at that time, I couldn't see the direction, I couldn't see the possibility of going on, I was very desperate, very painful... I reached a certain critical point When it was time, I didn’t want to continue anymore, and felt that it would be better for both of us to separate.”

"Then how did you reconcile later?"

"I've been through all kinds of things. I'm not as naive as before, and he's not as stupid as before." Li Qing'er laughed out loud as she spoke, "After settling down and getting together, there are many things A change has taken place. Many times I turn a blind eye and close my eyes, and I don’t always feel like the sky is going to fall like when I was young!”

"Open one eye and close one eye?"

Li Qing'er still smiled and shook her head: "Maybe many people think this is a compromise? But I don't think so. Falling in love is hard... a thing."

"Is it difficult to fall in love?" Shi Ran held the hot Pu'er teapot.

"Some people who love each other are not suitable to be together, and some people who are a match made in heaven may not be able to love each other. But I think, if there is a choice, we should choose the former." Li Qing'er tilted her head, "After all, you can meet that person , it’s already difficult.”