coward

Li Xiluo and Xu Yitang found a small shop.The small shop is not conspicuous, but it is not difficult to find.

Li Xiluo lifted the thick curtain, "Well, it's fragrant."

The fog was steaming inside, and the elder brothers were slightly drunk from drinking, and they were slashing hot pot.Laughter and noise filled the small shop with few tables.

The two found a table at random and sat down.

Xu Yitang ordered food, waited for a while and then busy serving it to the table.Looking at Li Xiluo, he picked up another bottle of oranges.

Li Xiluo was pinching shrimp dipped in chili sauce and putting it in his mouth.Xu Yitang blocked it, "Have you taken the medicine? You have a fever, and your throat hurts after eating spicy food, take it easy."

Li Xiluo didn't care, "Master, are you afraid of this?"

"Success, it won't hurt you to death!" Xu Yitang didn't care, poured some wine, and knocked on the table lightly, "Would you like some more?"

Li Xiluo snorted, "I'll drink with my brother, can you do it? What do you support?"

"I don't drink." Li Xiluo added.

Xu Yitang laughed angrily, "Yes, brother Luo will never pour a thousand cups, and you have to carry me back when I get down in a while."

"Who the hell is carrying you? Don't you always say that you are fierce?" Li Qinghe took a sip of juice and continued to stuff it into his mouth.

Both of them are repeat students, they met during the art training camp, and they happened to live in the same place, so they are precocious.They know a little bit about each other's shit.

Xu Yitang stopped smiling.

Li Xiluo looked at it and felt that it was not good, "Break up with that one?" His voice was very soft.

Li Xiluo lowered her head and stared at the plastic cup in front of her.

"Ah."

Xu Yitang responded from his throat, muffled.

Li Xiluo squeezed a peanut and rubbed the skin, "He mentioned it?"

"I mentioned it." After Xu Yitang finished speaking, he picked up the glass and suffocated the remaining wine. The wine dripped down his throat, and Xu Yitang frowned.

"... When did it happen?"

Li Xiluo was speechless.

"It's been half a month." Xu Yitang took out a cigarette from Li Xiluo's pocket, and fumbled for a lighter in his pocket for a long time, "Where is your fire?"

"I don't know, Lao Diu."

Xu Yitang asked the proprietress again to borrow a fire, "snapped" the spot, puffed out a cigarette and continued: "I went to find him that day on his birthday, and he was... Damn it!"

The voice was a little louder, a few young people at the right table glanced at them, and the older brothers next to them were drinking hot, so they probably didn't hear it.

"We've been together for half a year, and the only fucking thing I've ever done is to hold hands. I'm ashamed and shy! I drove more than six hours just to watch a live broadcast, right?! I'm a fucking idiot!"

Xu Yitang's eyes were red, his voice was trembling, and he couldn't control his emotions with indescribable anger and grievance.He lowered his head and wiped his eyes quickly.

"Tang'er..." Li Xiluo didn't know what to say, she opened her mouth and just called her name.

Xu Yitang coughed in disguise, and filled up the wine again.

"It's done. Don't persuade me. I didn't want you to listen to this shit. Your family is enough for you. "

Li Xiluo didn't speak, filled up the wine, and knocked with Xu Yitang.

"You've been sleeping in the house all day, and you haven't eaten, so eat quickly." Xu Yitang picked up food for Li Xiluo, his eyes still red.

"Tang'er, you..."

"I'm so nice? Okay, brother knows." Before Li Xiluo could say anything, Xu Yitang preempted her.

But this is true, buddy is really good.

Li Xiluo looked at Xu Yitang and smiled.

"Hey, I'll go, don't laugh, it's bright and seductive.

After Xu Yitang finished speaking, he moved closer to Li Xiluo meanly, "Touch the beauty...uh!" Li Xiluo kicked her from under the table before she finished speaking, and the movement was not small.

"Hiss..." Xu Yitang rubbed his legs and gasped.

Only Xu Yitang dared to tease Li Xiluo about this matter.

After teasing Li Meiren for a while, Xu Yitang's thoughts of falling out of love were almost gone, and he broke up with Li Xiluo about the training camp.

"Tsk, you don't know how irritating you were back then, tall, handsome, with a cold face, hey, the little girl just said that she likes your flirtatious look, that's not even counted by him, You have an AC installed in the sky, and you can draw with both hands, which fascinates the little girl. Tsk."

Li Xiluo laughed angrily, and gave him a light elbow.

The two drank some white wine, and it was a little hot now, Li Xiluo stood up and took off his coat, Xu Yitang raised his eyebrows, "Did you spray perfume?"

"Ah."

"It's ok, you are a prodigal, and you can go out to have a meal with your buddies like this." Xu Yitang turned to the outside in disgust, trying to stay away from Li Xiluo.

"You don't care about me." Li Xi rolled his eyes at him and continued eating peanuts.

Xu Yitang stretched one leg to the small chair next to him, "Hey, if I didn't know about you, I really thought...but your hair is quite...exciting."

Li Xiluo laughed and trembled, and the peanuts fell from the chopsticks.

When Li Xiluo was 16 years old, she started to grow long hair. When it grew a bit longer, she cut it and kept it until it reached her shoulders, with a streak of silver white highlighted in a rather coquettish way.In the long jet-black hair, the strand of silver-white was particularly conspicuous.

Li Xiluo remembered why she had long hair in the first place, and now she finds it a little funny.

Li Xiluo sounds too motherly, and the words are also motherly.When he was younger, he would stare back at anyone who said something to him, and he was not polite to anyone.

Later, I don't know if it was out of rebellion, so he grew long hair.

You say my mother, I'm sorry, I'm not only a name mother, I also have long hair.

Li Zhenxing and his wife were very angry, saying that Li Xiluo was childish and unmotivated.

Ok.

If not, there will be none.

Because he had long hair, Li Zhenxing and his wife gradually stopped taking him out, because when they met old friends, those uncles and aunts would always ask: Oh, Lao Li, your boys also have long hair.Some were joking and some were genuinely shocked.

The classmates and teachers in the class also looked weird, seeing him always staring at his hair, gradually he became less active in the class.

Li Xiluo remembered the past, threw a peanut into his mouth and chewed it.

It doesn't matter, just do what you love.

The two ate up a plate of peanuts, clapped their hands and got up to leave.

As soon as the door curtain was lifted, Li Xiluo hurriedly wrapped up the down jacket.

"It's quite cold." The air he exhaled froze into a cloud of white smoke, trembling in the northern winter, floating with his breath.

Li Xiluo zipped up the down jacket and shrank her neck, "Tang'er, put on my hat."

Li Xiluo put her hands in her pockets, not wanting to move.

"Tsk, you're the only one who has a lot of trouble! Call me Dad."

"Don't you pity me, a handsome guy who eats, drinks, and drinks with me when I'm sick?" Li Xiluo covered his heart, looked at Xu Yitang with a hurt face and said.

"Go away, show some face, you."

"Ha ha……"

Xu Yitang was so cold that he only stretched out one finger, and put a hat on Li Xiluo who lowered his head slightly.

"Oh, I'm a little bit stuck, let's walk back."

"Success." As they spoke, the two walked towards the old city with few people.

At this moment, most of the small shops on the street have their doors closed, only the faint lights of the house numbers flashing cold white light.Li Xiluo and Xu Yitang walked randomly along the street.

The two of them picked up a small path and headed south. After walking for a while, it became more and more desolate.

"Tsk, this place has been demolished for two or three years, right?" Li Xiluo asked with his hands in his pockets.

"Well, it was demolished four years ago, and it has always been like this."

"What about that person? He used to live here."

"I don't know, and I don't see any resettlement areas anywhere. Let's go."

Xu Yitang and Li Xiluo kicked the small stones on the side of the road, chatting casually.

There are a few alleys in front, which have also been demolished.There is a layer of broken ash under the broken street lamp.

Li Xiluo stopped suddenly while walking.

There was movement in the alley.

I could hear yelling and groaning.

A steel pipe was thrown against the wall, which was extremely dull.

There was a fight.

There may also be multiple people hitting one person.

Li Xiluo frowned and prepared to walk back.No one wants to get involved in such gossip.

"Damn Li Qinghe! Tell me to pay back the money, if you don't pay back the money, I will kill you next time!"

Li Xiluo stopped walking back.

"Know you?" Xu Yitang asked with a sigh.

Li Xiluo didn't speak, but paused for a while, listening with her ears open.Involuntarily walked into the alley.

Under the dim streetlights, a few people were vaguely seen by the backlit wall holding steel pipes in their hands, and another person was holding a baseball bat against the wall, cursing around a person who was huddled in a corner.There was faint blood dripping from the stick, and it dripped on the bluestone slabs in the alley with a thud.

The person huddled in the corner held his head tightly, trying to huddle himself into the corner.

Black and night blended together, and Li Xiluo's eyes hurt from the blood-red school uniform fabric.

"Mom! Are you dumb? Can't speak?!" The bald man became impatient and kicked the huddled man hard, picking up the steel pipe and was about to smash it down.

"Li Qinghe!" Li Xiluo yelled out with a trembling voice before he even moved his feet.

The boy who huddled into a ball was like himself who had hugged the pillow countless times and shrunk into the corner of the wall, trembling with fear, unable to hold on to anything, only hugging himself tightly.

Li Xiluo was stunned, and after shouting, he realized that he felt extremely uncomfortable in his heart. That cry was instinctively shouted by Li Xiluo, as if he wanted to pull up the young man who was shrunk in the darkness, maybe it was himself.

Even Xu Yitang who was following behind looked up at him in surprise.

The boy who was shrinking into a ball and shaking his body froze for a moment and remained motionless.

The people carrying the things turned their heads when they heard the sound, put the steel pipe around their necks, raised their chins and looked at Li Xiluo, "Where did you come from, don't meddle in your own business!"

"Xiluo." Seeing that Li Xiluo was about to step forward, Xu Yitang gave him a tug.

Li Xiluo turned her face to the side, but said nothing.He took a step forward, "I'm sorry, I'll take care of this matter."

One of the people with one hand in his pocket spat, "Don't be shameless. The pipe is too wide and you will hit it together!"

The next moment Li Xiluo quickly flashed up to him, grabbed his wrist and twisted it. He let go of the steel pipe in his hand and dropped it. Li Xiluo reached out to catch it, raised his knee and pressed it against the man's stomach, and then used The stick was thrown down the man's back, and the man lay on the ground clutching his stomach and screaming in pain.

Seeing the situation, the other three were annoyed, "mb, hate him!"

With a cold face, Li Xiluo kicked one of them on the knee, twisted his wrist and fell over his shoulder, and grabbed his hair with one hand and pressed him to the ground. He put his knee on the man's neck.

The man's face was blue, and he kept struggling and whimpering.

Xu Yitang pulled Li Xiluo up, and the other two lay twisted and screamed in pain behind Li Xiluo.

"Get lost." Li Xiluo said in a deep voice, throwing away the steel pipe in his hand.

The four got up and rolled.

"Thank you brother."

"Besides, get lost too." Xu Yitang shook the stick and clapped his hands.

Li Xiluo turned around and walked towards the boy in the corner.

There were many shards of glass on the ground, which crackled into smaller pieces when stepped on.

Li Xiluo walked forward, step by step, like a salvation from crushing the darkness.

I looked up and saw my god.Since then, a crack has been broken in the darkness surrounding me, and some scorching light and heat have penetrated into it. The light is so dazzling that it makes people yearn for life and death.

Li Qinghe raised his head, his lips trembling, and he fixedly looked at his god.

Li Xiluo looked down at the young man who was hugging her tightly, and her heart twitched.

The boy's face was covered with bruises, bruised and purple.The left cheek was scratched by the glass, and blood was oozing, the wound on the brow bone seemed to have shards of broken glass, the blood gushed out from the cut and flowed down the face, gathered at the chin, and dripped to the ground.

The young man's pale lips trembled, and bright red blood oozed from the corner of his mouth.

Li Xiluo's eyelashes trembled, and she stretched out her hand to pull Li Qinghe up.A piece of broken glass slipped from Li Qinghe's hair, and fell to the ground along his neck, with a very crisp "click".

There was a thin red mark on Li Qinghe's pale neck, and fine drops of blood were oozing out.

Pale eyelids, pale lips, pale face, the pale boy was trembling all over.

"what happened?"

Li Xiluo's voice was very soft, as if she was afraid of scaring away the butterflies that were sitting on her fingertips.

My god bowed his head to pity the sufferings of the world, the blood flowed from my body, and I no longer felt pain.

When the world became blurred and everything turned into desolation, I smelled a ray of clear fragrance left by the gods.

……

"Xiluo, here, your classmate?"

Li Xiluo looked at the person lying on the bed, and hummed in a low voice.

He pulled a stool, sat in front of the bed, and lit a cigarette.

At three o'clock in the morning, Xu Yitang's room was filled with soft light, the tweezers on the table were still stained with blood, and the trash can next to the bed was piled with strips of bloody gauze.

The bloody smell in the room was mixed with the lingering smoke. Li Xiluo frowned at the pale child on the bed, and there was a dead silence in the room.

……

At that time, they took Li Qinghe, who was unconscious, to a nearby hospital.

It's actually a clinic.

At 12:30, several clinics were closed.

There was a phone number left on the door, and the doctor went out of town and couldn't come back.

Helpless, they could only take Li Qinghe to Xu Yitang's house.

Xu Yitang's parents went to bed early, so they were not alarmed.After rummaging through boxes and cabinets, he managed to gather medicines for Li Qinghe to treat his wounds.

Li Xiluo moistened a towel with clean water to gently clean the wound on Li Qinghe's face, and then applied the medicine.

He looked at the wound on the child's face and sighed.

He looked down and saw the bright red on his freshly washed hands.

Redder than school uniform fabric.

I picked up a white rose in the corner of the alley.

The white rose lay quietly in my hand, lifeless.I slowly unwrapped the familiar package, and saw the hidden branches full of scars.

"!"

"What's going on? Why are there so many injuries?!"

Xu Yitang and Li Xiluo had been busy for a long time, and just took a sip of the glass of water when they saw the child on the bed covered in injuries.

Pale roses withered, petals covered with thorns, trembling with scarlet sap.

Old scars become ugly evidence clinging to pale rose petals.

This rose is ugly and cheap, and there is no tenderness to be seen.

Li Xiluo's eyes trembled.

Three long veins of blood streaked from the ribs to the navel, and broken glass could be vaguely seen in the wound.

There was a scratch on the waist, deep, long, and meandering, leaving a raised scar.

It's an old injury.

The school uniform was gently put aside, and the sound of cloth and flesh being separated was infinitely amplified in the room.Every time, Li Xiluo felt that he was about to suffocate.

Both of them gasped.

The air conditioner was fully turned on, but Li Xiluo felt like she was falling into a world of ice and snow.

There was a red and swollen mark on the shoulder, like a scald, and a coquettish red rose was smudged on the sluggish white rose.

On the right collarbone...

It is a trace of a long time ago.

But no one can say that it's healed and doesn't hurt anymore.

The young man leaned on his shoulder, he lowered his eyes and saw the thin but always straight back like a young poplar.

Densely criss-crossed.

……

Li Xiluo lowered his head, his long hair half covered his red eyes.

……

Dawn broke, and a ray of light tore through the night and staggered towards the earth.

Li Xiluo dropped cigarette butts all over the floor.

Xu Yitang rubbed his sore eyes, the two of them stayed up all night.

Li Qinghe tried hard to open his heavy eyelids, but he couldn't.

The cold sweat on his head wet his temples, and the moment he opened his eyes, he finally escaped from the bloody nightmare.

Li Qinghe felt that he was dead, and felt that he was alive again.

Li Qinghe blinked, the warm sunlight came into the room from the window, and the small plants on the table cast slanting shadows.Fortunately, he escaped from that terrifying cage...

This area is full of broken buildings crawling on the ground, lingering on their last legs, in dilapidated condition. The bricks gathered together fell to the ground with a bang, and with the swirling dust, they knelt in the rubble and licked the messy alleys.

Passing through the narrow alley, avoiding the crumbling steel and concrete, Li Qinghe pressed his chest, took a breath, and pushed open the door.

Li Yongfu was sitting on the single sofa watching TV, when he saw him come back, he sneered with the corners of his mouth curled up.The flickering light from the TV hit his face, and Li Qinghe's body trembled.

He took a step forward and whispered, "Dad."

Without saying a word, Li Yongfu picked up the remote control at hand to select the channel.

Seeing that he did not speak, Li Qinghe stood at the door with his head down.

Suddenly, the remote control hit Li Qinghe hard on the head.

"Don't get out and cook when you come back!"

The back shell of the remote control fell off, and two batteries rolled down at Li Qinghe's feet.Oh, fried flowers.

Enduring the pain, Li Qinghe bent down to pick up the battery, wiped the soil, and reinstalled the remote control.

"I'll go right away." The boy turned and entered the kitchen with a trembling voice.

The author has something to say: It is raining lightly today, and the air is very fresh.

Let’s talk about Qinghe’s story tomorrow.

Don't be afraid, it's sweet.

After all, I always had to suffer alone before I met you.

? (today's sunflower)