madman

It was already past ten o'clock in the evening when we set off from the grassland to the Mina River. Zhou Xun and Lin Zhile directly took a room in a hotel in the county seat, which was near the house they originally rented.

After eating something casually, the two wandered the street.

Zhou Xun has not looked at this place carefully for many years. He used to take a quick glance every time he came back. The changes are too great. The original two-lane lanes in the center street have been widened to four lanes. The gray-yellow wall outside the house they rented A big "demolition" was written on the skin, and it stood upright on the crumbling wall skin under the street lamp.

Half of the wall collapsed, and bricks with ballasted corners fell everywhere. A tall green curtain has been surrounded on some of the periphery, and there are warning signs for construction at the intersection.

Zhou Xun sighed in his heart, fortunately, it's not that things are right and people are wrong, although they are different, Lin Zhile is still by his side after all.

Lin Zhile kept her hand in Zhou Xun's jacket pocket, holding Zhou Xun's hand, covering his whole body warmly.

"Brother Xun, come back this time, don't you want to visit Uncle Zhou and Zhou Tian?" Lin Zhile asked.

"Go and have a look. I called my dad before, and it made a lot of noise. Then he hung up the phone when he heard my voice. I haven't seen him in the past two years."

Ever since Zhou Dahai found out about the relationship between Zhou Xun and Lin Zhile, he had often quarreled with Zhou Xun. When the quarrels got serious, he directly threatened not to recognize Zhou Xun as his son. After that, the only communication between them was a meeting. Endless bickering.

Zhou Xun felt a little headache when he thought about it. The last phone call he had with his father was two or three years ago.

—

—

In the end, it was almost twelve o'clock, and after shopping around, Lin Zhile pointed to the only small shop across the street that was still open, "Let's go buy some things, we need to go back to the grave tomorrow."

After entering the small shop, he took his hand out of Zhou Xun's pocket.

The sign on the door of the small shop says department store, but it is actually a grocery store. It has everything from small metal parts to daily necessities. The small shop is not big, and everything is piled up. There is a pile of new mops and brooms piled up at the door, and there is only a one-person-wide aisle in the middle, and a small cash register is on the right hand side of the door.

The cash register is empty, there is no one there, there is only an open computer and a monitor overhead.

The other end of the aisle is connected to the back room, the painted wooden door is half closed, and the sound of playing mahjong can be heard inside.

"Old Zhou, why are you so lucky today? I sat at your next house and didn't even give me any cards all night. After playing so many rounds, I only landed one concealed kong. I gave you a lot of shots all night. "A female voice complained in a low voice.

"That's right, Lao Zhou, the most beautiful sister Meilian on our street is sitting next to you, won't you let me have two of you?" Another man followed suit, "If this continues, Miss Meilian will be the only one tomorrow." I don’t want to come to play cards.”

Zhou Xun walked to the half-closed wooden door and knocked, "The boss is shopping."

"Who, take whatever you buy, come in and pay when you're done." The man who spoke was probably smoking, and his voice was muttering.

After hearing this, Zhou Xun turned his head and groped for what he wanted to buy in the half-dark shop. He and Lin Zhile searched for a long time before they found incense and paper money in a corner. The convenience bag was hung on the wall. , Zhou Xun tore off two pieces and packed them up, then pushed open the wooden door and entered the back room.

The inner room was also chaotic with no place to stand, full of sundries, a small kitchen at the far end, a square table in the middle, four people, seeing the door opened, the two people facing the door looked at Zhou Xun one after another.

Zhou Xun leaned against the door and asked, "Boss, how much are these?"

The person with his back turned took two puffs of the cigarette in his mouth, then threw it on the ground and crushed it with the sole of his rubber shoe. Turning around, both of them were taken aback when they saw Zhou Xun.

Zhou Xun didn't expect it to be Zhou Dahai. He saw that he had lost a lot of weight, his stomach and double chin were gone, and he had stubble on his face. Zhou Dahai used to care about his clothes, but now he doesn't even have appearance. He shouted in surprise: "Dad, why is it you?"

Zhou Dahai pushed the mahjong tiles in his hand onto the table, "I won't play any more, I'll play another day, I have something to do."

Several other people didn't move their eyes away from Zhou Xun when they heard Zhou Xun called Dad. From head to toe, the two men muttered a few words in a low voice.

They thought their voices were very low, but a room is so big that it's hard not to hear them.

"Zhou Dahai's son? Which son?"

"Is it your own?"

Zhou Dahai lifted the mahjong table with his arm, and the mahjong was scattered all over the floor, knocking on the floor tiles with a loud noise. He stood up and kicked the bench aside, "What the hell are you mumbling about? Play it again for me and I'll listen to it..."

One of the chubby men rolled up his sleeves and stood up, "Zhou Dahai, you're fucking sick, I'll tell you what's wrong, your son, don't be your own, go to the hospital as soon as possible, Don't be a cheap dad again for nothing."

"Fuck you, I'll fucking kill you today." After Zhou Dahai finished speaking, he wanted to pounce on the fat man, Zhou Xun hurried in and grabbed his arm, he and Lin Zhile stopped him, The fat man on the opposite side was also dragged by the man next to him.

"You said that your mouths are really fucking bad? Go and rub your mouths on the wall by yourself. Why are you so talkative about other people's housework? What's bothering you? Go home and take care of your wife Son." The one who spoke was the woman who just complained about being unlucky tonight, standing next to Zhou Dahai, with red hair and red lips, heavy makeup, very conspicuous.

After the woman finished speaking, she slapped the two men again, "What are you still doing here? Hurry up and leave."

After she finished speaking, she smiled and said to Zhou Dahai: "If you have something to say, let's talk about it. What kind of hands are the neighbors in the street? Tonight, your family beat the three of ours, and you will invite us to dinner another day. Since you have something to do, we will leave first." .”

After the woman finished speaking, she dragged the other two cursing men out.

There were only the three of them left in the room, Zhou Dahai lit another cigarette, first frowned and looked at Lin Zhile, and then asked Zhou Xun: "When did you come back?"

"Not long after getting off the train, we will come back to see grandma on Tomb-sweeping Day tomorrow." Zhou Xun took the small bench that Zhou Dahai had kicked out, and sat down by himself, "Why did you set up such a small shop now? What about the factory and store?"

"It collapsed a few years ago." Zhou Dahai took two puffs of cigarettes, "What's wrong with this small shop, don't look down on the small shop, it's not very good, you can eat and drink."

"You yourself? Where are Wang Lijuan and Zhou Tian?" Zhou Xun asked.

"Don't mention that bitch," Zhou Dahai took another two puffs of his cigarette, "Zhou Tian is not my son at all. The man Wang Lijuan ran away with back then came to me. My son who has been with me for more than ten years, and I have been a tortoise king for more than ten years. Almost everyone who knows me in the entire county knows about it. Three years ago, the man came back again, and the two ran away with him. Just now, the two men , that’s what it’s about.”

Zhou Xun was a little surprised, he didn't expect this to happen, and he didn't expect that Zhou Dahai, who cares about face, would say it so calmly. Maybe it was because people poked his spine so much that he became numb, or maybe time passed too long.

Zhou Dahai continued: "Zhou Tian is not called Zhou Tian anymore, his mother changed his name a long time ago, and now his mother's surname is Wang Tian."

"What's your name?" Lin Zhile knew that Zhou Dahai didn't want to see him since he was a child, and he had been shrinking his sense of existence since he first entered the room. ?”

Zhou Dahai squinted Lin Zhile's eyes, "What does his name have to do with you, why are you so excited?"

Lin Zhile collected her expression, "It's nothing, I just asked, where are they now?"

Zhou Dahai: "I don't care where they are, I heard they are in Beijing."

Lin Zhile was basically sure that the Wang Tian that Lao Zhang investigated was the original Zhou Tian. As long as he knew who he was, everything would be easy to talk about later.

—

—

"If you don't have a son, you're gone. Don't you have one? I'm your own." Zhou Xun picked up a mahjong tile on the ground and held it in the palm of his hand. Can't figure out what it is.

Zhou Dahai helped up the table he had overturned, took a broom from the outside and began to clean it up, "You? You are also an idiot, you don't want a good girl, you have to be with a man."

Zhou Xun and Lin Zhile also helped clean up, and finally the messy hut was cleaned up, and it looked a lot cleaner.

"Old Zhou, you've lived for fifty years, why don't you understand why you're still alive, it's true that you are with someone you like all your life, I don't like girls, it's no use," Zhou Xun Sitting down again, "And we're fine."

"Very good?" Zhou Dahai pointed at Zhou Xun with the broom in his hand, "Aren't you the one who searched for people like a fool a few years ago?"

Lin Zhile is most afraid of others mentioning this now, so he hastened to express his opinion, "Uncle Zhou, I will treat Brother Xun well."

Zhou Dahai raised his broom at him with a dark face, "Don't express your opinion to me here, what's the use of telling me these things, I don't live with you, so do what you like, I don't have any energy now, I'm Nobody wants to care about it anymore.”

Lin Zhile said to Zhou Xun again solemnly, "Brother Xun, I will treat you well."

Zhou Xun couldn't hold back a chuckle, and seeing Zhou Dahai's expression like the bottom of an iron pot, he held back, and said to Zhou Dahai, "You can take care of yourself, so why bother?"

The three of them seemed a little deserted after they had nothing to say, Zhou Dahai looked at his watch, "It's so late, where do you live?"

Zhou Xun originally wanted to say that they had already booked a room, but then changed his words, "You don't have a place for us to live here?"

"There is still a broken bed upstairs. If you want to live there, you can live there. If you don't want to, you can find a place to live on your own." Zhou Dahai said.

"Then you pack up for us, will you go back to the village with us tomorrow?"

"I was planning to go back tomorrow," Zhou Dahai found out a new quilt from the store, and asked when they passed by them, "You two live in the same room? Forget it, I shouldn't ask this question too much."

Zhou Dahai hugged the quilt and walked upstairs along the steps, muttering as he walked, "It's annoying to see you two, what's so good about two men being together?"