Ye Cheng

Driving all the way north, Ye Cheng would stop to take a look at some small and large towns along the way, and take a couple of photos to draw a picture.When the weather is cold, it is no longer suitable to sell shaved ice, but to sell cotton candy, and a round shelf is filled with cotton candy of various colors to attract business.

The winter in the north is very cold. In this cold winter, Ye Cheng learned to eat green onions and garlic. He followed the example of the local people and dried garlic on the roof of his car. After drying, he tied a bundle of garlic to the tail of the car. When you want to eat, go and pull out one, peel it, roll it into a flatbread, dip it in miso, take a bite, it's crispy and spicy.

He also learned to smoke. When he was sitting alone on the roof of the car, he would light a cigarette, take a deep breath, and then spit it out slowly. People who don't know how to smoke will never understand what kind of situation it is. enjoy.

When spring came, Ye Cheng drove the car west, where there were mountains and plains, forests and deserts.

"Brother, where are you now?" Ye Ping often called her brother, basically once a week.

"Now, in province G, in a small town." Ye Cheng lived in a small hotel, the car was parked downstairs, many adults and children gathered around the car to watch, Ye Cheng looked down from the window, There was a bowl of noodles on the small table in the hotel, which he just bought from the noodle shop at the intersection.

"What's it like there?"

"Well...there are mountains everywhere. There is no soil on the mountains, they are all stones. The place is quite poor, but there are still many people." Ye Cheng finished his noodles and lit a cigarette.

"You're smoking again!" Ye Ping heard her brother turn on the lighter on the other end of the phone. "Brother, can you sell those paintings you sent me last time?"

"Yes, you can sell it as you like, but remember to sell the money back for the materials, so don't lose money." Ye Cheng smiled and didn't take it seriously. After all, his works are not very commercial. Not very suitable for sale in galleries.

"Brother, let me tell you something." Ye Ping said with a guilty conscience.

"what's up?"

"It's the photos you sent back to me before, and those works later. I made a blog and posted them all on the Internet." It's really not good to do this without my permission.

"Hehe, you really take your brother seriously. With my level, it's not time to show off." There are people outside the mountain and there are people outside the mountain. Even if he has been recognized by some people in the industry, Ye Cheng has never I feel like I'm a character now.

"I knew you would say that." This is why Ye Ping made her own claim without knowing Ye Cheng at the beginning. Her thinking is different from Ye Cheng's. If you go to the alley, it is obviously more advantageous.

"Then what's going on now? Someone wants to buy a painting from you?" Based on the previous conversation, Ye Cheng guessed what Ye Ping said later.

"Yeah, he's taken a fancy to that pair of wheat, it's the smallest one, and I'll give it five thousand." Ye Ping doesn't quite understand, there are so many fine works in so many works, why the other party just fell in love with that pair Woolen cloth.

"That one, you tell him 1 yuan, it doesn't matter if you want it or not." The most rare thing about painting is inspiration. That painting was when Ye Cheng drove down from the north and passed a wheat field. I drew it when I was in a hurry, so I drew a small one. Ye Cheng was quite satisfied with this work, and later he wanted to turn it into a large and detailed one, but he couldn't find the feeling he had at that time.

"Okay." Although Ye Ping felt that 5000 yuan was about the same for that small painting, she was an amateur after all, and Ye Cheng said [-] yuan, so there must be a reason.

"Brother, let me tell you something again." Ye Ping said again.

"What's the matter?" I already said one thing just now, and now there is another thing, how many things did Ye Ping hide from him?

"It's a lifelong event." Ye Ping dropped a bombshell all at once.

"What? Have you found a boyfriend?" I heard that falling in love in college is normal, but I didn't expect Ye Ping to also talk about it. This surprised Ye Cheng, but thinking about it again, he and Lu Mingyuan had already met each other in high school. It's the first time to taste the forbidden fruit. Ye Ping is already in her twenties, so it's okay to fall in love.

"Well, it's a foreigner, brother, is it okay for foreigners?"

"What's the matter?" Ye Cheng smiled, he found a man himself, what's wrong with his sister finding a foreigner, at most, she will give birth to a foreign baby with blue eyes and yellow hair.

For Ye Ping's love affair, Ye Cheng is tolerant. It doesn't matter whether she will marry that foreign man or not in the future. This is Ye Ping's own encounter. Even if she breaks up in the end, it is still a part of her life. .

Just like himself, even though Lu Mingyuan is gone, those memories of the past are still his most precious wealth. To love and be loved is a happy thing in itself.

But what Ye Cheng didn't expect was that men and women are different after all, and the problems they face are also very different.When he and Lu Mingyuan were together, he was on tenterhooks, fearing that others would know their relationship every day.However, Ye Ping's relationship with that foreign man was naturally aboveboard, and was even envied and envied by many people. When they separated and the man returned home after graduation, Ye Ping was wandering alone at the hospital gate, struggling between whether to enter or not to enter. .

"Brother, I broke up with him." One day Ye Ping called Ye Cheng and said this right away.

"Oh." Ye Cheng didn't know what to say about Ye Ping's words.

"He's back home."

"Oh, let him go back then."

Ye Cheng counted with his fingers. How long has it been? It's only been less than half a year. He broke up as soon as he said he broke up. He didn't understand what happened between Ye Ping and that man, but in this At that time, he also knew that he should not ask more questions.Ye Ping has always been a sensible girl, but emotionally, she is almost blank. The life in the past was so hard that she and she rarely had time to pay attention to the issues of men and women.

"But...brother, I'm pregnant." Unlike other girls, Ye Ping burst into tears when encountering this kind of thing, but she was a little numb, as if she hadn't recovered yet.

"Do you want to give birth to it?" If he didn't want to give birth, his sister must have gone to the hospital silently.

"I can't knock it off." Even if it came too suddenly, it caught her off guard.

"How many months?" Ye Cheng asked in a low voice. Ye Ping is now in her junior year. He can't let her stop her studies because of this problem. Doesn't anyone in their family have the life to earn back a college diploma? ?

"It's been more than two months, and I just found out." After Ye Cheng accepted this incident, Ye Ping felt more at ease. She relied on her brother since she was a child, and it seemed that as long as Ye Cheng said a word, the sky would not collapse. down the same.

"When is the due date?"

"Mid-August."

"It's not too bad. You will start to ask for leave after a while when your belly grows. After you have a baby in mid-August, you can barely go back to class in time." Ye Cheng crushed the finished cigarette into the ashtray, without rushing Arrange the next thing for Ye Ping.

"No, I won't go to class. I will take the baby by myself after it is born."

"Don't be stupid, why don't you earn a college diploma for our family first, or your brother Xiaosong will die of pain." Tan Xiaosong dropped out of school because of a car accident at that time, but he always regarded Ye Ping as his own sister. If Ping also dropped out of school, it would be difficult for him to accept it.

"Brother, I will take care of this matter myself, where have you been recently?"

"Recently, I've been slowly going back. By June, I think I'll be able to go to City B, so don't be in a hurry to drop out of school. If you really want to drop out, think about Tan Xiaosong first." Ye Cheng still said I'm worried that this girl will do something stupid, anyway, now that I don't go to work or class, what does it matter if I help her take care of the child, after all, it's his own nephew.

"I don't want to be like this...brother...I really don't want to be like this..." Ye Ping on the other end of the phone finally broke down in tears.

"I know, it's okay, Ye Ping, it's all going to pass." When Lu Mingyuan left, when he just lost his qualifications for the college entrance examination, he also felt uncomfortable. He didn't understand why fate can change as it is said.

But everything will pass, Ye Cheng has started to earn income now, his oil paintings are gradually being recognized by more and more people, and the prices are also slowly rising, maybe it is time to end the journey, maybe it is just his life , will start another journey, another new and different experience.

At the moment when the young and soft life lay quietly on his palm, Ye Cheng almost wanted to thank the man who brought him life, even though he didn't know the existence of this child and had already left his Sister, returned to a country they were unfamiliar with.

Ye Cheng named him Ye Li, and hoped that he would live a natural and calm life and enjoy this hard-won life.His mother risked being expelled from school and brought him into this world, just to let the life conceived in her stomach have a chance to come out to see the outside world and feel the joys, sorrows, sorrows and joys of this world , will also know love, know the taste of happiness.

Ye Cheng brought Ye Li to live in City B, and rented a house in the suburbs. When he usually painted, Ye Li lay in the rocking car, crying twice when he was hungry, and crying twice when the diaper was about to be changed. It was surprisingly quiet all the time.With this soft little life by his side, Ye Cheng felt like a small tree sprouted in his heart, and gradually grew some tender green leaves.

He quit smoking, and took the baby to Old Man Wu's place, telling him that it was his son.When he didn't take the college entrance examination, Ye Cheng felt that he was ashamed to go to the old man Wu. He was afraid that the old man would be sad. In the eyes of the world, everything is inferior and only high-level studies. When old man Wu knew that he and Lu Mingyuan didn't need money to study, I don't know how gratified and proud I am, but I didn't take the college entrance examination at all, let alone a famous university. This made Ye Cheng a little unsure of how to face the expectations of old man Wu.

In the few years he was outside, he also went to City C. In the silent midnight of Wan Lai, he parked the car at the entrance of the alley, sat in front of Old Man Wu’s shoe repair shop and smoked two cigarettes. The plastic bag of money was pushed in through the hole under the door panel. He knew that although old man Wu had bad eyesight, he was careful. There was absolutely no reason to miss such a bag of money.

He also knew that the money didn't mean much to old man Wu, but apart from money, Ye Cheng didn't know what else he could give.He just couldn't walk up to old man Wu like this, and told him that he had dropped out of school long ago, and that Lu Mingyuan had gone abroad, and he didn't come to see you for so many years, I'm really sorry, because I have no face.

After having this child, many things became different again. Ye Cheng felt that he seemed to have the courage again. He pushed the stroller and walked in the alley, and greeted the owner of the bun shop with a smile. Still haven't figured out who he is.

Old man Wu didn't ask why Ye Cheng didn't come all these years, he just went to the vegetable vendor at the intersection, sold a piece of pork and a few vegetables, made a not-so-rich lunch, and then opened a bottle of wine, The topic of drinking and drinking with Ye Cheng is just the memories of those years.

In the afternoon, old man Wu was still repairing shoes, and Ye Li sat on the stroller, looking around curiously.Ye Cheng set up a painting shelf in the corridor, squeezed out paint and started painting.

The stooped old man was sitting on a horseshoe repairing shoes. Looking from the side and rear, he could see the familiar pair of presbyopic eyes that Ye Cheng was familiar with. It had been many years, and the frame of the mirror had also left traces of time.There is a baby carriage next to the shoe repair cart. The child sitting in the cart has a pink face and a pair of light brown eyes. He is engrossed and curiously staring at the movement of the old man's hand.Outside the door, the sun was shining on the old eaves, making it bright.