sunken square

"Cub?" Guan Rong shouted.The voice is very soft.

Chen Yuechi came to embrace him: "Brother, can you take some medicine before going to sleep?"

Guan Rong became much more sober, and turned over by himself: "What medicine do you take?"

"Stomach pain medicine." Chen Yuechi unscrewed the lamp next to him, took a glass of warm water, "When I went out, I asked my sister downstairs to help boil the water, it was clean."

Guan Rong was silent for a moment, sat up and rubbed his face.He took the medicine handed by Chen Yue and took it.

"Is there still a pharmacy open on New Year's Eve?" he asked.

Chen Yue refused to answer, but touched his forehead, and used the method he taught him before, wrapping his hands around his side neck, and touching his eyelids with his eyelids.Breathing is intertwined close at hand, Chen Yue's hand is big, steady and strong, as long as he wants, he can strangle Guan Rong to death in this position.But this action gave Guan Rong a great sense of security.

When Chen Yuechi backed away, Guan Rong smiled: "I have a stomachache, not a fever."

"Stomach pain can also cause fever." Chen Yuechi said.He put the water glass away, rubbed a handful of hot towels, and asked Guan Rong to lift up his clothes and apply heat to his stomach.

After coming and going a few times, Guan Rong felt that the cramping sensation had indeed disappeared.He looked at his watch, it was already four o'clock in the morning, and soon there would be firecrackers again.

"Go to sleep." Guan Rong said.

Chen Yuechi nodded: "Go to bed first."

Guan Rong lay down and left half of the bed for Chen Yuechi, but he never waited for Chen Yuechi to come up.He quietly turned his head and saw Chen Yuechi's blurred shadow.Chen Yuechi sat on the chair next to him, with one elbow resting on the armrest, and his palm resting on his chin.He must have fallen asleep.

"Chen Yuechi." Guan Rong shouted.

Chen Yuechi woke up immediately, and said "um", "Brother, what's the matter? Is it hurting again?"

After a long time, Guan Rong asked: "Do you really have to suffer so much?"

Chen Yuechi didn't seem to react, Guan Rong continued: "You want to torture yourself so much, why don't you just die?"

Breathing stopped.Chen Yue froze for a while, then took a deep breath.Guan Rong suddenly felt that his heart was firmly grasped by a big hand.He lifted the quilt and got up, got out of bed and even forgot to wear slippers.

Chen Yuechi sat on the chair, his face was obscured by the night.Guan Rong walked over and pressed his head into his arms, his forehead just pressed against the place that hurt just now.

"I'm sorry." Guan Rong said.

Chen Yue buried his face in his abdomen, shook his head, and put his arms around his waist.With eyes closed, one hand went around the back of his neck to touch his cheek, his eyes and the tip of his nose, and his lips.Chen Yuechi slightly turned his face to meet his touch.

For a moment, Guan Rong thought he was going to kiss her hand, but there was nothing.

After all, he still didn't sleep that night, Chen Yue leaned on Guan Rong's body, and it didn't take long for Guan Rong to hear the firecrackers going off outside.

In the sound of gunfire on the first day of the new year, Chen Yuechi said in a low voice: "Painful."

"Huh?" Guan Rong almost thought he had misheard.

Chen Yuechi smiled and said, "Stay by my brother's side."

Guan Rong let go of his breathing, and heard him say: "But I've been staying at home by myself these few days, and I found it very painful."

Guan Rong suddenly remembered the creeper on the wall of his house.He secretly speculated about Chen Yuezhi's mental state, wondering how he would feel when he was alone in the corner of the room.But he is not Chen Yuechi, he can't really feel it.Hearing Chen Yuechi's understatement at this time, Guan Rong felt in a daze that his heart was also covered with creepers.

The unbearable dampness of the shadows and some secret satisfaction haunted him at the same time.He gradually discovered that as long as Chen Yue insisted on relying on him, no matter in what way, he would feel this slightly morbid sense of satisfaction.

The more pain Chen Yuezhi suffered, the more satisfied he was.Painful and satisfying.

It was quieter after dawn, and Guan Rong really fell asleep.

In the afternoon, when she recovered completely, Guan Rong took advantage of Chen Yuechi's going out to buy food, and called Sister Min.He asked her to tell the bottle that there was a red envelope in the kumquat flower pot.

Sister Min said with a smile, "Last year you said you had a red envelope, and when you opened it, there was a math problem inside, and you cried all day."

"It's really a red envelope this year, but he has to find it himself." Guan Rong said.

Sister Min's voice became clearer, and she asked him how the weather was like. Guan Rong didn't answer, but said, "The house is dilapidated, and there's nothing in it. The ivy grows really badly."

After a pause of two seconds, Sister Min smiled: "Yeah. You can have fun with the kids for a few days."

"It's no wonder he can have fun." Guan Rong said, "He's not a kid anymore, he'll be 20 soon."

There was no sound on the other end of the phone, and Chen Yuechi came back.Guan Rong glanced at him, and said to the phone: "I'm hanging up, we're going to go out for a walk later."

After saying don't hang up the phone, Chen Yuechi turned his back to him, lowered his head, and put something on the small table next to him.Guan Rong felt something was wrong, walked to his side, bent down and looked up from the bottom, trying to see his expression clearly.

Chen Yue wanted to laugh, but Guan Rong said, "If you don't want to laugh, then don't laugh."

The half-hanging smile then paused on Chen Yuechi's face, which was a bit funny.Disappeared after two seconds, Chen Yuechi said, "Brother, let's go home."

Guan Rong was taken aback, and it took him a while to figure out what he meant by going home.He reckoned that Chen Yuechi might have run into some old acquaintances when he went out, and he didn't mention the matter of visiting the town that he had discussed, but just responded: "Okay." When he turned his back to pack his things, he said: "I won't be able to keep up with you in a while." Go on a business trip with me? I haven’t been to the library I contacted years ago.”

"Okay." Chen Yuechi said, "I've never been on a business trip before."

In mutual understanding, this page was uncovered without mentioning it.

The tickets for the first day of the new year were surprisingly easy to buy, and the station was even a little deserted.Presumably, from the beginning of the new year to the third year of junior high school, they all returned to the villages and towns from the big cities, and those who returned from the villages and towns like the two of them were different.Sometimes it is safer to go upstream.

I took a black train to the city, and got on the train at night.On the berth, Guan Rong and Chen Yuechi slept on the lower berth facing each other, and there was no one on it.There were only the two of them in the semi-enclosed space, Guan Rong had slept through the day, and it was really difficult to fall asleep, so he turned around and found that Chen Yuezhi was looking at him.

"Can't sleep?" he asked.

Chen Yue responded: "I can't sleep."

Guan Rong sat up: "Come here."

Chen Yuechi obediently got out of the bunk and sat next to Guan Rong.

The train was swaying, the sound of clanging clang was always in my ears, and the light flickered on and off.The two sat side by side with their backs against the carriage.

Chen Yuechi said that when he came here, he took the train alone, and there were many people on the train, so he was very lonely.Guan Rong said that loneliness is the norm.Then they all looked sideways out the window.

On the day of returning home, Chen Yuechi went out to buy glue, picked up the couplets that Guan Rong had put aside from the back of the chair, and carried a chair by himself to stick it on both sides of the main entrance.After he finished posting, Guan Rong walked up to him silently, and handed over the word "Fu".

Chen Yuechi was taken aback for a moment, then laughed.

"I'll beat you up again." Guan Rong said angrily, "I'll beat you up if you post it crookedly."

For the next two days, Chen Yuechi and Guan Rong stayed at home most of the time.Often they do not speak, but just sit still.

That wall has never disappeared, even if Chen Yuechi said frankly that it would be painful.

The short streets and alleys near the square all reveal their original appearance, ordinary and deserted.Guan Rong told Chen Yuechi that the streets here would come alive after the fifth day of the lunar new year.Once a year, many people only wash their faces and go home at this time.

In the afternoon of the third day of the new year, the two went back to the bookstore, saw a pot of kumquats at the door of the bookstore, and got some greeting cards in the small mailbox at the door of the bookstore.There are two cards for Chen Yue, and the others are for Guan Rong.

Guan Rong picked out one of the greeting cards, and after reading the contents of the greeting card, he smiled and fiddled with the kumquats: "This girl Ye Rong didn't go home during the Chinese New Year, and she saw me picking kumquats. "

Chen Yuechi was originally reading the greeting card in his hand, but suddenly turned to look at him, with a momentary bewilderment on his face.Guan Rong was a little surprised, he took it for granted that the card was written by his sister, and asked, "What did she write to you?"

"It's just Happy New Year." Chen Yuechi said, quickly shifting the question away, "My neighbor's sister also wrote to me, how does she know that I work here?"

Guan Rong pretended not to notice his strangeness, and joked: "Is that the one you rescued at the fire scene? I thought she had to come to thank her, but she never came. Maybe she saw it sometime ago."

Chen Yue smiled: "Yes."

Guan Rong went to open the door of the bookstore, and from the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of Chen Yuechi putting the card into his pocket, and looked away, pretending not to know.