play house

"Brother Chu? Why did Brother Chu disappear?"

"It must have gone downstairs, hurry up!"

There was a sound of noisy footsteps on the long corridor separated by a wall, and it was not until he heard them escorting Li Xiaogui downstairs that Shen Yichi let go of Chu Xian who fell into his arms.

"You won't take me down?"

Chu Xian simply propped up his hands and sat on the floor.

This room is different from other dormitories. The outside is designed as a secret door integrated with the wall. It used to be used as a storage warehouse. By his side, Chu Xian might be unable to move again.

"They're too noisy, stay alone with you."

Shen Yichi and Chu Xian sat on the ground side by side with their shoulders touching the wall. There was only one wide exhaust window on the wall, which barely exposed the light source. After being deprived of vision, the senses of touch and smell would become particularly sharp.

"It's quite rare,"

Chu Xian chuckled lightly,

"Didn't you always want to invite me to watch the light show? I heard from your boss that you will be too busy to get away on weekends because of the good business, so I asked my dad's secretary to make an exception to turn off the light panels outside the building on Monday. Open it, it just so happens that Monday is the evening English self-study, it doesn't matter if I skip it once..."

"Your family education should be very strict. If your father finds out that you skipped class just to go to see Jiangjing with me, he will be scolded."

Shen Yichi interrupted Chu Xian. He knew that this was Chu Xian's concession, but the more patient Chu Xian was with him, the more he would hate his own incompetence.

"Shen Yichi, are you angry with me?"

Chu Xian was silent for a while, and when he spoke again, his tone was still flat, but he could hear a bit of grievance not to be outdone,

"Are you blaming me for not replying to your messages, or for not going to see you play?"

"You think too much……"

"Where did you go that day?"

Chu Xian's hand rested on Shen Yichi's fingers calmly, "What happened, you didn't tell me anything, how should I understand you?"

"..."

Shen Yichi closed his eyes tightly, at that moment he was a little shaken, he also thought maybe he should tell Chu Xian everything truthfully, after hesitating for a moment, Shen Yichi tentatively said,

"Before the game that day, I met a few elementary school students on the court. They wanted me to teach them the three-step layup, but it was too hot, and a child suffered from heat stroke. I sent him to the hospital and missed the game. That child also I'm going to elementary school soon, maybe I'll be a classmate with your sister."

In the pitch darkness, Shen Yichi couldn't see Chu Xian's expression, but he could clearly feel the body of the person beside him froze suddenly.

"My sister, she won't go to primary school anymore."

Chu Xian's fingertips covering the back of Shen Yichi's hand felt cold, just like his trembling voice,

"She had an accident, and my mother was insane because of it, and my father sent her to a nursing home. So I didn't have the energy to look for you during the summer vacation... I thought it would be all right when I started school."

Chu Xian tried his best to restrain the fragile emotions in his heart, so he failed to realize that Shen Yichi's tone sounded more heartbroken than his.

"sorry."

Shen Yichi murmured softly, not only Chu Yi, he also killed Chu Xian's mother.

"What are you and I sorry for? Know that it's time to reform and start a new life?"

Chu Xian quickly calmed down, but he didn't know that at an inadvertent moment before, Shen Yichi had already made a decision that would change the two of them for the next ten years.

Shen Yichi chose the method he thought would best protect Chu Xian at that time. He didn't want Chu Xian to be embarrassed, and he didn't dare to make a big gamble, so he would rather be despised by Chu Xian than hated by Chu Xian.

"what do you mean?"

Shen Yichi asked back with a trembling voice, if the windows in the warehouse were bigger and the moonlight was brighter, Chu Xian might be able to see his bloodless mouth and dull eyes.

Unfortunately not.

"Like, how are you getting along with your new friends?"

Chu Xian rested his chin on his knees, Shen Yichi knew that he was asking the two waiters in the light bar, and sure enough Chu Xian was still brooding over Xiao Jin's provocation.

"They are colleagues, not friends."

"What about those gangsters who smoke, drink and do nothing all day long, and enjoy blackmailing? You are very popular. It's fine to skip classes and work. Now you even participate in group fights. Shen Yichi, have you delayed your rebellious period?"

Chu Xian questioned in a cold voice, it seemed that he had been paying attention to Shen Yichi's whereabouts.

"It's none of your business."

"Why is it irrelevant? Do you have to live in a way I don't like?"

"Chu Xian, I'm short of money."

Shen Yichi was finally forced to reveal his embarrassment.

Before she became an adult, the insurance money left by Ye Mei was still frozen. Most of the relatives in the family listened to Shen Su's crying complaints, thinking that the reason for Ye Mei's jumping off the building was the quarrel with Shen Yichi, so they didn't want to see him anymore. The mistress took her son to move. After entering their home, he was even more ruthless and cruel. At first, he just deducted his living expenses, until Shen Yichi found out that they had replaced the medicine his grandma used to treat illnesses, and replaced the expensive special medicine with ordinary medicine. Every day is consumed to death.

"what?"

Chu Xian was stunned for a moment. Although Shen Yichi's family background was not as prominent as the Chu family's, it was worthy of the word "superior". Even compared to the Chu family's business, Shen Yichi's family's income was more stable. How could it suddenly be "short of money"?

Chu Xian, who was unaware of the Shen family's changes, ruled out all kinds of possibilities in his mind.

"You and your parents...are in conflict?"

Recalling the phone call that Shen Yichi hung up before, Chu Xian came to a conclusion with a complicated expression.

"...That's right."

Shen Yichi couldn't find any other explanation, so he simply followed Chu Xian's guess, but as soon as Shen Su was mentioned, he felt like a nest of bats in his heart, and those bats kept vibrating their wings, disturbing him .

"I used to have conflicts with my dad, but once you hit the south wall, you will understand that it is no good to fight them until the wings are completely hardened,"

Chu Xian has always been able to see things clearly and understand them, but such things as accumulating hard work and trying hard work are too rational, and they are not applicable to the feud between Shen Yichi and Shen Su, who killed his mother.

"Stop rebelling against them in such a stupid way of ruining yourself. This is not the time for you to show your strength. Before you are completely ruined, it is wise to make a compromise for the time being."

Chu Xian hates showing weakness, but he doesn't dislike compromise. Under Chu Xinglin's almost abusive education method, he is well versed in the way of survival by retreating.

"I can't compromise with him."

Shen Yichi knew nothing about the abuse Chu Xian had suffered, so he couldn't feel the pain in Chu Xian's words. Chu Xian's reassurance only reminded him of his helplessness when facing Shen Su's murder of Ye Mei that day. , If he could have made a more comprehensive response to collect evidence, if he could hear the uneasiness and retention in Ye Mei's words that day, if he hadn't insisted on going out to play that day, wouldn't his mother not have died...

"Brother Shen, Brother Chu, are you two hiding inside? You two are the only ones missing, are you going to go back?"

Li Xiaofan followed their voices to find upstairs, and before knocking on the door a few times, he heard Shen Yichi's gloomy voice from inside:

"You go back first."

"Ah? Okay, then you two pay attention to safety."

Li Xiaofan was very self-aware and stopped disturbing him. After hearing him go away, Chu Xian spoke again,

"But what qualifications do you have to not compromise now?"

"I don't want to be a coward anymore."

"Shen Yichi, do you think I'm trying to persuade you to be a coward? See for yourself what you look like now, don't you call yourself weak if you have to completely destroy yourself?"

Chu Xian's emotions were also rarely agitated, his sense of powerlessness when facing Chu Xinglin was like a backlash, and Shen Yichi's unintentional words poked heartily at his sore spots.

"I just didn't live according to your idea."

"What did you say?"

Suddenly being yelled by Shen Yichi, Chu Xian was startled suddenly.

"Chu Xian, I don't think I'm wasting myself like this now. If you don't like it, it only means that we are not suitable."

"What do you mean by inappropriate?"

"It means don't discipline me anymore, we don't have such an intimate relationship."

That night, I don't know whose pheromones affected who. The mood of manic depression and anxiety was mixed in the heavy smell of dust, which made people become impulsive and reckless, and became speechless.

"Calm down, everyone, Chu Xian."

After saying that, Shen Yichi got up and wanted to leave, he just wanted to escape before he couldn't bear it, but he didn't know that from Chu Xian's point of view, his every move at the moment carried an attitude of disgust.

"You don't go,"

Chu Xian grabbed the corner of Shen Yichi's clothes, "I don't mean to discipline you,"

"You're chasing me right now."

Shen Yichi lightly brushed away Chu Xian's fingers holding onto his clothes, not giving Chu Xian another chance to catch him, and slammed into the secret door of the warehouse heavily.

"Don't go, Shen Yichi...Shen Yichi...!"

Chu Xian wanted to follow him out, but in his panic, he didn't see the broken wooden floor under his feet. He tripped and fell to the ground with a creak, and failed to catch the last trace of the rain that belonged to Shen Yichi in the air.

Chu Xian was suddenly surrounded by unfamiliar anxiety and fear in the confined space without deep thoughts. The airtight oppression was like a huge octopus in the deep sea, coiling heavily around Chu Xian's limbs.

Breathing became heavier, and cold sweat dripped on the floor. This place was more difficult for Chu Xian than the small black room. At least he was familiar with the furnishings in the small black room, but this place was even more cramped, so that Chu Xian even wiped off the sawdust on his palms. He didn't even dare to get any bloodstains, so he could only curl up in place with his eyes tightly closed, like a fish thrown on a rocky bank to be exposed to the sun.

Shen Yichi smoked a cigarette in the bushes next to the school building before leaving. Chu Xian's immobility during the test of courage made him think that Chu Xian really wouldn't be afraid, but he didn't know that the reason why Chu Xian wasn't afraid was because he was by his side.

That night the mountain wind howled, the wilderness was bitter, and the moon was covered by the lush leaves in late summer. Shen Yichi's desperation and Chu Xian's self-righteousness were all blown into sharp fragments by the cool night wind, stabbing at the end of the memory and constantly giving birth to stinging pain.

At the end of midsummer, one of them fled and the other was defeated.

In the early morning of the next day, when Mo Yang, who was in the same tent with Chu Xian, ran to knock on Shen Yichi's tent in his class, Shen Yichi found out that Chu Xian hadn't come back all night.

"What did you say?"

He held on to Mo Yang's collar tightly, the bruise in front of his eyes was like a pool of dull pain, tired and irritable, Mo Yang was quite frightened by his appearance, and stammered,

"Yeah, he just didn't come back... His sleeping bag hasn't even been moved. I thought you two were the last to stay in the school building last night. I just wanted to ask you. I thought Brother Chu was sleeping with you... "

"..."

Shen Yichi suddenly let go of Mo Yang, and ran up the back hill in a panic, but he bumped into Chu Xian face to face before he ran two steps.

"You're fine..."

Shen Yichi didn't have time to express his complete concern, but was choked into his throat by Chu Xian's cold look when he looked up at him. He was very familiar with that look, it was Chu Xian's habitual indifference when looking at other people.

Facing Shen Yichi's scrutiny, Chu Xian quietly put his blood-covered hands into his pockets, and he slowly and calmly brushed Shen Yichi's shoulder and walked back to the camp, and got into the tent silently.

No one knew exactly what Chu Xian experienced on the mountain, and no one dared to ask.

Later, Chu Xian took a week off and didn't go to class. He said that he had a fever and swelling caused by pollen allergy while camping. In fact, it was because he had nightmares every night, so he had to receive psychological treatment, but the effect of the treatment was not significant. In the end, two walls of Chu Xian's room were smashed and replaced with large floor-to-ceiling windows, so he was finally able to barely sleep at night.

After that, Chu Xian never looked at Shen Yichi again, he was still the perfect God of Chu, and no one could take away his top spot, so he was admitted to the Capital University in a calm manner.

But Shen Yichi gradually became unknown. He was quite popular in the night life of feasting and feasting, but he did nothing in the supposedly lively campus life.

After the college entrance examination ended in June of that year, Shen Yichi disappeared into the sea of ​​people in a mediocre manner, and quietly took away Chu Xian's every summer after that.