three feet away

"It's not bad. I'm pretty good at finding a place. The house is in a good location and the lighting is good. It's a little small, but at least it's complete."

The promised new home is in a white-collar apartment in the city center just two blocks from the office building where she will be working.The houses in the community are generally small, most of them are one-bedrooms, and most of the residents are single or unmarried white-collar workers who work nearby. The environment is very good and clean.Before returning to China, she entrusted an intermediary to search for several places, and finally fell in love with this place.After returning to China, I simply decorated and organized it according to my own ideas, and it was very comfortable to live in.

The house is small and designed as a duplex. The downstairs is an ordinary living room, kitchen and bathroom. The upstairs is an open bedroom. A small bed is placed under the floor-to-ceiling windows. white lacquered glass round table, on both sides of the table, there is a simple wooden chair of the same color, and on the table, there is a small potted aloe vera plant. Although the potted plant is small, the plant grows very well. The leaflets are abnormally thick, and it looks like it has been carefully cared for.The floor-to-ceiling windows are hung with light and dark curtains. When the two layers of curtains are pulled up, it can prevent a ray of light from passing through, and when the dark shade curtains are opened, the bed can be filled with sunlight.From the hanging ladder upstairs to the position opposite the end of the bed, she customized a row of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves up to the roof, on which were placed various types of books she had scoured from different second-hand bookstores over the years, astronomy and geography, are involved.Next to the bookshelf is a foldable ladder. This open room is her bedroom as well as her study.

After Xu Nuo opened the door and she came in, Zhang Qing carefully observed Xu Nuo's small house without leaving any corners.When he came down from the second floor, Zhang Qing rubbed his hands and sighed: "Why did you find such a good house as soon as you came back from a foreign country?"

Xu Nuo raised his eyebrows, but did not answer.She smiled and handed Zhang Qing the drink she had just taken out of the refrigerator, and she herself took a sip of warm water from the glass water storage tank on the coffee table, then lazily nestled in a corner of the sofa, letting her hair grow freely The clothes are draped over her shoulders, her right hand rests on the soft armrest of the sofa, and the sleeves of the slightly loose white shirt in European and American style are rolled up to the elbows, exposing her fair arm skin. The octagonal glass, through the glass and water, each nail is properly trimmed, and the nail beds of the fingers reveal a healthy and natural rosy color. She is wearing casual cropped shorts, and the sandals on her feet are just The edges and toes were hanging in mid-air, precarious, but she didn't care at all. After moving her eyes away from Zhang Qing's face, she landed on the glass of water in her hand without blinking. She just looked at the swaying shadow, the corners of her lips were slightly raised, she didn't know what she was thinking about.

Zhang Qing looked at Xu Nuo, who was lying motionless on the sofa as if she had melted into the sun after completing this series of simple actions, and suddenly felt that she was very different from her before going abroad. The promise before going abroad was always Her aura of indifference makes people unable to approach her, but now, her whole body exudes a feeling of tranquility, which makes people feel comfortable.

Squinting her eyes, Zhang Qing asked her with tut: "Hey, I said, isn't our life in France very pleasant? The soil and water in France also support people, right? I'll see how you become so feminine after you come back. smell?"

Xu Nuo listened to Zhang Qing's words, and the smile on her lips widened a little. She leaned over and put the water glass on the coffee table, stood up and faced Zhang Qing who was nestled in the other corner of the sofa: "It's just that I have nothing to do when I'm out alone. I read books all the time, and my temper has become more dull."

Zhang Qing unscrewed the drink and took a sip, squinted his eyes and said with a smirk disapprovingly: "I didn't know that reading can make people dull. I think you were trained by the young ladies in France."

Xu Nuo smiled, turned around and walked towards the kitchen and said, "You can't say anything good from your mouth. How about a steak?"

"I don't care, but..." Following Xu Nuo, he walked to the kitchen, leaning against the stove in the open kitchen, Zhang Qing reached out and took a look at an opened bag of toast, and threw it back casually, "You After eating Western food for four years, are you still not tired?"

Xu Nuo pursed his lips, and his eyes fell on the slowly melting butter in the pan in front of him. After thinking for a moment, he raised his head and asked, "Where's Xiao Huang? Why didn't you come with you?"

"Her?" Zhang Qing shrugged: "She works in the radio station, the show is popular, so why is she busy? Now I am alone."

"That's because your work unit is good. How many people do you think can be successfully admitted to the foreign affairs department? You are very good."

"What's the matter, let's do it like that. I receive a meager salary every month, live a life of starvation, and waste time."

Zhang Qing smiled with a smile on his face.

Xu Nuo looked at her and smiled, and she laughed too. She turned the steak in the pot, listened to the sound of crackling in the pot, put her hand on the stove, and said in silence for a moment, "Time is so fast, four years ago."

"Yeah." Taking a tomato from the stove and rubbing it in the palm of his hand, Zhang Qing took a big bite of the bright red fruit and satiated with the sweet and sour juice and said, "At the beginning when you went out three, just You have a good future, and you don’t come back until you finish graduate school. I heard a few days ago that someone who came back two years ago is now doing well in a foreign company.”

"Really?" Sprinkled black pepper on the steak, put it on a plate, and promised to walk back to the small living room with two plates: "That's pretty good."

"What about you? What do you do here?"

"Currently, I have signed an contract with an outsourcing company, mainly doing document translation. The working hours given by the company are relatively free, and I don't need to sit at a desk."

"So good?" Zhang Qing became interested when he heard this, and followed Xu Nuo to go back to the sofa and sit down: "It seems that the past few years have not been in vain, and I have such a good offer as soon as I come back."

Xu Nuo cut a small piece of steak and put it in his mouth, chewed slowly and thought for a while before answering: "Well, because the cost of raising a translator is too high, so these years, generally small-scale foreign trade companies generally prefer to find outsourced translators .And my current company mainly does foreign language translation. What they need is not a highly educated person, but a more professional French translator. When I was in France, I would occasionally submit translations to some domestic magazines, and It just so happens that my postgraduate major is business line... that's it."

Xu Nuo's explanation sounds simple and easy to do, but as a classmate, Zhang Qing naturally understands how much effort she needs to put in for her calm and breezy words. After four years abroad, the person in front of him has completely put away his body. Indifferent and sharp thorns, life has made her as gentle as jade, although they have always been good friends, she never thought that the promise needed to change anything, but when she came back, they sat under the same roof again , she found that getting along with the promise has become a very pleasant thing.

"what time to start work?"

"tomorrow."

"So fast?"

"Well, I was supposed to join the job next month. I received a call from the company the day before yesterday, saying that another French translator had recently taken an annual leave due to family affairs. A foreign trade company happened to have documents to send to the translator, and asked me if I could come a week earlier. Go to work to take over this matter and negotiate with the other supervisor. I think I have nothing important anyway, so I agreed."

"Oh." Zhang Qing nodded, put the last piece of steak into his mouth, chewed and swallowed it, spread it on the back of the sofa, rubbed his stomach and murmured, "Our Chinese braised pork ribs are still delicious."

"Hey, that's right." Zhang Qing turned his head and looked at Xu Nuo's side face: "You haven't eaten the food cooked by Xiao Huang, have you? When you rest next week, you come to my house for dinner? Our Xiao Huang's cooking skills , that's amazing, especially the bowl of roasted pork ribs with potatoes, it's really amazing."

Xu Nuo got up to pack the dinner plate, looked at Zhang Qing with a bright smile on his face, and said with a smile on his face: "Well, good."

Potato roasted pork ribs, in her memory, had a slightly burnt bitter taste...

Early the next morning, after promising to go to the company to report, he got the address of the coffee shop that he had agreed with the other company in advance from the general affairs secretary, and then he took a car to go there.

The weather in Chengdu in October has turned cold, but the sun rarely rose that day, and the sun fell on her through the car window, reflecting a dazzling halo on her white shirt.

Xu Nuo lowered her head and pulled the corner of the shirt, then glanced sideways at the briefcase beside her, her slender fingers gently pressing on the bag, tapping the unknown rhythm with her fingertips again and again, she will The right elbow rests on the car window, the fingertips are curled up against the temple, and the gaze falls on the buildings or street decorations that are moving back quickly or slowly outside the car window, and the mood is abnormally calm. , This city seems to have changed a lot, and it seems that nothing has changed.

The taxi stopped outside the square where the coffee shop was located, promised to pay and get off, stood on the street and glanced around the small square, and finally fixed his eyes on the open-air third-floor balcony of the square, which is an open-air cafe .

She went down to the third floor under the leadership of the waiter on the first floor. It was not yet eleven o'clock in the morning. There were not many people in the coffee shop. As soon as she entered the balcony, Xu Nuo saw a man in a professional suit sitting on a seat near the fence. female office worker.And the other party also found her, she looked left and right to make sure there was no one else who was more similar, she walked towards the table, and the woman sitting in front of the table also stood up, moved away from the seat, He nodded at her with a professional smile.

"Hello, I am Xu Nuo from Yiyun Company. Sorry to keep you waiting."

"It's okay, we just arrived, hello, I'm Yangliu from Chuangjia Biotechnology Company."

The other party stretched out his hand, promising to shake her briefly: "Biotechnology?"

"Yes, you don't know? We have been cooperating with your company in this area before."

"Oh. I just returned to China, so I don't know much about the company's previous business. This time, my colleague is busy, so I will be the interpreter."

"Well, the director of your company mentioned this before." Yang Liu nodded, and asked the waiter to order coffee for Xu Nuo: "I heard that Ms. Xu is one of the top ten high-achieving students in France?"

Xu Nuo smiled decently: "You've said it."

Putting the briefcase behind him, when turning sideways, Xu Nuo saw the briefcase on the other seat beside him, and asked, "So, can I have a look at the basic paperwork first?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, my supervisor just went to the bathroom one minute before you came. I'm her secretary, please wait a moment."

Xu Nuo nodded, sat in the seat and did not speak again, it turned out that this person in front of her was not the person she was going to meet today.

After the two of them exchanged a few words about the domestic and foreign climate and spent a few minutes, Xu Nuo heard the sound of high-heeled shoes hitting the ground from far to near in the soft music.She instinctively wanted to turn around, but she heard a gentle female voice that was so familiar that it almost made her scalp explode:

"Sorry for the long wait."

The hands on the armrests of the seat were suddenly grasped, and Xu Nuo sat there with his back stiff and straight, motionless.

She wondered if she had heard it wrong, that sentence, that voice, was so similar to the voice in her memory six years ago, as if she thought for a moment that she had entered her world again, and her heart became flustered at the same moment, She knew it wasn't her, but she still couldn't stabilize her heartbeat. She could only take a deep breath quietly before the other party returned to her seat, so as not to leave a bad impression on the other party and affect her work.

Yang Liu stood up, smiled and said to the person behind Xu Nuo, "Director, the new French translator from Yiyun has arrived, and it's Miss Xu."

The sound of high heels stopped in my ears, and there was no movement for a long time.Xu Nuo knew that the other party had come behind her, so she took a deep breath and let it out slowly, stood up, turned sideways, and faced behind with a professional and polite smile: "Hello, I'm from Yiyun Company... Promise, in the future, please take care of me..."

Xu Nuo didn't know if he should praise himself for being calm enough. In such a situation, he still insisted on speaking those official words and introducing himself generously.She felt that her heart stopped beating for a long time when she turned around and saw the person in front of her. How long has it been, she can't seem to remember, how long has she not seen her...

Yan Ruyi stood in front of Xu Nuo, and she recognized her side face and her back before Xu Nuo got up. What she couldn't believe was that the child who was once so immature was just like this, with such a mature and stable appearance Standing in front of her, she saw the flash of pain in Xu Nuo's eyes, and also saw her stubbornness and excellence.

"Hi, I'm Yan Ruyi."

When the two hands were held together, Xu Nuo felt the cold temperature of Yan Ruyi's palm and her slightly trembling movements. Inexplicably, she felt the pain in her chest as if the air in a punctured hydrogen balloon was suddenly released. All that was left was the feeling of being relieved and perverted... She quickly put a natural smile on her face, shook Yan Ruyi's hand tightly, and when she was about to shake her hand back, she twitched hands away.

"Then, Director Yan, please, I want to see the product information."