Future driving recorder

"Mocha—"

When such a drawn-out shout sounded in his ears, Qi He thought he was hallucinating, until the same voice appeared for the second time, he opened the courtyard door in surprise, and was sure that Lu Ning had really come.

At this time, it has been one and a half months since they met last time. During this period, Qi He and Lu Jingming have not sent messages. They wanted to try to do something for Lu Ning and Jiang Heng, but they all ended up being declined politely. There was nothing else to do. Watching the passage of time.

But now, forty or fifty days later, Lu Ning finally appeared at the gate of the yard again. Although he lost a lot of weight, he was smiling and seemed to have regained his vitality.

"Mocha is sleeping." Qi He suppressed the worries in his heart, turned to invite him in, and said with a smile, "Your brother is not here today, he said he has a temporary meeting."

"Ah?" Lu Ning was a little disappointed when he heard the words, sighed and shook the paper bag in his hand, "I still want to force him to make some puddings for me..."

It seems that his condition is really fine.Qi He smiled: "How about I make it for you?"

"...No, no more."

As if sensing the arrival of a guest, Mocha lying on the carpet flicked his tail as a greeting. Lu Ning carefully reached out to touch its tail hairs, and quickly shrank back to scare himself.

Qi He brought tea and snacks, followed Lu Ning's topic and introduced a few souvenirs on the locker. Finally, he couldn't change the topic, so he tentatively asked him:

"What have you been up to lately?"

"A lot of things." Unexpectedly, without any hesitation, Lu Ning sighed exaggeratedly, "Isn't it the website's new star incentives last month, so I got involved again, but I didn't get a ticket, so I just Go out and find a job."

His tone was relaxed, but there was a lot of information in his words. Qi He was a little dazed, and before he could react, he was asked:

"What about you? Are you still working for my brother recently?"

"...Well." Qi He nodded and said, "But they don't seem to be short of manpower recently. I am preparing for the language certificate exam, and I plan to find some jobs where I can work from home and have more free time."

Although AI translation has become popular at present, translation work in certain fields such as art still prefers to hire real people, and the commission is expensive due to high standards.

"That's great." Lu Ning swallowed his snack, blinked suggestively and said, "Your lifestyle is just right for two people to raise children together."

"I haven't thought about it yet." Qi He shook his head with a smile, and changed the subject, "—You just said that you are looking for a job?"

"Yeah. I joined someone else's team and became a professional editor." Lu Ning paused, then smiled, "The workplace is on the other side of the sea, and I have to report tomorrow...we can only see you during the Chinese New Year. "

Qi He was stunned by this unexpected news for several seconds.

I thought that there was hope for everything to get back on track, and that there was a chance to repair the previous shortcomings, but I didn't expect to meet after a long time, and it was actually to say goodbye.

But compared to his own sense of loss, there are more things he cares about... Qi He looked at Lu Ning, and asked slowly:

"You and him, is this really the end?"

Lu Ning blinked quickly, and the barely supported arc of the corner of his mouth flattened little by little.This is just a general interrogative sentence, but his expression seems to be facing the biggest problem in the world. He lowers his head and raises his head, opens and closes his mouth, finally bit his lips helplessly, sighed, and replied:

"No idea."

"I actually still, like him very much. But... every time I think of him, it hurts me."

The boy who gave the impression of simply jumping out of a small dog rarely showed such an expression.Whether it's a tone that is as damp as after a thunderstorm but can't hold back tears, or the hair that has been dyed back to black as if it has lost the sunshine, it all gives Qi He an absurd and powerless feeling called "strangeness".

Lu Ning's gaze was light, weightless, and fixed. Qi He didn't know if he was looking at himself, or at the "Endless Summer" hanging to the ground in the yard behind him. .

"This kind of pain has nothing to do with him. It's because I unknowingly tied all my frustrations, doubts and low self-esteem to him."

He raised the corners of his mouth with a half-smile, his tone full of self-deprecation.

"He's not wrong, it's just that I can't face myself who is slowly getting worse in front of him."

"In the end, blame me for being so useless." Lu Ning said, "If I were good enough, none of this would have happened."

"..."

The smug years that belonged to the dream chaser ended with such a plain and pale sentence, and it came to a complete end.

The person who once thought that he had unlimited energy and could continue to pursue bluffingly, after gritting his teeth countless times and refusing to say goodbye, finally pulled the curtain of leaving with his own hands, just like summer belonging to endless summer, no matter how long it lasts, after all will be exhausted.

It's just a fragile flower after all...

Not the ideal miracle.

For empathy-struggled people, witnessing efforts by someone who finally gives up can be as painful as experiencing setbacks themselves.

Qi He only felt his heart throbbing. He couldn't say "Come on", and couldn't bear to say "Work hard". Finally, he could only grasp the slightest bit of reluctance to persuade him in a low voice:

"No one is born good."

Lu Ning smiled.

"Aren't you the one?" He looked at Qi He, blinked livelyly and said, "I've heard your story—it's amazing, if only I were one-tenth as good as you."

After being mentioned to his forgotten past after a long absence, Qi He's breathing stagnates under such circumstances.

not like this.He almost reflexively wanted to deny it, but exactly why "it wasn't so" he couldn't say.

This kind of embarrassing situation is no stranger to him. He would feel such an indescribable sense of emptiness from time to time when he tried to give up remembering and focus on the present.

There is no nostalgic story, and there is no past to recall. The slightest accumulation of regrets mixed with the disappointment that cannot comfort Lu Ning makes Qi He feel full of loss, like a stick in his throat.

Lu Ning, who didn't get a response, smiled to himself for a while, and then slowly fell silent.

The iced tea has returned to normal temperature, and lines of water are drawn on the outer edge of the glass, like tears shed for someone.

"I worked really hard."

He stared at the cup, and suddenly muttered to himself: "I really worked hard."

"Where did you not do it right? Or was it wrong from the beginning?"

"The more you fail, the more disappointed you become, and the more you fail, the more you fail."

"I'm sorry, life is really too difficult, I can only escape temporarily, otherwise..."

He lowered his head and buried it deeply between his knees, as if he was explaining to Qi He, and also as if he was convincing himself.

"I'm so afraid that the enthusiasm in my heart will suddenly go out."

The water droplets on the wall of the cup seemed to have magical powers, making the emotions that were originally decided to be sealed in the chest ooze out one after another.That afternoon Lu Ning talked a lot intermittently, and Qi He sat beside him and watched him, sharing the shaking and pain that went straight to his heart, until he couldn't tell whose emotions it was.

It took Lu Ning an afternoon to calm down. After he left, Qi He accidentally found out the map from the Future, and instead of opening it, he held it in his hand, silently staring blankly.

It wasn't until there was some movement behind him that he subconsciously hid the map with his backhand as if he had just woken up from a dream, and turned to look at Lu Jingming who entered the door.

"Isn't it hot outside? I'll get you some herbal tea—" Qi He said, he wanted to go to the kitchen, but he accidentally noticed something, and stopped belatedly, "...what is that? ?”

Lu Jingming put the piece of paper on the table, forced a smile, and said, "Handwritten letter of resignation."

"..." Qi He stood there for a while, then walked slowly to pick up the piece of paper, and recognized the signature without any effort.

It was the colleague who was allergic to cat fur.

"The lady who failed to win me over dug out another company with a similar positioning, threw a lot of advertisements at them, and also dug up a lot of talents."

Lu Jingming looked at the piece of paper in Qi He's hand, without any special expression on his face.

"When he handed this over, he said that I could scold him all I wanted... I really wanted to lose my temper with him, but he cried like that first, using his family's life as an example—"

Qi He looked at him quietly, Lu Jingming paused, defeated, and admitted: "Well, even if he doesn't say that, I can't say anything harsh."

"...Thinking of how I have come from the beginning step by step to the present, how can I speak ill to them."

The hydrangea named Endless Summer should be the last crop.

When he and Lu Jingming were leaning against each other in front of the porch, quietly watching the front yard, Qi He had a rare whimsy, thinking that if time itself could be used as a souvenir, and the world at this moment could be stored in a jar forever, it would be wonderful. how nice.

Unfortunately not.

A week later, the veterinarian came to check on Mocha's increasing lethargy.

"Excuse me, what's the problem?" Qi He asked anxiously.

Doctors who have long been in charge of Mocha's health issues were not immediately available for an answer.

"...Is it not good?" Lu Jingming lowered his voice, "Please, no matter how much it costs, we are willing to treat it."

"It's not about illness, nor about money." Amidst Mocha's slightly turbid breathing, the doctor looked at them in embarrassment, and said with regret:

"It's just about time."

The author says:

It has been more than three years since the beginning of the chapter, and Lu Xiaogou has changed from a dreamer to a dreamsupporter (good second), and Mocha will become an angel cat.