After finishing the work in the laboratory, it was already one o'clock in the morning when Xu Tangcheng drove home. He yawned, rubbed his eyes that were red with tears, and turned the steering wheel to find a parking space. This is not good in the old community. No one cares about parking. In addition, more and more people buy cars in recent years. The original parking spaces in the yard are not enough. After they all "homed", even both sides of the small road in the community were crowded with cars.
Xu Tangcheng spent a long time trying to move the car into a small empty space, parked the car and got off. He felt like he had taken the second test of the subject and passed it with full marks.
He took a breath, touched his pocket, and thought about smoking a cigarette before going up. In order to be able to go home today, he spent two days in the laboratory, looking at the computer, his head was dazzled, and the smell of tobacco entered his body, and it was relieved a lot.
It was very late. At this time, almost all the windows had been dimmed. The hot and humid summer night seemed to have become a puddle of water, and it flowed warmly into people's hearts. Xu Tangcheng slowly paced towards the house, turning his eyes to the side, and found that even the stray cat who often lingered beside the fitness equipment didn't know where to rest.
He didn't expect to see a person who didn't sleep at this time.
YiZhe squatted on the table in the small flower pond, wearing a black short sleeve and a black baseball cap. In front of him was the black cat with a white stripe on its back. He hunched his back and lowered his head, feeding the cat.
One cat and one person seems to be perfectly adapted to this huge shady scene.
Xu Tangcheng watched the boy gently stroke the cat's head, took a breath, and called out.
"Easy."
YiZhe heard the voice, turned around, and was stunned when he saw the person: "Brother Tang Cheng."
He stood up, stretched his legs and jumped off the platform. The black cat seemed to be frightened, and took two steps back, staring at the two people, one black and one white, with round eyes.
"You just came back?" YiZhe asked.
He didn't move forward, but Xu Tangcheng still caught the two bruises at the corners of his eyes and lips, he frowned and walked towards him.
"Aren't you going to bed so late?" Before Yizhe could answer, Xu Tangcheng squeezed Yizhe's chin with his hand without the cigarette, and glanced at him, "A fight?"
YiZhe dodged for a while, but didn't dodge. He fixed his gaze on the small cigarette butt held by Xu Tangcheng's other hand, pursed his lips, and made an indiscernible "um".
The black cat on the side confirmed that the visitor was harmless from some angle, rubbed back again, and continued to eat the fish and ham sausage with relish.
Taking a closer look like this, Xu Tangcheng found that the wound at the corner of Yi Che's eye was indeed serious, and there were cracked wounds very close to the eyes.
"Have you checked your eyes? You have bleeding from the corners of your eyes."
After Xu Tangcheng finished speaking, he let go of his hand, YiZhe quickly straightened his back, shook his head and said, "No."
Because YiZhe suddenly stood up straight, Xu Tangcheng realized that he hadn't seen YiZhe for a long time.
Looking at it this way, the young man in front of him seemed to have grown a little taller. He looked straight at him and could only see a little above his mouth. His hair has grown too, it's time to cut it, the hat is down, and there are bits of hair covering his eyes.
Xu Tangcheng saw the few hairs that were tied to the wound, and frowned and pushed them away.
YiZhe froze there and suddenly asked, "Why did you come back so late?"
"Well, there is something at school."
Yi Zhe wanted to say, why do you have to come back if you have something to do, how dangerous it is to drive so late.
"When school starts tomorrow, I promised Tang Xi to send her." Xu Tangcheng continued.
Good thing I didn't say it. Thinking like this, YiZhe kicked away the stones under his feet.
The two walked towards the corridor one after the other, passing by the trash can, Xu Tangcheng stopped, finally took a puff of cigarette, and then extinguished it.
When he looked up, he found Yi Che looking at him, his beautiful eyes dipped in the shadow cast by the brim of his hat.
"What's wrong?"
YiZhe shook his head, did not speak, and continued to walk with him.
"You come in with me, even if you don't want to go to the hospital, you have to deal with it simply." Xu Tangcheng raised his hand and nodded his eye, "If it gets infected here, it's very dangerous."
YiZhe's hand just touched his pocket and grabbed the cool key. He looked at the door opposite and shook his head: "No."
"It's okay, they're all asleep."
YiZhe still shook his head.
Xu Tangcheng didn't force it any more, he just said softly, "Then go in and wait for me, and I'll get you some medicine."
YiZhe stood there holding the key, the lights in the corridor went out, and he didn't stomp or make a sound.
"Why don't you go in?" Xu Tangcheng came out with the medicine and asked strangely. After that, he quickly understood: "Aunt Xiang is at home?"
YiZhe nodded.
"Apply the white one first, then the green one," Xu Tangcheng handed the bag in his hand to YiZhe, "I brought you a cotton swab, dipped it in the mirror, and be careful not to get it in your eyes."
"Yeah," YiZhe took it, grabbed the bag and said after two seconds, "Thank you Tang Cheng."
Xu Tangcheng looked at the person in front of him with his head slightly lowered, his lips moved, but he didn't say anything.
Sometimes he would feel in a trance that YiZhe seemed to be frozen in that summer, everyone else was coming and going, stained with all kinds of dust and light, but he was the only one who kept his head down in silence forever, as if with everyone else. It doesn't matter.
Early in the morning, Xu Tangcheng pressed the alarm clock off with just one sound. He lifted the quilt and got out of bed, kicked his slippers and started to wash and make breakfast. When he came out with his breakfast, he saw that Xu Tangxi had been dressed neatly, sitting obediently at the dining table and waiting.
"Brother, you're back!" Xu Tangxi laughed until his eyes were bent, "What time did you arrive?"
"It's eleven o'clock."
Xu Tangxi likes to eat omelettes, especially the ones with a little bit of soft heart. Xu Tangcheng felt that the temperature of the fried egg was just right today, so when Xu Tangxi picked up his chopsticks and reached for the fried egg, he rarely ordered her to eat another egg before eating the egg.
Xu Tangxi was satisfied, and even the movement of opening the door was brisk. But when the door was opened, the two of them heard a sharp female voice. The door on the opposite side was wide open, and the distance between the two doors allowed Xu Tangcheng to clearly see the poor living room of YiZhe's house—clothes were thrown everywhere, and even the sofa cushions flew miserably to the ground.
"Fucking looking for the keys again, are you feeding the pigs with your brain? What a shit in the morning."
Xu Tangcheng could only hear voices, but could not see people. He carried Xu Tangxi's schoolbag, touched her shoulder, and motioned her to continue down. After a few steps, Xu Tangxi stopped and looked back.
"Come on, you're going to be late."
Xu Tangxi sighed and took the next step: "Aunt Xiang is scolding Brother Yizhe again."
The Xu Tangcheng family and the Yizhe family were opposite each other, but unfortunately, they did not have the kind of close and harmonious neighbor relationship with the Yizhe family. To be more precise, in this six-story residential building with mottled walls, everyone's relationship is OK, except for the Yizhe family - not because of anything else, just because Yizhe has a very mean and provocative speech. My mother, offended every household over and over again. Xu Tangcheng's mother completely hated her because of her saying "a little sick seedling who is about to die early".
YiZhe never entered his house again, let alone another house.
Xu Tangxi has always wondered why Aunt Xiang is so beautiful, but a forty-year-old person does not look old at all. It is obviously such an enviable congenital condition, why she has to speak so harshly.
"You fought again?"
"You can't hold a fart for a long time, you have the same virtue as your dead father, and you have a poor face."
Hearing this, Xu Tangcheng stopped and looked up across the railing of the stairs. Because he had already turned down the stairs, he could only see a narrow crack in the door.
"Brother?" Seeing that he hadn't come down, Xu Tangxi stood at the entrance of the corridor and called to him.
The door upstairs was suddenly slammed shut, and there was no woman singing a one-man show.
This is Xu Tangxi's first day in high school. Before she got off the bus, Xu Tangcheng was still worried, took her arm and said, "Just starting school, if you want to clean up, you need to..."
"I'm going to explain the situation to the teacher. If you feel uncomfortable, please contact you or your parents. Don't be brave, go home and rest." My brother, you and your mother have said it eight hundred times, are you exaggerating?"
"That's why I said, let me explain to your teacher directly, so as not to be inconsiderate in the future."
"No," Xu Tangxi simply refused, "I can do it myself."
Xu Tangcheng nodded, released his hand, and finally asked, "Did you bring the spray?"
"Bring it." Xu Tangxi nodded.
"Then be careful."
Xu Tangxi agreed with a smile, and when he closed the door, he made a face at him and waved his hand in a good mood.
Xu Tangcheng watched her enter the school before turning around and going back. Driving to the gate of the community, in the distance, I happened to see Yirut riding a red mountain bike.
The boy put on his school uniform, took off his hat, and put on the earphones that never left his ears. He rode the car very fast. When turning the corner, both the person and the car were inclined, making a beautiful arc, and the earphone cable made a circle and a ray of sunshine.
Xu Tangcheng blinked when he passed him. He looked at the yellow stripes on the school uniform and thought, "It's already the third year of high school."