When it comes to violin alone, Xie Lan has never been inferior to anyone.
"I'm a pretty good pianist." He frowned and looked at Dou Sheng, "Is it impossible for me to get to know your friend?"
"No." Dou Sheng shook his head decisively, "I keep it for myself, and I won't share it with you."
Xie Lan curled her lips, "You don't share your food with me, and now you're even keeping it for yourself among your friends."
"I've always shared the food with you. You've already got a lot of privileges." Dou Sheng put his phone in his pocket. "Alright, let's talk about the principle, let's talk about fighting."
"… "
Xie Lan felt that Dou Sheng had a lot of strange little requirements. He would not share food, kept it hidden from friends, put a label on his camera not to let anyone touch it, and treated a few sycamore leaves as treasures, only giving one to someone with reluctance if he or she had a nightmare.
According to this calculation, he should be quite stingy, but he is very generous. For example, he accepted him, the "second cat" who fell from the sky, and took him with him everywhere.
It’s like this person has drawn a small circle in his life. No one can touch the things in the small circle, but as for the things outside the circle, you can pick them as you like.
After waiting for a long time, Yu Fei finally came out holding the cat.
He looked unhappy, and said at the door of the clinic, "You two should come and listen too."
The doctor looked at the test results and said, "It's uterine pyometra, and surgery is necessary. It can't crowd other organs."
"But she can't have surgery." Yu Fei frowned and said, "She went into shock after anesthesia here."
Dou Sheng added solemnly, "Last year, I brought her here for sterilization. She had an accident after the first injection of anesthesia. After she was rescued, the surgery was not completed. Otherwise, she wouldn't have been able to give birth to cubs continuously until she developed uterine pyometra."
The consulting room was quite quiet, with only the sound of the doctor checking the computer and occasionally clicking the mouse. The cat lay beside Dou Sheng's hand with her eyes closed, and Dou Sheng gently scratched her chin.
Xie Lan looked at the hand and thought it must be very comfortable to scratch it, even a wild cat would purr.
"I found the records. The heart rate increased after half of the injection. After diluting with saline, the cat woke up normally. It was not considered shock." The doctor thought and said, "The cat is an adult now. I suggest trying it again, using inhalation anesthesia little by little. But there is indeed a great risk that the cat will not wake up after the operation. You can go back and discuss it."
The little black cat was temporarily left in the hospital, and Yu Fei said he would make a decision tomorrow.
After saying goodbye to Yu Fei, Dou Sheng said in a low voice, "Mimi means a lot to all of us, especially to Yu Fei. This cat is like his daughter who wandered away from home, but my family would never let me keep her."
After a while, he looked up and sighed, "We still have to do it. If we don't do it, we will die. People have their own difficulties, and cats have their own troubles. Just go along with it."
It was almost four o'clock and it was very dark. Xie Lan began to feel sleepy.
He yawned, "Going home?"
"Go back. I'll call a car."
Dou Sheng lowered his head and poked at his phone, but after a moment he suddenly froze.
"What's wrong?" Xie Lan turned around and asked.
Dou Sheng showed a rare dazed expression, "It's over."
"Um?"
"I didn't bring my elevator card."
Xie Lan was stunned for a second, and his sleepiness disappeared all of a sudden.
“Didn’t bring the elevator card?”
Dou Sheng hissed and looked at him without hope, "Maybe, did you bring it?"
"… "
Xie Lan doesn't have that kind of thing at all.
Dou Sheng's house has one elevator per household. If you don't have an elevator card, forget it, you can't even get into the corridor.
At four o'clock in the morning, Big Cat and Little Cat lost their home.
Xie Lan said helplessly: "Find a hotel?"
"Do you have your passport with you?" Dou Sheng asked.
Xie Lan shook his head, "Who brings a passport when going out to fight?"
"It will be convenient for me to register after calling the police... Never mind." Dou Sheng couldn't make up any more stories, and sighed, "I didn't bring my ID card with me. We can't go to hotels or internet cafes. There is only one place that can take us in."
Xie Lan asked curiously: "Where?"
At the end of Ximen Snack Street, there is a barbecue restaurant called "Gaokao Zhuangyuan".
The storefront is very small, sandwiched between a milk tea shop and a fried chicken shop, and I almost didn't notice it.
The store door was locked and it was pitch black inside, with only a few small benches and foam boxes scattered outside the door.
Dou Sheng sat down and hooked another stool over with his toes, motioning for Xie Lan to sit down as well.
Xie Lan looked up at the sky and then down at the ground.
"You're kidding me," he said. "What's the difference between this and standing on the street?"
"The only difference is that there are stools to sit on." Dou Sheng opened the foam box, "and there's beer to drink that hasn't been collected yet."
"… "
With a bang, Dou Sheng opened the can with one hand, took a big gulp, and opened another can.
"Big Cat's treat, do you want to drink?"
"Where's your face?" Xie Lan took the beer and said speechlessly, "Did you pay?"
"Give it to me tomorrow."
Dou Sheng grabbed a piece of paper from somewhere and wiped the round surface of the stool.
"Sit down, Master."
The stool is very low and I have to stretch my legs out to be comfortable.
Xie Lan looked at the dark street and couldn't help asking, "What time do we have to sit until?"
Dou Sheng thought for a moment and said, "My mom should be awake by six o'clock. I don't want her to bang on my door in the middle of the night."
Xie Lan hummed.
Very sleepy, to be honest.
I was so sleepy that I drank half a can of unfamiliar beer, and suddenly I felt that it was bitter.
Just as Xie Lan was about to check what kind of beer it was, his cell phone suddenly vibrated in his pocket.
The messenger that had been silent for several days had some movement. It was Xie Jingming, and this time he was typing in Chinese.
- It's time to calm down. If you want to come back, I'll book a ticket for you.
- Elizabeth wants to talk to you too.
The previous one was fine, but when Xie Lan saw the name Elizabeth, she was furious and uninstalled the app without saying a word.
Dou Sheng looked at him sideways, "Your father?"
"Um."
"Are you being urged to go back?" Dou Sheng said with a faint smile, "Just say that you know a unique big cat and decide to hang out with him."
Xie Lan couldn't laugh. He was silent for a while, then opened Instagram and clicked on Xie Jingming's homepage.
The latest one was three hours ago, when Xie Jingming posted a photo of himself on the beach. There was a pair of footprints on the smooth white sand, and the relationship was obvious.
Xie Lan uninstalled his Instagram account with a sullen face.
A low laugh came from the side, "If you keep doing this, WeChat and Bilibili will be the only ones left on your phone soon."
"There's also Taobao." Xie Lan said coldly, "It's not bad."
Dou Sheng drank the beer in a few gulps, crushed the can and threw it into the trash can, then bent his long legs, lay on his knees and turned his head to look at him.
It's a very relaxed posture, as if you could fall asleep in the next second.
"Let me guess. If you don't want to tell me, you don't have to look at me." Dou Sheng whispered, "You and your dad have a conflict, it's not just because of returning to China. So... is your dad in love?"
Xie Lan suddenly looked up, "What do you mean you're in love?"
In his Chinese system, dating is a very definite relationship. But Xie Jingming - he is willing to admit at most that he is dating a woman.
Dou Sheng smiled faintly, "Then how do you want to define it? Dating? Relationship?"
"I don't want to define anything." Xie Lan said coldly: "He is ungrateful, what can I say."
“Ungrateful…” Dou Sheng pondered the word, resting his face on his arms, his long eyelashes drooping, and he seemed a little sleepy.
After a long while he said, "So you decided to rebel and run away, and come to my house to be the second cat, to show your determination."
“Don’t be so weird here.” Xie Lan said coldly.
"Pfft." Dou Shengle, "Don't imitate my way of speaking. Write it down in your composition and see if Lao Qin will find you."
The surroundings became quiet and Dou Sheng slowly closed his eyes again.
"I'm going to sleep for a while, so you should be careful." He whispered, "Be careful that someone will go out on the street to steal kidneys in the middle of the night."
"..." Xie Lan asked faintly, "Is it the kidney I was thinking of?"
"Yes." Dou Sheng said, "I only steal from young, handsome and healthy boys. Please protect me."
Xie Lan: “…”
Or I'll cut it off for you first.
This guy is outrageous.
Xie Lan looked at his sleeping profile and sighed.
"I just feel sorry for my mother. I followed him to England, listened to his teachings for the children, and waited quietly, but he was always busy and I didn't make it to the last meeting. He is now passionately pursuing that woman, but he has never been passionate about my mother."
It is difficult to describe the feelings between people. Xie Lan could not say these words to his friends in the UK who he had known for many years, but he could say them to Dou Sheng, perhaps because Dou Sheng was far enough away from his previous life.
I wonder if Dou Sheng is asleep and can hear me.
It doesn't matter whether you hear it or not.
Dou Sheng suddenly muttered, "What you're seeing is a marriage that's been going on for 20 years. Maybe it was passionate before."
Xie Lan was stunned for a moment, "Did you sleep or not?"
Dou Sheng sat up straight, stretched his shoulders, and sighed, "I heard my mother talk about her childhood. When I was in high school, your mother made a love lunch box to express her love for your father. Your father ate it and reported to the hospital in the middle of the night. He missed the entrance examination the next day and almost had to stay in the same grade."
Xie Lan was stunned.
"Your grandfather found the lunch box and came to ask for justice. Your mother was so scared that she almost cried. Do you know what your father said in the end?"
Xie Lan: "What do you mean?"
"He said your grandma's cooking was too tasteless. He saw your mom eating lunch box and was greedy, so he stole it. Unexpectedly, he got poisoned after eating it. After returning home, he was beaten up by your grandpa. They lived in the same alley. My mom can still remember the sound of the broom hitting her flesh."
Xie Lan was almost stunned by what he heard.
"Then what?"
"That's all. If you want to know more, go ask my mom." Dou Sheng closed his eyes again. "I just want to say that no matter whether your mom was passionate or not, it's their business and it's all in the past. You can't change it, so why bother yourself? Go after what you want when you return home and relax."
Xie Lan held the phone tightly for a long time before she said softly, "But she is my mother."
"I'm just suggesting it." Dou Sheng turned his head to the other side and muttered, "A friend of mine said that it's better to know less about your parents' grudges. Knowing it will only make you feel uncomfortable and won't change anything."
Xie Lan was stunned. "Friends? Are they classmates from Class 4?"
Dou Sheng didn't reply. This time he seemed to have really fallen asleep, breathing evenly and long.
Two drunks were walking across the street, their hair was messy and they didn't look like good people at first glance.
When Xie Lan looked up, the other party also looked over and whistled provocatively.
Don’t be afraid that you really have your eyes on any of the kidneys here.
Dou Sheng, who was half asleep, turned his face to the other side and muttered, "Blow your grandpa."
Xie Lan: “…”
After the two men disappeared at the end of the street, Xie Lan yawned and downloaded the two apps he had just uninstalled.
While waiting for the download, he casually opened Twitter, which he hadn't logged into for a long time.
Xie Lan’s Twitter account is called silentwaves, and his YouTube account has the same name. Although he has not updated for two years, he still receives messages from fans in his list from time to time.
At the top of the list there is an id called "qzfxr", who comes to ask about his recent situation almost every two weeks.
Xie Lan was also sleepy, and he tried to reply despite the rising sleepiness.
…
At dawn, the two people sitting on the small bench in front of the barbecue restaurant were both in a light sleep.
Dou Sheng woke up when he heard the sound of pedestrians talking on the road. He stayed in the dim morning light for a while, then took out his cell phone to check the time.
The bird app, which hadn't been turned on for a long time, suddenly pushed two messages.
His eyes lit up and he immediately poked it open.
- silentwaves: I changed to a new environment and met a new friend, it’s okay.
- silentwaves: If my mood continues to improve, I might go back to making videos, so just wait and see.