The boy's fine black hair rubbed against her ear, and his voice was muffled into the scarf.
The tip of his nose rubbed against her neck, and the hot air from his breath clung to her skin nakedly and unhindered, making it tingling and itchy.
His whole body, including his breath, covered and surrounded her.
Tao Zhi paused, then raised his hand, put his palm on the back of his head, and rubbed it lightly.
His hair was unexpectedly soft.
"Did something unpleasant happen?" Tao Zhi said softly.
Jiang Qihuai didn't speak, but kept his arms tightly closed.
She smells good.
Like that day, the scorching sun baked the earth, the shade of the trees cast shadows, and the tender green, fluffy buds grew vigorously in large swaths.
Jiang Qihuai let out a long breath, loosened his arms, and raised his head.
His expression didn't change, as if all the anomalies that Tao Zhi had sensed sensitively were just her illusions.
"No," Jiang Qihuai raised his hand, pulled up her messy scarf, and said in a low voice, "Let's go, I'll take you home."
It was already two o'clock in the morning when Tao Zhi got home.
She slipped through the door and slipped upstairs and took a shower.
Obviously sleepy, eyes sore, feeling like you can't open your eyes, but it's very strange that you don't feel sleepy at all.
Tao Zhi lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking about Jiang Qihuai tonight.
Indeed, very different.
He was so different from usual.
He is the kind of person who seldom shows his emotions, even if he is upset, he will hardly show it in a particularly obvious way, just like wearing a thick mask, no one knows when and what he looks like under the mask state.
If you wear the mask for a long time, you will not be able to take it off.
Maybe even Jiang Qihuai himself sometimes doesn't realize that he is emotionally abnormal.
But Tao Zhi could see clearly.
She looked up and watched as the mask on his face cracked, revealing a gap towards her.
But she couldn't ask any more questions.
Tao Zhi rubbed her face a little irritably, and took out the phone from under the pillow. The bright light on the screen made her squint her eyes, and after getting used to it for a while, she clicked on WeChat.
She looked at the head of the jigsaw puzzle at the top for a long time.
Tao Zhi sighed, locked the screen of the phone again, and stuffed it back under the pillow.
Time has entered the new year, and the calendar in front of the blackboard in the classroom has also been replaced with a new one. The large Arabic numerals on it have been crossed out with a red pen, and life seems to be the same as before, without any changes.
Neither did Jiang Qihuai.
Tao Zhi watched carefully for a few days. This person should still attend lectures, answer questions, and taunt her mercilessly when he should speak ill of her. He was occasionally pulled out by Li Shuangjiang and the others during class and lunch breaks. Playing ball, abusing the minds and eyeballs of a whole class of people like a robot in all kinds of exams.
It seemed that those passionate and restrained initiatives on New Year's Eve were just her illusion.
Slowly, Tao Zhi also forgot about it.
She put all her energy on the upcoming monthly exam.
Tao Zhi spent the past half year basically catching up with the progress and making up the basics. Although it is not as difficult as before to write the papers now, at least she can do almost 70% of the questions in a paper, but I fell into a new difficulty.
She got stuck at this stage and hit a bottleneck.
For some questions, she always felt that she wrote the process correctly and got the answer, but the result was always wrong.
At the beginning, she was very patient. She copied and cut out all the wrong questions and pasted them on the wrong question book of each subject. There was no improvement in scores.
Seeing the monthly exam approaching, she began to feel a little anxious.
Jiang Hesheng found out that she was not in the right state, so he stayed after one class to chat with Tao Xiuping, and then found a separate tutor for each subject of Tao Zhi, all of whom were experienced teachers.
There is a clear difference between the teacher's interpretation of the topic and the teaching method and the students, but she still continues to take Jiang Hesheng's class, but just like this, her Saturday and Sunday are all taken up by tutoring. full.
On Sunday night, she saw off her physics teacher, and her brain, which had been working all day, was on the verge of death. Tao Zhi rubbed her sore eyes, and fell into the bed.
She turned her face to the bed, buried her head in the quilt, closed her eyes and rested for a while, feeling tired and drowsy bit by bit.
Studying is tiring.
Tao Zhi doesn't like to be tired, he doesn't want to sit up when he can lie down on the bed during the holidays, he can even run 800 meters in PE class if he can, and he can have three periods in a month, so he doesn't want to suffer at all.
But chasing, the moment you touch it, you can actually get a sense of accomplishment.
It's just that she doesn't have time to play with Jiang Qihuai on weekends.
Counting it, she hasn't had a delicious meal made by Grandpa Jiang for a long time.
What is Jiang Qihuai doing at this hour
On Sunday, he seems to be working part-time.
She slumped on the bed, turned her neck and looked out the window.
Before it was time for dinner, it was already dark, and it snowed again in the imperial capital a few days ago, the unmelted snow hung on the branches and treetops, suppressing a layer of shining white.
Tao Zhi watched for a few seconds, then suddenly jumped up.
She quickly changed her clothes, then took out her bag from the corner, folded the unfinished test papers on the desk and stuffed them in, and went out of the bedroom and went downstairs.
Dinner was almost ready, Tao Xiuping and Ji Fan were both in the living room, seeing her coming out fully dressed, Tao Xiuping squinted at her, knowingly asked, "What are you doing? It's time for dinner."
"You guys eat, I won't eat at home." Tao Zhi waved his hand.
"What else can I do? Let's find someone she likes." Ji Fan was reading comics, took the time to look at her condescendingly, and started to be mean. Red lips and blue eyelids."
Tao Zhi turned his head expressionlessly, picked up the glove on the porch and took two steps forward, swayed his arms like a baseball player throwing a ball, and threw it at him.
Ji Fan was still holding the manga in his hand, so he couldn't react in time, the glove was aimed straight at his face, and it hit him softly with a "slap".
Tao Zhi: "Homer! Home run!"
Ji Fan covered his nose and yelled exaggeratedly: "My nose is broken! Old Tao, she used violence against me!"
Tao Xiuping watched the two of them making a fuss, and sighed.
The son is hard to manage, and the daughter has grown up and started flying out every day.
Raising kids is hard.
Pointing at Tao Zhi, he said with a straight face, "Come back before nine o'clock."
Tao Zhi saluted him: "Obey!"
Seeing this, Ji Fan put down his hand covering his nose. He squeezed the limp glove in his hand and leaned towards him, and said eagerly: "Dad, I want to go out to play too, and I will definitely be back before nine o'clock tomorrow morning."
Tao Xiuping: "You, give me a rest."
Ji Fan: "..."
In addition to tutoring, Jiang Qihuai quit his job at the convenience store, and there should be no cafes because the hourly wages are relatively high. Tao Zhi took a taxi to the cafe in the city center.
She located the specific location of the store on her mobile phone. Sunday was the peak of the flow of people, and there were many business districts nearby, so it was too congested to move.
Tao Zhi simply got out of the car outside a street, and walked over by himself.
She didn't tell Jiang Qihuai that she would come.
She had made up her mind, after a while, she pretended to go to buy and order, and then when Jiang Qihuai raised her head, she suddenly appeared, caught him off guard, and then pretended not to know him.
Tao Zhi was thinking about the little Jiujiu in her heart. She imagined what Jiang Qihuai's expression would be, and couldn't help but want to laugh.
Smiling, she found the way to the cafe according to her memory, and walked along the side of the street while raising her head.
She remembered correctly, the store was not far in front, but things didn't work out as she expected, and there were two people standing in front of the store.
In the ice and snow, Jiang Qihuai only wore a work uniform, and the thin shirt material made him feel cold.
He hung his head, the corners of his lips were tight, different from the previous one, with no emotional indifference, he stared at the man in front of him vigilantly and irritablely, his eyes were as sharp as ice picks under the eaves that hadn't had time to be cleaned.
The man was wearing a thick black cotton jacket, he should be tall, but his figure was a little stooped, and he looked a bit shorter than Jiang Qihuai.
His voice was hidden in the feasting and feasting, hoarse and weird, with an undisguised, uncomfortable malice: "You came out to work when you were an adult? Why, that old man has no money to support you?"
Jiang Qihuai's lips moved, and he only said one word: "Get lost."
The man said slowly: "It shouldn't be. The pension plus the pension should have a lot of money. Did he hide the money on purpose so that you won't spend it?"
Jiang Qihuai still said, "Get lost."
The man turned a blind eye to his attitude, and he let out a cold smile: "That old bastard thought he was hiding well, didn't he, he was caught by me? You think I can find you, but I can't find him ? As for you—”
He didn't finish his sentence.
Jiang Qihuai suddenly moved.
He immediately took a step forward and stretched out his hand, grabbed the man's collar and lifted it up abruptly. The man's skeleton looked strong, but he didn't seem to have much strength in his body, and he slid up like he was grabbing a chicken.
The thick collar tightly strangled the trachea of his neck, his face was flushed red, he raised his two dirty hands, firmly grasped the hand that was holding him, and struggled violently twice.
Jiang Qihuai looked at him with a blank face and struggled meaninglessly in his hands for a while, the line of his jaw was tense, and his voice was cold: "What about me, do you think I still look like when I was a child?"
The strength of the man's struggle became weaker and weaker.
Tao Zhi's heart tightened, and he ran forward.
While running, she shouted to him in fear: "Jiang Qihuai!"
The sound penetrated the noisy and lively crowd, as if the surrounding isolation barrier had been broken, the boy froze and turned his head.
Tao Zhi rushed straight in front of him, hugged his arm tightly, and spoke quickly: "You let go! Calm down first!"
The man's toes are dangling, and his eyes have begun to roll up, revealing the whites of his eyes.
Jiang Qihuai let go of his hand like an electric shock.
The man fell directly to the ground, covered his neck with trembling hands and coughed violently, gasping for breath.
Seeing that he was fine, Tao Zhi heaved a long sigh of relief, and slowly relaxed the fingers holding his arm.
Jiang Qihuai lowered his eyes, looking down at the people on the ground, his eyes seemed to be looking at a pile of garbage: "I said before, if you dare to appear in front of him again, I will not let you go."
Jiang Qihuai squatted down, his voice was low and hoarse, with violence that could not be concealed: "You can try."
The man collapsed on the ground, sucking in the cold air greedily, unable to speak a word.
Tao Zhi grabbed his arm and pulled him away, turned around and walked forward.
Tao Zhi didn't stop until she walked a long way to the street corner, and the young man followed behind her step by step.
Tao Zhi turned his head and glanced into the distance.
The man was prostrate on the ground, and there were already people watching. A passer-by approached to talk to him, but the man sat up and leaned against the wall without saying a word.
Tao Zhi pulled Jiang Qihuai across the corner until the man disappeared from sight.
She turned and looked at him.
The young man pressed his eyelashes and stood in front of her without saying a word, his eyes that should have been light and beautiful suppressed the darkness.
He didn't speak, his lips were tightly pressed together, and his fingers were curled up little by little on both sides of his body.
More than anything else, being seen by her sent a freezing chill and uneasiness through her body.
Tao Zhi's eyes were red.
After calming down, I felt a little scared.
She wanted to say something, wanted to scold him, but she couldn't speak.
She didn't know who that man was, and she didn't know why Jiang Qihuai had such a reaction when he saw him, and she didn't even know if he could have stopped if no one stopped him.
The cold wind swept across the bustling streets, blowing up the snowflakes pressed on the treetops, and small pieces of snow fell down.
No one spoke.
Tao Zhi took a deep breath, then raised his hand, took off the scarf around his neck, and hung it around his neck on tiptoe.
Surrounded by the warm temperature for an instant, Jiang Qihuai raised his eyes in a daze.
Tao Zhi didn't look at him, her eyes focused on the scarf. She pinched the two sides of the red scarf with her fingers, and slowly wrapped it around him: "Is it cold?"
She spoke the first words to him.
Jiang Qihuai held his breath.
Tao Zhi sighed, and criticized him worriedly: "It's been a few months, and you come out wearing a ragged shirt in such a cold day, do you really think you're in such good health?"
The little girl's eyes were still a little red, and there was a moist glow under the bright light. After she put the scarf on for him, she unbuttoned the coat, muttering and criticizing him non-stop: "It just snowed the day before yesterday, if there hadn't been You will turn into a snowman, you know? I don’t want to hear the news in school that the first grader has turned into an ice sculpture on the street in a few days.”
As she spoke, she unbuttoned her coat, pulled the sides of the large coat closer, and wrapped him in it.
The coat was still a bit small, Tao Zhi couldn't cover him completely, but could barely cover half of his body tightly. But still warm enough.
She struggled to wrap her arms around him and raised her head with her chin against his chest, looking at him with a smile: "Am I warm?"
The girl's body fit tightly, and the body temperature was continuously transmitted through the soft sweater. The snow on the treetops fell between her dark hair, glittering and translucent under the bright lights on the street, and slowly melted after a while, and then Disappear.
Her eyelashes were curved, and her dark eyes looked at him brightly.
Indeed, warm enough.
Jiang Qihuai's Adam's apple slipped, he looked at her deeply, and then lowered his neck.
The cold lips pressed carefully, almost reverently, to her warm eyes.