Dushan mentioned last time that he wanted to be a doctor when he grew up.
Lin Qile watched Du Shang get out of bed and go to his mother's bedside. Du Shang carefully helped his mother smooth her bloody hair, looking like someone who could be a doctor.
There was a commotion at the entrance of the staff hospital. Lin Qile stood behind his mother and saw an adult man who was stopped by many people but failed to be stopped. He smelled of alcohol and was wearing a dark blue work suit with an open collar. He had long hair and an unkempt beard, and looked like a man who had lived alone for many years.
Uncle Yu went upstairs to the dean's office to look for the official seal. Now he stood in the corridor and shouted, "Du Yongchun! Stop him quickly!"
Lin Qile watched his father come out of the ward and stretched out his hand to Uncle Du's chest to stop him, but Uncle Du stared at him and said, "Old Lin, get out of the way. Old Lin, I won't fight with you. Get out of the way—"
Father Lin refused to give in. In the room were Du Shang and his mother, as well as a group of young nurses. "Brother Du," he said, "calm down!"
Du Yongchun's knees suddenly went weak and he knelt down in front of Electrician Lin.
In front of everyone, Du Yongchun crawled to the bedside on his knees. He reached out to hold his son Du Shang's hand, but Du Shang sat further into the bed, avoiding him like a plague god, protecting his mother behind him.
The ward was exceptionally quiet.
Lin Qile's hands tightly grasped her mother's coat. She quietly raised her head to glance at her mother, then looked back at the scene in front of her. This scene really puzzled her.
When the sun rose, the next morning, the Qunshan construction site was bustling again. Lin Qile walked down the street and saw Uncle Qin practicing Qigong in front of the store. He also saw many uncles and aunts chatting and laughing as they went to the construction site cafeteria for breakfast. No one knew what had happened on the construction site last night.
Electrician Lin said that he had nothing to do today, so he took the children to the city to play. Lin Qile opened the thin book "Saint Seiya" on her desk and took out a 100-yuan bill from it. It was a bright red new 100-yuan bill, very beautiful.
"Dushan," Lin Qile walked among the crowd and took the initiative to hold Dushan's hand, "Let's go to the Qunshan Department Store and eat the newly opened KFC!"
Du Shang's eyes were still red and swollen. He originally wanted to go to the Municipal People's Hospital with his mother for a physical examination today, but Uncle Yu would not let him go. Uncle Lin forced him to go out and play.
"KFC?" Dushan's voice was tearful. He really loved to cry. "That KFC? The expensive one?"
Yu Qiao was wearing a down jacket, looking at the cars coming and going from the side. Yu Qiao didn't like to do anything cuddly, but at this moment he also hugged Du Shang's neck from the side, like a "good buddy" and "good brother". He said: "Don't you know that Lin Yingtao has made money?"
This KFC in Gunsan City opened on New Year's Day. When it first opened, it seemed that everyone in the city was talking about it. Some people even went to KFC to hold their weddings.
Lin Qile's three children and Jialin Electrician, an adult, were sitting in a corner of the KFC store in the Qunbai Building eating lunch. Each of the three children was holding a hamburger and eating it like crazy. Electrician Lin was watching them eating. He just smiled but didn't eat anything. He sighed repeatedly: "This is a Western restaurant opened by Americans."
"Dad," Lin Qile's mouth was full of sauce. She raised the burger in her hand and said, "Try it!"
Electrician Lin quickly waved his hands and said, "I'm not used to it, I'm not used to it, you eat it." He also used a tissue to wipe the corners of Lin Qile's mouth.
After returning to the construction site, when Mother Lin heard what they had eaten, she didn't know whether to laugh or cry: "In the cafeteria, you can eat well for only five yuan. You are really generous. Four people spent a hundred yuan?"
Du Shang had nothing else to do during the winter vacation, so he stayed at Yu Qiao's house for a few days. During the day, they came to play with Lin Qile. He sat beside Lin Qile's little bed and said, "I wanted to press his acupoints that day, but why couldn't I do it?"
Lin Qile was eating a piece of roasted sweet potato next to her. It was so hot that she stuck out her tongue and broke off a small half for Dushan to eat.
Duchamp was holding the roasted sweet potato, probably still thinking about why acupressure was not effective.
Lin Qile tilted his head to look at him and found that the tears on Du Shang's face were streaming down and falling onto the steaming roasted sweet potatoes.
Lin Qile suddenly felt that what Duchamp was thinking about every day might be completely different from her and their peers.
"Duchamp," Lin Qile said softly, "Shall we go see the little white rabbit?"
Duchamp suddenly came back to his senses from his sadness.
In the middle of winter, Lin Qile placed the rabbit cage in a corner of the kitchen, which was much warmer than in the yard.
Du Shang squatted in front of the rabbit cage. With his trembling hands still wrapped in gauze, he took the soft and warm little rabbit that Lin Qile held for him.
"cherry."
"Um?"
"If I cry, will you let me see the little rabbit..." Dushan started crying again.
Lin Yingtao nodded.
Du Shang was unwilling to accept it and asked, "Then why...why did you let Jiang Qiaoxi hold your little rabbit on the first day he transferred to school?"
Lin Yingtao was stunned.
She recalled carefully for a while, recalling her first meeting with Jiang Qiaoxi a few months ago.
"He wasn't very happy that day," Lin Yingtao didn't know how to describe it, "He looked a little unhappy that day... He looked like he was about to cry."
Before the new semester started, Electrician Lin went to the city children's palace to enroll Lin Qile in a dance specialty class.
Mother Lin scolded Lin Qile as she packed her schoolbag: "You learned painting in the first grade, calligraphy in the second grade, electronic piano in the third grade, and dance in the fourth grade. Look at you, aren't you immature?"
Lin Qile felt like she was about to become a little dancer. She jumped on the bed and asked, "Dad! When will Jiang Qiaoxi come back?"
Electrician Lin was clearing the table and said, "They should arrive this afternoon."
Lin Qile ran off the bed and went to her desk. She took out a black hairpin from a colorful plate and pinned it on her hair.
Mom said, "Go to dance class this afternoon! Then go play with him after class... Why don't you wear a different color? Black looks so old-fashioned."
Lin Qile looked at himself in the mirror and pouted: "I want black."
Ever since Jiang Qiaoxi transferred to Qunshan, Lin Qile has been with him every day and they have never been separated for so long.
Dance class was tiring and painful. Lin Qile even twisted her leg during the class and kept crying after the class.
Yu Qiao and Du Shang were taking a Chinese painting class next door. Seeing her like this, Yu Qiao had no choice but to help her limp along. Du Shang said, "Cherry, are you wearing a new hairpin today?"
Lin Qile sniffed, stopped crying, and asked him, "Does it look good?"
"It looks good." Duchamp said immediately.
Manager Jiang's car was parked at the intersection in front of Lin Qile's house. Jiang Qiaoxi was wearing black boots and a black down jacket. He sat on the steps in front of his house, holding a blue Poppy with messy hair in his hand.
When he saw Yu Qiao and others appear, Jiang Qiaoxi stood up.
Lin Qile's eyes were red from crying, and she walked up to him and looked at him.
"Jiang Qiaoxi..." she called.
When she pronounced the word "Xi", it should have sounded like a crisp laugh. But she had just cried, and her face was both crying and laughing. In the end, it turned into a pure crying face of grievance. She pronounced the word "Xi" with a long tone, like crying and acting like a spoiled child.
Electrician Lin invited the children into the house. He rubbed his daughter's head and let Lin Qile cry loudly. After asking Yu Qiao, I found out that Lin Qile fell down while stretching her legs in the dance class. She fell on her buttocks under the horizontal bar. It was very embarrassing and everyone laughed at her.
"You cry when I see you." Jiang Qiaoxi entered the bedroom and put the elf in his hand on the head of Lin Qile's bed, returning it to its original owner. He sat down beside Lin Qile's bed and looked up at her.
Lin Qile stood in front of him, standing as if she was being punished, with her two ponytails hanging down to her shoulders.
Jiang Qiaoxi noticed that she had a black hairpin in her hair. Lin Qile's eyes were red from crying, and looked even bigger.
Lin Qile was wearing a pink cotton coat with a circle of fur on the hat behind the collar.
Jiang Qiaoxi asked: "Have you finished your winter vacation homework?"
Lin Qile said, "You have finished your winter vacation homework, right?"
"Finished." Jiang Qiaoxi said.
“Not finished yet.” Lin Qile replied.
"Yu Qiao wants to borrow homework from me." Jiang Qiaoxi said.
"Then what should I copy?" Lin Qile said frustratedly, about to cry again.
"Can't you write it yourself?" Jiang Qiaoxi said.
Lin Qile shook his head, feeling very righteous.
On the day of the Lantern Festival, the Zhongneng Power Plant Primary School had not yet started. Jiang Qiaoxi got up early in the morning, brushed his teeth and washed his face, and received a call from his cousin. He was a little anxious, so after the call, he put on his coat, went out and ran to Lin Qile's house next door to eat glutinous rice balls.
Lin Qile ate too hastily, and the black sesame filling spilled out, scalding her tongue. She had no choice but to put the bowl of glutinous rice balls aside, and then reluctantly continued to do her math homework under Jiang Qiaoxi's supervision.
It was almost March, and Jiang Qiaoxi studied in Lin Qile's cottage until around nine o'clock in the evening. When he returned to his home next door, he happened to see his father making a phone call in the living room.
"Your son wants to come by himself. Stop getting mad at me." Jiang Zheng sat on the sofa, smoking and reading the newspaper.
Looking back, Jiang Qiaoxi came in. Jiang Zheng took a very delicate black box from the coffee table with the hand holding the cigarette, picked it up and put it back where it was.
"Birthday present," Jiang Zheng put the phone back and said to his son, "It's for you."
Jiang Qiaoxi looked at the black box and stood still.
Jiang Zheng continued to read the newspaper. After a while, he found that Jiang Qiaoxi did not respond. He turned around and flicked the ash off his cigarette: "Open it and take a look."
Jiang Qiaoxi walked forward in the smoke and picked up the box, as if picking up a fate he had to accept. He walked back to the bedroom, closed the door, sat down beside his bed, and quickly opened the box.
A pure black watch lay inside.
Jiang Qiaoxi lowered his neck, his inky eyes fixed on the black strap, black dial, and black hands in front of him.
His nose felt sore and he couldn't help biting his lips in anger.