Jiang Qiaoxi opened the door of the hotel and disappeared into the night. Lin Qile sat in the laughter of the old mountain people, drinking and chatting in front of her, but her mind was not here.
"I know." Jiang Qiaoxi said.
Lin Qile dreamed of this scene again. The leaves of the evergreen tree were lushly attached to the window, covering the stars in the night sky. Lin Qile sat in bed. In the middle of the night, she looked up and saw the Barbie doll on her desk. The doll was sitting on a pile of exercise books, wearing fashionable clothes from four or five years ago, and her long hair was cut by Lin Qile's roommate at the South Campus.
Even if you are unhappy, what does it have to do with me, Lin Qile thought.
In July, Lin Qile was wearing a nightgown and eating popsicles while studying at home. It was very hot, so she tied her hair into two small buns on top of her head. Cai Fangyuan came to her house to deliver a data cable to Lin the electrician, and when he saw Lin Qile, he said, "Wow! Chunli!"
Mother Lin came out of the kitchen with the sliced watermelon. In the last few years in the mountains, all the children left, not to mention Cherry, even Mother Lin sometimes felt lonely.
"After school starts, Fang Yuan should help Yingtao more," said Mother Lin with a smile, "She hasn't been to our school yet, so I don't know if it will be convenient for her to go to and from school."
Cai Fangyuan walked into Lin Yingtao's room and found that she was listening to Jay Chou's tape while doing her homework. No wonder she didn't hear him coming.
The adults were fiddling with the computer using a data cable in the outer room. Cai Fangyuan reached out and pulled the earphones off Lin Yingtao's ears, saying, "Don't blame me for not reminding you."
Lin Yingtao was startled when he pulled her headphones and turned to look at him.
Cai Fangyuan said, "Don't provoke Jiang Qiaoxi too much, otherwise Aunt Liang will come to you during this period, and you will definitely be in trouble."
Lin Yingtao felt puzzled: "What..."
Cai Fangyuan didn't know what to say, so he pursed his lips.
"If you're annoyed with him, just pretend you don't know him," Cai Fangyuan said. He and Lin Yingtao had always had trouble communicating. When the words came to his lips, he didn't know how to say them. He paused and said, "Hey, your hair looks pretty."
Lin Yingtao smiled and kicked Cai Fangyuan.
Cai Fangyuan dodged. After living as a fat man for so many years, he has become a very flexible fat man: "You are already a provincial student, why do you still hit people at every turn?"
The news was on TV, and athlete Liu Xiang ran 12.88 seconds in Lausanne, Switzerland, breaking the world record. Electrician Lin excitedly asked Lin Yingtao to go to the living room to watch, but not to watch TV.
He plugged the data cable brought by Cai Fangyuan into the old computer at home, and the other end was connected to the repeater that Lin Qile bought when he was in elementary school.
The English tapes distributed by the school were stacked up nearby. Electrician Lin opened one of them, put it into the recorder, closed it, and pressed the play button.
He also opened the recording software on his computer.
Lin Yingtao walked over, and soon she heard the sound of an English text playing on the computer speakers.
"That way, I can record all the tapes at home into MP3s and carry them with me to listen to. I don't have to ask the teacher for them specifically!" said Electrician Lin.
Lin Yingtao hugged Lin the Electrician's neck and said, "How come my dad is so smart!!"
Lin Yingtao is sixteen years old. Almost in the blink of an eye, she has grown from a little girl who would only cry while hugging her father's legs to a girl who is almost as tall as her father. She is a girl, and she is slowly sliding towards the edge of being a "woman".
But she still clings to her parents and everything about "home".
On a summer night, Lin Yingtao went out wearing a skirt and beach slippers. She held a basket of jujube-flour steamed buns in her hand, crossed the street outside the community gate, and walked towards the West District Cadre Building.
Yu Qiao lives in Building 18. When Lin Yingtao walks on the road, she often meets uncles and aunts she knew at the construction site in Qunshan. These uncles and aunts all remember her and praise Yingtao for growing up, becoming more beautiful, and even studying hard. Lin Yingtao smiles at them, happy from the bottom of her heart.
It was like sand scattered by the wind, slowly gathering back together. Lin Yingtao did not dislike life at the headquarters, which sometimes reminded her of the mountains.
Next to Building 18 is Building 23. Lin Yingtao walked to the door of Yu Qiao's apartment and rang the doorbell downstairs. While waiting, she suddenly noticed that there was a person standing at the door of the garage of Building 23, looking at her.
It was a woman, very dignified. She was carrying a purse and holding the car keys. She watched Lin Yingtao warily until the door of Yu Qiao's apartment opened and Lin Yingtao went upstairs.
The person who opened the door was my little cousin Yu Jin. With wet hair, he enthusiastically called out, "Sister Cherry!"
The room was in a mess. Lin Qile walked in and saw a figure wrapped in a bath towel rushing past her in an instant, fleeing into Yu Qiao's bedroom in a panic and locking the door tightly from the inside.
Lin Qile was stunned. That person just now was... Duchamp
"Who is it?" Yu Qiao asked in the bedroom.
"Hey, hey, hey, don't open the door yet! Cherry is here! Wait for me to put on my pants!!" Dushan screamed.
Yu Qiao opened the door and came out shirtless in just a pair of pajamas. He glanced at Lin Qile.
Yu Qiao sneered: "It's not like she hasn't seen you naked before."
Du Shang was busy inside, and finally put on his pants. He said in panic: "How can they be the same? How old are they?"
Ever since Du Shang's grandmother fell ill and his mother went back to her parents' home to take care of her, Du Shang has been staying at Yu's house for more than a year.
"Cherry," Du Shang scratched his wet hair and said, "someone added me on QQ today and said he was your junior high school classmate. What's his name... Geng... Geng Xiaoqing?"
Lin Yingtao was eating fried shrimp chips and fiddling with Yu Qiao's airplane model. She looked up and said, "She added you guys so soon!"
"Who is she?" Duchamp asked.
Lin Yingtao said: "My deskmate at Qunshan No. 1 Middle School also came to the provincial capital to study... She really wanted to meet you, so I gave her your QQ number."
Yu Qiao was sitting at the head of the bed, flipping through a sports newspaper. Lin Yingtao turned around and asked, "Did you add her?"
Yu Qiao moved his eyes to look at her, and saw Lin Qile eating shrimp chips, with oil on his lips and hands: "What is it?"
Lin Yingtao reminded him: "She is a girl, her last name is Geng!"
Yu Qiao showed no interest and continued reading the newspaper.
In early August, Lin Yingtao, Xin Tingting and Geng Xiaoqing went out together. Lin Yingtao introduced that Geng Xiaoqing was her junior high school classmate and Xin Tingting was her high school classmate at the South Campus. They should be good "best friends" from now on!
Three little girls were sitting in a high-end cafe drinking juice. Xin Tingting looked at the prices on the drink menu and looked at Lin Yingtao in surprise.
Geng Xiaoqing said that this was the coffee shop her father opened two years ago when she wanted to transfer to the provincial capital. "Normally, not many people come here," she looked up and looked around, "but the decoration is pretty nice."
In the past, Lin Yingtao only vaguely felt that Geng Xiaoqing had strict family education, but she didn't know that her family was actually so rich. From Geng Xiaoqing's usual dress and behavior at school, she couldn't tell at all.
After studying in the provincial capital for a year, Geng Xiaoqing's personality and temper seemed to have changed a little.
"Cherry," Geng Xiaoqing said to her, "It's only now that I've come to the provincial capital that I understand what 'Jiangqiao West Street' means."
Lin Yingtao almost spit out the juice in her mouth.
Geng Xiaoqing said: "I was in No. 2 Middle School, and I also heard about what happened between him and you in junior high school."
Xin Tingting asked beside her: "What did you hear?"
Geng Xiaoqing said: "You were punished because of him in Qunshan No. 1 Middle School! Their junior high school classmates actually said that you are a country bumpkin! I don't understand why people from this place are so arrogant, it's just a provincial capital!"
Lin Yingtao has never been able to hide her emotions since she was a child. So when she grows up, when she wants to hide them, everything about the past will always remind her: Lin Qile, we all know you.
We remember perhaps more than you yourself have forgotten.
At the end of August, Qin Yeyun dragged Lin Yingtao to go shopping for clothes near the dance academy. Qin Yeyun wondered, "You used to be so conceited, how come you became so rustic after three years of studying in Qunshan Middle School?"
Qin Yeyun turned around and said viciously: "Let me tell you, there are many people in our school who want to laugh at you. If you are much uglier than Cen Xiaoman, you are embarrassing us, the students of Power Construction!"
Lin Qile tied her hair, put on her school uniform, and carried her schoolbag. She walked out of the house, waved to her parents beside Yu Qiao, and then got on the bus.
The scenes outside the car window were the still unfamiliar streets of the provincial capital. Lin Qile looked out and suddenly remembered the first time she came here.
Yu Qiao sat beside her, drinking milk while flipping through the newly bought "Sports Weekly".
Cai Fangyuan and Du Shang were sitting in the front row, passionately discussing the movie they had just watched during the summer vacation. Du Shang turned around and asked, "Cherry, have you seen Crazy Stone?"
"No," Lin Yingtao said frankly, "I'm scared."
"What are you afraid of?" Duchamp said, "It's a comedy, not scary!"
Lin Qile was stunned for a moment, and the bus arrived at the stop. She stood up and said, "Then I'll go back and take a look."
"What do you think it is?" Duchamp said.
“I thought it was the sequel to Raving Rabbids,” Lin Qile said. “That one was really scary.”
She was standing at the gate of the Provincial Experimental High School.
Looking up, you can see the towering school gate and the statue of Confucius standing in front of the square.
Yu Qiao put away the newspaper beside her: "Do you remember the way?"
Lin Qile closed his eyes and muttered something as if he was chanting a spell.
"What are you doing?" Cai Fangyuan asked her from the side.
Lin Qile opened his eyes and said, "Let's go and check the class list!"
From the first year of high school to the second year, the entire grade was re-arranged according to the liberal arts and science majors.
Du Shang was assigned to Class 15, Yu Qiao was assigned to Class 18, Lin Qile was assigned to Class 18, and Cai Fangyuan was assigned to Class 18.
Qin Yeyun was assigned to Liberal Arts Class 3. After she looked at the full list of Class 18, she nervously ran through the corridor and hurried upstairs.
As soon as he entered the classroom of Science Class 18, Qin Yeyun did not find Lin Yingtao, but first saw Feilinger and a few others coming in from outside with their schoolbags on their backs.
Felinger walked straight to the last row, pulled out a seat and sat down, stuffing his schoolbag into the drawer.
A student in the front row turned around and asked, "Feilinger, why didn't Jiang Qiaoxi come?"
Felinger looked around but didn't see the legendary "Lin Qile". He said unhappily, "Jiang Qiaoxi has made it to the semi-finals and will take the exam soon, so of course preparation is important."
The author has something to say: －－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－
Notes to this chapter:
*On July 12, 2006, Liu Xiang broke the 13-year-old 110-meter hurdles record with a time of 12.88 seconds in Lausanne, Switzerland.
＊Crazy Stone: A black comedy directed by Ning Hao, starring Guo Tao, Liu Hua, Huang Bo, Lian Jin and Xu Zheng, released in mainland China on June 30, 2006. Huang Bo's masterpiece.
＊"Crazy Rabbit": A children's science fiction film produced by China Children's Film Studio, released in 1997. A masterpiece of childhood shadows.