Xu Baichuan entered the club building and turned into the media room. A group of players and staff wearing short-sleeved pants and sandals were walking around behind the machine, but most of them were young ladies. The reason for staying at the scene was to try to be the first to see the serious nonsense of the players.
The team member who was selected for interview was asked to say three words of earthy love. This team member was shy and laughed at the camera several times. Xu Baichuan also laughed inexplicably.
He has never had many choices, but his eyes have been blocked by Tang Jin's leaf, and no matter how majestic Mount Tai behind him, it is difficult to squeeze into his sight.
The working hours of the club are quite flexible. Those who like to get up early can go from nine to five, and those who don’t sleep late can go from ten to six. Xu Baichuan likes to get up early and breathe the cool morning air, so he naturally chose the first one.
Every morning at 6 o'clock, I get up and go downstairs for a half-hour run. If I want to make my own breakfast, I will buy some materials along the way. When I am too lazy, I will buy ready-made ones. After dinner, I take the subway to the company. There are very few seats available, and most of them are caught in the crowd, reading the comments of readers left and right. After arriving at the company, I worked with a group of young people with an average age of no more than 25 years old, listened to them talk about current popular memes and jokes, and thought about tricky but not too difficult questions to please the audience.
It was embarrassing to say it, but Xu Baichuan felt a little happy.
This kind of calm happiness lasted for almost three months, until he picked up an unfamiliar number when he got off work one day.
The coldest time in City H is rarely below zero. It can't be compared with the temperature in City B, which is more than ten below zero. But in terms of coldness, it is not comparable. I don’t know if the locals have long been used to the cold. Colleagues in the company neither use mats nor long johns, and what’s even more frightening is the young lady who wears a coat and has bare legs. Only Xu Baichuan wraps it up. My own down jacket, watching the bulging sleeves being squeezed and bulging every day on the subway.
When he received the call, he was carrying a bag of tomatoes waiting to be slaughtered. He had only walked halfway from the subway station to the entrance of the community for 100 meters. He reached into his pocket and took out his mobile phone.
It was too cold, so he picked up the phone without looking at it and asked, "Hello, who is there?"
Before finishing a sentence, he was shocked by the wild music on the opposite side and took the phone away a little. He glanced at the caller ID wonderingly, it was a completely unfamiliar number.
He has met too many people in the past three months, and he was not sure if it was a colleague who hadn't saved his number, so he turned the volume to the lowest and said loudly, "Hello?"
The music was mixed with a series of clinking sounds, like wine glasses colliding, accompanied by a few exclamations, Xu Baichuan called out a few times, but still no one answered, so he had to hang up the strange call.
When he was about to walk to the gate of the community, the phone rang again. It was the same number as before. Xu Baichuan still picked it up. This time the music on the opposite side was much quieter. He should have walked to a quiet place. He said, "Hello?"
The sound of the music is getting quieter, and the irregular footsteps are becoming more and more obvious. The place where the other party is located should be very empty, and there is an echo in the footsteps. Xu Baichuan began to wonder if someone accidentally touched the phone in the bar and called him.
He decided to ask one last time: "Hello, who are you?"
The footsteps stopped, and a low male voice came from the mobile phone, which was different from the usual deep voice, hoarse, almost sinking into the chest cavity, more like a whisper.
Tang Jin said, "Xu Baichuan."
Xu Baichuan suddenly stopped in the bleak cold wind.