I stripped naked in the room. Take the clothes one by one to your nose and sniff to see if there is any smell of nicotine. Then, I took another full shower and soaped up over and over again. After cleaning up, I changed into a white embroidered shirt, which was new and hadn't been worn yet. I put the changed clothes in plastic bags and took them to the laundry for dry cleaning.
A dry cleaner is just outside the door. I strike up a conversation with the landlady and ask her if people who smoke leave their clothes smelling of smoke.
"Of course," she said, "if you smoke, or the people around you smoke, every fiber of your clothes will smell of smoke, and you won't be able to wash it off. You can't smell it yourself, sensitive people." You can tell when you smell it. People who collect second-hand clothes here will say hello in advance, second-hand clothes from people who smoke, don’t.”
When I heard it, my head was so big that it was about to explode: "Miss Boss, I don't want any more clothes, please donate them for me. ... Forget it, give it back to me, I can throw it in the trash can."
I went to the mall and bought a change of clothes from the inside out—in a bad mood and resorted to shopping therapy. I wandered around in several shopping malls, carrying a lot of bags and bags. Back at the hotel, it was already lunch time. I went back to my room and took another shower by accident. I watch my fingers in the water. Yes... a little bit of yellow, nicotine infused. In the days when I was in the worst mood, I used to take one pack a day, and smoked even if I was saving money. If it wasn't for paying 2,000 yuan to Lawyer Chen every month, making life a bit tight, I'm afraid the pumping would be even more severe. Alas, I didn't think it was serious before, anyway, I gave up on myself. But now that Li Chuan is back, everything is different.
Just thinking about it, the addiction to smoking broke out again. My fingers began to tremble involuntarily. Headache, irritability, lack of energy, burnt lips, dry mouth, restlessness. I thought of translating documents in the afternoon and needing a cigarette to help me concentrate, so I subconsciously touched my handbag. It's okay, it's okay, thank God, there's one more pack, not much left, and two more. I went out the gate with my handbag, and behind the gate were two huge trash cans, as tall as a person. Nobody wants to linger there and breathe the smell of garbage. That's the ideal place to smoke.
There is an open space at the back door, which is actually an abandoned parking lot. I turned left along the big wall of the hotel, and heard a boy laughing in the open space: "Uncle, throw it here! Here! Here!"
"Come here, look at the ball, don't look at my hand." The magnetic male voice was low but clear.
The boy screamed happily: "Aha! I got it! I got it! Uncle, come again, come again!"
It was the same male voice: "I can throw it far this time. You have to run faster."
"Throw it! Throw it!"
It was Li Chuan half kneeling on the ground, playing with a three-year-old boy. The child's mother stood aside, watching with a smile.
"Aji, good boy, let's go home for dinner and stop playing. Uncle has been playing with you for an hour."
"No, no, I want to play! I don't eat!"
"Well, you can't eat without eating. How can you grow up if you don't eat? How about this, let's go home for dinner, and mom will take you to the park after dinner, okay?"
"No... no... no..."
"Song Xiaoji! Go home! How many times have I told you!" Mom called out impatiently.
The little boy finally took his mother's hand slowly and left.
Li Chuan picked up the cane on the ground and stood up slowly. Seeing me, I said "Hi".
I ignored him, walked to the trash can and stood silently, waiting for him to leave. Even if I can't control my addiction to cigarettes, my self-cultivation is not bad enough to force Li Chuan to smoke second-hand smoke.
Instead of leaving, he followed.
"Angry?" he said.
ignore.
"The more angry you are, the more you have to stand in a place with good air. This place is full of garbage, and the air is so bad."
ignore.
"Hey, do you want candy? I have delicious candy here. Do you want it?"
ignore.
He took a black box out of his pocket and handed it to me. I saw that it was the "Jixiang Tongbao" smoking cessation candy.
"I tried it, it tastes like mint, it's pretty good.... Don't you like sugar?"
I snatched the auspicious tongbao and threw it directly into the trash can.
He took out another box and took out a thin band-aid-like thing from it: "This is a smoking cessation patch called 'In the Mood for Love', you try it?"
I grabbed it again, threw it into the trash can, and said viciously: "What else? Take it all out, and I'll throw it all away!"
There is a concrete stone platform next to the trash can. After walking up a few steps, you will stand at the same height as the top of the trash can. This trash can is as big as a house, and it needs a special truck to tow it. If ordinary people feel that it is too high when throwing garbage, they can climb onto the cement platform to throw it.
Li Chuan picked up a long branch from the ground, pulled me, and walked to the concrete platform together: "Come on, Xiao Qiu. Let's see what's in the trash can?"
What the hell! Let's look down together.
What will be in the trash can? Rubbish. right
Egg shells, leftovers, leftover tea leaves, broken plastic bags, briquettes, fish bones, pig bones, dead cats, chicken feathers, duck feathers, rotten vegetable leaves, empty cans, broken toys, furniture with broken legs, scratched CDs , glass shards, wooden sticks with nails, plastic flowers, moldy rice, potato skins, cucumber skins, rotten watermelons, rotten oranges, electrical wires, carpentry gloves, maggots, flies...
The trash can was not very full, less than half full. Li Chuan took the branches and pawed inside. After pawing for a long time, I picked up a large cabbage leaf with a branch. It was riddled with holes and dangled in front of my eyes.
"What's this?"
"If you keep smoking, your lungs will look like this after a few years. Are you afraid?"
"What are you afraid of? It looks pretty good." I said, "What's wrong?"
Someone is angry. For a long time, he stared at my face, his eyes were very lethal: "Xie Xiaoqiu, it seems that you are going to force me to die. Either you quit smoking. Or, I will jump from here!"
I blinked: "Jump, you just jump. — This trash can just doesn't have a lid!"
Li Chuan has a cleanliness addiction, not an ordinary cleanliness addiction. He showers twice a day and doesn't like to touch anything dirty. The trash can is so dirty, I don't believe he can jump.
As I was thinking this way, I heard a "plop", and this person really jumped down!
"Hey! Li Chuan!"
Li Chuan is wearing a prosthetic limb, so he is absolutely not allowed to do "jumping". I looked at him, too scared to speak. He was fine, turned over and sat up, sat in the garbage, picked up something and threw it to me.
"then!"
I quickly caught it, and after a closer look, it was the pack of smoking cessation candies I just threw down.
"Two at a time. Eat now!"
The box is brand new, sealed in plastic. I tore off the plastic wrap and ate the candy.
"Hey, did you hurt yourself? I'll pull you up!"
"Don't come up!"
"I've already eaten the sugar!"
"You swear! Swear to quit smoking!"
"I swear."
"Speaking doesn't count! You've said it all! You said it and then regretted it!"
"I never said that!"
"You said it last night!"
"That's a dream. Dream talk doesn't count!"
"Excuse me, someone stretched out his feet in front of me and said, 'Li Chuan, take off your socks!' Is this a dream?"
Fainted... Speechless... Is it so beautiful
"I surrender, I quit smoking. I swear: in heaven, I, Xie Xiaoqiu, will quit smoking for the rest of my life. If I can't do it, I will be beaten like a tiger!"
"Throw down the scarf!"
What do you need a scarf for? I take off the silk scarf and throw it down. He wrapped the scarf around his wrist. The scarf was dark blue and I saw a wet mass soaking out. My heart began to pound wildly: "Li Chuan... Are your hands bleeding?"
"No. You go."
"I'll pull you up."
"You can't pull it, go ask René to help me."
I sneaked back to the hotel quietly, pretending to be calm and not daring to disturb others. I knocked on René's door and found that Ji Chuan was inside, and they were talking.
"Annie?"
"Monsieur Dubois, I need your help."
"no problem."
"plz follow me."
I pulled him, quietly walked to the back of the door, climbed up the concrete platform, and Li Chuan sat there calmly.
"My God!" René exclaimed, "What happened?"
"Mr. Li Chuan accidentally fell into the trash can, please quickly pull him up."
Without further ado, René jumped down, stood in the trash can and pushed Li Chuan up. He himself stayed in the box and looked around, and then triumphantly picked up a cardboard box: "Hey, you see, this piece of cardboard is not bad, how about using it to make a rockery?"
René is tall, tall and agile. Quickly crawled out of the trash can: "Alex, are you okay?... Hey, this clothes is too dirty, it's full of egg yolks, don't take it. People will laugh at you when you enter the door later. Come on, wear me coat." Without any explanation, he took off Li Chuan's suit and threw it into the trash can. He took off his suit and handed it to him. Then he saw Li Chuan's wrist, his face changed suddenly: "What's wrong with your hand?"
"It's okay, just a little injury." Li Chuan looked at me and said in a commanding tone, "Xiao Qiu, you go back first."
However, the silk scarf on his hand became more and more wet, and a drop of liquid dripped out and fell to the ground. I stared at him with wide eyes, and cold sweat broke out behind my back. Li Chuan spoke a word of French to René. I guess he's talking about my haemosickness. Because the French hémophobie is pronounced similarly to the English hemophobia.
René came over and pulled me: "Annie, you have to get out of here now."
I didn't move, and said, "René, leave me alone. Take Li Chuan to the hospital first!"
"Alright. Although it's not serious, it needs to be dealt with. Let's go first." He went over and left me with Li Chuan.
My heart is still beating wildly, and the stars are popping up in front of my eyes. After so many years, I have developed some resistance to red, but Li Chuan's blood made me restless and staring at me. I sat on the ground for a minute, adjusted my breathing, stood up when I felt better, and got off the concrete platform. He ran into René head-on.
"René? You're not with Li Chuan anymore?"
"Alex went to the hospital by himself, he didn't want me to accompany him."
"But... what if..."
"Annie, Alex is not a child. He is worried about you, so let me come and see if you are okay."
"It's okay. I was a little dizzy just now, but I'm fine now."
René handed me a long blue paper tube in his arms: "This is the document that Alex asked me to hand over to you. He asked you to translate them as soon as possible."
I walked to the hotel with René, I stopped suddenly in the middle and asked him, "René, why is Li Chuan anemic?"
"He was anemic before."
"Is it serious? Is it congenital?"
"Alex asked me to tell you that if you ask me such a question, it will seriously violate his personal privacy."
"Then what happened to Li Chuan's car accident?"
"Car accident? What car accident?" He looked at me with puffy blue eyes.
"His legs..."
"Oh... that car accident. Well, you saw it, it was serious, almost died."
"What year was that?"
"He was seventeen years old."
"and after?"
"What later?"
"He said that he first studied economics and then architecture. It took eight years to combine the two. He graduated from university at the age of 21."
"Alex went to college at the age of fifteen and studied economics for two years. Then something happened and he changed to architecture. A young genius, that's it."
"So... six years ago, he was suddenly transferred from Beijing. What happened? Family crisis? Economic crisis?"
He thought for a while, and repeated what he said just now: "Alex asked me to tell you that if you ask such a question, it will seriously violate his personal privacy."
"Then, which hospital does Li Chuan go to now?"
"have no idea."
After saying this, I knew that I couldn't extract any useful information from René. What's more, we also walked to the gate of the hotel. René said that he was going to make models, so I went back to the room and dialed Li Chuan's cell phone.
No one answered. I was worried, so I went to the service desk and asked for the address of the nearest hospital, called a taxi, and went to find Li Chuan.
I called Li Chuan again at the gate of the Third People's Hospital, and this time he answered the call as soon as it rang.
"Li Chuan!"
"Um?"
"Which hospital are you in? Is it the third hospital?"
"Yes. I've seen a doctor."
"So fast? No way!" This hospital is very big and there are many patients. In my impression, it seems that there should be a long queue.
"Um... I said I was a foreigner and showed them my passport. I said I had something urgent and couldn't wait. So they gave me priority." Li Chuan said unhurriedly.
Pretty smart.
"Which floor are you on, I'll come to you."
"Where are you?"
"The gate of the Third Hospital."
"Well, I've seen you."
I glanced around, and Li Chuan was sitting far away on the sofa in the waiting room, waving to me. I walked up to him and saw that he had changed into a suit, with a layer of white gauze wrapped around his wrists, obviously he had taken a shower before going to the hospital.
"Did the doctor say it's serious?"
"Not serious, just a small wound."
"Has the bleeding stopped?"
He hesitated for a moment, then said, "Yeah."
"Then why are you still sitting here?" I observed his face, his face was pale, "Are you uncomfortable?"
"The surgery is on the third floor. I couldn't find the elevator. I walked up and down again. I felt a little dizzy."
I sat down and asked softly, "Do you want some water?"
"Need not."
"Don't dance next time, okay?" I stared at him and said heartbroken.
"Do you still smoke?"
"I won't smoke. I won't smoke if I kill you. Be completely honest, okay?"
He smiled lightly, but his face became paler and even faintly blue.
"Aren't you injured elsewhere?"
"No."
"Li Chuan, you look bad, shall we go see a doctor again?" The calmer he was, the more worried I became, and I couldn't help holding his hand tightly.
"I'm fine."
"Anyway, I'm already in the hospital. I read it once, and I read it twice." I continued to persuade, but he pretended to grab a newspaper and pulled his hand out of my hand.
"Don't look, I'm fine. Just rest and rest."
Just then, his cell phone rang. Obviously Ji Chuan called. He spoke a few words in Chinese first, and then the two quarreled in French. I have to say that French sounds beautiful even when used to curse. But what they were arguing about, I couldn't figure it out. Then, I saw Li Chuan pull up the cable suddenly, leaning back on the sofa exhaustedly. Within five minutes, Ji Chuan walked towards us quickly. As soon as the two met, they continued to quarrel. Still in French. After arguing for a long time, Li Chuan didn't have the energy to talk to him anymore, and Ji Chuan was still saying, "Stupide!"
"Abruti!" Li Chuan roared.
"Débile!" Ji Chuan scolded again.
"Idiot!" Li Chuan shouted again.
Although the voices of the two brothers were very low, but judging by their expressions, they were about to fight. I stood aside and didn't know who to persuade. Fortunately, Ji Chuan soon died down, and came to me and said, "Annie, you go back first, okay? I have something to say to Li Chuan."
I nodded and went out to hail a taxi.
After that, I didn't see Li Chuan for three full days.
These three days are the 28th, 29th, and 30th of December, the real end of the year.