In December, there was a heavy snowfall in City A, and the sky was full of snowflakes. I don't know which family's children, piled up three snow dolls on the lawn of the community, a family of three.
The floor heating was turned on at home, Zhou Hao looked out from the balcony wearing cotton slippers, and the three dolls became three small dots. Coffee was brewing in the coffee machine, and the fragrance was coming out from the inside. Jiang Yuqian wore an apron and prepared breakfast for two in the kitchen.
Zhou Hao stretched his waist, the days are really comfortable, the whole person is lazy, as if soaked in warm cotton wool.
"When you take your annual leave, I'll take you to Zurich to see the snow." Jiang Yuqian hugged the little lunatic from behind, and breathed warm breath into his ear.
Zhou Hao turned his face slightly, raised his eyebrows and smiled, "Isn't all the snow like this? Why go all the way to Zurich?"
"I went there once when I was a child, and I want to take you there too."
Zhou Hao said straightforwardly, "Okay, I'll go if you pay."
"Then it's done, let's go after the Chinese New Year."
During the day, Zhou Hao opened the balcony window, but forgot to close it at night. During the night, the water pipe was frozen and cracked, spraying water outside.
At first, the two of them didn't feel anything. It was when Zhou Hao got up to go to the bathroom at night and heard the movement. At this time, water had seeped into the living room through the crack of the sliding door, and a layer of water had accumulated on the floor.
Zhou Hao hurriedly turned off the water valve at home. Looking at the water stains all over the house, he would not be able to sleep in the middle of the night.
Jiang Yuqian woke up when he heard the sound outside. He walked out of the bedroom. The living room had become a shallow water beach, and the little lunatic was bending over the balcony to twist the wet mop head.
"Haohao." Jiang Yuqian walked across the water wearing cotton slippers.
Zhou Hao couldn't laugh or cry, "I forgot to close the window, the water pipe was frozen and cracked."
Jiang Yuqian frowned, and his eyes were fixed on the little lunatic's feet, which were dipping in shallow water without socks.
"Go and sit on the sofa, I'll do it."
"I'm coming, don't worry about it."
Jiang Yuqian rolled up the cuffs of his pajamas involuntarily, and with a shoulder fall, he carried the little lunatic to the sofa, and pressed him on the sofa.
"Sit down, I'll get you a towel."
Jiang Yuqian swam through the water again, took a clean towel over, and threw it directly to the little lunatic, "Wipe your feet."
Zhou Hao was a little dumbfounded, so he had no choice but to follow suit.
Jiang Yuqian cleaned up the water in the living room and balcony by himself, and the mop head squeezed two full buckets of water. He walked up to Zhou Hao, quite proud, "It's over."
Zhou Hao looked at his wet feet, "Jiang Yuqian, are your feet cold?"
Jiang Yuqian acted coquettishly, showing miserable eyes, "It's cold, you have to cover me for a while."
Zhou Hao rolled his eyes and said with a smile, "You are so beautiful!"
Zhou Hao boiled some hot water, poured the water into a large plastic basin used for laundry, and moved two low stools. He and Jiang Yuqian were alone, and they were sitting around a plastic basin, soaking their feet.
"Be comfortable." Zhou Hao stretched out one foot and stepped on Jiang Yuqian's instep.
Jiang Yuqian snorted, his throat was chaotic, and he didn't know what he was talking about.
Zhou Hao got a bargain and sold himself as a good boy, so he simply stepped on Jiang Yuqian's instep with both feet, and looked at the dumb Mumu provocatively.
I thought that Dumbwood would always be so non-competitive, but he jumped up, his feet slipped out inadvertently, stepped on Zhou Hao's instep, and then said provocatively, "Haohao, it's so comfortable!" .”
Zhou Hao calmed down deliberately, and prepared to launch a fierce attack while he was relaxing. Unexpectedly, as soon as he lifted his foot, Jiang Yuqian immediately reacted and pressed down again.
The steaming hot footbaths stepped on each other, and the water splashed all over the floor.
After soaking their feet, the two went to bed noisy again, and it was already past four o'clock in the morning. What to sleep, let's hug each other and talk for a while.
"Jiang Yuqian, your feet are so beautiful, they are snow white." Zhou Hao praised eccentrically.
Jiang Yuqian pinched his face, "So is your butt, it's snow white."
Zhou Hao knocked off his hand, and breathed out his nose, "Rogue."
"I didn't lie to you, the truth is, you can't see it yourself."
"I'm going to sleep, don't bother me." Zhou Hao turned his back and gave Jiang Yuqian the back of his head.
"Haohao, don't sleep, let's drive to the zoo." As he spoke, Jiang Yuqian's hands began to twitch.
"What kind of zoo do you visit, you don't go to work tomorrow?"
"It's okay to be late."
"It doesn't matter if you are the boss, I am a hard-working office worker."
Jiang Yuqian's hands were honest, so he had to settle for the next best thing, "Then let me sleep with you in my arms."
"It's childish to obey you."
The next morning, as usual, Jiang Yuqian got up and was busy with breakfast. Zhou Hao wolfed down a few mouthfuls, then hurried out the door.
Jiang Yuqian picked up a box of milk and chased it out, "Forget about it, go to work and scald it with hot water. How about I give it to you today."
"No, it's just a few steps, and the road is slippery, so it's hard to drive. I also want to tell you, don't drive, take the bus. There is a No. 11 from our house that goes directly to your company."
Jiang Yuqian was secretly happy because the little lunatic said "home".
"I'm leaving." Zhou Hao waved his hand.
But Jiang Yuqian grabbed him, like an innocent boy, "Kiss."
"Annoying guy." Zhou Hao moved to his left cheek and smacked.
When he arrived at the hospital, Zhou Hao just sat down on his buttocks when a phone call came from there. It's all nonsense.
"Have you arrived at the unit?"
"arrive."
"I didn't ask you in the morning, are you coming back for lunch?"
Zhou Hao really wanted to roll his eyes, and asked the question knowingly, but he said angrily, "Come back to eat! Someday I won't come back to eat!"
"Understood, what do you want to eat?"
"I'm at work, you can figure it out yourself." Zhou Hao hung up the phone with a smile on his lips.
===========
Downstairs of the old-fashioned apartment building in Minlin District, stood a young man in a suit and leather shoes. He was a man in his twenties, not tall, with neatly combed hair, holding a pot of green plants in his hands. Look, he should be a relatively conservative person.
The man stood from the afternoon until the evening sunset, and the residents who passed by thought he was a neurotic man. They secretly looked out from their windows: the man was always standing straight with no expression on his face.
Only Mrs. Song, who came back from shopping for vegetables, felt that this boy looked familiar. After thinking about it carefully, she remembered who he was——
It turned out to be a tenant from years ago.
Mrs. Song didn't come forward to strike up a conversation, because her grandson was about to leave school soon, and she had to send the food back quickly before picking him up from school.
This day, from morning to night, he was busy with everything, and he didn't even have the time to chat with people.
After the sun went down, the man went back with the potted plant in his arms.
He took subway line 3 and headed in the direction of major A. In the crowded carriage, the man is holding the handrail with one hand and protecting the potted plant on his chest with the other.
The man's eyes are erratic, looking back and forth in the subway, what is he looking at
I'm afraid even he himself can't tell.
Suddenly, a WeChat message from Da Fei popped up on the man's cell phone.
"Awen, in the evening at the Bituifa restaurant on the second floor of Jinbao Street, the big boss invites you to dinner."
Da Fei is an authentic Hong Kong native who speaks fluent English but not Mandarin. Sometimes I deliberately choked out a few sentences of Mandarin, with a few Cantonese words in between, or I just inserted a sentence of English, neither Chinese nor Western. It took a lot of effort for the man to listen at first, but he gradually got used to it.
Da Fei came back from the United States, but he insisted on going to the mainland despite his capitalist life. He said that he fell in love with a girl from City A and wanted to visit the hometown where the girl grew up.
How to sing that song, I came to your city and walked the way you came.
All in all, there is a kind of petty bourgeois romance in this Hongkonger.
In the first year when the man went to the United States, he had a hard time studying. He attended classes during the day and worked part-time jobs at night. Sometimes in the middle of the night, the guilt buried deep in his heart engulfed him like a flood.
It was this Hongkonger who inserted himself into his life and brought a rare laugh.
The friendship between the two began at that time, and after four years, it has grown deeper.
The man is studying for a master's degree in statistics across majors. He just graduated this year. After returning to China, he went to a securities company with Da Fei.
The man replied on WeChat: Received, I will be there soon.
The other colleagues were all there, as was the boss of the sales department. He walked over with a potted plant in his arms, looking nondescript.
"Awen, why are you holding this thing?" Da Fei's Mandarin still sounded awkward.
"Passing by a flower shop, I just bought it."
Everyone has already taken their seats, and the men are sitting next to the Hong Kong people.
Today's meal is a welcome banquet hosted by the big boss for the new employees, and the atmosphere in the entire sales department is quite active.
The Hong Kong People's Dafei is the most instigating atmosphere, causing everyone to chatter after another, and finally, somehow, it comes to Dafei.
A female colleague asked him, why did he come to City A as a Hong Kong native
Da Fei brewed affection, "To pursue my love."
The literal meaning is quite touching, but the atmosphere is spoiled by his poor Mandarin.
The female colleague then jokingly asked Da Fei, "What about Mr. Sun? Is he also for love?"
Only then did the silent man react. He smiled and said, "I am from City A."
Taking advantage of the big guy's focus on Sun Yiwen, Da Fei intentionally teased him, "Ah Wen is also for love, of course. He told me that his partner doesn't like flowers, but only potted plants that are not in autumn."
Of course this was just Da Fei's joke, Sun Yiwen never mentioned Zhou Hao to him. He never mentioned his ex-boyfriend to anyone during the crazy days of missing him in a foreign country.
But right now, he broke away from the hustle and bustle of the scene, and fell into another thought—
He went to Minlin District today with a potted plant in his hands, in fact, he wanted to run into that person by accident. If you meet that person, he will give him the potted plant in his hand, and then ask him: Lao Zhou, how have you been doing these years
"I'm going to the bathroom." Sun Yiwen escaped from everyone's eyes.
He ran to the sink and slapped his face with cold water, then he looked at himself in the mirror and smiled.
After dinner, he took the subway back to his and his father's home, a spacious and bright house of more than 100 square meters, which was given by Ou Yi.
His father's health is still the same, with ups and downs, and he can't do heavy work. During the few years he has been abroad, he has been taken care of by his uncles.
"Dad, I'm back." Sun Yiwen pushed open the door and changed shoes at the entrance.
No one responded. He pushed open the door of his father's bedroom. His father was inhaling bronchodilators, and the room was full of intermittent loud inhalation.
After a while, his father put down the expander in his hand and smiled at his son, "You're back, have you taken it?"
Sun Yiwen nodded, staring blankly at his father. After a long time, he rushed out of this bedroom and walked back to his own room.
Due to his father's illness and the cruel reality, he can no longer bring potted plants to Lao Zhou.
And, where is Lao Zhou? When the two broke up, he deleted his wechat and phone number, and now he can't contact Lao Zhou at all.
Sun Yiwen buried himself in the quilt and wept softly, as if he wanted to drip all the tears he had held back during the four years in a foreign country.
Drop it down, so that I can stop thinking about looking for Lao Zhou.