For Li Zhongchen, he and Qiao Yan always felt guilty when Ni Hanzhou passed away.
The relationship between Ni Hanzhou and Qiao Yan can be said in popular terms as childhood, but they were both born in the same orphanage, and the friendship they cherished each other when they were young is really hard to describe in words.
Although what happened that year, from a moral point of view, they may not be condemned, after all, no one could have expected such a tragic accident to happen.
But when the fresh life is completely wiped out, it is difficult for anyone to face it calmly.
On weekends, a high-end barber shop in a deep alley in the city.
The three people sitting in the rest area had their own concerns, and Zheng Xiaokui could only break the deadlock first.
"Master, where is Brother Xiao Qiao going on leave?" The little girl ate the dessert, "I thought you would go with me too."
Li Zhongchen sat with his legs crossed.
He leaned against the soft sofa, seemed to be relaxed, and said without emotion: "Qiao Yan is going to Linxing because of a private matter, and we were supposed to talk together, but your little Master Yao insisted on not letting me go."
His words were only half spoken.
He didn't tell Zheng Xiaokui about his proposal to accompany him, but Qiao Yan refused, otherwise he would really lose face.
"Today, you all come to work for me for free. Is it okay for me to take the blame?" Yao Tong, as an insider, snorted coldly.
Zheng Xiaokui couldn't grasp the point: "It's not a free job. Didn't you promise Brother Yao that you will have a big meal in the evening? I want to eat bullfrogs, and you have already agreed."
Yao Tong said perfunctorily: "Eat, eat whatever you want, just don't shout about losing weight all day after eating."
It's still early now, and the stylishly decorated barber shop is ready to open.
They chatted unscrupulously, waiting for a key person to appear, until there was a conversation at the front desk——
"Kevin, you are finally here! The benefactor has been waiting for you for a long time."
"Oh, the subway is too crowded. It took a lot of time just to transfer. Where is it? I have to go to see my handsome gold boss, but my sister can help me check the makeup on my face. It's not dead white." Bar."
"You look good. Our brother Kevin is a natural beauty queen. Hurry up, we're all waiting in the rest room."
"Wow, there are still a few of them?! Then I have to spray some more perfume, otherwise I can only blame myself for not taking care of them if I can't catch handsome guys."
Several people in the lounge were drunk: "..."
Until the gold-medal salesman of the high-end barber shop walked in pinching his orchid finger.
Yao Tong was feeling overwhelmed and a little uncomfortable, but his attitude was still polite. He invited someone to sit down: "Kevin, right? It's a pleasure to meet you. I have to ask you for a favor today. I think it's no problem with your professional level. "
Brother Kevin probably didn't expect this handsome guy to come here.
Although there is a silly little sister next to him, it will never affect his charm. He covered his mouth and smiled: "Don't worry, handsome guy, it's just to sign a form. If I can't do this well, I won't just work a few times in this line for nothing." Is it a year?"
Li Zhongchen looked at them expressionlessly.
He thought to himself: You'd better be like this, don't make our trip for nothing, otherwise the store will blacklist you.
"It's not just as simple as signing a form, but I have read all the procedures I sent you on WeChat?" Yao Tong didn't talk nonsense with Kevin.
"Oh, I must have read it, handsome guy, if you don't believe others, can you still not believe me Kevin?" He seemed to memorize it backwards. Hundreds of customers will enjoy a 10% discount on membership cards, and I promise to use my business level to convince that customer to sign the form."
"Then you have to look at my eyes!" Zheng Xiaokui interrupted, "The protagonist is Brother Luo, not Xiao Su, so don't make a mistake."
Kevin turned to look at Zheng Xiaokui: "No, no, it's a big deal to sign them all."
"If it doesn't work, all the fucking staff will apply for the card for free, and it's only a few dollars," Yao Tong said desperately, "Remember to ask him to keep an eye on it when he signs. Don't ask him to sign in English, but ask for a Chinese name."
But even if some people sign their names, they can't see the authenticity.
Li Zhongchen couldn't help suggesting: "Or... another anniversary celebration? Just write a word of blessing and get the card for free, then it will be safe."
Kevin naturally didn't know their purpose.
But after hearing this, Yao Tong and Zheng Xiaokui couldn't help admiring: "It's a good idea, so let's do it this way."
"Okay, okay, don't worry, fellow funders." Kevin successfully received the instruction and gestured.
We finished explaining to each other.
Brother Kevin had to go busy changing his work clothes, so he left first.
They continued to sit in the sofa area, and Zheng Xiaokui brought a bunch of sweets and milk tea, and enthusiastically shared them with them: "I can't finish it all by myself, master, please help me solve it, it's good to eat sweets once in a while. "
It is estimated that it is also difficult to be generous.
The two of them couldn't refuse, each took a few sips of milk tea, and they both frowned.
"It's too sweet." Yao Tong's facial features were written with a strong refusal.
"Ah, yes? I think it's okay," Zheng Xiaokui asked Li Zhongchen's opinion with a sideways glance, "Master, what do you think?"
Li Zhongchen got up and poured himself a glass of water: "It's really too sweet. If you really drink it up, you'll have to run on the treadmill for an hour."
Yao Tong asked him to pour another glass and take a sip.
Then he said with a sad face: "If the elderly bachelors don't pay attention to body management, they will wait to gain weight. Zheng Xiaokui, learn from it."
The little girl said: "I'm only sixteen years old, okay?"
... It's such a lethal sentence.
Anyway, there is no rush, Su Ruiqi and Luo Yuji are still on the way.
They can still continue chatting leisurely for a while.
Until the barber shop opened, Kevin notified them in advance that he was ready.
And Zheng Xiaokui should also switch to a good state, and is about to work for his little uncle Yao.
But this girl always loses the chain at critical moments: "Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow ah."
Yao Tong ordered her: "Then you are finished, and you still eat bullfrogs, I will directly stew you."
"..." Li Zhongchen knew that Zheng Xiaokui was unreliable, so he thought that luckily he just came to watch the show today.
Not long after, Su Ruiqi's message popped up.
Under the watchful eyes of her master and uncle, Zheng Xiaokui mustered up her morale and went to the rest area of the lobby to wait for her combat target.
In the magic city in early winter, bare branches can be seen everywhere.
The lounge where Li Zhongchen and Yao Tong are sitting is a cubicle, with the window behind them, looking down from the glass window, you can see the withered leaves covering the alley path.
Yao Tong suddenly felt melancholy.
Either it was caused by a knot in his heart, or the winter weather is easy to give people illusions, he said to Li Zhongchen: "It feels like you are not in a good mood."
And Li Zhongchen propped his elbows on the table.
He kept staring at the old man who was sweeping fallen leaves outside the window, and his heart was calm: "It's okay, I don't have time to think too much."
Actually this trip.
I have to make up for the lost time tonight, and I guess I won’t be able to fall asleep until early in the morning.
"Are you going to be a coach after you retire?" Yao Tong rarely mentioned this topic to Li Zhongchen, "I guess Apex is only a few years away."
Li Zhongchen replied truthfully: "The commentary is also fine, as long as I can make a living, I can't bear the hard life without money, how about you?"
It is estimated that it was too poor.
No matter how much savings he has, Li Zhongchen dare not be satisfied with the status quo and stop moving forward.
"Let's do what we do, keep working on my videos," Yao Tong sighed, and changed the subject to continue chatting with Li Zhongchen, "By the way, Xiao Qiao is going with that female star this trip?"
Li Zhongchen withdrew his gaze and said in a muffled voice, "Yes."
This reaction surprised Yao Tong.
When Qiao Yan announced his engagement without warning, there was a lot of uproar, and Yao Tong was the front row witness. But now that it's been a long time, people in the know know that Qiao Yan and the actress named Ni Naru are completely impossible to be in a relationship.
"Didn't you keep asking me about this before, but I didn't tell you?" Li Zhongchen rarely opened the conversation, "It was mainly because a year and a half ago, I think he wanted to break up with me completely, no matter whether he really planned to have a relationship with someone else or not. There are still other plans for getting married, but at least he chose to get engaged and return to the United States to show me where he stands."
Yao Tong's eyebrows twitched when he heard this: "The operation of engagement is indeed unusual, and I still haven't fully understood why."
This word just fell.
Li Zhongchen received a text message.
The two of them tacitly paused the topic until Li Zhongchen took out his phone, read the message, and replied to Qiao Yan under Yao Tong's gaze: Okay, buy one for me too.
Then Li Zhongchen took back his phone and said, "Qiao Yan bought flowers at a flower shop, and I want to take them to my friend's grave."
"As you mentioned before, Xiao Qiao's elder brother whose fiancée passed away." Yao Tong opened his mouth slightly, "Or Xiao Qiao's younger brother?"
"Yes, they slept on bunk beds when they were in the orphanage," Li Zhongchen once mentioned only briefly, but now he can't wait to expand on it in detail, "It's the feeling of being the same age but connected by fate. The time when entering the orphanage is not less than a few days away , and was later adopted by an American family with a more standardized adoption system than other countries, two groups of families, but in the same city.”
"Then... it is indeed very fateful."
With the help of the Ipad Kevin gave them, they can see the monitoring situation in the lobby of the store.
Zheng Xiaokui was still fiddling with the phone with his head down, Su Ruiqi and Luo Yuji didn't see anyone at all, they were also bored, so the more they chatted, the more relaxed they became.
"The same-sex family that adopted Qiao Yan, you know that too," Li Zhongchen said with dark eyes, "Overseas itself is more open to sexual orientation. Later, Ni Hanzhou got in touch with Qiao Yan a lot, and has been secretly in love with him."
Yao Tong continued: "Does Xiao Qiao know?"
"I've always known, but he always regarded Ni Hanzhou as his closest friend," Li Zhongchen said, "So I got in touch with Qiao Yan later, and Ni Hanzhou was devastated. Maybe he always felt that Qiao Yan's attitude of neither agreeing nor refusing was due to Give him a chance."
Looking back, it should have been many years ago.
But Yao Tong always felt that Li Zhongchen and Qiao Yan were always tied down by those past events, which led to the current situation.
"His death was an accident. At that time, I was the local guide of the volunteer activities of the group, and the activities were already divided, but Ni Hanzhou was very repulsive, so he didn't choose to be with me and Qiao Yan." Li Zhongchen said in a short way, " He chose to avoid my project, and went to pick up garbage deep in the forest park with his brother, and then an accident happened."
Yao Tong was frightened after hearing this: "Then what about your brother?"
"My younger brother is lucky. In fact, what happened back then was mainly due to the loopholes in the Forest Park itself," Li Zhongchen sighed, "But Ni Hanzhou's death really hit all of us hard."
Li Zhongchen said silently: "Later, Qiao Yan and I almost broke up, but we still liked each other so much that we couldn't give up."
Yao Tong was very upset when he heard it.
Maybe it's because he has never experienced these things since he was a child. The biggest setback for Young Master Yao, who grew up in a greenhouse, was limited to his father's imprisonment.
"Back then we didn't even know what Ni Hanzhou's real name was," Li Zhongchen said slowly, "It was Ni Naru who found Qiao Yan later, and we realized that Qiao Yan was the only one who was abandoned by his family, while Ni Hanzhou was abducted and sold far away. , unclaimed lost children after being rescued.”
"Being engaged to Ni Naru is a worry for the mother of the Ni family. Auntie is already in the late stage of gastric cancer and occasionally has mental hallucinations." Li Zhongchen smiled wryly, "After all, until now, it is impossible for Ni Naru to marry her benefactor. marry."
He explained it this way.
This matter also came to light for Yao Tong.
"It's been so many years since death cannot be brought back to life," Yao Tong comforted him, "It's just that according to Xiao Qiao's personality, it should be difficult for him to let go."
"Qiao Die tends to think too much, and won't take the initiative to say it." Li Zhongchen was a little tired, and slumped on the sofa, "Forget it, let these things take their course. The main reason is that Ms. Ni relied on the relationship of Qiao Die's adoptive father. , once got an important role in Hollywood, so sometimes I feel that Ni Naru is using her brother to tie up Qiao Yan, and I have no position to say anything more."
He even took the initiative to deliver materials for Qiao Yan's lawsuit.
Later, Li Zhongchen also learned that Ni Naru's insinuation hoped that Qiao Yan would help persuade her family again to talk about film cooperation for her. The purpose was too obvious.
Yao Tong noticed that Li Zhongchen was unwilling to say more, so he didn't continue the conversation.
It happened that his gaze inadvertently shifted to the Ipad on the desktop, and the figures of Luo Yuji and Su Ruiqi suddenly appeared on the screen, and he couldn't help exclaiming—
"It's coming, it's coming, Zheng Xiaokui Ollie!"
"..." After all, this is the main event. Li Zhongchen came here today purely to cheer Yao Tong up. He also had to give brother Zu face and shouted a slogan, "Little apprentice Ollie, don't trick your uncle."
The situation in the hall at this time is—
Zheng Xiaokui jumped up from the seat, bouncing to meet the target: "Little Suzi! I miss you so much!"
"..." Before Luo Yuji could react, Zheng Xiaokui responded to him with a smile, "Hello God L, I'm Zheng Xiaokui from SVG team, nice to meet you."
To be honest, Su Ruiqi was a little embarrassed.
He looked sideways and explained to Luo Yuji: "Brother Luo, I'm afraid you won't go out with me to get a haircut if you know that the god-sister I recognize is from the enemy team. I didn't have the nerve to mention it to you yesterday."
Luo Yuji's appearance belongs to the clean and delicate type, and his personality is recognized as good-natured: "It's okay, it's not convenient for you to go out without a car."
On the other hand, Zheng Xiaokui showed no embarrassment at all.
She has always been acquainted with this person: "God L, can I also call you Brother Luo? I introduced this store to Xiao Suzi before. Their service is very good. You can eat snacks as you like, and there is an anniversary celebration today. Woolen cloth."
Her "Brother Luo" seemed to be an instruction.
Brother Kevin started the business model after hearing this, and chatted naturally. He started with the haircut package and estimated that he would proceed step by step, and then he would guide Luo Yuji to apply for a membership card.
off screen.
Li Zhongchen observed tastelessly.
But Yao Tong was nervous, and kept saying, "Zheng Xiaokui, you can resist me, the bullfrog is waving to you tonight."
Li Zhongchen was quite cheerful: "It should be fine. Didn't I tell Zheng Xiaokui to say more bad things about us, to create her aversion to the oppressive behavior within the team, or let Luo Yuji relax."
"I think it's safe." Yao Tong agreed.
Li Zhongchen and Yao Tong kept watching around the iPad.
He didn't move around casually, and waited quietly for more than an hour, taking a panoramic view of the situation outside.
Until Yao Tong's eyes turned sour: "I'll go, I've done so many fancy things, and I just washed my hair now, it's so fucking boring."
"I'll take a nap for a while," Li Zhongchen felt sleepy, "I didn't sleep well last night."
Two old men.
It is not easy to sit and wait like this for several hours.
Li Zhongchen was indeed a little tired. After training at this intensity, it was not difficult to be able to sit down and fall asleep.
He raised his head and closed his eyes for about ten minutes. He was somewhat conscious during light sleep, and then Yao Tong woke him up and said, "I signed it. This gold medal boy's professional level is really not blown out of the air."
Li Zhongchen was woken up, and it was inevitable that he felt dizzy when looking at the screen.
However, he used Yao Tong's switching perspective to clearly see Luo Yuji's right hand when signing from a specific angle. The movement was very slow, and the posture of holding the pen was also extremely strange. He couldn't help saying: "Is Luo Yuji the kind of extremely taciturn person? Writing a word also resembles his character, slowly."
"He wouldn't deliberately write something that doesn't look like his own," Yao Tong inevitably became suspicious, "Don't let us waste all our previous efforts, that's okay."
Li Zhongchen asked: "Then you watched the surveillance just now, did you find any loopholes in Zheng Xiaokui?"
"That's not true," Yao Tong said honestly, "Especially when we fabricate our image in a bad direction, but we still chatted happily with Luo Yuji, as expected of your apprentice Kui."
Li Zhongchen raised his eyebrows: "Take a look at the handwriting, don't you still know old calligraphers? It stands to reason that the handwriting and strokes of the same person have similarities, and they cannot escape the eyes of professionals."
Yao Tong was startled when he heard this, and felt that what he said was reasonable.
After waiting for less than half an hour, Zheng Xiaokui went out with Su Ruiqi and Luo Yuji.
"Let that girl lie to Xiao Su for a dessert, give her some time to put on a show, and meet us later." Li Zhongchen and Yao Tong got the handwriting and were about to set off for the residence of the old calligrapher.
But when they actually saw the old gentleman, they handed over the letter and the handwriting they had just received, expressing their intention to come.
The old man who has been studying calligraphy for decades strongly vetoed it: "It is definitely not the same person's handwriting. Even after several years, the shape and style of the handwriting cannot run counter to each other."
"The brush movement is not only reflected in the calligraphy, the gel pen also has a set of rules for the brush movement, and there are various signs that the characters are written by two hands."
Yao Tong's face turned pale: "Could it be that... it's because I haven't written Chinese characters for a long time that this change happened?"
The old man still kept his attitude: "Generally speaking, no. If you don't believe me, you can go to other places to ask."
"Yes, thank you, sir."
Then Yao Tong said a few words in Shanghai dialect, and thanked the old man very respectfully.
Li Zhongchen also nodded silently, leaned over and said goodbye to the old gentleman.
Out of the deep alley.
Li Zhongchen received a call from Zheng Xiaokui, saying that he could come to them now.
It wasn't until he hung up the phone that Li Zhongchen realized that Yao Tong's complexion was not very good. It wouldn't be too much to say that he was depressed, but what was the faint disappointment emanating from him
His voice followed the cold wind: "Yao Tong, it's not possible."
"It's really not. It seems that someone else wrote the letter back then." Yao Tong reached a settlement with himself, "Don't worry, I can focus on the national competition from now on, and I won't think about it any more."
The author has something to say: there is another chapter~