"Xue Tong and I can keep each other company, so there's nothing to be afraid of," said Chen Yan.
"I must escort you home and make sure you lock the door before leaving." Xiao Li emphasized, "We don't know where that person will appear or what he will do."
Chen Yan nodded and no longer refused.
I suddenly felt a little scared.
At four o'clock in the morning, I heard a noise in my daze. We had just fallen asleep on the sofa watching the Spring Festival Gala replay.
I stood up and looked around.
The TV is still on.
To determine where the sound was coming from, I picked up the remote and turned down the TV volume.
At this moment, Chen Yan also woke up.
"What?" She rubbed her eyes.
"Shh" I made a gesture to keep quiet.
Then, the sound appeared again, and it came from the direction of the gate.
We looked at each other and then stared at the security door at the same time. My heart suddenly beat fast and I held the remote control tightly with both hands.
The door moved and opened slowly.
At that second, I almost forgot to breathe and even imagined what was about to happen.
"Yan Yan?"
The person sticking half of his body out from behind the door is Uncle Chen.
"Dad, it's you!" Chen Yan said. At the same time, I also breathed a sigh of relief.
"You scared us to death. Why didn't you call me when you got back?"
"I was afraid you would fall asleep."
Then my mother showed up.
"How is it?" Chen Yan asked.
"Found it." Uncle Chen said, putting down his coat.
"Where did you find it?"
"In prison, hiding in the dark, still waiting for an opportunity to escape."
I looked at them and felt as if I was in a dream. Suddenly something big happened, and suddenly everything returned to normal. As for the person who attempted to escape from prison, what happened to him in the end was not my concern.
At the end of the winter vacation, on the first day of my return to City A, my mother sat down to chat with me. I thought she was going to talk about her and Uncle Chen, but she just asked about my school situation.
"You don't have any plans for the future?"
"I am looking for a job."
"What do you want to do in the future?"
"have no idea."
"have no idea?"
"Yes, Chen Yan is better than me. Her ideals and goals are so clear. And my classmates who haven't found a job will stay in school during the Spring Festival to look for opportunities."
Liu Qi is taking the civil service exam.
Song Qiqi signed a contract with a technical college in her hometown and returned to become a teacher.
Senior Brother Li still has two years before graduating from graduate school. Bai Lin's wish is to stay in City A to accompany him. It doesn't matter what job it is.
Zhao Xiaotang wants to work as a property consultant in a real estate company.
and I
Besides passing the CET-8 next semester, what other goals do I have
"Mom, what do you think I should do?"
My mother looked at me and reached out to smooth my bangs: "If you haven't made up your mind yet, take your time. At worst, you can just stay at home and let me support you."
"Or I'll take the police exam too."
"no."
"Why? Aren't you a policeman too?"
"Because I do this, I don't want you to go down this path." After a while, she whispered, "It's too hard."
After the new semester started, Liu Qi and I developed a mild relationship, but it was limited to eating together, studying together, and him getting water for me.
In the dormitory, the one who underwent strange changes was Zhao Xiaotang. Her hair suddenly became straight, the strange clothes and colorful eye shadow disappeared from her, and she returned to the dormitory on time every night.
I couldn't help but mutter, "Why are you suddenly acting like a college student?"
Zhao Xiaotang retorted: "I am a college student."
"Really? I just discovered it."
She glanced at him coldly: "Believe it or not, I will strangle you to death now?"
March 14th is said to be White Valentine's Day.
I didn't understand it at first, but it was only after Bai Lin shouted about it in the dormitory many days in advance that I finally understood there was such a saying. February 14th happened to be during the Chinese New Year, and most campus lovers were separated, so this so-called White Valentine's Day was used as compensation and became a hot topic.
On the 14th, Wednesday, Liu Qi and his classmates had professional classes in the evening, so he went to buy movie tickets for the afternoon in advance.
The place where we watched the movie was, of course, not the pirated small cinema in the west of the school where Bai Lin and I often cheated for membership tickets, but a luxurious theater in the city center. This might be our first formal meeting, like a date.
There were many young men and women of about our age coming and going in the cinema hall.
When I walked past the snack shop on the corner, I caught a glimpse of the words on the freezer: If you love her, treat her to Haagen-Dazs.
Obviously, Liu Qi saw it too.
Our eyes accidentally met.
"Want to eat?" he asked.
"No. It's expensive and cold." I turned my head away, quickened my pace awkwardly, and walked away quickly, leaving him behind.
I was telling the truth, it was really cold today. Spring had already arrived, but the temperature dropped suddenly yesterday, catching people off guard. I left my thickest down jacket at home, so I had to wear a few more layers inside to keep out the cold.
As soon as the movie started, I couldn't help coughing.
Liu Qi glanced at me.
I said, "It's okay."
Halfway through the performance, my throat started to itch and I started coughing again. In order not to disturb others, I tried to keep my voice down. Seeing that I was having a hard time, he raised his hand and patted me on the back.
After I finished coughing, just when I thought I could continue watching the movie with peace of mind, Liu Qi said, "Are you cold?" Then, he moved his hand away from my back, stretched it in front of me, and held my hand.
I was shocked.
Turned and looked at him.
He stared at the screen as steady as a rock, without any expression, but his hand just held mine, with no sign of letting go.
One second, ten seconds, thirty seconds... they all passed, and I still held it like this.
I don't know what to do. I am so timid and at a loss when encountering such a thing. I am afraid that if I struggle, I will hurt him, or if I acquiesce, he will have some more intimate behavior.
So, I was so flustered that I dared not move at all and just let him be like this, but my whole body was stiff.
I have lived for 21 years, and except for my father, I have never had such an intimate behavior with any member of the opposite sex. As for what happened in the movie later, I had completely lost interest. I just felt that Liu Qi's palms were also sweating, and the thin layer of sweat wet my hands, making them sticky and uncomfortable.
I remember in my junior year, during the audio-visual class, the teacher showed a lot of movies. In one of the movies, the heroine said that she always thought that when she kissed her lover, her toes would involuntarily leave the ground and curl up happily, and she would feel like she was losing herself.
I also used to think that when my boyfriend held my hand for the first time, I would feel warm and sweet.
But reality is not quite the same as imagined.
Fortunately, the darkness in the theater concealed my embarrassment. When the story on the screen reached its climax, the person sitting in front of me couldn't help but turn his head and exchange a few words with his companions. I also took the opportunity to change my sitting position, and then pulled my hand out of Liu Qi's palm without leaving a trace.
Maybe it happened too suddenly and I didn't have time to adapt; maybe it's because I have never liked physical contact with people since I was a child; maybe it's because I felt the atmosphere was not appropriate. In any case, after I withdrew my hand, I felt relieved.
After leaving the cinema, I tried hard to look happy.
After dinner, he went to class and I went back to the dormitory.
The day just passed like this.
The next afternoon, Zhao Xiaotang dropped a bombshell as soon as she walked in, announcing, "My boyfriend is treating you to dinner tonight."
"No way?" Bai Lin and I said in unison, "When did you have a boyfriend?"
"You know each other."
"No way?" We both imitated Stephen Chow's expression, raised our voices and exclaimed again.
"It's Mu Hai."
"Who is Mu Hai?" Bai Lin asked.
"I seem to have heard this name somewhere before." I said thoughtfully.
Zhao Xiaotang rolled her eyes at me and reminded me, "Remember when we met an online friend in our junior year, he mistook you for me. That was the person."
"Oh," I suddenly realized, "Then he invited us to sing, and that led to me meeting Mu Chenghe."
"Yes." Zhao Xiaotang nodded.
"His online name is that... "
"Murong Qingfeng."
To be honest, Mu Hai's appearance surprised us. He was completely different from Zhao Xiaotang's previous rumored boyfriends. As an alternative in our class, Zhao Xiaotang had only one principle for choosing a friend: if you don't have a lot of money, then at least you have to be handsome.
Obviously, Mu Hai does not meet the requirements of either of the above two conditions.
But Zhao Xiaotang stayed with him and even changed some of her behaviors.
"I met him when I was looking for a job interview. He is a good man," Zhao Xiaotang explained.
"There are so many good men, why didn't you like them before?" Bai Lin said.
Then, Zhao Xiaotang said something that shocked Bai Lin and me. She said, "I am deeply attracted by his inner qualities." She said this with a joking tone, but at that moment, I saw a smile on her face. That smile came from the inside out, so sweet.
At dinner with Mu Hai, we all seemed very reserved. Firstly, he was a working man, so he didn't have as many topics to talk about as Liu Qi and Senior Brother Li. Secondly, although he was now a family member of our dormitory, we used to treat him like a fat sheep and we felt embarrassed.
So the topic was taught to Senior Brother Li and Liu Qi.
The three men first talked about major political events, then the social situation and tourist hotspots, and later they talked about the real estate industry that Mu Hai was engaged in. The four of us women joined in the conversation from time to time, and finally we managed to liven up the relationship.
Then, the topic shifted to Senior Brother Li, who had the highest academic qualifications.
Mu Hai said: "People who study your major are considered high-tech talents in the country and are in great demand."
Senior Brother Li shook his head with a wry smile.
Mu Hai added: "I have a relative who also teaches physics in your school. He is quite famous. His name is Mu Chenghe." As soon as he finished speaking, except for Liu Qi, the remaining five of us were stunned.
"Are you Teacher Mu's relative?" Bai Lin asked first.
"Why haven't I heard you say this before?" Zhao Xiaotang asked second.
"What relatives?" Song Qiqi asked the third question.
"You..." Mu Hai said, "You seem surprised."
Liu Qi didn't understand, so he kindly explained, "Teacher Mu is a professor in Senior Brother Li's department, and he also taught Russian to Xue Tong and the others."
Only Senior Brother Li looked at us to the left, then looked at Liu Qi and Mu Hai to the right, sandwiched in the middle with a complicated expression. Bai Lin secretly winked at Liu Qi behind his back.
"Are you cousins?" I asked calmly.
"No, how can I be so lucky? He is the grandson of my father's grandfather's nephew."
After he finished speaking, everyone at the table fell silent.
Zhao Xiaotang said: "It's useless to talk about this relationship. It's so vague."
Mu Hai thought about it for a while, and then changed his way of expression: "His grandfather and my grandfather have the same grandfather."
Although everyone responded with an "Oh" and nodded together, I felt that they were probably at the same level as me and still didn't understand.
After a while, the smartest Song Qiqi asked a question: "Your grandfather and his grandfather are cousins, how could you have the same surname?"
Mu Hai said: "Mu Chenghe took his mother's surname." Mu Hai said.
Senior Brother Li volunteered to explain: "Teacher Mu's father used to be a teacher in our school, but he died very early, so he took his mother's surname, right?"
Mu Chenghe had told me personally about his father before, so I guessed the same as Senior Brother Li.
However, Mu Hai shook his head and denied it: "No, he has had the surname Mu since he was a child. It's hard to describe their family, and it's not something that people like us can understand."
After dinner, Mu Hai came out after paying the bill and found me standing alone at the door, holding their bags.
"Where are the people?" he asked.
"They all went to the toilet."
Mu Hai chuckled when he heard that.
He and Mu Chenghe are about the same height, but they look nothing alike. I didn't expect that they have the same surname and are actually relatives.
Suddenly, I couldn't help asking, "Are you familiar with Teacher Mu?"
"Not very familiar."
Of course he wasn't very familiar with her, otherwise he would have remembered the name Murong Chenghe when we mentioned it a year ago.
But I guess I was looking at him expectantly, so he had to add: "Only occasionally during festivals, the whole family would have a meal together. But as long as he is here, the children will be very lively."
"Yeah?".
"He is patient and good-tempered. I don't know how many things are in his head. When he tells stories, the children are shocked."
I couldn't help but laugh, and suddenly I remembered the admiration that Peng Yu showed when he talked about Mu Chenghe.
Mu Hai added: "He must be popular in your school, he's so handsome."
I said sheepishly: "Yes, his lectures are also very interesting."
Suddenly, Mu Hai sighed and said with emotion: "In fact, it is not easy for him to grow up with such a personality in such a family."
I was stunned: "Why?"
Mu Hai asked back: "You don't know?"
I shook my head blankly.
So, Mu Hai briefly summarized Mu Chenghe's grandfather's revolutionary history and his mother's political history in a few words, and then concluded: "His mother is a strong career-oriented woman, so basically before his father passed away, Mu Chenghe followed his father."
I said, "His father used to be a teacher in our school."
Mu Hai said: "If his father had not died young, he would have definitely become a great man."
"Then..." I said, "Then Teacher Mu must be very similar to his father?"
"I can't remember whether they look alike or not. Their personalities are a bit similar, but... not quite the same." Mu Hai had a strange expression when he said this, and it was unclear whether he had captured something in his memory.
When I wanted to ask again, they had already come out of the hot pot restaurant.
Back in the dormitory, I turned on the computer and searched for Mu Chenghe's mother's name. A line of news related to this popped up on the webpage. One of the pictures was about greetings to retired cadres in our province during the Spring Festival. The middle-aged woman in a navy blue suit and short hair was Mu Chenghe's mother.
I didn't realize I'd seen her before.
That year, I went on stage to receive the award for my father. It was she who handed the heavy certificate of honor to my leader.
I was particularly impressed.
A short video clip about my father was playing on the screen. I watched some of the remaining images of him before his death and the scene of his rescue. I stood on the stage facing the microphone, and I had already broken down in tears.
Afterwards, the woman came forward to give me the award, hugged me, and whispered in my ear: "Kid, you have to be strong."
It wasn't until she stepped off the stage that I could see her face clearly.
Is it possible that Mu Chenghe was also present at the time
Or maybe he saw this girl being hugged by his mother on TV. So he paid so much attention to me in the following days
"What are you looking at?" Bai Lin suddenly leaned over to look at my screen. "Why are you staring blankly?"