The blood had coagulated again, but the edge of the wound began to turn white because of the water. He lowered his head and carefully applied alcohol to me for disinfection. The flesh of the wound was slightly turned outward, and when it touched the alcohol, it felt like it was burned by fire, causing me to gasp.
His hands trembled, but he didn't look up at me.
The bedroom lights were not very strong, and I hugged him when I came out of the bed just now. After I let go, he turned to pick up the medicine box outside, and I didn't face his face until then that he was red.
I don’t know whether those words or my injury were the culprit.
I asked hurriedly: "What's wrong? What's wrong?"
"Nothing." He avoided my sight.
I refused to obey and stopped him from applying the medicine. Instead, I held his face with my hands and adjusted it so that his eyes were facing me. The eyes, moistened by something, looked particularly bright. He did not resist or break free, but just lowered his eyelids and remained silent for a long while.
No matter what happens, Mu Chenghe's first look towards me is a smile.
He never passed on his negative emotions to me. No matter he was sad, depressed or upset, he was always smiling. When he smiled, his eyes would first narrow a little, then the corners of his lips would rise, and his eyes would sparkle.
Gentle and reserved, with a cunning look occasionally flashing across his face.
However, what I see now is Mu Chenghe like this.
I explained anxiously, "It doesn't hurt me, not at all. I've been a big-hearted person since I was a child, and my pain sensitivity is slower than others. And you can see that I just cried so much that the shoulders of your clothes are wet. I told you all the pain. I won't blame myself anymore. From now on, when I feel sad, I will think that there is someone who will be sadder than me. I won't hold it in anymore. I will be the first to tell you if anything happens..."
After hearing my incoherent words, he was silent for a moment and said, "I shouldn't have let go of your hand in front of others that day."
I was stunned for a moment before I realized that he was talking about that matter.
That day, we met the car of A University. In front of many teachers and leaders, he let me go. It was the first time we held hands. We walked side by side on the way down the mountain. The winding mountain road was narrow, and occasionally a car would pass by. When he saw the car coming, he pulled my hand and asked me to walk inside. Later, he didn't let go and held my hand. I have small bones and small hands, so he could cover them with a casual squeeze. At that time, I felt like a jubilant magpie was hidden in my heart. But when we met other teachers, he let me go awkwardly.
Afterwards, we never mentioned this matter again, and never touched each other's hands again. It actually became a forbidden zone.
He continued to disinfect me, applied medicine, and finally put on a hemostatic patch, being extremely careful.
I never dared to hum again.
Finally, he suddenly added: "Never again."
It was already midnight when my mother arrived from City B.
She was a capable person, and she quickly helped her aunt and uncle to arrange the funeral in an orderly manner.
By the next day, the family began to accept this fact calmly.
Grandma said in front of all the relatives: "It's good that he's gone. It means the old man is relieved about the whole family. It's better than staying here with us. He was over 80 years old, so he died happily."
After the funeral, my mother had a serious talk with Mu Chenghe at our house. She made me wait downstairs for half an hour.
After the meeting, the three of them prepared to have a meal outside and happened to meet Aunt Zhang downstairs.
She greeted them and said, "Sister Tong, I haven't seen your family for a long time. Is the house upstairs for rent? Someone asked a few days ago."
"I won't rent it out. I'll leave it for my daughter to use," said my mother.
I smiled at the aunt, then walked ahead with Mu Chenghe to wait for my mother.
I only heard the other party say: "She has to be careful when she lives alone. Last time a thief broke into your house, Xue Tong was scared, so she moved out afterwards."
"Yes, so let Xiao Mu accompany him from now on." Mom replied.
"Oh, that boy is your son-in-law, right?"
"Bring the child's boyfriend back to me today." I admit that my mother was a little smug when she answered this question.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk, how come you are so good-looking? You are so lucky, Sister Tong, you have a son-in-law at such a young age. My daughter is almost 30 and still single. She picks here and there, but in the end, no one likes her."
I glanced at Mu Chenghe, and he seemed to have heard nothing and looked calm.
"You are a seasoned killer of middle-aged and elderly women." I said angrily.
He smiled and pinched my face.
"Don't pinch me, I'm already fat enough." I resisted.
He pinched me again, childishly. At this moment, my mother and Aunt Zhang were talking about something and glanced at him, only to see that he was teasing me.
Mu Chenghe noticed their sudden gazes and his expression froze instantly. He then withdrew his hand awkwardly and smiled at the two middle-aged women with pretended calmness.
Now, it was their turn to look away.
When they met before, my mother was friendly but definitely not enthusiastic towards Mu Chenghe. But after half an hour of communication, she suddenly became warm to Mu Chenghe and kept picking food for him during the meal.
"Mom." I was suspicious.
"What?" she asked.
"Didn't you say before that it's best not to serve food to others when eating, as it's unhygienic?" I said.
"… "
The look in my mother's eyes at that time truly expressed: How could I raise a silly girl like you
After dinner, my mother said she had something to do at work, so the driver came to pick her up and take her to the highway.
"What did you talk about?" I asked curiously on the way back.
"Talk about the future."
“… You shouldn’t teach physics, you should teach history. The rise and fall of a dynasty can be summarized in one sentence.” I muttered.
He smiled and shook his head.
"She asked a lot of questions. I don't know where to start."
"Then just pick one or two essential ones."
After a while, he said, "Auntie just asked me a question."
"what is the problem?"
After I asked the question, I didn't get to hear him continue.
So, I asked again.
The man thought for a moment and said uncomfortably, "Are you sure you want to listen?"
"Yes, why not listen?" I became even more curious.
"Uh..." The expression on his face made him look like he regretted bringing up this topic.
"Your mother is more... open-minded. She also asked me..." He suddenly stuttered a little, as if he was still choosing his words in his mind, "Have we... taken proper safety measures?"
I didn't study this carefully, so I asked casually, "What safety measures?"
Seeing how calm I was, he seemed to calm down as well. He didn't explain to me, but continued, "I'll tell your mother that we've always slept in separate rooms."
It took me a few seconds to comprehend the true meaning of this conversation, and I turned away in embarrassment.
Blushed.
"There's a dinner party next Sunday. Can you accompany me?" he asked again.
"What dinner?"
"A teacher in our department is getting married and asked me to bring my girlfriend to the wedding."
I grinned, looked at his face, and said sweetly, "Okay."
When I passed by the School of Translation, I bought some postgraduate entrance examination review materials at the bookstore on the first floor of their library according to the introduction of a senior sister last time.
To be honest, in the past, whether it was Chen Ting or Mu Chenghe, the main teaching content of the second foreign language class was Russian pronunciation and daily conversation. However, for the postgraduate entrance examination, there are more requirements for grammar and vocabulary. So this important task fell on Mu Chenghe again.
After dinner, I occupied his work table in the living room and started to review, doing a few questions and reading a few pages of the book. If I didn’t understand something, I would ask Mu Chenghe.
He was concentrating on drawing on the computer on the sofa, but I kept interrupting him and he seemed to have lost his train of thought. So he stood up and sat down next to me on a dining chair. He briefly flipped through my Russian grammar book, then took out a pen and paper and drew a picture of the gender and number of a word for me.
"Let me summarize it for you first, so that you won't get more confused the more you ask," he said.
"Oh." I obediently moved my chair closer to him.
He turned the paper with the drawing to face me. "Let's talk about the gender of words first. I told you before that it is a little different from English. Nouns need to be divided into feminine, masculine, and neuter. You can judge by the ending of the word..."
I propped up my head and watched him write and talk.
He usually used pencils to draw drafts, so there were always some neatly sharpened Chinese pencils in the pen holder on his desk.
"The feminine endings are а, я, ь, ия, the neuter endings are о, е, ие, and the masculine endings are the consonants й and ь."
At this point, he picked up his pen and wrote down the letters at the end of each word after the three Chinese definitions on the paper. The tip of the pencil gently moved on the white paper, and the letters appeared on the paper as if alive.
When he wrote я, he left a small hook at the end, just like when he wrote on the blackboard in class for us, which made him look particularly naughty and cute.
I couldn't help but smile, my thoughts wandered a little, my eyes moved from Mu Chenghe's writing left hand upwards, and finally landed on his face.