It was not until a car coming from behind honked its horn at him that he shifted into gear and drove out of the street.
When he got home, he found that the old man was still awake, listening to music and reading a book with a magnifying glass in the study. Aunt Li heard the noise and came out of the kitchen, "Xiaochu is back? Your grandfather said he couldn't sleep because of insomnia, so I made him red bean soup as a midnight snack, you should have some too." Aunt Li was actually the niece of Grandma Ai's mother's family. The couple had been taking care of the family before Grandma Ai passed away, and they treated Ai Jingchu as their own child.
Ai Jingchu called "Second Aunt" calmly, washed his hands, sat down and drank a bowl of sugar water slowly. Then he went to the study to see what book the old man was reading.
Aunt Li always felt that something was wrong when she looked at him, but he seemed to be no different from usual. So she went back to her room and asked her husband, "What's wrong with this child?"
"What's wrong?" asked Lao Liu.
"He said he was going out to play ball in the afternoon, and then he called and said he wouldn't be home for dinner. Weren't you all happy at the time?"
"It's pretty good now." Old Liu looked at Ai Jingchu, "You think too much."
Only after everyone had gone to bed did Ai Jingchu go upstairs to his room.
After taking a shower, he lay on the bed, closed his eyes and forced himself to fall asleep immediately.
This is a skill he had acquired before. When working the night shift at the hospital, there is no time to prepare for sleep, and you cannot follow the work and rest schedule and biological clock. If you only sleep for nine minutes out of ten, then the remaining minute is wasted. Because they can be called up at any time, and they can only continue to sleep after they finish their work.
However, this time it seemed to have failed.
In the darkness, Ai Jingchu closed his eyes for an unknown amount of time, but he still couldn't fall asleep. He had never felt so agitated before, and it was a feeling he had never experienced before, as if he wanted to grab something, but it slipped through his fingers again and again.
He got up, went downstairs, went out and drove.
When the car got on the highway, he opened the sunroof and lit a cigarette.
The car was going a bit fast.
At first he was aimless and didn't even know where to park, but then he saw the sign for the Dongshan exit, so he changed lanes and entered the toll booth.
Every January on his grandmother’s death anniversary, he would stay with the old man for a few days.
But this time, I didn't come for this.
Without hesitation, his car turned a few corners, passed the mountain gate and drove up the mountain.
In such weather, the mountain road is very easy to walk on.
The night wind is blowing gently and the moonlight is getting brighter.
Along the way, only the sound of cars' engines climbing the hill broke the tranquility of the night.
The car drove past Dongping Temple and continued forward until it could vaguely see the lights of Dongshan Hotel. He turned off the engine, pulled out the key, and got out of the car.
On the side of the road, there is a long stone bench.
The last time he sat here was on that snowy night. He had a high fever and was tired and exhausted. He couldn't move, so he stopped to rest. Unexpectedly, after a while he saw Zeng Li rushing over.
Zeng Li, who was more afraid of the dark and timid than most people, who would blush when faced with embarrassing situations, and who never dared to fight back when bullied, at that time, ran alone on the night road to chase him.
Ai Jingchu raised the cigarette between his fingers, put it in his mouth and took two deep puffs. Then, the green smoke dissipated from his nose with his breathing.
But this kind of Zeng Li is not his.
At this moment, the cell phone in his pocket rang softly. Ai Jingchu took it out and took a look. It was a low-battery warning sound.
He couldn't help but open his cell phone's mailbox and turned to the top message, which was a photo Zeng Li sent him during dinner.
In fact, in addition to Wu Wanxia, there is another person in the photo - Zeng Li herself. The photo seems to be a selfie taken by the two of them at work. Zeng Li is wearing a blue sweater and smiling at the camera. She always smiles shyly and purses her lips carefully, because if she moves her mouth, the metal braces will be exposed from between her lips.
Ai Jingchu lit another cigarette. Through the smoke from his fingertips, he stared at the photo for a long time with a frown on his face.
Finally, he took a puff of cigarette and deleted the text message.
He still remembers the letter from a girl named Carol.
That month, the boss was away, so Ai Jingchu went to the research center in Boston to listen to a report.
Boston is a bit far from Philadelphia, so he took a ride with a friend on the way there. He was originally planning to take a train on the way back, but the government issued a blizzard warning, so he was delayed for several days before returning to school.
He returned to Philadelphia, went to the laboratory first, and then went home. The house he rented was near the school, and many of his classmates from Penn lived upstairs and downstairs. He originally lived alone, but later a Chinese student from the same school couldn't find a place to live temporarily, and since they were from the same hometown, he nodded and agreed.
That person was Yu Yi.
Before he went to Boston, Yu Yi returned to China because his mother had tumor surgery.
The aftermath of the snowstorm was not severe, and a lot of snow on the main roads had been cleared away.
When he arrived at his residence and was about to climb the stairs, Ai Jingchu met a Korean student whom he often saw. The Korean student's surname was Li, with small eyes and a high nose bridge. He was very enthusiastic towards everyone he saw. In fact, he did not live here, but was just chasing after a girl upstairs, so he came here every day.
Ai Jingchu and Yu Yi didn't like this guy very much. He pursued almost all the single Asian girls of the right age in the medical school. This was not the point. The point was that he would chase all foreigners endlessly to ask them to learn Korean, and then he would take the initiative to be a free tutor, providing door-to-door services to both men and women. It seemed that his most important mission here was not to study medicine, but to promote his own culture.
Ai Jingchu nodded to him and walked away. After walking a few steps, the Korean called Ai Jingchu again, "By the way, I found a letter from you. I'll bring it to you tonight."
When Ai Jingchu heard this, he thought it was some invitation letter, bill, advertisement or something like that, and didn't take it seriously.
It was not until the evening that the Korean man really knocked on the door and handed him the item. "It was windy and snowy those days, and the downstairs was a mess. I picked it up under the snowplow. There are Chinese characters on it, so I think it should be yours."
Ai Jingchu took the letter suspiciously.
It was more like a stack of papers than a letter. There were water stains all over it after it was soaked in water and dried. There were several sheets of paper that were probably stuck together because they were not separated and dried immediately, making them look thick.
Ai Jingchu took a quick glance.
The Korean was fine except for his excessive national sentiment. He was also kind-hearted and explained to Ai Jingchu, "I don't know who cut the envelope when tearing the stamps. It must have been soaked in snow water for a long time, so it was dirty and wet, so I threw it away."
Ai Jingchu thanked him and closed the door.
He looked down, but didn't raise his head because the first page had already ended. The Chinese characters on it were beautiful and lovely, but they were written in a completely unfamiliar handwriting.
Then he went back to the kitchen to turn off the fire, then sat on the sofa and read the strange letter carefully from the first line.
Most of the words on the paper had been smudged because the paper was soaked, and one page was stuck to another, requiring great care and patience to separate them completely, but it still did not hinder his reading.
The writer wrote about many trivial family matters in his childhood, as well as every bit of his time with "you". From tutoring in junior high school to the divorce of his parents, what was revealed between the lines was not only a confession of his feelings, but also a yearning for love of a young girl who had just begun to fall in love.
Seeing this, Ai Jingchu was completely sure that the person this letter was not intended for was him, but Yu Yi.
Yu Yi had just moved in, and the Koreans didn't know much about the situation, so they thought that Ai Jingchu was the only Chinese person in the building, and therefore mistakenly believed that the letter must be from him.
After coming to this conclusion, he did not continue reading, but quietly put the letter on the desk and went to do other things.
A few days passed after that.
During that period, the boss went to the UK, and there were not many patients in the outpatient clinic, but there were many volunteers.
There are many children in the hospital who are eager to volunteer. Some volunteers not only work for the nurses, but also spend time with the hospitalized patients.
There was an old lady on the second floor who had a tumor on her left cheek and had lived in the hospital for a long time. She was a retired Chinese teacher and was particularly enthusiastic about Ai Jingchu. When Ai Jingchu went to visit the old lady, the volunteer girl had just finished reading a novel to her.
The girl sighed, "That's too bad. Why didn't she tell him first?"
The old lady replied: "This is the puzzling part of love."
"He doesn't even know her, how can she love him so much?"
"That must be because the male lead is as handsome as Ai." The old lady smiled.
Ai Jingchu didn't care at first, but when he heard the old man and the young man bring the topic to himself, he asked casually, "What are you talking about?"
"The novel just now." The little girl handed over the book in her hand.
Ai Jingchu took it, flipped a few pages forward, and saw the title, "Letter from an unknown woman".
He seldom came into contact with literary works, so apart from the necessary things, he didn't know much about other things. But somehow, when he saw these words, he felt a little curious.
"What's it about?" he asked.
"A writer received a strange letter on the morning of his birthday. It was a love letter from a strange woman." The little girl thought for a moment and then said, "But before the letter was sent, the woman had died."
Hearing this, Ai Jingchu's hand, which was turning the page of the book, paused.
He was somewhat absent-minded for the entire day afterwards.
When he got home in the evening, he took off his coat and scarf and went to pick up the letter that he had casually placed on the desk a few days ago.
With hesitation, he continued to read the letter. When he read to the end, he breathed a sigh of relief. Fortunately, he didn't read any bad news. But with it came a strange emotion, perhaps touched, perhaps pity.
A young girl's love permeates between the lines, so sincere, so shy, so pure, one cannot help but envy it.
He looked at the time and dialed the domestic phone number Yu Yi left for him, but no one answered.
The next morning when he went to the hospital, he met a familiar Chinese school girl. She asked Ai Jingchu: "Why haven't you seen Yu Yi recently?"
"He returned to his country temporarily." Ai Jingchu replied.
"I saw that he had a letter from China. It had been there for a long time. Later, when I passed by your apartment, I put it in the mailbox downstairs. Did it get lost?"
"No." Ai Jingchu replied.
After turning around, he thought about what happened yesterday and called Yu Yi for the second time, but still no one answered. Helplessly, he went back home, found the signature and phone number written by the girl at the end of the letter, and called.
The call rang more than ten times before the other party answered.
"Hello—" A girl's voice came from the other side of the earth through the radio waves, soft, tender, and uncertain.
"Are you Carol? I'm Yu Yi's roommate." Ai Jingchu said.