Winter vacation is over.
Spring comes and spring goes.
It's a new summer again, and the cicadas are starting to chirp hysterically again.
Qi Lan's breast cancer relapsed in the spring, and the mahjong hall in Yujiang Lane has not been open for a long time.
Life probably won’t be good.
The bar closed around three in the morning and Tongtong was cleaning up the table.
There was a drunk woman squatting at the door. Feng Ning was used to seeing this, so he put down his broom and went over to help the woman sit on a chair. He took out her cell phone from her pocket, opened his eyes, unlocked his face, opened the phone book and called a quick contact.
Zhao Huiyun was checking today's bill at the bar, and Feng Ning walked over and said, "Boss, I need to take a month off temporarily. My mother is in poor health and is in the hospital, and I need to take care of her."
There was no strangeness in her tone.
"Okay, no problem." Zhao Huiyun also understood her family's situation. After thinking for a while, she said, "If you have any difficulties, you can come to me."
Feng Ning rode his electric scooter home. The streets were empty late at night, with few people around. He reached for his key and opened the door, but no one was home either.
She turned on the light, and the big yellow dog curled up in the corner glanced at her lazily and continued to doze off. Feng Ning went to the kitchen and cooked a bowl of noodles for herself while listening to English listening.
The next day at noon, Shuangyao accompanied her to the hospital, and the thermos bucket was filled with meals that Shuangyao's parents helped prepare.
The person who accompanied him last night was Zhao Weichen's mother.
Qi Lan was eating inside while Feng Ning was standing outside in the corridor, listening to the doctor talk about his mother's health condition.
The doctor flipped through the list and said, "There are many ways to treat breast cancer. For this relapse, the patient should keep a positive attitude and not be overly anxious or nervous. But your family members should also be mentally prepared. We have completed cryotherapy, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. To be honest, the test results are not very optimistic. There is metastasis. The condition is currently in a delayed stage. We will try our best to reduce complications."
In just a few seconds, Feng Ning regained his composure and nodded, "Thank you for your help."
Before leaving, the doctor asked, "How old is the little girl?"
"In high school."
"No other adults in the house?"
"Um."
The doctor also had a child of similar age at home. After hearing the answer, his eyes looked at Feng Ning with a complicated look. However, people in their line of work were used to seeing life and death, and ordinary people in the market had their own sufferings. He didn't say much and left.
Feng Ning sat on the bench outside in a daze and gave herself three minutes. When the time was up, she stood up, rubbed her face, put on a relaxed expression, and pushed open the door of the ward and went in.
Just like before, no matter what happened, she would never show any vulnerable expression in front of her mother.
Qi Lan forced herself to drink some porridge, but vomited it out after a while.
Feng Ning wet a towel with hot water, wrung it out, and wiped her mouth carefully, "Don't you have a good appetite today?"
Qi Lan: “A little uncomfortable.”
"It's okay, Mom." Feng Ning cleaned up the dishes, "Don't eat if you can't finish it. Eat later."
Shuangyao tried hard to liven up the atmosphere, and Fengning helped Qilan get out of bed and walk around.
The sun is shining brightly today, and everything seems full of life in the midsummer. Qi Lan touched Feng Ning's hair and said, "Don't think about me or worry about me. Just study hard in school."
"I know." Feng Ning smiled, "Little Feng Ning in junior high school was able to get through it with Ms. Qi Lan. Feng Ning in high school has grown up and evolved into Big Feng Ning! Would he still be afraid of such a small storm?"
"What big Fengning?" She knew her daughter was joking, but she still felt uncomfortable. "Others who are your age, who are loved by their fathers and mothers, are still children."
"Then I am your child." Feng Ning pouted, "I will be a little princess loved by my mother all my life."
Feng Ning applied for a part-time school term and would come to the hospital to keep his child company on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings. Shuangyao and Zhao Weichen's parents would take turns on the remaining days.
Originally, the adults in Yujiang Lane discussed letting Feng Ning continue to live in the school, but Feng Ning refused, "I am not afraid of being tired, I just want to spend more time with my mother."
She had made up her mind and no matter what others said, it was useless.
At night in the hospital, Feng Ning studied under a desk lamp on a small table at the foot of her bed. She was wearing a coat and pajamas while doing her homework, saying, "Ms. Qi Lan, you'd better get better soon."
"how?"
"I will graduate in two years." Feng Ning put down his pen, counted on his fingers, and chattered non-stop, "When I graduate, I will be able to make a living and earn a lot of money. By then, I will give you 10,000 yuan in pocket money every month, buy a very big house to live with you, and open a chain of mahjong parlors for you."
"Haha." Qi Lan was very happy to hear this. "Other children's dreams are to become scientists or police officers, but my daughter is so vulgar. She wants to buy a big house and make a lot of money."
"Hehehe, you know how much I love money." Feng Ning smiled and said, "I buy lottery tickets every Wednesday now, hoping that my sincerity can move God and win the jackpot."
"Then I must have touched God before."
Feng Ning was curious: "What other prizes have you won that you haven't told me?"
"Giving birth to such an obedient and capable daughter like you is the biggest prize I have ever won in my life." Qi Lan smiled a little, "I can feel at ease when I go to find your father."
"No, no, I don't want to hear it. You are not allowed to say it." Feng Ning covered his ears and frowned. "Why do you want to go find daddy? I don't want to. I want you to stay with me."
Qi Lan sighed, "Hurry up and do your homework."
"I won't write anymore." Feng Ning took off her slippers, climbed onto the bed carefully, and hugged her mother's waist. The unique smell of disinfectant in the ward and the bitter smell of Chinese medicine mixed together, she didn't find it unpleasant at all, "Mom, I want to sleep with you today."
"You're so old, but you're still clingy." Qi Lan raised her arms and hugged her. "You go to school during the week, so you don't have to come over at night. It's okay for mom to be alone. It's hard work."
"I'm not tired, I really am not tired at all." Feng Ning said, "You should get better soon, Shuangyao's mother is waiting for you to come back and play cards together."
Qi Lan hummed.
Feng Ning,
Feng Ning
Feng Ning!
Before being called for the fourth time, Feng Ning focused his attention.
The Iron Lady stopped beside him, a little dissatisfied, and restrainedly lowered her voice: "This is the third time you have been distracted in class."
The rest of the class was reading the text, and a few noticed the teacher approaching Feng Ning, but they couldn't hear what they were saying. This was how good students were treated. When it came to her favorite students, even the Iron Lady's criticism became very mild.
"Come to my office after class."
The Cancer Hospital is diagonally opposite to Kai Tak. You have to change the subway several times. Feng Ning goes to the hospital to accompany Qi Lan at night. Sometimes Qi Lan has to get an injection until midnight, so she has to get up at five or six the next morning.
Feng Ning had expected this, and had been running back and forth between the hospital and school for several days, trying to balance school and daily life. But his energy was limited, and he was inevitably a little exhausted.
"The second year of high school is a watershed, and the study load will be heavier. For ordinary people, these two years are the most important in life, and there is no chance to go back for these two years. You were originally the student I trusted the most, but I obviously feel that you have been very distracted recently. Your study status makes me a little worried. Look at the grade ranking in this monthly exam. How did you slip so far down? Are you struggling in any aspect of your studies?"
No matter how earnestly Lady Ren Tie tried to persuade her, Feng Ning always said, "I'm sorry, teacher. I will adjust as soon as possible." When asked further, she would at most add "something happened at home" and say nothing else.
The Iron Lady had no choice but to let her go back to class.
Qi Lan had to undergo chemotherapy in the afternoon, so Feng Ning took a day and a half off to accompany her in the hospital. She returned to school the next night. When she sat down in the classroom, she was busy organizing her things.
A voice came:
"—your comprehensive science paper."
When I looked up, it was Jiang Wen. He had just finished playing basketball, holding a bottle of mineral water in his hand, still sweating, with his sleeves rolled up above his arms.
"Thank you." Feng Ning responded casually.
Although they were in the same class, she almost forgot when she last saw him.
Feng Ning thought about it briefly, but it wasn't long.
It seemed like just a few days ago, after she finished her meal in the cafeteria, she ran into Jiang Wen and Pei Shurou talking at the entrance of the supermarket, with a slight smile on his face. She pretended not to see it and deliberately avoided them.
"I'm first this time." Jiang Wen said suddenly.
"What?" She was stunned for a moment, still confused.
“First in class, first in grade.”
Feng Ning realized that he was talking about the monthly exam results. She nodded and commented, "Not bad, congratulations."
Young Master Jiang hummed in a nasal voice, his pride unchanged.
For a joke, he and her have been secretly competing with each other until now.
I don't know which sentence relaxed a nerve in her brain. Feng Ning's mood became better. She took two breaths of fresh air, smiled, opened the comprehensive science paper, and started to review the wrong questions on it.
I only got the first question right on the last big question in physics.
She didn't come to class in the morning, so she didn't know if she simply made a mistake in the result or if the whole process was wrong. She hadn't done her homework for two days, so she didn't have time to do it again.
There was no one else to ask for advice at the moment, so Feng Ning called out to Jiang Wen who had just sat down, "Let me borrow your paper."
Their seats were separated by a corridor. In the same row, Feng Ning sat in group 4, next to the wall, and he sat in group 3, next to the corridor.
"How come you wrote the process for the last physics question so simply? I don't quite understand it."
Jiang Wen thought for a moment and said, "The teacher said this question is beyond the syllabus and needs to be solved using limits. If you don't know how to write it, just leave it blank."
"How can this be possible?" Feng Ning said leisurely, calling him over, "If you can do it, why can't I?"
"I've won a prize in a physics competition." Having said that, Jiang Wen still stood up and sat down next to her.
Feng Ning handed over a piece of draft paper and said, "Begin your performance."
Seeing Jiang Wen's hands resting on the table but not moving, she asked, "What are you doing, are you being a big shot?"
"You just..." Jiang Wen's obsessive-compulsive disorder broke out, "Didn't you order some clean paper?"
"Except for the few formulas I just wrote, what's wrong with this piece of paper?" Feng Ning was puzzled.
He answered reluctantly: "Nowhere is clean."
This is the first time I have seen such a person. He needs a piece of white paper to continue his sermon. Feng Ning smiled softly, "Master, you should change your pretentious habit."
Jiang Wen supported himself on the stool with his left hand and held a pen in his right hand. He wrote down the process on paper while talking.
His handwriting and his appearance are two completely different things.
—The more delicate the appearance, the more sloppy the handwriting.
Feng Ning thought to himself that he would give Jiang Wen a calligraphy copy someday. A handful of rice was sprinkled on the paper, and the chicken feet printed out were neater than his handwriting.
She said sincerely, "Jiang Wen, your handwriting is really not worthy of your attention to draft paper. Isn't this a waste?"
He paused, speechless. He glared at her and said, "Do you still want to listen?"
"Yes, yes."
"Assume that the circle is tangent to the right boundary of the magnetic field at point d, and the radius of the particle's trajectory in the magnetic field satisfies this." He wrote out a formula in a flamboyant manner, "Then, based on the geometric relationship, use the limit to find the derivative."
Jiang Wen had clear ideas and spoke quickly. When he was speaking, he liked to look at people, and his eyes were naturally raised, without any emotion, but they looked affectionate.
She was a little distracted and didn't hear his steps clearly. She asked in confusion, "How do you calculate the time it takes for the ball to move in the magnetic field?"
"Several formulas combined." Jiang Wen held back, "Are you listening carefully?"
"Oh, I'm tired, and my reaction is a little slow." Feng Ning rubbed his eyes and patted his face, "Okay, you continue."
In the middle of summer, her fingers were unusually cold and she shivered from the cold.
Jiang Wen noticed the dark circles under her eyes and frowned unconsciously, "What have you been busy with recently?"
He asked casually and restrainedly, keeping a reasonable distance from her.
"I'm busy with a lot of things. Which one do you want to hear first?" Feng Ning deliberately spoke in a relaxed manner. A strand of hair fell on her cheek. She continued to look at the questions, tiredly sorting out the steps to solve the problem in her mind.
There were a few words on the tip of his tongue, but he didn't say them.
The ball on the arc seemed to really start moving along the trajectory. Feng Ning shook his head and forced himself to cheer up.
Jiang Wen looked at his watch. It was exactly seven o'clock. He put down his pen and said, "You should get some sleep."
"Um?"
"I'll talk to you after you sleep until 7:30."
"Oh... okay."
Feng Ning felt sleepy and tired, so he gave up trying to be stubborn. He pulled out his school uniform jacket from the drawer, rolled it up, put it on the table, and fell down.
Zhao Binlin came into the classroom noisily and called out "Jiang—" in return for a faint glance. After he saw what was going on, he froze and automatically swallowed the rest of the words.
He turned around, stretched out his arms, and pushed out several people who were about to come in, "Go, go, go, go."
"What are you doing?" Xi Gaoyuan shouted, "Where's Jiang Wen? Not in the classroom?"
"Just assume he's dead."
The summer school uniform was very thin. She bent her thin arms, slept with her face facing the wall, and her ponytail brushed his wrist.
Jiang Wen glanced at the cluster of black and did not move, immersed in his thoughts.
After a long time, the refreshing night breeze blew in his face and he withdrew his gaze.
Feng Ning had fallen asleep, her breathing was light and regular. There was a tree outside the window, and inside the tree there was a late cicada, chirping intermittently.
Some students were passing by downstairs, and the wind carried the murmur of their conversation far away.
Jiang Wen felt very peaceful.
He put on his headphones and looked intently at the wall clock in the middle of the classroom.
The flying insects circled around the lamp, and the minute hand moved one space as the second hand completed a circle.
The moon through the window was blurred, but the moonlight was still beautiful. A male voice was singing in the headphones.
"he's a hypocrite and"
He's a hypocrite
“she should locked in a cage”
She should be locked in a cage
If only time could go slower.
Slow down.
Stop until 7:29.
The minute hand will never reach its end.
She would always sleep next to him like this obediently.