[1]
It happened to be the longest noon in summer. The branches outside the teaching building of No. 1 Middle School were lush and leafy, and the glass windows were mottled with light and shadow.
On the playground, it was the last physical education class before the lunch break.
The boys played happily on the basketball court under the scorching sun, and their sweaty sweat soaked their wide vests. The girls nestled in piles under several huge umbrellas, waving the water bottles in their hands joyously. As if whoever wins will give it to whoever, the petite face is full of vitality, which makes the male students burst into cheers and run with all their strength.
The breath of youth permeated the one. Studying, exercising, and falling in love are always inseparable from the age of eighteen.
It's just that all this has nothing to do with Liao Nanqing. He didn't like playing under the hot sun and wasn't accepted by anyone.
He was like a taciturn outlier, the corners of his mouth were slightly scratched, his eyes were dim, and he repeated the lengthy loneliness. Sitting in the shade alone, dazed, the phone buzzes and vibrates in his pocket. His handsome chin was particularly evident in the thin cheeks, and there was a deviated silence.
A basketball deliberately rolled to his feet.
"Little laborer!" they called him with a sneer, "Why don't you answer the phone!"
Liao Nanqing raised those hazy eyes and stood up. The thin and thin figure gradually disappeared in the shadows, almost invisible.
The off-campus stationery store has been open for more than ten years. It was just renovated a while ago, and the things are more and more neatly arranged. There are several packs of scattered cigarettes in the cashier counter, which are kept in the corner, and occasionally teachers come to visit.
At noon when the wind was light, Liao Nanqing's hair was blown in a mess, a small bruise was bald on the forehead, and his eyes were filled with confusion. He said hoarsely to the young man in his early twenties, "I'll buy cigarettes."
After thinking about it, he added: "I want the cheapest."
The young man, Su Beimo, the nephew of the proprietress of the stationery store, came to help look after the store. This year, he is 21 years old. After the summer vacation, he is a senior. When he stood up, he was about 185. At a glance, he was wearing blue short-sleeved, white slacks, a pair of flip-flops on his feet, and yawned lazily. He glanced up and down at Liao Nanqing, and then looked at the school card on his chest, which had the class and name written on it.
'Liao Nanqing', Subei Mo thought silently, and replied decisively: "No."
"Yes, I saw it."
"Your school leaders greeted us." Su Beimo seemed too lazy to pay attention to him. He looked down on these squatted high school students who didn't do their jobs properly, "I won't let you sell you."
The young man glanced at the cigarettes on the side of the counter, his eyes were red, astringent like plums in May, and he couldn't tell whether it was a headache or no way out. Subei Mo took out a box of hard candies from the counter: "There's still this one." But Liao Nanqing didn't take the box of hard candies, just walked away with his head down.
His back was pressed against a brick, slightly hunched and timid.
In the heat of the summer afternoon, it was distorted together with the sight.
Subei Mo couldn't help but look at him more, put away the hard candy and put it back in the glass counter. The middle-aged woman in the back room came out with a bag and a bag of fruits: "Beimo, I want you to help look after the store in the afternoon. I'll send some fruits to your grandma. If students come to pick up the stationery they ordered, It's all here."
"Understood." Subei Mo responded, "Auntie, if you pass through my dad's unit and tell him when you come back, I will start going home tonight, and calling him the phone will turn off again."
When Subeimo was four years old, his parents divorced, his mother went to City A for work, and he and his father Su Jing stayed in this small county. Since Su Jing is a workaholic, her only aunt, Su Ya, takes care of the details of Subei Mo's life.
The aunt's husband died in an accident. After that, she did not remarry, nor did she have children, and she always took Subei Mo as her own care.
Generally speaking, two movies can kill an afternoon, and Bei Mo is tired of it too quickly. But for the students who have to go to cram schools in this hot summer, it is time to add wings, go faster, and then go faster.
From one to three o'clock, the cram school ended, and the high school students swarmed out of the school like a colony of white ants in school uniforms. They quickly occupied the canteen and swept away the cold drink popsicles.
Subei Mo was busy collecting money and had no free time at all.
"Boss, where is the stationery ordered by our class!"
"That's it!" Subei Mo wanted to have a shadow, so he took the money and went to the back room. The stationery was moved outside box by box, "Three boxes, please register."
The small canteen was crowded with noisy students, and there was also a familiar figure. Liao Nanqing was out of place, and the students around kept a distance from him. No matter how crowded he was, he didn't want to touch him, as if he was an outlier.
Three boys carrying stationery squeezed out with great effort, and accidentally bumped into a girl.
The injured girl's arm rubbed Liao Nanqing's arm, and Liao Nanqing's face turned pale instantly when the skin touched. The girl let out a scream and pushed the crowd away as if she had encountered filth, swearing as she ran. The boy who bumped into the girl apologized repeatedly, but when he turned his head and saw Liao Nanqing's expression, he closed his mouth as if he had swallowed a fly.
He didn't want to apologize to Liao Nanqing.
Liao Nanqing stepped back helplessly, his trouser pockets bulging.
…
Is he stealing
Subei Mo frowned, leaned over and grabbed Liao Nanqing who was about to leave, the voice in the canteen suddenly dropped to zero. It was as if a world had been secretly changed, silently.
"Hello..." Subei Mo said.
Suddenly, Liao Nanqing shrank his head in panic, and his eyes turned to the boys standing outside the canteen waiting for him. The boy whistled with a smile, mocking him majestically, as if to watch a good show.
Subei Mo noticed it and immediately changed his mouth: "Come here and help."
Liao Nanqing didn't understand, and looked at him in confusion, those eyes were timid, but full of vigilance. He was trembling a little, trembling very lightly, and others couldn't detect it, but Su Beimo could feel it when he grabbed his hand. Although Liao Nanqing lowered his head, the new bruise on the corner of his mouth was very clear. So, after three seconds, Subeimo repeated: "Come and help." He said lightly and peacefully.
The commissary suddenly sighed and resumed the commotion.
The boy, on the other hand, obediently helped Subei Mo to take this and that, collect money and change, and did not run away quietly. Half an hour later, Subei Mo's work came to an end. Liao Nanqing stood in the empty canteen, with sweat beaded on his forehead and a lot of dust on his white school uniform. He took out the two packs of cigarettes in his pocket and put them on the glass counter: "I just... on the counter."
"These two packs of cigarettes cost forty, so give me thirty?" Subeimo wanted to put the cigarettes back on the counter, but he didn't move them. Liao Nanqing pressed them with his hands.
He hurriedly said, "Then I'll give you another ten yuan!"
"No.1 Middle School's school rules are very strict. I don't know if you want to be fired. But if I sell you cigarettes, the school will talk to us. Understand?" Zhang put the ten yuan on the back of his hand, and scratched the gap between his white fingers with the corner of the light, leaking light.
Liao Nanqing stopped talking, dodging the eyes of North Jiangsu Mo's questioning. His thin body and a wide school uniform don't fit well, his skin is fair for boys, and his eyes are also good-looking, but there are too many emotions mixed in it, and he looks impure and broken. He hesitated for a while, then said awkwardly, "I won't tell anyone that I bought it from you."
Su Beimo remembered the little ruffian students who were standing outside waiting for him just now, frowned and didn't answer. He cleaned the counter, put on the messenger bag, and gently pushed the boy's shoulder: "I'm closing the door."
Liao Nanqing walked out in frustration, and came back after a few steps and begged him unwillingly: "Can you sell me the cigarettes, just this time. I'll really buy them once."
"You can buy it elsewhere, don't come to me to buy it." Su Beimo skillfully pulled down the iron door and locked it.
"But they ordered you here, and they stared at me." Liao Nanqing knew that this request was playing tricks on him. But he couldn't, there was nothing he could do.
If he wants to finish the third year of high school, he must accept these difficulties.
"What's the matter with me?" Su Beimo shrugged, looking like he didn't want to answer.
Liao Nanqing closed the door, rarely showing annoyance, and walked away with his schoolbag on his back. Subei Mo walked behind, thinking that such a cowardly person still has a temper
When he received a call from his father Su Jing, Subei Mo was about to get on the bus.
Su Jing asked him to find a vegetable market nearby to buy some vegetables and go back. The father and son hadn't seen each other for half a month. Su Jing planned to cook a good meal tonight.
Subei Mo had been staying at his grandmother's house to accompany the elderly a few days ago, and it was rare for him to go home for a few days.
Since Subei Mo's parents divorced, neither of them has remarried. A strong woman, a workaholic, no major contradictions, not suitable for marriage. Su Jing's character is dull and boring, and his temper is stubborn and rigorous, which is exactly in line with his researcher's work. Su's mother is good at interpersonal communication and has an open-minded personality. She opened a small company in city A and is engaged in clothing business.
Although Su Beimo looks like Su Jing, his temper is exactly the same as Su's good-natured mother.
In the past summer vacations, Subei Mo would go to City A to live for a month. This year, my plan to go to City A was delayed because of helping my aunt look at the store.
Subei Mo remembered that Su Jing liked to eat okra, so he went to buy it, and went to a few deli shops along the way.
It was hard to find a family that looked good, but unfortunately, when they came out, they ran into that strange Liao Nanqing.
In fact, Subei Mo can completely assume that he didn't see him, but Liao Nanqing was pushed around by a few boys in the same school uniform, and his strength was not small. At five o'clock in the evening, the bustling vegetable market gradually quieted down. There are no cameras here, and the bullying behavior of high school students will not be known.
Subei Mo passed by them and walked to the platform to wait for the bus.
Liao Nanqing was just ten steps away from him, being pulled by the collar.
Mixed with laughter and inappropriate abuse. Liao Nanqing was hurt by the beating, and his lips trembled suddenly.
"You're trash like your dad." Someone laughed, like a funny joke.
The quiet Liao Nanqing suddenly blushed and raised his arm to resist the opponent.