Mother Lu cut carrots, eggplants and pork belly into cubes, and made two bowls of simple noodles with gravy and brought them out. Lu Yinbing and Liang Shuyao were already sitting on the sofa chatting peacefully, while Lu Yunzhang sat upright on the sofa watching the international news. His ten years of military service had left an indelible mark in his bones.
Mother Lu was relieved and greeted softly, "It's time to eat noodles."
Lu Yinbing and Liang Shuyao went to the dining table together and asked in surprise, "Why are there two bowls? I can't eat that much."
Liang Shuyao silently pushed one of the bowls over, sat down, stirred it a few times with chopsticks, and said, "Mine, I just arrived two hours earlier than you."
Two hours? That is to say, if his flight had not been delayed, Liang Shuyao would have arrived at the same time as him. Lu Yinbing suddenly laughed and said in a teasing tone: "You said that you had a hard time going back to City B, but you didn't go back to your own home, but had to come to my house and arrived at my time. What's your intention?"
Liang Shuyao's eyes dodged for a moment, only a fraction of a second, so fast that Lu Yinbing didn't notice it at all, and she replied calmly: "Is it okay for me to miss Aunt Min and Uncle? Do I miss you too?"
"I don't believe you if you say you miss me." Lu Yinbing hit back unyieldingly.
Liang Shuyao lowered her head and ate noodles without saying a word.
How could her cousin be so slow? She always came back to her house when she was there, and for what else but to see her. No wonder she had never been in a relationship for so many years. I'm afraid that unless she yelled "I like you" to her face to face, she would think they were just friends or relatives. But it was better this way, she was relieved.
After dinner, it was time for the family of three to have a chat. Liang Shuyao went back to her room first - since she often came to the Lu family, there was a room specially prepared for her here so as not to delay the three people in the living room.
Mother Lu then looked at her and sighed, "Why have you lost so much weight? No wonder you haven't been home lately. Are you afraid that we will see you?"
"Mom, you are like my real mom now."
Mother Lu said angrily, "Nonsense, I am! How can I not kiss the flesh and blood that fell from my womb after ten months of pregnancy? Come here."
Lu Yinbing sat over and started to call her mom with a grin. Mother Lu pinched her from head to toe, checked her, and said, "You're not hurt, are you?"
"No, this time it's mostly literary drama, and there's no need to get into the water." Lu Yinbing was honest, so honest that he was even very well-behaved.
"Is there any particularly heart-wrenching plot? I mean," Mother Lu said cryptically, "you know what I mean."
Lu Yunzhang also looked at her, with a hint of worry in his eyes.
Rumor has it that Lu Yinbing suffered from moderate depression a few years ago because she was too immersed in the role. The rumor is true. Although she has recovered, this still became a thorn in the hearts of Lu's parents. Whenever they think of it, they are afraid. Lu Yinbing stood up and sat between her parents, hugged her neck with one hand, and rocked forward and backward: "I played an ancient prince, and he was the kind who raised chickens and ducks. I was picking eggs from the chicken coop yesterday. It was very relaxing. It's really okay. You guys, don't worry about it."
Mother Lu was shaken by her and sighed: "Mom is worried about you."
Lu Yunzhang patted her hands and said gently, "Dad too."
"I know. I love you the most and will always love you, okay?" Lu Yinbing buried her face in Lu Yunzhang's neck. Lu Yunzhang squinted his eyes in enjoyment. Soon, a light cough was heard. Lu's mother was looking at the deep love between the father and daughter with a jealous look on her face. Lu Yunzhang arched his shoulders and sent his daughter to his wife's arms.
After the "rain and dew were evenly distributed", Lu Yinbing sat on the single sofa and poured himself a glass of water.
Mother Lu asked, "How is the crew?"
"I've worked with Qin Hanlin before, and I know a lot of the crew members, so we have a tacit understanding when working together."
"Did you eat well and sleep well?"
"I eat well and sleep well. Even now that I live with someone, I'm still getting used to it."
"Living with someone else?" Mother Lu and Lu Yunzhang looked at each other, and her voice suddenly rose eight degrees. "Since you were a child, except for your cousin, anyone who got on your bed would be kicked off. How could someone live with you? It's not just the same bed, right?"
"Mom, can you please stop insulting me like that?" Lu Yinbing laughed dumbly and argued with her, "It's just a bed. The person I live with is another lead actor. You probably know her. Her name is Xia Yitong. We have a lot of scenes together. Qin Hanlin asked me to live with her to bond. We've been living together for a few nights. Except for some conflicts on the first night, everything has been fine since then."
"It's not that simple, is it?" Mother Lu looked at her suspiciously, thinking for a while, "I still find it strange. You're not the kind of person who would agree to live with a stranger."
Lu Yinbing said: "She is not a stranger, she is my friend."
"Friend? Isn't your friend the one who came?"
"My new friend is five years younger than me. She's fun to be with. I like her." When Lu Yinbing said this, he suddenly reached into his pocket and shouted, "Where's my phone?"
"How would we know where your cell phone is? It's in your bag, right? Don't worry, I'll get it for you." Mother Lu took out a silver cell phone from the side of Lu Yinbing's shoulder bag that was placed in the corner of the sofa and handed it to her.
Lu Yinbing turned on her phone and entered the password to unlock the screen. There was a 99+ in the upper right corner of the WeChat icon. She clicked on the app and saw Xia Yitong's message at the end of the first page, a lonely 1. She clicked on it and saw four Chinese characters with a punctuation mark.
Are you home yet
The time is 6:30 in the afternoon, and three hours have passed since then.
Lu Yinbing stood up and pointed at the phone and said, "Mom and Dad, can I go upstairs to make a call?"
Lu Yunzhang: "Go ahead."
Mother Lu looked at her daughter's back and asked Lu Yunzhang, "Don't you think our daughter's steps are a bit big? She looks very anxious. When have you ever seen her walk so fast?"
Lu Yunzhang watched from behind as Lu Yinbing took two stairs at a time and nodded in agreement: "It's a bit urgent."
"I have a wild guess."
"What?"
"Is our daughter not going to fall in love?"
Lu Yunzhang couldn't help laughing and said, "Don't joke. Our daughter is as thick-skinned as a cross-bridge rice noodle in this regard. She doesn't even know that someone is pursuing her and automatically keeps everyone at a distance."
"That's right." Mother Lu said thoughtfully, "Otherwise, she wouldn't know that Shu Yao has liked her for so many years. She would squeeze against others every day, and then act like a good sister."
Mother Lu added, "Speaking of choosing a son-in-law, I still prefer Shu Yao. I know her well and when we get married, we can still be the same as before."
"Hey, have you excluded the majority of gay men?"
"The quality of most gay men nowadays is too low. Even if I can't find someone better than you, the worst one has to be on the same level as you."
“But this kind of gay man is extinct.”
"Yes, so let's choose Shu Yao."
"I agree."
…
The call that Xia Yitong answered in the bathroom was from the director of the welfare home. The director said that she hadn't spoken to her on the phone for a long time and missed her a little, so she called to ask about her.
Xia Yitong held the phone in one hand and slowly wiped the water droplets off her body with a towel with the other hand. She sniffed and called out muffledly, "Mom."
"Hey, Tongtong, my dear daughter." The director responded heavily. There was a little noise over there, but the sound was far away. It seemed that the children were not at rest yet, and they were noisy and laughing. Xia Yitong used to call her the director, but after leaving the welfare home, she changed her name to mom.
"I'm sorry." Xia Yitong listened to the familiar yet unfamiliar voice for a while, and said this in a choked voice. She took a deep breath and suppressed the heat in her eyes.
What was he sorry for? Sorry that she hadn't called him back in half a month; sorry that she had promised not to cry easily; sorry that she had promised the dean that she couldn't rely on others for all her joys, sorrows, anger, and happiness, and that she had to live her own life; sorry that she was weak again; sorry that she had failed to live up to her expectations; sorry that she was still making her worry at this moment.
The dean didn't say anything, but waited for her quietly for a while, then asked, "Are you feeling better?"
Xia Yitong breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Much better, I'm taking a shower."
“That’s great.”
Xia Yitong laughed again: "Wait for me, two minutes, I'll start the video call for you."
"Wait while I turn on the computer."
"I told you I'd give you a new smartphone."
"I don't know how to use that, and it's too expensive. I'd rather buy the kids something delicious with that money."
Xia Yitong held his forehead with his hand: "… The money I earn now is enough for the children to eat abalone, shark's fin and fish maw every day. Don't save what you shouldn't save. Don't keep the money I send you and keep it for me. I'm not short of money, really! You don't know how to use a smart phone, but other kids do. Ask them to teach you. Forget it, when can I go back to see you? I'll teach you how to use it myself. It's too much trouble to open the computer every time."
The dean still said, "It's always better to save some money, just in case something happens."
Ten minutes later, the dean's old computer slowly started up. Xia Yitong's pretty face could not be transformed into something magical on the computer with an astonishingly poor resolution, and her 8-point appearance dropped to 5-point.
The dean stared at the computer screen for a long time and said, "It's beautiful again."
Xia Yitong knew what kind of person he was over there. Facing the dean who had a filter three meters thick, he smiled and said narcissistically: "That's right, don't you see who raised him?"
…
After the video call with the dean, Xia Yitong opened WeChat again, and saw the WeChat message that had been sent for nearly three hours and still had no response. She was surprisingly calm. Maybe she was still a little sad, but that sadness was negligible.
Work is important.
She sat on the bay window and read the script, with her cell phone placed far away from the bed to avoid distraction.
After watching for a while, the phone on the bed rang.
Xia Yitong suddenly had an inexplicable intuition that the call might be from Lu Yinbing, but reason told her that Lu Yinbing had not even sent her a WeChat message, so why would he call her? Even so, she should reply to the WeChat message first.
All the entanglements disappeared the moment I saw the caller ID. It turned out that the dying fire only needed a gust of spring breeze to reignite it, even more vigorously than before.
Lu Yinbing stepped into the room, closed the door with one hand, and waited patiently for the sound from the phone receiver. She didn't even notice the moment the call was connected, her eyes and eyebrows seemed to be caressed by the spring breeze, warm as spring.
“Mimosa?”
"Mr. Lu." Xia Yitong was holding the phone, so nervous that she even stuttered.
"Xia, Teacher Xia." Lu Yinbing deliberately imitated her, "What are you doing?"
Xia Yitong was embarrassed, took a deep breath, and straightened out her words: "I'm reading the script."
“So serious.”
"Diligence can make up for lack of talent. If your acting skills are not good enough, time will make up for it."
"Not bad, not bad. By the way, are there any hot searches on Weibo recently?" Teacher Lu's topic jumps around like this, at his own will.
"I haven't been on Weibo recently, so I haven't checked it."
"You haven't been on Weibo? Not today?"
Lu Yinbing's voice not only sounded surprised, but also had an indescribable fear? Xia Yitong asked in confusion: "Is there any hot search?"
Lu Yinbing bit her lower lip, not knowing what to say.
She had observed Xia Yitong's Weibo pattern and found that she would post no more than three days a week. Today was already the fourth day. If she hadn't posted yesterday, she would definitely post today. Then she would see... a surprise. If she hadn't been on Weibo for the past two days, she would definitely not have seen the private message she sent her. Instead of getting a surprise, she would have thought too much.
Lu Yinbing quickly opened Weibo and looked at the private message she had sent, and sure enough, it did not show as “read”.
Lu Yinbing: “…”
I have been reminding her from yesterday to today, Weibo, Weibo, but it turns out that she didn't listen.
No matter how slow Xia Yitong was, she knew something was wrong on Weibo. She exited the call interface and opened her Weibo account, which she hadn’t logged into for two days. It showed five private messages. Her private messages were set so that only people she followed could send them. Xia Yitong found a familiar name in the private message dialog box marked with a red message icon: Lu Yinbing!!! It was not a fake, it was definitely Lu Yinbing!
Lu Yinbing: I'm going back home tomorrow afternoon and will be back the day after tomorrow night. 24-degree air conditioning, you deserve it [Not Simple]
The time was yesterday afternoon.
Xia Yitong's hands were shaking with excitement. She clicked on Lu Yinbing's homepage directly according to the private message, clicked on the follow button, and saw the latest follow: Xia Yitong.
Lu Yinbing followed her!!!
And I had already told her that she would take a leave to go home today! She didn't leave without saying goodbye!
No wonder she joked about posting a photo of her injury on Weibo last night! I deliberately flashed the Weibo interface in front of her this morning, but how come she didn't notice it
Xia Yitong's heart suddenly felt sore and swollen, her eyes were hot, and she said to her hand emotionally: "Teacher Lu, I..."
Teacher Lu hung up the phone immediately.
Lu Yinbing found that her heart was beating a little fast, she needed to drink some water to calm down!