Sudden downpours in July.
If you park your car somewhere, sit alone in the car, listen to a heavy rain knocking on the window, watch the crowd scatter, and then the rain covers your sight and the temperature drops. One can easily feel helpless and feel abandoned by the whole world.
When Xu Tingsheng got out of the car to buy cigarettes, the golden retriever jumped down.
"What are you doing down here? It's raining so hard, it'll drench you to death."
Because the rain was too loud, Xu Tingsheng almost roared. But Dongdong was unmoved, looked up at Xu Tingsheng, and yelled twice, maybe it was saying: "You are the only one left, how dare I not follow closely, even if it rains a little, what does it matter?"
So one person and one dog walked across the overpass in the heavy rain, and each got completely drenched.
Xu Tingsheng bought a pack of cigarettes for himself and a pack of ham sausage for Dong Dong.
It was too difficult to light a cigarette in the rain, so Xu Tingsheng went back to the car, lit the cigarette, and then peeled a ham sausage for Dongdong. The rain was pattering on the roof and windows of the car, a man was smoking a cigarette, and a dog was drinking ham sausage...
Xu Tingsheng showed a photo to a dog, and there was a little Xiang Ning in the photo, it recognized it, it whined, it was very pitiful. So are people.
…
Before Xu Tingsheng returned to the riverside residence, he had already adjusted his state. The current him doesn't even have the right to indulge in pain and decadence.
He also had a lie ready.
In his first rebirth, Xu Tingsheng was destined to be accompanied by endless lies, and from then on, the liar could only continue to lie and could not stop. Life in lies is actually easy to be lonely, because there are too many things to bear alone.
Fang Cheng, Lu Zhixin, and Yu Qing who he called to accompany Apple were sitting in the living room on the second floor of the river bank residence.
When they saw Xu Tingsheng, who was drenched all over, and the golden-haired Dongdong walking in behind him, they all showed strange eyes.
"Where's Apple?"
Regardless of their surprise, Xu Tingsheng asked first.
Yu Qing pointed to the half-closed door.
Xu Tingsheng pushed the door open.
Apple sat on the bed with his arms around his knees, heard the voice, looked up to see Xu Tingsheng, and said in a low voice, "Xu Tingsheng, you're back? You went to look for Xiang Ning, right? Did Xiang Ning look for you?"
"No." Xu Tingsheng lied.
"You lied to me, you were so nervous at that time, do you know? I've never seen you so nervous... It's been a long time since you left me alone in such a hurry. So, it can only be Xiang Ning, right?"
Without a questioning tone, Apple said slowly.
Xu Tingsheng who lied could only continue to lie, he said: "It's really not, don't think about it."
Then, he took the golden retriever Dongdong and said:
"I went to help a friend find his precious golden retriever, and then got caught in the rain. It was almost caught and killed by the urban management as a stray dog, and it was finally rescued.
Because the urban area is under strict control during this time, there is a special dog-beating team or something, so my friend wants to keep the dog at our house for a while. I think it can accompany you to relieve boredom and run with us, so I brought it back. Look, okay? "
Apple looked at Xu Tingsheng who was drenched all over, then looked at Dongdong who was also wet, thought for a while, stood up awkwardly, raised his hand to rub his wet hair, and said, "I'm sorry, I..."
"It's okay." Xu Tingsheng who lied couldn't bear this sorry, so he said, "Have you eaten yet?"
Apple shook his head, and the three girls in the living room shouted no.
"It's almost seven o'clock, so I'll cook for you quickly." Xu Tingsheng said.
"You take a shower and change clothes first." Apple said.
"Okay, I'll be quick."
Xu Tingsheng took a quick shower, changed his clothes, and started cooking. The four girls happily waited for him to take a bath, dry him, and feed him various snacks. Fang Cheng pushed open the kitchen door and said, "Where does the dog sleep?"
Xu Tingsheng said: "Sleep on the sofa next to my feet, lest someone come to take off my pants in the middle of the night."
After eating and washing the dishes, Xu Tingsheng sat with him on the sofa for a while, Fang Yuqing came over, brought tea for Zhong Wusheng, and drove away Yu Qing. Xu Tingsheng called Zhong Wusheng and planned to invite them to have dinner the next day.
Zhong Wusheng said that they had already left Yanzhou after dinner, and they would return to Libei soon after finishing their work.
Then, Xu Tingsheng began to feel a little dizzy.
"You guys play in the living room for a while. I'm a little tired today. Go to sleep first. Wake me up when you go back to sleep." After finishing speaking, Xu Tingsheng, who had even occupied the sofa, entered Apple's room. , fell headlong on the bed.
When he woke up in a daze, he could already see the sunlight on the pillow.
Apple sat on the edge of the bed, watching him.
"I... what time is it?"
Xu Tingsheng knew that he had overslept, and he was struggling to get up.
Apple got up and pushed him back, and said, "Lie down, you have a high fever. Now, it's two o'clock in the afternoon. You should drink some water and take your medicine."
Apple helped him fold the pillows, helped him to sit up, and then brought warm water, held a few capsules in his hand and fed them to his mouth, and held the glass of water to his mouth.
The sun hit her face, her expression was extremely serious.
Xu Tingsheng raised his head and said, "Apple?"
"What's wrong? It's hard, right?"
"No, I feel very warm."
Apple was a little happier, and said with a smile: "It's so easy to be warm?"
"Yeah, when a person reaches a certain point, it will actually be like this. When you meet simple things, see a serious face, someone cares about you, and takes you so seriously...it's easy to warm up."
Xu Tingsheng is "thirty-one years old", perhaps it should be said to be "thirty-two years old". He had a desolate and lost life in the past, never found stability, and had a "lonely" life in this life.
Yes, loneliness, the loneliness that exists all the time, even when he is with Xiao Xiang Ning, although it is beautiful, this kind of loneliness is still unavoidable, because what he embraces is the story of only him, including feelings.
He wanted to get those stories back, but everything that happened yesterday proved that he was going further and further away.
What Xu Tingsheng said, "When a person reaches a certain point", actually refers to the time when a man finally puts away his unwillingness and unruly heart after experiencing the ups and downs of the world of mortals, longing for a simple and stable life.
Xu Tingsheng has a youthful appearance and a heart that has been through the vicissitudes of life, so he is destined to be a contradictory body.
Apple looked at his bright smile and said, "It's burnt."
"No", Xu Tingsheng said, "You have been guarding since last night?... Hurry up, sleep for a while."
Apple shook his head.
"Go and close the door," Xu Tingsheng said.
Apple shut down.
"Lie down." Xu Tingsheng moved his body to the side of the bed and said.
"ah?"
Unexpectedly, the rogue Apple looked extremely nervous at this point.
"You have a fever." She said nervously.
Xu Tingsheng was stunned for a moment, and said, "What are you thinking? Can't the little girl's mind be purer?"
"That… "
"Just lie down for a while, you sleep for a while, and then I will lie down next to you."
Apple hesitated for a moment, and finally lay down cautiously.
Xu Tingsheng noticed that she was still nervous, and asked curiously, "You're not right, you used to be so...why are you so nervous now?"
Apple said:
"That's different. I used to know that you definitely wouldn't do it, so I dared to tease you like that. Do you think I teased other boys like that? Because they really do, I need to give them a cold face.
And I know, the more I do that, the more scared you are, right? Also, didn’t I have a purpose at that time, although it’s stupid to think about it now, but at that time I really wanted to go to a better university, because I wanted to change the lives of myself and my mother, and I couldn’t grasp anything else . "
"So that's the case. What about now?"
"Now that we are together, I am afraid. I haven't held hands yet."
…
Xu Tingsheng's high fever continued, and it only turned into a low-grade fever two days later.
He slept back on the sofa, but lived a life like an emperor. Most of the time, Apple took care of him. Occasionally when she was tired, Lu Zhixin would show her rare tenderness. It's the turned serfs singing.
"I'm sorry, I always treat you like a superman. You were like that the day before yesterday. We still didn't realize anything. We're still used to waiting for you to cook and wash the dishes. We're all spoiled by you." Lu Zhixin said.
Another benefit of this illness is that although Apple is tired from taking care of Xu Tingsheng, his mental and mental state has improved a lot.
Because she has found something she is happy to do and can feel "very useful" and "very valuable" from it, her life has become more positive than ever.
She knew to rest at the right time, and she knew to eat more, because she had to take care of Xu Tingsheng.
She started to learn to cook harder, although most of the time it was horrible. In this way, one day when she opened the door wearing an apron, two strangers appeared outside the door, and they said, "Who are you? Xu Tingsheng lives here, right?"
Xu Tingsheng sat up suddenly: "Dad, Mom, you are here."