Ji Chengyang put the phone back in his pocket and walked out of the dusty classroom.
This elementary school was so vacant, occupying a corner of the family area for so many years, and there was no arrangement for subsequent demolition or reconstruction. I don’t know who erased the name on the blackboard, and painted a chalk drawing of the entire wall, depicting Slam Dunk. He recognized it because Ji Yi liked to watch this cartoon when he was a child.
Just half an hour before receiving her text message, he just ended a call and declined the invitation of his old friend to interview. The other party seemed to guess that he must have had an unusual encounter in that war, and hoped to sort it out, make a theme, and even offered to help him contact the publishing house, publish a memoir, autobiography, or something.
However, Ji Chengyang decisively denied this inference and told the other party that he had only lost some time abroad and nothing thrilling had happened.
For him now, those experiences that hurt his loved ones are only suitable for being buried and completely forgotten.
He brought the door of the classroom with him, and heard the lock close with a click, and felt his eyes a little sour.
Last year, during the days when he received a series of mental and physical treatments abroad, when he didn’t know where Ji Yi was where, when he saw a young Chinese girl, he always looked at it more and wanted to have it in his mind. More specific imagination space, imagine her changes. In fact, she hasn't changed anything.
But he has changed.
At least physically, he has become a type of person who is not suitable for marriage in the current mate choice concept.
Because of the tight ticketing service, Ji Yi's return date was postponed and postponed. The entire Spring Festival of 2008 was spent in Anhui.
He Feifei did not go south to go home as the leader said, but returned to Beijing on the fifth day of the Lunar New Year with Ji Yi. The two talked about the work arrangements after the new year. He Feifei was happy to tell her: "When you come back from the Spring Festival, you should hurry up and apply for the Hong Kong and Macau Pass. I will take you to Hong Kong."
Ji Yi was stunned: "I won't go to Hong Kong."
"Why? Business trips, air tickets and hotels are reimbursed, you can eat together with me, then I will fill out the form and report," He Feifei is incredible, "except you need to spend money to buy things, don't worry about the rest. ."
"It's very troublesome to apply for a pass." She found a reason that was not a reason.
"It's not troublesome," He Feifei smiled, "Then what will you do if you go abroad in the future? Isn't the passport and visa more troublesome?"
"Then not going abroad."
Ji Yi lowered his head, opened the bread, smiled and took a bite.
He Feifei is surprised. It is rare to see people who dislike official travel, especially nowadays college students are keen to travel abroad, and people like Ji Yi are even rarer. She only regarded Ji Yi as lazy and afraid of trouble: "Don't be afraid of trouble, I will work soon. Passport and Hong Kong and Macao Pass are necessary. Otherwise, what should you do if you are temporarily allowed to go out?"
Ji Yi hesitated and passed by.
This is her most embarrassing question. Her passport was issued early and has expired, and so is the Hong Kong and Macau Pass. But if you want to renew these, you have to go back to your grandfather's house to get the household registration book. She has even begun to worry about what to do after the ID card expires. This is a simple thing for ordinary people, but it is a big problem for her.
In the train, there is still a strong New Year atmosphere.
Everyone is saying that the fifth day of the Lunar New Year is the day to welcome the God of Wealth. If it were not on the train, firecrackers should be blasted to the sky at this time, and the God of Wealth was invited everywhere. There is no such saying in He Feifei's hometown. It is interesting to hear. Is it true for Ji Yi? Ji Yi also shook his head blankly. When he was a child, there were fireworks in the entire square every year on the night of the New Year’s Eve. He had no impression of the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, including Zhao Xiaoying’s mother who likes to say this, and never mentioned it.
Zhao Xiaoying... Ji Nuannuan...
It seems that these memories of the past were forcibly opened with the dusty seal following Ji Chengyang's return.
The train was forcibly stopped several times along the way, and when two people arrived at the Beijing Railway Station, it was already late at night on the sixth day of the sixth day.
The seventh day of the day was the day when the newspaper started work. Ji Yi estimated the distance and felt that he had rushed to school non-stop. He estimated that he would get up after a while without sleeping, and then rushed to the newspaper office, dragging his suitcase and heading back to the newspaper office building. Last time, because of working overtime, she also slept in the office, so this time she was familiar with the road. By the way, she took out all the unopened disposable toothbrushes and toothpaste that she brought back from the hotel and used them.
When she finished washing, lying on the couch and covering her down jacket, something suddenly occurred to her.
In the afternoon, Ji Chengyang once sent her a text message, asking her whether it was safe to arrive in Beijing. She did not reply.
At this time, in the particularly quiet lounge, she suddenly felt guilty.
Maybe he has been waiting for his own news until very late, but is it too late to return now? She struggled for a while, but still wrote him a very brief message, telling him that she had arrived.
Unexpectedly, the phone rang like this in the middle of the night.
She suddenly sat up from the sofa and looked at the phone, her heart beating violently. Countless questions made her nervous. What did he say, should he answer, and what did he say? In a flash of "rejection" thought, she chose to connect in a mysterious way: "Hello."
"Sixi, it's me, Ji Chengyang."
"I know," she replied, "I know this is your number."
Ji Chengyang was slightly silent.
She leaned on the sofa, listening to the other end of the phone, anxiously waiting for the content after this brief silence.
"Was it all right?" He asked the most common question.
Ji Yi answered, fearing that the short answer would make the two of them even more embarrassed, so they could only continue to follow this topic: "It's just that the traffic is not very convenient. Many highways are closed, and the train stopped several times on the road. , That's why I arrived in Beijing so late."
The phone side was quiet.
She went on without a clue: "This snow disaster is really serious. When I went there, the snow stopped long ago, but there was still thick ice. Many people worked overtime to de-ice the high-voltage cables. A colleague interviewed in Changsha said that several employees of the power company fell from a high altitude due to deicing, and died after the rescue was ineffective..."
These contents can be seen on the news.
But apart from these words, she couldn't find a topic to talk to him. At this moment, it was like the past situation suddenly reversed. When she was a child, she was holding the phone in fear, asking him if he was safe, and then listening to him talk about current affairs. And now, she is here to tell him these words. It just sounds not so thrilling.
"Just come back safely." Ji Chengyang finally said when she had nothing to say.
"You... why haven't you slept so late?" she asked.
"I'm waiting for your reply," he said, "I'm afraid that something will happen to you."
Ji Yi immediately found an excuse: "I have forgotten to look at my phone, and only saw it when I went to the office..."
"Are you in the office now? Didn't go back to school?" He caught the point.
"I'm going to work tomorrow. It's too late to return to school at this time, so I came to the office to sleep for a while," she said, her eyes falling into the corner of the wall without focus, as if he was right in front of her and she didn't dare to look directly.
"Is it safe, alone in the office?"
"Well, the security of this building is very good, and the newspaper has a special lounge. Sometimes colleagues stay up late and work overtime here to make up for their sleep."
"I remember you were very afraid of the dark when you were a child, and are you scared by yourself?"
She replied: "I am used to myself. I sleep alone in the dormitory during winter and summer vacations."
At four o'clock in the morning on the sixth day of the lunar new year, the two of them were talking about things that didn't hurt or itchy. They didn't have any central thoughts and were aimless. And in this conversation, there is always some embarrassing atmosphere.
In the end, Ji Chengyang finally told her: "Go to sleep."
Ji Yi was surprised. He didn't expect the dialogue to be so simple. It seems that when the relationship between the two did not start, he called from the United States, just asking about his own recent situation, that's it.
"Okay, good night." She couldn't tell what it was like, and answered him softly.
Just when the phone left her ear and was about to hang up, Ji Chengyang's voice suddenly called her again: "Sixi?"
She picked it up again in a hurry: "Is there anything else?"
"Are there any arrangements for the Lantern Festival?"
How can there be arrangements? That is the day when the family is reunited.
She was a little sad: "No."
"I'll pick you up from school, and we will eat together."
Lantern Festival
Ji Yi is still thinking about this day, and Ji Chengyang has already asked in a low voice: "Okay?"
She returned to her senses and said softly, "Okay."
"good night."
"Good night."
The call ended, it was almost five o'clock.
Ji Yi hugged her down jacket and sat on the sofa to continue her trance. After a while, she woke up suddenly, and quickly turned on the calendar in her phone to check the date.
Lantern Festival, the fifteenth of the first lunar month, Thursday, February 21, 2008.
There are still nine days.
On the morning of the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, Ji Chengyang went back to the station once and met with the old leader in the office. The old leader hopes that he can take over as the deputy director of the news center, in charge of overseas program centers. He didn't reply immediately, and the old leader laughed: "Why, still want to run out?" Ji Chengyang smiled bitterly: "Physical conditions no longer allow you to run around anymore. If you insist on going out, you can only delay work."
"Then think about it," the other party patted him on the shoulder, "Stay in Beijing, have a stable job, and become a family, it can be considered as a peace of mind for the elders in your family."
When the conversation was over, he left the office and happened to run into a few colleagues who had just had lunch. When everyone saw him appear, they all gathered around and enthusiastically recounted the old. Until Liu Wanxia appeared, everyone immediately dispersed wittily. This intellectual and beautiful female anchor is still single after the 30th mark, and she doesn't know if she has a high-sightedness or is still thinking about Ji Chengyang.
Anyway, according to past habits, matching these two is almost inertia.
"How? Did you agree?" Liu Wanxia was still generous and natural, and asked him directly about his intentions for this position.
"Still considering." Ji Chengyang said concisely.
"Last time I saw it in a rush, I didn't have a chance to ask you, I heard you got married abroad? Do you need me to make a red envelope?" After Liu Wanxia asked this sentence, he quickly added, "I also ran into you by accident. Family members, I heard." After all, they were once high school classmates and colleagues for many years. There will always be intersections between the two.
Unlike the colleagues who made a fuss just now, they don't know Ji Chengyang's situation.
Ji Chengyang has long been used to dealing with this lie, shaking his head, and telling her: "No, I'm already divorced."
Liu Wanxia made no secret of surprise, looking at him.
The famous mouth was speechless for a while.
Ji Chengyang didn't want to stay on this topic much, and found an excuse to leave, although he didn't know what else could he do before going to school to pick up Ji Yi at five o'clock.
Since noon, Ji Yi has also been like a headless fly, alone in the dormitory without knowing what to do. During the winter vacation, the dormitory where she lived alone seemed extremely deserted, and there were not many people in the entire dormitory building. The quieter she was, the more nervous she was, and she could only dig through all the work emails in the mailbox to see if there was anything left to be done.
The mouse symbol eventually stopped on several emails with the same subject.
It is a photo of the lecture tour in colleges and universities.
When I received this group of photos, it was before the Chinese New Year. She can still remember clearly, which email contained a photo of the last day, and there were several figures of Ji Chengyang in it.
Recalling this, the package file has been downloaded.
She opened it, and opened one according to her impression. It was a frontal photo of the guests sitting on the stage. Ji Chengyang was in the most side seat, with the hat taken off and placed on her right leg. The distance to take pictures was far, and she couldn't see the facial features, but the outline made her unable to look away. She hugged her knees, sat on a chair with her legs curled up, and looked at him in the photo quietly.
So, what is the purpose of eating today
Every day approaches, she gets more nervous.
When Ji Chengyang called and told her that it was about to arrive, she was shocked to realize that she hadn't even changed her clothes. So she wasted all the preparation time, so she could only take the most out of the closet in embarrassment. I am used to dressing and changing, and then ran to the mirror next to the sink, and quickly combed my hair.
Tie it up? Don't tie it up
She clasped her not-long black hair in one hand, and looked at herself in the mirror flusteredly.
Did he like to tie it up... or did he like shawls
It doesn't seem to have been said.
…
Her hand suddenly stopped, and she began to have thoughts that scared herself.
If he finds himself and doesn't mean to reconcile at all, just apologize? Just want to make up for some of the original damage? Or he is not married, but he really has a new girlfriend, what should I do? These conjectures all came up one by one, and each seemed very reasonable, after all, so many years had passed.
He is already a thirty-one year old man.
Her excitement just now slowly sank, she didn't dare to think about it anymore, combed her hair hastily, and left the dormitory.
Ji Chengyang changed to a new car, but she didn't recognize it until he got out of the driver's seat, and then realized with hindsight that he had arrived. The two got in the car and drove away from the school soon. When the road in front of her became more and more familiar, she reacted and glanced at him slowly: "Are we going to the North Second Ring Road?"
Ji Chengyang turned the steering wheel and followed the car in front into the turn, "Let's go home."
Familiar trails, familiar neighborhoods, and even the familiar underground garages.
When Ji Yi followed him all the way, walked out of the elevator, and looked at the door in front of him, his steps stopped. Standing in front of her, Ji Chengyang inserted the silver key in his hand into the keychain, unlocked, and opened the door.
Ji Yi still held back.
It wasn't until Ji Chengyang bends down and took out slippers from the cupboard for her that she walked over, squatted down, and slowly untied the laces on her sneakers. She just squatted, lowered her head, as if she could never change her shoes and couldn't walk in.
Ji Chengyang finally noticed her strangeness, stretched out his hand, hugged her from under her arm, and made her stand up.
"Sisi?"
She raised her head, her eyes were scary red.
"Sixi," Ji Chengyang whispered her name, "I'm sorry."
It seems that apart from saying I'm sorry, there are no words or words that can be said at this time. Although she didn't cry or say anything, he remembered what it looked like when he first stepped into this home after returning to China. How she covered the living room and bedroom with sheets, and a layer of dust fell.
And the key that should belong to her was placed on the shoe cabinet, and there was a lot of dust.
Although both are the first relationship.
But after all, he was already a 27-year-old mature man when he lost her. And how did she, who was a teenager at the time, take care of everything in this room after losing her feelings, leaving the key to leave
He couldn't imagine.
And now, I don't dare to imagine it anymore.