Chen Mingsheng took the cup, but he didn't drink it either. Holding the cup, he said to Yang Zhao, "Miss Yang, you'd better give me back the prosthesis, it's very inconvenient for me."
Yang Zhao said lightly, "I'll give it to you when you recover from your illness."
Chen Mingsheng: "You have to be reasonable."
Yang Zhao: "I'll give it to you when you recover from your illness."
Chen Mingsheng took a deep breath and looked at Yang Zhao. Yang Zhao was nearly a head shorter than him, and kept looking up at him. Yang Zhao's eyes were a little pale, coupled with her indifferent expression and flat tone, people's anger was often extinguished before it even came out.
Chen Mingsheng turned his head and put the cup in his hand on the kitchen counter. "Then I'll go first, and I'll get the prosthesis when I recover from the illness."
Yang Zhao: "Are you leaving now?"
Chen Mingsheng nodded.
Yang Zhao: "Let's go after drinking the milk."
Chen Mingsheng: "No need, I don't like drinking milk either."
Yang Zhao looked at the milk that was put aside, the cup was still steaming.
"Well, you go back to recuperate."
Chen Mingsheng wanted to say thank you instinctively, but then he thought about Yang Zhao hiding his prosthetic limb. He couldn't say thank you, so he just nodded, turned around and left with his crutches on his hands.
Yang Zhao didn't send Chen Mingsheng downstairs, she watched from the window sill. After Chen Mingsheng went out, she counted silently by the window like a bored patient.
When she counted to sixty-seven, she saw Chen Mingsheng coming out of the unit door and walking towards the gate of the community.
Yang Zhao changed his posture, and lightly pressed his forehead against the floor-to-ceiling glass window, watching the back of the man walking with his head bowed, and disappeared all the time.
After a few days, Yang Zhao never got a call from Chen Mingsheng.
But she was doing her best to work for Xue Miao, and the repair work required a lot of concentration, so she didn't take the initiative to call. Only occasionally, after work, when she was sitting at the desk in the study, she would think of that man when she saw the artificial limb standing beside the potted asparagus in the corner.
She often told herself that it was strange not to think about him all the time. But she would think again, when she told herself that, she had already started to miss him.
On the sixth day after Chen Mingsheng left, the last stage of Yang Zhao's restoration work went smoothly. At three o'clock in the afternoon, she put down the tools in her hand, put on her coat and went out.
In the corridor, she lit a cigarette and walked quickly to the elevator. The high-heeled shoes made a thumping sound on the marble floor.
From the time she opened the door and got in the car to lighting the fire and exiting the community, the whole journey was extremely smooth. Yang Zhao is half a road idiot. Every time he drives, he has to think about the place he wants to go before starting. This time he has a rare clear thinking.
Qima Road, old housing area, fifth floor.
When Yang Zhao drove to the destination, it was almost four o'clock. She parked the car on the side of the road and tightened the windbreaker on her body. Before getting off the car, she took out the makeup box from her bag and put on a light makeup.
She looked at herself in the small mirror with no expression on her face. She snapped the mirror on and got out of the car.
The cold wind outside made Yang Zhao feel that the skin on her face became firmer instantly. She carried her bag and walked into the community.
This is a very old community. Looking at the house, Yang Zhao felt that it was basically in the shape of the late 1980s. There are three buildings in the whole community, which are wrapped in the shape of a finished product, with a courtyard in the middle.
Yang Zhao went in and saw many people in the yard, including old people chatting at the door of the bicycle garage, and children chasing and playing.
She looked around, and the yard was divided by the residents of each floor and floor with wooden fences. The ground was not paved with cement, but loose soil, and many things were planted in the soil, but now this season is almost dry. , Just looking at the tree branch, Yang Zhao couldn't tell what it was.
She walked a few steps and saw a few cats lying on the road with their bellies turned upside down. If it wasn't for the slight swaying of their tails, Yang Zhao would have thought they were dead bodies. She walked past the cat, and the wild cat didn't seem to want to move at all.
This place is so different from where Yang Zhao usually lives that she wandered around the yard for more than ten minutes before remembering what she was going to do.
She walked into the building that Chen Mingsheng entered last time. There is no elevator in the building, and the corridor exudes a faint musty smell. The doors of each household are different in length, some are made of wood and some are made of iron.
She still remembered the last time Chen Mingsheng said that he lived on the fifth floor.
Yang Zhao turned the stairs and went up to the fifth floor, where he saw two families.
There are old iron doors on both sides, and there are messy small stickers on the door, there are certificates, locks, and various advertisements. Perhaps the only difference is that the door on the left is pasted with a pair of Spring Festival couplets that are about to fade away, while the one on the right has only advertisements and takeaway orders, nothing else.
Yang Zhao took a look, then walked to the door on the right.
She searched the door for a long time, and finally found that this style of door did not have a doorbell at all.
"Knock, knock, knock—" Yang Zhao knocked on the door.
She only knocked once, and then stood at the door with her bag and waited quietly.
Yang Zhao felt that her heart was like still water, and she had a feeling that Chen Mingsheng would definitely come out of this door.
And so it is.
After Yang Zhao knocked on the door, there was a pause of about two or three seconds, and the sound of slippers came from the room. The sound was so loud that Yang Zhao could tell that it was the sound of plastic slippers stepping on the concrete floor. A few seconds before Chen Mingsheng opened the door, she sketched the appearance of that slipper in her mind——
He is definitely not the kind of person who can wear flip-flops, it should be the old-fashioned bathroom slippers, which seem to be dark blue...
On this old iron door, the cat's eyes have long been blurred by small stickers. Yang Zhao was ready to answer at first, and she even conceived many plots in her mind in a short time—for example, what should Chen Mingsheng do when he hears her voice and refuse to open the door for him, or how to deal with cold words after opening the door...
But I know that the sound of slippers reached the door, and then the door was opened directly.
Chen Mingsheng didn't even ask a word.
Yang Zhao felt very strange, while the door was opened, Chen Mingsheng said, "Xiao Li, you—" When the door was opened and Yang Zhao's figure appeared in front of him, Chen Mingsheng's words stopped abruptly.
Yang Zhao understood that he had admitted the wrong person. He thought it was someone else who knocked on the door.
Yang Zhao looked at Chen Mingsheng: "Chen Mingsheng, I'm here to find you."
She always felt that Chen Mingsheng didn't have much expression on his face, so now she enjoyed watching this expression, which can be called "stunned", and asked again: "Who is Xiao Li?"
Chen Mingsheng reacted for a long time, then hesitantly said: "Miss Yang?"
Yang Zhao nodded and said, "You don't know me anymore?"
"No..." Chen Mingsheng looked up and down, and said, "Why did you come here?"
Yang Zhao said, "Of course I found it myself."
Chen Mingsheng said, "How do you know I live here?"
Yang Zhao said, "I found out last time."
She mentioned it briefly, and Chen Mingsheng didn't like to ask the bottom line. He thought this woman was simply amazing.
"Then, what are you doing here?" Seeing that Yang Zhao was silent, Chen Mingsheng asked.
Yang Zhao looked at Chen Mingsheng's eyes gradually becoming a little strange, Chen Mingsheng looked at himself, and felt that there was nothing wrong.
"What's wrong?"
Yang Zhao shook his head, thought for a while, and said, "Why don't you let me in."
"What?"
Could it be that he couldn't see it when he visited him so obviously? Yang Zhao felt very strange in her heart, in her cognition, or in her position, Chen Mingsheng should invite her into the house now.
Chen Mingsheng looked at the woman in front of him and felt that his brain was not enough. But he still understands the basics of observing words and expressions. He turned sideways and said to Yang Zhao, "Let's go into the house, it's too cold outside."
Yang Zhao nodded, "Okay."
Chen Mingsheng entered the room, and Yang Zhao followed him, standing at the door to take off his shoes. Chen Mingsheng saw it and said to her, "No, just go in like this. There is no floor in the room."
Yang Zhao glanced at it. The room is covered with concrete floors, so there is really no need to take off your shoes.
The room is not big, one bedroom, one living room, one bathroom, and a round table in the hall, which seems to be used as a dining table, and the kitchen is in the corner of the living room. The whole house looks not as big as the one in Yang Zhao's apartment.
The house is small, but there are a lot of things, but they are not piled up in a mess, but put together in categories, so the house looks neat.
Chen Mingsheng led Yang Zhao to the bedroom, and Yang Zhao looked at his back.
She hadn't looked at him carefully until now.
Chen Mingsheng was wearing a pair of white sports cotton trousers on his lower body. The trouser leg on his right leg was not rolled up, it was empty, and it swayed casually when he walked. And his upper body...
Yang Zhao thought, in this day and age, there are really not many men wearing vests.
Chen Mingsheng was wearing a black vest, which was clinging to his body. His upper limbs are very strong, not particularly strong, but a figure full of strength that seems to have been accumulated little by little over the years. Yang Zhao was an art student, and she recognized Chen Mingsheng muscle by muscle behind him.
Chen Mingsheng led Yang Zhao into the bedroom.
"Miss Yang, I—"
"Call me Yang Zhao."
Chen Mingsheng paused, and then said: "My place is small, you should sit here first."
Yang Zhao glanced at it. Chen Mingsheng's bedroom was indeed very small. There was very little furniture in the room, only a bed, a bedside table, a TV, and a short sofa.
Yang Zhao sat on the sofa, and Chen Mingsheng said, "I'll get you a glass of water."
Yang Zhao nodded. "Thanks."
Chen Mingsheng went to the living room to boil water, and Yang Zhao saw that the bedroom was connected to a balcony. Unlike the floor-to-ceiling balcony of her home, this is a real balcony. Yang Zhao looked at it for a while, and just about to stand up and go over to have a look, Chen Mingsheng came back with water.
She saw that he was holding a water glass in one hand and leaning on a cane in the other. It was very inconvenient, so she stood up quickly to take the water.
Yang Zhao bowed his head to drink, while Chen Mingsheng looked down.
Yang Zhao is wearing a black skirt today, a gray sweater on the upper body, and a windbreaker on the outside, with light makeup on his face, which looks simple and intellectual. Chen Mingsheng saw her slightly curved and slender neck, and looked away before Yang Zhao finished drinking the water.
"Thank you." Yang Zhao returned the water glass to Chen Mingsheng.
Chen Mingsheng took it and said to Yang Zhao:
"Then... what are you doing here?"