Before receiving this WeChat message from Jiang Lin, Ji Minglun and Deng Feng were stuck in traffic near the Wutong Interchange.
Looking at the endless traffic ahead, Ji Minglun slapped the steering wheel impatiently, and the horn sounded. Deng Feng beside him sighed and said, "Be patient, it's the rush hour after get off work, and you'll lose money if you push us any further."
Ji Minglun looked unhappy, thinking that he should have turned on the navigation to check the road conditions. Who could have thought that he would have a car accident in the rain? There were long queues of cars behind and on the sides, and he couldn't change the road even if he wanted to.
He lowered the car window and lit a cigarette. Deng Feng also asked him for one, took two puffs and said, "Your cigarette tastes really bland, it feels like chewing gum, why don't you smoke something stronger?"
Ji Minglun looked out the window and pressed his brow with the thumb of the hand holding the cigarette: "I don't want to get addicted."
Speaking of this, Deng Feng also noticed that he had been smoking more frequently recently, and his mood was sometimes good and sometimes bad, so he asked, "What are you worried about recently? Did my sister do something to you again?"
Glancing at Deng Feng, Ji Minglun said, "Can you help me persuade her? If she continues like this, I really won't be able to be friends with her anymore."
Deng Feng wanted to laugh after hearing this, he spread his hands and said: "How can you let me persuade her? She won't listen to me at all, unless you find a guy to date her now."
Deng Feng’s words reminded Ji Minglun of Jiang Lin, but it was only for a moment, and the thought was thrown to the back of his mind.
"Are you her biological brother?"
"Of course," Deng Feng said without any guilt, "Because I'm her brother, I know her very well. With me as a role model, she will think you can have a girlfriend."
"Besides," Deng Feng pinched Ji Minglun's upper arm muscles and smiled maliciously, "You are born with such good advantages. Otherwise, why don't you just get fat and have a big belly? Then she might not like you anymore."
"Get lost." Ji Minglun smiled and blocked Deng Feng's claws. He wanted to throw the cigarette butt into the cigarette extinguisher he carried with him. At this moment, the mobile phone on the car door vibrated, and the lit screen showed that the person who sent the message was "Lin".
Unlocking his phone, Ji Minglun clicked on the WeChat message. After reading it, he looked up at the motionless traffic in front of him, and then looked at the three bags of cakes on the back seat through the rearview mirror.
After locking the screen again, he said to Deng Feng, "My friend is in trouble and wants me to help him."
Deng Feng also took his cigarette extinguisher and threw the cigarette butt into it: "Then when the road is open, you can find a place to drop me off. I will go to give Jiang Lin a cake."
"Don't bother. It's hard to get a taxi in this weather." Ji Minglun said, "My friend's place is near his home. I'll take you back first and I'll deliver the cake."
"That's fine," Deng Feng took out his phone from his trouser pocket, "Then I'll send you Jiang Lin's phone number on WeChat."
After being stuck in traffic for about half an hour, the car in front finally began to move slowly. When they drove out of the Wuchang Interchange, Ji Minglun turned the steering wheel and took a shortcut to the gate of the community where Deng Feng lived.
When Deng Feng got out of the car, he told him to drive slowly. He responded, but he stepped on the accelerator and drove away as soon as the door closed. On the way, he wanted to find a hardware store to buy some fuses, but unfortunately most of the shops on the street were closed. When he finally arrived downstairs of Jiang Lin's house, two hours had passed since the WeChat message was sent.
Deng Feng was in the car at the time, so he couldn't reply. Jiang Lin didn't send any more messages later. Looking at the dark windows of Jiang Lin's house, Ji Minglun walked quickly to the door of the unit, entered the password and opened the door.
From the first floor to the seventh floor, there was light shining through the cracks in every household's door, and even the sensor lights on the floors lit up a dim light. This gave him a bit of an illusion, as if he had returned to the past when Jiang Lin's house would trip and the fuse would burn. At that time, as long as he received a call from Jiang Lin, he would rush over immediately.
When he realized this, he slowed down and stopped for a while on the fifth floor before continuing up.
Standing at the door of Room 701, he reached out and pressed the doorbell. Soon the door was opened. Jiang Lin, who was wearing home clothes, held a half-burned candle in his hand and said to him softly, "You are here."
Ji Minglun hummed, lowered his head and took off his shoes. Jiang Lin took a pair of slippers from the shoe cabinet and placed them at his feet. When he was about to step in, he suddenly stopped.
The candlelight was dim, but it was enough for him to see clearly that the slippers were the same pair he wore before, and the slippers on Jiang Lin's feet were also the same pair he wore before.
Unexpectedly, Jiang Lin would keep the slippers he used to wear. Ji Minglun was distracted for a moment, and soon a few tissues appeared in front of him. Jiang Lin said, "Wipe it off."
Just now he got out of the car and ran several dozen meters to the stairs, his hair and shoulders were quite wet. He took it and wiped it casually, and asked, "Is it a tripped circuit breaker or a blown fuse?"
"It doesn't seem like a circuit breaker. I tried pushing the main switch but it didn't work." Jiang Lin followed Ji Minglun and watched him open the switch safe behind the kitchen, then he raised a candle to help with lighting.
His residential complex is more than 30 years old and has experienced power outages many times before. Ji Minglun followed the electrician who came to check it out several times and had experience. He knew immediately that the fuse was burned out.
Ji Minglun asked: "Are the remaining fuses still there?"
"I looked for the toolbox," Jiang Lin replied with a bitter face, "Just now you didn't reply so I wanted to change it myself, but I couldn't find it anywhere."
"It's not in the toolbox," Ji Minglun turned and walked into the living room, rummaged through the cabinet under the TV, and sure enough, he saw a few new fuses in the old position.
He had bought these fuses as spares. Although he had told Jiang Lin where to put them, given Jiang Lin's confused personality, he probably didn't remember them at all.
After closing the cabinet door, Ji Minglun wanted to go back to the kitchen, but when he turned around, he bumped into Jiang Lin who was right behind him. The candlestick in Jiang Lin's hand shook and his body leaned back.
The light around was dim, and Ji Minglun subconsciously reached out to pull him. After he stabilized, the shaking candle dripped two drops of wax, scalding the back of Ji Minglun's hand.
Ji Minglun took his hand back. This time it was Jiang Lin's turn to hold him. With the candlelight, he could see the wax on the back of his hand that had not yet completely solidified. Jiang Lin reached out and wiped it, but he also burned himself and retracted his hand. He pinched his earlobe and said, "Go rinse quickly."
The back of Ji Minglun's hand was a little painful, but this kind of burning was nothing. He just wanted to laugh when he saw Jiang Lin rubbing his earlobe with his fingertips. He straightened his lips and went back to the kitchen to replace the fuse.
This time, the main switch was turned up, and the room finally became bright. Jiang Lin squinted his eyes, and waited until he got used to the light before blowing out the candle and putting it aside. He took Ji Minglun's right hand and walked to the sink, turning on the faucet to wash the back of his hand.
Because of this action, their bodies inevitably leaned against each other. Ji Minglun wanted to pull his hand back, but Jiang Lin was very stubborn. He turned his head and looked at him with a frown, but said nothing and continued to focus on the back of his hand.
Just with this one glance, he had the illusion that he was out of place.
I didn't expect that just after I agreed to be friends with Jiang Lin, they could really get along like they used to. It seems that this is exactly the kind of relationship Jiang Lin wants.
Although he still felt a little uncomfortable, Ji Minglun did not pull his hand back. He let Jiang Lin grab his wrist and rinsed his entire right hand until it was ice-cold before turning off the water and taking two tissues to wipe it.
"It's still a little red," Jiang Lin walked to the living room, "Come out and I'll put some medicine on you."
"No need, it doesn't hurt anymore," Ji Minglun followed him out, glanced at the food and hot pot on the dining table, and walked directly to the entrance on the other side, "I'll leave first."
"Minglun," Jiang Lin called him and said when he turned around, "It's raining so hard outside, it's too dangerous for you to leave now, stay and have a meal."
During the two hours of waiting for Ji Minglun to arrive, Jiang Lin would occasionally glance at his phone and then check the weather outside.
It was only moderate rain when he sent the message. After waiting for more than an hour, the rain got heavier and heavier, and the sky seemed to be leaking. Looking at the blurred and winding water marks on the glass window, he thought that Ji Minglun would not come. Although he was disappointed, he was also relieved. Who knew that he would actually wait for him in the end.
The moment the doorbell rang, his heart sank. When he saw the person outside the door through the peephole, he was so happy that he couldn't control the corners of his mouth. He stood by the door for a moment before calming down and opening it.
Ji Minglun came here in a heavy rain, and he knew how difficult the road was to walk on, but he still insisted: "No need, if we don't leave now, the wind and rain will get worse later."
"Then don't leave." Jiang Lin blurted out.
The action of changing shoes stopped, and Ji Minglun tightened his fingers that were resting on the entrance cabinet, but did not react for a moment.
After saying this, Jiang Lin realized that he was too anxious, so he added: "You often slept at my house before, and your spare clothes and pajamas are all here."
"And you said yesterday that we could continue to be friends."
"If we're friends, why are you hiding so obviously?"
At the end of the explanation, Jiang Lin himself couldn't continue.
Once upon a time, he had to go through so much trouble to keep Ji Minglun and find so many seemingly reasonable excuses.
The person at the door kept his back to him. Just as he was rubbing the fabric of his home pants, thinking about what else to say, Ji Minglun pulled his feet out of his sneakers and stepped back into his slippers.
Bending down to put his sneakers into the shoe cabinet, Ji Minglun turned around and looked at him: "Okay."