Jiang Lin's car was parked in a parking lot near the wooden plank road. Ji Minglun found it after walking around for a while. After unlocking the car door, he saw a sports chest bag on the passenger seat, found his wallet and opened it, revealing two rows of cards.
On the right are Jiang Lin’s ID card and bank card, and on the left are his various documents in Los Angeles.
Ji Minglun didn't touch the row on the left. He closed his wallet after making sure his ID card was there. When he put it back, he caught a glimpse of a bottle of blue-wrapped medicine at the bottom. It was all written in English, describing the symptoms of treating eczema.
The word eczema reminded Ji Minglun of the tiny blisters he had seen on Jiang Lin’s fingers just now. He opened his browser and searched for pictures of eczema, which were similar to the ones on Jiang Lin’s fingers.
Before going to Los Angeles, Jiang Lin just had a bad stomach. After recuperation in the past few years, he hasn't been to the emergency room for a long time. Today's symptoms are probably very serious, and now he has eczema.
Judging from the few pills left in the medicine box, Jiang Lin must have taken them for a while. As for gastritis—
Thinking about the conversation between the two of them at home in the morning, it couldn't be that Jiang Lin's stomach problem was caused by him being angry with him.
When this thought came to his mind, Ji Minglun was speechless for a moment, thinking that he had really not suffered enough and was still thinking about such things at this time.
After zipping up his chest bag, Ji Minglun got into his car and drove back to the hospital.
When he arrived, Jiang Lin was no longer in the infusion position. There was a cleaning lady mopping the floor next to him. He called Jiang Lin, but no one answered the phone, so he went over to ask the cleaning lady if she knew where the person on the chair was.
The aunt said that the young man who was receiving an IV suddenly vomited and was helped by the nurse to the bathroom in front to clean up.
Ji Minglun walked to the bathroom, opened the door and saw Jiang Lin standing in front of the sink, looking a little embarrassed.
There was a mobile infusion stand beside him, his shirt was wet on the chest, and he was holding a wet towel in his right hand. When he saw Ji Minglun, his wet, bloodless lips moved, then pursed.
Ji Minglun turned and left without saying a word. Jiang Lin was stunned for a moment, dragged the bracket and wanted to go out to call him, but when he opened the door, he found him standing in front of a vending machine not far away, scanning the code to buy water.
A middle-aged man walked in, brushing past Jiang Lin at the door, bumping his left hand which was receiving an IV. Jiang Lin frowned in pain, but fortunately the needle tip was not knocked off course, and when he looked up again, Ji Minglun was gone.
In the past, every time he came to the emergency room, Ji Minglun would go and mix warm water for him to drink, even in the dog days of summer. Seeing the scene just now, Jiang Lin had already guessed what Ji Minglun was going to do. Sure enough, after a while, Ji Minglun put a bottle of warm mineral water on the sink and handed him the chest bag.
“Everything is in there.”
Jiang Lin took it and said "thank you". Seeing Ji Minglun open the door again, he couldn't help but shouted: "Are you leaving?"
Without stopping, Ji Minglun only said to him, "I have something else to do."
The door closed again. Jiang Lin lowered his eyes to look at the bottle of water, then looked at the back of his left hand which was beginning to swell, and let out a deep sigh from his chest.
This time when he got back into the car, Ji Minglun sat for a long time.
He took out a pack of Baoheng Mojito from the storage box on the passenger seat, lit it up and smoked it. The cool lime mint flavor refreshed his mind and quickly suppressed the unnecessary and inappropriate emotions.
After finishing both cigarettes, he closed the car window, turned up the air conditioner, and took one last look at the emergency room door.
Although the two hadn't been in touch for a year, he knew better than anyone that he was the only one Jiang Lin could truly rely on after returning to Xiamen.
Since Jiang Lin's mother passed away eight years ago, the relationship between Jiang Lin and his father Jiang Jianchen has become increasingly strained. Jiang Jianchen has never remarried and is generous enough to Jiang Lin, his only son, but he can no longer give Jiang Lin the fatherly love and complete family he wants. Apart from academic and money issues, there is nothing else to talk about between father and son.
Jiang Lin never went to Jiang Jianchen when he was sick, and this did not change until he went abroad last year. Based on his understanding of Jiang Lin, it should be the same now.
But things are different now. With Jiang Lin's straight male thinking, he might think that things have slowed down after a year and he can go back to the way they were as if nothing had happened, but he can't.
Glancing at Kong ****'s left wrist, he wondered if it was destined, but the custom bracelet Jiang Lin gave him on his birthday two years ago had a problem with the clasp last week, so he sent it for repair.
If Jiang Lin saw him still wearing it, it would be inexplicably embarrassing.
Pressing the start button of the car, Ji Minglun drove towards Shapowei.
Just now when he was helping Jiang Lin get some hot water, Xiao Xu, the employee on duty at the store, called him and said that Zhu Zhu and Tang Yang, who were on duty today, were both busy and couldn't come, so the store was short-staffed. He agreed to go over and help, but when he got there, he saw that someone had arrived earlier and was packing two cups of takeout coffee.
As soon as she saw him, Deng Yi smiled with sweet dimples. After handing the packaged coffee to the customer, she folded her hands and leaned over the counter, pouting and asking, "Why are you here just now?"
Ji Minglun greeted Xiaoxu and walked to the counter to wash his hands and disinfect them: "Didn't you say there was no one?"
"Xiao Xu called my brother and said the store was short-staffed. My brother was not available, so he sent me over." Deng Yi stood up and turned to look at Ji Minglun's back. "What? Don't you want to see me?"
"I don't seem to have said anything." Ji Minglun smiled helplessly. After wiping his hands, he took the black apron and put it around his neck. When he was about to fasten the strap at the back with his backhand, Deng Yi naturally took it and fastened it for him.
"Brother Ming," Xiao Xu looked at Ji Minglun with a sad face, "Table 6 ordered a cup of cappuccino, and the boy said he wanted to confess his love to the girl, and asked me to help him draw Cupid's arrow, but I tried two cups and it didn't work."
Ji Minglun glanced at table number 6 by the window in the hall. A boy wearing glasses and a girl with a ponytail were sitting face to face and chatting. The atmosphere between them was very good.
Having run a coffee shop in Shapowei for more than half a year, Ji Minglun has encountered several customers asking for love confession through latte art. Taking the cup of milk foam handed to him by Xiaoxu, he tested the temperature, then tilted the milk foam cup and the coffee cup at two relative angles and began to pour in slowly and skillfully.
Xiao Xu and Deng Yi stood on either side, watching his movements intently. Xiao Xu, in particular, watched his hands carefully. After he finished drawing the last line of the latte art, Xiao Xu sighed, "I don't know how long I have to practice to be so steady."
Deng Yi smiled and said, "Talent is very important for this. My brother learned it with Minglun, but he just couldn't play it well."
Ji Minglun put down the cup of milk foam, turned around and took out a box of fondant cookies from the refrigerator, took out two red heart-shaped ones and placed them on another small plate, put a three-dimensional wooden house biscuit in the middle, and brought it to the table of guests.
I don't know what he said to the guest, but they both looked very happy. When he came back, Deng Yi said a little sourly: "This girl is so lucky. The person she likes will confess to her."
How could Ji Minglun not understand her hint: "It may not be the person I like. It is also possible that I confessed and was rejected. Not all likes can be responded to."
"I don't agree with that," Deng Yi refuted him habitually, "Even if you don't like him at the time, it's easy to develop feelings after spending more time together."
This kind of debate has been going on from time to time since they met. Although he has clearly reminded Deng Yi of his sexual orientation, Deng Yi doesn't mind. Maybe it's because her brother Deng Feng is bisexual, Deng Yi doesn't care about this kind of thing, saying that they should just be friends first, and who knows, he might be straight one day.
Deng Feng is another partner of the coffee shop. Ji Minglun has a good relationship with Deng Feng, so he has to give Deng Yi some face. Whenever he encounters such a situation that cannot be explained, he can only keep silent.
Fortunately, Deng Yi also knew how to stop when to stop. The three of them were busy for the next half day. When the business ended in the evening, Ji Minglun returned to the car and found that Jiang Lin had sent him a WeChat message in the evening.
[Thank you for coming during the day, otherwise I don’t know what to do]
Looking at this line of words, Ji Minglun focused on the word "thank you".
The relationship between him and Jiang Lin really became estranged.
Deng Yi fastened her seat belt and saw him staring at his phone, so she leaned over and asked, "What are you looking at?"
After locking the screen, Ji Minglun said, "Nothing."
When he sent Deng Yi downstairs, he happened to meet Deng Feng who had also returned, and took him to a nearby pub for a midnight snack. The three of them drank until almost eleven o'clock, and he called a designated driver, got in the car and took out his phone to check.
He had hundreds of friends on WeChat, plus various groups, so names that were not pinned to the top would easily disappear. He didn't want to click on the WeChat accounts with red unread numbers, so he just kept pressing the screen and scrolled down. After swiping more than ten times, he finally found Jiang Lin's name.
After that message, Jiang Lin never sent any more.
Thinking of Jiang Lin's lonely back in the hospital during the day, his chest felt a little tight again, but he suppressed this emotion as soon as it came out. He leaned on the headrest, closed his eyes and rested, planning to go to the opposite door to check on Su Yan's condition when he got home, but he didn't expect to see someone sitting at his door as soon as he walked out of the elevator.
Jiang Lin was still dressed the same as he was during the day, wearing the white plaid cotton shirt he had given him, sitting cross-legged on the cold floor tiles by the door. Probably because he was too tired, Jiang Lin's head was tilted against his shoulder, and he slept soundly even though his posture was uncomfortable.
The author has something to say:
It is well known that those who are tough on the outside have another tougher characteristic.