Chapter 137
"I will change it. I will cook by myself, read by myself, and take care of myself by myself. I don't need you to spend too much effort."
"If I bother you, you don't have to hide from me, I'll just treat you as my brother in the future."
"Grandma passed away, and I'm the only one left." His eyes slowly turned red, "I haven't been admitted to Yanda University, and I haven't bought you a big house, so you can't leave me."
There was a long silence on the other side of the phone, and the thinly dressed boy trembled and asked the question he had been afraid to ask: "Brother, don't you want me?"
But no one ever responds.
The teenager finally turned off his cell phone hopelessly, moved out of Yan Xuexiao's house, moved back to his rental house, locked himself in a small room, and shrunk into a dark corner.
*
United States, New York State.
Marble wall clocks are placed at both ends of the restaurant, the fish on the table is from Riviera, and the wine is sourced from wine cellars around the world by the restaurant’s sommelier. Today, this is Montage from Burgundy. .
"I won't talk about business today." Zheng An, who is used to domestic wine tables, obviously disliked the low-grade side table wine, and pushed a bottle of vodka to the opposite side. "Let's talk after drinking."
A young man with a mixed-race face said in unskilled Chinese: "His body can't drink strong alcohol."
"Why can't young people drink wine?" Zheng An sighed dissatisfiedly: "It's still lofty to study philosophy, and it's normal to look down on us old people. Your father would never refuse when he was still here."
Yan Xueyiao picked up the wine glass and drank the whole bottle.
A Pei had seen the young man's indifferent and reckless appearance in the past. If Yan Xuexiao's father was still there, other people would not dare to be so reckless in front of him.
He still remembered that Yan Xuexiao didn't shed a single tear when he heard the news of Yan Zhao's death, but he saw Yan Xuexiao kneeling in front of the portrait all night long.
"I remember you went to the border town last year." Zheng An asked casually, "Is the child called Shen Chi?"
"Who is he?"
Yan Xueyiao raised her long and narrow phoenix eyes.
Zheng An's reaction didn't seem to be fake. He should have forgotten the child who was abandoned in the border town. He didn't ask any more. He didn't want to fight with the old fox Luo Shu. He never found out his weakness, so he handed another bottle of vodka to the young man.
Yan Xuexiao drank the entire five bottles of wine and walked out of the restaurant. The moment she walked out of the restaurant, her expression suddenly became indifferent. A Pei asked worriedly, "You are in good health. Are you alright after drinking so much wine?"
The young man was silent, as if looking at a person through the night.
As the days passed, A Pei slowly watched Yan Xuexiao dormant in the dark, growing from a gentle and cold young man to a man whose joy and anger were indistinguishable, the only thing that didn't change was—
A worn red string was tied around his wrist.
*
Sixty-nine days until the college entrance examination.
sixty-eight days.
sixty-seven days.
...
Shen Chi has never been to school.
On the fifty-ninth day, the boy appeared in the classroom, and Teacher Wang's eyes suddenly turned red on the podium. He quickly lowered his head to wipe his tears and pretended to wipe his glasses: "Students, the college entrance examination is only two months away, don't wait until the end. Give up at the moment."
"You scared me to death, and suddenly locked yourself in the room." Zhuangzhou looked at the young man who was focusing on reading, and put his heart down.
Shi Liang also choked up and said, "We called your name in turn outside your door. Teacher Wang was so anxious to know that. If you don't come out, the security guards of the school will kick the door. Yan Shen also went to his father to unlock the door, and nothing major happened. Bar?"
"No."
Shen Chi sat calmly in his seat and did the quiz. During the ten days he locked himself in the room, he suddenly figured out that no one would be by his side forever, and they also hoped to become a better person.
He threw himself back into the intense preparation for the exam, without spending every minute and every second, welcoming the college entrance examination in a border town with no news.
On the day of the college entrance examination, it was a continuous rainy day in Biancheng. Zhuang's mother sent him and Zhuangzhou to the examination room and put a pen for each of them to pray in the temple. He took the pen and said, "Thank you, Zhuang mother."
Zhuang's mother's eyes turned red: "Thank you, do you want to go to the exam room alone as a child?"
Shen Chi walked into the examination room and sat down. He originally thought he would be nervous, but he was very calm while sitting in the seat. He glanced at the red rope between his wrists and withdrew his gaze.
The first exam was Chinese. His speed could not be said to be fast, but every word was written neatly. The topic of the composition was based on Kant's life. Yan Xueyiao's face appeared in front of him, and he subconsciously wrote the first sentence:
The German classical philosopher Kant once said that there are two things in the world that can shock people's hearts: one is the lofty moral standards in our hearts; the other is the brilliant starry sky above us.
Two days of college entrance examinations passed before he knew it. When he walked out of the examination room, the border town was covered by layers of rain, and the air was filled with the humid and sultry breath of cháo.
The lame security guard at the security office handed him an umbrella, but he didn't pick it up and walked home from the rain.
When Shen Chi came home, Zhuang's mother gave him a new mobile phone yesterday. He changed the number and put the old mobile phone and everything Yan Xuexiao left in a box.
He looked at the things in the box suddenly unfamiliar, as if Yan Xuexiao had never appeared in his life, and he had never known a graduate student studying in the United States.