five years later

Without the fireworks and firecrackers in the city, the whole city became quiet, and the atmosphere of the New Year also faded a lot.

When An Yuan and Liu Youxia came back from buying dumplings, Father An was still awake, sitting alone in the living room, with a roll of "Six Chapters of a Floating Life" in his hand, and on the paper was "Xiao Xuan Chuang, who was dressing up, looking at each other without words but tears." A thousand lines".

This was not intentional, but he was a little at a loss on such a day of family reunion.

An Yuan stood at the door, holding the three fresh dumplings he bought in his hand, while Liu Youxia beside him was patting and brushing off the remaining snowflakes on his body.

I didn't wear glasses when I went out, so I couldn't see clearly from a distance.It's just that he looked at the lonely look of that person, and stunned for a while, but he didn't know how to speak.

Fortunately, An Yuan and Liu Youxia, after tidying up, dragged him in.

"Uncle, we bought three delicacies of dumplings, do you like them?" Liu Youxia asked as he walked while wearing a scarf and hat.

Father An stopped writing, looked up at the two of them, was silent for three seconds before saying "OK" softly, and then packed his things.

Pen, ink, paper and inkstone should not be sloppy.Close the book, dry the ink stains on the rice paper, and send them to the study one by one.

Liu Youxia went to the bedroom to hang up her scarves and clothes, leaving An Yuan alone in the living room.He thought for a while, and the old man who was over sixty years old with gray hair came back to his mind, and his heart softened.

An Yuan picked up the piece of white jade paperweight, and Xiaohe showed her sharp corners, but the dragonfly's wings were broken.This is his "masterpiece" when he was young, and it has been more than 20 years.

In the eyes of others, An Yuan's father is elegant and gentle, soft-spoken, and wearing a long robe is Shu Lang Jiyue's husband.It's just that such a person is not gentle enough to his son.

The extreme of gentleness is indifference, especially for the communication education that is always lacking in the family.

An Yuan held the paperweight and walked towards the study room. When he entered, he found Dad An standing in front of the bookshelf with a look of bewilderment.

"What's wrong?" he asked softly.

Father An looked back at him, hesitated for a while before saying: "It's okay, I just forgot where to put this book." After finishing speaking, he glanced at "Six Chapters of a Floating Life" in his hand, and then After sweeping to the gap in the sixth row, I suddenly realized the book and inserted it.

"Okay." Dad An let out a sigh of relief, and when he turned to look at An Yuan, he showed a rare cheerful smile. "Give me the paperweight before you drop it again."

There was a bit of complaint in his voice, just like the kind of person who dares not speak out when his beloved thing is hurt by others.Obviously it was dislike, but this dislike reassured An Yuan, and even gave him a little joy.

So he opened his eyebrows and said half jokingly: "If you fall again, how about I buy you a new one?"

Father An was stunned for a while, and finally said something wrong: "I have money."

After a while, he explained: "You and Xiao Liu, you two, the money." After a pause, Dad An showed his scholarly demeanor to clear up the words, "You keep the money, and Xiao Liu lives a good life, I don't have to worry about it here."

An Yuan looked at him, "You know?"

Father An smiled suddenly, and his smile like spring breeze and rain made An Yuan almost close his eyes.

"What do you think?" Papa An asked back.

The reconciliation came so unexpectedly.To be honest, An Yuan would be moved to tears by this casual joke between father and son.From childhood to adulthood, this man who wholeheartedly regarded him as his mother's blood finally showed a special sense of intimacy in front of him.

As he was getting older, An Yuan felt that he was being hypocritical.But there was no way, at the moment this conversation ended, all the things that he had always remembered or deliberately forgotten came out, forcing him to get emotional and sore his nose.He just bowed his head in silence.

Pa An stared at him steadfastly, without taking back the smile on his lips.He just took two steps forward to take the paperweight from An Yuan's hand, and gently patted his head when the other party recovered.

This way of treating children is a little cute, it seems to be encouragement, and it is also the comfort that An Yuan has never received.

"Then, then I'll—" An Yuan swallowed, and in such an atmosphere, he felt a little guilty. "I'll go to the kitchen to see if Liu Youxia's dumplings are ready."

Father Ann watched his son leave the study.The opponent's pace was a little fast, and his back even seemed to tremble a little, like a flame on a candlestick that was constantly fluttering.

He opened the drawer and took out a carved wooden box from it.The paperweight has always been kept inside, and he wouldn't take it out and use it unless he was in a special state of mind.

When he saw Liu Youxia, he had an intuition that he had some kind of aesthetic affection for this young man.When he saw An Yuan and his gaze, this kind of good feeling suddenly turned into a sigh.

This kind of lament is not nostalgia for the untimely death of the late wife, nor is it blindly indulging in the fading youthful love.He just remembered a sentence at that moment, a sentence that is always deeply affectionate and full of admiration.

"Love doesn't know why, it goes deeper and deeper. The living can die, and the dead can live."

When the secular love is sublimated to a certain level, this sentence becomes the greatest and graceful footnote.What he sighed was the power contained in it that could life and death human flesh and bones.

Because he once had it too, but was blinded by this idealism, until now he is willing to admit his loneliness.

Dad An put away the paperweight, and went to the living room to fold the Linhao characters and put them inside.As he closed the box, his heart dropped from mid-air.It falls to the place that most of the lay people linger on and call it "home".

There are no dazzling fireworks on New Year's Eve. What accompanied the three of them was the Spring Festival Gala that has been going on for decades, as well as the dumplings cooked by Liu Youxia.

Ten of them were put in a bowl for one person, and then served with a plate of old mature vinegar that smelled sour in the nose.On the last day of this year, Liu Youxia has achieved the grand goal of both his career and his family, and he is not complacent.

Of course, leaving this aside, it is obvious to all that the relationship between An Yuan and his father has eased.People can't help but raise their tails, thinking that they are a Fuwa.

When the New Year's bell rang, all three of them had warm smiles on their faces.

Liu Youxia moved very quickly, and took out a gift from the bedroom to send Papa An a New Year greeting.Jixiang talked a lot, and with his face, Dad An finally accepted it.

Then there is Anyuan.He had said similar auspicious words before, but this time he was extraordinarily coy, as if the person who wanted to pay New Year's greetings was not his own father, but placed in front of Liu Youxia's parents.

"Dad," he yelled, lowered his head for only three seconds and then raised his head, looking straight at the past as if he had made a great decision. "I wish you good health and all the best."

Father Ann is a gentle person.He took the hands of An Yuan and Liu Youxia, and said his best wishes to these two young people in the form of marrying a daughter.

He said: "You two should live a good life and grow old together."

Lying on the bed, An Yuan's mood was difficult to calm down, until Liu Youxia came out of the shower, got into the quilt, and curled up in someone else's arms before he had a real feeling.

"What's the matter?" Liu Youxia quite enjoyed An Yuan's appearance of being a little bird, but he couldn't base his happiness on the other party's "pain".

"It's nothing," An Yuan's voice was weak, like a lettuce that had been beaten by frost. "I just can't figure out why he can give up those obsessions that he has persisted in for more than 20 years so quickly. Is it because of you?"

Liu Youxia chuckled, "Maybe."

An Yuan looked up, a little dissatisfied with his narcissism, but there was no better reason to refute.Before Liu Youxia came, the exaggerated relationship between them could be said to be tense.

"Because I love you." Liu Youxia rubbed his chin against An Yuan's nose, "He could see that I love you. It's not that I had the intention of beating mandarin ducks before, but love can easily infect people."

"Uncle is not so much moved by the two of us, but rather moved by 'love' itself. Can you tell me about your past?" Liu Youxia made his request. It's rare that An Yuan didn't go wrong. He didn't raise any thorns on the topic, he was just silent.

There is still light outside the window, some of which are blurred by the curtains, and the rest are halos of halo, like bubbles blown by a child under the sun, with fluffy edges and corners shining brightly.

I don't know how long I have been silent, or how long An Yuan has been typing in his heart.As soon as he opened his mouth, it was childhood.

"My mother passed away when I was three years old. He was very sad, and the sadness continues to this day, without any distractions, sometimes even forgetting who I am."

When An Yuan said this, there was no sharp resentment, he just narrated quietly, as if he was telling someone else's story.

"You can't say that, he knows who I am. In his eyes, I'm just an item left by his mother, no different from those books or that paperweight.

"Others say that he is a modest gentleman who is very gentle to everyone. But only to me, his heart is harder than a stone. Or, he just forgot that I am a flesh and blood person who can speak and breathe.

"So I want too much. In addition to his love, I also need his love. But a person as stubborn as him has already packed all these things and put them in the cemetery."

An Yuan breathed a sigh of relief when he thought of those days when he was so lonely that he was the only one left. "Before the reconciliation, I always thought that I hated him, but when I saw that his eyes on me were warm, I didn't blame him. Since I was a child, I only expected him to treat me like other fathers. The way a child treats me, instead of being gentle and indifferent."

Liu Youxia hugged the person in his arms tightly, "You love him." His tone was firm and a little sentimental.

"I think, I've always loved him." An Yuan murmured, once this thought was exposed, there was nowhere to hide.

The two hugged each other in silence, and in the end it was Liu Youxia who spoke first. "Today is the first day of the new year, where are we going to pay New Year's greetings?"

An Yuan returned quickly, "I went to Uncle's house to pay New Year's greetings in the morning, and Liu Yimao said that he would come to our house to pay New Year's greetings in the evening."

Liu Youxia's throat choked up, and he smiled happily when he was disturbed by the word "our family", and his teeth were itchy because of the word "Liu Yimao".

In the end, I had nothing to say, so I had to sleep with my mouth curled up and my arms around someone.