Neverland

The rain in Neverland was going to rain for a day and a night, Xu Muzhou didn't listen to Yan Cen's advice to go back to catch up on sleep, he walked around the living room twice, and finally pulled out the book "One Hundred Years of Solitude" from the bookshelf.

There was a thunderstorm outside the window, Xu Muzhou sat cross-legged in a corner of the sofa inside the room, and opened the book.

He only turned on a dim wall lamp, a soft halo sprinkled on the paper, and half a page was hidden in the darkness.

Reading like this is very taxing and slow, but Xu Muzhou is not in a hurry.Ji Yun cherishes this book very much. Although he has read it many times, the pages are well preserved. Occasionally, some pages are pasted with non-marking sticky stickers with some reading notes written on them.

Xu Muzhou still believed in his heart that these words came from Ji Yun's hand, he brushed over the sticky notes with his fingers, and carefully read page by page.

When Yan Cen entered the door, he saw such a scene.

Xu Muzhou was wearing linen home clothes with a loose neckline, revealing a small collarbone.He rested his chin in one hand, and rested his wrist on his knee with the other hand. The book was spread out at the bend of his legs, and he only flipped through a page from time to time.

He doesn't read very fast, but he is extremely focused.The dim yellow light spread from his shoulders, coating his soft hair with a thin layer of light, making him look a few years old for no reason, looking soft and pure.

Yan Cen leaned against the wall of the porch, and suddenly remembered what Song Yan had just said to him.

--you do not understand.

Who said I don't understand, Yan Cen sneered in his heart.

He understands better than anyone else that that kind of pure and vivid lethality is the sharpest weapon for people like them. Once encountered, there is almost no power to fight back.

Yan Cen didn't know what to think, and didn't make a sound, just leaned there and looked at Xu Muzhou's profile, his eyes were empty, as if he was looking at Xu Muzhou, and he seemed to be just in a daze.

After an unknown amount of time, Xu Muzhou felt his eyes a little sore, so he pinched the bridge of his nose and stretched his shoulders.

His peripheral vision glanced at Yan Cen not far away, and he was startled: "When did you come back?"

"Just now." Yan Cen opened his eyes and said nonsense.

"Oh..." Xu Muzhou didn't pay too much attention, but raised his hand at Yan Cen and said, "I'm reading the book you brought back."

Yan Cen straightened up, hummed, and walked towards him.

"Actually, I always thought that 'Bridge' was the picture book of "Snow Doll"." Xu Muzhou said, closing the book in his hand, touching the uneven gilt lettering on the cover and saying: "How did you suddenly write a picture book? Guess it's from this book?"

"Because the target of the mission is Ji Yun." Yan Cen said.

Xu Muzhou was taken aback for a moment, and then realized Yan Cen's implication - that mission obsession was Ji Yun's own wish, so it shows that Ji Yun himself understood from the very beginning that it is a tragedy to find it again. .

It's like going around and around, the child with the pig's tail who was born again after a hundred years.

"Too smart." Xu Muzhou praised sincerely: "Is there anything in this world that you can't understand?"

"Xu Muzhou." Yan Cen asked suddenly: "What does it feel like to like?"

Xu Muzhou paused, almost thinking that Yan Cen had taken the wrong medicine.He turned his head to look at the other party, only to find that the other party's expression was very natural, with a slight confusion, as if he really didn't understand this matter.

Xu Muzhou was not sure whether Yan Cen was responding to his question just now, or really asking him this question.

"What?" Xu Muzhou asked.

"I just came back from Song Yan." Yan Cen stood beside the sofa, did not sit down, and said lightly, "I chatted with her."

"What did she say?" Xu Muzhou became interested: "Did she discuss this with you?"

"I didn't say anything useful." Yan Cen's eyes gradually darkened: "She was nagging, I was too lazy to listen, so I came back first."

"Pfft——" Xu Muzhou suppressed his laughter, and the picture probably appeared in his mind. He put the book on the coffee table, waved his hands, and said to Yan Cen earnestly: "Oh, it's easy to fall in love with someone. To beautify the other party in your heart, what is nagging. "

"I don't think what she said was objective." Yan Cen said, "So I'm here to ask your opinion."

"My opinion?" Xu Muzhou looked up at him and said with a smile, "But you also know my sexual orientation, and my opinion is different from most people's."

"It's okay." Yan Cen said, "Tell me."

Now that Yan Cen insisted so much, Xu Muzhou had no choice but to rack his brains, trying to find some relevant information from his poor life experience.

"This kind of thing is very subjective, and it's hard to say." Xu Muzhou said: "But in the final analysis, liking is probably a kind of satisfaction-for example, when you see someone, you will feel happy, and for a moment you want to live forever. something like that?"

After Xu Muzhou finished speaking, he felt that the answer was too ambiguous.But Xu Muzhou himself has lived such a long life, and he has never had a peach blossom that bloomed steadily, either it was rotten, or it died before it bloomed, especially the relevant experience was insufficient.

He was thinking about how to say it to be a little more profound, when he glanced at the book cover in his hand from the corner of his eye, he changed his words with a thought.

"Remember Ji Yun?" Xu Muzhou said, "It is said in "First Corinthians" that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, and love never fails."

"So do you think love is willing to give?" Yan Cen asked.

"Not exactly." Xu Muzhou said honestly: "I personally think that people have emotions, and it's normal to want to ask for something in return while giving. Even, 'like' actually comes from I want to ask for the beginning."

Yan Cen raised his eyebrows: "Huh?"

"Because 'like' itself is a simple feeling of wanting to be with the other party." Xu Muzhou said: "I want to ask for attention, attention, and companionship from the other party."

The rain outside was getting heavier, and the water stains on the balcony flowed in along the cracks in the glass sliding door, shining finely under the dim light.

Yan Cen's keen hearing captured all the small sounds in the room - the sound of water flowing, raindrops, the sound of the second hand of the clock passing by, and the sound of his heart beating violently in his chest.

The alarm clock in Xu Muzhou's room rang suddenly, breaking the silence of the room.

Xu Muzhou stood up with his slippers on, and hurriedly walked to the bedroom. Yan Cen looked at his back suspiciously, hesitated for two seconds, got up and followed.

He saw Xu Muzhou first press the beating alarm clock to stop, then he casually took a marker pen from the bedside, and drew a circle on the strangely shaped calendar on his wall.

Yan Cen has good eyesight, so he noticed at a glance that this page happened to be the month when Xu Muzhou entered Neverland.

"What are you doing?" Yan Cen asked.

"Draw for a while." After Xu Muzhou finished drawing the circle, he turned his body slightly so that Yan Cen could see more clearly.

His calendar has already been filled with a line. From the day Xu Muzhou entered Neverland, the date of the next day is not only circled, but also a small arrow is drawn outward, which reads "Start of internship work" day", and the next date immediately following it, the note becomes "The end of the internship, Sun Qian."

——Xu Muzhou was recording the time, Yan Cen thought.

He continued to read, and found that there were no notes for some dates after that, but they were just circled.In addition to entering and leaving the task timeline, the types of notes occasionally have something else. Yan Cen saw a meaningless note like "the first time I went back to see the sunrise of Neverland" on one of the circles.

Yan Cen smiled, thinking that the little fox is a little cute.

But cute is cute, there are still some things to say.Yan Cen sighed, and had no choice but to pour cold water on it: "You also know that the time of Neverland is different from the circulation of the outside world, no matter how long those task lines have passed, it will not be too much for Neverland. big impact."

"I know." Xu Muzhou was not hit, he pressed the cap of the marker pen tightly, turned around and asked, "But does Neverland have its own time unit?"

Yan Cen was stopped by his question, and after a while he said: "No."

"So whether it's six o'clock in the evening on NO.15 or six o'clock in the evening on the [-]st, what's the difference?" Xu Muzhou asked.

Yan Cen was startled.

——He still cared, Yan Cen figured out Xu Muzhou's intention almost immediately.

Xu Muzhou still cared about that "accidental death", he cared about the duckweed feeling caused by coming and going in the timeline, for fear that he would not step on the ground and do something unexpected , so I have to make a "shaft" for him by myself.

On this infinitely extended axis, Xu Muzhou drew the first endpoint, and then set a specification for this axis, allowing Yan Cen to find evidence of "memory" on it.

In this lost place in the gap of time, Xu Muzhou used an extremely ancient and clumsy method to create a kind of "time" for him.

It is true that both of them knew that this "time" was just an illusion of self-deception, but this did not hinder this thin piece of paper, and indeed gave Yan Cen a brand new feeling at this moment.

Yan Cen's eyes fell on those small circles, and he just felt miraculous—as if the world he just walked through really left a few days of marks in his life.

"Thank you." Xu Muzhou smiled and said, "Thank you for remembering that I don't eat anything."

"But..." Yan Cen deliberately elongated his tone, and mercilessly exposed him: "Didn't you apply for this calendar during the last transfer?"

Xu Muzhou was momentarily at a loss for words: "I..."

"I like it very much." Yan Cen didn't tease him anymore, he leaned against the door frame with his arms folded, raised his eyebrows slightly, and his eyes fell on the old calendar beside Xu Muzhou.

The corners of Yan Cen's eyes and brows slightly curved downward, revealing a very relaxed smile: "Thank you."

Xu Muzhou heaved a sigh of relief, and his smile became brighter: "You're welcome."

— Here it comes again, Yan Cen thought.In the last world, Xu Muzhou gave Ji Xiaoli a mint candy because he let him go. At that time, he also smiled contentedly and happily, and his beauty was more dazzling than the sunshine outside.

But now the wind and rain outside the window of Yongwuxiang, and no light can be seen in the dark bedroom, Yan Cen still returned to the environment surrounded by warmth and relaxation in an instant.

Years of work had sharpened him—to everything else, to himself.

Yan Cen's eyes finally wandered to Xu Muzhou's face, and the conversation with Xu Muzhou that he had just ended appeared in his mind.

——Like is an idea that wants to ask for affection.

Yan Cen thought, at least for this moment, he really had the urge to stop time at this moment.