The Romance of a Young Painter

Meng Xing shook Zhou Nianjiu awake without hesitation.

"What's wrong?" Zhou Nianjiu opened his eyes in a daze.

"You have a fever." Meng Xing said.

"Really? I said why I feel a little cold," Zhou Nianjiu touched his forehead, then sat up unsteadily to get dressed, "I'm going to take some medicine."

"I knew you would be slow," Meng Xing, who was sleeping on the outside, pushed him back under the quilt, "tell me, where is the medicine."

"In the side pocket of the suitcase, there is a small green bag." Zhou Nianjiu said.

Meng Xing found the bag according to what he said, opened it, and found that it was fully prepared. In addition to cold medicine, there were also commonly used anti-inflammatory drugs and gastrointestinal medicine. When he found disposable sterile cotton balls and band-aids, he paused. .

Zhou Nianjiu took the medicine with the hot water in the thermos, and soon fell asleep again.

Meng Xing hesitated for a moment and lay down with his back to Zhou Nianjiu.

Meng Xing had a dream in the middle of the night, the dream was extremely beautiful, he was intoxicated in it, suddenly a big water monster came out, the big water monster had long tentacles, entangled him tightly, strangled him out of breath .Meng Xing woke up in a suffocation, and found an arm on his chest, hot breath from the back of his neck, he was being hugged by Zhou Nianjiu like a big doll.Instinctively, he pulled Zhou Nianjiu's arm away, and kicked him to the side of the bed. Fortunately, Zhou Nianjiu's position was leaning against the wall, otherwise he would probably just roll off the bed.

Zhou Nianjiu opened his eyes, he was a little confused about the situation: "What happened? Why are you still awake?" Seeing the fine sweat oozing from Meng Xing's forehead, he asked, "Did you have a nightmare?"

"It's none of your business." Meng Xing said displeased.

"Oh," Zhou Nianjiu rubbed the kicked calf, divided the quilt that was rolled up by himself in half, and said, "Then you cover it up, so you don't catch a cold." After speaking, he continued to sleep facing the wall.

Meng Xing stared expressionlessly at the culprit who soon fell asleep. Before, he laughed at the other party's defenselessness. How could he sleep so dead himself? He didn't even know when he was picked up by someone. Are people not threatening to themselves?Meng Xing laughed at himself. He is not such a blindly optimistic person. In the dream that haunted him throughout his childhood, the person beside him seemed to be so harmless, but he could make people do all kinds of things for him, including ruining his hard work. The business empire created by painstaking effort.

Although the things in the dream may not necessarily happen, Meng Xing believes that all things that may threaten him need to be prevented before they happen, especially after Zhou Nianjiu and Shen Guangji have an intersection, things are more and more likely to develop on the track he knows .Shen Guangji, Meng Meng, and Wen Juan.The man who was going to kill decisively in the political world had already started his career, but he was still living under Meng Shen's nose, and he didn't dare to use a relatively large amount of funds easily.Meng Xing knew that he could let go of his hands and feet only if he was out of Meng Shen's eyes and ears, and this time is not far away, and in half a year, he can fly to that ambitious country, where he can complete the original accumulation as planned, and at the same time, use The dark chess played by the Fang family prevents Fang Jiaye and Wen Juan from meeting and getting married, and destroys Wen Juan's greatest opportunity to participate in politics in advance.

In this game of predicting the plot in advance, Meng Xing has already set the development direction for each main line and branch line in the future. He just waits for the chess pieces in his hand to merge into the pattern he wants according to these veins. If he tried in vain to make the nightmare come true, then he would make them feel the backlash of the nightmare even more.Thinking of this, Meng Xing felt his blood boil and he didn't feel sleepy.

Variables do not exist. For example, Zhou Nianjiu, if his performance deviates from the preset, will it affect the overall situation?Meng Xing's eyes became even colder. As long as he cut off the most critical link, this person would not become an obstacle to his plan. Now the key to this link is in his own hands.Meng Xing looked at Zhou Nianjiu, who knew nothing about all this. The other party was curled up in the warm quilt, his face was as peaceful as sleeping in his mother's womb. Meng Xing couldn't help frowning. He really hated such a clean person, it was unimaginable. In the dream, I was so obsessed with ghosts.

The nights in winter are extraordinarily long, especially for the insomniac Meng Xing. He has long been used to such insomnia. It's unusual, the layout of the village, the waiters in the restaurant, and those seemingly vulgar villagers all have something wrong. Although they can't detect any malice, what is their purpose? It's not really just to cooperate Do you want to run a small winter camp for middle school students?And the old man who never showed up, if he was really in poor health, why was he never heard at night?Unless the yard leads somewhere else, he doesn't live in the yard at all.For Meng Xing, it became more and more interesting to contemplate the terrifying things.

Zhou Nianjiu's fever subsided in the middle of the night, and he woke up in the morning with no other symptoms except a slight cough, and he was in good spirits. He took two more cold medicines to strengthen it, and Meng Xing, who hadn't slept most of the night, seemed to be in good condition. .After breakfast, Aunt Li arranged for them to add more firewood, and also arranged for them to repair the fence today. Both of these tasks required going up the mountain to pick up branches. Both of them wrapped cloth strips around the quilt belt of the basket a few times to prevent their shoulders from being worn out, and they also tried to avoid mixing unburnable branches with the firewood pile.

Somewhere on the mountainside, Zhou Nianjiu saw a large field of wild roses with sharp eyes. He carefully avoided the dense thorns, and picked up a few baskets of branches to take back.

"Xiao Zhou, why are you doing this?" Aunt Li asked puzzled seeing a pile of dry wood branches mixed with greenery.

"This is a wild rose, and it's very easy to feed. Now I'm spreading it in the middle of the fence, watering it almost once a week when it doesn't rain, and it will bloom by the end of spring this year," Zhou Nianjiu said carefully. I combed out the branches one by one, and said, "The spikes on the branches of the wild rose can still prevent some small animals from breaking into the yard."

Aunt Li looked at the soft branches and asked, "Will it work?"

Zhou Nianjiu carefully placed the arranged branches on the open space in the yard, and said: "My mother said that she had planted a lot of these in the yard when she was a child, and it was quite good."

Aunt Li curled her lips and said: "There are so many tricks for women in the city, there is nothing wrong with this kind of time." Even though she said this, she didn't object.

Zhou Nianjiu was afraid that no one would water the flowering branches after he left, so he picked up a sketchbook and drew a rough rendering of the yard and showed it to Aunt Li, saying, "Look, as long as the rose grows well, it will look like this when it comes out. "

"Hey," Aunt Li couldn't help admiring, "It's pretty pretty."

"Not only is it beautiful, the whole yard is fragrant when it blooms." Zhou Nianjiu recalled Zhou Sulan talking about her childhood home. That place was in the western suburbs of City B, not far from Xishan. Zhou Sulan was lucky to have a small yard when she was young. There are persimmons, pomegranates, and large pieces of hosta and Chinese rose. Unfortunately, the two elderly members of the Zhou family collapsed and had to sell the yard for surgery fees. The footsteps of the old man leaving.Xishan and the courtyard at the foot of Xishan are Zhou Sulan's distant nostalgia. When she mentioned these, her eyes shone with a moving brilliance, as if she had returned to her girlhood.

He couldn't help suggesting: "Aunt Li, your yard is big, plant some flowers and plants, and plant two fruit trees. In summer, it will be shady and fragrant with flowers and fruits."

Aunt Li was obviously also moved, and said, "Okay, next time you go up the mountain, help me keep an eye out for what is suitable for planting in the yard. You can mark it, and I will find someone to move it in spring."

Zhou Nianjiu agreed.

After eating at noon, Zhou Nianjiu started to repair the fence with Meng Xing.

Meng Xing is really good at doing things. After a short period of unfamiliar attempts at the beginning, he quickly mastered the essentials of building a fence.Zhou Nianjiu gave him a rough idea of ​​where the flowers and trees should be planted, and then started to work in the opposite direction in a similar manner.

Aunt Li watched the two of them work with a satisfied expression on her face.

After finishing all this, Aunt Li didn't add any other tasks to them, Meng Xing still went out for a walk, Zhou Nianjiu hadn't recovered from his cold, so he just took the opportunity to rest.

"Young man, come here." Zhou Nianjiu was basking in the sun in the yard when he suddenly heard someone calling him from the back room. He looked back and saw that the closed window of the main room was opened, and an old man with white beard and hair was coming out of the window. To see him.

"Hello." Zhou Nianjiu walked over.

"I heard that you are good at drawing, can you draw a picture for the old man?" the old man asked.

"Of course." Zhou Nianjiu said, he didn't start painting all day yesterday, and he planned to go back to do two strokes after drying for a while, seeing the dim light in the room, he said, "Do you want to come to the yard? The sun is very warm here , It’s also good for your body to come out and bask in the sun.”

The old man said, "Alright, come in and give me a push."

It was the first time that Zhou Nianjiu entered the old man's room. The inside was similar to his and Meng Xing's, with only one more cabinet. It was very deserted and simple, but the old man was very tidy and clean. It seemed that Aunt Li usually took good care of it.He pushed the old man's wooden wheelchair out of the house. Although the wheelchair looked simple in style, it was very easy and labor-saving to push, and judging from the color of the wood, it should have been used for many years.

"It was made by an old carpenter in the village," said the old man, seeing that his attention was on the wheelchair, "Old Zhao is very good at craftsmanship, and what he does looks like, it is much easier to use than those high-tech human mechanics outside."

Zhou Nianjiu was a little surprised that an old man who had lived in the village knew these words, and said, "You know a lot."

The old man said quite proudly: "Everything is taught on TV, and I still have a radio." He turned on a small switch on the handle of the wheelchair, and a grid came out, and a small electronic product was inside the grid.

People born in Zhou Nianjiu's generation seldom use radios, so she couldn't help being a little curious, and said, "Can I have a look?"

The old man handed it to him and said, "Don't break it for me."

Zhou Nianjiu picked it up carefully, the thing is very light, and the function keys are also very simple, it can be seen that it is suitable for the elderly.He fiddled with the switch, and the voice suddenly came out from inside. It was a current affairs news program. He seldom pays attention to these, so he couldn't help listening to it for a while before returning the things to the old man, saying, "It's quite convenient."

The old man said: "Most half of me has already been buried in the ground, and my legs and feet are not good, so I rely on this to pass the time."

Zhou Nianjiu had an idea and said, "You just sit here basking in the sun and listening to the radio as usual, and I will draw your usual appearance. What do you think?"

The old man said: "I don't understand this either, what do you say, what should I do."

Zhou Nianjiu pushed the old man to a place where he could enjoy the sun and no wind and sat down. He picked up the notebook and began to draw seriously. For a while, there was the sound of the radio broadcasting in the yard and the rustling sound of the paintbrush on the paper. .

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