The day I was forced to be a detective pendant

Yao Cheng has not returned to this city for several years.

Since he was admitted to a university in other provinces, he has hardly returned to this home.In the first few years, it was a deliberate avoidance, but later it seemed to just become a habit.Since his parents moved back to their hometown in the country a few years ago, this home has been pitifully infrequent in his memory, and even its appearance is a bit blurred.

Now he has already graduated from university, but because of his job transfer, he has returned to the city where he grew up.

Yao Cheng dragged a lonely suitcase up to the fourth floor. The original tenant had moved out for more than half a month, and the room was empty with a thin layer of dust.The rest of his luggage will be delivered the next day. Except for a few sets of clothes and a toiletry bag, the suitcases he carries are all work-related things.

This house is already so dilapidated, and the floor height is still so short, Yao Cheng's finger ran across the height notch on the doorpost - he never noticed it when he was a child.He used to run around in this living room countless times, and because he fell and knocked on the door frame, he was taken to the hospital by his mother for stitches. Now the traces of their family are almost invisible in this house.

Yao Cheng couldn't help laughing at the sound of neighbors closing the door on the porch—the sound insulation here is still so bad.

He remembered that when he was young, there was a younger brother who was four years younger than him living next door, and his bedroom was only separated by a wall.The two of them often slept dishonestly at night, knocking back and forth across the wall, and several times got the mother in the living room into it.

At that time, the family felt really good, Yao Cheng thought, there was no foolish cheating father, and no crying and quarreling mother.Those past events that have tarnished the family's fond memories, those events that made it avoid this place, in retrospect, don't seem to be such serious things now.

Near noon the next day, Yao Cheng realized that he had slept all night on a mattress with no sheets on it. Fortunately, the heating in the room had already been turned on, so he avoided the fate of catching a cold.With a dry throat, he was about to go downstairs to the convenience store to buy water, but the courier company just arrived.

"Is that Mr. Yao from 404!" The person from the moving company compared the orders with his mobile phone.

"That's right," Yao Cheng wiped his face, opened the door and said, "Just put it in the living room, I'll move it with you."

Yao Cheng went downstairs with the courier. Although he paid the money, he was a young man, so moving with more than one person would get the job done faster.After going in and out several times, he suddenly found that the door of the next room was ajar.

Um?When did the door open, was it open before?

While he was busy, he took time to think, who is his neighbor now?

After finally taking a break, facing the big and small boxes in the room, Yao Cheng suddenly felt a wave of powerless fatigue - the more complicated the affairs, the more people don't want to move.I just finished the handover of my last job on Friday, and I caught a plane back here that night, and it was already midnight when I got home.Today and tomorrow I have to clean first, unpack the boxes, and still have so many daily necessities to buy, and the new work will start on Monday,

He slumped on the bed in a daze, recalling things from his childhood in a trance.

At that time, both his parents were working outside the home, and they left early and returned late every day. Fortunately, he got used to it—rather than buying bread with pocket money, he might as well cook tomato scrambled eggs by himself.The neighbor's younger brother always ran to knock on the door of his house after being covered in mud outside, and then washed his hands under his supervision, and stepped on a small bench to help him cook together.After a good meal, my younger brother would borrow his comic books to read, play on his Xiaobawang game console, and finally take a shower before going back to his own home to sleep.It's funny to say, the two people's house is wall to wall, but he still needs to see them for these few steps.Every night he tucked his younger brother into the bed, and as soon as he walked back to his bedroom, the wall immediately sounded a secret signal between the two.

What, obviously my younger brother is not afraid of anything during the day, causing trouble everywhere, and it doesn't matter if he falls and gets injured, but he only acts like a baby to him.

What happened to my brother?He can't remember something.

In the first year of college, when he occasionally called home, he would ask his mother to go to the next door and ask his younger brother to pick him up, and the other party seemed very happy every time.Later, when he became busy studying and working, his father's cheating was exposed again, and the family quarreled all day long.Either his father called and asked him to persuade his mother, or his mother called and kept crying.As time went on, he took the initiative to contact his family less and less, found excuses to stay at school during summer and winter vacations, and gradually forgot about his younger brother.

What's your brother's name?He doesn't seem to remember either.

For some unknown reason, Yao Cheng raised his hand above the pillow, and knocked on the wall like he did when he was a child.

Three long and two short, meaning: "Are you asleep?"

Yao Cheng closed his eyes and smiled lightly—so he still remembered this kind of thing.

"Boom, boom, boom, boom."

Four echoes echoed clearly in the empty room.

While Yao Cheng was startled awake, he finally remembered his younger brother's nickname——

"Xiao Fei, his name is Xiao Fei."

Yao Cheng is sitting upright on a dining table and chairs at the moment, and there are two boys sitting on the left and right sides of the couch opposite.One of the boys was petting an overgrown yellow cat, the other was holding a notebook, his head was shaking, the mirror was reflecting light, he couldn't see his eyes, but he seemed to be asleep.

"Hey, are you listening to me?" Yao Cheng couldn't help it.

"Ah, I'm sorry," said the boy holding the cat, while showing him the cat's ears. "My cat's ears seem to be a little inflamed recently. Look."

"Oh, it seems to be a little red..." Yao Cheng took a closer look, and suddenly realized: "No, listen to my commission, you guys!"

The other boy suddenly straightened up after being yelled at by him, cleared his throat and said, "I see."

"Do you really know?" Yao Cheng asked suspiciously.

Unexpectedly, the boy next to him also broke the stage: "Yes, yes, what do you know, let's hear it."

Bian Yao looked down at his notebook, it was full of mysterious runes of dogs crawling.

Zou Chuyang said triumphantly: "I'm listening carefully, Xiao Fei, I guess the ending is definitely not because the water pipes in the house are old and there will be echoes or something bad."

"It's not like he approached the science column group." Bian Yao took off his glasses, pinched the bridge of his nose, put them on again, and said, "Is it because the new tenants are playing around and knocked back."

"Impossible, because that's the secret signal for me and Xiaofei. I typed 'Are you asleep?'. If he can't sleep at night and gets scared, he will type 'Come and stay with me'." Yao Cheng said on the table. There were a few long and short knocks.

"So I was shocked at that time, because I vaguely remembered that my parents once said that the next door—that is, Xiaofei's family had moved away long ago. When I was in my junior year, Xiaofei had an accident, but at that time I My parents have already moved away from here, and the house has been rented out. I don’t know the specific situation. I am busy with graduation, so I didn’t make time to come back to see him.” Yao Cheng looked down at his fingers, “That night I I was so scared that I didn't sleep well all night, I didn't dare to knock on the wall, and I didn't dare to go to the next door to ask. Unexpectedly, the next morning, the next door came to my house first and knocked on the door."

"Oh oh oh." Zou Chuyang listened to the story very enthusiastically, pinched the serval cat's two front paws and shook it, as if to cheer him up.

"I opened the door, and Xiao Fei was standing outside the door."

Zou Chuyang raised his head with his mouth half open: "Huh?"

"He grew a little taller, and his appearance changed slightly, but I recognized him at a glance." Yao Cheng said, "He was wearing a house coat on a cold day, and he was barefoot, so I quickly let him in. gone."

"It turns out that since the traffic accident a few years ago, Xiaofei has interrupted his studies and recuperated at home for a long time. Do you know that he was very naughty when he was a child, and he was not honest for a moment when he went up and down the mountain and down the river. His elbows and knees were always Bruises. However, the Xiao Fei I saw that day was completely different, skinny as a stick, skin whiter than a girl, and his voice was so low that he couldn't hear him at all."

"He said that since the accident, he was a little afraid of going out on the street alone, and he didn't even go out the door as time went by."

"PTSD," Bian Yao said, "he was still young when the accident happened, and he might have left psychological trauma."

"That's it," Yao Cheng nodded. "As I said before, when he was young, his family didn't care much about him, and they were busy making money outside. At first, they gave him some pocket money every week, and later Let’s just start the month. Most of the time, Xiaofei comes to my house for dinner, plays until bedtime at night, takes a shower and then goes back. Since the accident, his parents have been with him for a while, but his condition has not changed. What got better, so his parents started running around the world again. So Xiao Fei has been refusing to go back to school, and just stays at home playing computer games every day."

Zou Chuyang: "Why is this so!"

Serval: "Meow meow meow!"

Yao Cheng: "By the way, what kind of cat is your cat? It's too big."

Zou Chuyang covered the serval cat's ears: "Don't talk nonsense, you, things like weight... children are very sensitive these days."

"In short, Xiaofei seems to have been living here by himself for the past few years. His parents moved to other cities because of work, but he felt that this place gave him a sense of security, so he refused to leave, so he stayed."

Yao Cheng showed a lonely expression: "To be honest, I am also very happy to meet him again. I liked such a younger brother very much when I was young. Although he is tough, he is cute most of the time. The key is that his family doesn't care about him. He, you can't help but want to take care of him and protect him. I have been away from home for so many years, and I can't say that I am no stranger when I come back to this city, but with Xiao Fei around, everything suddenly becomes better again."

Zou Chuyang put his foot on Bian Yao's ass, and the other party quickly pretended that he was not about to fall asleep, and asked, "If that's the case, why did you come to us?"

Yao Cheng smiled wryly: "Yes..."

"It's strange to say that we haven't seen each other for so many years, we have been separated for so long, and the two sides have changed a lot, but it seems that there is no barrier at all. He stays at my house most of the time, and even relies on me more than before. Soon , My relationship with Xiaofei returned to the previous situation, every day I would go home quickly after work, cook and eat with him. I deal with work, and he reads and plays computer next to him." Yao Cheng said, "It's the same on weekends. Xiaofei doesn't like to go out. As long as he talks about going out, he gets nervous and resists."

"I have been back to this city for a few months, and I have not met new friends except my colleagues in the company. At that time, I just joined the new team and wanted to build a good relationship with the people in the company. I went out to socialize a few times. After returning home I found that Xiao Fei didn’t eat rice or turn on the lights, and just sat there waiting for me, as if he was frozen in time before I went home, and he would only come back to life when he saw me. Later, I spent the whole day for He turned on the heating and prepared food at home, and sometimes he couldn’t help but want to run home during his lunch break, fearing that he would not be able to take care of himself.”

Zou Chuyang said in shock, "You're exaggerating too much, he's not a baby, and didn't he live well before you came back?"

"I know it in my heart, but I just don't worry about it. You don't know that when Xiao Fei was a child, he was crazy. He played crazy with the children every day, and he was very solid. Now, he has no friends except me. It will be broken, and the nerves are also very sensitive. Sometimes when the truck is driven outside, the horn is louder, and he is so scared that he breaks into a sweat."

Zou Chuyang said indignantly: "It's too miserable, and his parents are really serious. They should care about psychological problems when the child has an accident. It won't become worse later, and drag you into the water."

"No...it's not like that." Yao Cheng said with some embarrassment.

Zou Chuyang: "Huh?"

"I don't actually find it bothering about Xiao Fei relying too much on me. No, speaking of it, that's actually what bothers me."

Zou Chuyang: "Huh? I don't understand."

"That is to say, let's not mention his irresponsible parents for the time being, but I am clearly aware of Xiao Fei's problems, but I have always protected him and pampered him like this. Not only do I not force, I even do not encourage him to communicate with the outside world. Contact, and don't take him to seek professional help..." Yao Cheng seemed to blame himself very much, "So his mental state still hasn't improved, and it's also my problem."

Zou Chuyang put the cat into Bian Yao's arms, patted the hair on his body, and said, "It's not your responsibility. Besides, you have spent so much time and energy taking care of him, so you have treated him very well."

Yao Cheng raised his head, looked at him, then at Bian Yao, thought for a while with a tangled expression on his face, and said, "I, I didn't know whether I should say it, but I should be able to understand what you said. You...should have that kind of relationship too."

The author says:

Bian Yao: exome? ?This gentleman asks you to leave now.