windy city rainy season

After returning to China for a week, Tao Yu stayed at his parents’ house, and he was muddled by jet lag. He couldn’t figure out whether it was Beijing time or Chicago time. Sometimes he couldn’t sleep day and night, his mind was full of things, but he couldn’t say a few words.

When he was awake, he was afraid of thinking wildly, so he forced himself to sort out the literature he had read before, wrote a review of hundreds of sewage treatment technology articles published in recent years, and sent it to old Andrew along with the New Year's email, hoping that the other party would suggest some revisions.The old man replied quickly, saying that he would return a revised version in two days at the latest, and try to submit it before the start of school. At the same time, he suggested that he slightly modify this article as the background introduction of Chapter 1 of the project final report.At the end of the email, the old man also wrote a few words:

"Take your time. Don't give yourself too much pressure. By the way, Jason visited me on Christmas and bought me adozen of puff cakes. Carol still loves the ones you made last year the best." My wife Carol still thinks the puffs you made last year are her favorite.)

The old man likes to eat sweets. Tao Yu visits his house every Christmas and always brings a box of puffs.Last year, he found that the shop he frequented had moved away, so he found recipes from the Internet and tried to make them himself. Carol doesn't like sweets, and some of the puffs Tao Yu deliberately halved the sugar and used whipped cream, which moved the teacher's wife very much.I didn’t go to my teacher’s house when I returned to China this year, and I didn’t expect Chang Zheng to do my best for him. Tao Yu read the last paragraph of the email several times, but couldn’t tell what it was like in his heart.He opened another email he received a few days ago, which contained a photo of the city of Chicago taken from a bird's-eye view, with the lights still on, and a sentence under the photo:

I'mwaitingforyoucomeback." (Translation: I'm waiting for you to come back.)

Tao Yu twirled the ring on his ring finger, and never took it off even when he returned to China. He missed the time spent together in the past, but he was afraid that the lack of communication would make the gap between the two of them deeper and deeper. In the end, there would be no good relationship. end.

It was already five o'clock in the morning when he turned off the computer. He picked up the medicine bottle on the bedside table and poured out a pill, swallowed it with half a glass of cold water, and went quietly to the kitchen to cook porridge.There was movement in the parents' bedroom soon. After a while, the mother came to the kitchen, looked at his face and asked worriedly: "Have you not slept all night? You just finished the operation, and your body will collapse if you continue like this."

Tao Yu didn't answer, closed the lid of the pot, turned around and asked, "Mom, is grandpa's house still for rent?"

Mother Tao looked at him in surprise and said, "The last tenant moved out, and now it's vacant. Why do you ask this?"

"I want to live there." Tao Yu explained, "It's more convenient to live alone, and I won't be afraid to disturb your rest by calling the tutor at night..."

"Your father and I will worry about your health!" Mother Tao interrupted him, "Your complexion is so bad, and your body hasn't recovered yet. Letting you go back to China is to let you take a good rest. How can we rest assured that you live by yourself? Wait Can't you do things after your body has recovered?!"

"If you can't sleep, you have to do something, and your body won't get better if you lie in a daze..." Tao Yu paused to comfort his mother, "I'll take a sleeping pill to sleep in a while, so don't worry."

Seeing her son feeling distressed and angry, Mother Tao raised her voice and said, "Are you blaming us for letting you go back to China? Are you still thinking about Chang Zheng? Think about how you got this injury, isn't it because of his younger brother? I raised you so up, not to let you be bullied outside, and rely on depression drugs and sleeping pills to live well!"

Tao Yu felt his temples throbbing violently and closed his eyes.He could understand his mother's mood, and he blamed himself for not telling the truth about this incident, which made his parents even more angry after learning the truth, and put this anger on the Chang family.But Chang's father and Chang's mother did not protect their child regardless of his will, and have been concerned about his physical condition for the past two years.No one else was to blame for the blood clot this time. This usually happens shortly after transplantation, but it has been two years for him.He thought that the severe attack might be due to doing that thing. Chang Zheng said that it had nothing to do with it, but he didn't deny that if he had known about his abdominal discomfort and went to the hospital as soon as possible, it might not be so bad that it would be completely removed.

Tao Yu controlled his emotions, took a bowl of cold water and poured it into the boiling porridge pot, and said to his mother, "Mom, I told him when I met his parents that I returned to China not because of resentment, but because of the relationship between me and Chang Zheng. Our problem is that the rhythm of life is difficult to reconcile, and it has nothing to do with other things. Chang Zheng is different from his younger brother. Don't transfer your anger towards Chang Ling to him. His brother is not bad, but he is heartless and self-willed That's too much. When I was his age, you used to be angry with me all the time?"

Tao's mother was so angry with her "disappointed" son that she had nothing to say, and said coldly, "Are you still planning to go back to the United States? You don't care about your parents? There are so many people in the country who don't have suitable ones..."

"Mom..." Tao Yu turned his back to his mother and said softly, "This is not buying cabbage. You may not be able to pick out the good ones from the pile of vegetables. I'm not saying that this life is very difficult, but at least I know that he is also serious. Yes, even though most of the time he is so busy that he only has patients in his eyes, there is no need to be sneaky with him, and there is no need to worry that he will marry someone else halfway..."

Mother Tao fell silent, remembering that because of a certain person, the family almost broke off the relationship. She suddenly couldn't tell whether it was right or wrong. If she could talk to her son calmly, it wouldn't have forced him to leave. There will be no such things later.

Mother Tao sighed and turned to leave, took a key and put it on the living room table after a while.Tao Yu served two bowls of porridge on the table, put away the keys, changed the subject and asked about the New Year's arrangements, and the atmosphere between mother and child gradually eased.

Tao Yu originally wanted to go back to the house he used to live in when he was working, but it was too far away from his parents' house, and his mother would definitely not agree, so he made a compromise and proposed to live in the apartment left by his grandfather.Tao Yu's grandfather used to be a professor of Petroleum University, and lived in the old teaching area to the west of the compound. Before he was ten years old, because his parents were busy with work, he lived there with his grandparents. Most of the warm and beautiful family memories in his youth came from the two old people. The Clivia on the table, the scattered chessboard on the coffee table, the steaming meals when you come home from school, the old man sitting by the window full of sunshine and shaking the cattail fan...

After the New Year, Tao Yu found a cleaning company to clean the house and moved in. The layout of the old house was small, the windows were still decades ago with iron frames, and the paint was mottled.He bought a bucket of environmentally friendly paint from a nearby building materials city, and found something to do for himself when he couldn't sleep.

On the third day after moving in, there was an unexpected guest in the house.

"Grandson, you are so dishonest! It's been almost a month since you returned to China, don't tell me, just run here and hide!"

Liu Jingyang brought roast chicken and beer to Tao Yu's place, threw the things to him as soon as he entered the door, and sat down at the dining table.

"How do you know I'm back?" Tao Yu asked after taking the plate, knife and fork from the kitchen and returning to the dining room.

"I called your family, and your mother said to come here to find you... Don't cut it up, tear it up with your hands, and pay attention to it after going out for a few years!"

Tao Yu unhurriedly cut off two chicken legs, cut the chicken breast into slices and put them on the plate, then put down the knife and asked, "I'm asking, how do you know I've returned to China?"

"Don't worry about it!" Liu Jingyang said angrily while drinking beer, "You have a doctor's degree to see that you are promising. If you don't tell me about such a big thing as a spleen loss, and don't call me when you return to China, is this still a brother?"

Tao Yu didn't answer, holding a cup of warm water in his hand, watching Liu Jingyang gnaw on the chicken wings.

"Look at me eating, and the meat won't grow on your body." Liu Jingyang threw a chicken leg onto his plate and said, "You see that you are so skinny now, your waist is not as thick as your neck, and you can't do anything wrong. Take it out on yourself. If you don’t want to go back, you can stay at home, your parents will help you find a job, and whether you want a degree or not doesn’t matter.”

The mobile phone on the table rang, Tao Yu glanced at the number, raised his hand and pressed it to hang up.

"A call from the United States? Why didn't you answer it?" Liu Jingyang asked with a glance.

Tao Yu smiled, put down his phone and asked, "Chang Zheng asked you to be a lobbyist, right? No wonder he was able to convince Boss Liu to come out."

Liu Jingyang's expression didn't change, he raised his voice and said, "Don't change the subject! Can I be a lobbyist for him!"

"Okay, neither of us knows the other." Tao Yu cut a piece of chicken leg meat and said while eating, "I didn't tell anyone about the splenectomy, and my parents want to save face, so it's impossible to tell others. Chang Zheng is the only one who knows you. And Mr. Liu, you are such an unprincipled and unconscionable person. When you see your brother suffering, you have to scold others. If you speak so methodically today, you can see that you opened it according to Boss Liu’s mode."

"It sounds like I'm having a schizophrenia." Liu Jingyang said frankly, "You're half right, he's looking for me, but Boss Liu is looking for news for people, not a lobbyist. He said you won't answer me." He doesn't answer your emails, he doesn't know how you are doing now, so he hired me to find out for him. Although it was hired, I confiscated the dollars from international friends. The price was that he exchanged messages with me, and I had to know what was going on. , How dare you feel that the water in your stomach is not a complete set, and you also have mental problems! I was wondering, you can get depression, why is this a world epidemic!"

Tao Yu fiddled with the fork, and said for a while, "Boss Liu, you won't make money from this business..."

"Don't be ignorant of what's good for you! I'll decide whether to make money or not!" Liu Jingyang threw away the chicken bone and wiped his hands and said, "He just let me see how your body is and how is your spirit? I'll call back tomorrow." : People are alive and can take care of themselves. Boss Liu's business ends here, and the rest is for me to ask you. Don't worry, I will definitely not tell him what is unnecessary. I want to hear what you two think about this matter?"

"What do you think?" Tao Yu smiled wryly, "If I can figure out how to think, I'd be depressed!"

"Just say you still want to live with him?"

"Yes, but..."

"But what is it!" Liu Jingyang interrupted, "You want to have sex with him, and he also wants to have sex with you. Isn't this the end? There's nothing to be hypocritical about!"

Tao Yu knows that things are so simple in the eyes of others, because what unrelated people only see is the result, but they can't let go of the process, and only the person involved can understand it.

"Just want to live together? Where? How? My parents want me to stay in China. You know my father opposed that posture at the beginning, but now as long as I'm by their side, everything else is acceptable. Can you Do you imagine that a person like my dad would give in? When I heard him on the phone, I burst into tears. But Chang Zheng has a job there, and he has to inherit his family and business, so I can’t ask him to come back with me. China. Let’s just say that I’m an unfilial son. No matter my parents live with him in the United States, he’s in the hospital eighteen hours a day, and he’ll leave whenever he’s called upon during holidays. This matter can’t add fuel to the flames in front of my parents, and I have to speak for them, but I’m the one who suffers, and I’m not God. I have no idea? I just don’t want to talk about it. But unless I’m sick Hospitalized, why don't you even have time to talk to him at ordinary times. Why don't you answer his phone? There is nothing to talk about face to face, so what can you say on the phone?"

Liu Jingyang drank the whole bottle of beer while listening, put down the bottle and asked: "Since this is the case, why not separate it?"

Tao Yu looked at the ring on his hand and said, "During this time, I have been asking myself, it will be resolved if we really break up. But after living together for several years, we came together when I was most difficult, and the worst He has seen all the looks, and has always been by my side. He has shown me the possible beauty in life, how can it be so easy to say let go and let go?"

Liu Jingyang is not a love consultant, and he doesn't know how to persuade him, so he simply stopped asking.The two chatted about other topics all night, mostly Master Liu was talking about it, occasionally getting Tao Yu to reply with a sentence or two.Finally, Liu Jingyang suddenly remembered something, and asked Tao Yu if he knew that Ji X had asked Father Tao for questioning two days ago.

"What?!" Tao Yu was shocked, "I didn't hear from my parents, why?"

"I heard from my dad that someone wrote an anonymous letter." Liu Jingyang comforted, "Don't worry, get the letter to find out the situation, this is also a normal procedure. Your old man is Ding Mao or Mao, I'm not afraid of being checked."

Tao Yu didn't believe that there would be any problem with his father, but after all, there was something in his heart, and he couldn't sleep all night.