Two pots of water

"You're so powerful, you really deserve to be Brother Xiao Most." Seeing that Tan Ji was silent, Jiang Chu smiled and wanted to tease him, but Tan Ji didn't know what he was thinking, and turned to ignore him out of the window.

Jiang Chu felt uncomfortable again.

Originally, he had been thinking about leaving Tan alone to have lunch at home, but it turned out that what Tan missed most was his birthday.

On New Year's Eve, he went out alone to buy gifts for him, but he said that yesterday's little flame was fine.

Jiang Chu has also come from this age, he knows what it feels like to do something for others, only to be thrown cold water on it.

Even if you understand that the other party is kind and sincere, the moment you are told "it's not necessary", you will feel somewhat embarrassed to suspect that you are being self-indulgent.

Especially when he got home and saw that Tan Zui had pasted up the Spring Festival couplets, even chopped the dumpling stuffing and distributed the dough, he really regretted taking so much.

Tan is nineteen years old, even if he is a few years younger than him, he is definitely a stable and mature one among his peers.

The boy who grew up flopping like a wild dog is sometimes more reliable than him in spending money.

But he suddenly understood Jiang Liantian's every time he said "I'm for your own good" as a matter of course.

Maybe once you have the awareness of "being a parent", "I'm doing it for your own good" is just like buying one get one free as a big bargain at the opening, it directly becomes a subsidiary conscious instinct.

The closer the relationship is, the easier it is to disappoint people from the perspective of taking it for granted.

"Tan Zui," Jiang Chu reflected on himself for a while, stirred the dumpling stuffing in the small basin, and called him, "When did you do this?"

"What?" Qin Zui changed his clothes and came out of the room.

"These." Jiang Chu tapped on the rim of the basin.

"It's because I woke up." Tan Zui went to open the refrigerator to get a can of beer, and opened it with a "click".

Jiang Chu followed into the kitchen, and looked around from the rice cooker to the frying pan one by one, but there was no trace of cooking.

"Where's your meal?" Jiang Chu put the lid back on the pot and looked at him, "After making stuffing and noodles, you went out to buy a scarf?"

"Not yet." Qin Zui finished a can of beer in two or three gulps, smashed the can into the trash can, and went out from the kitchen, "I wanted to eat something outside, but you just called."

"Why didn't you tell me." Jiang Chu immediately went to unscrew the insulated box given by his mother on the table, and then went back to the kitchen to get him chopsticks, "Come and eat, finish it all."

Qin Zui took a bite of a cigarette and was about to light it. Watching Jiang Chu making food for him, the anxiety that had just been suppressed in his heart slowly turned into another fluffy and weak emotion, which made his throat swell and made his throat swell. He couldn't help hugging Jiang Chu's shoulder from behind.

"Brother." He buried his head on Jiang Chu's shoulder and touched his forehead.

"Here." Jiang Chu really can't hear Tan Zui calling his brother softly in a hoarse voice, every time he hears it, his ears get electrified, his heart feels like a whole bottle of big ants has been poured, he always wants to hug Tan Zui and pat him Pat, then rub his back.

Now that he couldn't pat his back, he patted Tan Zui's arm: "Farewell brother, let's eat first."

Tan Zui didn't let go, and continued to press his forehead against him.

Jiang Chu is a down-to-earth person who prefers softness to toughness. Tan Zui's attitude of showing weakness with hugs and silence is directly equivalent to acting like a baby in his heart, which makes him reluctant to pull Tan Zui away.

He had no choice but to stand upright in front of the dining table and hug Ren Tan for a while, holding a pair of chopsticks in his hands, and by the way, divided the dishes that his mother had poured together among several plates.

After a while, he heard Tan Zui say again: "I didn't mean to attack you just now."

If you don't attack him, you can only attack yourself.

Jiang Chu couldn't think of Tan Zuichong's dissatisfaction for a while.

Obviously he was the one who suffered all the time.

"I know." Jiang Chu lost his mind, stuffed a piece of beef brisket from the insulated box into his mouth, rubbed Tan Zui's head back with his other hand, and first followed his words, "I'm very particular about the scarf you picked. like."

"...Are you eating?" Tan Zui raised his head against his palm, and his tone was a bit incredulous.

"Ah." Jiang Chu was a little bit amused by his sudden change of direction, and quickly chewed down the beef brisket, then turned to look at him, "I smelled delicious, but why did the chopsticks pick it up by itself? .”

Tan Zui let go of his hands and took a step back, his expression was a little speechless, the cigarette in his mouth was still a little tugging: "I'm inciting love here."

"Yes, didn't I cooperate?" Jiang Chu couldn't bear this sentence, and laughed so hard that he wanted to cough.

He grabbed the glass to get a glass of water, and when he was done, he sat down next to Tan Zui with a cigarette in his mouth and watched him eat, and sincerely extended an invitation: "Come on, keep fanning."

"Farting, it's gone." Tan Zui put a piece of beef brisket in his mouth.

"Isn't it fragrant?" Jiang Chu raised his eyebrows.

Tan Zui and him looked at each other for two seconds, and the two of them smiled for a long time as if they were on the wrong line.

Jiang Chu, as a person who can't even peel an onion, made the dumplings quite well, which surprised Tan the most.

It’s hard to figure it out, but there are two steps to put the stuffing and squeeze the skin. As long as you don’t open your mouth, you can eat it the same whether it’s ugly or beautiful.

"Do you want to put a coin?" Jiang Chu asked with the last two dumpling wrappers wrapped in his hands.

"Dirty." Tan Zui leaned back on the back of the chair, tilted his sore neck, and tilted his head to look at him playfully, "You still pay attention to this?"

"Isn't that a festive atmosphere?" Jiang Chu smiled, wrapped the two pieces of stuffing and pasted them together, pinching them back and forth to make a four-dimensional image.

"It's yours." He put the four images on the plate in front of Tan Zui.

"What are you pinching?" Qin Zui studied it twice, like a pineapple.

"Puppy." Jiang Chu said.

"It really looks like it." Tan Zui smiled and took a picture of the pineapple puppy.

After the sky darkened, every household started to cook, and the countdown to the Spring Festival Gala on TV brought out the flavor of the new year, and Jiang Chu's cell phone started ringing endlessly.

Friends, colleagues, Party A and Party B, New Year greeting messages and phone calls one after another, and my mother suddenly remembered that today is his birthday, and hurriedly made up birthday red envelopes and video calls next to grandma and grandpa.

Qin Zui was cooking dumplings in the kitchen, and messages from Gao Xia, Du Miaomiao, and his classmates were flashing on his phone.

The heat in the pot was ethereal, and he looked at the lights of Wanjia through the foggy window, and suddenly felt a very unreal feeling of trance in his heart.

If his father was still there, he should have finished his meal by now and went out to drink and play cards with others.

This year, there is no gunpowder smoke and cannon paper filling the streets; there is no clinking of wine glasses between him and his father without words;

The only connection that still involves the past seems to be Liang Xiaojia.

The phone call between Qin Zui and Liang Xiaojia today was extremely long, and Jiang Chu felt that it was longer than the phone call he got from the company to go home that day.

After hanging up the video with his mother, he responded to a few messages, put out the vegetables and dumplings in the pot, and opened a can of cat food for Zhou Teng. He squatted and watched it eat for a long time before he saw Tan Zui holding it in his ear. Put down the phone beside you.

"Finished?" He called out to Tan Zui's back.

"Yeah." Tan Zui emptied the small ashtray on the window sill, went to wash his hands and prepared to eat.

"What are you talking about?" Jiang Chu observed Tan Zui's expression, but he didn't see anything, but he wasn't too high-spirited.

"Let's talk about my dad." Tan Zui picked up a dumpling, glanced at the table, and brought over a bottle of white wine.

Jiang Chu was thinking about this all afternoon, without saying anything, he pushed the cup to Tan Zui.

"Can you do it?" Tan Zui ordered a cup bottom for him.

"Many, who's the poor one?" Jiang Chu hurriedly ate two mouthfuls of vegetables, and before Tan Zui got emotional and started crying, he vomited beside him.

But Tan Zui didn't cry, he didn't fill Jiang Chu's cup, he only poured half of it, so Jiang Chu didn't vomit.

From the first day Tan Zui lived in his house, Jiang Chu has been deliberately avoiding the topic of Tan Zui's father.

At first, he didn't want to ask, but later he found out about his father and Tan Shuman, and he didn't like him from the bottom of his heart. In his heart, this person was both a drunkard and a wimp.

He could also feel that Qin Zui was not very close to his father.

But no matter how close he is, he is his father after all.

It's fine in normal times, but it's most likely that Tan will not feel uncomfortable on days like Chinese New Year.

"Miss your dad?" He asked Tan Zui, pulling his mind that was already wandering.

"A little bit." Tan Zui's amount was still scary, and Jiang Chu didn't see how much he drank. He ate vegetables without a mouthful, and he wiped out a whole bottle of liquor.

"Do you want to cry?" Jiang Chu asked.

"You want to see me cry," Tan Zui smiled and lit a cigarette, "I've asked you three times."

"Really." Jiang Chu followed suit with a smile, just like the first time he saw Tan Zui drinking, and nodded his eyes, "I see you are red here."

"Well, that's how I drink." Tan looked at him most calmly.

"Since you came to my place, have you ever cried in secret?" Jiang Chu asked again.

"I'm only so promising," Tan Zui laughed again, "If you want to cry, you have to cry secretly."

"I'm afraid you'll hold back." Jiang Chu didn't follow him and looked at Tan Zui very seriously.

Qin Zui paused with his hand holding the cigarette between his fingers and preparing to flick the ashes.

"I know you have this personality. You can cover all emotions in your heart all day, and you can cover them." Jiang Chu touched the cigarette case and lit one for himself, squinting his eyes due to the smoke, "but You are here with me, with me, you can choose to be less tolerant."

Thinking of the times when Tan was the most confused, Jiang Chu added: "I mean emotionally."

Qin understood the most, lowered his eyelids and smiled with his lips curled up.

"It's here with me. You can say whatever you want, cry if you want to cry, act coquettishly if you want to be coquettish." Jiang Chu shook, and he sat back firmly on the back of the chair, raised his leg and stepped on it. Beside the chair, with his arms resting on his knees, he gently hooked his hands at Tan Zui, "Brother is spoiling you."

Tan most consciously sat forward, held Jiang Chu's hand and put a sticker on his face, looked at him fixedly, and asked, "Can you say anything?"

"Well, as long as you want to talk." Jiang Chu pinched his earlobe.

"In the future," Tan Zui tilted his head and wiped his lips from Jiang Chu's palm, "Now you will be scared."