Manhattanhenge

Before Ning Yixiao could speak, Su Hui thanked him with a relaxed tone, "Go and do your work, I won't bother you anymore."

He didn't have the habit of saying goodbye, because he couldn't guarantee that he could meet people properly next time, after Ning Yixiao said "yes", Su Hui hung up the phone.

This is very difficult. In the manic stage, he has almost no way to actively cut off the conversation. He always talks, keeps talking, and his thoughts are like running deer. Even if the other party asks to pause, he can't stop.

But when talking with Ning Yixiao, Su Hui was keenly aware of the emotion in the silence of the other party, and suddenly realized that she was holding on to him, as if she was grabbing a life-saving straw.

This is wrong, so Su Hui forcibly cut off the desire to express.

He wanted to be a normal person in front of Ning Yixiao.

After hanging up the phone, Ning Yixiao stood alone on the balcony for a while, glanced at the time, and then went back to the make-up children's room.Probably because he opened the door too suddenly, the student sitting inside was pulling up his clothes and twisting his body to look at his back.

The first time he opened the door, Ning Yixiao saw a bruise on his side.

"What's the matter, Xiaochen?"

Ding Xiaochen hurriedly put down his clothes, turned his head to look at Ning Yixiao, and whispered nothing.

Ning Yixiao made up math lessons for him for a semester. He knew very well that he was a kind and timid child. Seeing that he didn't say anything, he didn't ask any more questions, and sat in his own seat, "The practice questions I gave you just now ,Have you finished?"

"There are two more questions." Ding Xiaochen whispered.

Ning Yixiao nodded, "Let me first take a look at the questions you have done."

He checked Ding Xiaochen's homework as if he hadn't seen anything, corrected it, and finally picked out some typical problems and explained them to consolidate his knowledge points.

The class was coming to an end, Ding Xiaochen immersed himself in taking notes, Ning Yixiao glanced at the time, then turned his eyes to the young man's thin frame.

"Teacher, I remember it."

"Yeah." Ning Yixiao nodded, got up to leave, just opened the door, turned his back to him and quietly closed the bedroom door, turned to look at Ding Xiaochen.

"What happened to your back injury?"

Ding Xiaochen looked up at him, and felt that Teacher Ning was different from the past at this moment. There was no gentle smile on his face, and he looked very calm and expressionless.

He hesitated for a long time, but out of the dependence he had built up with him, he still told Ning Yixiao the whole thing.

It's actually very simple to say, and it can be explained clearly in one sentence: Ding Xiaochen's father was an alcoholic, and he and his mother had been abusing him and his mother for a long time.

When he was in the fifth grade of elementary school, his father encountered difficulties in business and suffered setbacks, so he began to drink frequently. When he was drunk, he got very angry and would scold the mother and son.Over time, this became the habit of my father venting, and it is still the case today.

Ning Yixiao has only met his father a few times, and his impression is that he is taciturn and rarely asks him about his child's grades. Only Ding Xiaochen's mother worries about such things, and his father doesn't care.

But Ning Yixiao never thought that the other party would do such a thing to his own child.

Obviously he knew that he shouldn't and couldn't do it, but Ning Yixiao still did. Maybe it was because he saw Ding Xiaochen inspecting the wound alone, and thought of his past self.

That day he bought Ding Xiaochen medicine to remove blood stasis, thought for a long time on the way back, and edited a long message for Ding Xiaochen, which basically meant to teach him how to avoid being beaten, and some encouragement, for example, he is already a big child, Although it is difficult now, we must learn to be strong and protect ourselves and our mother.

But Ning Yixiao, who had the same experience, knew best that this was the last thing to do, even calling the police would not do much.

A family relationship, a marriage certificate, even serious acts of violence can become lawful, and the true meaning of a crime can be easily buried.

In the next few days, Ning Yixiao continued to go to school and run experiments as usual.

In school, he has been helping the teacher, whenever he can use it, he is not afraid of hard work or tiredness, and this time it has paid off - he won an internship offer from a big factory, and Ning Yixiao's tight pace of life Finally relax.

He first quit his job in the coffee shop, settled the money, and looked around for houses according to the rental information on the website, hoping to find a cheap short-term rental house to survive the expensive summer in Beijing.

A week later, Professor Wang called him to his group meeting, and Ning Yixiao was sitting behind the dozen or so graduate students he led, in the last row of the classroom.

At the group meeting, he met Su Hui again.This time Su Hui was not too late, but hurried in before Professor Wang came.He seemed to be in a good mood, wearing a very soft pale pink short-sleeved shirt, which made him extremely white, and when he pushed the door, his face was full of brilliance.

Ning Yixiao noticed that his hands were behind his back, his steps were light, and there seemed to be something shining on his earlobe, which attracted his attention.It wasn't until Su Hui approached that Ning Yixiao realized that it was a small silver heart.

Unsteadily, Su Hui came to Ning Yixiao with a smile and sat down. With a familiar gesture, she put down her bag and said "good morning" to him briskly.

Ning Yixiao came to his senses and was about to go back when he saw that he had brought a bouquet of flowers from somewhere and handed it to him.

It is a small bunch that can be held in one hand. Inside are three blooming pink-white peonies and a few snow-white jasmines, exuding a delicate fragrance.

"For you." Su Hui said in a low voice, "Thank you for listening to my complaints last time."

Ning Yixiao quickly recalled Su Hui's sticky and light voice on the phone, and remembered the ants he said.

"Hold it well." Su Hui stuffed this small bouquet of flowers into his hand, "I wrapped it myself. It may not be very good, but the flowers bloom very well. I have been picking in the garden for a long time, and I was almost late."

Ning Yixiao is not used to receiving flowers. Before Valentine's Day, he would inevitably receive some public or anonymous gifts, but Ning Yixiao's attitude was always very cold, and his first reaction was that he didn't know how to deal with it.

Gifts are mostly useless, and flowers are the most useless, and the viewing period is very short, and they will wither in a few days.

Love is too extravagant for him at this stage.

Staring down at the flower in his hand, Ning Yixiao suddenly thought, how could he somehow think of love.

"This is the last batch of peonies. This is called Iceland ice cream, a variety I like very much." What he pointed at could be described as a cluster of flowers. His gaze could not help but shift from the flower to Su Hui's pink fingertips.

"It's pretty." Su Hui lowered her eyes and smiled like a child. "This is the precious pearl jasmine. It is very fragrant. I have kept it for a long time. It rained a while ago and almost ruined them. Fortunately, Mama Chen helped me save them." , but there are still a few withered..."

He whispered a lot, until Professor Wang came in, he turned his body upright, took out his laptop from his bag, and looked ahead obediently.

Ning Yixiao took his hand down a little, stared down at the wrapping paper in his hand, only to find that there were words on it, and the rough edges were traces of tearing off.

It looked like a page from a book that Su Hui tore off temporarily and used it to wrap flowers for him.

During that one-hour group meeting, Ning Yixiao's nerves were more indulgent than before. It was a rare thing that he didn't concentrate fully. Instead, he wrote code while listening, as if he was using this method to force himself to concentrate.

Until the group meeting was almost over, he stared at the page where the code was running, but he was still thinking about the last line on the paper:

[The only way to get rid of temptation is to accept it. ]

After the group meeting, several of them were left behind. Professor Wang asked about some thoughts after the meeting, talked about the framework of the paper, and discussed the experimental results.

It was already 11:30 in the morning when we left, the sun was shining brightly, shining on Su Hui's beautiful face through the gaps in the green shade, he was almost glowing.

Su Hui walked in front, chatting with Professor Wang about a document he had read, occasionally raising his hand while talking, making some childish little gestures.

"One night?"

When Zhang Shuo next to him yelled for the third time, Ning Yixiao finally came back to his senses, turned his head and smiled at him, "Well, tell me, I'm listening."

Zhang Shuo also laughed. He didn't notice anything. He told him about the problems he encountered when debugging the code, so he almost took out his computer and asked Ning Yixiao to help him debug it.

We walked all the way and arrived at the teaching building where we were going to part with Professor Wang. Zhang Shuo happened to have elective courses in the same building, so he left with the teacher.

Suddenly, only Ning Yixiao and Su Hui were left.

Su Hui turned her head, with a cute smile on her face.He took a big step back and came to Ning Yixiao's right, and said softly, "Did you hide my flowers?"

Ning Yixiao almost smelled the pleasant plant aroma on his body, nodded, with a smile on his face, "I put it in my schoolbag."

For this reason, he held books and laptops in his hands.

"Will it be crushed?" Su Hui pretended to be anxious, and leaned forward, "Don't crush my flowers."

Ning Yixiao was taken aback, and turned to take off the bag to look at it, but Su Hui's hand was already on his wrist.

"Just kidding." Su Hui couldn't help laughing, and let go of her hand, "It's so easy for you to take it seriously."

"It doesn't matter if it's crushed." Su Hui looked at him, Ning Yixiao's facial features were deep, when he wasn't smiling he looked very serious, but also very cold, the mole at the end of his right eye was the only soft spot.

"I still have some."

There are many more to send you.

Ning Yixiao stopped talking, the heavy books and laptop seemed to press his body to the side, and his heart also turned to the right.

He began to imagine the garden Su Hui owned, which didn't seem to be a good omen.

After walking side by side for a long time, Su Hui was about to leave. He took out a candy from his pocket, peeled off the candy wrapper carefully, stuffed it into his mouth, then raised his head, subconsciously looking at Ning Yixiao.

"Do you want to eat?" His eyes were bright.

Ning Yixiao didn't like sweets and wanted to refuse, but Su Hui's hand was already stretched out in front of him.

"It's delicious," he said.

Ning Yixiao had no choice but to take it, it was a candy.

"I'm leaving."

Su Hui left again when he was not ready, her steps were brisk, the same as when he came, leaving Ning Yixiao standing where she was, with her hands outstretched.

He stared at the candy paper, and suddenly realized that it looked familiar.

The memory suddenly flashed back to a sunny day not long ago, when he was still working in the coffee shop to clean up the table, he found that there was an extra candy in the plate he brought.

He didn't remember the appearance of that guest, only that he was very thin, very white, and the brim of his hat was pulled down very low.

The candy paper is colorful and beautiful. When I returned to the back kitchen, the female colleague who worked with me joked that he used to love candy, and said that the candy was expensive, and it was handmade in Sweden, so it was difficult to buy it. .

Ning Yixiao has lived so long, he has been to only a handful of places, from small fishing villages to county towns, and then to the capital, it is so monotonous that he can only draw an extremely sharp triangle on the map, let alone the snowy northern Europe.

So he remembered this candy for a long time, because it was a rare gratitude he received while working.

Ning Yixiao recalled the low air-conditioning at that time, recalled the guest's voice which was so small that he could barely hear it, and his snow-white hands.

He didn't expect that he could get another precious candy, let alone that that person was Su Hui.

No wonder.

Ning Yixiao stopped walking, as if standing still downstairs in the dormitory with people coming and going.

He finally understood why he felt strange when he shared the umbrella with Su Hui after he came out of the video room.

[Ning Yixiao, you have a mole here. ]

He obviously didn't introduce himself at that time, so Su Hui shouldn't know his name.

But he knew, he already knew.

A strange feeling filled Ning Yixiao's body, which lasted until he went upstairs.

The dormitory was empty. He searched for a long time but couldn't find anything that could be used as a vase. He went downstairs again, went out, bought a bottle of mineral water, unscrewed the bottle cap and drank it while returning to the dormitory.

Finally, Ning Yixiao cut open the empty plastic bottle and took half a bottle of water.He also removed the paper wrapping the flowers, flattened them and put them in the water bottle, but no matter how they were arranged, they were not as beautiful as Su Hui's wrapping.

It's so beautiful that it doesn't fit here, and its habitat is nothing more than a plastic water bottle, cheap and unstable, and it doesn't seem to fit.

He looked at it for a long time, until all his roommates came back, and he made a fuss when he saw it, "Where did the flowers come from?"

"Tsk, it's different to be handsome, and someone sent you flowers again, so don't we need to help you deal with it this time?"

Another roommate deliberately came over to gossip, "Hey, how is it? Is it pretty?"

He did not speak, leaning back against the chair, quietly and intently staring at the ice cream in full bloom.

The other party shoved again, "Say, handsome guy, this is the first time you brought flowers back to grow, who gave them to you? I'm so curious. Is it pretty or not?"

This time Ning Yixiao finally answered with deep eyes and a calm tone.

"Pretty, are you satisfied?"

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①From Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray"