quail

When Beijing is in its hottest season, the end of Yang Jian's term has also arrived.Li Bai doesn't meet him very often. The hotter the temperature, the busier the barber shop. It just so happened that in early June, a new director came to the shop. A lot of fancy promotions attracted a lot of business at once, and when the store was crowded, it was even more difficult for Li Bai, a young man with no weight in his words, to ask for leave.

In fact, it would be nice to get off work on time and not be left to sweep hair and wash towels, but the pitifully small rest time is always staggered with Yang Jian's free time. Li Bai can only find time to go to school, usually during lunch break, Bring some fruit or mung bean soup cooked by yourself, put it in an insulated bucket and send it to the dormitory.

Yang Jian is often away, attending classes, going to the library, doing group projects, going out to work part-time... All kinds of things are piled up on him, and Li Bai will not leave much when he puts down his things. He will fold quilts for him and wash the piles in the bucket Clothes, hang them one by one on the balcony in a well-ventilated place, quietly remove a few clothes that are blocked by others, and then go back to Cuiwei by bike to go to work.

Seeing that the end of June is coming to an end, I have come here more often, so I can't help getting acquainted with a few roommates.Occasionally, someone would look at Li Bai who was busy, as if he wanted to say something, and every time Li Bai left in a hurry, there were their reasons - he didn't want to talk to people, and it was difficult enough to greet guests with a smile every day .

Only once, when Yang Jian was present, did Li Bai successfully complete a conversation with a certain roommate before leaving.

The man was lying on his back on the upper bunk to do the math, and threw away the end of his pencil to tease: "It's true, Brother Jian, there is a substitute after the girlfriend is gone. In the previous life, I recruited a snail girl, and there will always be someone who loves me."

Li Bai emphasized subconsciously: "I am his younger brother."

As soon as the words came out, everyone in the room laughed, and Yang Jian just handed over the cleaned thermos bucket to Li Bai, walked in front with his pockets in his pocket, and sent him out of the dormitory.

After a long time, or maybe one night, Li Bai finally realized that what the roommate said was "the girlfriend is over", that is to say, they really broke up?With a clean break, even the classmates around me know.It's reasonable to think about it this way. Yang Jian really doesn't seem to be free to fall in love recently. If he is impatient, of course there is no way to dispel You Lili's hatred. Is there any suspense about the result of such consumption?However, it is strange that the cognition of "Yang Jian broke up" made Li Bai more anxious than "Yang Jian is having a cold war with his girlfriend".

It's like buying a lottery ticket, the first few numbers match the lottery numbers, only the last number is invisible.

On the last day of the Dragon Boat Festival, when the two were peeling cold white rice dumplings in the rental house, Li Bai couldn't help asking, "Are you and You Lili still together?"

Yang Jian shook the ball of smooth glutinous rice into the sugar bowl and said, "It's been a long time since we saw each other."

Li Bai was quiet for a while, then asked again: "Then you found a new one?"

Yang Jian asked back: "Why do you think I've found a new one?"

Li Bai thought for a while, lowered his head, stirred the bowl with his chopsticks, and covered the rice dumpling with sugar: "Because you don't have a girlfriend now."

Yang Jian smiled: "One doesn't have to have a girlfriend."

He wiped off the sticky rice grains between his fingers: "People don't have to be in love."

Li Bai looked at him, bit off a small corner of the rice dumpling, and confirmed it again in his heart——Yang Jian would never, would not, and would not, take the initiative to pursue others.

He was pleased with the conclusion and the taste of sugar in his mouth.

The two-month summer vacation came as scheduled, to be precise, it was Yang Jian's summer vacation.Li Bai still has to deal with heads in the barber shop that have been rejected by the owner. Sometimes he feels like a doctor. He listens to the dissatisfaction of the patients, and then he uses the knife that has no turning back.He told Yang Jian about this idea, and Yang Jian laughed, and he asked me if I was putting gold on my face?Yang Jian said no, you are called a hair doctor, and you treat human body parts.

As a result, Li Bai was even more embarrassed after hearing this, and excused "I just want to try a white coat", and hastily skipped the topic.

There are actually not many opportunities to chat like this, they are still very busy, Yang Jian is less visible than at the end of the semester, the internship is second, the main reason is that last time he passed the final mathematics, physics and chemistry of the junior high school student. Seventy to eighty points, attracting parents to call for friends and companions, and immediately recruited more than a dozen students from the same community with red lights, and also contributed a set of their own idle houses, and wanted him to teach in a small class.

This is how Yang Jian started his second teaching career.Li Bai seldom heard him talk about his work status. He only knew that he had applied to stay in school for the summer, but he still didn’t go home to live.What Li Bai didn't expect was that those students whose families were either official or rich didn't have any thorns, and he didn't know what method Yang Jian used.Once he traveled across mountains and rivers to the south of the city, and went to express condolences with a big watermelon in his arms. He also witnessed the harmonious scene of recess between classes. The boys all called Brother, and the girls were shy and even called Teacher. They chatted about Yang Jian's college entrance examination results.

"Teacher Yang only deducted three points in comprehensive science!" A girl with ponytail raised three fingers, "The composition is also well written. I won the prize in the new concept contest and almost got full marks in the college entrance examination. The same is true for junior high school. They all did well in the exams, and directly got the qualifications to go straight to the headquarters of the high school."

"How do you know everything?" Another short-haired girl asked.

"My mother's workplace can check..." Ponytail blushed, as if it was something unspeakable.

Yang Jian didn't seem to be displeased because his academic record was checked upside down, he just smiled and watched Li Bai chopping that huge Xinjiang long watermelon on the stove in the open kitchen.Later, the students asked him what kind of cheats he had, and he said that he had to study this method without distraction.

On the way back to the north of the city that day, Li Bai asked, "You really have nothing else to do in high school?"

Yang Jian picked up a cigarette and yawned: "Of course not."

Li Bai patted him on the shoulder: "Those kids believed it at first sight!"

Yang Jian looked at the kid beside him who was about the same age but called others a kid, and said seriously: "There are no secrets to learning, unless you are very smart."

Li Bai's gaze was on the supper stall, but he understood it, and slyly raised his eyebrows: "Like you?"

But Yang Jian denied it vehemently: "I don't dare to be that." Smiling, with half a cigarette in his mouth, he strode away, causing Li Bai to squeeze past several dog-walking aunts queuing up to buy meatloaf, and trot amidst the barking of chihuahuas Get up, chasing after him left sparks and white gas all the way in the air.

Life seems to be without worries, every day is regular, and people can find some gaps in the stress of various pressures, and catch their breath in a hurry.Therefore, on the evening of early August, when Li Bai received a call from Yang Yuqiu on his way home from get off work, he suddenly remembered the flustered night more than two months ago, and immediately felt uncomfortable.

He looked at the small screen of the mobile phone, which was bright blue, and for a few seconds, he had the idea of ​​refusing to answer it.

It seems that this can block some unexplainable disasters.

But Li Bai thought again, this is his sister, not Gao Jie, he remembered Yang Yuqiu's kindness to him, so he pressed the answer button.The voice on the phone was very weak, Yang Yuqiu was about to run out of asthma medicine, and wanted to ask him for help to prescribe some more, but he didn't say a word to Yang Jian, who was in charge of this matter in the past.

Even so, Li Bai was relieved, it was just running errands, and he was happy to do it.He rushed to the old apartment, climbed nine floors to get the medical records and a few banknotes, then rode Yang Jian's bicycle parked downstairs to the hospital, took back a large bag of medicine boxes and bottles, and took the nine-story building to the hospital. Climbed again.Yang Yuqiu's complexion was indeed frighteningly bad, and the peach blossom eyes that had been gracious to both sides also lost their spirits. She invited Li Bai to come in and have a sit down, and said intimately that she was the only one in the family, so she asked him not to worry.But Li Bai didn't sit down and rest for a few seconds, and asked her if she had eaten, and went into the kitchen like a spinning top, and made her hot pot noodles and ginger milk.

Afterwards, the two sat in front of the coffee table. Yang Yuqiu wrapped up in an air-conditioned quilt, watched the animal world on TV, and slowly ate fried eggs with dried shrimps in the noodle bowl. Li Bai watched her from the other sofa, with his arms crossed. Knees, the sweat of summer days sucked the loose T-shirt on the back, and it was still flowing.

"Xiaobai, thank you for your hard work." Yang Yuqiu glanced at him and said seriously.

"If you encounter such a situation in the future, just call me here." Li Bai replied, but he felt uncomfortable and felt that he should leave.

"It's okay," Yang Yuqiu shook his head, "I won't be in Beijing in two days, and I'll be back in October."

"That's it." Li Bai had no choice but to continue his dry conversation.

"I didn't have time to apologize to you for the incident last time. The main reason was that it was too sudden, and Yang Jian had been at odds with Gao Jie." Yang Yuqiu took a sip of the soup and held the soup bowl in front of his stomach like a stove. OK?"

"He's pretty good," Li Bai's waist straightened even more, "he's busy with his internship, and he's in a 'semiconductor laboratory', which I don't really understand. He also works as a part-time tutor, with more than a dozen students, Getting along with students, parents, etc. is very smooth.”

Yang Yuqiu's eyes softened a little, as if relieved. The black bear on the screen crawled out of the hibernation hole with its cubs. She asked again, "What about the relationship status? That Lily."

Li Bai's eyes flashed, and he saw several boxes of medicines on the coffee table, not the ones he bought back. The box on the top was written "Alprazolam Tablets", and the box was half-open, revealing a silver strip on the back. side.

"Ah," Yang Yuqiu sensed his attention, "It's not the medicine I took."

Li Bai was skeptical, he always had an intuition when looking at people, for example at this moment, he felt that Yang Yuqiu was being cautious and lying.

"They broke up," he said, "Yang Jian thinks it's good to be single."

"He has been like this since he was a child, as if he has never been inseparable from anyone, he doesn't know how to chase, and he doesn't know how to redeem." Yang Yuqiu smiled, and after a while of silence, she continued what she just said, "When I grow up, I have nothing to say. If I don't ask him to apologize, he may never come home for the rest of his life."

"Now... want him to come?" Li Bai held the phone and asked tentatively.

Yang Yuqiu shook her head, looking at Li Bai's face with her smiling eyes, she suddenly said, "Piercing your ears? The earrings are pretty."

Li Bai was inexplicably guilty, and when he looked down, his forearm and the back of his hand had changed color, especially the bones and joints—he was shy, and if it was serious, his whole body would turn red.

Now is obviously the most serious situation.

"Did it come from Yang Jian?" Yang Yuqiu still wanted to ask.

"Yes." Li Bai nodded his head heavily and answered honestly.

"It's my brother's aesthetic at first glance." Yang Yuqiu smiled even more, "I also like to give me things. When I was a child, I was poor and white. He couldn't make it with himself. He insisted on going to the train station to sell popsicles, and he packed them in foam boxes. If I don’t go out, it’s about to melt, so he eats it one by one, and saves up the money for the summer vacation to buy me a bracelet, which is also red like this. He likes red.”

"Can I have a look?" Li Bai raised his eyelashes.

"It's broken." Yang Yuqiu ate a few more slices of green vegetables, as if avoiding Li Bai's gaze, "Speaking of this, sometimes I'm really worried about Yang Jian, who competes with me every day, buys gifts, and pays attention to his studies." It’s a trivial matter to engage in a lot of part-time jobs, and he’s still a little congenitally anemic, so after finally taking him out, he’s going to be the big brother again, fighting with people at every turn.”

"Congenital anemia?"

"Yeah, when I was young, I couldn't stop bleeding for a long time, and it took a long time after it stopped, and my face turned a little bloody. You were too young to remember that time," Yang Yuqiu said softly, "So I I felt that I had to take him away, far away. Later, when I went to Beijing, the cause was found out. Thalassemia, which is what they call thalassemia, is a genetic variant blood disease. Severe patients even He couldn’t survive in infancy, but fortunately, he is the kind with a very mild mutation, and it’s relatively safe in adulthood. He usually needs to take more vitamin B12, which won’t affect his normal life, but he also has to be careful about bleeding from injuries, right? The kid himself knows it, but he is just stubborn and doesn't take his body seriously."

Hearing this, Li Bai clenching his fingers tightly, feeling as if someone had hit his head with a stick. He remembered that at the beginning, under the street lamp, nosebleeds dripped and melted through the snow, but Yang Jian was licking his teeth and said it was okay. He didn't drop any of them, and rejected his proposal to call first aid, with an expression of indifference; he also remembered some inexplicable group fights, Yang Jian was under siege, rarely suffered losses, but he also bled.There are also Band-Aids, cotton swabs for rubbing iodine, and scars on the body.

Li Bai sweated even more, thinking, Yang Jian must have gone crazy.Exactly how irritable, how many angry things worth fighting—Yang Jian turned out to be crazy.

He thought he was going crazy too.

But after Yang Yuqiu said this, his emotions seemed to be relieved, and his whole state improved a lot.The conclusion she came to Li Bai was, so you can persuade him and take care of him, because Yang Jian is a person who needs to be taken care of.She checked the time again and reminded Li Bai not to miss the last bus, but the next second she ran back to the bedroom to ask him to wait. After about 5 minutes, she ran out and took two kraft paper bags of different sizes.

"I won't be here for these two months, and I won't be able to spend my 21st birthday with your brother." She first handed the small bag to Li Bai, "When the time comes, help me give this to him, and say it's a surprise from my sister. Happy birthday to him, remember the day?"

Li Bai looked at the tape on the top of the paper bag and said, "September 29 in the Gregorian calendar."

"Well," Yang Yuqiu was satisfied, and gave him the big one again, "And this one, tomorrow is August [-]th, and it's also a person's birthday. I won't send my body away now, and Xiaobai will run errands for me."

"Who is it?" Li Bai stood up, carrying the big one with his left hand and the small one with his right hand, and stepped on the two canvas shoes he had placed messily at the door.

Near the closed door, he smelled the incense again, this time it was very pungent.

"A high school classmate of your brother's is also at Peking University, studying archeology." Yang Yuqiu helped him open the door, his eyes were filled with a strange tenderness, "The surname is Zhao, you should have an impression? It must be delivered by hand, I Send you his address immediately."