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On May [-], [-], Beijing, Cuiwei Department Store on Fuxing Road.

An oriental hairdresser one street away.

At the beginning of ten o'clock in the morning, the door had only been opened for 10 minutes. Li Bai inserted the mop into the bucket, slapped hard on the vertical air conditioner at the door, and tried to open it.This time it was relatively smooth. He pressed the electronic screen twice and heard a "beep", and a sudden gust of wind blew out, mixed with the smell of endless dust. Li Bai coughed against it and put the Turn the temperature to 26.

"Let's drive lower," Ah Zhong patted him on the back from behind, "It's going to be damn hot in May."

"If you want to open it yourself, I don't want to be fired." Li Bai turned away and started mopping the floor again. Ah Zhong smiled and left, carrying a large basin of towels to the two rows of folded towels outside the store. In front of the hanger.

The towels are blue and purple, and they look gray when dried together, but the sun is very good, and the leaves of the elm trees beside the sidewalk are shining and shaking, and cicadas are already singing.

Li Bai also felt hot.The highest temperature in the weather forecast was 26 degrees, and he was already sweating from mopping the floor, but the temperature of the air conditioner must not be lower than [-] degrees before July, and he did not have the guts to violate it. This is Lin Chuanyu's rule.

Lin Chuanyu is usually called Ben, but he can be called Benny if he gets to know him well. He is the director of this branch. His age is a mystery. It may be between thirty and forty. He also likes to wear flowery suits. Many customers have said that he is not a decent person, but he still insists on his fashion and is very proud. It is said that he has studied in England, so he called him the most British name.

Of course, the last half sentence was added by Li Bai himself.In his foreign language teaching materials such as "New Concept English 1", the name Ben appears very frequently. There is also a Big Ben in London. Ben is like the British Xiaojun Xiaoming, so Li Bai reasonably suspects that the boss Giving yourself such a name is to prove something.

Li Bai is quite jealous of his boss. Ben is picky, in other words, stingy.The last colleague who was in charge of the air conditioner left the job a long time ago. It happened last summer. Li Bai was still an apprentice at the time, unable to move the scissors and could only do odd jobs. He saw that person being scolded bloody, and then he was fired , I spent a few extra dollars on the electricity bill, and I didn’t get paid for the last half month’s salary.

The reason is that Ben came to the store to check and found that the number displayed on the air conditioner was 24.

After that, it was Li Bai who took over the great task of managing the air conditioner.That day he went out with Yang Jian to eat bullfrogs, Yang Jian drank Yanjing, he drank Arctic Ocean, and in the end he got drunk, the night at the end of June was hot and dry, the street lights were dazzling, his T-shirt was drenched with sweat, he was red He scolded the boss for being an idiot with eyes wide open, Yang Jian followed him and said, yes, he is an idiot, dug a big spoonful of rice into his bowl, and he inserted the chopsticks into the rice, folded his hands together and closed his eyes tightly, Swear to keep your salary and job.

"Who would come to our store when it's so hot?" Deng Deng complained on the sofa again. He and Li Bai are from the same group of apprentices. They are from Fujian. They speak like Taiwanese idol dramas. They were both recruited early last year, and their ages are also similar. , was over sixteen at that time, and would no longer be treated as a child laborer. "I was sweating when I came in and washed my hair. Look at Shunzi, Xinmei, and Chaotian International next door. Which business is no better than ours? What does the boss think? We're going to starve to death!"

"Go and talk to the boss." Ah Zhong stopped in front of the sofa with a big basin in his arms.

"Hey, you want to see me court death."

"It's not as serious as not being able to eat." Ah Zhong was still smiling.

"I'm no better than you. I'm still an apprentice. I only earn 500 yuan a month. I'm really going to die without a commission," Dengdeng shouted. I won't starve to death!"

Hearing this voice, I was about to cry, and I could imagine the expression on that face without looking back.Deng Deng is like this, you can't say that he deliberately acted like a baby, but it's really easy to get up.

Li Bai thought for the nth time, why do you call me "brother"?Aren't you born two months earlier than me?

It’s the N+1 time I’m thinking about changing employers, oh, people in big cities call this “job hopping”, in fact, there is already another owner who wants him, that is Chaotian International across the road, the one with the best business in this area, can It is affordable to rent a frontage next to the parking lot on the first floor of Cuiwei Department Store.Some time ago, the boss of Chaotian International looked around all the nearby hairdressing shops and said that he wanted a haircut. Since he was a customer, no one could rush him, so he stood behind him and watched the barber work.

At that time, Li Bai didn't pay attention to him at all. After finishing his work, he found a business card in his trouser pocket. The word "Welcome" was written in a ballpoint pen on the back, and there was also "monthly 1500 + commission".

Li Bai hid the card in the middle of his wallet and didn't mention it to any of his colleagues, nor did he tell Yang Jian.

As for why - Yang Jian led him to find this job now.During those days, Yang Jian would accompany him when he was free, to give him courage, and when he saw a hairdresser, he opened the door and went in to ask. In the winter, they encountered many obstacles, and often they didn't even have a chance to try it. I was kicked out, so I found Gongzhufen from Zhongguancun.Li Bai was surprised by Yang Jian's occasional outbursts of patience. To a certain extent, this also made him like this job.

He stood in front of the light box and looked to both sides. There were only old people walking their dogs on the sidewalk on weekday mornings, and a few idle students in red school uniforms, holding soda bottles and pouring them vigorously. class", even the department store opposite seemed lonely.Indeed, there was no business, Li Bai breathed a sigh of relief, sat down on the doorstep, opened the vocabulary book in the sun, and started to read softly.

The so-called vocabulary book is a booklet fixed by a circular iron ring. It is not as big as half a palm. Each page contains one word, and the phonetic symbols and meanings are handwritten. Some of the hard-to-read words have homophonic marks, such as the current "" "Deduct Austria's Po Rui Judgment" (cooperation), I stumbled and read it, and it looked very funny.

These are all written by Li Bai himself. Every day when he travels home by bus and bicycle, he will first copy twenty new words from the old vocabulary book Yang Jian gave him, and then do other things.

If Yang Jian had any annotations, he would also copy them down, regardless of whether he understood them or not, they would all be written on the back of this page.

"It's started again," Deng Deng seemed to be yawning, "Brother Bai, don't you bother me."

Li Bai thought, I think you are annoying.

Seeing that he ignored him, Deng Deng was not discouraged, and walked over directly, sat down beside him, playing with Snake in his hand.The mobile phone was still a new model with a slider, and it was given by someone else, but Deng Deng didn't say who it was. "What are you learning English for?" He blinked. "Fashion like the boss? Are you going abroad?"

"Anyway, it will be useful in the future." Li Bai closed the book and hung the ring on his little finger as if he didn't want the treasure to be seen by others.

"Who said it's useful? How do you know it's useful." But Deng Deng took off his treasure, twirled it around his index finger, and kept his eyes on the snake.

"My brother said it." Li Bai looked at him with hatred, snatched back the notebook and stuffed it back into his trouser pocket. When he returned to the house to clean the mirror, Ah Zhong accidentally stepped on his foot.

It was indeed not a smooth day, not from the beginning, but Li Bai still felt happy when he thought of what happened after get off work at noon.

When You Lili came, Li Bai had just sent off his second customer, who also came to the store this morning.He washed his face, straightened his hem, and was brushing the hair on his T-shirt. You Lili pushed the door in and put a McDonald's paper bag on the front desk. "Xiao Bai," she called, "I'll bring you a Have some lunch, remember to eat!"

"Oh——" Li Bai got out of the bathroom, his chin still dripping, and he smiled sweetly at You Lili, "Thank you, sister-in-law."

You Lili wore a white dress, her black hair was coiled up, and she was taller than Li Bai in high heels. "I have class in the afternoon, so I won't pick up your brother," she pressed her phone with her head down, her eyebrows drawn thickly, so The frown was also obvious, "When the time comes, tell him to call me to report his safety."

"Okay, hurry up, it's past twelve o'clock." Li Bai emptied his arms around her shoulders, led her to the door, and helped her open the glass door, "Be careful on the road."

Only then did You Lili look up at him, smiled, and walked up the boulevard while pressing her phone.

Li Bai watched her go away, narrowed his eyes and thought, how many months is this?

If he hadn't found a job for himself, Yang Jian wouldn't have known her, Li Bai thought again.I just ate McDonald's once under Cuiwei. You Lili worked part-time at McDonald's. At the window where they ordered food, she came over to deliver two cones before eating half of them. She smiled into crescents and asked Yang Jian if she could give I have your number.

Yang Jian didn't have a mobile phone at the time, so he generously gave her the landline in the hands of the housekeeper, and told her that if he got through, he would call 331 Yang Jian.

Then, for some reason, the next time Li Bai meets You Lili, this person is embraced by Yang Jian and becomes his sister-in-law.

Li Bai couldn't believe it.

She is not very beautiful, but she can dress up and make herself pleasing to the eye.Her family's conditions are not very good, she has no parents but grandparents, and she grows big peaches in Pinggu for her to study, and she has to do odd jobs in fast food restaurants.Her ability is not so outstanding, and she is in an ordinary university nearby, no, it is not even a university, it is just a junior college, and her part-time job has not improved until now, and she cannot be replaced by someone who earns more money. She doesn't want to change either, she is content with the status quo and has no ambitions.

Measured by any common standard, material, spiritual, and vulgar, she is no match for Yang Jian's exes who have only been together for three months.

But from January last year to the present...the two of them even passed SARS, and they were isolated in two schools and could not meet each other, and they did not break up.It has been more than fourteen months.

Yang Jian successfully took off the big hat of "man who passed the season". He took You Lili to dinner, took a walk in the campus, and sang karaoke with a large group of people. He pressed her on the sofa in the dark, raised her He poured the wine bottle into her mouth, poured it all over her face, and licked her face again.You Lili raised her legs high, her toes were shaking, and they always laughed together.So naturally and quickly, she was brought into his circle by Yang Jian, and those classmates and friends all knew her, just like they knew Li Bai back then.

It's just that one is a girlfriend who is clinging to each other, and the other is a distant brother who jumped out of nowhere.

And Li Bai quietly watched, participated, watched her blend in, and also watched blankly something sharper than "I can't believe it" growing in his heart. It seemed to pierce something, and it would drip What?Pat, Pat, black water.In the past, when Yang Jian fell in love, broke up, understatement or tragedy, Li Bai felt that it was nothing, and he would comfort him, because the rhythm was so normal, and he almost became a habit.But now he hated being in love, hated the busy tone on the phone, just as he hated the smell of fried chicken wings wafting from the front desk.

All this made him feel dangerous.

When he couldn't see the back of the white dress, Li Bai threw the paper bag into a trash can half a person's height under the elm tree, only pinching a corner as if just touching it was holding back, let alone opening it to see what was inside.With a click, the bucket was still very empty, and the paper bag fell to the bottom. After that, he closed the lid and looked at the "non-recyclable garbage" written on the surface of the bucket, as if he could finally breathe, and let out a long breath.

This was not the first time You Lili came to deliver food, nor was it the first time Li Bai threw it away, Ah Zhong was not surprised, but it was the first time Deng Deng noticed it, and caught up and yelled: "What are you doing, what a waste! "

"No way, I feel sick when I see it."

"Oh, give it to me if you don't want to eat it!"

Li Bai thought for a while, and he really lifted the lid of the trash can, and reached in with one hand, as if he wanted to feel the paper bag out again.

The stale and stuffy rotten smell rushed to his face in an instant, Deng Deng pinched his nose, shouted "I'm so sick, I'm going to vomit", grabbed Li Bai's shoulder and dragged him away, but Li Bai smiled at him and used That hand hugged him: "Honey, I just want to vomit so much."

Deng Deng looked at the lunatic's expression on his face, and ran away with his eyes wide open.

Li Bai looked at the clock, went back to the bathroom and washed his hands.Mainly to wash off the smell of McDonald's, he applied the soap twice, from his fingertips to his elbows, and sniffed it carefully for a long time. Well, it was very fragrant and clean, and he left work satisfied.Putting on his bag and peaked cap, he walked to the intersection where You Lili disappeared just now, and he used his refurbished Motorola to call Yang Jian.

"Brother, are you getting on the plane right away? Are you classmates together? I'll pick you up!"

"Okay, I'll be there at five o'clock," Yang Jian said, "You don't go to work in the afternoon?"

"I'm going to ask for leave, otherwise, other students will be picked up, so what should I do if you are alone." Li Bai heard a chuckle from the other side, and he laughed too, and even suddenly had an appetite, it was a sudden hunger , let him stop and prepare to buy a pancake on the street.Looking up, the elm leaves are still rustling, and the memories have stopped. This is really a shining summer.

The author says:

Is it okay to have a date at the age of 17? !