middle of the road

After Cheng Ying and Cheng Le fell asleep, Chi Yu took two bottles of chilled beer from the refrigerator to the yard, and handed them to Zheng, who was leaning on the chair with his legs bent, his eyes half-closed by the wind. Cheng Yang.

Cheng Yang turned his head slightly to look at him, he didn't move, he didn't know what he was thinking, Chi Yu put the beer on the table and sat down opposite him.

"Are you hungry, let me cook some supper?" he asked.

Cheng Yang shook his head, got up and took the bottle, bit it open with his teeth, and took a sip.

After sitting for a while, neither of them spoke again. In such a comfortable environment, even if they sat silently facing each other, they didn’t feel awkward. The frogs were all around, one after another. It may be too comfortable, and it doesn't sound annoying.

In the evening, Chi Yu used some ready-made nets and bamboo poles to surround the gaps around the yard, so that the toad would not be able to jump in at night. Looking down, he trembled.

It's rare to have such a relaxed atmosphere. Chi Yu actually wanted to chat with Cheng Yang for a while, and you can just talk about anything. In my impression, the two of them have known each other for so long, and they have never been like this, facing each other face to face without any pressure. sitting around.

The problem was mainly with Cheng Yang, who never gave him the feeling of being idle.

Chi Yu turned her head and looked at Cheng Yang's half-turned face, eyes slightly squinted in a daze, and didn't think of what to say for a moment.

After a while, it was Cheng Yang who spoke first, "Before you transferred to No. [-] Middle School, did you go to high school here?"

"The junior high school is." Chi Yu said, "There is one in the town, and the high school is in our city."

Cheng Yang: "Is it far from here?"

Chi Yu: "It's a bit far away."

Chi Yu: "I usually live in accommodation, and I come back once a week or two. The school is very strict and there are very few holidays."

Chi Yu looked ahead, "For a while, my grandmother was not in a good condition, and I was just like you, skipping evening self-study and running back."

After hearing what he said, Cheng Yang frowned, "Why do you talk about things that are not restricted?"

Chi Yu glanced at him and laughed, "Okay, it's not Qiao, it's normal to leave school and not go to evening self-study."

Chi Yu: "To be honest, when I came to No. [-] Middle School, I really didn't expect it to be so loose. The source of students is so capricious."

Cheng Yang didn't speak, he paused for a long time looking at his eyes, then he turned his head with a blank face and asked, "Is it loose?"

Chi Yu: "..."

Cheng Yang took a sip of his wine and sighed, "It seems that it is not the school that is self-willed, but the schoolmaster who is self-willed."

Chi Yu found that Cheng Yang, who was relaxed enough to talk to him, had a cute side that he had never seen before. He smiled and touched the bottle with him, "Which elementary school did you go to before?"

Cheng Yang: "Huh?"

Chi Yu: "I went to your elementary school, and my junior high school was transferred here, so Mr. Gao transferred back here again."

Cheng Yang: "The Second Affiliated Primary School, the one that Cheng Le and the others attend now, is definitely not in the same district as you."

Compulsory education cannot be grouped together, unless they are all privately run.

Chi Yu nodded, if it was really an elementary school, he would definitely have an impression.

"Hey, do you know?" He leaned closer to Cheng Yang, "When I was young, I was very ugly."

Cheng Yang turned around and glanced at him, "..."

"Really." Chi Yu smiled, "Everyone who has seen it said it was ugly, especially at that time I was in the same class as Fu, and it was even more ugly when he set it off when we walked together."

With Chi Yu's current facial features and a height of about 1.8 meters, no matter how hard he draws, he can't be classified as ugly. It's hard to imagine that he, who was a primary school student seven or eight years ago, could give people such a strong contrast. Cheng Yang shook his head express disbelief.

Chi Yu asked him to wait. In order to prove that what he said was not modest or really ugly, he went upstairs to his room and found a photo of his previous elementary school graduation.

In order for Cheng Yang to see clearly, he specially used a flashlight to highlight his ugly facial features, "All the boys in our class are here, guess which one is me?"

Cheng Yang looked over, from the last row to the second row at a glance, and easily found Fu Jin, the white one was particularly eye-catching among the group of tanned boys around him, and his appearance was very good, boundless There is a feeling of standing out from the crowd among all living beings, directly defeating the few girls standing in the same row with him is already a thriving grass.

Leaping over him, there are several boys standing next to the teacher in the first row. Cheng Yang pointed to one of them, "You?"

"Damn it? How did you recognize it?" Chi Yu was a little surprised, but nine out of ten people who saw this photo said that it was completely different from him, and Cheng Yang was the only one who recognized it so quickly. If you still recognize the right person, think carefully about the possibility behind this... I have to say that it hurts my self-esteem. Is it because the handsome is too obvious now, or is the ugly point still there?

"Here." Cheng Yang pointed to the center of his brow and looked at him, "Whenever you get angry, there will be a small wrinkle here."

"..." Chi Yu touched his forehead subconsciously. Most people will have some muscles tighten here when they are angry, isn't it normal?Could it be that his nest is different from other people's nests?

He was just about to ask Cheng Yangsheng to show him the difference, when he looked up and saw him, he suddenly realized another meaning in his words, "Why do I always get angry? You can write down such small details ?”

"Then I have to ask you." Cheng Yang looked at him as he spoke, feeling a little helpless, "As soon as we realize it, count how many backlashes you have made."

"Don't mess with me all the time, do I have so much anger?" Chi Yu said dissatisfiedly. It's obviously too hot, okay?"

"Yeah." Cheng Yang took a sip of his wine and nodded, "You're ugly and you can say anything."

Chi Yu: "..."

"Damn." Chi Yu smiled and collapsed on the chair, "Just tell me this to you right now, believe it or not I can get angry again."

Cheng Yang shook the wine bottle, lowered his head and laughed.

The person in the photo is indeed not like him, the change is quite big, but if it is said to be ugly, it is definitely not ugly, and it is not without trace that it has grown into the sharp-edged face it is now.

Chi Yu looked at him for a while, Cheng Yang tilted his head to the other side, his jaw line collapsed and straightened, which was very eye-catching from his perspective.

"Hey, what did you look like when you were young?" He actually wanted to ask if he was as clean and handsome as he is now, but he didn't feel embarrassed to just ask so bluntly, after all, he used to despise ugliness.

"It's okay." Cheng Yang said, "Not as ugly as you."

"..." Chi Yu regretted showing him the photo, he had a hunch that it might be used by Cheng Yang to repay the point that he always said that his grades were poor, and he sent it himself.

"I...maybe look more like my dad." Cheng Yang rubbed his fingers around the mouth of the bottle, "He and my uncle, the one you saw last time, are twins, but they don't look alike, My dad's advantage is more obvious."

Chi Yu looked at him, hesitated for a while, and then asked, "Your father... why did he leave?"

Last time he said he was leaving, he remembered that he didn't say the reason.

"Gambling." Cheng Yang said: "I owe a lot of debt, if he doesn't leave, someone will come to kill him."

Chi Yu thought it might be due to some irresponsible reasons, and gambling is one of them, so he wasn't particularly surprised, "Did you owe a lot?"

"I don't think he can remember how much." Cheng Yang said: "In the past, the usury came to the family to ask for money, and the amount he said was different every time. Anyway, it was more every time."

Chi Yu seemed to have suddenly forgotten a fact, and hurriedly asked, "Have you been here recently?"

Cheng Yang shook his head, "They came here once or twice after he ran away. The family is full of old, weak, sick and disabled, and he has already searched away what was available. The neighborhood committee came to coordinate a few times, and then nothing happened."

"When did it happen?" According to the real age, Cheng Yang has just turned seventeen. Although the law stipulates that someone like him who uses his own labor income as the main source of life can be regarded as a person with full civil capacity, but After all, he is still an underage student.

"Three or four years ago, when my grandfather was still there, it was useless for me to come forward." Cheng Yang said it very ordinary, as if these were not things he had experienced before, and part of people's habit of hardships and hardships was due to numbness. , and another part is the fearlessness after truly achieving a strong heart.

Although Cheng Yang has never lived well enough, Chi Yu has never doubted that he is more tenacious than ordinary people in the face of life.

"Actually, you don't need him at all now." Chi Yu said, "If he is here, your life may be even worse."

"Yes." Cheng Yang looked ahead and paused for a while, "Sometimes I feel that his leaving is the greatest obligation he has ever fulfilled to me after giving birth to me."

Chi Yu slowly held his hands that were a little cold from the wind, "Let's not talk about that," he took the beer bottle from his hand, "Let's talk about something else."

Cheng Yang didn't move, let him hold the hanging hand. After a while, he moved his lips and continued in the same flat voice as before: "It's very difficult for a person to live, but it's hard to be depraved. It's simple, sometimes just reaching out once is enough."

"Actually, when I was young, my family conditions were not bad. My dad was a college student back then and worked as a teacher in the previous industrial university. My mother and my grandfather worked in the same factory behind our house. At that time, there were no Cheng Ying and Cheng Ying. Le, they want to have another child, have saved some savings, and plan to buy a bigger house."

"Later, my dad became addicted to gambling. He spent all the money on the gambling table, and even the little that my grandfather saved was not spared. I was quite dull at that time, except that he often didn't When I went home, I didn't feel any difference, and I didn't understand why they kept arguing about money."

"Until I was in the third grade, I came back one day and found that there was no rice in the house, nothing, I was hungry for two days, I searched every corner of the room, I found two yuan, I ran downstairs, bought The moment I stuffed two steamed buns into my mouth, I finally realized what money is."

"So Chi Yu." Cheng Yang called him, without looking at him, and lowered his voice, "You think I'm interested in money because you don't know what money means to a person like me, of course I hope you'll never see its meaning the way I did, but..."

"But you hope I can understand you." Chi Yu looked at him and finished what he wanted to say, and he understood.

Cheng Yang didn't answer, and acquiesced to his meaning.

Chi Yu moved the chair next to him to shield him from the wind, "I understand you, now I know how important it is to you, and I support you to do whatever you want, I won't force you to accept my Good intentions, but only if you can protect yourself."

Boss Zhang's incident should have passed after Cheng Yang left there, but he didn't know if similar situations would happen in the future. He had no right to imprison Cheng Yang's choice and freedom. It sounded like he was using worry as an excuse. It might be more like an excuse, but Chi Yu seriously thought that behind their quarreling over this matter again and again, it might be that he was really worried about his safety.

Cheng Yang glanced at him, "Do you think I can't?"

"People's hearts are sinister." Chi Yu squeezed his hand tightly, "I know you are capable, but sometimes, there's nothing wrong with relying on others appropriately. It's also a kind of ability that someone can be trusted by you, isn't it?"

It is good to have dependent people, but how do you know that excessive dependence will not become a burden.

The light in the living room stretched out, and Cheng Yang, who was sitting with his back facing him, was slowly brought in in the dimness. The flickering light wove an elusive net on his face.

The sincerity on Chi Yu's face in front of him didn't make him learn to be honest at this moment, but tightened the struggle in his eyes. He shook his head, "I won't rely on anyone."