The Eye of the Storm

On the gray concrete wall, two teenagers carefully climbed down the plastic pipes.

"Where's the steel plate?" Cao Ye, who was going down the fourth floor, tried to find the steel plate with one foot, "Why can't I step on it?"

Liang Sizhe went down first, and had already climbed to their room on the third floor. The window sill was quite wide. He hunched over and squatted steadily, holding the window edge with his hand, and looked up at Cao Ye in a free space: "A little bit to the left."

"Where?" Cao Ye stretched his left leg to the side a little more, not daring to look down, "I can't step on it?"

"Wait." Liang Sizhe grabbed the window sill, turned his back, and stretched his legs to step on a steel plate at the bottom of the third floor. Just as he put his hand on the drainpipe, Cao Ye swung his leg over.

"Oh fuck!" Cao Ye felt that he had kicked something hard and panicked, "Did I just kick you in the head?"

There was no answer below. Cao Ye felt that his ankle was held by a hand. The fingers were a little cold, and he pulled his left foot to touch the steel plate next to him. Liang Sizhe's voice came from below: "Here, step down!" .”

Cao Ye's heart suddenly became clear, and he stepped on his heel: "Then I will continue."

Liang Sizhe retreated to the window sill, but the window was not closed, so he jumped back into the room. After landing on his feet, he leaned over the window frame and looked up: "Get down, I'm entering the room."

Two minutes later, Cao Ye also jumped into the room, squatted down along the wall, and sighed with lingering fear: "My God, my legs are so weak, I'm sweating..."

Liang Sizhe closed the window, took off the guitar and put it aside, and asked casually, "Then why aren't you afraid when you go up?"

"You don't need to look down when you go up! You always have to lower your head when you come down, and every time you lower your head, you feel like you're going to fall..." Cao Ye sat against the wall, holding his neckband with one hand to fan the wind back and forth, looking up. Liang Sizhe, "Oh right, did I kick your head just now?"

"No, I just lowered my head, and you kicked the guitar."

"Oh... that's good, just give me a fright." He didn't say the second half of the sentence—it would be terrible if he was kicked in the face.

They went downstairs one after the other, Liang Sizhe led the way, Cao Ye followed curiously and looked around.

When going downstairs, a woman with big wavy curly hair and heavy makeup greeted Liang Sizhe: "The handsome guy brought friends over today?"

Liang Sizhe smiled at the man: "Yes."

On the first floor, Cao Ye came up to Liang Sizhe and lowered his voice, "What is it doing here? Just singing?"

"Just as you think." Liang Sizhe didn't say much, "What do you want to eat?"

"I don't have any ideas," Cao Ye thought of the row of doorways he saw when he first came that day, and the water was thick with grease—is it really edible?I lose my appetite just thinking about it, "What did you eat at night? I'm the same as you."

"Noodles, I don't know if it's still open." Liang Sizhe stepped out of the threshold, looked in the direction of the noodle shop, and raised his chin, "That one, do you want to eat?"

"Okay." Cao Ye said.

At midnight, most of the stores in the alleys have closed their stalls, and there are still a few stores that stay up late waiting for business.The owner of the old Du noodle restaurant is in his forties, sitting on the side of the alley with a beer belly, an old newspaper under his buttocks, a radio on his lap, humming along to the opera, slowly shaking his hands A plastic fan issued by the Andrology Hospital.

Seeing the two teenagers approaching, the boss grinned enthusiastically at them and pointed his hand behind his back: "Are you here for dinner so late? Sit down wherever you want." Then he got up and took the menu and handed it to them, "What do you want?"

Cao Ye glanced at the menu and looked up at Liang Sizhe: "What did you order tonight?"

"beef noodles."

"Then this is it." Cao Ye told the boss.

The boss raised his voice and shouted into the store: "Shengzi, a bowl of beef noodles, hurry up!"

The beef noodles were served quickly, Cao Ye raised the noodles with chopsticks, measured them twice, and then ate them into his mouth.

"It's quite delicious." He took a bite, then picked out the chopped green onion and coriander in the bowl, and asked Liang Sizhe while picking out, "Are you from Beijing?"

"No," Liang Sizhe said, "Yancheng."

"Oh... I haven't been there before." Cao Ye picked out a spot and took another mouthful of noodles.

"Small place." Liang Sizhe said.

Cao Ye lowered his head to eat the noodles. Liang Sizhe felt a little hungry after watching for a while.

Liang Sizhe beckoned for the boss to serve another bowl of noodles. He didn't pick anything, but mixed the condiments with chopsticks, and ate with Cao Ye.

"How did my dad find you?" Cao Ye asked curiously.

"I don't know either," Liang Sizhe swallowed and continued, "I went home that day, and they were standing in front of my house. What about you? How did you get sent here?"

"My dad wants me to experience life... Tell me, will we act in a play?"

"I don't know," Liang Sizhe shook his head, "No one told me about filming." He ate a few mouthfuls of noodles, and felt that the hunger just now was an illusion, so he stopped his chopsticks and put them on the bowl.

"I asked Uncle Yin, and he said he would arrange a role for you, but he didn't elaborate. I'll ask you later." After a while, the bowl of noodles in front of Cao Ye had already been eaten. The wind is raging, and not a single one will fall.

Not full?Liang Sizhe was just about to wave to the boss for another bowl, when Cao Ye spoke, staring at Liang Sizhe's bowl of noodles: "Aren't you going to eat?"

"Ah," Liang Sizhe said, "I'm not too hungry."

"Then..." Cao Ye looked at Liang Sizhe, "Can you share with me?"

Liang Sizhe felt that his eyes resembled the little white dirt dog on the street next door, that dog just looked at him like this when it wagged its tail at him and begged for food. "Let me order another bowl for you. I have eaten this bowl."

"It's okay, I'll just make this bowl." Cao Ye reached out and brought the bowl of noodles in front of him, picked up a few chopsticks and put them into his bowl. I invite you to eat too."

"You don't need to invite me to eat," Liang Sizhe said. "Before, people would come to deliver food at noon and night every day. Why, didn't they deliver today?"

"Give it away..." Cao Ye reached out and touched the bridge of his nose, feeling a little guilty, "My dad found out and threw it away. I probably won't have to give it away in the future. I'm sorry..."

Liang Sizhe didn't show anything on the surface, but he thought in his heart, the meal was obviously for you, and I was just taking advantage of it, so what's the embarrassment?Then I couldn't help but think again, Cao Xiuyuan's son is really different from Cao Xiuyuan, Cao Xiuyuan looks serious and hard to get close to, but Cao Ye seems to be easy to get along with by nature, making it easy for people to put down their guard and get close to him.

On a hot summer night, the owner of the noodle shop thoughtfully turned on the fan, and the buzzing blades were blowing wind straight towards them.Cao Ye was eating noodles with his head depressed, his hair on the side facing the fan was blown up a bit, and the energy-saving lamp hanging next to him gave off a weak and dim light. Somehow, Liang Sizhe felt that Cao Ye's hair should feel a little soft to the touch. .

The noodle shop sent off the last two customers, turned off the lights and closed.

Before leaving, Liang Sizhe bought two bottles of iced hawthorn-flavored soda, handed one to Cao Ye, and took a sip of the other by himself.

The icy liquid slides down the esophagus, feeling refreshingly cool.

The wind blew up at night, blowing away the heavy sultry heat, the leaves swayed, and the sound of cicadas gradually weakened.The two squatted on the side of the road, blowing the wind, drinking soda one after another. "I didn't expect it to be quite comfortable here." Cao Ye said.

Liang Sizhe turned his head and glanced at him: "It's more comfortable than finding someone to sleep with?"

"Why are you bringing this up again..." Cao Ye pressed the cold water-dropping body of the bottle to his forehead.

Liang Sizhe smiled: "Actually, it's only comfortable for a while."

The soda bottle was emptied, and the two walked back to Lan Yan and went upstairs to their room.

When passing through the row of wooden doors, Cao Ye asked the same question as Liang Sizhe did before: "Do you think people can really live here?"

"Yes," Liang Sizhe said, "Yesterday I saw someone come out." It was a woman who looked about 30 years old, holding a crying baby in her arms.

"I went in and took a look last time. The inside is very small, and the walls seem to be moldy," Cao Ye lowered his voice. "There are no windows. You can't even imagine it. Once inside, it smells..."

"It's less than 20 yuan a day, what do you think?" Liang Sizhe unlocked the door and said, then reached out and pushed the door open and walked in.

"20 yuan?" Cao Ye opened his eyes wide and asked incredulously, "Is it true?"

"Really, I heard it's 500 yuan a month."

"Ah..." The shock on Cao Ye's face has not faded, "Okay." After speaking, he threw himself on his own bed, "Fortunately, Uncle Yin is kind and arranged this room for us."

Uncle Yin?Zheng Yin's face appeared in Liang Sizhe's mind, he looked gentle and gentle, but in fact he didn't seem to be that easy to get along with, just—"How old is he, you just call him uncle?"

"Did he call my dad 'Brother Yuan'? He also kept emphasizing that they are of the same generation, so let me call him uncle... I also felt a little awkward at first, but it's fine to call him a habit." Cao Ye turned over and looked up. Lying down, he pulled out a pillow and put it behind his head, and looked at Liang Sizhe, "Uncle Yin is actually very powerful, can't you tell? He works as my father's manager, assistant, producer, director assistant...everything I There is no Uncle Yin who can't do the request made by Dad. He is like Doraemon. My dad is just a director. Uncle can't make a movie at all."

"That's quite powerful." Liang Sizhe echoed.

Before taking a bath, Cao Ye opened the suitcase that Zheng Yin had prepared for him, squatted down and roughly looked through the contents, and sighed, "God, Uncle Yin is too awesome..."

The suitcase doesn't look big, but it has everything in it, T-shirts, shorts, trousers, underwear, pajamas...all of them are newly bought and dry-cleaned, with a dry cleaner's label on them, and there are clothes dryers in them, plus Toiletries, towels, hangers, earphones, earplugs, eye masks, and mobile phone chargers are all neatly arranged by category. On the top is the script that Zheng Yin told him.

Cao Ye took out the script and threw it on the bed, took his pajamas and towel and went to the bathroom to take a shower.

After taking a shower one after the other, the two sat on the bed and did their own things. Liang Sizhe took a book about acting and leaned on the bedside to read it, while Cao Ye lay on the bed and flipped through the script.

After turning a few pages, Cao Ye was sure that Zhou Ru thought about the character he wrote, named Xiao Man, who was the son of a bathhouse proprietress.The bathhouse is an old-fashioned bathhouse that was eliminated at the beginning of the last century and requires artificial watering. Cao Ye has never seen it before.He imagined what the bathhouse would look like, but there was no concept in his mind.

"Have you ever been to the bathhouse?" He turned his head and asked Liang Sizhe.

"Bathroom?" Liang Sizhe thought of the bathing center he had been to before, "I have been there."

"What kind?" Cao Ye became interested.

"It's just... the hall is quite big once you enter it," Liang Sizhe recalled. "There are many lounge chairs inside. After entering, change clothes first, and then go to the big pool inside to take a bath and steam..."

"It's not that kind of bathhouse," Cao Ye understood. What Liang Sizhe was talking about was not the kind of bathhouse in the script at all. "I've been to the kind of bathhouse you mentioned. Is it a bathing center? It's not so written in the script." In modern times, water needs to be added manually, and when the water runs out, you have to yell at the people outside..."

"I haven't been there before." Liang Sizhe said.

"I haven't been there either, how is this acting..."

"A script?" Liang Sizhe looked at the pile of stapled printing paper in his hand.

"Well, do you want to watch it? But Uncle Yin said that he wanted to come here secretly, and I'm not allowed to spread the word..." Cao Ye said the truth with some embarrassment, "If you want to watch it, you can, just don't tell Uncle Yin... ..."

"Since this is the case, forget it," Liang Sizhe smiled, "I'm just curious about what the script looks like, and I've never seen it before."

"Let me show you." Cao Ye thought for a while, closed the script, and threw it to him in the air.

Liang Sizhe caught it with a raised hand, and looked at the cover - "Thirteen Days", screenwriter: Zhou Ru.

He roughly flipped through the contents without carefully looking at the contents, closed it, and threw it to Cao Ye again: "Thanks."

The person who gave it was not hypocritical, and the person who received it was not over the line.Both of them are very sensible.

"Your script will definitely be sent later." Cao Ye said after taking the script.

Liang Sizhe let out a "hmm".

After a while, there was a crisp "pop", and Cao Ye raised his hand and slapped himself on the arm: "There are mosquitos!" He straightened up and sat up, "Several of them have been buzzing in my ears for a long time. Did you hear that?"

"Understood." Liang Sizhe bowed his head and flipped through the book.

"Why are you so calm? Are there so many mosquitoes every day?"

"No," Liang Sizhe turned his face to look at him, "because you didn't close the window after you climbed out tonight." ——I expected it a long time ago.

"Ah... I forgot," Cao Ye realized that he had caused trouble, "Then what should I do? Are there any mosquito coils?"

"It's used up, let's go out and buy it during the day tomorrow." Liang Sizhe took the toilet water on the bedside and handed it to him, "Use this first, it will help a little bit."

"Oh..." Cao Ye took it, poured the toilet water into the palm of his hand, patted it on his bare arm, stood up again after patting his arm, and sprinkled some on his leg. The bottle was put down, and after finishing the work, he lay on the bedside and returned it to Liang Sizhe, tilting his head to see the book in his hand: ""The Actor's Self-cultivation"...is this the one Zhou Xingchi read? That's it, "Comedy" King of"."

Liang Sizhe turned over the cover of the book and showed it to him: "Well, it's that one."

"Huh? I really have this book...is it good?"

Liang Sizhe smiled: "How can this kind of professional book look good?"

"That's true..." Cao Ye said, opening his mouth and yawning.

In the middle of the night, the sound from the KTV downstairs gradually faded away. Liang Sizhe was holding the book and didn't turn the pages for a long time. He dozed off, then his jaw dropped and he woke up.

He turned his head and glanced at Cao Ye. Cao Ye was lying on the bed, with his head facing the direction of his own bed, and fell asleep on his stomach, with his face resting on the open script.

Won't you fall asleep and make half of your body numb again?Liang Sizhe put the book aside, got out of bed lightly, turned off the light, and lay down on the bed.

Just before he fell asleep, he suddenly remembered the English songs that Cao Ye sang at night, which were really nice... He thought so, and fell asleep quickly.