Chapter 74 Chapter 74 Do you have any friends?

Before noon, Ji Maili ran to the school gate to wait, and the bus appeared in Ji Maili's sight around 2:30 in the afternoon.

Chen Lu was sitting in the front row by the window. He immediately saw Ji Maili, who had been squatting at the school gate for who knows how long. The weather was still a little cold. Seeing that he was wearing only a single layer of clothing, Chen Lu frowned.

"Is that Ji Maili from Class 10?" Liu Ningcun from Class 2 shared every exam room with Chen Lu. They were both in the student union, so they had a good relationship. She asked Chen Lu, "Is he here to pick you up?"

Chen Lu hummed, and as the car drove into the school gate, Chen Lu's eyes followed Ji Maili who was running after the car.

Liu Ningcun smiled and said, "You two have a really good relationship."

After the car stopped, Chen Lu was the first to get out. Seeing Ji Maili blocking the car door and grinning at him, Chen Lu got out of the car and pulled him aside.

The car heater was on full blast. Chen Lu held his coat in his hand and wrapped it around Ji Maili. "Why are you grinning like an idiot?"

Ji Maili glanced at the clothes draped over his body and said with a bit of disgust: "It hasn't been washed in so many days, and you're still wearing it on me."

Shen Lu grabbed the collar of his coat to prevent him from taking it off: "Why don't you put on a coat yourself? Are you an idiot? Don't you know it's cold?"

"Hey hey hey!" Ji Maili: "Why are you scolding me as soon as you open your mouth? I'm here to apologize, can't you see? Don't ruin the atmosphere."

Shen Lu: "What the hell is this apology?"

Ji Maili tilted his head and looked at him: "Are you still angry?"

Chen Lu said to the others, "I'll be there in a minute," then he let go of his coat and looked at Ji Maili, "What are you going to do if I say I'm angry?"

Ji Maili said, "Just to coax you. I've already coaxed myself, the only thing left is to coax you."

Shen Lu was not surprised that he could coax himself into submission. After all, this guy had a bad memory. Even if they had really quarreled, they would forget about it after one night.

Chen Lu asked: "Are you sure you want to coax me? I can't be coaxed without ten sets of papers."

Before Ji Maili arrived, he had already prepared himself for any of his perverted demands. He took a deep breath and said, "Ten sets, ten sets. You're going to kill me with this?!"

......

Ten sets of examination papers won’t kill you, but they can drive a poor student crazy.

It was already dark. Ji Maili started writing papers as soon as he came back. He hadn't finished ten sets of papers yet, but he had successfully created a "Shamatte" hairstyle for himself. He was scratching his hair while doing the questions, and his hair was all frizzed up.

His hand was suddenly pulled by Shen Lu.

Ji Maili raised his head and looked at him with lifeless eyes: "What are you doing?"

Chen Lu looked at his frizzy head and said, "If you pull it out again, he'll be bald."

Ji Maili said with a look of despair, "If you are bald, then you are bald. If you keep writing like this, you will become bald sooner or later."

Shen Lu suddenly stood up, and Ji Maili turned his head to look at him: "What are you doing..."

Before he could finish his words, the pen in his hand was taken away by Shen Lu and thrown aside. Shen Lu put his hand on his stomach and lifted him up from the stool.

Ji Maili was so dazed that he forgot to struggle: "Fuck - Chen Lu, you took a powerful pill!"

Chen Lu didn't take any of the powerful pills, and even only had a few bites of bread for lunch. He just missed her so much these past few days, and was so angry and missed her so much that he tortured himself. Now that he had been punished, it was time to ask for some interest.

Ji Maili was thrown onto the bed... He was almost exhausted after being thrown down several times.

Ji Maili was like a bled piglet. He lay exhausted on the bed, mumbling, "Chen Lu, have you ever heard of the phrase 'exhaustion to death'? Are you going to kill me to silence me?"

Shen Lu left a tooth mark on his smooth waist. "You won't die. If you really couldn't do it, you would run away. Why would you stay here and do it for me?"

Ji Maili felt that what he said made a lot of sense.

Ji Maili glared at him: "Where are my underwear?"

Shen Lu: "It's dirty, wear mine later."

Ji Maili: "New?"

Chen Lu: "There are no new ones. Do you want to wear the old ones?"

Ji Maili sighed: "What if I don't wear it? It's still empty."

Ji Maili recovered and then remembered to ask Shen Lu how he did in the competition. He was relieved to hear Shen Lu said it was not bad. "Tao Dacheng scared me, saying that if I made you angry before your exam, it would affect your test."

Shen Lu scratched the spot where he had left his teeth marks. "He didn't scare you. It did affect you a little. Fortunately, I was determined and pulled myself together after seeing the test questions."

Ji Maili was tickled by him and twisted her body to avoid him for a moment: "Does that mean I'm less important to you than the exam?"

Shen Lu laughed for a long time: "So do you want to hear me say whether I did well in the exam or not?"

Ji Maili thought about it, leaned on his arm and said, "Then I must have done well in the exam."

Shen Lu leaned over and kissed his ear: "Don't skip classes anymore, okay?"

How could Ji Maili dare to do that? This time he just made him unable to lift his hands and feet. If there was a next time, he would take his life.

-

In early May, Ji Maili's father's case entered the second trial. In mid-June, Ji Maili received a call from Ji Huan at school, asking him to go home directly after school.

Ji Maili rarely heard Ji Huan speak in this tone, and thought something had happened, so he hurried back home as soon as school was over.

When he got home, he saw several large cardboard boxes piled up in the living room. He saw Ji Huan packing things into them. Ji Maili had experienced this scene once before last summer. He asked woodenly, "What are they doing?"

Ji Huan glanced at him and said, "Pack up your things in your room. We'll move back home tomorrow."

Ji Maili didn't react at first to which home Ji Huan was referring to.

Seeing him standing there stupidly, Ji Huan stood up and tucked the hair beside his ear: "What are you standing there for? I told you to clean up your things, but I won't help you. Your room is a mess like a doghouse."

Ji Maili took two steps inside and asked her, "Where's Mom?"

Ji Huan continued to clean up: "Mom went back over there, and asked a few key workers to clean it up. I don't know how dirty it is after not living there for a year."

Before Ji Maili recovered from the news, he returned to his room, closed the door, and called Shen Lu.

Chen Lu knew that Ji Huan called Ji Maili in the afternoon to ask him to go home early. She didn't say what happened on the phone, so Chen Lu didn't want to follow her.

He had been waiting for Ji Maili to video call him, so when Ji Maili called, he immediately answered: "Mai Mai."

Ji Maili stared at the phone screen: "My sister said we are moving."

Looking at Ji Maili's dazed expression, Shen Lu thought something bad had happened. He frowned and asked, "Why are you moving? Where are you moving to? What happened?"

Ji Maili took a long time to say, "Nothing happened... I moved back to my original home."

Shen Lu: “…”

The two of them stared blankly for a while, and Ji Maili suddenly laughed: "Chen Lu, I can go home now!"

Shen Lu closed his eyes and sighed: "Ji Maili, you're frightening me to death!"

-

Half a month later, Ji Kai was released. On the day he was released, Ji Maili did not take a special leave to pick him up. When he returned home in the evening, Ji Kai was sitting on the sofa wearing glasses and watching the news as before.

Ji Maili looked at Ji Kai sitting in the living room, as if in a dream, and called out after a long while: "Dad."

Ji Kai glanced at him and said, "Are you back? Have you been causing any trouble lately?"

Ji Maili curled his lips, threw down his schoolbag and walked over to sit down: "If I say yes, will you go back to squat for two months just to have some peace and quiet?"

Ji Huan patted the back of his head and asked, "Can you speak?"

Ji Huan made a cup of tea for Ji Kai: "After being stabbed before, he has been much more honest recently. He has been pretending to learn from Chen Lu every day."

Ji Kai frowned: "Stabbed?" He looked at Ji Maili: "How many times have I told you to stop causing trouble outside?"

If it were any other time, Ji Maili would have plugged his ears and ran back to his room. Since his father had just come out, he stood there and took the scolding. Then he said, "Dad, do you know what the main point is? My sister said that the main point is that I was stabbed? Wasn't it me who was studying?"

Ji Kai: "Study? Just you?"

Ji Maili opened his mouth, wanting to prove something, but when he thought about his achievements since childhood, he said, "...Forget it, believe it or not."

Ji Maili ran away, but he didn't run back to the room, but went to the backyard.

He sat on the swing chair that had been covered in dust for a year, swaying back and forth. After so many days of moving back home, he finally felt at ease today.

Compared to a year ago, Ji Kai has lost a lot of weight. Ji Maili didn't ask him how he spent such a long time in there, nor did he want to talk about it. It was too sentimental and seemed pretentious.

Now they are all back, and everything is the same as before, as if nothing has changed, except that the grass on the lawn has grown a little taller, and the swimming pool that was just cleaned two days ago has not been refilled with water yet.

Ji Huan saw him lying outside through the floor-to-ceiling window and raised his hand to knock on the glass.

Ji Maili turned around and Ji Huan pushed open the glass door: "What are you doing there?"

Ji Maili: "Sister, I want to invite my friends to my house for a barbecue."

Ji Huan had no idea what he was up to: "Why do you keep coming up with one thing after another every day? What are you roasting? You're the one who cleans up the mess you made?"

Ji Maili: "I'll clean it up."

His parents are not the kind of people who like to show off, so they won't invite people to their house to celebrate just because his father is coming out. But this is a happy event after all. Not to mention setting off a few firecrackers at the door, they have to make the house look a little lively. Otherwise, it will be so cold and deserted that it feels like the event has never passed.

Ji Huan said he was troublesome, but he didn't object to him taking people home.

Ji Huan told Liang Lin and the others that Ji Maili wanted to bring someone home, and Liang Lin agreed without hesitation.

Ji Kai asked: "Do you have any friends?"

Ji Maili: “…Of course I do!”

Ji Kai looked at Ji Maili with an expression of "I don't believe it".

Liang Lin smiled and said to Ji Kai: "You may not know this, but Mai Mai is much more popular now than before. When he was in the hospital, there were even little girls visiting him."

Ji Kai looked at Liang Lin: "What's with that expression of yours that seems to support his premature love?"

Liang Lin patted his arm and said, "What are you talking about? You're so unruly!"

Liang Lin asked Ji Maili: "How many people do you want to invite? I'll prepare in advance."

Ji Maili blurted it out as soon as his mind went blank. As for who to invite, he hadn't decided yet. When Liang Lin asked him this, he was at a loss for words: "I'll go ask tomorrow if anyone is willing to come and tell you."

In the evening, Ji Maili video-called Chen Lu and told him that he wanted to invite someone to his home. Chen Lu said nothing after listening, but just smiled.

Ji Maili: "What are you laughing at?"

Shen Lu shook his head: "Nothing, I just feel that Mai Mai has grown up."