Chapter 7 Chapter 7 Xu Ji took off the baseball cap buckle...
At night, gentle moonlight pours down along the dark night, slowly spreading into the room through the gaps in the gauze curtains.
A night light was on in the half-dark bedroom. Tao Siyun narrowed his eyes and lay on the bed, resting his chin on the back of his hand. After absent-mindedly playing Plants vs. Zombies all night, he still couldn't fall asleep.
Her mind, which had been in a state of emptiness and dissociation, suddenly recalled the WeChat message Xu Ji sent a few hours ago when her brain was eaten by the zombies.
[Rounded to 520]
…! ! !
Tao Siyun glanced at the time displayed in the upper left corner of the screen, closed the iPad, buried his face in the pillow, took a deep breath, and reminded himself to go to bed quickly.
But as soon as I closed my eyes, it was as if some kind of switch was turned on in my brain, and it was like playing a movie, completely out of control, with many fragmented clips flashing by as if I had clicked on fast forward.
From the beginning, they unexpectedly met in the hotel elevator, then got into his car in a daze, and the awkwardness caused by the typo when adding a WeChat note...
Later, we met by chance in the supermarket and he caught me. I still feel extremely embarrassed and ashamed when I think about it.
That day, Xu Ji came over to help her with the bill. She was so focused on her own embarrassment that she didn't pay any attention to the total amount the cashier said. It was not until she found the receipt in the trash can that she discovered the amount on it that was enough to shock her for eight hundred years.
In short, every scene is very socially dead.
The last scene was after they came out of the supermarket——
Xu Ji was standing on the steps at the door, looking down at her. He was wearing a thin black jacket and overalls that almost blended into the night. In the dim light, he asked, "My phone's dead. Do you remember how to get home?"
“…”
Tao Siyun had just recovered a little from the embarrassment he had just experienced. He lowered his head and stared at the tips of his shoes, his ears red. He licked his lips and whispered, "I remember."
It was a cool night and a drizzle was falling. She was only wearing a white shirt with a square collar. Her collarbone was soft and straight, and her hair was spread over her thin shoulders, sticking to her rain-soaked skin. A wisp of hair hanging from her ear rubbed against her fair neck.
Xu Ji suddenly took off his baseball cap and put it on her head.
Tao Siyun's body suddenly stiffened.
The baseball cap with a warm breath was pressed tightly against her forehead, and the faint scent of lily of the valley in the air suddenly became extremely clear, surrounding her whole body.
Tao Siyun unconsciously clenched his hands holding the shopping bag, hesitated for a moment amidst his pounding heartbeat, and raised his head nervously.
Their eyes met and her eyelashes trembled.
The shape of Xu Ji's eyes is very beautiful, his bones are three-dimensional, and his thick black hair hangs down to his eyebrows, making his face look even whiter. The contours of his facial features are softened by the yellow light and shadow of the street lamps.
"It's late at night, don't get lost again." Xu Ji raised his eyebrows slightly, and the corners of his mouth casually formed a shallow arc.
Tao Siyun: "..."
Everyone who knows her knows that she is directionally challenged and has a poor sense of direction. She is the type of person who cannot tell east from west, south from north, and must use a map when she goes out. Without a map, she will definitely get lost.
The man stood against the light, his voice tinged with teasing, intertwined with the sound of the pattering rain, seemingly penetrating time and gradually reuniting with the boy deep in his memory...
Tao Siyun was distracted for a moment, then immediately realized that he did it on purpose!
***
The air conditioning temperature in the bedroom was a little low, and Tao Siyun sneezed suddenly.
She pulled the thin blanket a little higher and reached for the cell phone next to her pillow.
She opened Xu Ji’s WeChat and received the red envelope that caused her to lose sleep all night.
Closing my eyes, my confused thoughts drifted away involuntarily in the whirring sound of the air conditioner.
The year she transferred to Huxi, she studied cello at a very famous teacher's home to prepare for the art exam in her senior year of high school.
The teacher who taught her was a former colleague of my aunt's school. At that time, he lived in an old community near the music college that had not yet been demolished, which was quite far away.
Qin Ru was Tao Siyun's first teacher. She had high hopes for her since she was a child and would personally drive her to her cello lessons twice a week.
Because cars cannot drive into the alley, we have to walk for more than ten minutes every time.
Tao Siyun clearly remembered that the first time she was taken there by Qin Ru, she felt like she was walking in a maze, turning around and around for a long time, and in the end she was completely dizzy.
The environment in that area is very bad, and the alleys are very winding. Forget about remembering any iconic buildings, it is easy to get lost if you are not careful.
Once, Qin Ru happened to be on a business trip to Nanze and had not returned yet. Tao Siyun felt embarrassed to trouble his uncle who had just married his aunt, so he politely declined Yan Bin's offer to give him a gift.
Qin Ru has been single because she is a DINK. She didn't marry her first love who had been divorced for many years until she was almost 40 years old.
At that time, Yan Bin already had two children. His daughter had been living with his ex-wife, and his son had been staying in his hometown of Nanze for a long time to be taken care of by his parents. The father and son only saw each other a few times a year, so Qin Ru did not mind her stepmother status like other people.
October had just passed and the temperature suddenly changed. It rained for half a month in the west of Shanghai.
The close-fitting clothes always seem to be not completely dry and feel damp when worn.
Tao Siyun grew up in the north. He had just been in Shanghai West for more than two months and was not yet accustomed to the damp and cold weather in the south. He caught a cold after going there a few times.
She put on a thick coat, wore a mask, carried her cello on her back, and went to catch the bus twenty minutes earlier than usual. She changed buses twice along the way and arrived at her destination an hour and a half later.
Since the bus route was not the same as the one Qin Ru had taken by car before, she opened the map on her phone as soon as she got off the bus and followed the route indicated on the navigation.
After walking for about ten minutes, I finally saw a sign marked "Hudong Lane" not far away.
The map shows that it's not that complicated if you enter from here.
However, at this moment a drunk man suddenly staggered out of the alley.
He was full of anger and was swearing at people with foul language. Following behind him was a thin woman with messy hair and bruises on her face.
The two of them struggled for a long time at the alley entrance. The man lost his balance, turned around, and slapped the woman hard across the face. "Fuck you! Stop holding me! Get out of here! Let go!"
Tao Siyun was frightened by the sudden violence and stopped, not daring to move forward.
The woman's face was covered in red marks from the five fingers she had received after being slapped. She clung to the man's legs tightly, refusing to let go, and screamed hysterically, "Gamble! Gamble! Gamble! All you do is gamble! You've ruined our entire family. You're even taking the money we saved for our children's tuition. How can you possibly survive?"
"I earned this money, you can spend it however you want! Damn it! Let me go, or I'll beat you to death!!!"
Seeing that she couldn't break free, the man slapped her hard in the face. The woman fell to the ground and groaned in pain. The man made a "Pooh" sound and kicked her several times before he felt relieved.
The man was very drunk and was staggering as if he couldn't stand steadily. When he passed by Tao Siyun, his body bumped into her exactly.
Tao Siyun staggered and subconsciously reached out to protect the piano behind him.
The man hissed, rubbing his shoulder that was hurt by the guitar case, and yelled at her incoherently: "Fuck! Do you know how to walk? Don't you know you bumped into someone?!"
Everything happened so suddenly that Tao Siyun didn't hold the phone firmly, and it slipped out of his hand and fell into the water with a "bang".
The accumulated water after the rain gathered into small puddles, which were extremely turbid and mixed with unidentified floating objects, making them extremely dirty.
The man had a ferocious look on his face, with several bloody marks from his nails. He looked her up and down, his eyes were lustful, and gradually became obscene.
"So you're a student! How old are you and what grade are you in? Didn't your teacher teach you to say sorry if you bump into someone?"
Tao Siyun hid to the side without leaving any trace.
Even through a mask, I could smell the strong smell of alcohol on the man.
She was a little scared, knowing that there was no point in talking to a drunk, but she didn't want to get into trouble, so she whispered "I'm sorry".
"What did you say? Speak louder." The man suddenly leaned close to her face and said with a thick tongue, "I didn't hear you."
Tao Siyun was so nervous that he was shaking all over. He clenched his fists and was about to push him away.
Just at this moment, the thin woman on the ground stood up, ran over and pulled the man who was about to touch her away from her.
The woman's wounded face was filled with guilt, and she apologized to her in a choked voice: "I'm sorry, little girl. He was drunk. Didn't he scare you? Don't be afraid. I'll take him away right away."
As he said this, he dragged the unsteady man away forcibly.
Tao Siyun was very scared just now, until she saw the two people walking away and their backs disappeared from her sight, she finally breathed a sigh of relief and bent down to pick up the phone soaked in water.
***
A few minutes later, she walked into a mobile phone repair shop on the roadside with a frown on her face.
My phone was soaked in water for a while and now it won't turn on.
"Little girl, you've only had this phone for a short time, right? If only the screen was broken, you could still replace it. But the problem is that it got soaked in water and the motherboard was also damaged. This makes the problem a bit more complicated..."
The bespectacled owner of the mobile phone shop, with a beer belly, shook his head after checking it, spread his hands, and said with pity, "I can't fix it."
“…”
Tao Siyun bit his lip and asked unwillingly, "Can I still export the photos on my phone?"
"...There's basically no hope." The mobile phone store owner's expression was as heavy as a doctor who had diagnosed a terminally ill patient, and his eyes were full of sympathy when he looked at her.
"It doesn't matter. Out with the old comes the new. Ask your parents to buy you a new one."
The fat uncle symbolically comforted her and used two fingers to push the dead phone back to the little girl in front of him.
Tao Siyun walked out of the mobile phone store with a look of disappointment on her face. It was almost time for class, her phone was broken, and she couldn't contact the teacher. She didn't know what to do. When she looked up, she suddenly caught a glimpse of a familiar figure standing at the door of the convenience store opposite.
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