Don't cry, Zai Zai
Jin Zhou was driving, and Song Shuyang was sitting in the passenger seat typing away. It didn't take much thought to know who he was messaging.
He typed a long, disjointed message that morning and after waiting all day, Chen Xi finally replied: [I just got off the plane]
Exploding Sun God of War: [I'm so sorry, Senior, I didn't mean to keep you hanging.]
Chen Xi sent a head-patting emoji and added: [It's okay, I was pursuing you anyway, it's normal that you can't accept it. I should thank Aunt Song for hosting you these past few days.]
Exploding Sun God of War: [Did my brother say something harsh to you this morning? He just can't stand people being nice to me. Don't take it personally.]
For some reason, after sending this message, Chen Xi fell silent again. He locked his phone and waited for a while. When the screen lit up again, he clicked on it and found that Chen Xi had changed his name.
Wanzai Wharf: [He didn't say anything. Something happened at home. You two should just live your lives well.]
Exploding Sun God of War: [Then we...]
Wanzai Wharf: [Let’s just be friends]
His first love ended before it even began. Song Shuyang found that although he was sad, he didn't really want to keep it. Instead, he felt relieved. Realizing this terrible thought, he rarely reflected on himself.
Is he a natural scum?
"Did you coax her back?" Jin Zhou, who had been silent for a long time, suddenly asked.
Song Shuyang still remembered that he had threatened Jin Zhou that he would be a dog if he spoke to him again, so he put down his phone and turned his face away.
Jin Zhou said leisurely: "If I remember correctly, someone seems to have turned into a dog just now, right?"
"I told my mom that!"
"What about this one?"
“…”
Seeing that he was so angry that his hair stood on end, Jin Zhou snorted and laughed, "It's okay, that doesn't count."
Song Shuyang was about to relax a little when he heard him add, "I only heard the dog barking."
Okay, now Song Shuyang is going to completely ignore him.
The car pulled up to the basement level of the mall, and Song Shuyang followed Jin Zhou. The bar he opened was located across from the hottest mall in the city center. It was called "Helios," which suited Jin Zhou's pretentious style. The entrance wasn't big, but it felt spacious inside. It wasn't open yet, and the lights were on. Two waiters were cleaning. When they saw Jin Zhou, they called out, "Brother Zhou."
Jin Zhou nodded and took him into the kitchen.
Helios's business model is quite balanced, more lively than a bar but quieter than a disco. In addition to wine and fruit plates, they also provide cold cuts and snacks, so they have a kitchen. Jin Zhou put the lunch box in the refrigerator first, then asked with the refrigerator door open, "What would you like to drink?"
Song Shuyang reached out and took a can of Coke.
Jin Zhou took out a bottle of mineral water and said, "Come sit in my office. I have something to do. You can play with your phone for a while."
Song Shuyang thought to himself that you are the only one who has an office. When he went over to take a look, he almost couldn't hold back his laughter. What a bullshit office, it's just a warehouse for materials.
A small room was divided into two parts, two-thirds of which was occupied by a refrigerator filled with wine, drinks and fresh fruits, and the other third was piled with wine boxes. About one square meter of space was cleared from these boxes to place a shabby little desk for Jin Zhou.
Jin Zhou didn't bother to pay attention to him and called people over to start counting the materials.
Song Shuyang was bored and started a game casually. He turned off the sound because he was afraid of being laughed at by Jin Zhou.
After a while, Song Shuyang died for the twelfth time. He looked up from the black and white screen and found that there was a girl of the same age as Jin Zhou next to him.
The girl had broad shoulders and long legs, and her figure was almost the same as Jin Zhou's. Her hairstyle was also very similar to his, a medium-length wolf-tail hair, but her bangs were longer, almost covering half of her face. She was wearing a smart shirt and trousers, with her cuffs rolled up above her forearms.
Noticing his gaze, she raised her eyebrows at Jin Zhou, "Is this your brother?"
Jin Zhou said "hmm" with a cold expression.
The girl walked towards him, leaned forward slightly, and smiled gently, "Hello Yangyang, I'm one of your brother's partners, my name is Jiang Ying."
Song Shuyang obediently called out, "Hello, sister."
Jiang Ying didn't plan to exchange too much pleasantries with him, so she waved goodbye and went to the front court.
Song Shuyang swooped over and winked at Jin Zhou, "Tell me the truth, what's going on?"
Jin Zhou pinched his face and squeezed it hard, making his lips into an "O" shape. "You idiot."
"Let go! It hurts!" Song Shuyang rubbed his almost deformed face distressedly, "It was just a joke, why are you so anxious?"
Jin Zhou looked at him coldly, "Song Shuyang, don't make such jokes, it's disgusting."
After he finished speaking, he left, leaving Song Shuyang standing there in a daze, feeling extremely bored.
I shouldn't have found an excuse to talk to Jin Zhou.
It caused him to turn into a dog again.
Song Shuyang stayed in the back sulking until after eleven o'clock, when people started to come into the bar and the music started playing. Then he went to the front to take a look.
It was his first time in a bar. A roommate in the dormitory who often went to bars described this kind of place as all kinds of decadence and extravagance, but he thought it was okay. Apart from the dim lighting, everyone sat there drinking and chatting properly, and the music was soothing R&B, not as noisy and chaotic as he described.
Looking up, Jin Zhou was standing on the stage playing music. I didn't know when he changed his clothes, but he was wearing a loose black sleeveless T-shirt with a low neckline. The exposed skin was so white that it almost glowed.
Song Shuyang suddenly realized that he seemed to be quite strong, not in the narrow sense of a strong man, but strong compared to the sickly big boy in his memory.
He couldn't help but recall the truce between him and Jin Zhou.
Jin Zhou was fifteen years old that year, and he hadn't even had his birthday yet, so he was only nine years old.
It was an extremely cold winter. The weather station issued an orange warning for a cold wave. It snowed for a day and a night. Jin Zhou was lying on the hospital bed with a high fever, just one step away from death.
It actually rarely snows in Jiang City, a water town in the south of the Yangtze River. The snow that year seemed to be falling endlessly on purpose, as if it was deliberately making things difficult for him. Song Nian stood at the door of the ward, begging God in tears not to take this poor child away. Jin Jiaan rushed back on the way and sat in the iron chair, his hands and feet trembling with nervousness.
Song Shuyang, who always couldn't sit still for three minutes, seemed to realize something. He sat quietly beside Jin Jiaan, saying to himself: Jin Zhou, as long as you get better, I will never quarrel with you again.
The doctor came out and Song Shuyang quickly jumped off the chair. He didn't understand the professional terms, he only knew that Jin Zhou survived.
In the ward, he looked at Jin Zhou cautiously, just like when they first met, not even daring to breathe too hard.
The young man on the hospital bed was wearing a breathing mask, his bamboo-like arms were covered with needle holes, and his face was so pale that it almost blended into the white sheets beneath him.
Tears blocked her view, and Song Shuyang thought he had disappeared. She hurried to the bedside to check with him, "Jin Zhou, are you still there?"
Big tears fell from his eyes, but he didn't dare cry out loud, for fear of reminding the god of death that there was still a fish that had escaped.
The person on the hospital bed was so weak that he couldn't even lift his eyelids. He could only open his mouth with all his strength and squeeze out a few words through the breathing mask:
"Don't cry, Zai Zai."
That was the first time Song Shuyang heard him call him like that.
It was also from that day that he completely accepted Jin Zhou, allowed him to be his brother, and allowed him to share his mother's love.
After Jin Zhou was discharged from the hospital, he took two years off from school. Song Nian also quit her job and focused on taking care of him at home. She made his body stronger and stronger, but also... more and more annoying.
At the beginning, Song Shuyang conveyed to him the friendly intention of the two countries to establish diplomatic relations, but this man became even worse after he fell ill. He supervised him to do his homework when he had nothing to do at home, and set a bunch of rules for him, such as not allowing him to eat snacks before meals, not allowing him to do homework with his head tilted, not allowing him to move a small stool to sit in front of the TV to watch cartoons... This made Song Shuyang very annoyed, and in anger he sounded the horn of attack again. This battle has continued to this day.
Someone came to replace Jin Zhou on the stage. He took off his headphones, unscrewed a bottle of water, and walked backstage while drinking.
Seeing him approach, Song Shuyang couldn't help but poke his plump biceps with his fingers and asked sourly, "How did you train?"
He once naively thought that he would be taller and stronger than Jin Zhou, but after the man turned seventeen, he grew rapidly, perhaps because he secretly ate pig feed mixed with hormones or something, and finally settled at 188 cm. His muscle lines were so perfect that it was enviable. When he stood there, he looked like a tower.
Jin Zhou said: "It's very simple, just don't be picky about food."
Song Shuyang, whose uneaten food covers almost half of the human diet: "..."
He pinched it, and the feeling was so good that he didn't want to let go. Jin Zhou was annoyed by the pinching, so he waved his arm and shook off his dishonest claws, "Okay, if you like, practice it yourself."
Song Shuyang asked him again: "What do you do when you DJ? Are you looking for a playlist now?"
“…The two pieces of music need to connect, otherwise it would be awkward to finish one and then drop the next.”
"Then why do you put your hand on it and shake it like this?" He imitated Jin Zhou's previous movements.
Jin Zhou rolled his eyes, "Because it's hot."
Song Shuyang had a lot of questions and was about to ask more when a young boy came over and said, "Brother Zhou, the bar is a bit busy."
"Got it," he turned to Song Shuyang and asked, "I'm going to help mix the drinks. Do you want to sit here or go out?"
"Is there anything fun out there?"
"No, I'm sitting down too."
"Then why are you asking such a shit?"
Despite saying so, Song Shuyang still followed him out and found an empty seat next to the bar.
Helios's business hours mean that its customers are all night owls who don't work, so even though it's Monday today, it hasn't affected the attendance rate and the tables are almost full.
Jin Zhou changed into a black shirt and came out. He walked around the bar and asked the girl who had been waiting for a long time, "What would you like to drink?"
The girl had delicate makeup and curly hair as soft as seaweed. She raised her red lips to Jin Zhou and said in an ambiguous tone, "Give me a drink of your best drink."
Shit! So this is the nature of the job!
He's going to sue his mother!
Song Shuyang took out his phone and was about to complain when a cone-shaped goblet filled with orange liquid was pushed in front of him. He opened his mouth to ask again but found that Jin Zhou was not looking at him at all. He had to take a sip and deliberately asked, "Isn't this just orange juice?"
"It's so difficult to deal with." After complaining, Jin Zhou took a bottle of whiskey from the shelf behind him, opened the lid and stingily dropped a small drop into his orange juice.
Song Shuyang's pupils trembled, "You insulted me?"
The curly-haired sister covered her mouth and laughed secretly, and asked Jin Zhou: "Boss, is this your relative?"
Jin Zhou whispered, "Not familiar."
Song Shuyang also followed up: "Just a passerby."
The curly-haired sister burst into laughter. "Little brother, you are so funny. Sister will buy you a drink."
She said to Jin Zhou: "A glass of milk, thank you."
Song Shuyang choked up, but he couldn't lose his temper with his beautiful sister, so he could only endure and say: "...Thank you."
He watched as Jin Zhou shook the shaker in his hand frantically, poured out the bright red liquor, garnished it with a cherry, and pushed it in front of the curly-haired sister. Then he openly took out a bottle of skim milk and an ordinary glass, poured half a glass in front of Song Shuyang, and said sarcastically: "Drink the milk, little brother."
"You're just treating me like that!"
"Dong——" Jin Zhou threw a cherry in, "Isn't this too perfunctory?"
Song Shuyang was so angry that he wanted to curse.
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