Dead fried dough sticks
"Why did you open the door just now? We've been waiting for a long time..."
"That's right, Senior, why are you dawdling?"
Zhou Xi was wearing an ankle-length cotton nightgown. She yawned, and her uncombed hair was scattered casually behind her head, which clearly explained what she had just been doing.
"Stop blocking us and let us in!"
“We are so tired…”
“Get out of the way!”
"This is..." Zhou Xi put his hand lazily on the door handle. He had a vague guess in his heart, but he didn't let anyone in.
"We're freshmen. They've adjusted the beds over there, so they asked us to move in this weekend. Didn't you know?"
"I don't know."
Several people looked at each other, and Huang Can, who had just asked a question, was interrupted by Zhou Xi's words.
Zhou Xi tapped his arm with his index finger, thinking to himself, it's been more than half a month since the start of the first year of high school, and the school has only just solved the bed problem. Logically, everyone in the dormitory should be familiar with each other, so who would want to separate?
There was only one person firing at her, and the others were like mutes, letting her take the lead.
Zhou Xi rubbed his arms, thinking it would be a waste of time to continue the stalemate. He sighed, "Wait a moment, I'll go ask Auntie."
The dormitory manager always gets up early to clean up the debris. The blackboard at the door is dirty, but it clearly records the daily deductions and notifications.
Zhou Xi asked the dormitory manager and concluded that Chen Liuyan must have forgotten to tell her.
When she walked back to the door of her dormitory, she found that everyone had gone in and was packing up their things. It seemed that these people could not wait even a moment.
Zhou Xi felt overwhelmed at the thought that his peaceful life, which had lasted for so long, would be disrupted.
When she stood at the door and looked again, she didn't know whether to laugh or get angry. All the books that had been placed on the bookshelf on the empty table were thrown back on her table. Normally, she should say thank you, but she didn't have to do it herself...
But what Yang Jinyang said was right. If someone like her lived on campus, she would explode with her roommates in any minute, and she would have stepped on her landmine.
"Who moved my books?" Zhou Xi leaned against the door and knocked on the door frame.
No one spoke.
"Bang!"
The door was slammed shut, and the noise was finally heard.
Zhou Xi still had a bit of rationality left, and apologized to Men in his heart.
"Who moved my book?"
The five people looked at Zhou Xi, who had no expression on her face. She hadn't been angry for a long time, this damn feeling.
"Oh, I moved it, senior sister. Everyone has a bed, so your books will naturally be put back on your bed." Huang Can glanced at her and then looked away indifferently.
"Did you ask for my permission before touching my books? They're here to destroy the house. Put them back. I don't know if you put them back or if you put them all on the ground."
The girl in blue clothes next to him stopped and glanced at Zhou Xi's position secretly. The books were scattered all over the place. Several books were smashed on the ground, and the covers of some books were about to fly away, as if the books had some deep hatred with Huang Can.
"Oh, my hand slipped. Sorry, I'm in a hurry. Unlike you, who are so leisurely."
"Hey, Huang Can!" The man in blue pushed Huang Can, "Stop talking..."
"Your hand is slipping. I think it's your hand that's being shameless. This is your thing, so why do you touch it?"
"Are you sick..." Huang Can pointed at Zhou Xi and turned around, "And you, Huang Yunyun, why are you pretending to be a good person? Weren't you so enthusiastic when you were scolding me at the door just now? Why do you become so cowardly when you see someone who is not easy to deal with?"
Huang Yunyun's face turned pale and blue as Huang Can pointed at her and scolded her.
"I'm sick, junior, are you crazy? Who disturbed my sleep so early in the morning? Five of you blocked the door directly. What an attitude! Not a single polite word. Didn't the kindergarten teacher teach you that? Also, do I owe you anything? You are the ones who need to move in because you don't have a bed, not me who has to move out."
When Zhou Xi had a cold face, although his tone was light, it was like an ice cube hitting people.
Tang Shiqi seemed to have been poked in a sore spot and shouted loudly: "Why are you so arrogant? This dormitory is not yours alone. Do you think the school is your home? We live here because of the school's arrangement. If you have the guts, go find the teacher!"
Zhou Xi bent down and picked up the book. "I will naturally obey the school's arrangements. However, if you don't want to live in peace, I'm not dumb or blind. Then let's die together. Oh, don't worry about me being a verbal shrew. If you don't like it, I don't mind using violence. If you want to report the teacher, I will accompany you."
Zhou Xi climbed onto the bed ladder and pulled the bed curtain that had not been used for a long time. At the last second before closing it, she lowered her eyelids and looked down. The five people all froze and stood in a row.
She suddenly felt that this morning's farce was particularly like the five people below were new recruits, and she was the instructor without any troops. She was actually being scolded by people who wanted to crush her to death.
Zhou Xi turned on his phone, found the tangled wired earphones, plugged them into the small hole, turned up the volume, and turned on the English mode.
I don’t know how long it took, Zhou Xi slowly came down the stairs, took out clothes from the closet, turned around, and saw someone hurriedly looking away.
Huang Yunyun heard the gurgling sound of running water and glanced over to see Zhou Xi brushing his teeth and washing his face. She put away the can of porridge, pulled Zhu Zhu next to her, and whispered in her ear, "That scared me to death just now. I thought they were going to fight!"
"What are you afraid of? There are five of us and she's alone. Even if something happens, we're in the right."
After a while, Zhu Zhu saw someone coming out, and her eyes lit up and a flash of jealousy appeared in her eyes.
Zhou Xi wore a white vest with a light blue shirt and black denim shorts. With long legs and fair skin, she looked like the type that all boys would like.
With a smooth head of hair, she combed it and her slender fingers shuttled between the black hair ties. In the blink of an eye, a high ponytail was tied.
"snort……"
Zhou Xi was sitting on a stool. He had just put on his socks and was about to bend down to put on his shoes when he suddenly looked down at the stool.
Huang Yunyun found a bag of spicy noodles and tore it open. As expected, the red oil splashed onto her hands again. "Why did she change into long pants? Don't these shorts just show off her great figure? Long pants are stuffy and get in the way."
Zhu Zhu stared at the smooth stool and sat on it herself: "Yunyun, it's summer now..."
"yes!"
"Oh! I see..."
Although wearing shorts is cool in the summer, if you sit for a long time, there will always be red marks where the skin of your thighs touches the stool, which will make it embarrassing to stand up.
"Haha, I'm dying of laughter. It turns out people know about this kind of situation." Zhu Zhu also ate the spicy strips with her hands, and her thumb and index finger were stained yellow with oil.
"Shhhhhh!"
When Zhou Xi came back from the balcony, he smelled something, frowned, but didn't say anything.
The sun was still very strong at the end of September. Zhou Xi was carrying a canvas bag and holding an umbrella as he passed by the playground. There was no one there.
Sometimes when she got up at six in the morning and ran laps in the playground, she would always see the national defense class, standing in neat rows and wearing camouflage uniforms.
The sun is not hot, but it is always dazzling. Zhou Xi doesn't like running towards the sun, so she looks elsewhere. She would think that the eyesight of those in the national defense class must be very good.
Yuxiu High School offers many professional classes. She remembered that Yang Jinyang even wanted to join the national defense class to serve as a soldier, but was rejected because of a scar.
Nearing noon, there were only a few people in the breakfast shop. The owner was lying on a chair at the door, fanning himself with a palm-leaf fan, looking drowsy.
"Boss, a bowl of wontons and a fried dough stick."
"Okay, here it is!"
"WeChat payment, nine yuan!"
A clear, mechanical female voice sounded.
In order to save electricity, the small fan hanging on the wall was not turned on. The spider webs were densely entangled with the originally white fan blades. The fan was already very old, but it was a gray witness to the survival of this small shop of a few square meters.
Zhou Xi found a spot for the fan, pulled the cord, and the fan responded with a click, and finally turned its head awkwardly.
"Come on, girl, your wontons are ready!"
"Thank you." Zhou Xi wiped the remaining oil stains on the table and threw the tissue into the trash can covered with a red plastic bag.
Throw the whole fried dough stick into the soup, press it down hard with chopsticks, and the soup will soften the shriveled fried dough stick little by little. The wontons are squeezed aside, and a layer of yellow oil floats on the light soup.
Perhaps because he was really upset in the morning, Zhou Xi put down his chopsticks, too lazy to type, and made a phone call.
No one answered.
Turkey: Where is it?
one two three. . .
Zhou Xi frowned, decisively exited the software, put on headphones, and opened the teaching video.
"Handsome guy, why are you standing at the door? Come in and have a bowl of noodles?"
"Give me a bowl of wontons."
"Okay, here it is!"
"WeChat payment, seven yuan!"
After receiving two messages, Zhou Xi turned off the video and slid his hand down.
Oh, you head: [Guess]
Turkey: [Don't guess, don't wait. 】
Oh, you: [I'm not late, look who this is. 】
"Handsome boy, your little wontons!"
"good!"
Da, da, da! The fan mechanically turned over, ruffling her bangs. Before she could react, Zhou Xi was about to close the small window...
"I am coming!"
Zhou Xi looked up and saw someone sitting opposite him, with a minty scent blowing towards him.
It's her candy.
The phone rang again. Zhou Xi clicked it and saw a photo of her back.
"What a coincidence, we just walked into a store."
"Well, I just got up from school and had breakfast."
Gao Liyang glanced at the swollen, limp fried dough sticks in Zhou Xi's bowl and swallowed. "How can you eat it? The fried dough sticks are soaked in soup. They are drowned. They should be called dead fried dough sticks."
Zhou Xi stared at the photo without any aesthetic angle for a long time, endured it for a while, and clicked save. After all, it was himself.
"Just eat it like this, haven't you ever eaten it before?"
"No, okay, is it delicious?"
"good."
In fact, Zhou Xi had never eaten like this when he was a child. It was once when he went out to play with Yang Jinyang. He didn’t bring much money with him and couldn’t eat. He could only eat at a breakfast stall on the side of the road.
She bought a fried dough stick, which can be broken in the middle. Yang Jinyang threw half of it to her, but she thought it was too dry, so she threw it into the porridge. It tasted pretty good, so she kept eating the fried dough sticks afterwards.
"Next time, I'll try it."
"Candy, when will you return it to me?"
Gao Liyang gently used a spoon to skim off the chopped green onions floating on the soup and scooped up a spoonful of soup: "No, since you said that eating candy means you're in a bad mood, then why not just not eat candy? Then you won't be aware of your bad mood."
Gao Liyang took out the iron box from his bag and shook it in front of Zhou Xi. He knew the candy was round right away.
It's like the sound of glass beads colliding with metal, crisp and clear under the scorching sun, reminding people of the collision of straws and ice cubes in milk tea.
"Wrong logic, can you finish it?"
This candy was something Yang Jinyang gave her that day, hidden among the snacks. There was a sticky note on it. She was used to being a doctor, so it took her a long time to recognize the three words on the scribble.
Eat less.
She didn't notice it at the time. It was several days later when Gao Liyang was hungry and asked her for snacks. She just threw the bag over to him, but she didn't expect Gao Liyang to dig it out.
Just, snatched it away.
"This brand is really awful. It's too cold. It's a concentrated essence. But it doesn't matter. I can take one pill now and then. It's very effective. I'll finish it one day."
"Forget it, you eat it, eat it, I don't like it either."
"Yeah, if you don't like it, don't force yourself to eat it. You can try eating something delicious. This thing, though..."
Zhou Xi didn’t like eating this kind of cold food. She was young at that time, and the first time she ate it was because of Yang Jinyang.
On a gloomy day when it was about to rain, Yang Jinyang mysteriously put a piece of cigarette in her mouth and forbade her to open her mouth. Then he took her to a windy place and asked her to open her mouth, which she did.
For the first time, she experienced the feeling of being unable to breathe. Her throat felt like someone was strangling her. She coughed so hard that tears came out, and she immediately vomited.
But he was young and his voice was fragile. The next day, his throat was so sore that he couldn't speak, so Yang Jinyang got the beating he wanted.
Later, she didn't touch this kind of candy for a long time, and even the cooling oil was included in it.
Why did she eat it again? Maybe this feeling could make her sober.
The second time she ate it was when her father died. When she played the piano again, her head was like a mess, buzzing. She couldn't stand it, so she ran to the convenience store to buy some water. When she was checking out, she saw colorful chewing gum and cooling candies on the counter, and for some reason she reached out and took a box.
When I open my mouth and inhale just a little bit of air, my throat will feel like it's being pricked by needles, so painful that I want to cough. I can even smell a chill in my nose, or something like rust.
Just like that, one box after another, the candy will be finished.
"Hey, what are you daydreaming about?" Gao Liyang raised his hand and shook it.
"fine."
The fan turned on again, and Zhou Xi could still faintly smell a hint of mint candy. Perhaps it was time to stop it.
The calm soup surface was blown into a ripple, and the next second, the plastic spoon completely broke the balance.
"Eat more, and I'll buy you more when you're done."
"Haha, Zhou Xiaoxi, you are so domineering!"
"Where's Chen Yu? You didn't come out with him?" Gao Liyang saw Lu Zisheng sending a message, and there were still five minutes left.
"He's on the next bus."
At that time, Zhou Xi swiped her card to get on the bus. There were only a few scattered people on the bus. There was no time for her to find a seat. The driver quickly closed the door and sped out. She staggered, holding on to the straps, and found her seat with balanced steps.
The bus suddenly slowed down, made a sharp turn, changed lanes, and accelerated again. It passed the school again. Zhou Xi just saw Chen Yu using facial recognition to pass through the gate.
"All right."
"Only good students like us would not stay at home on the weekend to enjoy the air conditioning and play with our phones, but run out in this hot sun to study in the bookstore. Wow, they're working so hard, I can't even bear to watch them!"
"You are quite serious now. You even took the initiative to ask me to study with you." Zhou Xi put down his chopsticks, reached out to tear off a piece of paper, wiped his mouth, and there was still some mushy wonton wrapper left in the bowl.
"That's right. I'm bored at home anyway. Even if I don't do the test paper, it's always good to read a book. Hey, after this week, it's National Day holiday next week!"
"Let's go!"
The fourth floor is the study area, and the Step Bookstore directly occupies one-third of it. However, there are very few people on the fourth floor at this time. Who wants to come out in the scorching sun? At this time, everyone goes home, begs for food from their mothers, and goes to bed.
"Damn! I'm so fucking tired!" Lu Zisheng couldn't sit still for half an hour and wanted to pull Chen Yu aside to talk.
"Then you play games for a while." Chen Yu lowered his head, paused for a moment and continued to solve the problem.
"They say that those who keep company with vermilion become red, and those who keep company with ink become black. Is that really the case? I don't think so. It's all your fault, Yangyang. Why did I ask you to tip off my mom?"
When Lu Zisheng heard Gao Liyang say that he wanted to go out to study, he refused outright. Unexpectedly, his grandson leaked the information to his mother. How could his mother miss such an opportunity for him to study? She threatened him with pocket money.
Lu Zisheng whispered in the microphone room. Seeing an old acquaintance, he immediately waved: "Bai Yu! Bai Yu! This! This!"
"What's wrong?" Bai Yu took a resource book and was about to go back to the front desk. "What do you need?"
"Hey, I'm curious and want to interview you. How do you feel about being suppressed by them for so long?"
Bai Yu took off his employee apron, sat next to Chen Yu, and snorted softly: "Think about it, it's just first place!"
"Tsk tsk tsk! Sour grapes, but I think you're quite capable. You're still working on a weekend."
Bai Yu didn't say anything. Zhou Xi looked at Lu Zisheng and found it a little funny.
"Zhou Xi, what a pity, you chose politics, history and geography. We are not in the same field."
"It's okay. He's here even when I'm not here. It's more than enough, right, Chen Yu?"
"I'll try my best." Chen Yu was frugal with his words.
"Yangyang, listen, what chilling words! Trash like us don't even have a say!"
Gao Liyang laughed: "You are a scumbag, I didn't say I was."
Lu Zisheng looked down on him: “You!”
"Chen Yu, I want to ask you a few questions."
"you say."
“…”
"Look, the academic master is worthy of being an academic master. He is not ashamed to ask questions and is eager to learn. He takes all this time to answer questions. He is too eager. I'd better play a game to comfort myself."
Lu Zisheng felt that Bai Yu and Chen Yu were huddled together, nodding their heads, just like chicks pecking at rice, cluck cluck cluck, you cluck this and I cluck no.
Gao Liyang patted Lu Zisheng and said, "Remember to mute it."
"Oh, I see. I am a well-educated person."
Lu Zisheng was playing a game when a corner of the screen went black.
"You guys, what are you doing?"
Lu Zisheng looked up, then immediately lowered his head: "Ahhhhh! Hot pot! Die, die!"
Gao Liyang reminded: "Lu Zisheng, quality."
"Okay, forget it, I won't fight anymore."
Chen Yu moved to the side, raised his chin, and grew taller and thinner.
"Thank you." Bai Yu didn't hear Chen Yu speak for a long time, so he followed his gaze and saw a man wearing a black hat. He looked about the same age as them, but the man looked at him, glanced at him, and then looked away, as if he was hostile.
"You're welcome."
"Hotpot! Why are you here? Come on, come on, sit down!"
"Buy books."
Bai Yu stood up, picked up his things, and nodded slightly: "I'm leaving first, come find me when you buy books."
"Bye-Bye!"
Chen Yu withdrew his gaze and put away the messy draft paper. Le Cheng happened to be sitting in the empty seat vacated by Bai Yu.
"What can't I see?" Le Cheng stared at the bloodless and skinny hand in front of him and frowned.
"Nothing much, just the steps to solve the problem, nothing interesting to see."
"Yeah, even after watching it I still don't understand it."
Lu Zisheng sensed the strange atmosphere between the two of them, scratched his head, and interrupted: "Hey, Hotpot, it's been a while since you two last met."
"Yeah, we haven't been in touch much anymore. He's been busy with his studies. I think he's lost a lot of weight. He's really working hard. So, have you decided which university to apply to?"
"He's busy, holding a book every day. He even caught a cold a while ago. I was afraid he might infect me!"
"Let's go to Qingda."
"Damn! Chen Yu, you are so ambitious! Maybe I will be in some idiot university by then. Don't forget me then, and you'd better hold me in your arms." Lu Zisheng looked down at the game interface on his phone. It was too damn dazzling.
"Oh, you'd better not forget your former deskmate when the time comes."
Chen Yu felt Le Cheng's elbow touch his, and he dodged it in an instant.
The temperature was much higher than his, but in this bookstore filled with low-temperature air conditioning, it was comfortable to touch.
He is always cold.
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