Grandma never tires of watching the Journey to the West, a show she never tires of. She picks vegetables while checking her brother's return time, then bustles around in the kitchen. It's raining again, and the cold weather is so cold that she drags herself from her room to grab a large duvet, covering her legs with it, and quickly changes the channel while Grandma is away.
At dinner that night, she sniffed her brother's scent carefully. Surprisingly, the cigarette smell was gone, replaced by a faint, fresh smell of mowed grass. It wasn't until much later that she realized that her brother always smoked when he was stressed, a secret his family never knew.
Recently, my parents have been calling home more and more frequently. Every time they start arguing with my brother, my grandmother has to take the call and patiently tell them about the situation at home, which helps to ease the conflict.
Mu Zishan always felt that she was freer than her brother. At least her parents gave her free rein, and she was also doted on by her grandmother.
Grandma attended my brother's last parent-teacher conference at school. She came home beaming with joy, even buying the best beef from the supermarket downstairs and greeting everyone she met. After that, the whole family was impressed by him, me included. Grandma said that with his grades, he could get into any good university in China, and even study abroad if he wanted. Dad sent him a bunch of computer software from Beijing, and Mom gave him a lot of extra pocket money—she didn't know how much. Anyway, he enrolled in driving school the next day, got his license within a month, and now has space for a car in their parking space.
After my brother finished his college entrance exam, Zibai invited his classmates to his home, but they brought their own food and even cooked their own meals. Grandma, feeling the house was so lively for the first time, asked her to accompany her to a larger supermarket to buy a lot of snacks and even some wine, a favorite among young people.
She didn't particularly like her brother's classmates because the boys loved to touch her head and the girls loved to touch her face, treating her like a living stuffed animal. They chatted endlessly, reminiscing about life and their dreams, and even goaded one girl into confessing her love to her brother. Luckily, her grandmother went to bed early; if she had seen all this, her heart wouldn't have been able to bear it.
The girl who liked Mu Zibai was called Dong Youyou. She had come with her twin brother, Dong Xiuxiu, because he and Mu Zibai were in the same class. He was the same person Mu Zishan had seen outside the school gate last time. She was pretty and very kind, with a sweet voice. She said she wanted to open an orphanage, a nursing home, or a rehabilitation center when she grew up. However, Mu Zibai didn't accept her confession, which made Dong Youyou cry.
Shortly after graduation, Mu Zibai received his acceptance letter, and he stayed in Chongqing. His parents couldn't understand his decision, and his grandmother sighed, saying that she was old and her heart couldn't withstand such ups and downs. She insisted on returning to her hometown to enjoy her retirement.
No one in Mu Zibai's family knew what he was thinking. When the college entrance examination results came out, he became the top scorer. His teacher was sure that he would be admitted to a university in Beijing. His mother had prepared everything for him in Shanghai, but no one thought he would stay.
After grandma returned to her hometown, his cooking became worse and worse. Finally, under her coercion and inducement, he drove her out to eat hot pot for a rare occasion.
She unceremoniously ordered several of the most expensive beef and fish fillets in the restaurant. Her brother hit her on the head with his chopsticks: "If you keep eating like this, you'll go bankrupt sooner or later."
She pursed her lips, holding her face and said, "Look, your sister has become so thin after so many days of vacation that her bones are almost touching your hands. How can she not eat?"
He smiled evilly: "Bone beauty is popular now. Who would like to see if you are fat?"
She didn't want to argue with him. She had thought that once he went to college and could go far away, she wouldn't be bullied by him anymore. But who knew that he got admitted to a nearby university and wanted to come back to live with her? It made her sad just thinking about it.
The second floor seemed particularly lively. The waiter said that it was reserved by a future college student who had been admitted to Beijing. All the relatives and friends of the family were there, so how could it not be lively? Mu Zishan looked at his brother timidly. His eyes rolled around, as if he knew who the person upstairs was.
Sure enough, after a while, a man came down from upstairs to look for the toilet. Seeing my brother sitting by the window, he walked over and greeted him sarcastically: "Zibai, you are here too? I thought you didn't go out." He also looked at Mu Zishan, and the smile on his face became very weird.
"Dead people don't go out."
My brother always answered questions with sharp answers, making her look down and try hard not to laugh. She was not stupid, so my brother must not like this person.
"Since we meet, why not come up and sit with me?" He also seemed a little embarrassed.
"No need. We're not in the same class. It would be awkward if we went."
The other party did not ask any more questions and went up to the second floor with the others who followed him down. She wanted to ask something, but she heard the people upstairs talking loudly about her brother.
It turns out that the guy just now was the protagonist on the second floor. He and my brother were both on the basketball team, but my brother seemed to be more popular with the girls at school. Dong Youyou's name was also mentioned in the post, and he was competing with my brother again in the college entrance examination. Although he didn't have the same high score as my brother, he got into a better school than him. How could he not be so arrogant?
As they drove home, they saw the boy helping Dong Youyou flag down a car. She'd wanted him to give her a ride home, but he was driving so fast he didn't even give her time to say hello. She could only see Dong Youyou staring in the rearview mirror at the direction they were leaving.
Since we got a car, things have become much more convenient, especially when we go back to Grandma's house. We can enjoy the scenery along the way and play with the goats along the way. Grandma's house is two stories. The first floor is not for living. The second floor originally had three rooms, but the room between the two rooms is filled with all kinds of clutter. My brother and she have to share a room. She sleeps on a Simmons bed, and he sleeps on the antique bed in the corner. When he sits on it, he can even hear its groans.
Mu Zishan has always puzzled over how her grandmother, who would go into asthma even climbing a few stairs in Chongqing, could find the energy to grow vegetables and even raise a variety of poultry in the countryside. The two-story house was designed and arranged entirely to her grandmother's liking, with the ground-floor living room consisting of a simple sofa and dining table. She prefers quiet living, and the house only has an old color TV and a telephone from the last century. Mu Zibai, having lived in her hometown as a child, is far more familiar with the area than her younger sister and has naturally adapted to its surroundings.
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