sleep
Tong Xiaolai knows how to make steamed sea bass, which tastes very good, and he also avoids using coriander, garlic, etc., which Shao Linyin doesn't eat.
Shao Linyin's eyes were always on Tong Xiaolai's face, and he hardly moved his chopsticks.
"Fish on my face?"
Shao Linyin came back to his senses, lowered his head, picked up a piece with chopsticks and put it into his mouth and chewed it. It was very tender, not fishy, and melted in his mouth.
Soon he took the second bite, the third bite...he finished half of the fish, and only took two bites of rice before putting down his chopsticks.
"Xiaolai, your fish is as delicious as my mother's. Her specialty is steamed sea bass."
Tong Xiaolai paused with the chopsticks that were picking up the rice, raised his eyelids slightly, then quickly lowered them again, and continued to eat, waiting for Shao Linyin to come down.
Shao Linyin seldom mentioned his mother, or rather, seldom mentioned his past. He didn't plan to say it this time, and his eyes fell on Tong Xiaolai's face.
He laughed and said, "Xiaolai, you cook so deliciously, who taught you?"
Tong Xiaolai lowered his eyelashes and fed himself with food. After a long silence, he replied, "No one. You'll get it after doing it a few times."
"You are just so smart. You have a better brain than me."
Tong Xiaolai raised his eyelids and looked at Shao Linyin's face seriously, unable to figure out what he wanted to say.
"Xiao Lai, you said you went to junior high school, but you are fifteen now. When did you stop studying?"
After thinking about it all night, this question seemed difficult to answer: "I took the final exam of the first grade of junior high school and graduated at the age of fourteen."
"Ah, then... you've been away for a year now, where are your family? If it's only been a year, then if you got separated from your parents, it's actually pretty easy to find them, or..."
He suddenly remembered something and looked at Tong Xiaolai with an unfathomable smile in his eyes: "You lied to me."
Tong Xiaolai didn't avoid his gaze and replied firmly, "No."
"You said you hadn't slept in a bed in three years. I just thought you had been wandering for three years." Shao Liyin looked at Tong Xiaolai without reproach or anger. Instead, he teased her with the eagerness of a child who had been caught in a lie. "According to what you're saying now, you don't have a bed to sleep in at home?"
Tong Xiaolai's face showed no sign of panic. He still looked at Shao Linyin calmly and repeated, "I didn't lie to you."
Shao Linyin looked at him for a while, and stopped dwelling on this question. He leaned back against the bed, raised his head slightly, and looked at the slightly dim ceiling.
"Xiao Lai, I also came out alone back then, but I was luckier than you. When I was sixteen, I met Sister Chen."
He thought about it and smiled, perhaps not knowing who Sister Chen was: "Sister Chen is the boss of my current company. It was Sister Chen who kept me in her company and found a good master for me.
So, I was able to settle down. Although my life was just like this, at least I had a place to live, a stable home, and a steady income. This is how I got through the past two years, and even if it lasted another ten years, it would still be like this.”
"Xiaolai, you're unlucky to have met me. I can't give you anything. If you leave now, you can still..."
"What do you want to say?" Tong Xiaolai interrupted him.
Shao Liyin was silent, as if thinking about how to phrase it. After a long while, he spoke again: "Well, it's just... I, well, you see, my life is a mess.
Following me isn't a good path for you. I looked it up online and found that at fifteen, you can go to a social welfare institution, where you can study and learn some skills. If you're lucky, you might even meet a kind family willing to adopt you..."
"No." Tong Xiao looked at him, "I'm not going anywhere. Wherever you are, I'm there. Don't mention this again in the future.
Shao Liyin, I told you, I don't need you to support me. I know the best way forward. If one day you think I'm a burden..."
He paused, then continued, "I won't be a burden to you. I'll cook fish for you every day. If you have anything else you want to eat, just tell me and I'll make it. Just treat me as a cook."
"What nonsense! If I disliked you, I wouldn't have kept you in the first place." Shao Linyin was also annoyed.
"Then don't chase me away anymore!" Tong Xiaolai fell silent after shouting this. He stood up, cleared the dishes on the table, and went to the kitchen to wash and clean.
None of them spoke to each other that night. Shao Liyin looked at Tong Xiaolai, who was sitting beside him sullenly, and took out some milk from the refrigerator and placed it next to him: "Don't forget to drink it yourself when I'm not around."
"Why are you not here!" Tong Xiaolai suddenly raised his voice.
Shao Liyin looked at him in surprise and explained hesitantly, "Sometimes the elevator needs urgent repairs, and working overtime all night is common..."
Tong Xiaolai was speechless for a moment and turned his head away from him.
Shao Linyin returned to the table and looked at the book again, but he couldn't concentrate tonight.
At two o'clock, he still couldn't sleep. He sat on the floor next to the bed, staring at Tong Xiaolai who was lying on the floor with his eyes closed and sleeping.
This guy was sleeping very soundly, completely different from the last time when he was curled up like a shrimp. After watching for an hour, this guy slept very soundly for an hour.
I couldn't help but chuckle, "I've never seen anyone sleep so straight."
After saying that, she looked at the thin layer of sweat on his forehead, then stood up and adjusted the only fan so that the wind blew past him, not directly at him, but still provided some breeze.
After adjusting the fan, I came out and saw that the person had changed his posture again, lying on his side with his body slightly bent, seeming more casual.
"You're quite obedient. Are you really sleeping or just pretending?"
“…” The person on the ground didn’t move, and his breathing was still steady.
He laughed again and sat down next to her, leaning against the bed, with his legs bent, his arms folded on his knees, his head tilted and resting on his arms, his eyes looking at the sleeping person, and whispering to himself.
"Laugh..."
"Before she died, my mother told me to eat well, not to skip three meals a day. To sleep well, to get eight hours of sleep a day. To study hard, to live a good life..."
“I don’t think I’ve done any of that…”
"Xiaolai, I don't want you to be like me, why don't you understand..."
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a cigarette dropped to the side. It was handed to him by a customer at the company during the day. The master said it would be bad to refuse, so he took it.
He didn't know how to smoke, so he put it in his pocket and accidentally brought it back.
I took it out while doing laundry and it ended up here.
Suddenly he felt like smoking...
He took the cigarette, opened the door and walked out quietly, walked to the public balcony next to him, glanced at Tong Xiaolai who was still sleeping through the window, and lit the cigarette.
As soon as he took a puff, the smoke rushed into his lungs, causing him to cough violently. Thinking that there were people sleeping in the room and next door, he covered his mouth and coughed for a long time, until tears came out.
This thing is so choking and tastes so bad!
He shook his hands and was about to put out the cigarette, but then he felt it was a pity. He couldn't sleep and there was nothing else he could do. He coughed and finished the cigarette unknowingly.
I don’t know if it’s the effect of nicotine or because of the cough, but after smoking a cigarette, my head really felt much clearer.
Looking at the sky on a midsummer night, he made a decision...
He didn't sleep that night, and then he found that Tong Xiaolai slept very well. Except for that time, he didn't move at all all night.
Thinking about how he could roll from the bed to the window when he slept before, he smiled. It turned out that sleeping with the lights on was the right thing to do.
He went to work late, and Tong Xiaolai also got up late today.
When Tong Xiaolai woke up, he was sitting at the table silently reciting a regulation. He turned his head and looked at him and smiled: "Good morning, why are you so late today?"
Tong Xiaolai was probably in a bad mood after waking up, with a sour face. He ignored him, got up, folded the quilt, and went to the balcony to wash up.
After washing up, I went to the kitchen to cook noodles. While the noodles were cooking, I heated up some rice that I wanted to take out today and put it into the thermos.
When the noodles were brought to Shao Liyin, he replied coldly, "I went out to distribute flyers today. It was hard to pick up bottles in the morning, and I had nowhere to put them."
Speaking of handing out flyers, Shao Linyin paused while eating noodles.
He still had a flyer tucked into his pocket, which the wind had blown to him yesterday and which he had seen while smiling while having dinner the day before yesterday.
He lowered his head and took a mouthful of noodles, his voice a little muffled: "Distributing flyers is good, the money is more than picking up bottles, and you can take some time to rest."
Tong Xiaolai didn't say anything else, just ate his noodles. After finishing his noodles, he took the milk and the thermos and went out.
Shao Liyin looked at the door that was slammed shut: "Hey, this kid is still in a bad mood after waking up!"
He packed up and went to the company. Since there was nothing important to do, he took a day off.
He has other things to do.
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