When Chu Li returned home and opened the door outside the yard, Ergou was already lying on the door wagging his tail - his enthusiasm was exactly like that of "I've been waiting all day and finally a living person comes back."

Chu Li opened the door, hugged Er Gouzi and rubbed against him, then the man and the dog walked into the house... Unintentionally, they walked to a tightly closed door. The dog squatted at the door, and the man leaned against the wall. Chu Li knocked on the door with his fingers: "Is the big brother inside still alive?"

In response, the music in the room was turned up a bit, "Lost River"... Although no one knew what the people in the room had experienced, Chu Li was now very afraid that one day when she opened the door, Batman or the Hulk would fly out.

Chu Li: "..."

Chu Li: "Teacher, what do you want to eat tonight?"

The room was silent for a long time, and then footsteps were heard from inside. Chu Li guessed that it was probably the man who stood up and walked to the door. Then there was a slight "clang" sound from the other side, like the sound of a forehead hitting the door... Chu Li took a small step back, and then heard the man's voice ringing close to him: "Meat."

His voice was deep and hoarse, as if he had smoked ten thousand cigarettes and then sang "Qinghai-Tibet Plateau" ten times in the room.

Chu Li: "Teacher, you still..."

Still human?

The words that were about to come out of her mouth were swallowed back forcefully. The strong low pressure and the feeling of dejection of "I gave up on life and life gave up on me" floated out from the crack of the door under her feet, making her sniffle slightly... Chu Li wanted to take Er Gouzi and escape, but when she thought about the deadline for submitting the front matter project that was on the verge of death, she hardened her heart, stood firm, and knocked on the door again: "What meat? Open the door first, I can't hear what you are saying through the door..."

There was silence inside the door for a while.

Then with a "click" sound, a crack was opened from the inside. The room was dark and the man's voice like a broken bellows sounded again: "I said, I think..."

Before he could finish his words, the person outside the door had already stretched out his hand, reached into the crack of the door with lightning speed, and grabbed the man's wrist with his backhand. The words that Zhu Chuan didn't have time to finish were blocked in his throat because of surprise. The next second, he was blinded by the light outside the door...

The little claws holding his wrist were slightly cold throughout the whole process, because of the tendency to knock on the door. The next second when the door opened, the person outside also crashed into his arms...Zhu Chuan subconsciously raised his other hand to hold the thing in his arms, and the two of them hugged each other and stumbled backwards -

Chu Li half-knelt in front of the bed until the man sat steadily on the bed, her hand still tightly holding his wrist.

Silence for a few seconds.

Chu Li realized that what was vibrating in her ears was the man's calm breathing. She was stunned for a moment and lifted her head from his chest muscles. She raised her head and saw the man's jaw, which should have had a beautiful curve... but now it was covered by messy stubble.

Chu Li's eyes were stung.

"Don't get up yet," the man said calmly, "Men and women should not have intimate contact, what are you doing pushing me down on the bed?"

"..." Chu Li hurriedly climbed out of the man's arms. At the same time, he let go of his wrist, took two steps back, and looked him up and down. After a long while, he said, "Where is the last handsome writer of the late 20th century... What's wrong with your caveman look?"

At this time, the man sitting on the bed was still immersed in the confusion of the sudden disappearance of the soft touch on his wrist... When he reacted, the soft thing in his arms also disappeared, and he scratched the thing that was originally placed on his thigh unconsciously.

There is still a faint fragrance left at the tip of my nose, a mixture of sunlight, sweat, and detergent...

Ah, this smell.

One day, I also smelled it in the editorial office of Moonlight magazine.

Looking at the person above him who was looking at him with curiosity, the man's pupils shrank slightly, and the hand on his leg clenched into a fist silently and then released it. He had an impulse to pat his thigh and let her sit back down... Of course, this crazy idea was rejected by him in just a second, so when he opened his mouth, it was irrelevant: "What kind of caveman is this? Not leaving the room doesn't mean I don't take a shower. I take a shower every day."

...What's with that arrogant tone of "who are you looking down on"? What's wrong with taking a bath every day? It's over 30 degrees outside, like a furnace every day. Even beggars know to jump into the river and take a dip after work. Teacher, do you look more noble than them by taking a bath every day?

Chu Li wiped his face and turned around to find a chair to sit down, but he couldn't find one after searching for a long time. He looked down at the floor and was about to sit down right there, but he heard the man suddenly say, "You can't find a chair because the bedroom is not a place for guests. Don't you get the obvious intention of the host?"

Chu Li: "..."

Zhuochuan: "Get out."

Chu Li sat down on the ground with his legs crossed.

Zhuchuan: “…”

Looking down at the little girl who was staring at him with her face raised, the man was silent for a moment: "Why are you so arrogant?"

Hearing this, Chu Li was a little hurt. He took a deep breath, his eyes sparkling: "Yes, yes, yes, I know I am staying at your house for nothing, and I am so shameless to bother you all day and urge you to submit your manuscript! But since we live under the same roof, we are at least a little more familiar than nodding acquaintances, right? So you lock yourself in the room day and night, I care about you - yes, I care about you knocking on your door one day and finding no sound, and when I come back from work and find you hanging yourself on the ceiling, your body is stiff and the spots are all suffocated. After all, the weather is so hot these days... I asked you what happened but you didn’t tell me. You didn’t reply to your QQ messages, your mobile phone text messages, and your WeChat friends verification. You may think I’m meddling in other people’s business. Weibo tracking shows that you haven’t been on Weibo for almost ten days. Your fans are about to call the police, don’t you know? Teacher Zhechuan, even if you think I’m meddling in other people’s business, I still want to ask you what happened to you in S Province. Did they hang you up and whip you with a whip to force you to write serious literary works or something? How could a good person be tortured like this? You don’t write, you don’t walk your dog, and you don’t hand in your manuscripts…”

Chuli nagging.

Although he talked a lot, Zhuchuan felt that the key points were in the last twelve words.

——Especially the last four words.

The man sat on the bed, staring at the pair of black eyes that were still flickering in the darkness, looking even more pitiful than Er Gouzi's. After a long pause, he slowly said, "Why are you so emotional? I just asked why your face is so big, the kind of thing in terms of your appearance."

The man made an "L" shape with his thumbs and index fingers and drew his face: "Big."

The worry on Chu Li’s face solidified for a moment—

She slowly raised her hands, twirled the hair on both sides of her ears, and pulled it up to cover her face.

"…Is that so?"

"What are you doing stupid?"

“…”

While Chu Li put down his hand in silence, Zhuo Chuan changed his sitting position and said in a rare patient tone: "Can you please go out? I'm fine, can't I just take a two-day break? Civil servants have annual leave, and it's like digging up the tomb of Qin Shi Huang for a writer to take a break for ten days or half a month, which is shocking?

Chu Li pointed at the tightly drawn blackout curtains in Chu Chuan's room, and then at the speakers next to the computer that were playing "Lost River" on a loop, as well as the harem anime that was playing on the computer that had nothing to do with the environment at this moment...

Creepy.

"No one rests like you." Chu Li got up from the ground, "I've decided not to eat at home tonight. Let's go out to eat. I'll treat you. I know there's a middle school nearby. The rice in the restaurant next door is super delicious—"

As she spoke, she reached out to pull the man's wrist. In the darkness, she couldn't see the man's eyes flashing, and he shrank back to avoid her pull: "Going out to eat? You've violated Article 7 of the [30 Tenant Rules], which prohibits taking out inferior food as good ones; and you just violated Article 8, which prohibits taking advantage of the convenience of living under the same roof to urge the landlord to submit manuscripts, which goes beyond the "landlord and tenant" relationship..."

"Shut up!"

Chu Li reached out and covered his unshaven mouth.

Zhuchuan: “…”

That mixed smell of sunlight, sweat and detergent is here again.

The little paws pressing on his nose and lips were as soft as glutinous rice balls, cold, uh, glutinous rice balls that had just been taken out of the refrigerator.

The room suddenly became quiet.

Take your hands away for the first time.

Zhuo Chuan: "The fourth rule is to respect the landlord; the fifth rule is to love the landlord..."

Chu Li: "I'll wait for you outside."

After leaving behind such a decisive remark, the little girl bent down, patted the head of the big dog squatting beside her, turned around, and walked out of the man's dark room with the dog - outside the living room, the sun was setting, and the orange light seeped into the house from the window like orange juice, and the light enveloped the outline of her back into a circle of faint halo.

This scene was frozen in the eyes of the man curled up on the bed.

Thirty seconds later, he did something that he thought he would never do and no one could force him to do: he gently dropped his feet from the bed onto the carpet, feeling his calves exerting force.

He was stunned.

It was a command from the brain, and it was clear: I was to stand up, follow her, and walk out of the room.

And at this time.

There were still exactly seventeen days, four hours, thirty-six minutes and eighteen seconds left before Zhuchuan's originally planned end of his "seclusion and cultivation".

…

The man took his phone and opened his Weibo for the first time in many days. He ignored the tens of thousands of missing person notices@ that had accumulated over the past ten days, as well as all kinds of angry, worried, anxious and uneasy comments, and posted a Weibo.

Very short, just a few words.

…

At the same time, Chu Li, who was standing outside the door, felt her cell phone ring with a Weibo special attention update notification. She paused and took it out to take a look curiously, only to find a new Weibo post by @晝川 about ten seconds ago.

Very short, just a few words.

【Zhuchuan: I was seduced by the light. 】

Chu Li: "..."

First Li: “????”

Looking up, the black man looked at the half-open, dark room not far away with a questioning look on his face. Chu Li raised his voice and asked, "What light is that poet from the cave on the top of the mountain? There is light in your room? Maybe you have been covering it for too long and are hallucinating..."

There was silence in the room for about ten seconds. After ten seconds, the man's angry voice sounded -

"Shut up."