The place Chu Li took Zhe Chuan to was the alley at the back door of a middle school near his neighborhood. It was dinner time around 7pm, and the whole street was bustling. Vegetable vendors were carrying baskets and shouting; in front of the kebab sellers were groups of students with schoolbags on their backs; there were fruit sellers; there were traditional cake sellers. The whole street was packed...

Most of the small restaurants and milk tea shops on the street were also filled with students - they were all high school sophomores and juniors who had finished their classes and were waiting to finish their meals and go back to their evening self-study classes. Now they were crowded into a small hotel, ordering a meal ranging from five to more than ten yuan. Most of them had a cup of milk tea in front of them, chatting while waiting for their food.

Summer cicadas chirp in my ears, and the earth, which has just been scorched by the sun, transmits the last remaining heat to the soles of my feet through my flip-flops. Not far away, people are talking noisily, some are gossiping, some are talking about the latest exam questions, some are complaining about the heavy workload, and some are discussing the current popular stars or TV series...

——A street full of life in the evening.

A mango cart passed by a roadside puddle, splashing dirty water that almost splashed pedestrians. A group of female students screamed and made a scene to avoid it, and the fruit seller with the cart hastily apologized... With his peripheral vision, he took in this dynamic scene, and his eyebrows twitched. Standing at the street corner, his first reaction was to turn around and walk back. However, Chu Li, who had known that he would do this, stood behind him like a gatekeeper, and stretched out her hands to grab him the moment the man turned around: "You don't want to eat?!"

Zhuo Chuan: "I'll go back and order takeout. It's hot, dirty, and messy here."

"This is called dirty and messy. Which fairy palace did you come from, little fairy? Teacher, stop right there!" Chu Li used her breastfeeding strength to pull back the man who was determined to leave.

"Didn't Yu Yao tell you that I hate being around a lot of people?"

"The position I'm competing for is 'editor', not 'babysitter'!"

"...Now you know."

"Don't even think about going anywhere. Eat here tonight—you need to attract some attention if you stay at home all day!"

"I don't."

“…”

…

Ten minutes later.

Students sitting at the door of a covered restaurant at the end of the street stared in amazement as a young lady in her twenties and an unshaven uncle who was half a head taller than her walked into the store while wrestling with each other. The young lady was holding two cups of milk tea in one hand and holding the uncle's elbow with the other. She shouted to the boss, "Two servings of cumin beef and eggplant," while she pushed her way through the crowded store and pushed the uncle to sit in the corner near the air conditioner... The uncle struggled, complained something in a low voice, and finally sat down one-third of the way on the four-legged bench, and calmed down aggrievedly.

The young lady placed the milk tea between the two of them and sat down opposite the uncle. The two looked at each other expressionlessly for a few seconds, and the young lady said, "Welcome to the mortal world."

Students: “…”

Chu Li took out a cup of milk tea, cut a small hole on the edge of the cup with a small plastic sheet, and then stuffed the cup with cheese foam on the upper layer and ice tea on the lower layer into the man's hand... The man took it, looked at the small hole on the cup, hesitated, took out a handkerchief from his pocket that appeared from nowhere, wiped the lid of the cup carefully, and then took a sip.

Students: “…”

Chu Li rolled his eyes to the back of his head.

Chu Li: “Is it delicious?”

Zhuochuan put down the cup: "Not bad."

Chu Li glanced at him, opened his own milk cap, took a big sip to drive away the heat from the walk, raised his hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead and said lightly: "The chairs in this kind of shop are not as good as the chairs in your home. You sit on one-third of it so frivolously, you will have to fall to the ground in a while."

The man said nothing after hearing this. He just reluctantly moved his butt and looked around. In fact, although the store looked shabby, it was clean inside. The tiles were white, the electric fan was cleaned and squeaked, and the air from the air conditioner did not have any strange smell.

The kitchen is transparent. The owner puts a lot of eggplants into the pot and stir-fries them with garlic. Then, when the fire is just right, he adds more oil. When the eggplants flatten, he adds beef strips, seasonings, and cumin... He needs more oil to make the eggplants into a paste; he needs to be quick so that the beef is not over-fried.

Finally, the owner's daughter-in-law flipped the pot and took the two clay pots off the coal fire, opened the lids, and used a large spoon to scoop the fragrant cumin beef into the two clay pots.

Fifteen seconds later, the two servings of cumin beef in clay pot were placed in front of them... Zhuchuan watched the little girl sitting opposite him cheer, put down her milk tea cup, stared at the fragrant rice in front of him, opened a pair of disposable chopsticks, and rubbed the small thorns on them with skillful technique -

Put the chopsticks under the man's eyes.

Zhuchuan was stunned for a moment, raised his hand to take the chopsticks, and did not move. He stared at Chu Li as she pulled out another pair of chopsticks from the chopstick holder, still skillfully breaking them apart, rubbing them, and then poking the chopsticks into the clay pot rice in front of him, letting the aroma of the rice fill his nose...

The only thing in her eyes was the rice in front of her. A portion cost twelve yuan, but it seemed to make her eyes shine.

While sighing, "How can this little girl be so down-to-earth?", the man held the chopsticks in his hand and watched the person opposite him eating hard...

As he watched, he, who was complaining about "What the hell is this place, it's so noisy, so hot and so chaotic" just a second ago, suddenly felt like he was hungry too.

Zhuchuan: “…”

The fall of a literary great.

The prince is at the beginning of his fall.

The elegant and smoke-free spiritual life is fading away.

The meal standard of not being able to spend less than a hundred yuan for dinner was broken silently.

Zhuchuan picked up his chopsticks and started eating.

Chu Li was busy eating. When her empty stomach was finally filled with food, she slowed down and habitually raised her ears to listen to the gossip of the students around her. As she listened, she suddenly heard a familiar term suddenly drilled into her ears——

"Ahhh, did you guys see that? Big Chuan just posted on Weibo! He's still alive! He hasn't been arrested by the police!"

Arrested by the police? Chuli Black Question Mark Face.

"Really? Really? Let me see. Oh my god, you really made it. What does 'I was seduced by the light' mean? You haven't shown up for so many days and suddenly said this. Are you crazy?"

"I feel like I'm in love."

"Who do you think my husband is in love with? Who?!"

"Leave a comment and ask - what does it mean, are you in love, you said you would marry me when I grow up - send, comment successful."

"…By the way, I want to ask him when he will update. My roommate wants to see his update before he dies…But since he just showed up, it’s not a good idea to rush him to update, right? You should at least show some concern before urging him to update, right?"

"Why are you afraid of being urged to update? There are already 30,000 or 40,000 comments. Half of them are cheering 'Master, you are still alive', and half are complaining 'Master, when will you update'. One more of you is not too much, and one less of you is not too little..."

"What if we drive him crazy?"

Amid the chattering, Chu Li turned around and saw a few little girls in school uniforms huddled together like a flock of little birds, their heads focused on the phone of the little girl in the middle, pointing and talking, and talking non-stop...

Chu Li raised her eyebrows slightly, thinking that it was true that Da Da had thousands of fans. She could meet them wherever she went. Even when she was eating rice, she could bump into a group of them. It was simply incredible. While thinking about it, she also wanted to look up to see how the man would react when he found out that he was loved by a group of high school girls...

But I unexpectedly discovered that the man sitting opposite me was eating quietly in the same posture and speed, occasionally taking a sip of milk cap...

He sat as steady as a mountain.

As if he had not heard, the discussion about himself was taking place.

But at this moment, even with his unshaven beard, wearing a shirt, wide pants and flip-flops, he still stood out among the crowd.

——The topic of discussion among the high school girls behind him has changed from "Is Mr. Chuchuan crazy?" to "Look at the uncle behind him, he looks quite handsome after shaving his beard" and "Shit, maybe he's not an uncle but a brother".

Chu Li smiled with his eyes narrowed.

The man still didn't raise his head, but he finally reacted when Chu Li started to laugh, and said lightly: "Laughing at a man who is eating is like a pervert. Your hobbies are a bit special."

Accustomed to his ridicule, Chu Li smiled and propped his chin with one hand: "Isn't it nice? Sitting among high school students, having a meal, and feeling the breath of youth..."

"The meal is good, but forget about the high school students." Zhuchuan put down his chopsticks and wiped his mouth, "It's noisy."

Chu Li thought about it and lifted his chin from his hands: "Really? I think it's good. People are like this. When you are in elementary school, you look forward to junior high school. In junior high school, you look forward to high school. In high school, you think you are in hell and look forward to college... As a result, after graduating from college and joining the workforce, I suddenly found that the purest and happiest time in my life seemed to be high school. How good it was back then. I didn't have to worry about anything. I just practiced question banks day and night. After school, I would eat at roadside stalls with friends. In the evening, I would study and slap mosquitoes. "

Chu Li laughed again as she spoke: "At that time, I heard the Chinese teacher and the homeroom teacher say things like 'You are the worst class I have ever taught' every day. And when we failed the exams, she cried with us."

Zhuochuan said nothing.

Chu Li took a sip of milk cap and glanced at the man sitting opposite with the edge of the cup: "Do you have no childhood or are you a heart of stone? Don't you miss your student days at all? How can you impress others if you are a writer like a corpse..."

Zhuo Chuan took out some change and put it on the table: "What you drank was milk tea, not wine. Don't make excuses to talk nonsense. You deserve a beating."

Chu Li: "..."

Putting down the money for the meal, the man stood up and walked out of the store.

As the group of girls were saying things like “He’s so tall”, “His nose is so straight”, “Mad looks so handsome with a beard”, Chu Li shouted “Boss, check out” and quickly chased after him…

…

When I walked out of the store again, night had already fallen.

The heat of the day finally dissipated. After eating and drinking, the man slowed down his pace and walked in the middle of the street... He never looked back, he was silent - Chu Li felt that he must be thinking about something, something important.

She put her hands behind her back and followed the man at a quick pace, skipping and jumping.

"Teacher Jiang Yucheng said that you have been depressed these days. It seems that the trigger of all these events is that your high school classmates are going to have a reunion? It is said that during your time in City C, the Chinese teacher who taught you and him happened to retire, so the school planned to gather the outstanding graduates from each year to hold a teacher appreciation banquet or something..."

"He has a mouth full of slits."

"Teacher Jiang Yucheng didn't tell me anything," Chu Li quickly waved her hand to defend her idol. "I asked him what happened to you, and he said you were unhappy about this."

As Chu Li finished speaking, she discovered that the man walking in front of her suddenly stopped.

The man had his back to her. She couldn't see the emotion on his face. She could only tell from his voice that he seemed a little hesitant.

"You just asked me if I didn't have a childhood, or if I was too hard-hearted to miss my student days at all..."

"?"

“I don’t miss it.”

"Eh, how is that possible? Teacher Chuan, you are good-looking, good at studying, and graduated from a prestigious university. Your high school academic career must have been perfect... Especially since you are such a great writer, writing an 800-word essay is no problem. I guess your Chinese teachers are your first batch of fans, right?"

"Not really," the man started walking again, letting the person behind him quicken his pace and walk around to stare at him curiously. He looked into her eyes and said calmly, "In high school, the full score for essays was 60 points. Before the third-year exam, my essays had never scored above 40 points."

Chu Li was stunned.

The man raised his hand and patted the swaying head in front of him. The man paused as he watched the swaying head stop swaying because of his pat, and then a not-so-obvious smile spread in his eyes...

Perhaps it is the quietness of the ears after the hustle and bustle that gives people a strange feeling of being cleared from the fog.

Maybe it's this situation.

Or maybe it was the person in front of me who suddenly wanted to open his mouth, which had been closed for many days, and say something...

It's like a clam with its mouth tightly closed encountering boiling water, forcing it to open its mouth.

In short——

"Let me tell you a story about my friend."

"?"

"My friends are like me."

“…”