6
A cool breeze blows.
Xiao Mingyang parked the shared bicycle at a parking spot near the 7 Days convenience store, and Li Xiangze locked the bicycle next to him.
"Wait here for a while, I'll go buy something to drink." Xiao Mingyang said.
Li Xiangze squatted down and locked the car: "Yes."
Xiao Mingyang walked a few steps towards the convenience store and turned back to see Li Xiangze staring at the ground in a daze.
I don’t know what he is thinking.
He turned back again.
Li Xiangze looked up at him and raised his eyebrows: "Hmm?"
"No, someone still needs to accompany me." Xiao Mingyang said confidently.
Li Xiangze: "..."
Li Xiangze: "How old are you?"
Xiao Mingyang: "I am three years old this year."
The corners of Li Xiangze's mouth twitched.
"Hey," Xiao Mingyang walked over and pulled him up from the ground, hugged him and walked towards the convenience store, "Let's go~"
Li Xiangze: "..."
Li Xiangze: "Don't pinch it."
Xiao Mingyang: "Okay geigei~"
Li Xiangze: "..."
＊
The convenience store was opposite a small park. Xiao Mingyang took him down along the cobblestone path of the park and stopped halfway.
"Is your pocket deep enough?" Xiao Mingyang suddenly asked.
Li Xiangze put his hands in his pockets. The weather had been quite hot these past two days, so he wore a T-shirt and casual pants. The pockets of his casual pants were only big enough for a cell phone. "Is it okay?"
"Forget it," Xiao Mingyang took the Assam that he had just taken out of the refrigerator and stuffed it into his own pocket. He zipped up one of his trouser pockets and stuffed his phone into the other person's trouser pocket. After making sure it was safe, he grabbed the tree beside the cobblestone road and jumped down from the cobblestone road, "Follow me."
This road has not been repaired by humans and is uneven, but it is not very dangerous.
Xiao Mingyang led the way and introduced him.
This is his and his uncle's secret base. When they first came here, the park had not been built yet and the road was more dangerous than it is now. He and his uncle called this an "adventure."
Going down, they came to a small river beach.
The riverbank is covered with pebbles. Looking up, you can see thousands of lights on the opposite bank and the surging river in front of you.
There are no lights in this place, so the other side of the river seems particularly bright.
Li Xiangze stared at the other side of the river in a daze, and it took him a long time to recover.
This was something he had never seen before, but was described in the book, a myriad of lights.
Xiao Mingyang poked the small mole at the corner of his mouth and chuckled: "Looks good, doesn't it?"
Li Xiangze nodded: "Yeah."
Xiao Mingyang put the drink on the ground, found a stone on the riverbank, and shouted: "Biu!"
The stone floated across the water, cutting through the surface, and in just two strokes, it sank to the bottom.
Li Xiangze looked at him and laughed: "Two."
Xiao Mingyang: "..."
For a moment, he couldn't tell whether his wife was scolding him or helping him count.
Xiao Mingyang: "Thank you."
Li Xiangze also found a stone and made seven water skips without any special sound effects.
Xiao Mingyang clapped his hands vigorously and shouted, "Awesome! This is the first time I've seen seven!"
"Is this the first time I've seen it?" He threw another stone, and this time 8 of them floated.
Xiao Mingyang took out his phone and recorded the scene, his eyes wide open: "Oh my god... Water-skiing Master!"
Li Xiangze was amused by him and waved at him: "Come here, I'll teach you."
Xiao Mingyang put his cell phone in his pocket and walked over happily.
Li Xiangze squatted down and searched on the ground: "First, find a round, thin, smooth stone." Soon he found one and handed it to Xiao Mingyang, "Like this."
Xiao Mingyang also squatted down and searched for stones on the ground. After a while, he picked up a stone, looked left and right, then held the stone in his palm and handed it to Li Xiangze: "Look."
Li Xiangze: “?”
In his eyes, it was just an ordinary stone that could not be skipped.
Xiao Mingyang had a smile on his face and his eyes sparkled with excitement: "Love!"
He put the stone in his wife's hand and said, "This is for you!"
Li Xiangze looked at the stone in his hand and smiled. An invisible heat wave enveloped his heart. The thorn in his heart was softened by this heat wave and became less painful.
Xiao Mingyang is really...
He put the stone in his trouser pocket: "Thank you."
"Hey, wait!" Xiao Mingyang took out his phone again, "I've never seen such a perfect heart-shaped stone before! Take a picture for me first."
Li Xiangze raised his eyebrows and took the stone out of his pocket again.
"You hold it, I'll find the angle." Xiao Mingyang frowned, his eyes fixed on the phone screen, quite seriously.
He fired the flash.
The screen not only recorded the stone, but what attracted him even more was the hand holding the stone.
Fair and slender.
He stared at the screen in a daze.
"Are you ready?" Li Xiangze asked.
Xiao Mingyang immediately came back to his senses and sent the picture to Xiao Dayang, captioning it "A token of love." He then put his phone back in his pocket and said, "Alright, alright."
A whistle sounded not far away.
The ship is coming.
It is a very large cruise ship with brilliant lights.
Xiao Mingyang had seen it before and thought it was nothing special, so he continued to look for stones. He found an almost perfect stone and wanted to show it to his wife. When he looked up, he saw Li Xiangze staring at the cruise ship with amazement in his eyes.
Xiao Mingyang put the almost perfect stone aside and took the drink.
He unscrewed the Assam and handed it to Li Xiangze.
Li Xiangze said thank you and took the drink, his eyes still on the cruise ship.
"Very beautiful." Xiao Mingyang turned his head to look at him, his eyes reflecting the colorful lights of the cruise ship. In his eyes, there was desire and expectation, but more of it, loneliness.
"Um."
The cruise ship had gone far away. Li Xiangze withdrew his gaze, drank a sip of milk tea, and looked at the other side silently.
Xiao Mingyang moved closer to him, opened his Coke, and held it out to him: "Cheers!"
Li Xiangze touched his Assam with his hand and said, "Hmm."
The two of them sat there silently drinking their drinks. After a few minutes of silence, the distant whistle sounded again. Xiao Mingyang spoke carefully, "If you have anything to say, you can tell me..."
After saying this, he secretly glanced at Li Xiangze, who happened to be looking at him as well.
Li Xiangze didn't say anything, just looked at him, his fingers gently tapping the bottle of Assam.
"If you don't want to say it, then..."
Li Xiangze interrupted, "My father...had an accident at the factory when I was seven. My mom and I borrowed money from everywhere, but we couldn't save him. We ended up owing a large sum of money, which we've almost paid back over the years. I had been thinking of working at a bar this semester, and with the money from Mom, I could pay it off."
Xiao Mingyang looked at the tears in his eyes. Although he had known it for a long time, he still froze for a moment. He didn't say anything, but just looked at him quietly.
He concealed the death of his grandparents and continued the story that Xiao Dayang had not finished.
After his father died, his mother was depressed for a long time. Li Xiangze went to school and came home as usual every day and took care of the housework.
Rumors spread throughout the village.
My mother and Li Xiangze were both labeled as jinxes, and everyone kept a distance from them.
They watched Li Xiangze living his normal life and began to say that he was cold-blooded and unfilial.
Is it necessary to cry loudly and shed tears every day to be considered filial?
The dead cannot be resurrected, so shouldn’t the living live a normal life?
What's more, if he also fell, how would he and his mother survive?
He turned a deaf ear to the villagers' attitude.
Until that day, his mother suddenly came to pick him up and heard his classmates insulting him at the school gate.
His mother squatted down and touched his face: "Shall we leave here and go to the county?"
After that day, they left the village and went to the county with the little compensation they had left and the debts they were carrying.
My mother was no longer depressed and opened a restaurant.
Li Xiangze studies hard and receives a scholarship from the school every semester.
Life is getting better day by day.
Does mother miss father?
Perhaps because of this, every night Li Xiangze would listen to his mother and father's acquaintance and understanding. In his mother's words, his father was a capable, honest and responsible man.
But what is the reality?
"I just found out today that he was gambling in the city without telling us," Li Xiangze said, his voice choking as he clutched the bottle of Assam in his right hand. "My mother is paying it back without telling me."
After taking the last sip of milk tea, Li Xiangze looked at the lights in the distance, his voice trembling, "We agreed to face this together, why..." He gritted his teeth, almost squeezing out the words, "Why..."
Xiao Mingyang felt as if his heart was being squeezed hard by someone, and he felt very uncomfortable.
He hugged Li Xiangze tightly and said with a nasal voice: "Li Xiangze...you are so fucking awesome!"
Tears flowed unconsciously.
Li Xiangze chuckled softly and patted him on the back: "I'm not crying, why are you crying?"
"I'll help you cry." After saying that, he burst into tears.
Li Xiangze smiled helplessly, buried his head in his neck, breathing in his unique scent, feeling extremely at ease.
"By the way," Li Xiangze patted him on the back, "give me your friend."
Xiao Mingyang choked up: "No need, I transferred it to him."
"You..." Li Xiangze smiled, "Then I'll transfer the money to you at the end of the month."
Xiao Mingyang wanted to say that he didn't need to return it, but after thinking about it, he held it back and sniffed: "Okay... What was your English score at the end of last semester?"
"147, what's wrong?"
"Please help me with my English," Xiao Mingyang said. "Just give me some tutoring when you have time. Two years... 100,000 is okay?"
Li Xiangze leaned back, peeled Xiao Mingyang off his body, looked into his eyes, and said seriously: "Thank you."
"But no need," Li Xiangze added, "I can give you extra lessons. 30 per lesson will be enough."
"It's too little. I used to get 300 for an hour of tutoring." said Young Master Xiao.
"I'm just an ordinary high school student. I don't need that much."
"100."
Li Xiangze laughed: "Xiao Mingyang, how can you bargain like that?"
"100!" Xiao Mingyang emphasized.
Li Xiangze refused to budge: "30, that was the price I paid in Donghe County before."
Xiao Mingyang curled his lips: "Okay..."
Li Xiangze stood up and glanced at the time: "Let's go back. We have an exam tomorrow morning."
Xiao Mingyang got up from the ground and patted his pants: "Where is your car?"
Li Xiangze raised his eyebrows: "Didn't they just stop at the same time?"
"No, I'm asking where you're going to put it when you get back to school. You can't possibly move it in, right?"
"There's a tree there where we dug it out from the school. We can tie it to the tree."
"How do you know that way to get out?" Xiao Mingyang walked up to him, hugged him, and took him back the way he came.
"School forum." Li Xiangze said.
"Forum?" Xiao Mingyang raised his eyebrows. "Wasn't that a popular thing in the 2000s? Isn't it just campus walls now?"
Li Xiangze nodded. "There's one at the Teachers' Affiliated School, but it's quite old. There's a post there mentioning it. I figured the Teachers' Affiliated School hadn't been renovated in recent years, so before Old Yang called me over, I went to scout out the route."
Xiao Mingyang curled his lips: "Okay, okay, you'd rather look through the forum than ask me, right?"
"You don't look like someone who knows these things." Li Xiangze said truthfully.
Xiao Mingyang touched his chin: "It seems that I did a good job on the surface?"
Li Xiangze was amused by him.
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