Chen Youhan raised his eyebrows in surprise, half-raised his hands and said helplessly and gently: "First of all, I am also surprised."
Ye Kai bent down to pick up the phone, his face expressionless. The light was dim, and Chen Youhan couldn't see his face clearly. He guessed that it might be a little dark. The surprise fell instantly after reaching its peak, and Chen Youhan's heart slowly began to ache. He was still the one who was disliked.
Ye Kai couldn't really make any expression. He turned around dazed and wanted to go back to his room. He took two steps and turned back again, as if to confirm Chen Youhan's presence. Chen Youhan leaned against the door and couldn't help laughing. He put the jacket and the hanger that he hadn't hung up yet into his arms.
Ye Kai finally returned, this time he stared closely at Chen Youhan's face. It was all Jiang Yan's fault for tricking him into drinking mare's milk at night, and then he had to ride the wind through the village all the way back here. The altitude sickness, the unfamiliar climate and the effects of alcohol made his head and heart buzz.
Chen Youhan stretched out a hand and pinched him on the face.
Ye Kai called out softly and raised his hands to cover his face: "What are you doing?"
"Help you make sure it's not a dream."
I don't know who first recalled the foreign meeting in Vancouver that year. He also thought it was a dream, and fearing the pain, he didn't pinch himself but twisted Chen Youhan instead. The two of them fought across the white fence, and Alaska was whimpering and spinning around beside them, causing trouble.
The air became inexplicably quiet, leaving only the Tashi family's bedtime whispers and the pony's snorting.
Ye Kai lowered his eyes, his long eyelashes casting a small shadow under his eyes. He asked softly: "Did you donate to this school?"
Chen Youhan nodded, then realized that Ye Kai was not looking at him, so he said "hmm".
"Last time you talked about building a house in the countryside, was that what you meant?"
Chen Youhan smiled and said, "Almost."
Ye Kai finally raised his head and asked in a daze: "Are you really willing to give up GC?"
"I'm just temporarily handing it over to someone else to take care of it. Even if I really can't go back in the future, I'll just consider it as early retirement," Chen Youhan said self-deprecatingly, "It sounds good."
The long-suppressed emotions in his heart suddenly turned aggrieved and angry. Tears quickly accumulated in his eyes. Ye Kai turned away in embarrassment: "Sometimes I really don't understand you."
"Xiao Kai." Chen Youhan called him.
Ye Kai stopped at the door.
"GC is my responsibility. I saved it not for wealth and power, nor because it is a career I am willing to fight for my whole life, but because GC is not just the GC of the Chen family." Chen Youhan paused, "GC had nearly 3,000 employees before the accident, half of whom had worked here for more than ten years. Once GC collapsed, they had to deliver express and takeout the next day to drive Didi for the sake of their children, houses and elderly people." His tone was gentle, but he put away his usual cynicism, "I'm sorry to disappoint you."
Ye Kai understood all these principles. Chen Youhan knew them, so how could his Ye Kai not understand this?
He just owed him an explanation from the beginning to the end.
Ye Kai didn't look back and slammed the door shut.
The village’s daily routine is synchronized with nature.
Ye Kaitian opened his eyes at dawn, and the first thought in his mind was very disappointing. It turned out that Chen Youhan was also here.
Oh shit.
The whole house was very quiet. He stuck his wrist out of the quilt for five seconds and shivered in the cold air. He retracted his hand and stayed in bed for five minutes with his eyes open until he heard faint laughter and the neighing of horses coming from outside the window.
Ye Kai got out of bed, wrapped himself in a down jacket and went to wash up. The small living room and bathroom were shared. Ye Kai went out with a toothbrush and saw that Chen Youhan's room door was locked. He must still be sleeping after traveling yesterday. Thinking of this, he consciously made a lot less noise while washing up.
Holding a toothbrush in his mouth, he returned to the bedroom and pushed open the heavy glass window. The fresh morning air mixed with the smell of grass, rain and livestock was blown in by the wind. His black hair blew up, and he looked out with half-open eyes, then quickly woke up. On the green meadow extending from Zhaxi's yard, the little white flowers were wilted by the night rain, and the horses were scattered. Chen Youhan was riding a tall brown horse and was raising the whip. Zhaxi laughed beside him, and his five or six-year-old daughter clapped her hands. The horse's front hooves were raised high, Chen Youhan tightened the reins, and whipped the horse's buttocks hard. After a violent neigh, the brown horse took him and ran on the grassland.
Ye Kai was so nervous that he held the toothbrush in his mouth for a long time without moving. It was not until Chen Youhan successfully finished a lap that he stepped away from the window with a look of surprise.
I was touched and heartbroken last night for nothing. That bastard was just here for vacation.
After finishing the preparations, they went downstairs. Tashi's wife, Doji, was distributing dishes to everyone. Because there were two important guests, the breakfast was obviously more than their usual sumptuousness. The silver kettle sat on the small stove, and the lid was bubbling. Ye Kai greeted her and found that the meadow could also be seen from the window of the restaurant. Chen Youhan got off the horse neatly, handed the rolled-up whip to Tashi, and then pulled the bridle to tease the brown horse intimately for a while, and then went to the yard. Ye Kai was afraid that he would see that he was looking at him, so he turned around and hid in the shadows.
"Are you and Mr. Chen used to living here?" Doji poured him a cup of butter tea.
There was a sound of Mr. Chen coming up the stairs. Ye Kai drank his tea calmly. Mr. Chen was surprised to see that he was already sitting in the restaurant having breakfast: "I heard that you slept until after eight o'clock yesterday. Why did you get up so early today?"
Ye Kai choked on the Tibetan meat pie, and the look in his eyes clearly said "What's it got to do with you?"
Chen Youhan passed by him and casually ruffled his hair, then went on to tease Doji's little daughter Ram.
Chinese is taught in school. Ram's Chinese is much more fluent than her parents'. She was amused by Chen Youhan. She hooked her two black little hands together for a while and called out "Brother Youhan" sweetly.
Chen Youhan praised her for being well behaved, lifted her to his lap and sat her in his arms, and broke a bun for her. He did all this very skillfully, and Ye Kai felt that today's butter tea was a little salty and bitter.
Zhaxi teased his little daughter: "Lhamo, have you been wanting to meet Brother Youhan for a long time?"
Ram's eyes were dark and bright. She shyly played with the small emerald beads on her hair accessories and nodded: "Be Brother Youhan's girlfriend."
Even Ye Kai couldn't help laughing. Zhaxi clapped his hands, let Ram come to his arms, and then combed her pigtails and said with a smile: "Then ask Brother Youhan if he has a girlfriend?"
Ye Kai paused, slowed down his chewing, and looked down quietly at the layer of mare's milk floating on the surface of the butter tea in the cup.
The lively atmosphere quieted down, and Ram's dark eyes stared at Chen Youhan confusedly, waiting for his answer.
Chen Youhan said gently: "No, never."
Ye Kai swallowed the beef patty with great effort, feeling choked in the chest, and had to pick up the butter tea and gulp down half a cup.
From the corner of his eye he seemed to catch a glimpse of Chen Youhan glancing at him.
Chen Youhan slowly served himself a bowl of porridge and teased Ram: "Why don't you ask Brother Xiaokai?"
Ram was very smart and immediately said, "Brother Xiaokai has a girlfriend, I know!"
Chen Youhan's smile faded a little: "Really? How did you know?"
Ram was a little embarrassed at this moment. He hooked his fingers together and lowered his head and said softly, "I heard him call at night."
Everyone in the room turned to look at him. Ye Kai had no choice but to nod. He had spoken to Lucas on the phone a few times. He was pursuing her closely. Although Ye Kai was a little evasive, he didn't hate him - he could even be said to have a good impression of him. Since he had a good impression of him, it was understandable that he would say a few ambiguous words when the atmosphere was right.
Ye Kai smiled awkwardly, but in Duoji's eyes, he was just shy. Duoji said, "Brother Xiao Kai and his girlfriend must have a very good relationship."
Without waiting for Ye Kai to answer, Chen Youhan pushed the chair away and stood up.
Everyone looked up at him, and when he spoke again, his voice, which had just been as gentle as spring breeze, suddenly became dry and hoarse, as if the good mood of the morning had been wiped out in an instant. He lowered his head and walked away, saying rudely and hastily, "Have a cigarette."
Ye Kai's project is aimed at rural public welfare education. The volunteer teachers for this summer vacation have already moved in. Jiang Yan took him to the old campus to find the principal and the teacher in charge of the teaching team.
The village primary school is located on the mountainside at an altitude of 3,300 meters. Ye Kai walked out of breath. When he arrived, he didn't have time to say a word. He unscrewed a glucose bottle and drank it. It was so sweet. When his breathing calmed down, the students who ran around the playground after class surrounded him and laughed. This tall and thin teacher was more fun and interesting than the single and double bars, rubber band marbles and tag games.
The principal is a young man from the Naxi ethnic group. His surname is Mu, which is a common surname in the Naxi ethnic group. His given name is Qiong. He was one of the earliest students of the Hope Primary School. After studying at a normal school, he decided to come back to support his hometown. Jiang Yan chatted with him briefly. Mu Qiong shook hands with Ye Kai, clapped his hands to quiet the children, and introduced: "This is the new teacher Ye Kai. Can you call him Teacher Xiao Ye?"
The students applauded in unison, "Hello, Teacher Xiaoye!"
It was the first time that Ye Kai was surrounded by so many people. All of them had bright eyes and did not hide their joy at all. Even though he was used to big scenes, he suddenly felt nervous.
This school has one class for each grade, and the playground can be walked through in a few steps. The cleanest place is probably the flag-raising platform in the middle. The school building is still a brick and mud structure, and the yellow mud has fallen off in many places, revealing the gray bricks inside that have been exposed to the wind and sun.
Ye Kai observed two classes. There were only a dozen or twenty students in one class. The desks were uneven, and some of the tabletops were rotten. Ye Kai sat at the end of the classroom and listened to a Chinese class and a math class with mixed emotions. Qu Jia had long wanted to do rural public welfare education, and her earliest idea was to donate to Hope Primary School. But all her energy was invested in Tianyi's deep cultivation and development over the past decade. Donating to build school buildings was expensive, time-consuming and energy-intensive. She put it aside for many years until last year when she had time to think about it carefully. But she was smart and finally decided to go to the countryside with Ningtong's township microfinance to build a systematic and structural charity fund, instead of actually going to the front line to improve these school buildings, playgrounds and runways.
The last class before lunch was a general education class, and Ram was also in this class. Yu Minmin, the teacher leading the teaching team, encouraged Ye Kai: "Teacher Ye, can you tell us something?"
Ye Kai didn't prepare anything. Yu Minmin took the lead in applauding, and all the kids in the class started to cheer. Yu Minmin said softly, "It doesn't matter what you talk about in the general education class, as long as everyone can get in touch with new things and new knowledge."
Ye Kai calmed himself down and walked up to the podium.
The dark green blackboard had been there for a long time. He grabbed a half-broken piece of chalk from the chalk tray and wrote the first stroke.
The chalk made intermittent friction sounds on the blackboard. The children held their chins and watched Teacher Xiaoye drawing on the blackboard carefully. His white, slender, and well-defined hands were really beautiful and seemed to have magic. With each stroke, houses, dense forests, and lakes appeared on the blackboard. There were little people holding books on the long tree-lined path, and red flags fluttering on the tall flagpoles.
It has been a long time since I last drew a blackboard newspaper. Before my arms felt sore, Ye Kai completed several of his simple drawings.
As soon as he threw down the chalk and turned around, the dazed primary school students sat up straight, waiting eagerly for what Teacher Xiao Ye would say to them.
Ye Kai patted his chalk-dusted hands and said, "Okay, is there any student who can recognize those four words?"
Everyone raised their hands, and he chose a timid little girl. The little girl stood up, and although the red scarf on her chest was black, it was tied neatly and properly. She put her chin in, looked at Ye Kai with her big black eyes, and suddenly forgot her mission.
Ye Kai had to repeat the question.
The little girl said softly and timidly, "Teacher Xiaohua."
Ye Kai was stunned: "What?"
"Teacher Xiaohua," she scratched at the foot of the textbook, "Teacher Xiaohua's topic today is: My campus."
The whole class was laughing so hard that they were staggering all over the place. Even Yu Minmin had to hold her stomach with her hands. The screams and boos almost blew the roof off. Ye Kai didn't know whether to laugh or cry: "It's Xiao Kai, no, it's Teacher Xiao Ye, not Teacher Xiao Hua."
The little girl looked at him, lowered her eyes, and nodded: "...Teacher Xiaohua."
The laughter passed through the dilapidated yellow mud windowsill and flew like a skylark to the clear sky of the plateau.
Chen Youhan leaned against the wall, and when he heard the words "Teacher Xiaohua", he couldn't help curling his lips. He lowered his head to light a cigarette, and quietly listened to Ye Kai's first class outside the window.
There is a long red runway, a tall, shiny flagpole, clean and spacious classrooms, wooden desks without termites, a large blackboard that can be pulled up and down, dense woods, beautiful trees and shrubs, cobblestone paths, and a stadium where the wind whimpers... Chen Youhan dusted off the cigarette ash and smiled. Teacher Xiaohua, you describe the new school so well that it really embarrasses me.
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