0037 Night Rose, Night.37 (3100+) "Sister Zhu said you were naive and stupid, and she was right!"
Ruan Mei had a plum in her mouth. In her excitement, she cracked the plum pit with her teeth, which made her cheeks sore and she let out a long hiss.
"What's wrong? Are you biting your teeth?" Chen Shanye held the steering wheel with his left hand and reached out with his right hand to rub her cheek.
Ruan Mei let him pinch her cheeks again and again, still complaining to him: "Why are you so stupid? She hasn't even supported your parents, why do you keep sending money to her parents?"
"At first, I thought their daughter was away, so I tried to help as much as I could."
"I see they have a pretty good quality of life. Their car is so shiny and bright... I don't know where your money went."
When Ruan Mei heard what Chen Shanye's mother-in-law said in the restaurant, her blood began to boil and bubble, and the sizzling sound made her skin and eyes hurt.
I became even more angry when I heard that they accepted Chen Shanye’s alimony as if it was a matter of course. How can they bully honest people like this?
"I'm almost out of breath, don't worry about it."
Chen Shanye took advantage of the situation and tucked the hair on the side of her face behind her ear before retracting his hand: "But it delayed us a bit, so I can't take you to the ancient town. I promised my son that I would pick him up from school this afternoon."
The drive to the ancient town takes nearly half an hour, and the round trip takes three or four hours. I was afraid of missing Chen Siyang’s school time.
"It's okay, I can go back to the hotel and rest."
"Tomorrow I'm going to Grandma Zhong Mang's house. Her house is in a nearby village. Will you come with me? But I have to leave early in the morning. Can you get up?"
"Okay, just go to bed early tonight. You'll wake me up anyway."
The car stopped at the red light again. Ruan Mei replied to a customer's WeChat message and looked out the window.
This is the community where Chen Shanye’s house is located.
She turned her head to look at Chen Shanye and saw that he was also staring at a certain place in the community building.
"Do you want to go up and take a look?"
Chen Shanye didn't react for a moment: "What?"
Ruan Mei pointed at the small high-rise building and said, "Do you want to go and see the house? I can go with you."
"...You don't mind?"
She shook her head, and the upside-down roses and pearls hanging from her earlobes swayed along with her. "Let's go."
The community consists of three or four low-rise buildings. They are commercial housing with elevators built in the early days of the county town. There are many small advertisements posted on the elevators. After tearing them off, there are still ugly white scars left, so another one is posted.
Ruan Mei stared at one corner carefully. The business card-sized sticker was torn off in half, leaving a pair of white and tender thighs kneeling on the ground and fluorescent pink bikini panties. Wow, the pornographic advertisement was so blatant.
Chen Shanye frowned and stretched out his hand to block her eyes: "Don't look."
The key to the house was hanging on Chen Hechuan's car key, but Chen Shanye hadn't opened this door for a long time, and the key scraped against the outside of the keyhole several times before it entered the keyhole.
The furnishings in the house were still the same as when he left, and there was not much dust on the floor. He knew that Shen Qing would come to clean it every one or two weeks.
The air conditioner had been unplugged and hadn't been turned on for a long time, so he didn't know if it still worked. He walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, pushed it open, and let the mountain breeze into the room.
Ruan Mei looked around the house. The decoration was simple but the workmanship was not rough at all. Chen Shanye said that no one had lived here for many years, so it didn't look old.
"Your decoration here is very new, it doesn't look like a second-hand house at all."
"It was renovated when I bought it. I bought the materials and painted the walls myself."
He lightly wiped a line on the wall with his index finger. Chen Shanye could still remember that year, because Wu Xuanli was pregnant, there was no environmentally friendly paint sold in the small county town, so he specially asked someone to order paint from another place, and he did the puttying, sanding and painting all by himself.
"The same goes for the floor. At that time, in order to save labor costs, I laid every piece myself."
Chen Shanye lowered his head. Actually, his budget was tight at the time, so he should have just laid tiles on the floor. But he thought that the child would always have to crawl around on the floor, and the wooden floor would not be so cold, and it would not hurt so much when he bumped his kneecaps.
"You've put so much effort into this house, are you still willing to sell it?" The mountain wind on the high floor was a bit strong, ruffling her hair and muffling her voice.
"Just like what Brother Yang said that day, a house will easily become old once no one lives in it. Let's wait until the divorce judgment comes out and see the price before considering it." Chen Shanye's voice was also faint.
Chen Shanye opened the door of the master bedroom. The room was not ventilated and the air was filled with a damp smell. The curtains were drawn tightly, but one could still see a large photo frame with its face covered by a white cloth in the corner.
After looking for a few seconds, he closed the door.
Ruan Mei sat down on the beige sofa. She did not follow Chen Shanye to the master bedroom.
When she was in the car, she thought she didn't mind, but when she entered the house, she began to feel scared, afraid to see Chen Shanye's past, those little bits of his past with others.
I was afraid of seeing couple's items in pairs, afraid of seeing the wedding photo of Chen Shanye wearing a neat suit, and afraid of the waves of sourness that would surge in my chest, as if my internal organs were soaked in aged vinegar.
Fortunately, the living room and dining room were cleaned thoroughly, without any trace of the past life left.
The sofa sank, and she felt like she was stuck in quicksand, moving closer to Chen Shanye.
The man's long arms were resting on the back of the sofa, his knees were bent and open, and his long legs were almost touching the coffee table.
No one spoke. For a moment, the only sound in the living room was the rustling of wind through the leaves.
"Do you still want to hear the story I didn't finish telling you that night?" Chen Shanye rolled up a strand of red silk with his fingers and rubbed the end with his fingertips, as if twisting the fragile veins on the flower petals.
"Well, go ahead." Ruan Mei lowered her head and played with her nails.
It was not winter yet that day, but it was the coldest day Chen Shanye had ever felt.
At first, the Wu family didn't know where Wu Xuanli had gone. The three families were drenched by the sudden rainstorm overnight. Zhao Bingqing even complained that the Chen family must have wronged her daughter, which was why she left.
That time, Chen Shanye saw for the first time his parents, who had been honest all their lives, so angry that their faces turned red and their necks became thick.
It was not until Wu Xuanli later called the Wu family and said that she was fine and asked them not to look for her. She also asked Wu's parents to tell Chen Shanye that he could unilaterally file for divorce.
Chen Shanye asked for the phone number, but the mechanical and cold response from the other end, "The user you dialed is powered off," dragged him into the boundless abyss again.
Chen Siyang was still too young at that time. Although Chen Hechuan and Shen Qing helped, Chen Shanye couldn't completely abandon him and go look for someone. He could only ask people to inquire about Wu Xuanli's news while working.
Whether he wanted to leave or end it, he also wanted to talk to Wu Xuanli face to face.
For a period of time, he was out working all day and all night. He couldn't drink alcohol, so he could only rely on packs of cigarettes to get through the day. The smoke got into his eyes and made a pool of blood. He hadn't shaved for many days, and his condition was visibly bad.
Chen Shanye had doubted himself.
He was shaken. Few men don't mind this kind of thing.
Regardless of whether Wu Xuanli left because she had someone else as the rumors said, in Chen Shanye's opinion, it was because he did not do well enough, or did not make enough money, that she left.
It was not until the day of the winter solstice that he finished work early and went home. As soon as he entered the door, he saw Chen Siyang walking towards him with trembling legs. He walked unsteadily and sat down on the floor with a thud.
Chen Shanye quickly took off his gloves and wanted to hug him, but Chen Hechuan stopped him.
Open your eyes and look at your son, he is more powerful than you, said Chen Hechuan.
Chen Shanye half-knelt on the ground and slowly withdrew his hand from the air.
The little boy propped up his small body from the ground, but when he stood up, his center of gravity was unstable and he staggered back two steps. His two little hands paddled in the air twice like penguin wings, and when he stood firmly, he walked towards him again.
Shen Qing bought the walking shoes, the kind that squeak with every step.
The sounds, sometimes light and sometimes loud, made Chen Shanye, a grown man, feel sore in the nose and forehead. He bit his lips tightly and tried hard to prevent the mist in his eyes from gathering into a ball.
But a hug, a smile, and a call of "Dad" from Chen Siyang made him collapse in an instant.
He no longer worked day and night to make money, smoked less, and spent more time with his family.
When spring flowers were growing all over the mountains and fields, someone sent a message saying that he had seen Wu Xuanli in Guangzhou.
Chen Hechuan saw what he was thinking and told him to go if he really wanted to, and to keep Yangyang at home.
"Did you find her later?" Unconsciously, Ruan Mei had half leaned into Chen Shanye's arms, and her long earrings were gently fiddled with by his fingers from time to time.
"I didn't go looking for her on purpose. The city is so big, how could it be so easy to find someone? Besides, I don't know if the news is true."
"Then you stayed in Guangzhou for so long?"
His fingers moved down and gently tickled the soft flesh on the side of her neck. Ruan Mei felt itchy and rubbed her body against his chest.
"I want to see with my own eyes what the world that she and so many others long for is like." Chen Shanye said in a low voice.
"Oh? You've been watching for so long, what do you think of the world now?"
"It's okay, the moon is still the same moon." He scoffed. "I can't see the stars yet. The light pollution is too serious."
His hand slid down her back, Chen Shanye grasped her soft waist, and with a little force, he turned her over and lifted her onto his lap.
Ruan Mei knelt on him with her knees bent, supporting his flat and strong chest with her hands, and her heartbeat was like a drum under her right palm.
She fell into Chen Shanye's bottomless black eyes, allowing herself to sink into them, and voluntarily gave up the opportunity to call for help.
"Chen Shanye, what are you doing... um——"
This kiss was sweet, like a honey plum coated with fine white sugar powder in the sun, rolling back and forth between their lips and tongues wrapped in saliva.
The fickleness of human nature and the absurdity of the world that Chen Shanye witnessed in the big city in the past few years were things he had never seen in all those years. However, there were many opportunities in the big city, and as long as one was willing to work hard, one could make money quickly, so he stayed and walked day and night in this towering concrete jungle.
Fortunately, I met you in this boundless forest.
The white pearl and black rose hanging around their necks swayed in the wind, dancing a waltz. The warm summer breeze gently kissed their cheeks. The sea of trees on the back mountain rustled, and every leaf sang to its heart's content.
As they exchanged kisses, they both recalled the gust of wind they heard next to the theater that night.
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