Chapter 22
Before returning to the classroom, Tao Xi went to the bathroom to wash her face, and then rubbed the soup stains off her sleeves with hand soap.
He looked up at himself in the mirror, pressed the corners of his eyes with his wet fingers, and made sure that his eyes were not red before walking towards the classroom. On the way, he met someone he knew from the art club and greeted him and talked to him for a few words, just like usual.
He walked quietly into the classroom carrying a shopping bag. The setting sun slanted across the desks, like a thick layer of late maple leaves covered with frost.
There were more than a dozen people in the classroom, most of them were buried in their desks doing their homework. No one noticed him come in, and even if they did, they would not have looked up.
But Tao Xi saw Lin Qinhe, who had returned at some point, sitting in the last row. He looked up at him in the twilight between orange and gray-purple.
Many years later, Tao Xi still remembered the look Lin Qinhe gave him in the twilight that evening. Whenever he thought of it, the twilight would dim in the corners of his eyes.
He raised his foot and walked quickly to the last row, walked to his seat and sat down, and said to Lin Qinhe in a brisk tone: "Aren't you going to a meeting? I thought you weren't going back to school today."
Lin Qinhe looked into his eyes and said calmly, "I left early."
"It must be boring to hold a meeting." Tao Xi turned his face slightly. He was a little afraid of Lin Qinhe's gaze, as if he would see something. He paused, put the bag in his hand on Lin Qinhe's desk, and said in a calm tone:
"This is the gift that Yang Duole's father brought him. He didn't come today, so you can take it back to him."
Lin Qinhe frowned, looked at the shopping bag, and said in a deeper voice: "How did you meet Yang Duole's father?"
Tao Xi pursed his lips. He could hear the displeasure in Lin Qinhe's tone and pretended not to care and said, "We met at the gate. He called Yang Duole but no one answered, so he asked me to help take care of him."
Lin Qinhe said nothing more and casually threw the shopping bag into his schoolbag, as if it was just an insignificant piece of trash.
Tao Xi breathed a sigh of relief.
He didn't want to recall what happened in the evening or the people he met.
He took out a pen, lowered his head and started to write the math test paper as usual. He seemed very calm and confused at the same time. He even forgot that he had mentioned adding Lin Qinhe’s WeChat all day.
Tao Xi was quickly doing the questions, trying to forget everything through constant thinking and calculations, but suddenly she heard Lin Qinhe ask, "Tao Xi, what's wrong with you?"
The tone was still indifferent, but it seemed as if she had seen through all his emotions.
Tao Xi paused, looked at Lin Qinhe, smiled and said, "What? I'm just doing my homework. You may not know that Teacher Zhou assigned three math papers during the day."
He didn't know that there were still drops of water hanging on his eyelashes, and there was a hint of red in the corners of his eyes that could not be concealed by the twilight.
Lin Qinhe looked into his eyes, and Tao Xi looked away with a flickering look.
Then Lin Qinhe looked at the math paper he was doing and said, "Choose c for the third question. You usually don't make mistakes."
Tao Xi was startled and looked down at the question. It was a very simple question and he didn't even know how he calculated it just now.
"Thank you. I'll correct it right away." He lowered his head and hurriedly took out the correction tape from his pencil case. He felt Lin Qinhe was looking at him, which made his movements even more fluctuating and clumsy. It took him a while to cover up the wrong answer, then picked up the pen and wrote c.
Then he heard Lin Qinhe slowly say: "I remember I told you that if you have anything to say, you can just tell me directly, and I will listen."
Tao Xi held the pen tightly and her eyelashes trembled.
"Tell me, has anything happened to you?"
His voice was low, even soft, as if trying to induce him to say something.
Tao Xi's fingers couldn't stop shaking. He clenched the pen tightly and his chest felt sore.
But what can he say?
He said that when the father who had "raised" him for sixteen years came to ask him for living expenses, he scolded him?
Said he met the biological father and asked him to help pass the gift to his beloved son?
But this is fucking more ridiculous and ironic than a drama.
He couldn't tell anyone.
"I didn't encounter anything." Tao Xi lowered his head paranoidly, staring at the gel pen in his hand and pursed his lips.
"Tell me." Lin Qinhe's voice became deeper, carrying an irresistible pressure.
Tao Xi was silent for a moment, then suddenly looked at Lin Qinhe, his eyes completely red. He suppressed his voice and said, "If I tell you that I really want to cry now, but I have no place to cry, will you be satisfied?"
Lin Qinhe frowned slightly and looked at him without saying anything.
Tao Xi lowered his head again and cursed himself in his heart.
Why not make up some excuse instead of saying you want to cry?
He never cries in front of people.
It's so fucking embarrassing.
Tao Xi just wanted to regret it. He picked up the pen nervously and was ready to continue working on the questions, but his right wrist was suddenly tightly grasped by a hand, followed by Lin Qinhe's cold voice: "Follow me."
Before he could react, Lin Qinhe pulled him up from his seat, and he staggered a few times due to the strong force.
"What are you doing?!"
"Don't you want to cry? I'll find a place for you to cry." Lin Qinhe said impatiently without even turning his head.
Within a few words, Tao Xi was dragged out of the back door of the classroom. It was almost time for evening self-study and many people were walking into the classroom. Some people looked at them strangely, and judging from the two men's faces, they thought they were going out to fight.
Lin Qinhe let go of her hand after walking a few steps. Tao Xi looked at Lin Qinhe's tall back, clenched her hands, and dared not to follow him.
"It's time for evening self-study," he said.
"It's broken." Lin Qinhe said.
Tao Xi felt that Lin Qinhe seemed to be angry again, but he would never understand why Lin Qinhe was angry.
Maybe it was just because I disobeyed him and didn't tell him the truth.
But it was Lin Qinhe who poked his lungs.
Tao Xi followed Lin Qinhe in silence all the way, like an escorted prisoner, and was taken to the top floor of Qiushi Building. He saw Lin Qinhe take out the key to open the door, and he could no longer contain the surprise on his face.
"Why did you bring me to the concert hall?"
"Is there enough space for your tears here?" Lin Qinhe pushed open the door, turned around and looked at Tao Xi and said.
Behind him was a huge, empty concert hall with an entire wall of floor-to-ceiling windows standing quietly. The purple mist and gray haze were quietly burned by the last rays of the setting sun, burning into the concert hall through the windows, burning on the silent black piano in the hall, and also burning in Tao Xi's eyes.
Tao Xi seemed to hear something beating violently in the silence. His nose suddenly felt sore and his eyes were steaming. But he said stubbornly, "I don't want to cry anymore."
On the way with Lin Qinhe, those things seemed to be blown away by the October evening breeze, leaving only a shadow weighing on my heart.
He wanted to cry now, but not because of those things.
Lin Qinhe looked at him and said nothing.
Tao Xi suddenly remembered the day when he hid outside the door of the concert hall and saw Lin Qinhe playing the piano. He clumsily imitated Lin Qinhe's gestures with his fingers, his eyes greedy and fiery.
"But I want to hear you play the piano." Tao Xi looked at Lin Qinhe, with clear and flickering expectations in her eyes, "Can I?"
Lin Qinhe was silent for a moment, then said to him, "Okay."
He walked to the piano chair and sat down, opened the piano cover, looked at Tao Xi and asked, "What do you want to listen to?"
Tao Xi knew nothing about music and only knew "To Alice", which made him a little embarrassed. He fiddled with his fingers and said shyly, "I want to listen to the song you played that day."
"good."
Lin Qinhe stretched out his ten fingers, and strange yet familiar music flowed out from under his slender fingers.
The setting sun outside the long window suddenly broke free from the twilight, and the red-gold twilight slanted in through the glass, interweaving and dancing on the deep profile lines of Lin Qinhe's face, with the last rays of sunset.
Tao Xi suddenly reacted in the twilight, but he did not tell Lin Qinhe which day it was.
Then he finally heard clearly that the violent beating sound came from his chest, growing louder and louder, resonating with the sound of the piano in the empty concert hall and flickering together in the last afterglow.
Tao Xi stood in the center of the concert hall, looking at the person playing the piano in front of her, as if she was having a dream more magnificent than the twilight.
He thought.
Only he can hear this song.
He also wants to possess this person alone.
"What's the name of this song?" Tao Xi asked after Lin Qinhe stopped moving his fingers.
"Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence." Lin Qinhe put down his hand and said.
Tao Xi was stunned, thinking that this name was very strange. He watched Lin Qinhe close the piano cover, stand up from the piano chair, and say in a voice so small that only he could hear it: "My birthday is also on Christmas."
A snowy Christmas.
Lin Qinhe didn't seem to hear him and asked him, "Are you feeling better now?"
Tao Xi suddenly looked at Lin Qinhe. In the dim light, the corners of his mouth curled up more and more. He said, "Lin Qinhe, did you pull me here just to comfort me?"
Lin Qinhe frowned and walked towards the door, leaving behind a dark back and a cold voice: "It's just because you look ugly when you are about to cry or not."
Tao Xi was stunned for a moment, and hurried to follow him, fearing that he would lock himself in.
The door of the concert hall was quickly closed, locking the last ray of sunset and the lingering sound of the piano inside. Tao Xi looked at Lin Qinhe's hand locking the door, and asked as if she had lost her courage: "I know, you are usually in a bad mood, so you must come here to hide and cry."
Lin Qinhe glanced at him coldly, took the key and walked towards the stairs without saying anything.
Tao Xi secretly hated himself for not being able to change his bad habits of forgetting his roots when he was happy and becoming more and more demanding when he was proud.
"I have a cell phone. Can I add you on WeChat?" Tao Xi took out the cell phone that he had forgotten for a long time from his pocket, turned on the flashlight on the cell phone, and shone the light in the dim corridor.
But Lin Qinhe still ignored him, with a cold and arrogant face.
It's over.
There's no way to coax her back.
Tao Xi followed Lin Qinhe dejectedly all the way back to the classroom. As soon as he entered the room, he was stared at by Bi Aoxue's cold gaze.
"My former and current English class lateness champion, are you planning to team up to win the title of absenteeism champion?" Bi Aoxue chuckled as she crossed her arms.
Tao Xi took the initiative to admit his mistake with a very positive attitude: "Teacher, I was wrong, and he was also wrong. We will never do it again."
Lin Qinhe still had a sullen face and a very negative attitude.
Bi Aoxue didn't expect Lin Qinhe to admit his mistakes, so she said slowly, "It's enough that you know you're wrong. Go back and write an English composition for me."
Tao Xi breathed a sigh of relief and returned to his seat with Lin Qinhe.
Bi Chengfei in the front row couldn't help but turn his head to the back. Bi Aoxue snorted coldly: "Some people don't use their brains. They can donate them to those in need."
Bi Chengfei turned back silently.
Tao Xi quickly wrote an English composition, and while Bi Aoxue was out, he took out a piece of paper from the drawer and started drawing his little cartoon. After thinking for a while, he still didn't know what to draw.
He turned his head to look out the window. The setting sun had long disappeared. Only the last bit of pink and blue ash left from the burnt clouds remained in the deep purple sky. An icy moon rose slowly in the sky, gently wrapped in a thin and soft group of light white clouds, revealing a hazy and gentle light yellow hue.
He lowered his head and started drawing on the paper.
In the evening, Lin Qinhe returned to his room with his schoolbag, took out his cell phone and made a call.
"Tell the security guard to retrieve the surveillance footage from the main gate from 5:30 to 7 this evening and send it to me."
After hanging up the phone, he circled a date on the calendar on his desk with a marker, then opened an English novel, took out a piece of paper and unfolded it.
The protagonists in the painting return to the original moon and meteorites.
Little Meteorite: "There are clouds in the sky. Can I eat the soft moon?"
Moon: “No.”
Little Meteorite: "Then sprinkle a handful of salt on me and eat the salt-baked little meteorite!"
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Today's portion is updated together with yesterday's portion
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