Chapter 14
This photo is a bit old.
Although it has been laminated, it still has a yellowing effect. The woman in the photo has long curly hair, which was popular in that era, and wears a white dress. She has clear eyebrows and eyes, and soft features, like a star in the movies of the early years.
The little boy in her arms was also very cute, but he seemed to have just cried before the photo was taken. His eyes were red and watery. He hugged the woman's neck tightly and looked at the camera pitifully.
Wu Yinghua looked for a long time but couldn't recognize who the two people were. She looked inside the envelope again, but there was nothing inside except the photo. Just as she was curious, Yu Zhuo came out after washing his hands. When he saw what was in her hand, he immediately yelled, "Mom, what are you doing! Don't rummage through my things!"
Wu Yinghua was used to his son's temper and asked, "Whose photo is this?"
Yu Zhuo rushed over in two or three steps and snatched the photo and envelope. He said unhappily, "They belong to someone else!" He stuffed the photo back into the envelope and said angrily, "Don't go through my schoolbag again!"
Wu Yinghua was also angered by his attitude: "Who rummaged through your schoolbag? You didn't pack it properly and it fell out! And even if I rummaged through it, so what? I'm your mother! You fell out of my belly. What on earth do you have that wasn't given to you by me?"
Yu Zhuo yelled, "Then put me back in! Did you get my permission to give birth to me?"
Yu Cheng came home from get off work and interrupted the quarrel: "I heard your voices outside. What are you doing? Are you trying to see who has the loudest voice?"
He walked over and slapped Yu Zhuo on the back of his head, "You have no respect for your parents. You are making your mother angry." He then said to Wu Yinghua, "You are so old, yet you are still arguing with your son."
Wu Yinghua sneered: "He is now grown up and has become independent. It doesn't matter whether he wants me as his mother or not."
Yu Zhuo became more and more angry as she listened, and felt that a middle-aged woman approaching menopause was simply unreasonable. It was clearly her fault first, but she could gain the upper hand by saying "I'm your mother". Doesn't that mean the child has no human rights? !
Yu Zhuo rushed into the bedroom, slammed the door and locked it.
This time, Wu completely angered Wu Yinghua: "How dare you lose your temper? Yu Zhuo! Get out here! I won't punish you today. Where are the keys? Where is the door key? Open the door for me!"
Yu Cheng kept pulling and persuading her, and the house was in chaos for a while. Qi Ying, who had just finished cleaning the dishes and came out of the kitchen, realized belatedly that her aunt seemed to be angry.
Yu Zhuo is at a rebellious age and this is not the first or second time he has made his parents angry.
Yu Cheng persuaded Wu Yinghua with kind words for a long time, and Wu Yinghua finally stopped scolding and started to sit on the sofa and wipe her tears. What son has grown up and doesn't listen to his mother? She almost died when she gave birth to him, and she raised him with a lot of hard work. Before she started to enjoy his blessings, he already despised her. He just rummaged through her schoolbag and treated her like this. Wouldn't he kick her out of the house after they get married?
Besides, she didn't even look through the schoolbag!
It’s such a big grievance.
Although Yu Zhuo locked the door, he could still hear Wu Yinghua crying and pounding the bed in anger. He looked at the envelope he had thrown on the bed and wanted to tear it up.
He thought fiercely, it's all Ji Rang's fault!
But since I had been entrusted with a task, I didn't touch the envelope and stuffed it back into my schoolbag.
At around eight o'clock, there was a light knock on the door. He could tell it was Qi Ying by the force. Yu Zhuo opened the door a crack and saw Qi Ying standing outside with a hot meal in her hand, handing it to him.
Yu Zhuo asked with his mouth: "Where's my mom?"
Qi Ying said silently: "Sleep."
In fact, I didn't sleep. The meals were heated up by Wu Yinghua and I just asked her to bring them to me.
Yu Zhuo's stomach had long been empty, so he stopped being sour and took the bowl and ate voraciously. Yu Cheng sneaked out to take a look, then went back to the room and said to Wu Yinghua, "Look how hungry your son is. He's still growing and has a lot of homework."
Wu Yinghua was lying on the bed watching Douyin. After a few hours, his anger had subsided a lot. He just snorted and didn't say anything else.
The next morning, Wu Yinghua went to wake up Yu Zhuo, who always liked to stay in bed, as usual.
Breakfast is ready.
Yu Zhuo felt a little awkward. He ate the tomato and egg noodles that his mother had cooked early in the morning, and said hello before leaving: "Mom, I'm leaving."
"Did you get your bus card? Did you put your keys in? Wait a minute, the collar of your school uniform is turned inside out."
She was still rambling on and on as usual, nothing had changed.
There is no overnight hatred between mother and son.
After getting on the bus, Yu Zhuo had already forgotten about last night's farce. He began to think about how to hand the envelope to Ji Rang.
The easiest way is of course to let Qi Ying give it to him, but how could he let his sister take the initiative to contact Ji Rang!
You have to do dangerous things yourself.
Oh, if I had known it would be so troublesome, I shouldn’t have accepted this letter yesterday.
Lust really blinds one's mind.
After thinking it over, Yu Zhuo felt that the safest way was to sneak it in secretly to avoid direct contact with Ji Rang. After all, he had just had a conflict with Qu Dazhuang's group yesterday.
Yu Zhuo immediately sent a message to Yang Xinyuan, asking him to find out whether Class 9 of Senior 2 had physical education class today. He also threatened that if the message was wrong again, he would hack into his QQ while he was sleeping and disband all his QQ groups.
Yang Xinyuan was so scared that he directly sent over the class schedule for Class 9.
There is actually a physical education class, the third period in the morning.
Yu Zhuo is full of confidence.
After arriving at school, Qi Ying separated from him. When they entered the classroom, most of the students had already arrived, some were chatting, some were reading, and some were catching up on their homework. She took off her schoolbag and was about to put her books into her desk when something blocked her way.
Qi Ying reached in and touched two cool boxes.
I took it out curiously and saw that it was a piece of mango mousse and a piece of matcha cake.
I don't know when it was put in there, but there was some condensation on the surface of the box, and it felt a little cool.
She held the box, blinked, and smiled sweetly with her lips pursed.
…
After the second class, Yu Zhuo pretended to go to the bathroom and ran to the second grade floor. When he passed Class 9, he saw that the classroom was almost empty, with a few students packing up and looking like they were about to leave.
He knew Ji Rang sat in the last row by the window.
As soon as the last few students left, he immediately crouched down and slipped in through the back door, heading straight for Ji Rang's seat.
The desk was bare, with nothing inside. He took the envelope out of his trouser pocket and carefully put it into the desk.
The mission was accomplished, a relieved smile appeared on his face, and he turned to leave.
When he looked up, he saw two girls standing at the back door of the classroom, arm in arm, staring at him in amazement.
Yu Zhuo ran away, covering his face with his hands while running.
Within the morning, the news spread throughout Haicheng No. 1 Middle School that a boy, a freshman in the first year of high school, had slipped a love letter to Ji Rang.
Yu Zhuo: …………
In the Class 9 classroom, Ji Rang, who was sweating after the physical education class, sat in his seat, crossed his legs, and looked at the letter on the desk with complicated eyes.
The eyes of the people around him were wide open. Qu Dazhuang bowed and said, "Brother Rang, open it and take a look! I have never received a love letter from a boy. What does it look like?"
Liu Haiyang kicked him and said, "You haven't even received a love letter from a girl, okay!"
Ji Rang sneered and picked up the envelope, intending to tear it up directly. But when he touched it, he felt something strange, it didn't look like a letter.
He opened it casually and glanced inside.
After seeing what it was, his nonchalant expression suddenly changed.
Everyone around shuddered.
Ji Rang's face was gloomy, his thin lips were stretched into a line, and he left the classroom without saying a word, holding the envelope.
-
As soon as Qi Ying reached the end of the corridor, she saw Ji Rang coming out of the back door of the classroom and heading upstairs. His long legs allowed him to take big steps and he could climb two stairs at a time, but Qi Ying couldn't do that and had to jog to keep up.
After climbing three flights of stairs, I was exhausted and out of breath.
Ji Rang knew there was someone behind him, and at first he thought he was going upstairs, so he didn't bother to look back. All the way to the rooftop, the sound of panting was still following him, and he turned around impatiently and saw Qi Ying, who was a few steps behind him, holding on to the railing and almost dying of exhaustion.
His pupils dilated, and his fingers holding the envelope trembled slightly. He asked in a cold voice: "Why are you following me?"
Qi Ying looked at him eagerly, feeling really aggrieved.
She didn't want to climb so many flights of stairs with him, but she couldn't catch up with him no matter what, and she couldn't make a sound even if she shouted.
The school bell rang harshly, and Ji Rang frowned and said, "Go back to class."
Qi Ying took a short break and finally stopped panting. She let go of the railing and continued to walk up.
Ji Rang gritted his teeth: "I told you to go back to class, did you hear me?"
Qi Ying walked to the step in front of him and raised her head slightly. She was still panting, her lips were red and moist. He didn't know if it was because of the sweat from running, but Ji Rang always felt that the light strawberry scent on her body was stronger.
It made him restless and irritable.
Qi Ying extended her hand toward him.
In the palm of my hand, there lies a strawberry-flavored gummy candy.
His heart thumped twice, like hitting a drum, and the remaining sound echoed back and forth in his body.
After a long while, he finally found his voice: "You followed me just to give me this?"
She tilted her head and smiled sweetly at him, her star-like eyes seemed to say: Yes.
Ji Rang stared at the strawberry candy.
Because the temperature of the palms is too high, the sugar melts and the sweet strawberry flavor evaporates into the air.
He whispered, "I don't like sweets."
The white palm is faintly pink, the fingers are white and slender, and you can see the soft swirls on the fingertips.
After a while, he reached out, took the candy, tore open the wrapper, and put it in his mouth.
It’s so sweet.
But somehow his violent temper calmed down.
When Qi Ying saw him eating the candy, her eyes curved with joy. She looked at her watch and found that the class had already started. She opened her mouth, waved at him quickly, and turned around and ran away.
Ji Rang shouted: "Run slower!"
The sound of footsteps soon disappeared in the corridor, and the surroundings were so quiet that the only sound was him eating candy.
The door to the rooftop was locked, but he had already obtained the key mold and made a copy for himself. When he opened the lock, a cool breeze blew in his face.
After Ji Rang finished eating the strawberry candy, he rolled his tongue around in his mouth, then took out his cell phone and calmly called Ji Qian.
The call was connected quickly. Before Ji Qian could say anything, he asked calmly, "What do you mean?"
Ji Qian was silent for a while before saying, "That photo has always been in my second uncle's wallet."
Ji Rang sneered and said sarcastically, "So? What do you want to prove? Is he nostalgic? Or is he feeling guilty?"
Ji Qian sighed: "Don't be angry with me. Do you think I want to take this job and tell you all this? It's just that I'm the only one in the family who can contact you. Isn't there anything I can do? If you don't want to come back, forget it. I'll tell them that you blocked me."
Ji Rang said calmly: "I'm hanging up."
Ji Qian paused, but couldn't help shouting in the last second before hanging up the line: "Argan, Grandpa fainted again yesterday, and he kept calling your name during the rescue."
There was a long silence on the phone, so long that Ji Qian thought he was gone. She called out tentatively, "Arjan?"
After a long while, he heard a mocking voice from the other end of the phone: "Have you forgotten? He is the one who doesn't recognize me." He laughed softly: "It's your Ji family who doesn't recognize me as a murderer.
The breathing on the phone became heavy. Ji Qian took a few deep breaths and said in a deep voice: "No one thinks you are..."
Before he could finish his words, he was interrupted by Ji Rang's impatient cold voice: "Okay, stop bothering me with these things."
He hung up the phone.
The strawberry taste in his mouth had faded a lot, and the violent emotions that he had suppressed surfaced again. Like barbed hooks, tearing his internal organs from bottom to top.
He held onto the railing and slowly squatted down. The wind from the rooftop made his loose school uniform whistle. He spoke in a low voice, as if he was saying to himself, "I'll take it easy. I'll be fine after a while."
There was a mixed sound of reading coming from the classroom downstairs.
After a long time, he stood up.
The pain and anger in his eyes were hidden away, leaving only indifference.
The teaching building was empty. The class had already started for 20 minutes. He didn't call for report, but went straight in through the back door of the classroom. The teacher stood on the podium and yelled, "Ji Rang! If you don't want to attend class, don't come in! You're disturbing other students!"
He ignored her, walked back to his seat without saying a word, and took out the high school math book from his bag.
I smoothed the corners of the photo that I had been holding in my hand and tucked it between the pages of the book.
On that page, there was a picture of a girl with a ponytail and little strawberries.
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