Chapter 79 Allergic to "Brothers"
195 days.
These were numbers that Gu Lin was all too familiar with.
It took him 6 months and 11 days to travel from Berlin to Anjing.
For Gu Lin, this number signified farewell.
But for Ji Tong, it was a reunion.
It turns out that the flow of time really is different.
Another 195 days have passed.
Gu Lin felt as if something had burned a crack in his heart, letting in a warm breeze.
He didn't speak, but he didn't hang up either. He grabbed the thin blanket at the foot of the bed, lifted the covers, and got up.
Ji Tong stood in the living room, leaning against the sofa, her gaze fixed on a certain spot on the wall.
He heard the sound of the master bedroom door being pushed behind him and turned around.
"Why did you come out?" Ji Tong asked.
Gu Lin walked towards him with a blanket and draped it over him.
Ji Tong stared into those eyes, listening to Gu Lin's voice and the tone of voice on the phone overlapping and blending together.
Say it again.
Ji Tong was slightly taken aback, then smiled with her eyebrows curved.
I said, "I'm not angry anymore, I forgive you."
Gu Lin was very emotional. Ji Tong knew that he could always understand him, so he took his hand out from under the blanket and cupped Gu Lin's face with one hand.
"If you still don't understand, I'll say it a few more times."
"I'm not angry anymore, I forgive you."
Under his lover's smiling gaze, the crack in Gu Lin's heart slowly burned into a hole and collapsed.
He raised his hand, placed his palm on the back of Ji Tong's neck, and pulled him towards himself.
Just like taking off his glasses, it was also a signal to kiss, but this time Gu Lin simply pressed his forehead against his and rubbed their noses together, like a tender moment of intimacy after sex.
There was no kiss, yet it was more intimate than a kiss.
“I was going to stay angry for a while, but I couldn’t help it. Your boyfriend is so magnanimous,” Ji Tong said, ignoring the blanket on her body. She pulled out one hand and used both hands to cup Gu’s face, which was close to hers. “I’ve been angry for 195 days and I haven’t charged you any interest.”
Gu Lin smiled and said, "Okay."
Ji Tong asked, puzzled, "Can I do what?"
Gu Linwei raised his chin and placed a kiss on the tip of his nose: "Collect some interest."
Ji Tong's chest heaved twice. She turned her head and lay down, resting her face on Gu Lin's shoulder. She chuckled softly, "I've never seen anything like this before. She even tries to make her boyfriend angry."
"So how do you plan for me to accept it?"
"How do you want to collect it?"
Ji Tong fell silent, inhaling the faint fragrance emanating from Gu Lin, and slowly closed her eyes.
"Guess what I was looking at just now?"
"puzzle."
"..."
"Guess what I'm about to say."
"Gu Lin is so annoying."
"…………"
Ji Tong lifted his foot and stomped on it.
Gu Lin chuckled, standing there letting him step on her, then picked up the blanket hanging on the back of the sofa and wrapped it around her again.
Ji Tong felt that he had something to ask, so she lifted her head from his neck and waited for him to speak.
“I remember February 24th was the last time we spoke,” Gu Lin looked up at him, “Do you remember what I asked you?”
Ji Tong hesitated for a moment, wanting to say she had forgotten, but she couldn't escape Gu Lin's gaze.
Ji Tong suspected that whenever he felt guilty, Gu Lin would go back to his room, take out his phone, retrieve the records from that day, and then whisper the devil's words, "Before I die, I will entrust my wife and children to you, and you can also entrust your wife and children to my lifelong brother before you die."
Ji Tong had just heard this not long ago.
…in the master bathroom.
He couldn't stand up against the wall and was about to push someone away to stop when Gu Lin suddenly leaned down, whispered these words in his ear.
Ji Tong didn't want to recall what happened after that, only knowing that he was now allergic to the word "brother".
Ji Tong was truly frightened and vaguely replied, "Mm."
After replying, just as she was thinking about how to gloss over the details if Gu Lin asked, she heard—
"And now?"
"Huh?" Ji Tong's train of thought was abruptly interrupted.
Gu Lin's gaze was fixed on him: "What do you take me for now?"
Gu Lin raised his hand again and leaned closer. The two touched forehead to forehead once more, quietly and intimately touching each other's souls in the dead of night.
“When… Gu Lin, when my lover,” Ji Tong’s voice softened, using the same sentence structure as that year, and said slowly, “It’s the kind of lover who, if I die, can only ‘guard the widow’ for me, remain faithful to me until the end, cannot marry anyone else, and can only be a dark widower’ for the rest of his life.”
“If you die…” Ji Tong paused deliberately, suppressing a laugh, “then I’ll take your enormous inheritance, buy islands and boats, eat, drink, and have fun, spending my days in Berlin and my lover in Paris.”
"So, are you satisfied with this answer?" Ji Tong tapped his forehead. "Who told you to make a will for no reason? You brought this on yourself."
"Not very good."
Ji Tong thought Gu Lin was referring to the inheritance when he said "not very good". Just as he was about to speak, he was kissed on the corner of his lips and then heard Gu Lin's voice.
"I will not be a widower."
Ji Tong: "..."
The two of them are standing at the starting line of life, but they are talking about the finish line.
“It’s not like I’m asking you to do it right now,” Ji Tong said, her tone becoming serious as she spoke, “I’m just trying to scare you.”
"I won't let you be a widower at such a young age. It would be such a waste for someone so handsome to be a gloomy widower."
"I mean, someone in their seventies or eighties, what if I..."
"There's no 'what if'."
Gu Lin interrupted him.
Ji Tong was wrapped in a blanket, but the collar of his pajamas was loose. It had caught on Gu Lin earlier, and with each movement, the collar wrinkled even more, revealing a small portion of his collarbone. Gu Lin raised his hand and, as he had done countless times before to tuck him in and put on his coat, calmly and casually straightened the collar of his pajamas. Then he uttered three words that made Ji Tong's mind go blank—
"Let's go together."
Ji Tong was completely stunned.
He didn't turn around or look back, but Ji Tong knew that on the wall behind him hung a jigsaw puzzle that was always missing a piece.
There is a small lamp on the puzzle piece.
It was specially made by Ji Tong, a very small kerosene lamp, only the size of a palm, hanging on the wall, illuminating only the puzzle of the planets around the world, and only the puzzle itself.
The lamp was bought by Ji Tong after he returned from Berlin. It has no switch, and the lamp will not turn off as long as the batteries have power.
So that if one day Gu Lin is alone in this apartment again, sitting alone in the living room, at least there will be a small lamp on, illuminating that jigsaw puzzle that can never be pieced together, telling him that the person he is waiting for will come back.
Ji Tong knew that "death" was a required course and rarely thought about what would happen after death, but now, hearing the words "let's go together," he suddenly remembered the class on "love and sex."
"Do you know what Professor Shi showed me in that psychology class in Building 6 before the bell rang? What did it say on a PowerPoint presentation?"
Gu Lin rubbed the back of his neck, signaling him to continue, saying he was listening.
"The general idea is that the universe and history are infinitely cyclical."
"The Northern Song Dynasty philosopher Shao Yong created a mathematical model to deduce the rise and fall of all things in the universe, and calculated that this cycle is..."
"129,600 years," Gu Lin continued.
Ji Tong was somewhat surprised, but also delighted: "You knew?"
"Yes, I've heard of it."
129,600 years later, the universe will be destroyed and restarted, and all people, events, and history will be replayed with perfect accuracy and without any discrepancy.
You and I will be born again, and then meet again in exactly the same way.
Ji Tong turned her head slightly and glanced at the "Around the Planet" painting on the wall behind her.
He knew, of course, that this was merely a symbolic description of time in ancient philosophy, and by no means a scientific theory.
Compared to this "129,600 years", he might have believed more in the minimum time limit of Poincaré's return and the physical destiny, in the fact that particles will eventually return to their approximate initial state, and in the irreversibility indicated by the law of entropy increase.
But at least for that one second when he thought about "death," he chose this philosophical concept.
“Okay, let’s go together,” Ji Tong replied.
He would face death with him and then meet him again 129,600 years later.
The lost 195 days, like the fragment Gu Lin threw into the candle lamp, will never be hung on the wall, but will forever remain safely sealed inside the candle lamp.
Because of it, the puzzle is now "complete".
-
After the first spring rain, Ji Tong changed out of her cotton-padded coat and into spring clothes.
He picked a time to organize all the thick clothes in the closet, and then dragged Gu Lin to add a bunch of new ones.
Since the master bedroom wardrobe couldn't hold everything, Ji Tong made room for it.
The guest room was left unused and eventually became Ji Tong's walk-in closet.
Everything that needed to be moved had been moved, except for a bed.
Ji Tong originally wanted to dismantle the bed as well, but Gu Lin stopped her. When Ji Tong asked him why, Gu Lin didn't say. Then, that very night, he demonstrated the necessity of having two beds through his actions.
The bed in the guest room was kept as is.
Starting in early April, willow catkins began to drift in Anjing.
Ji Tong was already used to the "fluffy" scene. Although Gu Lin was not allergic, he disliked the feeling of willow catkins sticking to his face. Whenever he passed the willow-lined road outside the school, he would frown. Ji Tong would then comfort him for a while.
Just because Gu Lin isn't allergic doesn't mean no one else is.
For example, Chen Yongjie, who was born and raised in Wuhan, has never been seen by Ji Tong taking off his mask since the catkins started flying.
On the worst day, he even posted on his WeChat Moments late at night, saying that the wind and fuzz in Anjing were too crazy and that he wanted to go back to Jiangcheng.
Ji Tong gave it a thumbs up.
After much anticipation, Chen Yongjie finally saw a "turning point".
"Yes, my high school homeroom teacher contacted me and asked if I had time to go back to No. 3 High School to give a lecture on stress reduction and experience sharing for the college entrance examination."
"The time should be scheduled for May 6th or May 7th, including the May Day holiday, which will take about a week."
"The admissions office called me a couple of days ago and sent me a PPT template from Anhui University, hahaha."
Chen Yongjie put down his beer and said.
Li Yuan raised his hand and asked the waiter in the private room for another pitcher of beer: "This is standard procedure for the admissions office."
“I heard that last year, a student from some province scored 710 or 711. Half an hour after the results were announced, the admissions officers set off and visited him overnight.”
Ge Guang: "Our school is considered lucky; the admissions team next door even had people waiting in advance."
Tian Zixuan: "Last year, it seems that our neighbor snatched the spot. I heard that the admissions team was so angry that they couldn't eat for two days. Jiangcheng No. 3 Middle School is a target high school for students, so we had to try to catch them if we could."
Cui Mingying asked Chen Yongjie, "The admissions team only gave you a PPT template?"
Chen Yongjie told the truth: "No, they also told me to keep an eye on the promising talents."
Li Yuan: "I knew it."
Chen Yongjie's rhinitis hadn't gotten better yet. He took a tissue and blew his nose, saying, "The admissions team teacher asked me if No. 3 Middle School had invited Brother Lin back to share his experience. He said that Brother Lin had also stayed at No. 3 Middle School for about a month, and with only a month left until the college entrance examination, this lecture was tailor-made for Brother Lin."
Everyone: "..."
The abacus beads were practically falling onto his face.
"Does the teacher want Lin Ge to go back to give lectures? He's lusting after Lin Ge's body!" Li Yuan said. "Besides, Lin Ge is from our Anjing No. 1 High School. If he's going to give lectures, he should go back to our school."
“Oh, it’s nothing. The teacher has made arrangements. He said Tongtong is at Anjing No.1 High School,” Chen Yongjie took another tissue and blew his nose. “Once the college entrance exam is over and the results are released, Tongtong will go to No.1 High School to give a presentation.”
"Tongtong is enough at No. 1 Middle School, let Lin shine at No. 3 Middle School."
Everyone: "…………"
Chen Yongjie naturally knew that Gu Lin wouldn't be giving a presentation at No. 3 Middle School, and he didn't bring it up at the dinner table for Gu Lin's sake.
Chen Yongjie turned to look at Ji Tong and asked, "Tongtong, are you free for May Day? Want to go together?"
Li Yuan and the others looked up in confusion: "Where are we going?"
Chen Yongjie said, "Third Middle School."
Li Yuan thought he had misheard: "You must have asked the wrong person! Even Lin Ge isn't going, but Tong Tong is—"
"Go," Ji Tong said, putting down his chopsticks.
The private room was silent for several seconds.
Li Yuan: "Huh??"
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