Rebirth Aftec Death

Walk the path you have walked

The mini-long holiday is next Friday. I took a day off in the afternoon and asked Jiang Chi to accompany me to take a look at the house to rent in the countryside. It is really shabby: L-shaped, with a tiled roof on one side and a renovated second-floor bungalow on the other side. There is a wood stove, no air conditioning, and the TV needs to be connected to the sky pot. Fortunately, everything is complete, there is rice and flour, water and electricity, and there is a grape trellis in the backyard. I heard that people live there from time to time. When the owner learned that he could rent it out to make money, he quickly moved to make room.

Before leaving, I bought a bunch of fruits and asked the chef at home to make some beef buns to prevent Li Chishu from doing it casually on a day when I was not watching him. If asked, just say that I tried to make it myself and failed, and no one touched it at home.

Li Chishu pointed at the pocket in my hand in disbelief, as if he could no longer tolerate my perfunctory attitude of making excuses: "Did you fail to make longan and grapes too?"

"..."

I tried to fool him again: "The fruit was given by others, and my mother asked me to share it with my classmates at school. The good friends in my class have shared it, and this is for you."

He took it reluctantly, said "thank you" again, and said: "You really don't have to do this next time."

"Yeah." I nodded actively, "I'll eat with you next time."

"Ah?"

"Nothing." I pushed him into the classroom, "If you can't finish it, share it with others. I have something else to do, so I'll leave first."

Li Chishu looked back at me twice when he walked to his seat. The last time, I waited for him to sit down and reminded him with lip language "eat on time" before I turned around and left completely.

Jiang Chi borrowed an SUV from his brother and helped me transport a freezer of ice cream to the house in the countryside.

The freezer is not big. After all, it is only prepared for Li Chishu alone. How big can it be? It was about the width of a small table, just above my knees.

After driving for nearly three hours, we immediately powered up the freezer and hid it in a small room next to it.

Jiang Chi was so tired that his mouth was dry. I immediately made him a pot of tea. The tea leaves were black tea that the people here dried themselves. I sprinkled one or two leaves into a large pot and boiled it. It was fragrant and thirst-quenching.

I put the tea in cold water to cool it down and handed it to him. He squatted under the eaves, drank a cup of tea, and spit out a mouthful of foam.

"Pfft!" Jiang Chi's face wrinkled into a bun fold, "Why is it all tea leaves?"

I leaned against the wooden door, stepped on the threshold as high as half of my calf and smiled: "I can't bear to part with it."

"What can't you bear to part with?" Jiang Chi protested, "People said that you can use the things here freely, and when the time comes, you can finish the house together."

He waved at me: "Go, go quickly, and boil another pot of good tea."

"Just drink it," I turned around to move the things in the trunk, "I can't bear to boil the good tea leaves, otherwise I won't have anything to drink when Li Chishu comes."

About three seconds, I flashed to the side, and Jiang Chi's teacup flew right to my waist. A box of daily necessities and a box of food ingredients were placed in two roller skate boxes in the car, classified by category. The ones that needed to be frozen were placed in the refrigerator in the original house - mostly meat, the refrigerator here is not very good at refrigeration, and it is still okay to freeze them for a short vacation. I didn't bring much vegetables. I knew before I came that the land in front of the house was owned by the owner. If I wanted to eat green vegetables and potatoes, I could dig them up.

Jiang Chi took a breath in the main room and came to join in the fun.

"Slippers, water cups, towels... Hey!" He looked around behind me with his arms folded, "The dumpling skins are ready! There are also bowls and chopsticks! You want to take root here and build a new countryside?"

I was too lazy to pay attention to him: "Li Chishu likes cleanliness, he is not used to other people's things."

"He is not used to it..." Jiang Chi shook his head and pouted his mouth in a weird way, "He is used to your things? Who are you to him?"

I didn't say anything, packed up one by one, stood up slowly, turned to Jiang Chi and asked: "Who do you think I am to him?"

Jiang Chi lowered his head and thought for a moment: "Why didn't you take out this water cup for me just now?"

"..."

Jiang Chi drove the car when Li Chishu came. There was no way, he became an adult two months earlier than me, and got his driver's license during the summer vacation. I can drive, but I'm driving without a license.

Li Chishu was holding a bulging schoolbag and sitting in the back seat to recite English. I carried two large suitcases. He was still wearing a blue and white school uniform today, and a pair of canvas shoes that were washed white. He looked out the window from time to time when he carried his books.

When Jiang Chi looked at Li Chishu in the rearview mirror for the eighth time, I finally couldn't help it: "Look at the road! Are your eyes in the mirror?"

Li Chishu looked over when he heard the voice, and Jiang Chi and I were both silent in the front.

After a while, he probably felt that it would be bad not to say something when meeting Jiang Chi for the first time.

So Li Chishu closed the textbook, cleared his throat, sat up a little, and tried to call softly to the driver's seat: "Jiang Chi."

"Yeah." Jiang Chi responded quickly, looking at the rearview mirror openly, and took the opportunity to glance at me proudly.

Li Chishu thought about it and gave a vague start to his first conversation with Jiang Chi:

"I heard you lost in basketball?"

"..."

"..."

I leaned back and closed my eyes.

... My Li Chishu.

Dear Li Chishu, Li Chishu, a genius in chatting.

"I, lost in basketball..." Jiang Chi looked at me, "Really?"

I said, "Watch the road."

"Oh, I remember now," Jiang Chi smiled at the rearview mirror and looked back at the road, "It was on Thursday. I didn't run during the break and lost to this kid a few times." Li Chishu was about to speak, but I suddenly opened my eyes and turned to the side: "Have you finished memorizing the book?"

Li Chishu was stunned: "No."

"Why don't you take a nap?" I opened the cabinet in front of the seat and took out a cashmere blanket from it, "There are still two hours before we arrive, so take a rest first. The air conditioner in the car is cold, and it's hot if you don't turn it on. You can cover yourself with a blanket."

Jiang Chi made a disdainful sound from his nose.

Li Chishu slept all the way to the destination by leaning against the back seat of the car. The sun was shining brightly. Jiang Chi and I carried the things into the house and put them away, then opened the car door and called him to wake him up.

"Are we there?" He opened his eyes drowsily. He slept very deeply, but his neck was probably stiff from sleeping, so he kept covering it. It seems that what he told me that senior year of high school was very tiring was indeed true.

I helped him take the blanket and schoolbag away: "Come in and sit down. I'll make the bed before you sleep."

He rubbed his eyes with his palms: "I'll make it."

"Don't panic yet." I asked him to come out, "Eat your meal and then clean up."

Jiang Chi went to the toilet and came out, turning the key chain in his hand: "I'm getting in the car and leaving."

I said: "Play for a while."

He turned his head: "What to play?"

I laughed twice: "Okay. Be careful on the road and call me when you get there."

He made an "OK" gesture, closed the car door and poked his head out of the window: "By the way, there is a motorcycle over there. If you have any urgent matters, just drive the motorcycle or call me. But remember to return the motorcycle to the owner."

"Got it."

"Let's go."

I saw Jiang Chi off and looked back. Li Chishu was still sitting in the main room with his schoolbag, staring at an opened box of paste-like things in the corner. It should be left by the owner.

I said, "Why don't you go upstairs and take a look? You'll be staying here for a few days, and the conditions are not good."

He asked, "Whose house is this?"

"Mine." I reached out and helped him up from the bench. "It's the house of the older generation in my family. I grew up here when I was a child. My parents asked us to come here and stay for a few days every year. It's not comfortable for you to accompany me, right?"

--Shen Baoshan, he is getting more and more skilled at lying.

"No." Li Chishu then began to look around and said, "You have lived in a house like this before."

"This house is actually quite good." I took him upstairs, "I'm just afraid you won't get used to it."

"No." He shook his head, paused, and pursed his lips, like laughing but not laughing, and said, "My family's conditions... are actually similar to this one, um... a little better than my home."

It seems that Jiang Chi didn't find this house shabby enough.

I pretended to respond casually, "Really."

How could Li Chishu know that this was my purpose.

Over the years, he has hidden the bleak traces of his youth countless times between the lines of his words when he talked and laughed with me, but he never told me everything. I seemed to know his poverty, hardship and loneliness in the past, and he always presented a one-sided imagination in my mind.

Later, I found that I actually knew very little about him. He hid those unbearable pasts under his peaceful smile, and even the poverty that he himself was unwilling to face and recall, just like the old house he lived in for 20 years, never willing to reveal a bit.

Whenever he talked about his student days when he was struggling to save money, I wanted to dig deeper and ask more questions, but he shook his head and blocked me with his most typical smile: "You don't know."

"Really poor." His smile was the gentlest and most distant, "You can't imagine."

So far in my life, I have accompanied him for so many years, and he is unwilling to take me back to that place to take a look.

He locked up his own self who was in pain, along with the past that had really reminded him of his self-esteem and inferiority since he was seven years old, which was like tearing a scar.

Even I became an outsider who could not touch his poverty like Jiang Chi.

But the Li Chishu who was locked up by him became more lonely, and the more untouchable he became, the more difficult it was to erase. In the end, he merged with the darkness of the house and swallowed himself. So you see, Li Chishu, you and Shen Baoshan are standing together in a house that could have been a little more shabby. This person is not so far away. There is not such a big gap between you and him. He can also suffer the same hardships as you and walk the same path as you.

Don't lock Shen Baoshan out, Li Chishu.