I'm in Delingha tonight

Standing outside the small supermarket, Chi Nian leaned towards the wall, with the upper part of his back against a protruding water pipe, and took out a cigarette case from his pocket.He couldn't shake out a cigarette for a long time, and when he looked down, he realized that it was gone.

Oh, how did you forget this?

Holding the cigarette case for a while, unable to recover, Chi Nian accidentally sniffed it.

His fingertips still smelled of tobacco, Ziyun was not expensive, but the smell was strong, and he couldn't help but recall Xi Shan's blanket.

The wool is very soft, and the corners are slightly pilled. When you hold it in your hand and roll it against your palm, you will feel a strange sense of comfort. It will cover your mouth and nose upwards. The fragrance of washing powder and a little smoke that is not noticeable The smell made him drowsy.He attributed his good night's sleep to the blanket, but couldn't tell which scent was responsible for the sound sleep.

There is no perfume or anything... Is it the smell of smoke?

But it seems that he has never seen Xi Shan smoke it.

After waiting for a while, Xi Shan came out of the supermarket, holding a box of instant noodles in his hand, Chi Nian saw a pack of Yuxi from the gap between his palm and the wall of the box.

It turns out that he doesn't smoke like him, Chi Nian thought.

"Instant noodles?" Chi Nian slightly lowered his head to look at the small print on the box, "Ah, it's still stewed chicken with mushrooms."

Xi Shan nodded: "Do you want to eat it? Don't eat the one with spicy beef in it."

Chi Nian took it over: "Then this is it. So it's just instant noodles... I thought you could get something good."

"Instant noodles, not bad, I spent a lot of money to buy them for you."

Chi Nian laughed haha, and when the tip of his nose smelled the fragrance, his stomach let out an honest growl.But he no longer had the embarrassment of trying to save face when he first met Xi Shan, as if he had entered the duty room of the police station together—even though one was inside and the other was outside—he had no taboos and didn't care about these superficial tricks at all.

Xi Shan really laughed at him: "Is your stomach thundering?"

"Oh." Chi Nian raised his calf, as if to kick someone.

Xi Shan stepped back half a step, and asked, "Why didn't you tell me earlier when you're so hungry?"

"It's not about waiting to wash your face first."

"True."

Chi Nian ignored him, took a bite of the soup-soaked noodles, and said vaguely, "Spend a huge amount of money... how much?"

"Ten yuan!" Xi Shan exaggeratedly emphasized, standing next to Chi Nian and leaning against the wall, tore open Yuxi's package, and asked him hesitantly, "Can I smoke?"

Chi Nian was obsessed with eating noodles, and he didn't mind after licking his cheeks and saying "huh".

"By the way, your car." Xi Shan suddenly mentioned this matter, "I just asked the police for you, and they will find a way to deal with it. I also left a copy of the coordinates, so don't worry."

Chi Nian didn't expect him to remember this—after all, he almost forgot—and quickly said: "Ah, I'm sorry to trouble you, I almost didn't remember it."

"How did your memory get here?" Xi Shan mocked him, but his tone was still kind, "It's not too bad if others can help, but it's a waste of money to buy a car."

When Chi Nian was mentioned, his heart bleeds again.

After he ran away from home, he didn't have much savings, and he spent most of it on buying a car.At that time, he didn't hesitate, thinking that money was something outside of him, and it was meaningless to struggle with it. Now, although he hadn't figured out how to take the next road and where he should live after reaching the end of Xishan, he suddenly struggled.

Simply turn grief and anger into appetite and eat hard.

The lighter sounded crisply, Xi Shan lifted his chin slightly, and exhaled a puff of smoke.The nicotine-flavored gas quickly became transparent and disappeared into the wind. Chi Nian didn't have time to catch the change in its trajectory.

The taste of instant noodles is just like that, they are mass-produced, so it’s hard to say whether they are delicious or not.He has been hungry for too long, and all he ate before was naan and mutton, which were relatively dry, so he could have something with soup, even if it didn’t seem particularly soft, he felt reborn—every step since he met Xi Shan, he seemed to step out , have the joy of living again.

Thinking of Xi Shan, my mind couldn't help extending around him again.

Chi Nian thinks that Xi Shan is really strange. He cares about the down-and-out guys squatting in the Gobi Desert. To the girl who was rescued by him.The girl must have been hurt just now, Chi Nian thought absently, secretly speculating why Xi Shan didn't leave her contact information no matter what.

Don't like it?

The problem has nothing to do with men and women who don't like beautiful ones.

It's just that I don't want to know each other, it's so weird.

After much deliberation, there was no result, and when Xi Shan's cigarettes were almost exhausted, Chi Nian had also finished his cigarettes.He drank the last sip of soup and threw the box away, swearing to himself that he had never wasted food since he entered Qinghai.

"Okay?" Xi Shan tilted his head after getting an affirmative answer, "Let's continue on the road."

After he finished speaking, he took another cigarette in his mouth, without lighting it directly, and walked towards the car.

"Are we still heading east?" Chi Nian asked.

Xi Shan didn't look back, but raised his hand to beckon him.

"Hurry up and follow."

It was still Chi Nian who drove the car again, Xi Shan didn't say anything but he could tell he was very tired, the red blood in his eyes was covered by the sunglasses, he leaned on the co-pilot, he looked half asleep and half awake.

"Do you want to rest?" Chi Nian asked tentatively.

Xi Shan shook his head: "I can't sleep."

"Last night, I was so tired. I would have passed it a long time ago... Why can't I fall asleep?" Chi Nian hesitated for a while, and gave Xi Shan two choices to avoid his embarrassment. "Is it insomnia, or has it always been like this?"

"neither."

Chi Nian: "Ah, then why don't you sleep?"

"I'm worried about you driving, I have to keep an eye on it." Xi Shan closed his eyes and said, the corners of his mouth curled up.

Chi Nian clenched the steering wheel and almost exploded: "What! I am an old driver who got a driver's license as soon as I was an adult, and started driving the next day after I got my book. I have four years of driving experience!"

Xi Shan's tone was exaggerated: "Oh? It's not easy for the old driver to overturn in the Gobi Desert."

Chi Nian: "..."

Every time he mentioned this topic, he was speechless. Before, he admitted to Xi Shan that he was just lost, but now he changed his words, and his state was no longer what it used to be. It seemed too deliberate.Chi Nian coughed twice, and opened the car window a few centimeters, and the wind from the plateau came in.

Construction sites and dusty sheds drifted farther and farther behind.

Chi Nian decided to divert Xi Shan's attention: "What happened just now?"

"Hmm..." Xi Shan's lazy nasal voice came from the co-pilot, and he thought for a long time before continuing, "After you went to the bathroom, you heard a few guys teasing girls there, 'get to know' or something, it's annoying. The girl is not very old, so it is estimated that no one with her is here, or she is just like you. She is alone and doesn't know how to deal with it. I didn't want to be nosy at first, but I went to stop them when I saw a few of them surrounding a girl and wanted to get started. Take a moment—anyway, it's too nasty to do it."

Xi Shan explained what happened concisely, which also confirmed Chi Nian's thoughts from the side.

"So it's a righteous act."

Xi Shan seemed indifferent: "Really? It's just not pleasing to the eye."

Chi Nian was worried: "But there are a lot of those people, don't do this next time, what if they carry knives?"

Xi Shan chuckled: "It's okay."

The words "It will be very dangerous" neatly lined up on the tip of Chi Nian's tongue, but his throat moved slightly, feeling that the two of them were not familiar enough for him to worry about Xi Shan's safety, so he swallowed it back in the end.

Xi Shan, on the other hand, saw him sitting up straight after not speaking for a long time, comforting Chi Nian as if he was in a different position: "I have a sense of propriety, that group of people are just bluffing, tourists from other places... unfamiliar with the place, looking arrogant , If you really want to make a move, you must be faster than me."

He was a little complacent, but Chi Nian rolled his eyes when he heard it: "Then you are really amazing!"

This sentence brings out his Beijing movies, Xi Shan tilted his head in surprise, the earphone cable got half of it and did not move, as if he had discovered the New World: "Hey Chi Nian, are you talking like this on purpose or..."

"I'm from Beijing." Chi Nian was annoyed.

Xi Shan: "I couldn't hear it at all before."

Chi Nian smiled on the skin: "I'm from Beijing."

Xi Shan patted his knees and was almost strangled by the seat belt: "Hahahaha... okay, it smells like that. But I really didn't expect it."

"why?"

"Just because your Mandarin is pretty standard without an accent."

Chi Nian took it easy, and it didn't hurt to uncover the bloody scars in front of him: "I talked to someone before... Anyway, he thinks Beijing movies are hot, and he still listens to them after school, which is annoying. He is from the south and has been together for a long time. I can’t help it, unless I’m with my family or Fa Xiao, it’s actually hard for others to tell that I’m a local.”

"Can it still be like this?" Xi Shan was surprised, "Then you dote on her."

"Not really... I just kept thinking about it," Chi Nian choked his throat slightly when talking about his ex, and then he continued calmly, "I think, when two people are together, there are things that can be mutually beneficial." To be tolerant is to be tolerant. It’s just an accent, not a matter of principle.”

Xi Shan didn't know what was on his mind, maybe because the sun visor covered half of the sunlight, his eyebrows and eyes sank into the shadows together.

He read softly: "Tolerance to each other... It seems that I am still a child, but my thoughts are so mature."

"I'm not a child." Chi Nian emphasized.

"Have a driver's license as an adult, and have been driving for four years. He is 22 years old." Xi Shan counted him, raised his eyebrows, and the gloom was replaced by the familiar cheerfulness, as if delusional, "What is it if you are not a child?"

Chi Nian argued hard: "At least you've finished college!"

Xi Shan remained silent, and leaned on the bridge to look at him sideways, with a devoted expression, but Chi Nian didn't dare to look at him.

"Chi Nian..." Xi Shan's tone was a little drifting, and he was almost drowned in the sound of the engine, "Are you really 22? You look like a minor."

The ear on the other side that was not close to Xi Shan suddenly turned red, honestly revealing his emotions.This person switches between being serious and teasing at any time, and he can't tell which is sincere and which is just a joke.

Whenever Xi Shan said this to the girl, the other party probably wished he could directly agree with him...

Chi Nian turned his head away, and hid the red half of his ear deeper.

"Where are you from?" he asked.

"you guess."

"I don't know, the accent sounds like a southerner."

Xi Shan squinted his eyes, and the curved arc was beautiful: "Then I am from the south."

Hey, so frustrating.

"Then how old are you?" Chi Nian was afraid that he would say "guess" again, so he hurriedly added conditions to block Xi Shan's ambiguous answer, "I'm almost done shaking my family, if you let me guess again, I can't play." move."

Xi Shan leaned forward and back together, then straightened his eyebrows and eyes: "I... will be 10 years old in October this year."

Chi Nian shook his hand, the steering wheel almost turned crooked, and the off-road vehicle slid out of an S shape during his poor handling. Fortunately, there were few vehicles on the national road, and no traffic accident was caused.

Xi Shan didn't feel scared at all, and laughed even harder: "Why, it's unbelievable to drift in place?"

"No," Chi Nian glanced at him, "I feel... tsk, so old."

He was taken aback for a moment, then Xi Shan stretched out his hand and squeezed his face very unceremoniously.

"Be careful what you say, kid."