prophet

In the blink of an eye, it’s New Year’s Eve. When the neighbors meet each other, they always say “Happy New Year” auspiciously. From time to time, old people in twos and threes gather to discuss the trivialities of the old year and the hopes of the new year. The lane is full of the breath of the year.

On the contrary, the neighborhood where Xia Yubing's family lives is much quieter than in previous years.

Xia Yubing learned from Zhou Nan that Mo Erya's condition has improved a lot.The Mo family's parents set off for City B a few days ago to take care of their daughter who was still living in the nursing home.But Xia's father still hasn't come back, and Xia's mother, who was still busy with her career at the end of the year, rarely has a leisure time. She and Aunt Chen bought a bunch of New Year's goods and went home, busy in the kitchen together.Since he came back from school, the relationship between mother and son has eased a lot during the half month of getting along day and night.Aunt Chen is more or less credited here.

"Xiaoyu, do you want to come down and help make dumplings?" Aunt Chen yelled from below, Xia Yubing put down the book in her hand, turned off the music playing outside, stepped on the wool blanket with bare feet, walked to the door and pulled her shoes on Going up, Youzai Youzai went downstairs, and in the kitchen I saw Mother Xia and Aunt Chen who were sitting at the dining table busy making dumplings.

"Oh, I haven't seen Xiaoyu wearing red clothes since I grew up. It really fits me this way. She's handsome and energetic." Aunt Chen looked at Xia Yubing in surprise and said.Xia Yubing was wearing a red pullover sweater today, paired with a pair of black slacks, which made her complexion pale and rosy, and she looked very good.

Xia Yubing didn't speak after hearing this.Xia's mother forced him to wear this dress today, saying that it was red and festive BALABALA. Although Xia Yubing hated it at first, he reluctantly agreed to put it on in the end.

"Did I choose a good one?" Mother Xia smiled triumphantly.

"Of course it looks good. Young people should wear more brightly colored clothes." Aunt Chen said.

Mother Xia nodded deeply.

After washing his hands, Xia Yubing pulled out a chair and sat down next to them, and began to study their skillful dumpling-making techniques.

Copy a dumpling wrapper, put stuffing in it, brush it and twist it, and the dumpling will be formed.It seems very simple. Xia Yubing observed it for a while, and then tried it by himself as a gourd painting, and finally looked at the ugly one in his hand and the beautiful finished product on the plate, and frowned with some doubts. Why... ...what seems to be going wrong?He studied it for a while, and finally thought that he was eating it anyway, whether it was beautiful or not, so he put what he made on the plate, and as expected, he was laughed at by the middle-aged sisters.

"Can't Xiaoyu know how to wrap it? Look at the one you wrapped. If you put it in the pot, the stuffing will come out immediately. Look, it should be like this..." Aunt Chen picked up the one he wrapped and gave it to him Made a remedy, "Is it possible now?"

Xia Yubing nodded, wasn't that what he did just now?So he tried again, and this time, it looked worse than the previous one... So Mother Xia showed him a slow motion demonstration, but it didn't seem to work.After tossing and tossing for more than half an hour, Xia Yubing had to admit that for the first time in his life, he was disliked by others because the dumplings he made were too... ugly.

You can't be laughed to death if you say it... So he was "driven" away expressionlessly in the middle-aged sister Hua's laughter...

"Hey, wait." Xia's mother stopped her son, "Your father called him earlier and said he would be home tonight."

Xia Yubing was stunned for a while when he heard the words: "Huh?"

Seeing her son in a daze, Xia's mother couldn't help laughing again, "Okay, okay, I'm just telling you, you go up, and I will call you down for the New Year's Eve dinner."

I thought Father Xia might not be able to come back this year, but when he heard the news at first, Xia Yubing was quite surprised, and a tinge of warmth rose in his heart after being surprised, and most of the worries caused by dreams in the past few days were washed away.

He has recently started dreaming twice in three days.

In his hazy dreams, he dreamed countless times of the amusement park he used to play with his brother when he was young, the music of the merry-go-round, the whirring of the flying chairs, the bumping of bumper cars, and the annual Muppet Carnival , those colorful and slow-moving open-top cartoon cars playing cheerful music, those furry giant pandas, teddy bears, cats, tigers, Mickey Mouse...the amusement park is always overcrowded, and as far as the eye can see, there are chattering and jumping everywhere. Jumping children and parents who can't hold their children no matter what.

The memory from the past overlapped with the dream, making Xia Yubing unable to tell whether it was a memory or a false dream.And what does this dream foreshadow, which is confusing and disturbing at the same time.

A cell phone ringing interrupted his train of thought.As expected, it was Qu Hedong's video call request.During this period of time, he will always make a phone call every three days.They would chat about rumors and funny things, jokingly complain about their family and friends, talk about their own embarrassing things, and often couldn't help laughing while talking, but Xia Yubing is a person who doesn't talk much. Part of the time, one person speaks and one listens.From time to time, there will be a period of silence, but no one hangs up the phone, nor does it feel awkward, just quietly waiting for the other party to speak.Whether at school or at home, the two have long been accustomed to this way of getting along.

"Yo, is your girlfriend calling?" Aunt Chen teased.

Xia Yubing said "I said I don't have a girlfriend" and quickly ran upstairs and returned to her room, leaving the two of them looking at each other and smiling without saying a word.

"You said he really had a girlfriend?" Aunt Chen asked.

"I don't know if it was handed in or not, but it looks like it." Xia's mother said.

"It's good for young people to fall in love. I think back then..."

……

Xia Yubing plugged in the earphones and started the video call.As expected, it was an outside shot of a sunny blue sky framed by a window.It was already dark here for them, but it was still day in London.Xia Yubing found a random place and sat down, the camera of the phone happened to be facing the bookshelf full of books.

"At home?" said the man over there.

"Well, I'm at home." Xia Yubing nodded as she said, but after nodding, she felt a little silly, who should I point to?

"The weather is so nice, don't you want to go out and play?" Xia Yubing saw that the person opposite hadn't spoken for a long time, so he found a topic to chat with at random.

"It's pretty good. It doesn't rain or snow." Qu Hedong said softly, his voice sounded a little stuffy at first, not as cheerful as before.Aware of this, Xia Yubing pondered for a while and asked, "What's wrong with you?"

The author has something to say:

There is really no way, this time is very busy, the update should be very slow...