flawed

In the early morning of the next day, when it was only dawn, Qi Nuliang heard movement from the living room.

He asked in a daze, "Jiang Yu, are you up yet?"

"Yeah." The sound of water coming from the bathroom, "It's snowing outside, I'll go out early."

Qi Nuliang touched his phone and looked at the time: "It's not even six o'clock, you go back to sleep, and I'll take you to school later."

"no need."

Hearing that he said no need, Qi Nuliang got up quickly and saw that Jiang Yu was dressed and ready to go out.

"Wait for me for 5 minutes, I'll wash my face and I'll send it to you." As he spoke, he took the clothes on the sofa and began to change.

"It's really not necessary, I can just take the bus."

"At this time, the morning bus hasn't left yet. It's so cold outside now, why are you in a hurry..."

"I'm fine. Brother, you can go back to sleep for a while."

Before Qi Nuliang could get dressed, he had already opened the door and left.

A gust of cold wind blew through the hall, and Qi Nuliang shivered.He only had half of his leg in, and he didn't know whether to put his pants on or change back to pajama pants.

What's the matter with this kid today?

Jiang Yu is not lazy on weekdays, but he likes to stay in bed in winter, and sometimes the alarm clock can't wake him up, and Qi Nuliang has to do his best to wake people up.He likes others to drive him the most, and he dozes off on the road.Not only did I get up early today, but it was really strange that no one would send me off when it was snowing.

Qi Nuliang changed back to his pajama pants, rubbed his arms only to find that the window of the living room was wide open, and the cold wind was blowing snow particles into the room.

He walked to the window and was stretching out his hand to close the door, when he suddenly saw a pair of underwear hanging by the window, flying wet with the wind.

He conveniently put his trousers back into the room and hung them up in the bathroom.It was only at this moment that it suddenly dawned on me that the child woke up strangely early in the morning, so it turned out to be the case.

Not long ago, Jiang Yu had just celebrated his 15th birthday, and he was already [-] years old. He remembered the topic of female classmates discussed last night. This kid has really grown up.

Thinking of this, Qi Nuliang stopped worrying about Jiang Yu's abnormality today, and went back to bed in peace.

When he woke up again, the sky was already bright.

The snow has stopped outside.After the first snowfall, the haze that had covered Hongcheng for the whole winter dissipated, and the sun was exceptionally bright. Only a thin layer of snow like salt grains had accumulated on the roof, which would melt before noon.

During breakfast, Qi Nuliang answered a call from Deng Jianghua, and his busy day was about to begin.

Coming out of the building, he didn't go through the front door, and went around to the open space behind the old building.Qi Nuliang had stepped on a clear path in the grassy open space.He followed the road, exited through the gap in the collapsed community wall, and found his car parked on the side of the road.

For such a long time, he has never collided head-on with Bamei Rong once. Occasionally, he was in the car and she was outside when he met in the alley.The embarrassment of the "accident" has actually passed, but avoiding her has become a habit.

The alley was already narrow, and it was snowing again, the car was prone to skidding, so Qi Nuliang drove very slowly.He saw Rong Bamei coming towards him from a distance, and subconsciously turned his face sideways.

As the distance between the two shortened, he could see that Bamei Rong was hunched over, with the straps of the wooden cart on her shoulders, and her hands with red nails were holding onto the handle of the cart, which was stacked with red bricks. , step by step is difficult.

The pastry shop directly opposite the gate of the community was rented by Bamei Rong and is being remodeled.It is true that she said before that she would wash her hands and quit and open a small supermarket. When passing by that shop recently, she can be seen busily busy.

But isn't the brick delivered directly to the door by car? Why is she pulling it by herself?

Qi Nuliang stopped the car close to the side of the road and gave her a wide enough seat.Still hesitating whether to get out of the car to help, Rong Bamei dragged the cart and passed by without looking up.

This made Qi Nuliang heave a sigh of relief, but at the same time feel guilty.Bamei Rong has helped him a lot in the past few years. Now that she has something to do, he shouldn't just sit back and do nothing like this.

But in what capacity should he take care of it?

Once you have done something beyond the boundaries of friends, you cannot return to the position of friends.It's not that he didn't think about taking more responsibilities to Rong Bamei and his wife, but he weighed himself, the work he did, and the situation in life, he took one step at a time. He was not someone to rely on. It may drag the poor mother and daughter into a deeper quagmire.

So it's best to keep the status quo.

As soon as he stepped on the accelerator, he heard a squeaky sound.From the rearview mirror, he saw Rong Bamei fell down, and the belt of the cart restrained her, causing her to fall to the ground with the cart and the bricks on the ground.

Qi Nuliang hurriedly got out of the car, untied the belt for her, and pulled her up: "Are you okay?"

Bamei Rong rubbed the mud on her hands on the wooden board, rubbed her thigh and butt that hurt from the fall, and said with a bad look on her face: "It's okay...it's okay."

"Why are you pulling by yourself? Where's the brick delivery worker?"

Speaking of this Rongbamei, I get angry.In the morning, she called the brick factory to bring her a batch of bricks. It was originally agreed that only the bricks would be paid for, and the handling and shipping fees would be waived.But who knew that the truck called was a bit too big, and the narrow alley here couldn't get in. The workers said that they would have to pay extra for moving in such a long distance, and the fee was not low.

Bamei Rong argued with them for a while, which was different from what was agreed.But the driver said that she didn't say that the road could not pass, it was her responsibility, and they didn't care.

"So you moved it yourself?"

"Yeah." Bamei Rong stacked the turned-head scooter on the ground, took out a cigarette from her pocket and gave it to Qi Nuliang, and lit one herself, "It's not about the money, it's about being too angry." I am a woman who is obviously bullying me, but my mother will not let them bully me." After saying this, she blew out a smoke ring.

Qi Nuliang smiled helplessly: "You are too arrogant."

"No way. People are like this. After bullying you once, they want to bully you the second time, so you can't be bullied the first time."

Bamei Rong took a deep puff, bit the cigarette holder, and pulled up the belt of the cart again.

Qi Nuliang took the belt off her body, put it on his shoulder, and pulled on the handle of the cart: "You go to the back and support it."

Bamei Rong was kind and supportive, and the two of them pushed the car away together.

After the cart was pulled, Qi Nuliang went with her to see the bricks unloaded at the entrance of the alley, there was such a huge pile, how long would the two of them have to drag with the cart.He made a phone call to the manager of Footwashing City, asked him to contact a small three-wheeled dump truck, called a few brothers under his command, and all of them worked together to transport her pile of bricks to the store in a short time.

Bamei Rong said to invite these young people to dinner at noon, but all these people were sent away by Qi Nuliang.

"I called them, so don't worry about them. I'll treat them to dinner tonight."

Bamei Rong threw a bottle of water to Qi Nuliang.She was also exhausted this morning, her face was stained, and her hair was loose. She just sat on the two bags of cement piled up: "Why are you worrying about these things?"

Qi Nuhao seemed to think that there was something in Bamei Rong's words, which made him not know how to answer.

Rong Bamei squinted at him: "You have been hiding from me for so long, are you going to hide?"

The embarrassment that obviously seemed to be over, enveloped him once again.Qi Nuliang obviously felt his face heat up: "I...I can't avoid you."

Bamei Rong suddenly stood up and walked towards Qi Nuliang.

Qi Nuliang was at a loss, not knowing what she was going to do.

She walked up to her, took out a lighter, and put it in Qi Nuliang's hand: "The money will be treated as the money you paid me for the wine, and the lighter will be returned to you. You drank too much that night, and that thing will not work at all. "

"..."

Qi Nuliang blushed, the dignity of a man made him subconsciously want to refute, but he didn't know where to refute, so he muttered for a long time, complaining: "Why didn't you say it earlier."

"I'll see how long you hide from me." Bamei Rong looked at him playfully and smiled, "Have you never slept with a woman?"

"..."

Seeing his reaction, Rong Bamei laughed even more: "Is it really not good for a big man to be so innocent? You still manage the Red Street and Xijiao City. I wonder how you manage it."

"..." Qi Nuliang grimaced, "Stop talking, okay?"

Seeing how embarrassing he was, Bamei Rong stopped laughing and coughed lightly: "Move these two bags of cement to the side for me."

Qi Nuliang hurried to help, in order to avoid the awkward atmosphere.

"When is your small supermarket going to open?"

"According to the plan, it will be a year later, and I hope it will go well."

"Say something later."

After a busy morning, Bamei Rong asked Qi Nuliang to go to the restaurant, but she didn't go, because he had other things to do.The two were at the noodle shop next door, and each ate a bowl of noodles.

Sitting in the car again, Qi Nuliang felt a long-lost relief.As soon as the words were opened, it turned out that he had misunderstood, and the embarrassment with Bamei Rong was finally completely eliminated, and they could still be friends.

In the next few days, Qi Nuliang could occasionally be seen in the renovated shop.With his help, the progress of the decoration has been accelerated a lot.Those workers who usually work in the store always want to take advantage of the money, or talk about the site, see that there is a man in this house, and they all restrain themselves.

After a busy day, the two stood at the door of the shop that was almost finished, and Bamei Rong asked Qi Nuliang to smoke.

"Hey, today is the winter solstice, Xiaodie will be out of school soon, I invite you and Jiang Yu to have dinner at that mutton soup pot at the end of the alley tonight?"

"Jiang Yu has to study by himself at night, he can't keep up."

"It's okay to delay for a while, and it won't let people have a good meal."

Qi Nuliang thought for a while: "Study is the most important thing. The end of the term is coming soon, and the high school entrance examination will be in June next year. He is under a lot of pressure right now."

Bamei Rong put out the cigarette butt, and simply said: "Then don't call him, go pick up Xiaodie, the three of us will eat, can you pack him a bag?"

"Next time, I have to pick him up at night."

Bamei Rong curled her lips, looking speechless.

"I think you don't think of yourself as Jiang Yu's father, but you think of Jiang Yu as your father, so you almost use it as a confession."

"...You are right."

"You just revolve around him, you don't have your own life at all, he is going to high school soon, have you ever thought about it, what will you do when he goes to college, works and gets married in other places in a few years? You can't really follow the past Bar."

Qi Nuliang lowered his eyelids, and pressed the cigarette butt on the door frame: "Let's talk."