ninety-nine twelve

I was not at home when my dad came back, and I went to driving school to learn to drive.

It was evening when I got home from class. When I opened the door, the atmosphere in the house was still dusty. My dad came out of the kitchen and had a face-to-face with me. His skin was obviously darker by a few degrees.

"Boy, I haven't seen you for a year. I have graduated from high school, I have grown up, I have grown up, and I know how to drive. That's fine!"

I rolled my eyes inwardly, I couldn't stand my dad's sudden good style, slipped away from under the palm of his grasping my arm, and looked at him instead, "Why are you so tanned?"

"The ultraviolet rays over there are strong, and the wind and sand are also strong. It's not bad. You'll get used to it after a while in the sun. It won't be dark until it reaches a certain level."

"Then you must be black to the end?"

"Hurry up and give your mother a helping hand. I'll get the wine I brought back from Qinghai and drink one tonight."

My mother's voice from the kitchen: "Hey don't drink—"

My dad was greeted by absolute VIPs when he came back this time. His business trip for more than a year is finally over, and he will be able to stay at home every day in peace and stability. It just so happens that this year I am an adult and I am catching up with the important stage of college entrance examination. Mom was very happy, and made a big table of dishes, and said don't drink, don't drink, but she also took out a small glass specially for drinking liquor.

My dad took a sip and tasted it, his wrinkled facial features suddenly stretched out, accompanied by a long and comfortable voice, he began to praise the wine he brought back: "The wine over there has a taste, pure, just like this I spent a year at the construction site, and drank baijiu every day with the group of leaders and owners, and I also practiced it. The highland barley wine produced in the plateau is also fragrant, but it is not strong enough, and the gentlemen still have to drink strong to be comfortable."

My dad poured me a full glass, and my mom persuaded me not to pour so much, just say something. My dad didn't care about her, took a tip of the chopsticks and stretched it out to tease me: " Xiaoyu, can you drink it? When I was a child, I took you out to eat, and I fed you like this at the table, do you still have any memory?"

"Drink, drink, drink with you." I didn't get used to it. I felt that my father's temperament had changed a lot after a year. He used to be a strict person, but now he is not a regular person. He joked with me like a brother, After a while, he said that if I want to drink, I can drink with me. I can't laugh or cry.

Anyway, I still drank it later.Liquor is really unpalatable, 52 degrees, the entrance is not so obvious, the moment you swallow it, it is bitter, choking and spicy. My dad said that the aftertaste is sweet, but I didn’t feel it at all. I couldn’t count it when I swallowed it. How many mouthfuls of food have to be cleared to slow down, from the throat to the esophagus to the stomach is all burning, this is not wine, it is pure alcohol, no enjoyment at all, as if it is disinfecting the body.

The first cup was for the sake of form, and I was bored, which simply refreshed my drinking experience so far.I didn't feel much after drinking it, but I was still sober after a while, and I started to react slowly when I was about to finish eating.Although everyone drank together, my dad was still the main force, pouring himself a cup for a while, and my mother kept persuading him to drink less.

"You are the one who is allowed to drink, and you are the one who is not allowed to drink. Everyone makes you do it, really." My father complained dissatisfiedly, and my mother and I started to quarrel. Mention anything about my college entrance examination and university.

My second cup was quickly filled by my dad. This time I drank it in small sips. Even though it was such a small cup, it was painful and long.

After the meal, my mother began to pack up the dishes, and my father and I sat and continued to drink. He told me about the environment and geology there, as well as his work, how to design, how to lay, and how to wire the circuit. , Said that I should go to the Northwest to see whether it is tourism or work in the future, it is really simple there.

The alcohol seems to come up in an instant. I felt my eyes go dark when I heard it. I knew I couldn’t do it. Drank the last sip.After returning to the room, I fell on the bed, dizzy and dark but couldn’t sleep. I remember that I seemed to get up and vomit once. Afterwards, I tossed and turned and felt uncomfortable for a long time. The last consciousness returned to the beginning—white wine is really bad .

I was so drunk that I was so drunk that it was past four o'clock in the afternoon the next day. I barely woke up, and I was confused when I saw the time. I don't understand, it looks like electric drills are drilling into my temples on both sides.

I got up and went out of the room. My mother was cooking in the kitchen again. I slowly accepted the fact that I had slept for almost a day and a night. When I went to smell it, she should have stewed chicken, but I had no appetite at all. When my mother saw me, she was quite surprised and said: "Finally woke up. I slept all day, and people are going to sleep stupid. You really can't drink liquor like liquor. You are still young, so just drink it like this."

I pressed my temples and felt my head hurt even more. I asked her, "Where's my dad?"

"Arranging his luggage in the house."

I evacuated from the kitchen as soon as possible, and went to their bedroom to find my dad. I felt a little helpless when I entered the door. One piece of luggage was scattered all over the floor. I stood there dryly, not daring to act rashly.

"Hey, I'm awake." When my dad saw me coming in, he said the same opening words as my mother.

"I can't drink white wine, let's drink beer next time."

"You are still young, of course you can't drink, but boys still have to learn to drink, and it will be a skill in society in the future." My dad moved a few bags away while talking, giving me a way into the house.

I vacated a corner of the bed, and conveniently unpacked a pack of yak jerky he had brought back to eat.

The busy man at the side suddenly asked, "I haven't asked you yet, how did you do in the exam?"

I hastily choked myself, and sure enough, the one who should come will still come, "I thought you wouldn't even ask."

"You still have to ask, but don't worry about asking. Isn't there nothing to do now? Have you estimated your score?"

"No."

"When will the results be released?"

"number 23."

"Have you decided which school to apply for?"

"Think about it."

"Yo ho," my dad stopped what he was doing, straightened up and looked at me, "why do you have such an idea this time, what school do you want to go to?"

"I want to apply to universities in Hong Kong and Macau. I looked at it and it seems that most of the schools in Hong Kong are late in submitting applications. I don't know if I can apply directly if I apply for volunteers in a few days, so I am more inclined to Macau now. I It’s not overestimated, but I feel that it will definitely not fall into the third book. I haven’t read the majors carefully, but the University of Macau has a special management department. I think it’s very interesting. After that, there are civil engineering and mechanical and electrical engineering. Ah, anything is fine. Of course, the schools in the mainland still apply normally, so it’s better to be prepared, but if there are admissions from Macau, I will definitely give priority to Macau, which is equivalent to leaving the country without going abroad. It’s just a compromise, and I can feel it It’s very convenient to get a western education, and it’s not as far away as going abroad. It’s easy to solve any problems, and the language environment is also very good. English, Portuguese, Chinese, anyway, I want to go farther in general. I’ve been studying for 12 years, it’s time to go out and look elsewhere.”

My dad listened to me carefully, while nodding his head, as if he was quite relieved, "You came up with this idea yourself?"

As soon as my heart relaxed, I felt that I could pass some news to him, "No, I have a classmate, hey, it's a long story, I'll talk about it slowly when I have a chance, but in short, he I also plan to go to schools in Hong Kong and Macau, whether it is Hong Kong or Macau, his situation is better than mine, so it is basically not difficult to stay in the same place, the difficulty is mainly on my side, it depends on whether I can pass the exam I didn't have any idea at first, this time it was his suggestion, I think if I go with the two of them, we can take care of each other, isn't that a good thing."

"I'm just saying, how can you have such an idea, but your plan sounds okay, you have used your brain, it is indeed possible to go with a companion, but it is hard to say if you have an appointment like you, You have to think clearly about what university you choose and what major you choose, and you can’t just think about what I want to do with my classmates. You have to think about your own actual situation, think about employment prospects, and think about development needs.”

"That's right, that's why I said that the management is very targeted. After learning it, I will stick to Macau. No matter how the society develops, people who love to gamble still have to gamble. This industry will never lose."

"Hey, you think simple, have you told your mother?"

"No." I pondered for a while, "Dad, if my mother disagrees, will you support me?"

"Support, you are an adult anyway, I don't care about you, I will be responsible for your four years of tuition plus basic food, clothing, housing and transportation. Boys should be independent early, choose what to read, and be responsible after reading. You stay in a place without thinking. You will never be able to thrive in such an environment.”

I finished eating the beef jerky and silently exited their room.I didn't understand it a bit. I felt that my dad had become reasonable and open-minded over the past year, but what he said actually seemed to be scolding me. What kind of decadence did I look in his eyes? As for being so flattering Do you step on one sentence?

I went back to the house and found the cell phone that had been neglected for a day under my pillow. When the screen was turned on, it felt like [-] missed calls and messages popped up.I called him back, and answered within a second of the call. The volume from the receiver almost shook me to death: "Where the hell did you go--"

I took the phone away from my ears, found a comfortable position and went back to lie down on the bed again, "Don't yell, don't yell, didn't I tell you that my dad came back yesterday, drank some wine at home, got drunk one day."

"How much did you drink? Get drunk all day?"

"Not much, really, just two glasses, but it's white wine."

"Fuck, you're so awesome, you've started drinking liquor!" Zhang Tianle started yelling again on the other end of the phone. I heard my head hurt, so I comforted him and said, "Just once, it's not my dad. Are you happy when you come back? I specially drank the wine he brought back, and I won’t drink it next time, there will be no next time.”

"I thought you were crushed under the wheels when you were learning to drive!"

"That can't be, I'm so awesome."

Zhang Tianle suddenly lost his arrogance, and asked in a muffled voice, "Can you come out?"

"Yes, if you want to go out, you must be able to go out, what's the matter?"

"I'm going back to Hong Kong the day after tomorrow, won't you see me for the last time?"

"What? It's like saying goodbye to life and death. Do you have something to do when you go back?"

"Student status filing, and then the graduation ceremony."

"Wow, graduation ceremony, is it formal? We don't have any graduation ceremony at all, nothing after that bar mitzvah."

"Yes, it's very formal, you have to wear a suit and bring a dance partner."

"...Ah?" I was a little dazed again. I thought the graduation ceremony was for everyone to take a group photo with their graduation certificates. Why does this graduation ceremony sound like a high-end banquet.

"Let me tell you, four girls have already asked me if I have a dance partner. Generally speaking, it's okay to go without the opposite sex, and it's okay to go with brothers, but it's not very suitable for me to go with a girl and a boy. , do you think I can blame you?"

"Why are you blaming me, go, take the most beautiful girl there, you are still reserved at this time, if I were you, I would wake up from my dreams with a smile."

"...Wu Haoyu, are you sober? Do you still remember that you are dating me?"

"Why are you thinking about this? I'll give you a day off. Except you can't sleep with others, you should have fun and dance. Can you have some energy?"

"You still know that I'm not allowed to sleep with others? I don't want to bring girls. If I bring girls, I have to dance with my arms around them. If I don't dance, I might as well go with a group of classmates."

"Look at you, you're really boring." Even though he said that, when he first told me that he had to bring a female dance partner to the prom, I actually had a subtle feeling and insisted on saying the opposite, trying to put Suppressing those subtle emotions, I want to hear every word he says, don't want to be unfavorable, and then secretly feel happy with shame.

Zhang Tianle asked again without giving up: "Did you not see me before you left?"

"No, I'm going to report my grades and volunteers right away. This is a very sensitive period, so I'd better stay at home honestly."

"Okay," Zhang Tianle said in a predictable tone, "Then I'll go play."

My score in the college entrance examination was [-] points higher than last year's first line.

Originally, I was stuck at zero to check the score, but who knew that the web page was completely stuck and could not be swiped out. After an hour, it was still the same situation. The whole family gradually lost motivation, and it was the same when they wanted to go to bed and check.As soon as I woke up the next morning, I squinted my eyes and started logging on to the Internet to check my score. I read the results in a daze, and I got up and told my parents. When I started to prepare for my research volunteer, I belatedly realized that I really did well in the exam this time.

As soon as I saw the score, I found that it was indeed higher than the first model, the second model and the third model, but it was the same when I took the senior high school entrance examination. Doing well in the exam means that I caught up with the simple year, when a blind cat meets a dead mouse.I haven't had time to ask other students this time in the college entrance examination, but just comparing with last year's score line, I definitely performed supernormally, and a lower-level university dared to report with my eyes closed.

My mother solemnly brought over a stack of paper, drew a grid, what university, what major, what was the cut-off score last year, and the difference between the admission scores inside and outside the province, and she seemed to be drafting some major project.

I took a peek at my dad, he was noncommittal, so I told my mom what I said to him a few days ago.

This time I described it in more detail, weighed the pros and cons, and said everything I could say, even using the excuse of "no military training", which provoked my dad to say that it's okay for boys not to go to the army now. Forget it, even ten days and a half months of military training, I want to escape, too delicate.

I shut up embarrassingly, and continued to try my best to persuade my mother. My total score and English scores have met the application standards of the University of Macau, which is much better than I expected at the beginning. I thought that if it was a second-level school My mother is definitely not happy, but if it is the University of Macau, everything will be much easier.

My dad was there to chime in from time to time, saying it would be good for me to get away from home and exercise.

"What's the advantage? If you want to go out, you can go to a place farther away. Didn't you plan to go abroad? There are so many popular western countries and the language environment is pure. If you don't study in China, you might as well go abroad."

My mother is no better than my father. She knows more about the reason. It’s not that the University of Macau is not good, but she is sensitive when it comes to Hong Kong and Macau. Of course she understands why I suddenly chose Macau.

"Anyway, I don't agree, either go abroad, or stay here honestly, don't mess around."

Sure enough, my mother lost her temper, but she couldn't give an exact reason. I knew it was the reason she couldn't say, but my dad didn't know. My mother and I continued the theory.

In fact, I felt a little guilty, as if I was using my dad’s ignorance to confront my mom. No matter how well I explained the reasons for wanting to go to Macau, in the end it was just to be with Zhang Tianle. I was very selfish and said I would never do it again. It is a matter of opportunism, but now it is still trying to win over my father to persuade my mother in a high-sounding manner, deceiving and hurting others at the same time.

But I don't know what better way to do, and I'm also afraid that my mother will tell the whole story. My father looks easy on the face, but in fact he is a more difficult person to deal with than my mother or the school teacher. Fuck it, and I might actually have to be packaged up and sent to the army by him.

The dispute ended without further discussion. My mother avoided the conversation, but she still didn't let go.I went to chat with her later in the day, leaning against the door frame and didn't know what to say. When she saw me, she asked directly: "Did you make an appointment with Tianle to go to Macau together?"

"It's not an appointment, he will follow me."

"It's so easy for that family to go to Macau. You grew up in the environment there. Why don't you just stay here? You can come home when you have nothing to do on weekends. You two just get tired of being together all day long. You can’t tell right from wrong and black from black, so will you continue like this when you go to university?”

"There's no one who gets tired of being together all day. I've met him twice until now. He's either learning to drive or staying at home every day. How peaceful he is."

"You should get in touch with other people more and cultivate normal feelings."

"Mom, you start talking about this again. Don't think about it with prejudice. Putting Tianle aside, do you really think that the University of Macau is not good? I think there is nothing wrong with the university. The problem lies in my sexual orientation. , now it's Tianle, anyway, you know the basics, which university doesn't have all kinds of people, if I just like men, do you think someone else can be better than Tianle?"

"You child! Listen to what you are saying. You are changing concepts secretly. Can this matter be more than enough? They are all children who grew up normally. Why do you have problems? Find out carefully. What's wrong with a girl falling in love?"

"Mom, we're talking about volunteering now. Where did you go?" I sighed, "Then tell my dad, he can clean me up."

"Your dad, your dad broke your leg! Is this a good thing? You don't even think about it, and you talk about it everywhere. It's not embarrassing."

I pondered for a while, "No one talks about it everywhere, and it's not ashamed."

"Don't ask me, I just don't agree, you want to tell you to tell your dad."

"Then how do people understand what you said? I'll go and tell my dad that I'm definitely on the same front with him at the moment. If I want to report, I can report immediately. Mom, you think I want to escape from the clutches and go to Macau to fall in love Ah? No! Then I abolished the scores of such a powerful test, isn’t it all for nothing? When I go to Macau, I will study hard and study hard. I will do what an ordinary college student should do. Besides, it’s hard to say what school Tianle will go to. Whether he stays in Hong Kong or goes to Macau or other places in the end is a matter of nothing, so it's not that I made an agreement with him, but I am in such a relationship with him now, of course I am I want to get as close to him as possible, it has nothing to do with being a man or a woman, I'm not kidding."

My mother closed her eyes and shook her head, "You are stubborn now, what's the use of being stubborn with me, you will suffer in the future."

Only I know the user name and password of the college entrance examination volunteer reporting system, and most of the self-enrollment is done online. In fact, I don’t have to waste my words. I just report as I want, and they can’t do anything to me. After the final admission notice, everything is dusty. It was decided that not being able to go to a university they were satisfied with was better than not going to a university.I could do that, but I can't be so selfish.

"Mom, it's okay if you don't support me or understand me, but you have to give me a chance to suffer. I don't know many things if I don't suffer. If I don't know, I will always think it is right."

My mother didn't answer for a long time, I felt that there was no need to waste it, and I was about to go back to the room helplessly, when she finally spoke, she said the same thing: "Go and tell your dad, don't ask me, you won't listen to me anyway." of."

When I went back to the room, I remembered that I hadn’t told Zhang Tianle my score all day long. I took out my phone and wanted to tell him, but I received a picture from him. As soon as I opened it, I couldn’t help but blurt out the word “Damn it.” In the photo, Zhang Tianle Wearing a standard black suit and white shirt, tie, and pure black earrings on his ears, he took a selfie with his eyes closed and smiling.The second photo is a group photo of more than a dozen people. There are men and women standing cross-legged. The men are all in suits and shirts, and the women are all in dresses and long skirts. They put their arms around each other for the photo. Zhang Tianle's gentleman's hand is placed behind the girl next door. , raised his wrist and clenched into a fist, making me laugh to death.

The time he sent me was past eight o'clock in the evening, and it is past ten o'clock now.

I called him back, but there was a noise on his other end, but there was the voice of the station announcement in the carriage.

"Where are you?" I asked.

"In the subway, just come up."

"Is it over?"

"No, the prom is over, they are going to the afterparty, I won't go."

"why are you not going?"

"I don't want to go, it's boring."

I secretly laughed and told him that if nothing happened this time, I should have written a book.

"Really? Then you have more choices."

"I'm applying for the University of Macau, please fight hard, don't abduct me to Macau and then you won't be able to go by yourself."

"That won't be the case. The threshold for me to go to Macau is much lower than yours."

"Damn it? I don't like hearing that anymore, why are you showing off now?"

"Oh, tell the truth."

"When will you come back?"

"In two days, anyway, the graduation trip will definitely not be delayed, so don't worry."

"Hey, let me tell you, the coach I was learning to drive scolded a girl yesterday..."