The rest of the afternoon passed in a few impromptu card games. Both Momolo and Yalayliga effortlessly mastered all the entertainment facilities in this apartment. All the things that Luo Binhan thought needed to be explained by himself had either been done by the Internet, or Yalayliga had learned it by himself ( Luo Binhan thinks there is a lot of moisture here). They played two games of Landlords, but he lost badly, so he pulled Zhou Yu to team up with him and played two games of bridge, and they lost badly.
Luo Binhan attributed this series of fiascoes to Zhou Yu's absent-mindedness. The culprit that caused Zhou Yu's absent-mindedness was undoubtedly the person who had whispered to him not long ago.
"What did you say to Zhou Yu?" Luo Binhan asked, grabbing Jing Huang's hair.
"I asked him to stay away from you so that he wouldn't get involved." Jing Huang said, "Go away."
"It's pure rumors." Luo Binhan said, "How could the affectionate Teacher Zhou care about being implicated by me!"
Jing Huang's eyes flashed with an extremely fierce light. He's obviously been too emotional lately. Luo Binhan loosened his hair and advised him pleasantly to keep his mind healthy and not think about negative news all day long. When Jing Huang's fingers began to flex, Luo Binhan immediately said that it was getting late and it was time for him to go back to Zhou Yu's house to sleep.
"You sleep here." Jing Huang said, "I'll go to Zhou Yu's house."
Luo Binhan told him that of course it wouldn't work, because Zhou Yu was a serious person and would never get involved with alien forces. He patted Jing Huang on the shoulder and told him lovingly: "This house will be yours after I die. Don't break the appliances."
Jing Huang didn't kick him, but just stared at him darkly for a while. That look made Luo Binhan feel vaguely strange, but he had no intention of staying the night. Sleeping on the floor is actually not that big of a problem, but he still has to go out at night, and Jing Huang won't be happy to know that he and Chen Wei met. Besides, he has not forgotten Zhou Yu’s eye-catching bean bag chair. There must be some clues worth pondering in it.
He said goodbye to everyone and asked Zhou Yu to leave together. While waiting for the bus at the gate of the community, he looked at Zhou Yu's hands again in his coat pockets. burn. He thought about the word. He himself had been burned before, when Yalerga had just given him the dagger. That feeling is indeed quite overwhelming. Moreover, he only injured one hand at that time, so there was no need to wrap it up as tightly as Zhou Yu did. It's so strict that people can't help but frown every time they see it.
"What's wrong?" Zhou Yu asked.
"I was wondering what happened to your hand. It looks serious."
"It's just a minor burn."
"But you wrapped your hands completely." Luo Binhan pointed out, "There are no gaps at all. How did you do this? Did you put your hands into the fire to bake them?"
"That's not the case."
If Zhou Yu deliberately wanted to avoid the topic because of a guilty conscience, at least Luo Binhan didn't notice it from his expression. He didn't seem to worry at all about his hands, which had to be precise and steady. On the contrary, Luo Binhan murmured secretly, wondering whether this would affect his participation in certain clinical operations in the future.
"How did you do it?" He still couldn't help but ask, "Is it related to the dog that ran away?"
Zhou Yu told him that it was completely two different things. It's been some time since the burn incident, and all subsequent issues are now being handled appropriately. He explained in general terms that there was a malfunction in the control valve of a high-temperature nozzle, which almost caused an experimenter to be completely disfigured and blinded. But fortunately, he was standing at the back. When he heard the strange noise from the nozzle, he subconsciously held the head of the experimenter in front with both hands and pushed the other person back. As soon as they got out of the most dangerous area, fire poured out of the vents. His hand covering the experimenter's face was burned as a result. However, after all, there were no fatalities or worse accidents.
"You still think this is not a serious accident?" Luo Binhan asked in disbelief, "What kind of medical research would use flame vents?
Zhou Yu told him seriously that medical research would use all kinds of unexpected things, such as chainsaws and hammers. Luo Binhan did find a rusty bone saw deep in the storage cabinet of Zhou Yu's house, but he still thought Zhou Yu was talking nonsense.
"I think you have been hospitalized too many times." He told Zhou Yu, "It is no longer clear whether minor injuries or serious injuries are serious. What would have happened if you had been a step slower? Maybe both of your hands were gone."
Zhou Yu thought for a moment and said, "That's true."
"You shouldn't worry about that unfortunate guy. I know it doesn't sound good, but what will you do if your hand is broken?"
"If you don't care, that person will probably go blind. I think eyesight is more important than the hand."
"That's not your eyesight." Luo Binhan said a little unhappy. He found that Zhou Yu still didn't seem to care much about it.
"I didn't have time to think too much at the time," Zhou Yu said.
This still sounds downright weird. Luo Binhan knew that Zhou Yu was a good person, but he seemed not good enough to be willing to sacrifice everything for strangers.
"What kind of research are you doing?" he asked tentatively.
"It's about the treatment of special diseases."
"How about being more specific?"
“Anything more specific would be a breach of contract.”
It was really a new thing for Luo Binhan to say the word "breach of contract" from Zhou Yu's mouth. But this time, Luo Binhan felt that maybe he should break some principles appropriately. He didn't want to steal trade secrets, he just wanted to know what kind of special disease treatment plan requires the use of high-temperature nozzles - but this can be postponed later, and there is no need to figure it out today. He believes that Zhou Yu may involve himself in a project that is dangerous to himself, but it will never be a human experiment or criminal activity. No one can engage in pyramid schemes against a rigid person like Zhou Yu, not even Momolo.
They stopped talking about it as they rode back. Luo Binhan asked Zhou Yu what changes had taken place in Lihai City in the past two and a half years: Have the roads been rebuilt? New community and public facilities plans? Which shops are closed? Which ones are newly opened? He didn't even ask if there had been any changes in government personnel, because just as he expected, Zhou Yu couldn't answer these things at all. In Zhou Yu's eyes, Lihai City itself seemed completely static, with changes only occurring in the details of life and the content of academic journals.
Fortunately, they met a talkative driver. A local middle-aged man reminded Luo Binhan of his second aunt's third husband. As soon as he heard that Luo Binhan had come back from out of town, he complained to him that the traffic jam in the city center had become worse in the past two years. The planning is very unreasonable, and of course it has something to do with the residents of the new area. Foreigners working. More and more cars. oil prices. Municipal turf. industrial area. Lung cancer in a relative.
"Be sure to check it out," the driver said tirelessly. "Everyone can get it these days. This cancer and that cancer. They usually look fine, but then they suddenly die. This disease is everywhere now. It's scary to see."
"It's really terrible." Luo Binhan agreed.
"It's fatal! You can get it no matter what!"
"I also have a relative who has this disease."
"Lung cancer too?"
"No. Some other cancer. I forgot the details. It happened a long time ago. At that time, he was working in the store opposite the city hall. The neighborhood hasn't changed much, right?"
"A lot has changed!" said the driver. "The store business is no longer available. My wife's clothing store is no longer in business."
"What clothes does she sell?" Luo Binhan asked in a very interested tone.
"Children's clothes."
"I took my niece there," said Luo Binhan, "an eight or nine-year-old little girl. Her mother asked me to help her pick out a new skirt, the kind of dress with lace and embellishments. But she didn't want pink. Yes, I want black. Her mother thinks black is too old-fashioned and should not be worn at her age. But I have never seen black skirts in children's clothing stores. Has your wife ever sold black children's skirts before? "
"There is no little girl wearing black." The driver said.
"Children can dress up in any kind of clothes these days." Luo Binhan said, "For personality, or to be different. My cousin likes to wear pants with holes. I really can't figure out how he feels that he has such personality. His rear buttocks There is a hole in it, so is it comfortable to sit down on it?"
The driver laughed twice. As if to prove that Luo Binhan was so rare, he mentioned that he had seen passengers with metal rings on their lips; someone was dressed like a birthday cake and could barely squeeze into the car door; another time he received a guest at midnight in the middle of winter who looked like Just a layer of gauze.
"Well..." Luo Binhan commented vaguely, "Young people are always getting weirder from generation to generation."
"How old are you?"
"About thirty."
The driver glanced at him through the rearview mirror and said with some praise: "It doesn't look like it."
"I like to dress younger." Luo Binhan said, "But I can't keep up with the trend. I went out to stay - what happened in the front?"
The driver cursed. A motorcycle emerged from the middle of the congested intersection and nimbly passed behind the rear of the car in front of them. Their car stopped in time, but this behavior still made the driver furious, opening the window and yelling outside.
"You're really desperate!" he said angrily, "These food delivery guys! If you get hit and killed, you're asking for it!"
Luo Binhan glanced at the street outside the window.
"There are quite a few restaurants around here," he said, "I don't recognize them anymore."
The driver of the illegal motorcycle was completely annoyed. He kept mentioning the trouble he had caused with non-motorized vehicles the rest of the way.
"One died here a few months ago," the driver said.
"Driving a motorcycle?" Luo Binhan asked casually.
"I heard it was. His face was chopped off."
"The whole face? What's going on?"
"Who knows!"
"Did it hit another car? Or was it the only one that had an accident?"
"Whoever encounters this damn guy is really unlucky!" the driver still said angrily.
Luo Binhan rested his head on the window leisurely and glanced at Zhou Yu on the other side. He was sure that Zhou Yu, who was facing the window, had already escaped from these boring and trivial chats and entered a certain state of fugue.
"Do you want to go to the school with me?" he asked Zhou Yu. But there was no answer. Luo Binhan moved over a little and took a look, and found that Zhou Yu was actually asleep.
"It seems you are quite busy." Luo Binhan muttered. He noticed that Zhou Yu was still frowning in his sleep, with a somewhat mocking expression on his face. That expression reminded him of Zhou Yu - it is said that people who live together will become more and more similar. People call this "husband and wife appearance" or something like that. However, Luo Binhan was not sure whether this was true. He would never be like Jing Huang or Momo Luo, no matter how long he could stay on the Silence.
When he got off the car, he called Zhou Yu up. "You slept really hard," he said. "Dream?"
Zhou Yu stared at him blankly for a while, as if he hadn't recognized him yet. Luo Binhan couldn't help but wonder how long these twenty minutes of sleep could produce long dreams.
"...I dreamed about work." Zhou Yu said slowly. That tone made Luo Binhan feel deeply sympathetic.
They had dinner at a restaurant near the community. Luo Binhan asked Zhou Yu if he wanted to go to the old middle school and high school together. Zhou Yu didn't look interested. This was not what Luo Binhan expected. The voice of the junior high school teacher also sounded in his head: students with good grades don't like to look back on their past. They rarely think of visiting their former teachers, and it is always the problem students who never forget their school days. .
"Don't look back." Luo Binhan said.
Zhou Yu looked at him questioningly.
"It's nothing... I want to go out for a walk at night and see the changes on the street. Maybe I will come back later, and remember not to lock the door."
"Be careful." Zhou Yu responded briefly. But he didn't say what to be careful about, it was just a polite farewell.
They parted at the entrance of the restaurant. Luo Binhan walked toward the business district with a slow pace. It was already dark, but there were still many people on the street. He put his hands in his pockets and observed the expressions of every passerby.
He felt like he hadn't seen so many faces of the same kind for a long time. These faces are so similar that they have no color under the illumination of the street lamp - not pale or yellow, but colorless shadows. For some reason, there was no smile on everyone's face. Probably no particular reason to laugh. Nor did he find a particularly sad or despairing face. Some people are boring. Some are more like exhaustion. Once, a man just looked down at his mobile phone and almost bumped into Luo Binhan at the corner. At that moment, Luo Binhan saw the corners of his mouth curved in the light of his mobile phone, showing an excited expression. But when he looked up at Luo Binhan, that unique look disappeared immediately. His flat face was as boring as any other passerby. That reaction made Luo Binhan feel as if he had invaded the other person's privacy and that he had peeped at the moment when this man revealed his biological characteristics.
"I'm sorry." The other person said vaguely. His gaze had already passed over Luo Binhan's shoulder.
"It's okay." Luo Binhan replied easily. He thought to himself that if he was a murderer who had just fled the scene and his face was still stained with the blood of the victim, the other party would not notice it. And what was the other person obsessed with just now? A ball game. Talk show. Funny movie. Porn videos. No answer was impossible, and he didn't want to prove it.
He started walking to a more lively place. This was consistent with his destination, but now it has another purpose. He longed to see something else. Flame or light. Color and scent. And of course there is sound. It's better to have laughter and noise to prove that he is not walking on a rough set and living on the black and white reels of old movies. The concrete road was clean, but the more he walked, the harder it became, as if he was stuck in mud. The air he breathed into his lungs was cold and choking, and seemed to be mixed with countless dust and ice crystals. He couldn't possibly feel tired from walking these few steps, but he did feel tired. Earthly! This word has magic power. As long as you are in it, your face will be covered with soot and dust.
The downtown area is just around the corner. In that neon light, he did capture the sound he wanted. The faces that appear here are more like living people. They will look at the display window and react to Luo Binhan passing by. When in such an environment, Luo Binhan felt like a lizard gradually waking up from hibernation. As the ambient temperature rises, his body and mind quickly adapt to the environment, maintaining a posture that makes him feel very gregarious. He had a relaxed and cheerful expression similar to those around him, whistled at the pet dog sticking out his tongue on the roadside, grabbed the balloon that almost fell outside the escalator, and returned it to the screaming little girl. When he did this, the girl was very happy and not at all afraid.
He thought to himself that she must be doing well, or that he was a good actor. When Yu Xiaorong was so old, he would never look at an adult stranger with such an expression. She always had a shrewd and alert energy. What a big kid. But then again, being too shrewd in one area may lead to being too confused in another. He was always worried about her from time to time. This concern was temporarily forgotten while he was aboard the Silence. Now he found the thought again, and found that it had not abated in the slightest. Those nightmares. Those malicious and lurking shadows. Earthly!
"Be careful." He said to the little girl absentmindedly.
The little girl and her mother walked away. Luo Binhan was still staring at the bright orange balloon, as if he wanted to make sure it wouldn't explode suddenly. He heard another burst of children's laughter, so he turned around to look for it. Behind the glass window of the fast food restaurant, he saw five or six children who were about elementary school age. They all wore different clothes and were led by a young girl. She should never be a mother of so many children at her age. Luo Binhan felt that she was more like a teacher or a nanny.
She maintained a friendly smile like a primary school teacher, but could not hide the tiredness in the corners of her eyes. It must be quite difficult to take care of so many children at one time. Through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, Luo Binhan could see her quietly stretching her feet under the table, gently pulling her heels out of the narrow and hard leather shoes, and then reluctantly stuffing them back.
He thought this scene was a bit funny, but it was obviously not polite to peek. When the tired young nanny looked over, he quickly looked away, pretending he had been studying the billboard advertising new season products above them. He thought this would be enough to free him from suspicion, but the young nanny was still staring at him. Did she think he was acting suspiciously? Luo Binhan could no longer pretend not to see it. He could only look at her, looking at her roughly oval-shaped face, slightly short and wide chin, and slightly slanted eyes, which gave her a hint of toughness in her youthful beauty. However, her delicate bangs and baby-collar shirt looked very cute, more like what a young female student who had just turned twenty would wear.
Luo Binhan was very sure that this young girl was not one of his many relatives, at least not within the scope of his knowledge. But there was something wrong with the way she was staring at him. Not suspicion of potential danger, not disgust at the unknown harasser. It was a look that was recalling and recognizing something.
He definitely reminded her of someone, whether it was him or not. After realizing this, Luo Binhan immediately prepared to leave. He even saw the young nanny stand up from her seat. But she didn't really come out of the store, but stayed where she was with a face full of shock. Luo Binhan was also surprised by her appearance and almost ran away. Then he noticed his misunderstanding - she was not looking at him, but at someone behind him.
Luo Binhan turned his head and looked back. Behind him were people who had just come up or down the escalator. There were at least dozens of people who might have been targeted. However, Luo Binhan felt as if he had only seen one person. A black hole that absorbs all surrounding sounds and colors. When he saw the figure in the orange overalls, the crowds of people walking around had indeed turned into a transparent and thin phantom again. Her loose black hair only reached the lower part of her back, but extended downward infinitely in Luo Binhan's dizzy vision. A black hanging ladder shining with strange crystal light slid down towards the unknown depths.
He ran over and grabbed the other person's shoulders. Before he actually touched him, she had already started to turn around. It's as smooth and light as a swirling dance. Luo Binhan suddenly seemed to see Zhou Yu from high school dancing ballroom dancing with him. A dance partner who vomited on the spot. A rescue that shocked others. She whirls in the dance music. maneuver. maneuver. It seems that there is no dance partner. She is still wandering alone.
"Luo Binhan?" said Chen Wei with her hair disheveled. Her expression was peaceful and approachable, but her eyes were cold and terrifying.
"...Chen Wei." Luo Binhan said, "I have something to ask you."
Chen Wei's eyes remained unchanged, like two artificial objects inlaid together. The rest of her face showed genuine surprise.
"Looking for me?"
"Let's talk somewhere else." Luo Binhan said. He wasn't entirely sure what he was running from, but he decisively grabbed Chen Wei's arm and rushed to the escalator leading to the lower level. No one behind him told him to stop.
