After entering November, the sky is always gray, sunlight becomes extremely rare, and dark clouds of different shades swim around in every corner of the sky every day. Perhaps because of the Moselle River, there is always an indescribable moisture in the air that lingers.
Dong Qiangqiang stood quietly in a corner of the platform, patiently waiting for the train to arrive.
Trier Railway Station is not big. From outside the station, you can see that its scale and infrastructure are far inferior to Frankfurt Railway Station, which has more than 300,000 passengers every day. Like other German railway stations, the earliest Trier train The station had already been destroyed in World War II, but what is interesting is that the architectural style of the new station is neither neo-Renaissance style nor neoclassical. It is just an ordinary medium-sized railway station with not many platforms. , if there is an impressive place, it is the simple and wide gray ceiling that can cover the sky extremely tightly.
Although it was noon, there was no one on the platform. There were only a few fat pigeons walking back and forth about a meter away from Dong Qiangqiang. From time to time, they lowered their heads to eat the bread crumbs left by the passengers on the platform.
It is said that pigeons in train stations and squares are fed contraceptive pills by idle people, so they all grow fat and strong, and they don't hide when they see people. I don't know whether it is because the birds are brave because of their high skills, or because they are too heavy to fly.
Dong Qiangqiang was very tidy today: a head of fluffy and thick black hair with a faint hint of curly hair, neatly trimmed sideburns, a masculine brown leather jacket, a neat blue shirt, and a khaki slim fit Wearing trousers and blue and white sneakers, the whole person looks clean and fresh.
Today is Sunday. He got up very early. After tidying up the yard in a familiar way, he planned to go directly to the library to finish writing the small report for the seminar first, and then sort out the part of the big report that he was responsible for in one go. .
Unexpectedly, when his car drove to a traffic light away from the university, he suddenly received a call from Du Lan, saying that she would be at the Trier train station in 10 minutes and asked him to pick her up quickly.
Before Dong Qiangqiang could ask in detail, Du Lan had already hung up the phone in a hurry.
It took almost 20 minutes to drive from the university to the train station. Dong Qiangqiang didn't dare to neglect. He stepped on the accelerator and drove straight to the train station.
At the time agreed upon with Du Lan, a German high-speed train arrived at the station. Dong Qiangqiang was about to call and ask which carriage Du Lan was in, when he heard someone calling his name in the distance.
Dong Qiangqiang raised his head and saw Du Lan standing next to the door of the farthest carriage and waving vigorously to him, holding a bulging brown paper bag in his other hand.
Seeing that she was much thinner than the last time we parted, with looming veins on her forehead and sunken cheeks, she looked quite haggard. Dong Qiangqiang hurried up to meet her, and when he was still five or six meters away, he asked loudly: "Eat it." What? If we haven’t eaten, let’s go to the city center to eat something? Or a Chinese restaurant? It’s a 15-minute drive, it’s quick.”
Du Lan walked up to him, stared at his forehead carefully for a few seconds, and suddenly asked: "When did you become a beauty? Did your hair become curly?"
Before Dong Qiangqiang had time to explain, she had already put the bag in his hand: "I ate before getting in the car. Open it and take a look."
"What is this?" Dong Qiangqiang shook the bag and asked, staring at the faint dark circles under her eyes, "Have you not had a good rest recently?"
"Couple style." Du Lan pointed to his windbreaker, "Just think of it as a gift to celebrate your enrollment."
"Why are you buying these when you're an old married woman?" Dong Qiangqiang asked, "So you're here specifically to deliver clothes?"
"Narcissist. I don't care about you that much." Du Lan pretended to be angry and patted his arm. "I'm here to check whether you are studying seriously and inspect your life by the way to see if there is anything you haven't explained yet. style issue."
"Teacher Du is welcome to come and give guidance at any time." Dong Qiangqiang joked, laughed, took her into his arms, kissed her forehead, and said deliberately greasyly, "Teacher Du, do you want to check my heart first?" ?It seems to be beating less fast recently."
Hearing his words, Du Lan slowly raised his arms, as if facing his mother's animal cub, hugged Dong Qiangqiang's waist with infinite dependence, and then pressed his face against his chest, as if wanting to hear his heartbeat .
The two smelled each other's scent at the same time, but Du Lan was surrounded by the faint scent of elegant perfume, while Dong Qiangqiang exuded a mixture of herbs, cigarettes and hormones.
Although he and Du Lan didn't meet often, Dong Qiangqiang noticed the faint depression in her mood from the moment they met. He stroked her hair lovingly: "You are thinner than the last time we met. Why did you suddenly think of running here today?" "
"I came up with an impromptu idea. Today I am taking a group in Luxembourg. After lunch, the activity arranged by the group is shopping. There is another girl with me (as a tour guide), so (I) let her keep an eye on me so that I can come over and take a look. Look at you, it’s a surprise for you.”
Dong Qiangqiang also works as a tour guide. He knows that Du Lan is giving up the biggest profit from leading tour groups to others. This shows that Du Lan cares more about himself than money. He feels moved and distressed at the same time: "Then I will take you in the city. Let’s take a stroll, or let’s go to a winery? We can drink and enjoy the scenery on both sides of the river while taking a boat ride.”
Du Lan shook his head: "I can only stay for two hours at most. I can't go anywhere."
"Then..." Dong Qiangqiang was really embarrassed, "Apart from the Daheimen and Marx's former residence, there is actually nothing to see in the city center, and the shops are all closed."
"There will be many opportunities to visit places of interest in the future. I want to visit where you live." Du Lan's cheeks turned red. "It doesn't matter where you go, it's who you go with that matters."
There were almost no vehicles visible on the winding national highway. While driving, Dong Qiangqiang secretly glanced at Du Lan in the passenger seat from time to time.
She stared at the large green wheat fields outside the car window without saying a word, as if she had something on her mind.
"Strictly speaking, the place I live in is actually the outer suburbs of Trier. It is sparsely populated on weekdays and even less crowded on weekends. Compared with Munich, Trier is like a large rural area." Dong Qiangqiang took the initiative to stir up the topic.
Du Lan turned a deaf ear to Dong Qiangqiang's words, as if he hadn't heard him at all.
Dong Qiangqiang guessed that she didn't want to talk, so he shut up and drove towards home.
"Ms. Yulia, are you there? My girlfriend came to see me." As soon as he opened the door, Dong Qiangqiang took the initiative to greet the landlord. He couldn't wait to report proactively mainly because he was afraid that the landlord would misunderstand that he was taking a stranger home.
There was silence in the villa and no one responded. Dong Qiangqiang searched upstairs and downstairs, but there was no sign of the landlord. Only the cat that had been rescued by the landlord ran over and rested its head on his feet as a sign of goodwill. , but before he entered the door, he clearly saw the landlord's car still in the parking space.
"The landlord may be in the yard. I'll go take a look. You have to take a tour in the afternoon, why don't you go to my room to rest for a while? I'll go to the kitchen to get you some fruit. Do you want grapes, apples or pears?"
"You can still rest on the train. You'd better take me to the yard to see it." Du Lan's mood seemed to be better than on the way. "This house is quite beautiful. I want to see more of where you live."
Dong Qiangqiang took her hand to the backyard.
"When I first moved in in October, the yard was still full of green. Only a month later, the backyard is now as desolate as it is now." Dong Qiangqiang explained.
The poultry were playing in different corners of the yard, but Dong Qiangqiang did not see any trace of the "radar" that accompanied him while working in the morning.
It took him a month to become very familiar with "Radar", and its hostility towards Dong Qiangqiang had turned into trust.
"'Radar'!" Dong Qiangqiang roared, but he could only hear the rustling of the leaves in the wind, but could not hear the response from "Radar".
"'Radar' is the landlord's dog. Every time I clean the yard, he either lies under the apple tree and looks at me, or lets me throw sticks to play with him. This morning I accidentally threw the stick into the pond, and he also Jump in and pick it out." Dong Qiangqiang pointed to the calm pond water and explained, "Maybe it went somewhere to play."
"There are no chestnut trees here. Where did you pick up chestnuts?" Du Lan walked along the inside of the fence and looked around, "In the forest?"
"It's right over there." Dong Qiangqiang pointed at the woods outside the yard and laughed at himself, "To be honest, I was really happy when I picked up the chestnuts that day, and I was also happy when I ate them, but then I got poisoned for some reason, hahaha..."
"You are an adult with no common sense at all, and you are still greedy like a child, which is not reassuring at all." Du Lan said angrily, "Next time, remember better. Don't embarrass the Chinese people."
Only then did Dong Qiangqiang realize that Du Lan had made a special trip to see if he was okay. When he thought of her giving up the opportunity to make money for him, a warm current flowed through his heart. He wanted to say some words of thanks, but he felt awkward and didn't know how to express them. In the end, he had to smile stupidly to cover up his embarrassment.
"You look more and more like the silly son of a landlord now, especially when you laugh..." Seeing that he didn't defend himself, Du Lan's anger disappeared and he calmly changed the topic. : “Where was the wild boar found?”
"It's about the same position as chestnuts." Dong Qiangqiang pointed again, "I really don't know if I didn't pick up chestnuts."
"After you told the old lady that there were wild boars in the forest, did she tell you about catching wild boars?"
Dong Qiangqiang thought carefully for a few seconds and replied in a positive tone, "She looked for local hunters, but the results were not satisfactory, so she never looked again. I think you are right, so I didn't take the initiative." Let’s talk about helping her catch wild boars later, depending on the situation, at least until I’m stable.”
The two of them walked under the apple tree unknowingly. Du Lan gently patted the brown-green tree trunk twice, then supported the trunk and looked up at the treetops: "Are you still reading newspapers and magazines to her every day?"
"Yes, I will chat with her after reading it. This is her request to the tenant. She agreed during the inspection."
"Have you been reading for a month? How does it feel?"
"It was very annoying at first, especially on the first night after I moved in, I was forced to read and talk by the old lady. At that time, I felt that these nonsense things were torture." Dong Qiangqiang said with a wry smile.
"and after?"
"Then the Ma Lizi incident happened, but the old lady didn't kick me out, so I was very grateful to her, really. Originally, she asked for half an hour each of reading and communication, so I secretly took the whole time. Increase it to 70 minutes, sometimes to 80 minutes. On the one hand, I want to thank her for not caring about it. On the other hand, I also want to practice my oral English. I have to give a speech in the seminar at the end of the semester. In addition, I am now home, classroom, and library at three o'clock every day. Life on the front line is all about input and no output. If you don’t talk German to the old lady too much, you won’t have time to speak German to other people. You also know that in foreign language learning, if you don’t advance, you will retreat, so now you talk to the old lady every day. Talking is actually quite good, as it is both output and practice. The old lady seems to be quite lonely, and she doesn’t have much family or friends. She usually stays at home, but today is an exception. I don’t know where she went. "
"Well, then this landlord is really nice to you." Du Lan said with emotion, "I think this is much better than where you live in Hanover. The rent is cheap and you can live for free every month."
"There was a photo of her and her family in the kitchen, and Zheng Chunhua thought the people in one photo looked very similar to me."
These words instantly piqued Du Lan's curiosity: "Take me to see it quickly."
After standing in front of the photo and observing it carefully for a few minutes, Du Lan agreed: "Your eyebrows and eyes do look very similar to the person in the photo. At first glance, you two have different hair colors. Is this the old lady's son?"
"should be."
"Then where is he now?"
"I don't know, I haven't asked."
"Maybe this is the reason why she is more tolerant to you. Her son is not around, so she feels that you are her son." Du Lan analyzed.
"Maybe."
"By the way, what happened to the reference book you mentioned last time? Is the problem solved?"
"Well, it's basically solved."
"How to solve it? Tell me."
Just as Dong Qiangqiang was about to answer, he heard a sudden barking of dogs outside the courtyard, and then saw a black shadow jumping out of the woods, then turning around and barking in the direction of the woods.
Dong Qiangqiang and Du Lan turned to look at the source of the sound at the same time. He immediately recognized that it was "Radar" who ran out of the woods.
"'Radar'!" Dong Qiangqiang walked to the window and shouted, "Come here."
Hearing Dong Qiangqiang's call, "Radar" turned his head and looked at the kitchen for a few seconds, and immediately ran over.
Dong Qiangqiang pushed the door open, knelt on one knee, opened his arms toward the "radar", and motioned for it to come over.
Unexpectedly, "Radar" ran to a place three or four meters away from him and suddenly turned around and rushed towards the woods again.
"Why doesn't it come over?" Du Lanqi, standing behind Dong Qiangqiang, asked, "Is it because of me?"
Dong Qiangqiang thought for a while, shook his head and said: "If it was because of you, it should come and bark at you, but now it has entered the woods. Maybe there is something weird there."
"Weird?" Du Lanpin immediately realized what Dong Qiangqiang meant after a few seconds, "You mean... there are wild boars in the forest?"
"I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe the landlord also ate horse chestnuts and fainted in the woods."
Du Lan thought he was going to say something insightful, but he was telling nonsense. He was so angry that he kicked him: "Stop being poor and be serious."
"The serious thing is," Dong Qiangqiang stood up and warned, "I'll go take a look in the woods. You go back to the kitchen and lock the door. Don't come out until you see me coming back."
"Let's call the police..." Du Lan grabbed Dong Qiangqiang's hand, "If it is really a wild boar, you will be in danger."
"How to call the police? Tell the police that the landlord's dog is barking wildly in the woods. We suspect that there are wild boars in the woods? The German police will definitely not care. Don't worry, I will go take a look and not get too close. If I really see a wild boar, I will immediately Come out and everything will be fine."
Du Lan couldn't defeat him, so he had to return to the kitchen alone and watched Dong Qiangqiang flash into a wooden house. About half a minute later, he saw him come out again wearing a hat and gloves, with a shovel in his hand.
He made an "OK" gesture towards Du Lan, then crossed the fence lightly and disappeared into the woods.
