Chapter 16

◎ Dynamic playfulness, relative stillness ◎

"Echo" has been open for more than a week, and it is deserted. The number of people who have come in can be counted on ten fingers. Among them are Zhu Yao, Xu Zhaolin and the permanent resident Wen Xu.

Du Ningyang was mentally prepared for this. To outsiders, she seemed to be quite happy and leisurely.

Wen Xu went to Teacher Lu's studio as an assistant teacher for a transition period. She planned to stop working after earning enough money to buy a notebook. She worked four days and rested three days, which meant she was out early and came back late. She became a roommate in name and in fact with Du Ningyang

. Apart from seeing her drawing in front of the computer, she also saw her driving out the young people who came in. "Are you an adult?" One day during the break, he heard her lazy voice downstairs.

"I am an adult," the other party's voice was a little tender and weak.

"Take out your ID card and let me see it," she refused bluntly, looking very experienced.

"I forgot to bring it," they went back and forth.

"That won't work," she said, "or your guardian can come over and sign a guarantee letter promising not to cause me trouble, and I will tattoo it for you."

The other party left in a huff. It

was a coincidence that day. Not long after, another adult girl came and stayed in the store for a while. Wen Xu pricked an ear and listened. Oh, it turned out that she wanted to tattoo her boyfriend's name on her chest.

"No."

Is this a business attitude? The girl suspected that she had heard it wrong.

Not only "No", Du Ningyang threatened her, "Put your hand here, I will prick you with the machine, do you think it hurts?"

"It's okay, it doesn't hurt, I'm quite tolerant of pain." Does this lady boss really want to prick? The girl gritted her teeth and squeezed out words from between her teeth, "Ouch - prick!"

"This is a needle, of course it pricks," Du Ningyang asked with a smile, "What's your partner's name?"

The other party said a three-character word with slightly more strokes. Du Ningyang said: "When you break up, it will be more painful to remove the tattoo. Your partner's name is too complicated. In my experience, it is not enough to remove it once. You have to remove it at least ten times." "

Who said we will break up?"

Du Ningyang lifted up the sleeves of his sweater. There was a rose on his left forearm. "See here? Look carefully, are there two letters? It is too painful to remove the tattoo. I have to cover it up."

"Fortunately, it is just two letters," she sighed: "If I were to smell Chinese characters like you, I would regret it."

Du Ningyang looked at the girl again. She was dressed very well, so he said earnestly: "Go back and think about it carefully. You have made such a big sacrifice. Your partner should come with you. You want to get a tattoo together."

The girl was "persuaded to give up" and said with great determination: "Then if I bring him here, you have to give us a discount."

"I'll give it to you for free," Du Ningyang waved his hand and turned back to the computer screen to perfect the tattoo stickers she designed.

The girl left in disgrace, taking away the short-lived popularity of the store.

Wen Xu changed into casual clothes and went downstairs, jokingly saying, "I see you chasing people away all day long. You are the 'Echo' youth counseling center, counseling troubled youth every day to prevent them from 'going astray'."

Du Ningyang smiled with a fake smile, and the corners of his mouth twitched, "Mind your own business."

"Let me take a closer look at your arm," Wen Xu approached her, "I only thought the flower was very bright before, but I didn't expect there were letters of someone's name underneath."

"You eavesdropped on me - this is a business secret," Du Ningyang slapped Wen Xu's hand away, "Get out of the way, don't delay me from doing my work."

He got excited all of a sudden, and he was like a child, not giving up, "Can you show me?"

Du Ningyang had no choice but to raise his arm and roll down his sleeves, revealing his scallion-white forearm, which was as red as a rose flower, "I framed hers, there are no letters of an ex."

"Who is 'WY'?"

There were indeed no congratulatory letters, but there were still two letters.

"A friend," she hurriedly retracted her arm.

This is a new character. Wen Xu asked, "Why haven't you mentioned it before? Do I know her?"

She has several tattoos on her body. Except for this one with letters, the rest are all patterns. She doesn't have Zhu Yao, Xu Zhaolin, or even Zhu He, but she has a tattoo of "a friend" with no trace.

"Of course you don't know her," she hastily pulled her hand back, like a thief.

"Boyfriend or girlfriend," Wen Xu felt jealous for some reason, although he had no reason to be jealous.

"Female," Du Ningyang suddenly became a little impatient, "Don't ask me any more questions - I advise you."

"Let's make an appointment to have dinner together one day. I haven't even met her," he was sure that she was a super straight woman and was very confident about this "WY".

Du Ningyang said "wishful thinking", but Wu You's nearly perfect face emerged in his mind bit by bit, beautiful and young, and always remained in the same appearance as six years ago.

It turned out that she had passed away for so long.

"I won't tease you anymore," Wen Xu checked the time, "Are you hungry? I'll go buy lunch, what do you want to eat?"

They no longer cared whether to treat each other or not, and spent money casually, as if they had entered a state of living together.

"I want to eat the beef noodle from the North Street restaurant, spicy and spicy, and a small fried cake," Du Ningyang instantly returned to his heartless state when talking about lunch.

Wen Xu was tall, and took big and fast steps. She bought the food and came back soon. He followed suit and ate exactly the same as her. After being with her for a long time, he learned how to be poor, and became more and more skilled. He knew to peel off the plastic film of disposable chopsticks and observe and carefully shave off the burrs first.

"I haven't asked you why you became a tattoo artist," he was used to letting the soup cool before eating, "You want to be a tattoo artist and drive away all the customers - I don't understand you."

"I don't want to make money against my conscience," she answered his question selectively, "I'm afraid they will regret it in the future."

"But I remember you didn't want to be a tattoo artist before," his memory of her when she was young was deeper than her own, "I remember one day you were chatting in the corridor, you said your goal was to study architecture at Huaicheng Academy of Fine Arts, and you wanted to build a big house."

"Really?" She squinted her eyes and recalled, it seemed like there was such a thing, but she couldn't remember it clearly, "There was a time when I really liked playing games like SimCity, and I wanted to design a big house."

Du Ningyang took a mouthful of noodles and choked in a hurry, and suddenly started coughing. Wen Xu patted her back and picked up the warm water at hand to feed her.

"Don't eat so quickly, no one is competing with you," he said.

"That's not right," Du Ningyang came back to his senses and remembered the scene when they stood in the corridor that day, "I noticed that you always observed me and eavesdropped on our conversation."

Wen Xu was silent for a while, but did not deny it and said "yes".

The two of them fell into a silent eating mode. After a while, he explained again: "But I didn't mean to hear it."

Du Ningyang turned her head and rolled her eyes at him, indicating that it would not help, and it could also be understood as not trying to be too shady. But she was still very happy in her heart.

-After

Du Ningyang made up her mind to turn over a new leaf and be a good person, Xu Zhaolin said that he also wanted to join her diligent study camp, so they "conspired" in the corridor on how to counterattack and reach the peak of their lives.

"80 in math, 100 in Chinese, 100 in English, 200 in politics, history and geography, that's... 480," Xu Zhaolin spent about half a minute calculating these integers

in his head. Du Ningyang muttered, "480... 480 is not enough. I checked that the Huaicheng Academy of Fine Arts requires 500 points, and the architecture department requires a higher score. I have to take 520."

"Then you'll get 10 extra points in Chinese and 10 extra points in English," Xu Zhaolin looked at Du Ningyang with great sympathy, and the words "you will definitely fail" were almost written on his face.

Du Ningyang knew it in his heart, "Fuck, this is too difficult."

"You two didn't draw your homework clearly today. Isn't it too far-fetched to think about this now? Too far-fetched," Zhu Yao passed by lightly, as if it had nothing to do with her, as if she would not take the college entrance examination in two years.

"Go away," Xu Zhaolin approached Du Ningyang, "ignore her, let's continue the discussion. The Department of Architecture is difficult, you can change to another major... For example, animation design, garden landscape, or take a roundabout way to save the country, just go in first."

Zhu Yao asked: "She wants to be admitted to Huaicheng Academy of Fine Arts. I know this, but why are you working so hard? There must be a motive."

"He and I went to the bookstore to buy comics on the weekend. He should have fallen in love with a guy from Huaicheng Academy of Fine Arts," Du Ningyang said, "It's the guy who held a photography exhibition in the bookstore, right? If I'm not mistaken."

"You..." Xu Zhaolin didn't expect Du Ningyang to be so meticulous, "Well, you! You!"

"You bullshit, yes it is, no it is not."

"What do you care if I am right?"

"That's it," Zhu Yao made the final decision and turned to Du Ningyang, "Then I advise you to change your study colleague. He can fall in love with eight hundred people a month. When the college entrance examination comes, this Huaimei guy will definitely disappear in the crowd."

"Then it's your turn. Where do you want to apply to?" Du Ningyang didn't let Zhu Yao go either.

Zhu Yao rolled his eyes, "It doesn't matter what I study or what school I go to, I just want to go to a place with lots of handsome guys - to have sex! To have sex! To have sex!"

Xu Zhaolin immediately said, "Then come with me, you'll never have to worry about not having sex with gays if you follow me."

"Are you handsome?" Zhu Yao retorted, "Being handsome is the first factor."

"How handsome does it take to be handsome?" Xu Zhaolin was blind and overconfident, "I think my appearance is at least in the top three in this classroom."

Zhu Yao stretched his head to look into the classroom, shaking his head and saying, "If a brick falls from the ceiling right now, all the boys it hits will be more handsome than you."

"How abominable," Xu Zhaolin pretended to teach Zhu Yao a lesson.

Du Ningyang leaned against the wall of the corridor and watched the two people fighting in front of him in silence, and his eyes met the person walking towards him.

There were clearly four people in the corridor, two of them were fighting dynamically, and two of them were standing still facing each other.

Time seemed to have suddenly slowed down.

Wen Xu's eyes flashed as if he had received an electric shock, and he turned his head unconsciously. He paused and continued to walk forward. When he was only two or three meters in front of her, he turned and entered the classroom. He

brought and took away a gust of wind.

Where will he go to school in the future, and what major will he study? She vaguely felt that he would go to a very far place.

Although the distance between them was only one step away just now, and they were obviously very close, they probably wouldn't see each other again after growing up in the near future, right?

The bell for class rang.

Hiding behind the drawing board, she unconsciously looked in the direction of Wen Xu.