The Xu family has always had an invisible rule: spoiled children can be disrespectful to their parents, and can talk back and quarrel when they get angry occasionally - of course they will most likely be punished afterwards - but they cannot mess up with elders of the next generation. For example, they must address them as "you", and ask "Would you like to try it" before eating something, and they have to listen to whatever the elderly say.

This may be something that was instilled into Xu Xilin's mind when he just learned to go to the toilet by himself. Although no one taught him later, it has basically sunk into his bones.

He yelled that, and grandma didn't say anything. Xu Xilin was the first one to be at a loss.

He shut up with sadness all over his body, stood still for a moment, admitted his mistake first, and tried to be attentive to his grandmother by making a bowl of royal jelly. He softened his tone and said something else: "Have you had breakfast? There are snacks bought by Dou Xun in the kitchen."

Grandma Xu's expression looked better and she asked him to bring it over.

Xu Xilin ate with her silently, his eyes blank. He felt that he had not been so irritable before, but recently he had been unable to control his temper.

Grandma was particular about health preservation and refused to eat too much sweets. After eating a few bites, she told Xu Xilin to heat up a bowl of porridge for her. Then, seeing that he had nothing to do, she asked him to feed the birds.

"In the past, this kind of thing was only available during the Chinese New Year." Grandma Xu didn't know which year's almanac she was thinking of, and she started to talk in a rambling way, "Xiaohui has gone to college, and I'm alone now. Please go out of town and send something to your uncle Zhu's house for me..."

Grandma paused for a moment when she said this, looking a little dazed: "...No, it's your mother's Uncle Cheng, you should call him Grandpa, he's Xiaoxun's grandpa."

Xu Xilin forced a smile: "And then?"

"Well, your mother is the most useless one. After she came home, she kept following me and kept saying that Uncle Cheng had a refrigerator and gave her ice water to drink." Grandma Xu said, "She talked about this for three days. I envied her so much. But it wasn't because your parents were too stingy. It was because she didn't know better. At that time, you had to find a way to buy home appliances. Each one cost several thousand yuan. Who would have so much money at home..."

Xu Xilin said insincerely: "Ah, it's so expensive."

What's there to say about a few thousand?

Grandma added: "At that time, cadres' families only had less than 100 yuan a month, and 100 yuan would be like 10,000 yuan today."

Xu Xilin calculated that based on this ratio, a broken refrigerator would be worth hundreds of thousands.

He suddenly became sincere: "It's so expensive!"

After being sincere, Xu Xilin also realized that his grandmother was indirectly saying that "things in the world are unpredictable", telling him that without a "family business", "savings" could not be considered money, and one day, the current astronomical figure might only be enough to buy a pancake - just like she advised Aunt Du to urge the younger generation in the family not to let them live off the demolition compensation and wait for death.

Xu Xilin sighed: "Grandma, I can support myself and you. I'm about to go to college. Can I still take you to the streets to beg for food?"

Grandma Xu looked at his ignorant face and felt worried. Xu Jin was gone. Zheng said he was going back to China, but there was no news until now. I don’t know if he has completed the formalities. That man was not reliable back then, so it’s best not to have any hope now. There is no elder at home to take care of him. Even if the child graduates from college, can he pursue his career on his own without any support?

Is he the type of person who can endure hardship?

She was an old woman who knew nothing, and the little bit of fame she had was probably only enough to find a job for her precious grandson in the amateur amateur association.

"Well, I know," said the grandmother, who was full of worries but still looked kind, "My little Lin Sheng Teng has a promising future, but the house is too big and it's too hard to clean it."

Xu Xilin: “…”

This is just treating him like a child.

"I remember that my mother had just some money at that time. She looked at houses for more than half a month and ran all over the city before she chose this one," Xu Xilin was silent for a while, and said, "After she signed the contract, she was so excited that she couldn't sleep all night. She was so bored that she annotated my book "Winter Vacation Life" from beginning to end, which made it impossible for me to hand in my homework when school started. At the beginning, the family didn't even have enough money for the down payment. Because we happened to have business contacts with the developer, we treated them to a meal and got a discount on the down payment. After buying the house, we just looked at it. Because we had no money to renovate it, she worked overtime day and night for several months and took on a lot of small projects. Finally, she had enough money to buy furniture - she paid off the loan in the third year."

Grandma kept silent.

"This is our home," Xu Xilin said, "My mother's hard work, your hard work, and Aunt Du's hard work are all in it. A house can be sold for money at any time, but how can a home be sold casually?"

When he said this, his heart suddenly ached and he almost cried, but he lowered his head and held back his tears. Xu Xilin found that he was restless for no reason. His mood changed very quickly recently. He almost flew into a rage just now. Now he made himself feel uncomfortable and he couldn't help but feel sad.

The conversation between the grandparents could not go on here. Xu Xilin silently cleaned up his grandmother's dishes and watched her slowly move back to her room.

As soon as he went upstairs, Dou Xun stuck his head out to look at him. Xu Xilin lost his interest in playing, glanced at him, sat down in front of the computer, and browsed the web for a while, thinking about all kinds of things in his mind.

Dou Xun closed the door and reached out to pinch the back of his neck.

Xu Xilin leaned his head back on the seat and asked half dead: "What?"

Dou Xun put his hands around the sides of the chair, propped them on the table, and asked, "Do you want to move?"

"No." Xu Xilin lowered his eyelids and answered with certainty without further explanation - his birthday was in July, which meant he was already eighteen years old. Although others treated him as a child, the rights granted by the law had been unlocked, and the house could not be sold without his consent and signature.

Xu Xilin paused, then said to Dou Xun, "I may have been a little irritated these days, and my temper is not very good. Don't take it personally when I'm irritated, just ignore me."

Dou Xun didn’t feel that Xu Xilin had a bad temper - compared to him, the entire human species on Earth was relatively peaceful.

He thought for a moment and said to Xu Xilin, "I also get angry easily sometimes, but I've been much better recently."

Then, Dou Xun recalled for a moment and said, "Sometimes I see people forming gangs and it's very lively, but those lively people are all very annoying... Well, I always feel unfair in my heart... Do you understand?"

Xu Xilin understood it immediately. It means that he is envious, jealous and resentful of others who have many friends. When others don't take the initiative to invite him, he "looks down on" them and can't save his face and "humble himself to make friends". He can only wait and feel indignant at the same time.

Dou Xun himself felt that what he said made no sense, and asked in surprise, "What did you understand?"

Xu Xilin: "You didn't even give me a heads up, didn't say a word to me, and started waiting for me to go to and from school together. It turns out that you were doing me a huge favor. I'm sorry, I just realized it now."

Dou Xun: “…”

Xu Xilin laughed, and the anger in his heart dissipated a little. Dou Xun sometimes didn't know how to speak human language, but Xu Xilin found that he actually fell for his words.

Moreover, Dou Xun miraculously used a self-narrative that was incoherent and clearly pointed out his predicament.

Xu Xilin knew that he was in a difficult situation.

He has a lofty goal in his mind, which is to be on par with Ms. Xu Jin. He believes that he has no problem and can even surpass his mother in the future. In this regard, he is like other teenagers, full of unfounded self-confidence.

At the same time, he also knew that he couldn't even manage his peaceful family at the moment, and was always ready to give up with grievance.

He was unwilling to admit that he was incompetent, but he also lacked the courage and patience to be not incompetent. He had no choice but not to think about it, not to face it, and to suppress it temporarily. But even if he suppressed it for a while, the contradiction still existed. "Sorrow" was like the cough of poor love. Even if he deliberately put it aside, it would show up in other ways.

Xu Xilin stared at the ceiling for a while, while Dou Xun stared at him for a while.

This posture was full of seduction. Dou Xun's head lowered lower and lower. When the two were about to touch each other, Dou Xun remembered the unpleasant experience last time. He hesitated for a while, then lightly touched Xu Xilin's lips and walked away. He nervously moved away a little, and then he found that Xu Xilin's empty eyes were refocused, and he was looking at him with a smile.

Dou Xun then plucked up the courage to move forward and gently licked Xu Xilin's lips.

His movements were a little stiff, and he was trembling slightly, almost imperceptibly, as if he was going through an unprecedented adventure with an uncertain future.

Xu Xilin didn't know how things had suddenly developed to this point. His depressed heart seemed to have suddenly been accelerated, jumping up and down in a mess. He tentatively put his hand on Dou Xun's waist, and feeling Dou Xun's tenseness, he subconsciously stroked it gently.

Unexpectedly, he stroked the wrong place. Dou Xun shuddered and felt a numb nerve in his body extending from behind his ear to his waist, and a disordered neural network was short-circuited one after another.

Dou Xun shrank back slightly and bumped into the desk with his tall and strong body. The metal lamp of the desk lamp swayed and made a slight sound. The stand of Xu Jin's photo frame loosened and fell upside down on the table with a "pop".

No more looking, no more asking.

Xu Xilin's heart suddenly moved when he saw Dou Xun's earlobe was red and almost transparent. His throat suddenly felt dry. He moved his hand down a few inches, but Dou Xun held it down with anger. However, his hand was not pressed firmly, and was lighter than that of a preschool girl. It was probably just to express his intention of "abide by the moral code of conduct."

Xu Xilin easily broke free from him: "Sh ...

The air conditioner in the room was turned to 24 degrees, and hot sweat dripped down Dou Xun's neck.

It was the first time in his life that he had such close contact with someone else. There was a roar in his ears and he leaned tightly against the desk, as if he wanted to squeeze himself into the table... As for the rest, to be honest, he didn't feel a thing. From the moment Xu Xilin started kissing him to the moment he surrendered to that slightly blood-deficient hand, Dou Xun was basically in a state of amnesia.

Xu Xilin was more clear-headed than him, and was also more nervous than him. In the past, he had always done it himself, but this was the first time he had done such a thing to someone else. He didn't know whether to use light or heavy force. Dou Xun's reaction was so puzzling - Dou Xun just stared at him, and he had no idea whether he was in pain or comfort.

Boys are unwilling to admit that their skills are not good enough. Xu Xilin was stubborn and thought that Dou Xun must have suffered from necrosis of sensory nerve endings.

After finally finishing the work, he was sweating all over his forehead. Xu Xilin quietly put his hand back into his pocket, pretending to be very experienced, wiped his hands with a tissue, and patted Dou Xun's face, which looked like a frying pan after frying eggs, with the back of his hand: "So fast."

Then he greased his feet and ran to the bathroom to wash his hands.

Xu Xilin had just washed his face with cold water and felt a little calmer when he saw Dou Xun secretly looking at him from the door in the mirror in front of him. Realizing that he was discovered, Dou Xun stopped hiding and came in through the half-open glass door.

Xu Xilin didn't wipe his face yet. He shook off the water droplets on his hands and looked questioningly at the mirror.

Dou Xun refused to make eye contact with him, and directly took action, hugging Xu Xilin from behind and clumsily reaching for his pants. Xu Xilin then realized that he actually wanted to "reciprocate", and he dared not accept this heavy "kindness", and Xu Xilin struggled to hide and make a fuss.

The two of them fought all the way from the bathroom to the house. Xu Xilin didn't even need to wipe his hands and face, as they were all wiped on Dou Xun. In the end, Xu Xilin begged for mercy first: "No more fighting, no more fighting, you are the best, you have a king on your head, okay? I'm so tired, let me lie down for a while."

Dou Xun: “…”

What is this thing called a king on your head!

But Xu Xilin had already rolled onto the bed with his arms and legs spread out. In order to prevent Dou Xun from causing trouble again, he wrapped himself in a thick quilt.

It was not even nine o'clock in the morning, and he had already experienced all his joys, sorrows, anger and happiness to the extreme. As soon as he lay down, fatigue swept over him - not sleepiness, but exhaustion. He was worried and sad, sad and happy, all mixed together to form a pot of mixed feelings.

Xu Xilin closed his eyes. In his heart, he had Dou Xun and an empty home. He had just done something bad, so he had a real sense of growing up both physically and mentally. It was like a sufficient force that supported his sense of responsibility to "take care of the whole family."

"Now that the family business has been handed over to me, ambition alone is not enough. I need to have a direction and plan for the future." He thought silently, "I can't let grandma bring up the issue of selling the house again."

Dou Xun saw that he had closed his eyes for a long time without any movement, so he thought he was asleep, so he climbed up after him.

It was a bit crowded for two people to lie on the single bed. The foot of the bed creaked softly, and Dou Xun paused. Seeing that Xu Xilin was not startled, he turned sideways and hugged Xu Xilin and the quilt in his arms. At first, Dou Xun only put one arm on him, but later he was not satisfied and climbed on him with his whole body, buried his face in the quilt and rubbed it hard, thinking: "This is mine."

But before he could rest enough, the phone rang suddenly, and before Xu Xilin could open his eyes, Dou Xun had already sat up, with a look of annoyance on his face as if his train of thought was interrupted while he was studying hard. He grabbed Xu Xilin's phone and threw it into his arms with a grumpy expression.

Xu Xilin didn't know why the person who was so affectionate just now became unhappy again, so he answered the phone while rubbing Dou Xun's ears for fun, so that he wouldn't feel ignored.

Then a mature and loud voice came from the phone: "The results are out! Have you checked? Go check now!"

Xu Xilin: “…”

For some unknown reason, he also began to find this phone call annoying.

Every year when the college entrance examination results are announced, the key classes in No. 6 Middle School will be talked about for a long time with relish, such as "So-and-so's child is in that class, and he was admitted to xx University. I heard that he is just an average student in their class", or "The average English score of their class is over 130, but there is a student in that crappy middle school who scored over 130 and it is specially posted on the bulletin board."

But this year, the entire class was almost silent.

Lao Cheng was not destined to be his first choice, Yu Yiran was on the verge of being admitted, but she might have to change her major, Luo Bing was said to have failed in Siberia due to her science major, if it weren't for a few extra points that saved her life, she might have to find a place to repeat the year. Wu Tao went to a sports university, and had no hope for his future as a sandbag sewer for little girls.

In order to stay in the local area, Xu Xilin applied for a relatively safe school, which was a school with lower grades than his. Now it seems that this was a very wise decision. When he applied for admission, he felt regretful. At that time, several good universities in other places seemed to be sure, but unfortunately he could not go because he had to take care of his grandmother. Now that the results came out, he realized that it was not a pity at all. He could not get into any of those "sure" universities.

And Cai Jing... Cai Jing missed the exam.

Originally, they wanted to celebrate the results, but since everyone had such bad grades, there was really nothing to celebrate. They called Dou Xun to buy some fruit gift boxes and went to see Qilixiang. Qilixiang must have been disappointed, but she didn't show it. In front of the students who had already graduated, she looked much kinder. The head teacher who used to peek at them from the back door like a terrorist every day turned into a very gentle aunt next door and cooked a meal for them.

Then Xu Xilin took the lead and went back to school, borrowed a basketball from the teacher on duty at the nursing school, and returned to the basketball court to revisit the old place.

There are not enough people for the “three-on-three” game, so we have to just play blindly. Everyone is an opponent, and they compete in shooting by stealing the ball from each other.

In the end, it was Dou Xun who played the worst basketball and got the highest score - Xu Xilin always protected him. In the end, Xu Xilin, who had angered everyone, was pinned under the basket and beaten by the others.

While sharing drinks under the shade of a tree, Lao Cheng mentioned his plan to open a kebab shop. He said he would go to a bank to open an account, and find a way to work and earn money after entering college, so as to earn out the start-up capital in four years. Yu Yiran and Wu Tao heard about this for the first time and expressed their support. So they all ran to the bank in a sweat and opened an empty account.

Yu Yiran suggested, "When we start making money in the future, we can deposit money into this account. It can only be our own money, and we can't ask our family for it. When the 'Grandpa' store opens, we can all be shareholders, okay?"

It was passed unanimously, and they named this account "Homecoming Project".

After finishing this, Wu Tao suddenly asked: "Why did Lao Cai do this? Does anyone know?"

No one answered.

The truth of this matter was probably buried forever - but after a year or two, it was heard that Li Bozhi had committed some crime and was arrested. Xu Xilin heard it from Dou Xun, who was particularly vindictive, but he forgot it after hearing it. Anyway, he could no longer remember who Li Bozhi was.

This is a later story.