Xu Xilin hadn't talked to Dou Xun for half a month. He used to stay at home with Dou Xun, but now he goes out early and comes back late every day, and he is nowhere to be seen. He even invited the part-time worker to come back to cook for him - since Xu Xilin was able to prepare home-cooked meals, as long as he was at home, the part-time worker would not have to come.

Although they quarreled from time to time, they never had a cold war with each other. It was mainly because Xu Xilin was not so angry about trivial matters. He would solve the problem by himself after calming down, and Dou Xun never had to worry about it. But suddenly one day, Xu Xilin didn't want to solve the problem anymore, and Dou Xun was confused.

At the beginning, Dou Xun hated Xu Xilin as much as Dou Junliang, but the hatred based on momentary anger lacked foundation. After calming down a little, the hatred soon disappeared in his anxiety.

Sometimes Xu Xilin came back late and simply didn't even go upstairs, sleeping in Xu Jin's old study. One day, he went upstairs to get something in the middle of the night. His footsteps were very light, but he still startled Dou Xun who hadn't closed the door. Dou Xun's first reaction in a half-awake state was to jump up and rush to the door, just in time to meet Xu Xilin, who was grabbing a blanket and preparing to go downstairs to sleep.

Xu Xilin glanced at him and paused for a moment, as if he wanted to listen to what he wanted to say. Unfortunately, Dou Xun suddenly lost control and remained dumbfounded for a long time without uttering a word.

Xu Xilin then hugged the blanket, closed the door, and went downstairs without looking back.

He is not like Dou Xun, whose anger comes and goes quickly. Although he gets angry about many things, he usually doesn't take them to heart. If he does take them to heart, it's not easy to get over it. If Dou Xun can take the initiative to show goodwill, he is willing to stay rational and stand down to listen, but it seems that Dou Xun has not unlocked this function.

Xu Xilin was so sleepy that he could not open his eyes. He was in no mood to coax Dou Xun anymore. Moreover, he was really tired of accommodating Dou Xun every time, even when they did some intimate things occasionally.

He was very upset by Dou Xun, and it happened that Dou Xun had not been bothering him these days, so he might as well free up his time and energy to do some serious work - the things sold in their school's education supermarket were very expensive, especially the fruits, which had all kinds of wilted and stale fruits mixed in, and the price was about 20% higher than the market price.

However, the geographical location is unique. When students want to eat some fruit in their dormitories after class, they are usually too lazy to run outside the school to pick and choose. They usually just buy a few when passing by the education supermarket. Anyway, it's school life, and the quality of food is not high. At night, if they are too hungry, they can eat pickled cucumber slices with relish. It doesn't matter if the fruit is not fresh.

Xu Xilin saw some business opportunities in this, so he planned to ask some classmates from the computer school next door to make a very simple small website. They also went to fruit supermarkets and fruit stalls within three kilometers of the school gate and picked out a few good ones to be partners. Recently, more and more students bring laptops to school. At that time, they can order fresh fruits directly online, and then have them delivered directly to the dormitory building after ordering. In addition to delivery, they can also provide peeling and cutting services to save the princesses and emperors who have just left home from having trouble using fruit knives.

Business planning is easy to figure out. There are creative visionaries all over the world. You can hear a lot of good ideas in a coffee shop. Unfortunately, ideas alone are not enough. Xu Xilin started thinking about what to do when he started a class after the college entrance examination. He thought about it for a semester. First, how to promote it, how to make students accept and get used to it, and then who will deliver the fruit when someone places an order? The fruit stall owner will definitely not do it, so you have to find someone to do it. Who to find and how much to pay? And if the business is booming, how can you deliver it to so many students in the school? And the most important thing is that the school strictly prohibits boys from entering the female dormitory building. If you can't recruit female deliverymen, how can you deliver it to girls? And how to ensure the freshness of fruits, especially cut fruits? And so on and so forth... Xu Xilin was busy doing the preliminary preparations and solving the possible problems one by one.

Once he got busy, time passed even faster. Xu Xilin used his home as a time-travel hotel for most of the winter vacation, and only showed up on New Year's Eve.

The family prepared a lot of New Year's goods, but the New Year was not lively. Even the grey parrot felt that the atmosphere at home was not good, so it stopped talking and flew back to the shelf early, concentrating on eating melon seeds.

Xu Xilin had ordered New Year's Eve dinner more than a month in advance. He had originally wanted to make dumplings with his grandmother Dou Xun to join in the fun, but as the year was almost over, he was in no mood at all, so he simply cooked a pack of frozen dumplings to make up the number.

The New Year's Eve dinner ordered a month in advance was very sumptuous, but people had no appetite, so it was pitifully sumptuous, so we ate it hastily and left. My grandmother is old and has little energy, and the language programs in the Spring Festival Gala are basically in northern dialects. She could only understand the general meaning and couldn't follow the jokes. After a while, she found it boring, so she went back to the house and took out two red envelopes, giving one to each person.

"Put it under your pillow when you go to sleep at night," grandma nags, "It will slow down your age so that you can grow up more slowly. Don't rush it."

Young people in their twenties can still receive New Year's money, but they often don't feel comfortable accepting it, always feeling embarrassed because they are not young anymore. Dou Xun subconsciously glanced at Xu Xilin, who was also quite embarrassed and coughed dryly: "Grandma, you are so old, this..."

"Take it, take it," Grandma Xu slapped the red envelope on his forehead without saying anything. "It's a good start to the New Year, so you have to keep the New Year's money well. If you can't control the age of the villain, the old man will die, right?"

Xu Xilin: “…”

Stop talking nonsense and just answer it.

Grandma Xu stuffed another red envelope into Dou Xun's pocket and tapped him on the forehead: "You are such an adult - how old are you? How old are you and you can get angry and make peace in a minute? I thought I couldn't see it. You can't carry this year's anger over to next year. Take the red envelope, smile quickly, and stop arguing. Do you hear me?"

Dou Xun felt embarrassed while secretly looking at Xu Xilin. Xu Xilin had no expression on his face and just responded. Grandma Xu nodded at them both and went to rest. Xu Xilin watched her settle down, dimmed the lights in the living room, turned down the TV volume, and when he turned around, he saw Dou Xun staring at him nervously.

Dou Xun was in a state of confusion. At first, he couldn't put down his pride and didn't want to bow his head first. Later, he didn't know how to bow his head anymore, so he had to wait for Xu Xilin to speak. Xu Xilin lowered his head and thought for a while, then tore open a bag of pistachios on the table, grabbed a handful for the grey parrot, and handed the rest to Dou Xun.

Dou Xun felt like a huge rock three stories high was hanging in his heart, and then it fell back to the ground with a "bang" - Xu Xilin finally gave him a way out, which could be considered a reconciliation.

Grandma went to rest, and the two of them still had to stay up all night for the party. It was boring to celebrate the New Year in the city. People outside were clamoring all day and night that firecrackers would be lifted, but they were not lifted in the end. On New Year's Eve, the community was still quiet. When Xu Xilin was a child, Aunt Du would buy a lot of "happy balls" - those small balloons - and the whole family would help him blow them up during the day, and let him crush them on New Year's Eve, just as if they were firecrackers. Later, when he grew up, he cancelled such childish games, and New Year's Eve became quieter and quieter every year.

It was so quiet that Xu Xilin fell asleep half-lying on the sofa after a while.

Dou Xun quietly took a blanket and covered him, then sat down quietly. After sitting for a while, he carefully held Xu Xilin's hand, which was flat on the side. There were thin calluses on his fingers, and his palm was warm, a temperature that made people addicted.

After a while, Xu Xilin's neck was uncomfortable because of the sofa. He thought he was in bed and turned over. He almost fell down. Dou Xun hugged him and held him in his arms. Xu Xilin was actually awake. His eyes fell on the coffee table next to the sofa. The water in the glass was illuminated by the TV light. The sound of the Spring Festival Overture came from the TV, and New Year's greetings from all over the world were being read out.

Xu Xilin didn't move. He was in a daze for a while and closed his eyes again.

Year after year, the New Year bells rang, the cell phones became lively, and someone outside used a car horn as if it were a cannon, making the cold night suddenly lively. Xu Xilin got up half asleep and half awake, and without even looking at who it was, he replied to each one of them, "Thank you, have fun together," as if completing a task.

Dou Xun suddenly hugged him from behind, kissed him gently on the side of his neck, and whispered, "Happy New Year."

Xu Xilin hesitated for a while: "... Yeah."

The old year has passed and the new year has begun.

On the first day of the new year, Xu Xilin went back upstairs to sleep.

After every quarrel, Dou Xun would behave very well, agreeing to whatever was said, and he seemed to have a malfunction, becoming extra gentle, even his sarcasm would be reduced. He even learned to "seek common ground while reserving differences" - temporarily defying his natural tendency to dig deep and get things straight, and he suppressed what happened that day and did not mention it again.

Xu Xilin stayed at home peacefully for a few days. The atmosphere became peaceful. The grey parrot, which was very good at reading people's expressions, became active again and started its "chattering" mode again, chattering all day long.

After the seventh day of the Lunar New Year, the festive atmosphere gradually faded. The small vendors on the street began to open for business one after another, and the printing factory also reopened. Xu Xilin had to start the business that he had not finished before the New Year. He had agreed to meet in the morning, so he got up early and planned to leave quietly and return quickly. When he was changing his shoes at the door, a voice came from above his head unexpectedly: "Are you going out?"

When Xu Xilin looked up, Dou Xun was looking at him on the stairs.

Dou Xun seemed to have a pair of sharp ears. Xu Xilin wondered if he had fallen asleep in the middle of the night and turned a blind eye like an owl, so he would know any movement on his side. This made him feel uncomfortable being monitored - especially when he didn't want to alarm Dou Xun.

Seeing him nod, Dou Xun wanted to ask "What are you doing?", but the "honeymoon period" of walking on thin ice had not yet passed, so he was a little afraid to ask too much. After holding it in for a long time, he finally said: "Will you be back at noon?"

Xu Xilin: "I'll be back in the evening."

Dou Xun: "What do you want to eat? I'll go buy it."

"Anything is fine," Xu Xilin said, and finally explained, "I plan to make a website to sell fruits next semester, and go to the printing factory to look at promotional materials in a few years."

After hearing his explanation, Dou Xun's slightly tense expression suddenly relaxed.

"I have a blueprint in my room, you can take a look." Xu Xilin's speech became much more brisk as his expression changed. "I'll charge you a little for delivering the pipes and cutting them into pieces."

Dou Xun was not naturally interested in business, but after listening to him, he neither poured cold water on him nor raised any sharp questions. Instead, he said encouragingly, "That's great. When we take over your school, we can also come and liberate us. The people in the occupied areas are fed up with apples with skins on."

Xu Xilin smiled at him, waved good-bye, and left.

Dou Xun suddenly felt like a blade of grass that blooms in the sunshine. His mood immediately became cheerful and he developed a strong interest in "fruits". He went downstairs, peeled two apples, cut them into small pieces and put them on two small plates. He gave one plate to his grandmother and shared the rest with the bird.

At this moment, his cell phone vibrated. Dou Xun picked it up and found that it was a bank balance reminder.

Dou Junliang and Zhu Xiaocheng would give him a living allowance around the Chinese New Year every year. The two of them were very in tune with each other and often sent him money one after the other. After they divorced, Dou Junliang married his favorite big-breasted, brainless female mystic. Zhu Xiaocheng took the big property she got from the divorce and returned to Buddhism in triumph. Since then, she has been a quiet and wealthy American nun. However, Dou Xun always gave him living allowance on time. Even on Dou Xun's birthday, Zhu Xiaocheng, as a mother, would send him a special amount of money.

Then Dou Junliang called and said that it was New Year's Day and he wanted to ask him to come out for a meal with his family.

Dou Xun wanted to laugh. He had been making a fuss at Mr. Dou's place for so long, but the seventh day of the first lunar month was not the New Year. He still called them "family", but he didn't know who was considered a family. Dou Xun usually ignored such unreasonable requests, but Xu Xilin had smoothed his temper over the past few days, and he was not even good at scolding people. Before he could say anything, Dou Junliang had already made up his mind: "Okay, let's do it. Dad will pick you up later."

Dou Xun: “…”

Grandma Xu disliked Dou Junliang, even more than Zheng Shuo, because she thought he looked like a traitor with his greasy hair and powdered face. When she sent Dou Xun out, she gave him many instructions, almost saying "Don't cause trouble for your uncle when you go out to play." Then she said to Dou Junliang very kindly, "Thank you for your help, Mr. Dou."

Dou Junliang made her feel embarrassed, and it was not easy to argue with an old lady in person, so he had to eat in frustration. He felt that his son would not have to take his last name in a few days.

The meal was not very enjoyable. Dou Junliang took the woman with him. The woman's belly was so big that it looked like she was about to give birth. When Dou Junliang asked about Dou Xun's grades, she touched her belly and said with a maternal look on her face: "Did you hear that, baby? You must learn from your brother in the future."

Dou Junliang frowned as he heard this. At this moment, he was already regretting bringing out the vase to embarrass himself.

Dou Junliang is a playboy who falls in love with every woman he meets. He can even get tired of a beauty like Zhu Xiaocheng, let alone this brainless little goblin with a pointed chin and monkey cheeks. She started to be greedy again just a few days after her marriage. He just gave her some face because she has a child, but he didn't expect her to be so arrogant!

Dou Junliang stopped smiling, put down his chopsticks, and said to Dou Xun bluntly: "You... you little thing who I don't know if you are my brother or sister, it's still too early for you to grow up, and we don't know what you will be like. Dad only has you to rely on now, so study hard and bring honor to our family in the future. Dad can't give his things to others, understand?"

Dou Xun was stunned, and the woman next to him immediately changed her expression.