Dou Xun slowly let go of Xu Xilin, propped one hand on the sofa, his eyes calmed down a lot, he touched Xu Xilin's face with his fingertips, rubbed his chapped lips apologetically: "I'll go open the door for you."

Xu Xilin reached out and grabbed his hair like a sleepwalker, picked up his cell phone, and immediately woke up when he saw the missed call and sat up.

At this time, Dou Xun had already opened the door.

Song Lianyuan was carrying a pile of things, looked at Dou Xun in confusion, then took a step back and looked at the house number carefully.

"Am I in the right place?" he muttered, and then asked Dou Xun, "Is this... Xu Xilin's house?"

Song Lianyuan and Dou Xun had met before, but at that time, there were at least 8,000 young men coming in and out of Yuebanwan. Ten years later, the boys grew into young men, and the young men became middle-aged. Even though their figures and facial features had not changed much, their temperaments had already changed drastically, and neither of them recognized each other.

Xu Xilin rolled over and crawled to his feet, walked to the door, and called out "Brother" from behind Dou Xun.

"Oh, a friend is here?" Song Lianyuan was about to ask him why he didn't open the door for such a long time, but when he saw Xu Xilin's blushing face, he frowned and said, "What's wrong with you?"

Xu Xilin: “…”

It was so embarrassing. I was just arguing with Dou Xun about whether there was anyone in charge of him, and now the person who was in charge of him came.

Xu Xilin pointed at Dou Xun and said, "You have seen him before. This is me..."

"Classmate." Dou Xun interrupted him, "I just returned to China recently, and they helped me move these two days. He had a stomachache today, so I just happened to send him back - Brother Song, right? When I was a kid, I was blocked by little hooligans outside Yuebanwan, and you helped me."

Song Lianyuan said "Oh", still looking confused - Yuebanwan was his territory back then, and whenever he saw hooligans bullying students, he would intervene, and he didn't know which student Dou Xun was.

While he was confused, he also felt a little uneasy - men also have a sixth sense. There were many people who were on good terms with Xu Xilin. When he was in the south, he would bring back a group of people every few days. Song Lianyuan couldn't remember the faces of those who came and went, and didn't feel that anyone was special. But Song Lianyuan always felt that there was something wrong with the young man in front of him.

Xu Xilin quickly asked: "Why are you back?"

Song Lianyuan frowned and threw all the things he brought back into his kitchen: "Bring your sister-in-law back to visit my mother's grave - didn't I tell you? Where did you throw your ears?"

Song Heilian had been through thick and thin with Xu Xilin over the years and they were closer than brothers, so he was very casual with him and simply stuffed all the food he brought back into his kitchen cabinets and refrigerator. He noticed that most of the pots and pans he bought were still in their packaging, and his face became even darker.

"How many times have I told you to have fewer social engagements? Why don't you go home and cook a bowl of porridge for yourself when you have nothing to do? You don't listen - if you're not sick, who is?" The married old man started nagging and effectively dispelled all the ambiguous atmosphere in the room.

This made the grey parrot feel relieved. Everything that happened in the room just now made it uneasy. Finally, someone it knew came. It immediately felt safe and imitated the other person: "If you are not sick, who is sick?"

Xu Xilin glared at the treacherous little beast, and Dou Xun reached out and touched the bird's wings with a smile. The grey parrot had been frightened by him just now, and now it was angry but dared not say anything. It could not afford to provoke but could avoid him, so it flew high up without making a sound.

Dou Xun retracted his hand: "Then I'll leave first - Brother Song, we'll chat some other time."

Song Lianyuan: "Hey - OK, Xiaolin will go and see you off."

"No, you take a rest." Dou Xun took a few steps back as if to avoid suspicion, wiped the corner of his mouth meaningfully, turned and left.

Xu Xilin chased after him without thinking, holding on to the wall.

Dou Xun stood in the corridor waiting for the elevator, buttoning his coat slowly. He turned around and saw Xu Xilin standing at the door, so he said, "I'm going to report to the project tomorrow. I guess I'll be busy for a while. You can go to the hospital while you're free these two days."

As versatile as Xu Xilin was, he could of course hear that Dou Xun meant to let him cool off for a few days and stop harassing him.

Xu Xilin sighed: "Whether you believe it or not, I really didn't."

"No" means that he was not. He was just playing the ambiguous game of "old love". Xu Xilin cryptically continued the interrupted conversation between the two people.

"I know, I just said that." Dou Xun responded lightly, and then added, "I'm sorry."

Xu Xilin was a little shocked and didn't know how these three words got into Dou Xun's dictionary.

As a result, Dou Xun just apologized and then said something sarcastically: "Given the current situation in our country, even if you want to be the president, you have to live to be around 60 first."

Xu Xilin: “…”

He leaned against the door and looked at Dou Xun with a helpless look on his face.

Dou Xun remembered this expression. Whenever he made a mistake or got angry, Xu Xilin would look at him with this expression. It was not that Xu Xilin had no temper. He was spoiled like a young master when he was a child. He was just willing to tolerate him. Many times, only under this kind of gaze, Dou Xun could feel that Xu Xilin also cared about him.

Looking back now, although he was a good-for-nothing when he was a child, he would never lose his temper with Grandma Xu, Aunt Du, Xu Jin and others who were nice to him. He was only particularly harsh with Xu Xilin, and would lash out at him whenever he found an excuse.

In fact, it is just a kind of greedy demand, right?

Dou Xun's heart was filled with vague nostalgia and attachment. He felt so soft in the heart that he almost wanted to turn back and pack up the person leaning against the door and take him away.

Song Lianyuan chased after him again, holding out a box of tea leaves and forcing it on Dou Xun: "Take this, classmate... This is grown by a friend of your sister-in-law, who farmed a tea plantation. She picked out more than 10 kilograms of tea a year. Take it home and try it. If it tastes good, ask her to give it to you next year."

The dark tide between his brows was interrupted by a box of tea from the black-faced elder brother. Dou Xun was afraid that Song Lianyuan would see something.

He had just had a fit and it would be bad to cause more trouble for Xu Xilin, so he had no choice but to take the tea leaves, leaving Xin behind with a helpless look on his face, and commanded his body to take the elevator downstairs.

When Xu Xilin turned around and saw Song Lianyuan's suspicious and scrutinizing eyes, he suddenly felt his stomach hurt even more.

Song Lianyuan said absentmindedly: "I brought some snacks. Go and set out some plates to offer to the old lady."

Generally, the older generation in the north does this. On the anniversary of their death or Qingming Festival, they set up an offering table and put a few plates of fruit, snacks, chickens, ducks, etc. on it to "offer tribute" to their deceased relatives. However, few people of Xu Xilin's generation do this anymore.

"When my grandma was alive, she didn't eat snacks made with lard and flour." Xu Xilin wandered to the kitchen bored and flipped through the things Song Lianyuan brought - there was nothing he wanted to eat. "It looks spooky, and I've already swept the grave."

Song Lianyuan did not force it. He crossed his arms over his chest and paused for a moment on his broken lips: "Who was that person just now?"

Xu Xilin pressed his left lower abdomen with one hand, slightly hunched over. He turned sideways and his eyes met Song Lianyuan's.

"Classmate." Xu Xilin said.

Song Lianyuan's expression changed, but Xu Xilin added, "It's what you think."

Song Lianyuan: “…”

For some reason, after saying this, Xu Xilin suddenly felt much better, as if a heavy burden had been lifted off his shoulders. He pointed at his face and asked Song Lianyuan, "Do you want to fight?"

Song Lianyuan was no longer a young man with a gangster spirit, and Xu Xilin was also a man in his thirties, so he couldn't do anything. Brother Song was furious with him: "I was wondering why you were in such a hurry to go back. I didn't believe your sister-in-law... Didn't we cut off contact a long time ago? How come we are still in touch?"

"I met her and wanted to chase her again, but she is ignoring me now." Xu Xilin walked past him indifferently, "Are you going to fight me or not? If not, I'm going to go and lie down for a while. Don't bother me."

Song Lianyuan watched him drift past him, and immediately became furious: "Xu Xilin! You... I really deserve to open your brain to see what you are thinking. Start a family, have children, and complement each other's strengths and weaknesses. What are the uses of two men in a family? Aren't the functions redundant? The place seems too crowded!"

Song Lianyuan was so angry that he was shouting at the top of his lungs. However, Xu Xilin might have experienced great joy and great sorrow, so his emotions were a little numb. He actually found something funny in it, curled up on the sofa and laughed.

Song Lianyuan picked up the paper beside him and slapped him on the head: "What a joke!"

Song Heimian sat aside with a worried look on his face, and sulked for a while: "What's wrong with you? Can it be cured?"

After hearing this, Xu Xilin understood that Song Lianyuan still had the old-fashioned altar in his mind, which probably could not accommodate the word "homosexuality".

He was dazed for a while, then suddenly turned to Song Lianyuan and said, "It's a terminal disease, it can't be cured... Do you still treat me as a brother?"

Many years ago, Song Lianyuan slapped him in the face with the question "Do you still treat me as your brother?", causing him and Dou Xun to part ways. Many years later, he threw the question back and poked a tentative head out of the rule he had set for himself.

Song Lianyuan choked.

Xu Xilin looked away and whispered, "It's okay if you can't accept it. If you can't accept it, I won't be an eyesore in front of you anymore."

"Get lost!" Song Lianyuan scolded him angrily.

The two of them were silent for a moment. Song Lianyuan took a deep breath and prepared to speak at length, but Xu Xilin interrupted him first: "I know what you want to say. Even if I can stop being an eyesore in front of you, I will always be an eyesore to others, who will think I'm a pervert and sleep around everywhere. To be honest, some people have always thought so, and I'm also quite puzzled. I have been wronged for so long, and it doesn't matter if it is confirmed. And... without a marriage certificate and children, once the relationship between two people has problems, it will be easy to break up. There will be no one to take care of me in my old age. If I am hospitalized, there will not even be anyone qualified to sign for me. Without joint property, it will be a lot of trouble to add my name to the property certificate."

What Song Lianyuan wanted to say was snatched away by him, and he shut up in frustration.

"I thought about these things ten years ago." Xu Xilin said, "I didn't think it through, so I broke up with him... It wasn't because of you who beat me."

Song Lianyuan asked unhappily, "Have you figured it out now?"

Xu Xilin smiled bitterly: "I can't do anything now. You can stop me from smoking and drinking, but you can't stop me from liking someone, unless you beat me to death."

Song Lianyuan's eyes flashed with ferocity.

Xu Xilin said sincerely: "If you beat me to death, the tense will change, and it can only be regarded as that I liked him when he was alive."

The worst thing he did in his life was that he easily agreed to Dou Xun's request in a moment of impulsiveness when he was weak. Like an immature pony, he recklessly tried to wade across the river. Halfway through, he found that the road ahead was difficult and the water was above his head. He was frightened by the wind and waves and had to flee in a panic.

As time passed, he found that the other side of the river was always the place he longed for. If he could never reach it in his lifetime, then the lush vegetation, human affairs and news on this side would all be so lonely. What would be the point?

So he wanted to go again no matter what.

Reeds are lush and green, white dew turns to frost, even if I drown in the middle of the water.

Song Lianyuan thought that he was possessed by a ghost and could not be persuaded, so he left in anger.

The New Year holiday was so short that it seemed like a breath and passed in the blink of an eye.

After the New Year, Dou Xun's "too many things to do" was certainly not an excuse, and Xu Xilin also became busy and flustered.

After the big boss Song Lianyuan parted ways with him unhappily that day, he made up his mind to correct the "problems" of their General Manager Xu.

Somehow Song Heimian convinced Gao Lan, and the couple stayed for a while and patrolled the subsidiary all day long. Song Lianyuan kept his eyes fixed on Xu Xilin, wishing he could find something for him to do every day so that he wouldn't go out and pick up other men when he was free.

Song Lianyuan even found fault with the punctuation marks in the new year's work target report materials. Fearing that Xu Xilin would have nothing to do during the holidays, Boss Song asked someone to get Xu Xilin into the Executive MBA class that was popular among Dou Junliang and his group back then... Of course, not the one from Dou Xun's school - just like a parent preventing a student from falling in love too soon.

Xu Xilin didn't have the chance to see Dou Xun for more than a month, and he sent WeChat messages to Dou Xun every day like a high school student in a long-distance relationship.

Dou Xun discovered that he never posted anything about himself on WeChat Moments and was basically an automatic like machine.

Xu Xilin would send Dou Xun all the information about what he did and what he ate today, which was posted on other people's Moments, like a regular visitor to his friends morning and night, rain or shine. If Dou Xun said "good", he would receive the same thing in the afternoon - sometimes it was a book with the plastic seal still on, sometimes it was a meal packed in an insulated box. Modern logistics has saved the "premature love teenagers" who were controlled by their "parents" and had no time to spare.

Dou Xun's work focus is on the project, but he can't just stay in school for nothing. It happened that an old professor broke his leg during the Chinese New Year, so Dou Xun took over his syllabus and teaching tasks and started teaching elective courses. The burden was not heavy, with two classes per week - he was responsible for the open classes in the large classroom, mainly for students who were not in this major.

Upon hearing about this, Xu Xilin sent a photo - it was the subject context book that Dou Xun had drawn by hand. The soft and fragile printed paper cover was later preserved with a plastic cover. The paper was spotless and not even yellowed. The handwriting on it seemed as if it was written yesterday, carrying the hostility of his youth.

...Then Xu Xilin lit a row of candles for his students.

But in fact, Dou Xun’s class is not strict at all.

Students come from all over the country, and the textbooks and policies vary greatly from place to place. In some places, his teaching syllabus is included in the college entrance examination, while in some places there is not even a comprehensive science exam, and only one of physics, chemistry, and biology can be taken. Most physics and chemistry students have not learned much biology in high school. When Teacher Dou taught the basics of genetic engineering, some people were bored and slept on the table, while others stared at him, having no idea what he was saying.

Fortunately, the teacher was young and handsome, and there were beauty lovers to protect him, and the students were generally respectful. Dou Xun never made things difficult, and accurately positioned his class as a boring elective course for earning credits. On the first day of class, he listed the grading standards for the whole year's homework and exams in a reasonable manner.

"I wanted to let you bring a piece of paper to the final exam, but unfortunately the Academic Affairs Office said that this course is not suitable for semi-open-book format and did not agree. However, I will list the scope of the closed-book exam, which will only account for 40% of the subject score..."

A student interrupted: "Teacher, when will the scope be given?"

Dou Xun used tea to moisten his throat, which was not used to long-term talking. He said, "A week in advance - there is no point in giving it to you earlier."

The students below laughed and showed expressions that said "Teacher, you understand a lot."

I wonder if Mr. Xu would stamp his feet and beat his chest if he saw this, wishing he was born ten years later.

Dou Xun finally learned to forgive fools, to live in peace with a world full of muddy and cynicism, and gradually stopped imposing his own standards on others.

Xu Xilin knew that the student was difficult to teach, so he sent him a WeChat message at the same time as the bell rang when Dou Xun finished his get out of class. When Dou Xun opened it, he was amused before he could even leave the classroom.

Xu Xilin made a bun. He didn't know what kind of dough he used. It was very black. He pinched it into the shape of a pig's face. He placed Song Lianyuan next to it for comparison and asked Dou Xun, "Does it look like a pig?"

Dou Xun deliberately ignored him.

Three minutes later, Xu Xilin's flirting message came again.

He drew a crooked candle on the pig-faced bun and left a message: "A ritual is being performed. Please get out of here, big boss."

Before Dou Xun could reply, Xu Xilin asked, "Wait until he leaves, can I come find you?"

After sending this message, Xu Xilin stopped disturbing her and waited quietly.

He had been the apple of everyone's eye since he was young, with only flowers and plants surrounding him. Even when he was with Dou Xun, it was always he who decided when the relationship started and ended.

Now he discovered that waiting was so annoying, like a shoe hanging over one's head, and one had to wait anxiously for it to fall.

He became nervous whenever his phone vibrated. It was the first time he was so annoyed by the endless advertising spam messages.

Dou Xun finally came back.

Xu Xilin held his breath, which got stuck in his throat.

Then he saw Dou Xun and said, "Come over if you're not busy."

The breath came out smoothly.

Thinking about clothes day and night, tossing and turning... What Song Lianyuan said makes sense, these are all illnesses.

Under Xu Xilin's curses day after day, Song Heilian finally rolled back to the southern headquarters in the early spring. Xu Xilin sent the annoying couple away without wasting a minute and turned around and ran away.

That night, after Dou Xun got off work, he picked up a living creature at his doorstep.