That morning, after Xing Cheng was pinched on the face by Ning Xi and rushed upstairs, Ning Xi was alone in the living room, squatting on the ground, thinking for a long time.
Xing Cheng is full of vigor, enthusiasm and bravery, which Ning Xi envies the most.
Maybe it is like this sometimes, the more the other person has what you lack, the more you will appreciate him or her.
Ning Xi stayed up all night without sleeping. As soon as he arrived at the classroom, he lay down before the first class started. After sleeping for two classes, he felt cold when he woke up. When he touched his forehead, it was still a little hot.
Ning Xi walked around the corridor of the second grade to the chemistry laboratory, chose a small passage and went down the stairs, and went straight to the school clinic. He still had 500 yuan left on him from his mother, and the medicine alone cost 50 yuan.
Ning Xi took the medicine and drank it, then took his temperature, which was 38 degrees, which was not bad, so he could continue with the class.
Ning Xi was still groggy when he returned to the classroom. He greeted his head teacher and fell asleep on the table with his coat on.
The wind blew in from outside, making one of his ears feel cold.
Ning Xi woke up and found that he was wearing two coats. He didn't even need to guess the strong smell of sports perfume. He turned it over and saw the label "XC" written on the collar of his school uniform.
Most boys and girls love to scribble on their school uniforms, and they can't break the habit. When Xingcheng was in junior high school, he studied in another public middle school in the district. He drew a scorpion on the back of his school uniform and thought it was very cool. He was tall and sleek, and walked around in the streets with his hair done up. He was the school hunk.
Ning Xi asked him why he drew a crab, was it to tell everyone that he was a tyrant?
Xing Cheng looked incredulous and somewhat doubted the skills of his own painter.
——Brother, this is a scorpion. Do you know Scorpio? Aren’t you a Scorpio?
Within a few days, all the rumors about Xing Cheng's school reached Ning Xi's ears. It was estimated that the girls in their school who had a crush on Xing Cheng, who were Scorpios, would be excited for several days.
This school hunk carried a totem of love on his back and acted arrogantly for several days. The more he looked at it, the more he felt like there was a crab painted on his back. So he turned over a new leaf and bought a new school uniform. He was so bold that he wrote "11.12" on the back.
So much so that when Xingcheng later learned guitar in the third year of junior high school, he would play the guitar every day upstairs, singing: "You are the first snow of that year, coming later than usual, the No. 2 bus parked at the gate of the community..."
Ning Xi was reading a book downstairs, feeling overwhelmed, and didn't want to bother with the Qingyang District's top knife man upstairs, so he went upstairs and knocked on the door, calling Xing Cheng to come out.
Two or three days after the Yulin Road incident, the school conducted a concentrated ideological work campaign on several boys, educating them for a few days and also sweeping the Academic Affairs Office for a few days.
Xing Cheng was the one who led the incident, so the school gave him a warning. The parents of Cheng Xiyu and other girls also went to the school several times. After going through all this trouble, they felt that their children did not deserve such a crime and that they still had a chance to reform, so Xing Cheng's warning was cancelled.
After sweeping the Academic Affairs Office for a week, Xingcheng's daily afternoon training time was temporarily occupied. He would go there with a broom as soon as the get out of class was over, followed by a group of people from the school team, all holding brooms and dustpans, saying they wanted to help.
Xing Cheng nodded at the heads. There were twelve of them now. Instead of going to training, they followed their brothers here to sweep the floor. Isn't this obviously asking for trouble?
Xing Cheng finally persuaded those girls to leave. He was spinning around with a broom in his hand like a golden hoop stick, humming a song under his breath while directing his teammates to take out the trash. He was busy and sweating, but he was still enjoying it.
Xing Cheng had been sweeping for several days in a row. Once he ran into his brother, he would immediately stand up straight, hide the broom behind him, as if he was standing guard, and nod: "Brother!"
Ning Xi stopped and came to see his brother, holding a book in his hands.
Ning Xi said, "Not bad, very hardworking."
Xing Cheng couldn't tell whether Ning Xi was praising him or insulting him. Just as he was about to say something, he saw Ning Xi holding a bag, shaking it in front of him, and said calmly, "Take it."
Xing Cheng subconsciously looked down at the bag and saw a NIKE logo, and a brand new set of knee pads and ankle pads. The arm pads were almost as big as sleeves. He was fully armed.
This set would cost at least three or four hundred yuan, right?
Xing Cheng was still a little confused when he heard Ning Xi say seriously, "Don't get hurt again, whether on the court or outside of school."
A group of young boys from the school team who were standing nearby and drinking drinks were excited, looking at the bag of items with envy. They had never heard of someone getting equipment in return for doing something heroic?
As soon as Ning Xi left, Xing Cheng didn't hesitate to show off by posting a photo on his Moments. The caption was simple and clear: "A gift from Ning Xi."
He also posted it in the school team group and took several buyer-show photos wearing it, showing off his pride. This caused several boys in the school team to scream heartbreakingly in the WeChat group - Brother Xi, I want one too!
Xing Cheng held up his phone and responded one by one: "No, impossible, move aside, dream on!"
"Are you his brother?"
As soon as he got home in the evening, Xing Cheng tried on all the equipment. He stood in front of the dressing mirror for a long time, wearing the jersey, his mind full of his brother's words.
"Don't get hurt again."
The second year of high school was dismissed early, and Xing Cheng wanted to wait for Ning Xi, so he actually ran to the playground and sat down. There was grass under his butt. Fortunately, it was a dry winter recently and it hadn't rained much, so the grass was dry.
He took off his schoolbag and used it under his body, which he found quite comfortable. There were only a few textbooks on it anyway, and it was very soft.
He argued with his brother at noon, saying, "It's not good for you to rest in the third year of high school. If you keep on torturing us like this, we will go and turn off the power in the second year of high school."
Ning Xi glanced at him: "What does it have to do with you? Why are you joining in the fun?"
Xing Cheng found a legitimate reason: "Aren't we the next ones to suffer?"
On a winter night in Chengdu, the lights in the sky cast a purple-red glow, and the stars dotted the night sky, looming, as if the night was not so cold at all.
Xing Cheng was lying on the grass, his eyes full of stars. The lights in the senior classroom above the teaching building were still on. Ying Yuchen was also lying down next to him drinking soda. The two boys were lying side by side, covered with their coats, legs crossed, and toasting from time to time.
After Ying Yuchen was stabbed, he came back to rest and rarely ran to the playground. His grades were pretty good, his family didn't put any pressure on him, and his brother didn't control him at school. When he heard Xing Cheng say that he was drinking soda on the playground without even taking his schoolbag, he rushed down.
For this purpose, Xing Cheng bought an extra can, opened it with one hand, and handed it to Ying Yuchen, who smiled and threw it into the air with great pride: "Thanks, brother!"
Xing Cheng didn't feel comfortable asking too much about his brother's affairs. He just expressed concern for Ying Yuchen's wound and let it go. He said that if Ying Yuchen got out of school late in the future, he should go with him and Ning Xi, as it would be safer.
Ying Yuchen said that his brother had specially sent someone to pick him up, so it was not a big deal.
Xing Cheng listened to Ying Yuchen talking about his situation, why he came to Chengdu when he was studying well in Beijing, what kind of person his brother was, and so on...
"Don't talk about me, it's depressing. Let's talk about you?"
Ying Yuchen had drunk most of the soda, with the taste of pomegranate still lingering in his mouth. He asked him with a smile, "Xingcheng, are you really not going to be a sports student? You are tall enough, and your grades are barely good enough to be an arts student..."
Xing Cheng also swallowed a mouthful, the carbonated water making his tongue feel particularly good: "No, I have to see where my brother is going to study first."
Ying Yuchen slapped his thigh and said, "You are too clingy! No, you are too clingy to him."
Xing Cheng smiled, holding up the can and clinking glasses with Ying Yuchen: "I only have one brother, so shouldn't we stick close to each other?"
Ying Yuchen was so worried that he even deformed the can of pomegranate soda. He pulled his limp hair, propped his hands behind his back, held the pull ring of the can in his mouth, and muttered, "My brother has been really... How difficult is this going to be?"
Xing Cheng sighed, opened his eyes and began to count the stars in the sky above the playground. When he counted to the seventh star, his eyes became blurry and he said, "I can't help it. Just take care of yourself."
Ying Yuchen thought for a while and asked him, "Don't you think there is anything wrong?"
When asked this question, Xing Cheng didn't know where he got the courage from. He stared at the bright light in the window of the senior classroom, his eyes reflecting the stars in the sky, and nodded.
“I think it’s normal.”
After school last night, Xing Cheng took two bags of instant noodles and two eggs and went to Ning Xi's house to cook.
As soon as the kitchen light came on, tongues of flame from the stove leaped up and almost turned Xingcheng's sword-like eyebrows into daggers.
Ning Xi couldn't stand it anymore, so he drove Xing Cheng out of the kitchen, beat two eggs, cooked them spicyly and brought them out, and gave both eggs to Xing Cheng.
Xing Cheng stirred it with chopsticks: "Brother, why are there two eggs?"
Ning Xi didn't even bother to lift his eyelids as he held the bowl in his hand, and replied coldly, "Double yolk egg."
Bullshit, he didn’t eat it at all, right?
Xing Cheng quickly finished all the noodles, ran to the convenience store to buy two eggs, and forced his brother to have another bowl of boiled eggs.
When his brother lowered his head to mix the noodles, Xing Cheng stretched out his hand and pinched his brother's face, saying viciously: "If there is a portion for me, there must be a portion for you."
Xing Cheng rushed to wash the dishes and sat in the kitchen thinking about it for a long time.
When Xing Cheng returned to his room that night, he gritted his teeth and did his homework until half past one. He finished a history paper that he couldn't understand the most, memorized the timeline for a long time, and read through the notebook that Ning Xi gave him...
He gave the electric water bottle to Ning Xi, and he relied on shaking it to keep the bed warm at night. He also told Ning Xi that he had two, one on top and one on the bottom. He was so hot at night that he sweated, so he always kicked one away, wasting it for himself.
I won't be on the school team starting tomorrow, but playing basketball feels essential...
But it would be stupid to play again. This score is far from the second-tier line. It's already the second year of high school and there's not much time left. Doesn't he really plan to catch up with his brother in terms of grades?
This Friday is the Winter Solstice. Ning Xi's mother called Ning Xi for the first time and told him to go to the High-tech Zone after school. There was a pot of mutton soup at home, so Ning Xi could come over and have some after school on Friday.
Ning Xi held the phone and felt a little sad. It was not because he was touched that his mother invited him to dinner, but because he felt that his mother forgot to remember that there was only one day off for senior year last year, Sunday, and it was still the same this year when he repeated the grade.
Ning Xi seemed indifferent on the surface, not caring about his mother's monthly exam results and occasionally asking about her daily life. However, only he knew how much he cherished this phone call from his mother in his heart.
During the winter solstice last year, he was also forgotten. At noon, he ran to the vicinity of the school alone to eat a mutton soup. He vomited when he returned to school and did not go to eat dinner at night. Xing Cheng was standing at the door of the classroom, anxiously watching him.
Ning Xi didn't expect that Xing Cheng skipped evening self-study because he hadn't eaten, and went to the back of the playground to climb over the wall to buy mutton soup. As soon as he put his long legs on the wall, he turned around and saw the principal squatting under the wall with a flashlight in his hand.
The group of buddies who were helping him in the school team were still on the other side of the wall, eager to try, yelling at the top of their lungs: "Xing Cheng! Can you get down?"
Xing Cheng sat on the wall, looked at the principal on this side, then looked at his buddy standing over there, closed his eyes in despair, and made a hushing gesture to his buddy.
Ren Mei jumped up and down: "Are you scared now?"
Xing Cheng sneered, but he was holding back his laughter: "It's your turn to try."
Ren Mei quickly jumped up the wall and rode on it. Once they got on, they were stunned. The two boys stared at the principal under the wall. The principal smiled and asked, "You are well-trained. Where are you going?"
Xing Cheng was also straightforward: "Buy mutton soup, I'm hungry."
Because of this incident, Xingcheng's father held Xingcheng's head and forced him to eat mutton soup at home for two hours that night, which made the head teacher who came to visit his home dumbfounded.
Xingcheng didn't try to climb over the wall that year. As soon as the senior year get out of class was over, he wanted to pick up his brother and go find a restaurant nearby to have a meal.
Xing Cheng knew that Ning Xi's mother wanted to ask Ning Xi to have dinner with her, but he didn't expect that Ning Xi actually asked for leave for this matter.
He didn't come to the entire evening study session and didn't tell his mother that he had class tonight.
Xing Cheng stood alone at the door of the senior classroom, looking at the senior students coming and going with their backpacks packed to leave, feeling a little discouraged.
It was also his fault that he didn’t tell Ning Xi whether he wanted to have dinner together that night.
Ying Yuchen was holding a thermos bucket and a pair of disposable chopsticks that he had found somewhere, humming a song in the corridor with a sad face. Xing Cheng found him funny and bumped into him, "Is there anything to eat tonight?"
The authentic Jianyang mutton soup in the thermos bucket is so delicious!
Ying Yuchen nodded: "It's delicious, but we all eat dumplings over there!"
Xing Cheng couldn't help but roll his eyes: "When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Eat what you are supposed to eat here."
Ying Yuchen began to worry again: "The guy who sent the mutton soup is the one I told you about before. Last time I had a car accident at Jingang Raceway, it was him who hit my butt! What a loss of face!"
Xing Cheng clapped his hands: "It's fate."
He knew that the elementary school senior loved cars, and he was quite interested in them, but now he could only afford a basketball that cost 68 yuan per ball, so the plan for a car was put on hold until he was in his twenties.
Racing, like basketball, is a sport that most men are passionate about in a sense. The sparks created in it are naturally difficult to extinguish. I remember that the first time he had a fight with his brother was because of a ball.
Xing Cheng went home alone at night and ate homemade mutton soup. He ran to the window to see if the lights downstairs were on, asked his mother for scar removal cream, and knocked on his brother's door.
His father was smoking at home and left a mark on the sofa. The spark burned loudly and lit up quickly. Xing Cheng suddenly thought of Ning Xi's wrist.
I used it to rub his wrist, I don't know if it will help.
As soon as he pressed the doorbell, the door opened and the smell of burning filled the living room.
Ning Xi lowered his eyes. A small mole on the tip of his nose made his face look even more handsome. His skin was still too white. He was holding a math paper in his hand and the draft paper in his palm. The equations on it were still clearly visible.
Further down, the match at Ning Xi's fingertips was half burned and sparks suddenly lit up.
Ning Xi, with half of his face immersed in smoke, looked so dazed and lonely, with blurry eyebrows and eyes, and a thin and beautiful jawline. Every inch of the cigarette butt burned into Xing Cheng's eyes.
Xing Cheng squeezed the scar removal cream in his hand and was speechless for a moment.
This was the first and only time he saw his brother like this. Depressed and mysterious, with an indifferent look in his eyes, he was doing math problems while sniffing cigarette smoke, sitting in the living room, with the lamp on, and a small sheet of unused draft paper on the small table he bought.
Ning Xi raised his eyes and looked at Xing Cheng steadily.
He finally, he finally... showed his true self in front of Xing Cheng.
In places that Xing Cheng could not see, he was not as good as he appeared, nor as sunny as he seemed.
Smiling or not smiling, it's him. Strong or weak, it's him.
Xing Cheng explained his purpose, and Ning Xi rolled up his sleeves and stretched out his arm.
The scar was only as big as a fingernail, hideous and slightly sunken, dark brown in color, and looked as if Xing Cheng's throat was strangled.
Xing Cheng took out a cotton swab as if he was holding something in his hand. Not daring to do anything rash, he applied medicine to him bit by bit, his eyes never leaving the scar.
Xing Cheng painted slowly. Ning Xi saw how cautious he was and couldn't help but laughed, "You're taking your time."
Xing Cheng raised his head and met his brother's gaze. He couldn't help but sigh: "We might have been enemies in our previous life. You must have stabbed me in the chest with your sword..."
Ning Xi took a long puff of his cigarette, and sat on the floor in front of Xing Cheng, tearing open half of his shirt, and whispered, "I have a scar on my chest, too."
Xing Cheng felt as if he had been hit by a stick again. Just as he was about to scoop a piece of scar removal cream onto his fingertips, Ning Xi grabbed his hand and said, "You touch it."
Ning Xi turned off the table lamp in the living room, and the lights around him suddenly dimmed, making it pitch dark.
That day, Xing Cheng stretched out his hand carefully. As soon as his rough fingertips, which had been roughened by years of practicing basketball and touching the basket, touched the warm skin, Ning Xi suddenly pressed his hand down.
"Feel it, it's the same."
After saying this, Ning Xi took a deep breath and continued slowly: "Xing Cheng, this is the real me."
When I was seventeen years old, I was walking on a certain night and suddenly felt that all the lights in this city were out.
He recalled the countless times that Ning Xi had aroused his fighting spirit and the weight of growth.
In this small living room, Xing Cheng patted Ning Xi's back gently to comfort her.