Volume 1 Chaos Comes Chapter 9 Marshmallow
The New Year's heat lasted for four or five days and finally dissipated, and I had time to concentrate on reading.
Although this really upset my grandma.
"Xiao Jing, stop watching Cheng Cheng study. Didn't he get into college?"
"Mom, he wanted to learn this on his own. He didn't listen when we asked him to go out and exercise."
"Don't be obsessed, kid. I told you before not to force you to study, but you refused to listen. What kid is willing to study nowadays..."
"But wasn't he like this in middle school too..."
I could hear the conversation between my grandma and my mom clearly from the next room. The air was filled with laziness in the afternoon of the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, and the entropy in the environment kept impacting my thoughts that wanted to focus on the book.
"Xiao Chengcheng, stop studying and go play with your friends." My grandmother walked into the room with a handful of banknotes, "You can spend this money."
"It's okay, grandma. I have money in my phone." I felt relieved to have a strong reason to put down the book. "Do you need me to buy anything?"
"Then bring a yellow croaker and ask your grandfather to stew it in sauce in the evening. Remember to come back for dinner."
I walked along the coastal highway after the snow melted, praising the calm weather. The white bus stop not far away looked very abrupt against the blue sea and sky, like a piece of paint on the wall.
I walked slowly to the bottom of the bus stop shed and saw a girl waiting for the bus inside. She wrapped herself tightly with a scarf and was playing with her cell phone while wearing gloves with five fingers exposed.
"Luckily there's no wind today, otherwise I'd be freezing to death walking along the beach like this."
She turned her head a little abruptly as if she was frightened, and the defensive look in her eyes turned into surprise.
"Hey, Fang Cheng, you're back."
The girl in front of me looks almost the same as she did two years ago, with big eyes, a low ponytail, a big cotton jacket, and a soft feeling all over her body. When I mention her name, a ball of marshmallows appears in my mind.
Her name is Ning Yu'an, and she grew up in the same compound as me. We went to the same school since kindergarten, and were in the same class in high school.
"Are you going to the class reunion too?"
"Ah...classmate reunion, is this happening?" I have been a bit dazed these days while reading, and it seems I have missed a lot of information.
"Yeah, you don't check the group? Are you in the big group?" She laughed as she said this. "You were like this before. You always forgot what the teacher assigned and asked me about it all the time."
But my high school teachers never got angry with me, probably because I was a good student.
"I'm still here, but... I've been in a daze these past few days and haven't checked the group much."
I took off my gloves and took out the phone from my pocket, then opened the high school class group that I had added to the group assistant. There was a heated discussion about the arrangements for the party, but after looking at it for a few seconds, I was so cold that I retracted my hand.
"So you want to come along?"
"I...I won't go. I'll just go out for a walk and relax. I have to go back for dinner in the evening."
Class reunions are held every holiday, so it’s okay to miss one.
"Then I won't go either. I'll walk with you."
Yu'an and I walked side by side along the coastline. The islands and cargo ships in the distance looked like a background painted on non-woven fabric, contrasting with her pink cotton coat and woolen hat. The two small balls hanging on the hat naturally hung down to the gentle slope on her chest.
"Hmm...what are you researching now?"
This doesn't seem like a topic to talk about while taking a walk.
"I knew you would say something like this. Don't you care about how I'm doing?"
"So how are you doing...it feels like nothing has changed since before."
I observed her carefully for a while. She had almond-shaped eyes, shallow eye bags, a rosy face, a slightly upturned nose, and plump lips. The only difference from high school was that she had no acne, but overall she looked the same.
Ning Yu'an realized that I was looking at her and naturally met my gaze.
"But generally girls become prettier when they go to college."
"Uh... I mean, her demeanor and temperament haven't changed much, but she has become more beautiful."
"Since you want to know what I'm researching, you should have remembered what I studied."
"It seems to be medicine... or neuroscience or something like that... I remember you sent me a picture of a brain slice before."
That scene will be remembered for a long time.
"I am currently doing similar work, measuring the electrical potential of brain tissue in vitro."
She stopped walking, turned around and leaned against the railing on the roadside. Below the railing was a black reef beaten by the waves. A group of seagulls were flying up and down near the shallows. The sky was clear and blue, and the island at the end of the sea level was set off by the dark blue. In the distance, several fighter planes drew white trails. They were the naval aviation forces conducting routine training.
"What is the purpose of measuring these potentials?"
"We are currently inferring the behavior of neurons by detecting electrical signals and studying some self-organizing characteristics in the nervous system. It is said that this is somewhat related to the cause of epilepsy..."
"Yes! You told me that!"
She was startled by me, but the seagulls around her didn't react much. After all, they only had the whole French fries in their minds.
“Can you tell me more about self-organization? What I’m looking at now is also related to it.”
"Is this what you're so interested in? Is this what we're talking about when we go out for a walk?"
I could clearly sense the dissatisfaction in his tone.
"Um... I know there's a pretty good cafe nearby, would you like to go sit there?"
"Okay, just treat me."
We walked into an old fisherman's house that was converted into a cafe. I knew the owner of the cafe before.
There is a row of succulents of different sizes at the door of this small seaweed house. Perhaps other flowers are not easy to grow at the seaside. After entering the house, the stacked bluestone bricks and dry seaweed covering the beams will come into view. The small stove in the corner is burning quietly, blocking the chill brought by the sea outside the double-layer glass.
She ordered a venti vanilla latte and I just had an oolong tea.
After taking off her thick cotton-padded jacket, Yu'an's size shrank. The dark grey fluffy sweater set off her rosy face, and the shape wrapped in the fabric under the high collar was clearly visible.
"Hey, look at the other person's face when you talk to them."
"Uh... I'm sorry, this is force majeure..."
Ning Yu'an rolled his eyes at me, took off the cotton jacket draped over the back of the chair and hugged it to his chest. I quickly shifted my gaze to the fishing net hanging on the wall.
"You still can't drink coffee? You said before that a little caffeine can keep you going all night."
Although it’s a bit of a waste, I never ordered coffee when I went to Xbucks before because I’m extremely sensitive to caffeine.
"Yes, I drank coffee before my freshman year exam and it went terribly wrong. I still have some psychological trauma now."
"Is your big rollover 90 or 95?"
"I'm not that good... Isn't the calorie content of what you ordered too high..."
My impression is that Ning Yu'an never loses weight, but she doesn't have much fat on her body. Maybe the fat is concentrated in one place.
"You're the one paying, so I won't order something expensive."
She picked up the cup and took a big sip, although it didn't look like much went down.
"You didn't see snow when you were studying in Shanghai."
"But winter is still very cold! Especially after the rain."
Ning Yu'an wiped the cream from the corner of her mouth with the tissue on the table, then picked up a delicate metal spoon and slowly stirred the remaining coffee.
"I hate Shanghai's climate. It's too hot to go out in the summer, and it's humid in the winter without snow."
"You don't go out much in the summer anyway..."
The reasons are visible to the naked eye.
"Yes, I'm having a hard time." She leaned back on the chair and hugged her cotton jacket tighter to her chest.
Ning Yu'an grew up very early. When she was in junior high school, she was harassed by a gangster on her way home from school. I happened to pass by and called 110. It was the first time I called the police in my life.
From then on, we often went to and from school together in her father's car.
There was another rainstorm in high school . She was soaked and stood in the stairwell, wondering whether to go into the classroom. I happened to have a sweatshirt in the hole of the desk that I had never worn before, so I asked her to change into it.
Thinking of this, I sighed at the malice towards her by this world which was neither kind nor correct.
