sunk into the earth

Chapter 6 It was discovered again

It was almost eight o'clock when I got home, and even though Zhang Chen worked fast, it took an hour to finish the two brand new radiators.Tighten the nuts, remove the aluminum-plastic pipes, and connect the hot-melt pipes. It took a long time to install the two new pieces, and then opened the main valve to measure the water pressure. Obviously, seeing what you've done, other people will have to run around and work for a long time.

Cheng Sheng crouched in the back, dumbfounded at this set of skillful repair actions, and accepted this not-so-friendly look in a hurry. Anyway, his purpose was just to see Zhang Chen alive, and being scratched a few times was nothing.

Before leaving, grandma handed Zhang Chen eight yuan, the repair and installation fee, and Zhang Chen accepted it calmly this time, without the humiliation he had when Cheng Sheng wanted to give him the money.He thanked his grandma, turned his head and said goodbye to Cheng Sheng, slipped the backpack he had brought when he came, and turned and went downstairs.

This goodbye made Cheng Sheng feel lost, such an ordinary goodbye, as if they were just two strangers who met by chance, and there was nothing special about them.

What is their relationship?The question that Cheng Sheng was thinking along the way, the answer is ready to come out at this moment, what can strangers who are on two sides be, a relationship of buying and selling, the connection between the two of them is just a rope called business, once the business is over, this A rope is about to be pulled away, leaving only empty, invisible air in between.

Cheng Sheng watched the back of the man walking downstairs, and suddenly realized this.

The grandma was next to her, just took off the reading glasses hanging on the bridge of her nose, she was oblivious to what was going on in the mind of her grandson next to her, and muttered to Cheng Sheng in a low voice: "The child is so kind, it would be great if he was born in our family. Your uncle has no children. If you have such a sensible child who can do housework, you will be crazy. I don’t think Xiao Zhang’s brain is worse than yours. I can also go to Tsinghua University and Peking University..."

Before she finished chanting a sentence, Cheng Sheng next to her suddenly yelled at her: "I'm staying at Zhang Chen's house tonight, you go to bed early!" After shouting, she ran back to the living room without waiting for grandma's response, and took out her own from the drawer. The wallet, chasing after the man downstairs.

Cheng Sheng ran out of the community. Zhang Chen had just got on the motorcycle at that time, twisted the accelerator handlebar, buzzing, and was about to go home.

The noise was so loud that people's brains were about to crack, Cheng Sheng woke up suddenly amidst the noise, and the arm that was going to stop him suddenly collapsed - what could he do to stop him?He holds the ropes of the business and is purely busy with the business, so he may not be willing to talk to him if he leaves this job.

Zhang Chen's back disappeared completely during the time he was thinking, leaving only a row of choking exhaust.

In fact, he was far away, so far away that he couldn't smell any strange exhaust smell, and so far away that Zhang Chen didn't even notice that someone was following him, but somehow, he still smelled the smell of air stained with engine oil.

A night market in a plastic shed was set up next to the curb at the entrance, and several masters of Heimo were drinking beer around a small wooden table.Cheng Sheng only stood there for a short while, then suddenly ran out. He ran so fast that he was out of breath, grabbed a master at the stall, and pointed his hand in the direction Zhang Chen left just now. , coughing and said: "Master, go to the Sangang family courtyard, follow the young man in front, hurry up!"

When the other masters heard this, they immediately waved their hands, as if it was their own business, and said "hehe" to the lucky master who was selected, urging him: "It's not easy to take care of the work at night, go and hurry up!" Come back, leave you two bottles of beer!"

The master laughed, and didn't ask what he was doing chasing the motorcycle in front of him, he just killed and set fire to earn money, so he naturally pushed on his underbone motorcycle and set off towards the Sangang family courtyard with Cheng Sheng.

Along the way, Cheng Sheng didn't put his arms around the waist of the motorcycle master, but just grabbed the metal handrails on both sides of the motorcycle in a regular manner.The road at night was difficult, and Cheng Sheng was jolted, but he still stubbornly refused to hug him, and even deliberately kept his body away from Mo's master.A few times when the brakes suddenly hit someone, Cheng Sheng frowned, straightened his upper body and leaned back with difficulty, his back was bumped violently on the rear shelf, and there were streaks of red.

The family courtyard of Sangang is not far from the family courtyard of the design institute, and two speeding motorcycles drove to the door in about ten minutes.

Zhang Chen probably had never been followed before, and along the way he didn't even notice that there was a motorcycle not far behind who followed him into the family courtyard.

There are dozens of buildings in the family courtyard, each row is only three stories high. Cheng Sheng was afraid of being exposed, so he didn't dare to ask Mo's master to follow too closely, so he just stopped at the door and jumped out of the car.

The master looked honest, but he didn't expect the lion to open his mouth. Seeing Cheng Sheng looking around, his expression was impatient, he was dressed decently, and his accent didn't look like a local.

Cheng Sheng was dumbfounded. He only earned eight yuan for changing the radiator after busying himself in and out. How dare he ask for three yuan for a journey of only three kilometers?

The master smiled a little embarrassedly, but still didn't let go, and said in dialect: "That's the price at night!"

In the past, three or five yuan didn't make any difference to him, they were all a piece of paper, but today he thought of the eight yuan in Zhang Chen's hand, and felt inexplicably uncomfortable. He didn't want to just cheapen this black car so easily. Mo's.

He looked into the distance, Zhang Chen had already locked the motorcycle next to the tree, he habitually checked and pulled the lock, and then walked towards his apartment building after making sure that there was no problem.

Seeing that the person had already entered the unit building, Cheng Sheng was a little anxious, and discussed with Mo's elder brother: "It's only two yuan from the design institute to the train station, how many kilometers is it? It's three yuan if you ask?"

Like a repeater, the master only repeats that sentence: "That's the price at night!"

"But I only have two dollars left in my pocket." Cheng Sheng lied.

This time the master had no idea, and he was no longer cheerful. He accepted the two yuan from Cheng Sheng with a straight face, turned his head, and spat on the ground.

Cheng Sheng didn't have time to appreciate the unfriendliness that came out in just ten minutes. He was talking about the apartment building that Zhang Chen had just entered, Unit [-], turned around and ran to the back of this building, and started checking every household.

At nine o'clock, almost all the lights were on from house to house, and only the middle floor of the three-story windows in Unit [-] was dark.Cheng Sheng stared at the window, he was not sure, maybe it was someone else's house?Maybe the other two shiny windows are his home?

He stood upright in the shade behind Unit [-], and the leaves next to him were blown by the sultry wind, scratching his upturned neck like itching, very itchy, just like his current mood, very itchy.

He looked up and saw the old building built of black bricks, his thoughts ran wildly in the night sky uncontrollably, he climbed up the three windows like a cloud of mist, impatiently going up. People run around.

After a while, a light suddenly lit up in the window on the second floor. It was bright yellow, and even though Cheng Sheng was two floors away from it, he still felt an indescribable palpitation.

He swallowed, stuffed the wallet in his trousers pocket, and approached the building in a daze.

The curtains on the first floor were closed tightly without even a gap, and the light faintly shone through the cloth curtains and hit Cheng Sheng's face. His heart was beating fast, even more intense than when he was leaning against Zhang Chen's back in the evening.

He knew that he was going to do something bad, so he spat on himself first, which seemed to throw away all morality, and Cheng Sheng clapped his hands twice. This was just a preparatory action and had no practical significance, but he had no real meaning until he had done all this. In order to gain the courage to do bad things, he held the anti-theft wire of some unlucky house on the first floor with one hand, and the old rusty pipe on the side with the other hand. With his body propped up, he climbed up skillfully.

Cheng Sheng often climbed trees when he was a child, and was successfully thrown into a mild concussion, which shows that his climbing skills are really profound.

Swimming and drowning are people who can swim, and climbing trees is the same. Those who can fall are all people who can climb trees. Cheng Sheng is very good at climbing, and he can reach the top with two rubs. Showing off to the children below at the top of the tree, he swung his arms and legs wantonly and fell headlong. During the process of falling, his face still had a proud expression that was too late to change. He deserved a mild concussion.

He learned his lesson this time and climbed cautiously, touching the pipe with one hand and climbing the wire security net on the first floor with the other, and climbed up to the window on the second floor lightly in the sultry night wind.

The windows on the second floor are wide open, and the curtains are also open. Inside, someone is reciting classical Chinese. The voice is not loud, a little hoarse, and slightly nasal.

Cheng Sheng was sure he had found the right place before he even looked inside.He was still not clear-headed, dizzy, and the courage he had just turned into wind in this burst of voice, and drifted away with the night.

He moved to a hidden location, put his arms on the balcony, one foot on the top of the anti-theft net on the first floor, and one foot on the pipe beside him.

Cheng Sheng waited for a long time, he was drowsy and didn't know what to do next, he suddenly wanted to slap himself twice, what did he do?In the words of his father Cheng Ruchun, he is violating the law and disrupting public order. He would have been smashed in the face by the crowd a few decades ago, even if he was born now, he should be squatting in the prison squat.

But if you want to ask him not to regret it later, he will definitely answer "no".

The sound of reciting the text inside suddenly stopped, Cheng Sheng woke up, bravely exposed his severed head, glanced in carefully, and happened to see Zhang Chen walking out with a white porcelain cup, and closed the wooden door of the bedroom up.

Cheng Sheng's body was always one step ahead of his brain. Before he realized what he had done, his body leaned against the window and rolled in.

When Cheng Sheng came in, he fell on the floor with a muffled sound, but the movement was not too loud. There was a loud former Soviet movie playing on the TV outside, and there was also the sound of Zhang Chen’s parents arguing. Hearing the cannon fire, he felt ashamed, and covered up Cheng Sheng's movement so tightly that no one noticed that a stranger had sneaked into the back room.

He hit his back when he fell in, and there will probably be a few more bruises tomorrow, but Cheng Sheng obviously didn't care. Bump everywhere.

Zhang Chen's bedroom is not big, with a 1.2-meter wooden bed, white-washed sheets, a wooden table, and a neat row of books on it, all carefully wrapped in white book covers, with the subjects and Zhang Chen's writing neatly written on it. name.

The boy's bedroom was somewhat sloppy, but Zhang Chen's bedroom was surprisingly tidy. Cheng Sheng gave a "tsk" in his heart, and stood up crookedly with his arms propped on the concrete floor.

Just when he hadn't figured out what he was going to do, there were suddenly rustling footsteps outside the door.

Cheng Sheng gave a "fuck" in his heart, and got down on the ground in a hurry. In the panic, he happened to see Zhang Chen's 1.2-meter small wooden bed. He didn't care whether the bottom was dirty or dusty. He bent his knees and lay down. On the ground, rubbing his back against the ground, he moved under the bed with difficulty.

The bedroom door creaked open, and Zhang Chen was still holding the white porcelain cup in his hand. He drank two sips of water before sitting down next to the table, rubbed his eyes, closed the Chinese textbook he had just memorized, and put it aside. Pull this problem set off the shelf and start doing it.

The quarrels outside are too loud, and they say "Bitch/////" for a while, "The poor and lowly couples are sad for everything", and "Otherwise, you go sell it, the women over there on Peony Lane can earn 1000 a month "Yuan", followed by ding ding bang bang, there was a crisp sound of glass falling down, it was so lively that the door couldn't be covered, and it continued to flow in stubbornly along the crack of the door.

But Zhang Chen seemed to have gotten used to it, turning a deaf ear to the problem at hand.

Cheng Sheng turned his face to the floor of the bed, and heard the whole quarrel outside, it was ugly, really ugly, not the ugly way his father scolded him when he hated iron for steel, his father always scolded him with love, and this is Such a curse, Cheng Sheng has never heard such a disgusting word used by relatives on each other in his life.

The space under the bed was small, so he couldn't turn sideways, so he could only turn his head to look at Zhang Chen who was doing a problem next to him, but he could only see two thin legs - Zhang Chen's toes followed the rhythm of the quarrel outside He tapped the floor, as if to beat the noise of arguing outside.

Cheng Sheng suddenly laughed silently, and after the laugh, the sourness accumulated in his chest burst out, and soon he realized that the sourness turned out to be sulfuric acid, which soaked him to pieces in a short while.He stared intently at Zhang Chen's legs, which were accompanied by the sound of the quarrel, and the sourness turned into bitterness again.He thinks that after returning to Beijing, the next song can be written like this: I was dancing when my parents were arguing, thanks to Zhang Chen, because his parents have never quarreled, and he can never come up with such inspiration on his own .

Zhang Chen is obviously much more comfortable than him. His biological parents were arguing in the dark, but he was more sad than himself. He even made up a collection of touching lyrics in his heart. He recited these fresh lyrics in his heart, so hypocritical. Terrible.

Cheng Sheng has never felt that there is anything wrong with being a little hypocritical. It is one thing for a creative person to be capable, and another to be hypocritical. He can't even be hypocritical. What can he create, Cheng Sheng Although he is a computer student, he considers himself a creator anytime and anywhere, and is proud of his hypocrisy and publicity.He recalled the lyrics he had composed in a few minutes, and optimistically accepted his erratic emotions that he couldn't get to the ground.

But when he was addicted to his emotions for a long time and couldn't extricate himself, the two slender legs in front of his eyes suddenly moved.

Cheng Sheng thought that Zhang Chen was going out to fetch water again, or that he really couldn't bear the unpleasant scolding outside and wanted to fight them like a big man.

But he never expected that those two legs would come straight towards him.

Zhang Chen stood still by his bed, stretched out one leg, kicked the bed board lightly, and said to the people below: "Come out, the shirt side is exposed."