Chapter 237: Lonely, evil teacher, smiling.

Chi Xiaochi sits in a food court across the street from a public high school, eating spicy skewers with top quality XO from the warehouse.

At 14, Chi Xiaochi is already the size of a high school student, and the low plastic tables at the spicy skewer stalls are a bit constricting for him, with his legs hooked diagonally to the sides of the chairs.

His hair was freshly shaved, he smelled a little of lemon soap, and he sat in the greasy muggy air like a refreshing breeze.

Anyone passing by, male or female, can't help but give him a second glance, suspecting that they've been mistaken.

When you get a better look, you can't help but be secretly surprised again.

Chi Xiaochi has a knack for filtering out the human eye and treating everyone like a cabbage, so he ignores all the inquisitive or awestruck looks and just sips his wine.

Without saying a word, the name "Chi Xiaochi" was enough to let him know what was going on.

The ...... Lord God threw them into a parallel world.

If we compare the existence of worlds to strings, parallel worlds are two strings infinitely close to each other, resonating in the same key, almost exactly the same.

The first world line that Chi Xiaochi experienced was already considered to be quite close to the original world.

In that worldline, there is Nebula Entertainment, the North Mang Cemetery, and even Song Zhihuai, whom Chi Xiaochi recognized, but there are still many significant differences, such as the fact that in that world, Lou Ying is not dead.

According to Lou Ying, as the difficulty of the mission increases, Chi Xiaochi will only move further and further away from the original world line.

Unexpectedly, he passed through nine worlds and eventually returned to a world that was infinitely close to the origin.

He raised a hand to stroke his crisp, slate-colored hair.

The hair was freshly shaved, and the short stubble felt pleasant to the touch, like a little hedgehog that had just sprouted soft spines.

So much time has passed that Chi Xiaochi has forgotten that when she was a child, she didn't like to wear her hair long.

His hair is long and he is too hot and not manly enough.

Chi Xiaochi couldn't help but wonder why he wanted to grow his hair long later on.

By the third drink, he finally remembered.

The long hair was something Sun asked him to grow when he first started filming the movie, in order to fit the character's image.

In his debut film, he plays a left-behind teenager growing up in a small fishing village, who has seen the outside world at a young age but has been sent back home by his parents, and who is so ambitious and sensitive that he strives to be out of touch with the world around him in terms of his clothing, hairstyle, and mannerisms.

Long hair is one of the ways that the fishing village boy fights his little world.

Later, Chi Xiaochi kept her hair long.

The reason is different from that of a fishing village boy, but simple: it's good for theater.

The plot calls for him to shave his hair short, so he does; and if he needs to grow his hair long, he can just go right on with it, which always works better than wearing a wig.

Like forgetting the reason for growing her hair long, Chi Xiaochi has forgotten so many things that she doesn't know how to play her original self.

Sitting at a sandy roadside stall, he filled disposable plastic cups with amber-colored liquid and sipped his wine while he cranked up the Worldline and read up quietly, alone.

The original owner, Chi Xiaochi, is 14 years old.

My father was a toothbrush factory worker, and my mother, who also worked in a toothbrush factory, worked as a female laborer in one of the small food factories after she became part of a wave of layoffs.

This couple is the antithesis of how modern marriages have evolved.

Pregnant with Chi Xiaochi, two men and women, neither of whom wanted to be responsible very much and were not very good at it, got married, named their child perfunctorily, and perfunctorily allowed him to grow wild.

So from an early age, Chi Xiaochi didn't like to stay at home.

He'd go walk up the abandoned railroad tracks near the silo for an afternoon until he was covered in a halo of colorful sunset clouds.

As a child, Chi Xiaochi was romantic, sensitive, full of unrealistic fantasies, and with a striking appearance, she looked like a misguided little monster in the seasonal grease-filled silo.

Until one day he waited for another little monster two years older than him.

Lou Ying, whose parents died in an accident, moves into her sister-in-law's house, just down the hall from Chi Xiaochi's house.

Chi Xiaochi took an instant liking to this brother and took it upon herself to pick his door, cheekily saying hello and striking up a conversation.

Soon the little monsters were playing with the little monsters.

In the words of Chi Xiaochi, "Good-looking people should hang out with good-looking people."

He and Lou Ying grew up together.

"Growing up together" is a word that feels so light when you're in it, but only when you look back on it years later can you feel that different, heavy and joyful flavor.

They ate ice cream together, had a little blind stray dog together, and played video games together.

Lou Ying would stay with him, go to the bathroom with him, and explain the problems to him.

Chi Xiaochi feels like she has an extra brother.

No, even a biological brother might not be as good as Lou Ying.

Chi Xiaochi once asked Lou Ying why she was nice to him.

When he asked this question, Lou Ying's eyes dropped slightly and she looked a little sad.

"I'm telling you, don't tell anyone." Little Lou Ying said, "When my mom had her accident, there ...... was my brother, or sister, in her belly. It was still small, so small that even my mom didn't know it was in. When I saw you for the first time, I couldn't help but think that if it was still around, would it be as cute and good as you in the future."

Xiao Xiaochi almost turned into a pufferfish when she heard this, "Well, I'm your sibling's replacement, aren't I?"

"At first, I did have a little ...... for you but not anymore." Lou Ying quickly gathered herself together and gently smoothed his fur, "You're not anyone, you're just Chi Xiaochi."

Afterwards, Chi Xiaochi went home and reflected on his behavior, thinking that he had behaved badly and had not taken care of Lou's feelings, and that he should have given him some compensation.

Somehow he came up with the ghostly idea that he shouldn't just be a brother, but a sister as well.

When the school was rehearsing for a festival, the teacher ordered a batch of red dresses for the girls of the dance team, and two extra sizes were ordered. Chi Xiaochi borrowed one of these dresses, and intentionally bet Lou Ying that whoever lost the bet would wear the dress and pretend to be a girl for a day's shopping, and then pretend to lose the bet to him, so that Lou Ying might be happy.

The plan worked quite well, but the only problem was that Chi Xiaochi had overestimated his own tolerance.

In less than a quarter of an hour after leaving the house, Chi Xiaochi was unable to go on, tugging at the hem of her skirt, unable to take a step, her face red with shame, and refusing to go any further.

Lou Ying Seeing that the top of his head was going up in smoke, and not wanting to watch him in such embarrassment, he took off his thin jacket, covered his face, and carried him back again.

The two were very close when they were little.

This offer has also attracted criticism.

The silo is an easy place to have a broken mouth, there are many people talking about how Chi Xiaochi is a small local native chicken and Lou Ying is a golden phoenix that accidentally flew into the mountain ga ga ga, one is destined to stay and the other one is going to fly out sooner or later, and in the end, they still go their own ways and go their separate ways.

There are even some good people in the gossip, see downstairs to find Lou Ying play Chi Xiaochi, will laugh and say, Xiaochi ah, again to find your Lou family brother? By the time your Lou family brother became a phoenix and flew away, what are you going to do?

Chi Xiaochi thought clearly, what the hell does it matter to you what I do.

But I don't blame these people for chewing the cud.

Lou Ying hasn't come down from the top spot in the district since he settled in locally for school.

And Chi Xiaochi herself has a flagrant attitude toward learning: "I hate learning."

Lou Ying asked him, "Don't you want to go to the same college as me and go with me."

Chi Xiaochi giggles, "I won't go to school after high school. I'll go to your college and sell popsicles and daily necessities, and then you'll only be allowed to buy from my house and no one else's."

Lou Ying cried and laughed, "Going to college is a very important thing. You're a very smart kid, it's best not to just decide your future."

Chi Xiaochi asked him which university he wanted to go to.

Lou Ying named a college.

Chi Xiaochi thought for a moment, "Then I'd better go sell popsicles."

I joked about it, but Lou Ying's words also made Chi Xiaochi a little ambitious, a little reluctant.

Lou Ying is unabashedly a good kid in the minds of a portion of the building.

But excellence, in and of itself, is what provokes envy.

The other part, who don't believe that there is such a good boy in the world, but they can't pick faults in his academics, manners and daily behavior, can only stare.

Aunt Chu's semiconductor incident had finally given these people a chance to vent.

Because of the semiconductor, Lou Ying's popularity rating in the silo has fallen, everyone is excited to talk about Lou Ying's unclean hands and feet, and then at the end of the day, they have to pretend to sigh, ah, or the children of no parents, did not have a good upbringing.

Chi Xiaochi is furious and tries to take it out on Lou Ying, but Lou Ying stops him.

He had been influenced by his parents, and was all good temper and good breeding, not so easily shaken.

And because of the loss of both parents, he has an added sense of insight and understanding of the world's affairs that is rare in children of his age, in addition to his elegant bookishness.

Lou Ying is genuinely not angry and genuinely doesn't think it's worth it.

In the end, Chi Xiaochi was even angrier than the man in question.

The parents, after hearing the relevant gossip, actually showed a rare show of responsibility by teaching Chi Xiaochi at the dinner table to be less involved with Lou Ying, adding that their Chi family's children could get poor grades, but they could not be brought up with distorted morals.

Chi Xiaochi was furious.

He stood up on the dining table and said, In the past, when I played well with Lou, you guys didn't care about me at all, but now that you heard some catchy rumors, you act like you are doing me good. Do you guys actually care about me, or are you afraid that I will lose your face?

Unsurprisingly, after a hard slap on the wrist, his parents contacted Zhu Shoucheng, who lived next door, and asked him to tutor Chi Xiaochi during the summer of his junior year, and ordered him not to see Lou Ying again.

Zhu Shoucheng, a math teacher at a public school, is in his fifties, his hair a little gray, but still tall and fit.

Chi Xiaochi is already well developed, but the top of his hair only reaches his chest, and even Lou Ying barely reaches his chin.

His wife died early, leaving only a son and daughter-in-law to live in the city, and he chose to live alone and widowed, to stay in this urban and rural secondary school teaching, in his words, "it's hard to leave the hometown".

In the silo, he was synonymous with respect and learning, and he was warm-hearted and respected by everyone.

But in Chi Xiaochi's opinion, Zhu Shoucheng is like a blackened iron tower. Although he has taken two or three lessons, and has been very gentle to Chi Xiaochi, and has always prepared orange juice and milk chocolate for him when he goes to his home for tutoring, Chi Xiaochi still doesn't like the smell of his body.

Of course, Chi Xiaochi doesn't take such things too seriously.

What worried him most was how to tell Lou Ying about this matter politely.

Then came the day.

That day was no different than any other day in the past.

They go to feed the dog meat together, during which they bump into Zhu Shoucheng, accidentally bringing the matter to the forefront.

Lou Ying advised Chi Xiaochi to listen to his parents and also made an appointment with him to meet him on the rooftop at 8:00 p.m. He was going to start a small class for him to tutor.

Chi Xiaochi returned home with a happy heart.

With her parents off to work, Chi Xiaochi wanted to take a nap and wait until three o'clock to go to Zhu Shoucheng for tutoring, but no sooner had she laid down than the squeaky fan on her head stopped.

Chi Xiaochi woke up from the heat, clicked the fan knob a few times, and pulled the light cord to make sure the power was out.

Chi Xiaochi was not surprised that similar conditions often occur in old silos, and skillfully dug out his thick phone book, ready to call the local electricity bureau to report the problem.

Yet picking up the receiver, it was silent.

With no other choice, Chi Xiaochi had to put the phone down and roll back into bed.

Without the fan, the air heated up quickly and the cooler turned into a pie pan baked by fire, the crevices stained with sweat.

After tossing and turning on the bed for a while, Chi Xiaochi suddenly heard a knock at the door.

He clutched the bamboo face pillow and sweatily climbed up, "...... Lou?"

"Xiaochi, it's me." Outside was Zhu Shoucheng's kind voice, "Did you take a nap? The power's out, it's hot. I've got some green bean popsicles at home, are you coming."

Chi Xiaochi hesitated for a moment, climbed up, put on his work undershirt and shorts, and opened the door.

Outside the door, Zhu Shoucheng had his back to the light, showing his teeth, and smiled at him with an incomparable smile.

Chi Xiaochi glanced at the wall clock behind her that showed two o'clock, held the back of her hand to block out the light, and conferred with Zhu Shoucheng: "Teacher, I'll go in early today, can I get out of class early?"

Lou Ying gave him a piece of chocolate for lunch, and if he could get out of class an hour earlier today, he would like to go to the neighborhood to buy some egg cakes for Lou Ying before the pastry store closes.

The curve of Zhu Shoucheng's smile remained unchanged, as if it were a mask glued to his face.

One eye behind the mask looked straight at Chi Xiaochi and said to him, "Yes."

There are hardly any idle people in the silos, and during the day everyone has to work for a living.

The most lively time of the day in the silo is at night, when middle-aged women are busy getting high on melon seeds, middle-aged men are busy drinking, young couples are busy making out with their children when they go out to play, and the pots and pans are ringing out, constituting a piece of smoky and full of flavors of the world.

But on a summer afternoon, it's dead silent except for the cicadas.

Holding his textbooks, Chi Xiaochi follows Zhu Shoucheng as he walks into the daylight and into Zhu's house, which has a thick iron gate.

With a rumble, the iron door separated him from the world outside.