Chapter 374: Preseason

Bai Liu was slightly quiet for a moment, and changed the subject, "Is it okay if I bring someone over to play hot pot?"

Lu Yizhan over there was stunned, and quickly sighed helplessly, "...... You really caught me as a sheep woolgathering, can ah, you buy more when you buy groceries, buy enough to eat, and then buy some Coke Sprite and so on... ..."

"Buy some more fruits." Lu Yizhan's voice carried an inconspicuous smile, "The supermarket downstairs has a discount on oranges today, so buy two pounds."

After hanging up the phone, Bai Liu sent a message to the group, asking if they would like to have dinner together, and got a quick response.

[MUSIC]: Wow, once in a century, white pickpockets actually treat themselves.

[Mu Ke]: Can I help you locate it? I know some private restaurants with decent flavors.

[Tang Er playing]: Drinking? I'll bring it over @ Bai Liu.

Bai Liu]: Not my treat, I'll take you to my friend's house for dinner, hot pot, and then I have to buy groceries, so if there's anything you like to eat, report it to me and I'll buy it later.

Bai Liu]: @ Tang Er hit, bring it on.

Once Bai Liu replied, the group was buzzing with activity:

[music]: Shit is actually rubbing it in! Bai Liu, you're so thick-skinned!

Bai Liu]: So you're not eating?

[MUSIC]: No way! I'm gonna eat! I want shrimp sliders! Tripe! Brain flower! Duck intestines! Lung slices!

[Mu Ke]: Then I'll bring some common ingredients for the hot pot. Is anyone allergic to seafood?

Tang Er 打]：酒柜照片.jpg@ Bai Liu , Have you got your favorite wines?

Bai Liu looked down at the messages these people kept swiping down, his fingers pausing for a moment on the shattered cell phone screen before he continued typing:

[Bai Liu]: Do you guys eat oranges?

[MUSIC]? Eat, why don't you?

[Mu Ke]: I like it.

[Tang Er playing]: Eat, @ Bai Liu, I have two bottles of orange liqueur, not too strong, bring you a bottle?

Bai Liu replied a few more times, called Liu Jiayi and said she'd come over to pick her up later, but Liu Jiayi turned her down coldly and warned Bai Liu that she couldn't hitch a ride on the back of the Harrow bike, and then told Bai Liu to send her address so she could find her way there on her own.

In the end, Bai Liu and Du Sanying slipped and slid through the streets and alleys. On the way, Bai Liu bought half a catty of shiitake mushrooms, one catty of lettuce and one catty of enoki mushrooms, sliced half a catty of beef, and picked up a two-liter bottle of promotional Coke and two catty of discounted oranges from the supermarket downstairs.

Mu Sicheng want to eat shrimp slippery maw and duck intestines Bai Liu bought, but are frozen, this point no fresh, Bai Liu personally do not mind eating frozen, he is not picky, may be Mu Sicheng will make trouble.

But it's no use making a fuss, this pile of stuff cost Bai Liu 167 dollars.

But in the end, Bai Liu bought it.

He also bought some crispy sausages and croquettes, the kind of food that kids would like, and missed out on the brains and lungs, which the supermarket didn't have and the food market was closed.

Piecemeal purchases totaled 218.2.

Du Sanying walks apprehensively up an old neighborhood behind Bai Liu, who is carrying a plastic pocket from the supermarket.

This neighborhood is located in a living residential buildings in a cluster, near one or two large supermarkets and two convenience stores, the neighborhood gatekeeper is a very old man, he wore a washed to the faded color of the military coat sitting on a rusty bench, crossing his legs and squinting to doze to guard the door.

Bai Liu swept a glance at them as this old man walked over.

The old man's narrowed eyes suddenly opened when he saw Bai Liu, and he stared at Bai Liu for a long time, "Are you Fang Dian's high school classmate?"

Bai Liu politely returned, "It's me, long time no see, Uncle Li."

Uncle Li laughed, he stood up to greet Bai Liu's shoulder, sighing, "I haven't seen you for two or three years, I didn't recognize you at once."

"It's a good thing this head of yours hasn't been this long since high school, and I recognized it on more than one look."

Uncle Li asked, "Have you and Lu Yizhan been coming to Fang Dian since high school? In the past two years, Lu Yizhan has moved in, but you, why don't you come here anymore?"

Bai Liu paused for a moment, then spoke again with a false and polite smile that couldn't be broken: "I'm working, I'm a bit busy."

"You young people, you always say you're busy with work." Uncle Li shook his head rather disapprovingly, "How many years have you been friends with Fang Dian and the others, how can you say you won't come?"

"In high school, the three of you had such a hard time, supporting each other to hold on, how rare this relationship ah? You don't cherish it now, when the connection fades and you break their hearts, where will you find two friends who have survived all the way through high school with you?"

Uncle Li pushed Bai Liu inward and waved his hand to signal him to go in quickly, "I won't delay you, it's rare to come here, make a good connection with them."

"Thank you Uncle Lee."

Bai Liu carries a pocket full of ingredients deeper into the neighborhood.

The residential buildings in the district look very old, the highest is only seven floors, so they have not built elevators, the electronic locks in front of the residential buildings are also very old, the display screen flickers, feeling that it has been broken.

Bai Liu directly did not care, did not even enter the password, familiar with the door pushed open and went in.

Du Sanying asked Bai Liu, "What floor is it on?"

Bai Liu said, "Third floor."

As the two walked up the stairs, Du Sanying hesitantly asked, "Mr. Bai Liu, did you come here often when you were in high school?"

As soon as the security guard came over to chat with Bai Liu, Du Sanying quickly pulled away, he only vaguely heard some of what the two were talking about, but he could tell that the security guard was very familiar with Bai Liu.

"Uh-huh." Bai Liu rounded the stairs and took one step upward, his voice calm, "This is Fang Dian's home."

"Sometimes when I didn't have access to a dormitory and couldn't go back to the orphanage, she would bring me the key and let me stay here."

Du Sanying didn't respond for a moment as he foolishly followed up with, "Huh? Why is there a time when you can't live in the dormitory or go back to the orphanage?"

"I'm going to be expelled from school because someone is going to sue me for enticing my classmates to gamble and for getting into an armed fight with them." Bai Liu's muzzle is flat, "The school is doing everything it can to try to disassociate itself from me as a future criminal, and the orphanage is examining my eligibility for financial aid and considering whether or not to turn me over to a juvenile detention center."

"I lived in an internet cafe for a week, and Fang Dian found me and gave me her house key."

Bai Liu walked up one step at a time to the third floor, carrying his cold plastic bag, standing next to the old and decaying staircase, looking up to see the red stainless steel security door directly across the street, which he could approach with just a couple more steps.

A reversed golden character for fortune was pasted in the center of the door, spring scrolls that hadn't been torn clean were pasted on either side, and a bagua mirror hung from the top of the door, with a bunch of dried mugwort sitting next to it.

He hadn't been here in almost two years or so, but everything seemed to be the same as it had been when he first came.

In the dimly lit chaos of the Internet cafe, next to all the pandemonium and smoke, Dian Fang grabbed Bai Liu from the crude marching bed cobbled together by two swivel chairs and dragged him out of the room.

Bai Liu did not let her drag, he strangled Fang Dian dragged his wrist half leaning on the back of the chair, his head drooped to one side, because the eyelids slept out three folds, he half lifted his eyelids to look at people when the look tired and cold hostile: "...... I'm still not awake, what for? "

"Go back to school." Fang Dian turned back to look at Bai Liu, her tone was very natural, "You haven't come to class for a week, Lu Yizhan is almost crazy looking for you, I didn't expect you to hide in this small internet cafe."

"He could have done without me." Bai Liu said his eyes going closed again as he slid down the curve of the chair back, "We weren't meant to be in the same world."

"Now that you've found me, can you let me sleep?"

Dian Fang crouches down: "Internet cafes are not places to sleep."

"Do what kind of things where they should be done, play games at the internet café, but when you've had enough, you have to go back to school." Fang Dian pulled the key from her chest and placed it in Bai Liu's hand as she whispered, "Go back home and get some sleep."

"Go home, Bai Liu. Lu Yizhan and I are waiting for you."

Bai Liu sidled over, intertwined his hands in his varsity jacket to wrap himself up, and buried his face in the couch, breathing evenly, his eyelids not fluttering, as if he had fallen asleep and couldn't hear the words of the outside world.

This means that they don't want to spend more effort to deal with Fang Dian and want to drive Fang Dian away.

Fang Dian couldn't help but laugh a little at Bai Liu's appearance, she reached out her hand and rubbed Bai Liu's head vigorously, "Then come back after you've had enough fun here, I won't tell Lu Yizhan where you're going."

"We had a deal, I would help hide it from Lao Lu when you did something bad."

"But Bai Liu, I can help you hide the times you do bad things." Fang Dian got up, and she said, "There's no way I can help you hide when you do something wrong."

"You don't feel guilty about doing bad things, but is it really because you did a bad thing that you're having such a hard time right now?"

Fang Dian looked at Bai Liu who was lying on the chair slightly curled up, she suddenly smiled, "When a person will feel bad because he did something bad, it means he feels that he did wrong oh."

"From this point of view, Bai Liu, you and Lu Yizhan are from the same world."

Fang Dian did what she said she would do, she left the key for Bai Liu, turned around and left.

Bai Liu couldn't quite remember what happened after that, it seemed like he stayed at an internet cafe until he ran out of money, he only remembered that he finally took the key to Fang Dian's door, and the moment he twisted to open the door-

On the sofa directly opposite the door lay Lu Yizhan and Fang Dian in a ball, both of them with tired faces, sleeping so heavily that they didn't even realize the door had been opened.

The coffee table in front of them was cluttered with all sorts of paperwork, transfers, administrations, school rules, lawyers, mixed with several sets of unfinished practice test papers densely filled with notes, next to a lot of photocopied documents, and assorted letters that hadn't been mailed out yet to all sorts of welfare and institutional organizations, and a few schools with good reputations.

At the bottom were two neatly written assurances.

One of the guarantees is for the orphanage, for Bai Liu's next moral education and for the fact that this incident was not his fault, in more than 10,000 words, and concludes with the statement that he will pay for all of Bai Liu's next expenses, practically begging the orphanage to bail Bai Liu out, guaranteed by Lu Yizhan.

One of the guarantees was addressed to the school and contained no guarantees, except that Bai Liu would go with her if she was expelled, and was guaranteed by Fang Dian.

Perhaps the sound of Bai Liu flipping through papers woke Fang Dian and the two woke up sleepily, confusedly recognizing the person in front of them as Bai Liu.

No angry accusations, no angry insults, no tears of disappointment.

Fang Dian just lazily propped up Lu Yizhan underneath her, peeked out from the sofa, crossed the coffee table, and patted Bai Liu's head in a good-brotherly manner, "Finally home ah."

"Don't be afraid to go home just because you did something wrong." Fang Dian laughed, "Childlike."

Bai Liu, carrying a plastic pocket, was quiet for a moment as he walked up to knock on the door when it suddenly opened from the inside.

Fang Dian, who was carrying a garbage bag, looked up at Bai Liu in the doorway, startled for a moment, then quickly arched her eyebrows and smiled, reaching out her hand to pat Bai Liu's head with a skillful, cheeky swipe:

"It's finally time to go home."

She laughed at Bai Liu and said, "Don't be afraid to go home just because you've done something wrong... You're so old, you're still like a child."