The 14th Section of the Left Ear (14)

  Section 14: The Left Ear (14) At nine o'clock at night, the ramen shop was quiet and deserted. However, the boss still had a smile on his face as he waited for the crowd to arrive after their evening self-study session. During this relatively leisurely moment, the four young waiters hid behind the counter playing poker, comparing the size of their points, and the one who lost five yuan turned red with despair, his face looking like he had lost everything.

  I slapped five bucks on the counter and said: "Add more beef! And make it a large bowl of noodles!"

  Then I found a place that looked suitable and sat down, continuing to smoke my cigarette. 555's, I'm not used to smoking them, but when I'm in a bad mood, I only smoke 555's.

  Then I saw her, she was carrying a cute backpack, wearing a black T-shirt with a round red face, and pushed open the door to come in. This girl is Tian Zhong's, actually I must have seen her before, but we never talked. To be honest, she looks really cute, so suddenly I had an urge to tease her. I held my cigarette high, glanced at the TV with a look of disdain, thinking that she would definitely be scared, frown and stay away from me, then I could burst out laughing and make her feel embarrassed.

  Who would have thought she actually sat down right in front of me?

  This shocked me, and I glanced at her. She looked at me with a pair of big eyes, clear and bright, making me feel jealous. I decided to continue teasing her, stretching out my hand to grab a handful of cilantro from her bowl and putting it into mine. I thought she would surely get up and storm off in anger, but I was wrong again. She just looked at me once, then lowered her head and continued eating her noodles silently, as if nothing had happened.

  My interest in her grew little by little, this kid is so clever and lovely that it's heart-wrenching. I noticed her ears, transparent, lovely, and pink. I always like to secretly give people nicknames, so I call her Little Ears.

  She is as clean and pure as a white poplar tree.

  It wasn't long before I learned her name was Li Er. In her younger years, she called herself Mu Zi Er. This had a surprising coincidence with the nickname I gave her.

  This world is made up of countless coincidences. Xiaoduo and I are not even on the same path, but we became bosom friends.

  I made a vow to heaven that when we walked out of the ramen shop together, and she handed me an umbrella from her backpack, I thought so in my heart at that moment.

  "It's going to rain, you'll catch a cold." She said to me. I took the umbrella from her, the handle still had the soft warmth of her palm, no one has ever been so kind to me, let alone we were just strangers. My heart was like cotton that had been punched by a heavy fist, it sank, a deep hole, and for a while, couldn't get up.

  I ran all the way to the entrance of the sky with an umbrella, only to find that I had forgotten to open it when I arrived. My pants were splattered with a lot of mud, making me look even more dirty. I hid in a corner, hoping to see my beloved come out from inside. I was trapped by the tender feelings that had been swirling in my heart, unable to escape. Suddenly, someone gently tapped on my head, giving me a big fright.

  "Hey," he said, "I figured you'd be here, and sure enough, you are."

  It is Xu Yi.

  Wow, I'm so surprised! My eyes were fixed on the school gate, but I didn't see him come out.

  I stiffly smiled at him.

  "What's wrong?" He moved the umbrella in his hand to above my head, looking at me with concern and said, "Your lips are purple, aren't you a bit cold?"

  "Oh, it is a bit." I said.

  "You've been waiting for me for a long time, haven't you?" Xu Yi said. "That's just how it is in the third year of high school. Even after self-study is over, the class teacher still won't stop talking. But tomorrow is the start of winter break, I think I can sneak out and play with you."

  I was hugging my shoulders and listening to him speak, absent-mindedly responding: "Really? Aren't you afraid of your mom?" The corner of my eye still lingered at the school gate. It was then that I saw him, he and a girl walked out of the campus shoulder to shoulder, he held an umbrella but it was always considerately tilted towards the girl's side, if I remembered correctly, that girl I had seen in the ramen shop before.

  Zhang Yang should have seen me too, but he didn't respond to me. He just seemed to nod slightly and walked past my side.

  Night, light rain. The fragrance of lilac still lingers. I stand under Xu Ye's umbrella, watching Zhang Yang hold an umbrella for another girl and walk past me. That girl's face is filled with proud and happy smiles. For the first time, I understand what it means to be utterly defeated, what it means to have one's heart torn apart. No matter how hard I try, my gaze cannot leave those two silhouettes. I really want to rush over, snatch that umbrella away, and wildly swing it at those two people, but I also can't do that, because deep down, I know that if I really did that, Zhang Yang would never belong to me again.

  ．．