Searching for the old lover Zhang Baotong 2019.3.2 Toronto trip

7. Visit Lisa Xu's house

At about six o'clock, the phone rang, and Xu Lisha said she was waiting for me in front of the hotel. I went downstairs with my bag and as soon as I got out of the hotel, I saw a red Audi parked on the side of the road. She beckoned to me. I got into the car.

She changed into a Chinese-style cheongsam, goose yellow, embroidered with purple edges, the cheongsam is very fit, and she herself has the temperament of a shareholder lady, so she looks very pretty and fashionable. I looked at her and said, "You look so good, where did you buy it?"

"I bought it last year at a Chinese mall in Toronto," she said. Then she said, "Should you buy one for your wife?"

I shook my head and said, "How can she have the size of you? Besides, almost no one in China wears a cheongsam." ”

She drove through the street, and in just a few minutes, the car stopped in front of a small two-story building on the side of the road in the town. This small building is also European style, very warm and elegant. I followed her to the door, where I saw her husband and two sons greeting me. They welcomed me into the living room, sat on the couch, and made me tea.

The living room is very beautiful and exquisite, and the lights are bright. Everyone sat around me, and I felt a lot of enthusiasm. Her husband is about sixty years old, but he looks quite young, quite tall, a little thin, and his head has been bowed, which is very similar to Han Yu, the mayor of Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and he is a smart person at first glance. The two sons are also tall, handsome and handsome, one is twenty-five or sixteen years old, and the other is twenty-two or three years old, because they were not born by the same father, the appearance is still a little different, the older one is a little fat, the younger one is a little thin, but the appearance is a little similar to her.

I took out a box of Longjing tea from the bag and gave it to her husband, a bag of Xinjiang jujubes to my younger son, a bag of persimmons to my eldest son, and a collection of essays on "The Call of the Distance" that I published to Xu Lisha herself.

Xu Lisha took the book, flipped through it, asked me to inscribe it on the title page, and then handed the book to her youngest son, and said in a very proud tone, "Your uncle is a famous writer in China and a past lover of my mother. ”

The youngest son said, "Really?" and looked at me with a very strange look, and then opened the book and read it.

Actually, I'm not a famous writer, not even an ordinary writer. I spent more than 20,000 yuan to publish this book. Although many people say that my writing is good, few people buy it in bookstores.

Soon, her husband asked for the book and opened it. After reading it for a while, he said to me, "You write so well." It's just that young people nowadays don't like to watch such classic things very much. ”

I said, "yes, they like to watch things like fairy tales and supernatural things." But we don't understand this kind of thing, and we don't like it. ”

Li Yaoguang said, "People can only write well if they write what they are familiar with and love." ”

I asked him, "I heard you're still working, how long do you plan to do it again?"

Li Yaoguang said, "If you want to talk about retirement, I have reached the point this year. However, as long as you don't offer to retire, the boss won't let you retire at all. We all have 65-year-olds in our company who are still doing it. I want to work for at least another two or three years and retire at 63. Anyway, it's okay to stay at home after retiring. ”

I said, "I only retired last year, but when I was 57 years old, I took a back seat and spent three years at home before I officially retired." ”

Li Yaoguang said enviously, "It's really good that there is this kind of treatment in China." ”

After talking, Xu Lisha asked her husband to come into the kitchen to prepare dinner, and then took me to visit the whole house. The small two-storey building has a total of six rooms and eight bathrooms. Each of the four members of the family has a bedroom, all of which have a bathroom attached. There are also two rooms that serve as a study and gym. The kitchen is on the opposite side of the living room, which is large and divided into two sides, one side is the kitchen operation room and the other is the dining room.

Seeing the kitchen and dining room, it felt much more spacious than our house. The cutlery, stove and kitchenware used are almost all stainless steel. The inside was clean, shiny, and spotless, not even a trace of oil could be seen. There is a long table in the dining room that can seat about a dozen people.

After looking at the kitchen and dining room, Xu Lisha took me up to the second floor to see her bedroom. Her bedroom was large, with a large bed and two large cabinets on the wall. Opposite is a big balcony. The balcony faces the boundless wilderness, the evening breeze blows gently, and the night sky is full of stars, which is unfathomable.

She opened the closet for me to see. It's filled with all kinds of beautiful clothes. I said to her, "Look at how a woman is doing, you can tell it in her closet." Clothing can not only express personal image, but also reveal the inner landscape and reflect a person's aesthetic taste. ”

Listening to my compliment, she said proudly, "Women, you have to dress yourself up beautifully, so that you can feel calm and delicate when you live, and make yourself feel tasteful." ”

I said, "It's a cost to be beautiful, and it's a skill to dress beautifully." If a woman can dress elegantly and wear exquisite makeup on any occasion, it means that she has not been defeated by life and has lived her own charm. ”

She led me into her youngest son's bedroom. The youngest son's bedroom is not very large, except for a bed, a wardrobe, and a computer desk. The youngest son is playing a game in front of the computer. I asked my youngest son, "Where do you work?"

The youngest son said in stiff Chinese, "I work as an engineer in a power supply company." ”

Xu Lisha said to me, "He already has a girlfriend." As he spoke, he pointed to the girl in a small frame for me to see. The girl was a local Canadian girl, and she was very beautiful.

I said, "You can tell from the girl's face that your son is very promising." ”

When my youngest son heard this, he said to me, "Thank you for the compliment." ”

We didn't go to the eldest son's room, but Xu said, "The eldest son is married, lives in Toronto's Chinatown, and now works as a manager at one of his dad's supermarkets. Because his father is in his seventies, he no longer has the energy to take charge of the business. Today, in order to welcome you, I specially called him over to have dinner with you. ”

I said, "You're bothering too much. ”

Dinner is ready and dishes are on the table, including smoked chicken, roast beef with potatoes, canned tuna, scrambled eggs with leeks, sautéed peppers with eggplant, boiled peas and cucumbers with tomatoes. Xu Lisha said to me, "I grow the eggplant, cucumbers, tomatoes and leeks on this table. So, I picked up the scrambled eggs with leeks with chopsticks and ate a bite, it tasted so fresh, reminiscent of the scrambled eggs with leeks I had eaten when I was a child. At that time, this kind of dish was usually cooked by the mother when the guests came.

Then, Xu Lisha pointed to the sea cucumber dish and said, "This sea cucumber is caught from the deep sea, and the internal organs must be removed immediately after catching, and then boiled over high heat, and then placed in the sun to dry and dry." The processing is quite complicated, but the taste is also very special. ”

Originally, I usually don't like to eat sea cucumbers, but after listening to Xu Lisha's introduction, I picked up a piece of sea cucumber and tasted it. This sea cucumber is really delicious, and it can be said that it is full of flavor.

Everyone clinked glasses together and wished each other well. Everyone was eating and talking. Everyone was very happy to see what I was eating. Indeed, every dish here is very delicious, it is an authentic and innocent taste, which is very different from the taste of the dishes eaten in China, and it is a real enjoyment. However, I have seen their vegetable patches, with large patches of cucumbers and tomatoes, which produce very little fruit, barely enough for a small family. But in China, such a large area of land would have to grow a lot of vegetables, otherwise it would not be available to many people. After all, Canada is sparsely populated and rich in resources.

Everyone ate and chatted, and the meal was eaten until almost nine o'clock. I think it's not too short to stay in someone's house, and it's time for Xu Lisha to take a breath, and I'm going to leave. Xu Lisha was going to drive me back to the hotel. But I had to walk back. Xu Lisha said, "It takes at least half an hour to walk back. ”

I said, "I'm fine anyway, just walk back slowly and eat less." ”

Li Yaoguang said, "However, you must pay attention to safety when you walk back, there are who will take advantage of the black to rob." ”

I figured that if I walked down the street, no one would rob me on the street, so I said, "It's okay, I didn't have anything on me anyway." He couldn't grab anything. ”

Xu Lisha sent me down the street and said to me, "You're going to Niagara Falls tomorrow?"

I said, "yes, how far is it, how should I go?"

"It's about two hours by car, but there's no bus to get there, so you have to take a bus to the city," she said. People here drive there by themselves. Then he said, "Why don't I drive you there tomorrow morning?"

I was a little embarrassed and said, "Isn't that going to be too much of a hassle for you?"

"Then you'll have to go somewhere else to get a ride," she said. But you're not familiar with this place at all. So, let me drive you. ”

I said, "I'm sorry, that's a real bother." ”

She said, "It's okay, let's leave tomorrow morning at eight o'clock, and you have breakfast early." ”

I said, "It's okay, I still have some instant noodles there." Just wake up in the morning and eat a pack. ”

She said, "Alright, we'll see you tomorrow." ”

I said, "See you tomorrow." ”

The streets were sparsely populated and dark, and there were no people around, but the moonlight illuminated the streets with a faint light, much like when I walked at night when I went to the countryside. It reminds me that I used to go to my classmates' places at night, and then come back alone at night on the mountain trail. However, the streets, straight roads, and small buildings hidden under the trees, are obviously much easier to walk and safer than country roads.

I walked straight towards the street, watching the stars in the sky twinkle one by one, the cool night breeze made me feel a touch of coolness around me, I could smell the romantic smell of the night, the exotic atmosphere made people can't help but wake up from a spring dream, affectionate sleep. After walking for about ten minutes, a figure suddenly flashed out of a forest and shouted at me in English, "Don't move, take out the money." ”

I was immediately stunned and saw a shiny dagger dangling in front of my eyes, but I knew that it was a robbery, and he wanted my money, not my life, so I nodded to him very calmly, and then, putting a hand in my pocket, took out my wallet, and handed it over. Because there is only a small amount of RMB in the wallet, and the passport and ID card are kept in the suitcase.

The man took his wallet and was about to open it when I took the opportunity to run quickly towards the other side of the street. When I looked back, I saw that the man was gone. I ran back to the hotel in one go. When I entered the hotel, I saw the proprietress sitting in the small living room of the hotel watching TV, and I said to her, "I have been robbed." ”

The proprietress asked, "How much did you lose?"

I said, "I gave him my wallet, and it probably had two or three hundred dollars in it." ”

"The loss is not big," she said. ”

I asked her, "Do I need to call the police?"

The proprietress shook her head and said, "It's useless to call the police." Because you don't know who it is. ”

Hearing this, I said, "I can only consider myself unlucky." ”