At the end of the year, Wen Xiaoguo went to Beijing and stayed for almost two years, changing several jobs.

Liu Jun also asked him on WeChat:

"Fruit, why are you running so far, isn't it good to be closer to home?"

"You should know me, home seems to me to have never had a clear concept." Wen Xiaoguo replied:

There is a tofu pond alley on the side of the drum tower in Beijing, and there is a ramen restaurant at the mouth of the alley, which was opened by a pair of small couples who came to Beijing from Qinghai to work hard.

Every time Wen Xiaoguo finishes working overtime, he will order a mutton noodle.

It was a little faster in the morning, Wen Xiaoguo went home and passed by the alley, and walked to the wide stool placed on the side of the road in front of the ramen restaurant, this stool is the position where Wen Xiaoguo sits every time he comes, there are not many people who eat noodles in the middle of the night, and his position is empty every time he comes.

Wen Xiaoguo asked the boss for a bowl of noodles and a bottle of Arctic Ocean soda, lit a cigarette and sat on a stool to smoke, there was a couple sitting at the next table, the girl's long black hair fell on the small table, her hands covered her face, bright red nails, slender fingers, and the sound of sobbing attracted Wen Xiaoguo's attention.

There was a bowl of ramen in front of the girl, and the heat didn't spread at all, it should have been there for a long time, and the noodles were cold. Wen Xiaoguo moved the stool and changed the angle to let him see the angular side face of the boy at the table, with a cool hairstyle and bright eyes. On the table were the boys' lighters and an empty cigarette case, and a pair of scattered cigarette butts were stepped on.

The girl went from sobbing to crying at the end, Wen Xiaoguo only heard one sentence clearly:

"Divide it, I don't want to delay you anymore, this bowl of ramen is the last few dollars in my pocket, I can't even live well with myself now, I can't trouble you anymore."

After the boy said this, he didn't say anything more, picked up the cigarette case on the table and glanced at it, paused for a few seconds, and then crushed the cigarette case in his hand little by little, and kneaded it into a small paper ball very hard.

Until finally the girl got up and left, and the boy lay on the small table and buried his face in his arms.

Wen Xiaoguo finished settling the account, and when he walked past the boy, he took out half a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and put it on the boy's desk, knocked on the table twice and walked away, without saying a word.

When I took a taxi home about 3 o'clock in the morning, I paid the fare, bought a pack of cigarettes, and there was still 12 yuan in cash left on my body, when I entered the community, I met an old woman who picked up garbage, with a crutch, holding a flashlight with a particularly dim light, and when she passed by, Wen Xiaoguo handed her the last 12 yuan on her body, and the grandmother thought it was a piece of waste paper at first, and it took a long time to find out that it was money, but I didn't expect the old man to want it, so she walked quickly and followed Wen Xiaoguo and shouted him:

"Alas, I don't want it, young man, I can't ask for money, I'll just pick up some bottles of waste paper......"

Wen Xiaoguo walked fast, and he didn't stop, but just replied:

"You take it, although I am also poor, it is easier than you to make money."

After Wen Xiaoguo entered the house, he collapsed on the bed without changing his shoes, his face buried in the quilt.

25 years old, almost three years after graduation, with a monthly salary of less than 5,000 yuan, floating around, no car, no house, no savings, no real friends around, alone in a strange city. Working overtime, squeezing the peak, the most relaxing time is lying on the bed in a low-rent house and listening to songs.

Wen Xiaoguo took out his mobile phone and deleted his girlfriend who was breaking up with him recently from WeChat.

Although she has been in love for less than a year, Wen Xiaoguo has always felt that she has taken good care of her girlfriend and is very serious about her feelings, and she also fantasizes about choosing her to die old.

Although sometimes I feel very tired, just like the last time my girlfriend wanted to ask him to go to Happy Valley, Wen Xiaoguo touched the more than two hundred yuan in his pocket after refusing.

Although sometimes he feels very helpless, just like the last time he happened to witness his girlfriend sitting in a netizen's BMW car with a smile on her face, he has been pretending not to know anything.

Wen Xiaoguo felt that he belonged to an idealist, especially when he was young, he must maintain his ideals, but the longer he soaked in reality, the more his idealism became more and more inadequate.

In the first Spring Festival of Beipiao, Wen Xiaoguo did not go home for the New Year.

Before the holiday, there was still a little more than 5,000 left in the bank card plus the balance of the salary just paid, he carefully calculated and planned in the middle of the night, paid the next month's rent, transferred 2,000 to his family, and took out the last bit of balance in Alipay Huabei to buy some Spring Festival gifts for Ah Luo and his aunt online, leaving only 1,000 yuan for himself.

After all, it's the New Year, Wen Xiaoguo has to spend alone in this five or six square meter rental house on the edge of the North Fifth Ring Road, on the twenty-ninth day of the lunar month, and he also bought some New Year's goods by himself in the last afternoon before the holiday in the vegetable market.

Instant noodles and cucumbers, spicy noodles, bread steamed buns, Sprite Coke, as well as Lao Gan Ma and a few packets of Hongta Mountain.

A Northeast colleague in the company raised an orange cat named Peach, which was inconvenient to take home during the Chinese New Year. When she was bored, Wen Xiaoguo often picked up the cat to talk and chat with it.

"Peach, why are you a girl? If you're a man, we'll be brothers. ”

"Momoko, have you ever had a boyfriend? It is said that nine out of ten orange cats are fat, and there is one crushed kang, you are so fat, there may not be other cats who take a fancy to you. ”

"Peach, do you want to go home? Do you know who your real father is? ”

"Peach, you rabbit cub, don't keep lying on my keyboard, okay?"

"Peaches, your stinks......"

On the evening of Chinese New Year's Eve, fireworks were already sparsely sounded in the suburbs of Beijing, and Wen Xiaoguo filled the bowl of peaches with cat food, fished out the boiled noodles from the pot, and added some vinegar and old godmother. The window of the room faces west, and the morning sun at sunrise can never be seen in this direction, plus the sky is not good, it is gloomy, and the common sunset on weekdays is also covered by haze, Wen Xiaoguo's mobile phone rang, it was a video request from Ah Luo.

"Brother, why didn't you come back for the New Year?"

"Recently, the company has been busy, and I can't take a few days off, and I just got promoted to department head, so I have to stay and work overtime during the Chinese New Year."

"Brother, everything you bought online has arrived, my mother likes the cotton clothes you picked out for her, and I also like my snow boots, but it's warm."

"If you like it, when the first quarter of the new year rings, I will send you and your aunt red envelopes."

"Xiaoguo, the clothes you bought for me are very expensive, right? It's not easy to make money, you have to save a little, and in two years, you have to save money to get married and start a family. ”

"Got it, Auntie...... You and Ah Luo, have you been to see my Uncle Zhao recently? ”

"I've seen it, I just went the day before yesterday, and it's all good. You take care of yourself outside and have a good New Year......"

"Well, don't worry, Auntie, I'm fine......"

"Today is the Chinese New Year's Eve, what do you eat at night?"

At this moment, Wen Xiaoguo suddenly felt a little homesick, but he had never had the concept of home before, so where did he get the sense of homesickness? He can't say this feeling himself, and vaguely feels that a place with such warm people as Ah Luo and Auntie is the so-called home.

"Xiaoguo, Xiaoguo...... What did you eat at night? ”

Wen Xiaoguo was a little flustered thinking about it, and when he was hesitating how to answer, he glanced at the noodles that had just been fished out in front of the table, and said casually:

"Oh oh, I ate with my colleagues at night...... Hot pot ......"

After hanging up the video, Wen Xiaoguo fell asleep in a daze on the bed,

And he dreamed of his father,

I dreamed that when I was a child, I was held high above my head by my father,

I dreamed that my father went home to visit relatives and bought himself a lot of canned food and a whole row of Wahaha,

I dreamed that my father gave him a comic "Father and Son", a copy of "Three Hundred Words for a Good Essay".

I dreamed that when my father went back to the army, Wenyang was held in my aunt's arms, and my father leaned out of the car window to kiss his face constantly, and my father kept wiping his tears. He clearly heard his father say to his aunt:

"Sister, I left my most important thing here......"

Kewen Xiaoguo couldn't see that face clearly.