Not long after, Li Yin said to me on the phone: "Qing'er, I want to go to university." ”

"Do you want to go to graduate school?" I asked.

"Hmm...... I see how nice you look at school. ”

There were a few dialogues with such content, and it is estimated that Li Yin was also ready to explain her true situation to me at that time, but due to my sluggishness and her fragile self-esteem, she never told me that she actually didn't finish high school, and she was not a primary school teacher, she was actually a "young lady" who sang with her in KTV.

The second time I met Brother Deng was in the summer of 2000, during which I didn't go home and did work-study outside. I worked as a tutor, a job playing Go with a retired professor at our school, selling mobile phone cards and BP machines. Brother Deng is the owner of a friend of mine, the friend who brought me into a bar for the first time in my life. Brother Deng is a factory, a food company, making chewing gum and gummies, my friend came out to work after finishing junior high school, and has been following Brother Deng from a small workshop to a little scale. At the request of my friend, I contributed a lot to the promotional materials of their products to participate in the sugar and wine trade fair during the summer vacation, and this meeting was specially thanked by Brother Deng.

The place of meeting is a good KTV in our city, and it is the first time in my life. Brother Deng is more than 10 years older than me, his biggest hobby is singing and drinking, obviously, KTV is undoubtedly the best place to go to combine these two hobbies, looking at the familiarity of his greeting with the foreman here, it can be seen that he has not lost his youth here.

Li Yin's appearance caught me a little off guard, and I saw her at a glance among the girls standing side by side in front of the TV in the private room, and she also had an expression of disbelief when she saw me. That night, I was drunk for the first time in my life, and in those hours I kept looking for someone to drink, to drink with Brother Deng, to drink with my friends, to drink with Brother Deng's friends, to drink with a few other girls who accompanied me, and even when Li Yin wanted to help me block the wine or help me drink, I refused. It was also that drunkenness that made a hardcore drinker, and in the next few years, Deng Ge came to our school many times to find me to drink with him. People don't usually say they're drunk when they're drunk, but I'm different, I said "I'm drunk" to them after a glass was drunk and I sat down on the couch and fell unconscious. When I woke up, I found myself sleeping in Li Yin's room, with a headache and thirst, and after washing my face and drinking some water from the bedroom, I saw that the time was more than 10 o'clock. Li Yin wasn't there, got dressed and prepared to go downstairs to go back to school to find that he was locked in his room, yes, it would be good to continue sleeping on the sofa.

Li Yin came back, bought vegetables and came back to prepare lunch. I said I was going back, and I had to finish the tutor, and I had to play chess with the teacher when I was done. Actually, when I was out drinking, I told the child and the professor that I would stop the next day, but I wanted to run away.

Li Yin didn't speak, she could see that she wanted to keep me, but she was afraid that I would find a good summer vacation job with all my might, so she looked at me with both hands on the hem of her clothes, as if she had something to say but didn't say a word.

There was a helpless longing in those eyes, and I didn't resist after all. I stayed and asked her to help me cook, because I knew that her cooking skills were simple and could only reach the level that was cooked.

During the meal, we had the most formal and serious conversation after we met.

"Qing'er, I didn't mean to hide it from you, when I first met, I didn't expect that we would meet again and become friends, I just casually said a career, the KTV where I work is not far from Dazhi Primary School, I casually said at that time that I was the teacher there, maybe I also thought that I was really the teacher there!" Li Yin's eyes were red when he spoke to me.

"But why didn't you tell me that we had been together for so long in the past six months?"

"How can I tell you, tell you that I am a woman who accompanies wine at KTV? Tell you I lied to you? Li Yin's voice became smaller and smaller, and his head was about to be buried under the table.

"So tell me what you said when we were together? Is the name Li Yin real? ”

"It's true that I say I envy you college students, it's true that I want to have fun with you, it's true that I want to go to college too, and my name is Li Yin, I don't believe you look at my ID card." Li Yin got up and was about to go to the bedroom to find his ID card. After being pulled by me, he continued: "Really, I am going to go back to my hometown at the end of this year, and I asked my brother to help me ask me if I can enter the tutorial class to go to university without a high school diploma?" But I don't know how to tell you, I don't know how to say goodbye to you, now it's okay, you know everything. I don't have to think about lying to you. ”

Li Yin's eyes seemed to have a light shining out at that moment, which is how I feel every time I recall that time. And that unwavering light won my trust, and time has proved that this trust of mine was correct, and she successfully got her college acceptance letter a year later, according to the advice I gave her.

"You don't have a high school diploma and you can't take the college entrance examination, but now the university has expanded, and many of the previous technical secondary schools have been merged and promoted to junior colleges, you can take the junior high school education to take the exam, and after being admitted, you will have to study for one more year than the high school entrance examination to get the same diploma, and you can also refer to the college upgrade exam in the process of studying to see if you can take a bachelor's diploma." Here's my advice to her.

"Really? Qing'er, are you saying that I can really go to university? You think I'll be able to pass the test, right? ”

"Yes, you're not seventy or eighty, how long have you been in high school? It's okay to prepare now, and you can take the exam next year. ”

"I dropped out of high school in my sophomore year, and our family was too poor to have anything to do."

"Then you don't have to go to KTV to work again, then you won't be able to study if you can't sleep well every night and drink so much alcohol. My friend, you have seen, he is helping the steward in the Deng Ge factory, I asked him if he can let you go to work with him, normal day work and night rest and study, and their factory to our school to take the bus without transferring, you are close to me I can also help you with tutoring. ”

Li Yin hugged me after we finished talking, crying and laughing, and then went downstairs to find a public phone and called her foreman and said that she was not going to work, and immediately began to pack up her things after going upstairs, saying that she was going to move to rent a house next to our school, and urged me to contact my friend quickly to see if there was still anyone in the Deng Ge factory? Can someone as unskilled as her do the job there?

Li Yin that day was the happiest Li Yin I saw, in fact, thinking about the time she experienced with me, she suppressed too much, and at that moment, all her worries and depression were released. Looking back now, she was a child at that moment, a child who was full of longing for school and learning, I don't know if she ever had a dream when she was shocked to deny herself, but I know that at that moment, she was very satisfied, just like a child who got the toy of her dreams for a long time.

My junior high school classmate, at this time should introduce his name, Zhang Xueyou, this is not a joke, his family has four brothers, Xuesong, Xuehai, Xuejun, he is the third, he is really called Zhang Xueyou, not a spoof. I had his CALL number, and I paged him downstairs after dinner, and I received his call a few minutes later after leaving only me and him to understand the CALL code, and I said to him without any foreshadowing: "Give me a position in your workshop, and I have someone who wants to go to your place for a year's shift." ”

My brother replied to me without the slightest hesitation: "Yes, when can I come to work, have you ever read, can I understand the general schematic diagram, if I can, I can arrange her to be a team leader, so that the work will not be very tiring, and the salary is okay in our city." ”

"Li Yin, you know, I went to high school, I didn't finish it, there should be no problem with the requirements you said, but Brother Deng has to tell me, I owe him a personal favor, I don't want to pay you the promotional materials of your factory sugar and liquor trade fair next year, last time he said that he wanted to find the teacher of our school automation to show you the factory design, I will talk to our teacher as soon as possible." I told him the basic situation, I don't know what kind of mentality and expression Zhang Xueyou had when he heard my phone call, but from the speed of the reply, it was obvious that his thoughts at that time should be "incredible".

There was a long silence on the phone, and then he said one word: "Okay." ”

Back upstairs, I told Li Yin about the situation, at this time Li Yin had already packed the luggage she was going to move except for the bedding in cardboard boxes and snakeskin bags, and after listening to me tell her that there was basically no problem with going to work in Brother Deng's factory, she seemed to remember what the problem was: "Qing'er, you drank so much wine yesterday, and you just stir-fried vegetables, does your head hurt again?" Shall we go and rest? ”

Here I can tell you that man, no matter how old you are, when you look at you in the face of a woman you like, with a look of love, care, expectation, and a little temptation to look up at you at a similar angle of forty-five degrees, you are a hardcore, and you will be melted.

Li Yin rented a house next to our school this summer, and then went to work in Deng Ge's factory and became a line leader. I abandoned the only roommate who stayed with me during this summer vacation, and lived in Li Yin's rented room every night to tutor her in junior high and high school. Zhang Xueyou's classmate said that I was crazy, and he was going home to tell my parents that there was a problem with my worldview and that I fell in love with a woman who had lost her footing. Brother Deng came to the school many times to drink and chat with me, and then said to me, brother, you have done what I wanted to do all my life but did not dare to do.

The next half year should be the half year when we all work hardest, Li Yin gets off work at half past five every day and then takes the bus back to the rented house, and I can basically arrive at that time.

In 2000, the Internet has basically been popularized around the school, and we all have our own QQ number, and my screen name was given to me by her: because during the chat, I said that when I was a child, because my mother wanted my second child to be a girl, all after I was born, I have been dressed as a girl, when I was a child, I used to tie braids, wear skirts, and my brother called me sister until I was in the fifth grade. With her suggestion and my own understanding, I took the screen name "Zeng Tied Braids and Rode a Bamboo Horse", which has been used to this day. When I gave her a screen name, I said that you were like a goblin, and in front of me, a new socialist youth who had received many years of materialist education and many years of party education from my father's generation, I suddenly fascinated my heart, which was out of place, and I gave her a screen name of "Once upon a time there was a goblin".

Brother Deng said to me during a drink: "Brother, you are still young, brother, I am a few years older than you, to tell you a word from the bottom of your heart, you don't like to listen, Li Yin is a good girl, but you really can't go together, don't rush to fight with me first, I'll give you an analysis." Look, she's bigger than you, isn't she? She was in contact with society many years before you, didn't she? Brother, it's not that I look down on the girls who are young ladies in KTV, I also know that many of them are helpless to embark on this road, but you see, this is a realistic society, you are a college undergraduate and found a woman who is older than you and has been a young lady to be your girlfriend, we understand the situation, but what do you say in the face of your friends in the future, and in the face of the people you have made after entering the society? Li Yin is indeed a good girl, I have known her for a few years, and as far as I know, she doesn't have any indiscriminate socialization outside, but brother, you are young now, and when you come out of society, you will know that it will not be so simple at that time. ”

After drinking with Brother Deng that day, I thought about it for a long time on the way back to the dormitory, am I afraid? Are you afraid to introduce my girlfriend Li Yin to others? The sad thing is that the answer I got is that I am really afraid, I am afraid that others will know that she used to be a KTV escort lady, I am afraid that my brothers in the dormitory will know that Li Yin is not the Li Yin in their minds, I am afraid that I will think that Li Yin is not the one who is very close but far away in her mind, but a young lady who has dropped out of high school and became a wine companion.

Boys who fall in love for the first time are indomitable, even if I think about it a lot, but I am not ready to give up.

Li Yin would also come to our school to play on her days off, but most of the time she would soak in the library with me with the library card I borrowed from my classmates, or on weekends we would buy a movie ticket for five yuan a movie to go to our school auditorium, and sometimes we would go to the small song hall outside the school with Deng Ge to sing and drink some beer.

After a semester, the school winter vacation, I was ready to go home, Li Yin said that she was going to go home for the New Year, so she went to find a school in their local area and then took the college entrance examination. She quit her rent, left her job at the Deng Ge factory, and insisted on buying a ticket for the day after my train home. It was a cold day back home, and I saw her stomping her feet and waving to me through the moving train window. It dawned on me that I was afraid I would never see her again.

In the summer vacation of the second year, I received a bunch of messages on QQ:

Qing'er, I got the admission letter, a four-year junior college.

Thank you!

I'll come over tomorrow, you haven't changed your dormitory, have you?

I called the phone to your dormitory and no one answered, did you go home?

If you go online, you will wait for me in the dormitory if you see the message! Otherwise, I won't have anyone to take me in.

I won't tell you, I'm at the Internet café outside the train station, and I got off the plane and went to the waiting room. You'll be able to see me tomorrow afternoon!

I didn't know that Li Yin appeared at the door of my dormitory, and at that time we didn't have the habit of surfing the Internet every day, and my dormitory boss and I were about to go to the basketball court.

The boss saw Li Yin and looked at me again, "Hey, bye-bye!" ”

Li Yin's hair grew longer, the color was dyed back to black, he wore a short ponytail, wore a long skirt with their ethnic characteristics, wore flip-flops on his feet, and a layer of fine sweat appeared on his forehead, standing at the door with a smile on his face, and the light of the setting sun behind him.

The appearance of some people amazed the years, and then disappeared in the long river of time, in my long life, Li Yin is like this. If a man meets a woman who amazes him, I think he will never forget that shadow for the rest of his life.

In the second half of the summer, Li Yin studied various dishes in the rented room, and I went over to taste them after working every day.

At my insistence, Li Yin asked me to take her on the train, but only to the ticket gate, and she said that she didn't want to see me standing there alone, and she said that it would make her feel distressed.

Seeing her walk into the ticket gate, such scenes appeared many times in the following years, Li Yin would come to our school first at the beginning of each semester, and worked as a summer worker in Brother Deng's factory for several summer vacations. She wouldn't let me send her into the station every time I saw her off, so I looked at the back inside the ticket gate many times, and it became the deepest freeze frame in my memory.