"By the way, who did you want to give an extra ticket to last time?" I asked. We sat down in the last row of the bus and shook with the bus in the direction north of the bridge. Ye Ruiyang was busy stuffing himself into the innermost window seat, and he didn't bother to answer.

"Say, which little girl do you want to play with? If I know you, I'll spare your life, and if you don't, I'll make a small report to the teacher. Millet playfully flicked him with her fingers.

Boss Ye snorted and pulled the window open slightly. Unexpectedly, the cold wind of winter could pour in without reservation in a little crevice, so I had to pull it up again.

"Why, I want to give it to my cousin. Lie to you is a puppy. I told him that I would see you at the gate of the playground tomorrow. He spread his hands.

"Huh? No, you still have to take a child! That's annoying! ”

Miller had a disgusted expression on his face, but it was clear that he looked like a child. Perhaps in the eyes of older children, we are also a group of big children.

"Don't worry, my cousin is super well-behaved. And he's not too young, okay, he's in the sixth grade this year, and he's younger than you...... Nine months, not much worse! Ye Ruiyang said, wanting to scrape Mi Le's nose with his index finger, but he blocked it with his hand.

I won't forget Miller's birthday, July 11th. He was probably the youngest of my classmates. Ye Ruiyang is the oldest of all his classmates, and his birthday is September 18. When we knew it, he had already passed this year's birthday. It's okay if he said it, there's no need to make it up, it's a very special day, the whole city will pull the air raid siren, and it's always a little uncomfortable to celebrate happily on that day. I understand what he meant, Jiang Yuan will pull the air defense siren twice a year, once in 918 and once in three days, both of which are serious moments. However, no matter how you say it's your birthday, it's important to you, isn't it your birthday since you were a child? I asked. He said that when he grew up, most of them lived on the 17th and 19th, and he had to make up time.

He and I are both 13 years old. It turned out that in Ye Ruiyang's eyes, both of us had grown up. What about 12-year-old Miller and his 11-year-old cousin? When do people really "grow up"?

"What kind of person is your cousin? I've never heard you mention him. I asked.

"Hmm...... He's a little bit like Millet. He looked up and thought about it, and was only halfway through his sentence when he was interrupted by a sentence of "I don't want to be your brother". The two choked each other for a while, and he continued, saying that his cousin was a small but very cute boy with a good family upbringing, and he was a small Internet celebrity.

We came to interest and asked him what type of influencer he was. So Boss Ye introduced Brother Ye well, saying that his mother is a game fan and loves to play ancient martial arts games, so Xiao Ye has embarked on the road of cosplay since he was a child. Mom always dressed him up as a chivalrous man in the game, dressed in clothes of various sects, and took some photos or short videos, and Xiao Ye gained a group of fans. He sometimes holds a spear, is heroic, and single-handedly guards the country; Sometimes he hides a hidden weapon and wears a mask, lurking in the night. A young swordsman who has done "killing one person in ten steps, leaving no line for a thousand miles", and has been reduced to begging on the street for a living, under the ragged clothes is a set of skillful dog beating stick techniques. Ye Ruiyang's amazing mouth almost made me believe that his younger brother was a talented and surprising martial arts genius, and it was really buried not to let Stephen Chow accept him as an apprentice.

"After talking about it for so long, what's your brother's name? It won't be called Ye Ruiyue, right? Millet interrupted his rambling again.

"What Ye Ruiyue, it's too much like a girl. He has two names, and one of them is really girly. That's right, he occasionally reverses. Put the picture on the Internet, and everyone really can't tell whether he is a man or a woman. Well, I'll see him tomorrow and let him tell you himself. By the way, he doesn't just know how to be a model, he has other skills. Anyway, he's amazing, and I want to bring it out to show you what to see. ”

"Come on, I'll give you some insight and knowledge. Speak like a pet, your brother can't beat you to death. Seeing that Ye Ruiyang had sold another pass, Mi Le's mouth was even more unkind. But according to Ye Ruiyang's skyrocketing statement, I really want to meet Little Brother Ye. It can be seen that Boss Ye, who is an elder brother, is very fond of his younger brother.

As the road was bumpy and the sun was sinking prematurely, our jokes slowed down a lot, and finally became three people leaning together, slumped into the red-lit bus seats. The afterglow of the setting sun enveloped us with the tired smell of locking up in the car, crumpling us up haphazardly and piling up in small corners. The soles of my feet are a little cold, but there is a hint of warmth on my body. Staying with the two of them, I gained a sense of stability and security that I had never seen before, consistent with the fact that the car would not look back. In a blur, I could see through the car window the river rising and sinking beside the bridge. Jiangyuan, a city that straddles the north and south of the Yangtze River, I live in the south of it every day, surrounded by ancient city walls. Jiangbei and even the bridge are unfamiliar to me, it is the scenery on the way to and from my hometown every year, no different from other places, flashing in chaos outside the car window. The factories of the north are particularly visible on the bridge, and it is said that in the past, it was a symbol of splendor and prosperity, but now it has been reduced to a silent concrete forest in the sunset. Tall chimneys and tower cranes, how close and far away are they......

By the time we were fully awake, we had already crossed the bridge, and we could hear the cold wind through the windows, and the sky had completely darkened. Just like the time Miller took me to his house, Ye Ruiyang led us into a community. "Private garden, idlers are not allowed to enter", Ye Ruiyang used a small card to lift the railing with these warnings written on it. There are not many pedestrians in the community, perhaps the cold winter is not suitable for walking, and for a while there is only the silence of the wind blowing the shrubs and dead grass and the sporadic lights.

Ye Ruiyang opened the unit building and led us to an anti-theft door on the second floor. Without a key, he entered the code on the door lock. Millet and I consciously turned our backs to look at the opposite door, the same dull and stubborn door, which never seemed to open to us.

The house is not big, about 60 square meters, one bedroom and two living rooms. But it's quite new. He pulled the door open, the smile on his face uncontrollable.

"You know what I was thinking? I felt like Tom and brought a bunch of fox friends home for a party. ”

"Ah, there's no Jerry in that house, is there?" Millet pretended to be nervous and looked around.

"How is it possible, this is the new community. And rest assured, the 'hostess' won't suddenly come back and throw us all out. Ye Ruiyang handed each of us a pair of cotton slippers.

"So this is your home?" I asked.

"Yes, it's my house. A gift from my parents. Okay, whatever, just like in your own home, no one cares about us. ”

I threw everything I had brought and myself on the couch. As soon as you enter the door, you can feel that there is no one else in the room, especially no adults, and you can rest assured that you can collapse on the sofa. His sofa is L-shaped, neither soft nor hard, enough for us to find a place to lie down. We were all exhausted after an hour's drive, not to mention a full session of training on Friday afternoon.

"Where's your mom and dad? Don't they come here to live? I asked, looking at the ceiling.

"No, they all live in the city."

"Your family is so rich? Mom and Dad gave you a house as a gift? Millet whistled.

"Come on. After they divorced, there were only two things they did together. One thing is to give me a birthday once a year, like the Qixi Festival, the two of them will see this side every year, if there is no me, I definitely don't want to see each other. The other thing is to take turns paying the mortgage on this house, saying that when I am older, I will have a place to stay. ”

Lying down, he stepped deeply on the back of the couch, made a sparse sound, and spoke in a calm or inconsequential manner. I was a little stunned, and after hearing the word "divorce", I unconsciously rolled over from the sofa and sat up. With a sweep of the afterglow, Miller's reaction was similar to mine.

"What's wrong with you two, continue to lie down?" When he saw the movements of the two of us, he smiled a little smugly without care, "Why, didn't you guess that my parents would have divorced a long time ago, right?" ”

We say no.

He was still stepping on the back of the sofa, but his hands were folded, showing a look that would make us feel calm.

"It's nothing. I'm lucky, at least after they left, I didn't become a child who didn't love my mother and didn't love them. They're all pretty good to me. It stands to reason that I belong to my father, but he also told me to visit my mother often. Hey, why are you two so serious, I'm not doing well. Several of my classmates in my elementary school class had divorced parents, and they weren't too miserable. In modern society, many things are normal......"

"But...... Just, in our hometown, divorce is still quite disgraceful. Of course, that's bias, and I don't agree with that either. But, but, boss, did your parents talk to you before the divorce? Aren't they afraid that divorce will have a bad effect on you? Mi Le leaned over to Ye Ruiyang's side and reached out to pinch his shoulder. Ye Ruiyang raised his arm and grabbed his palm.

"How so? It's magical. When I was a child, the two of them often quarreled, and I was always very scared, at first I hid in my room and wrapped myself in the quilt, not wanting to hear those terrible sounds. Later, I found that I couldn't escape, the kind of hatred for each other, even if the three of us sat down at the dinner table and neither of us spoke, I could feel their dissatisfaction with each other. The dish that was sandwiched and the soup was spilled a little bit can cause conflict. I don't know how long that life lasted, but I remember it for a long time, I wanted to hide in school every day, and I didn't want to go home. Or go to my cousin's house and stay at my cousin's house for a month at most. So I have a very deep relationship with Ah Fang, and the two of us sleep in the same bed. No, how did I tell him by his nickname? No matter. Later, the two of them finally decided to divorce and live separately, and my life was a little better, at least not as soon as I got home. Speaking of which, it was during the time I was at my cousin's house that they made up their minds. I still remember, in the second semester of fourth grade, the two of them picked me up from my cousin's house in their car that night. On the way back, I sat in the back seat, wondering if they were going to quarrel in the car in a while. As a result, my mother turned back to me and said that we were divorced. As soon as she said it, I cried, child, I wanted to cry inexplicably when I heard this, and I trampled around in the back of the car, throwing pillows and cardboard boxes, and my father had to park the car on the side of the road. They explained to me that they had wronged me over the years and would treat me well in the future. He also said that I didn't want to choose who to follow, I could take turns living on both sides. I couldn't listen to anything, and I cried patronizingly. When I got home that day, my mother went out with the things she had packed, and beckoned to me, saying that she would often come to play with her in the future. I ran up to hug her with a handful of snot and tears, trying to keep her, but was finally dragged away by my dad. But now it's okay, even if I think about it, I don't feel sad at all, and I even feel a sense of relief. It's really a long pain that is better than a short pain, and I was sad for a week, but then I gradually got used to it. Isn't it going well now?

"It is said that children are the glue of the family. I think if I hadn't gone to my cousin's house, they might not have been able to make up their minds about divorce. Brother Chuan told me that his parents had a colleague in college who waited until the child finished the college entrance examination before divorcing her husband. It's scary to think about, saying that it is to not affect the child's learning, but is this good? They only got divorced in the fourth grade, and I couldn't stand it anymore. Let me endure two years of elementary school, three years of junior high school, and three years of high school, it will be really eight years of resistance, and I will have to go crazy, or I will hide in Ah Fang's house for eight years. Moreover, it's not good for parents. When I finish the college entrance examination, they will all be fifty years old, and it will definitely be difficult to divorce and live again. If it were just because of me, my parents wasted all their lives and time, I wouldn't want to......"

Mi Le squeezed Ye Ruiyang's hand hard, explaining it. Ye Ruiyang was a little tired from speaking, kicked his leg on the sofa, looked at the back of Mi Le's hand in a studied manner, and let go.

"In other words, do you two think that the children whose parents divorce are the kind of people who are very withdrawn and introverted, and their grades are not satisfactory, and they even have some psychological problems?"

"No, no, no, no!" My reaction was a little more intense, shaking from head to hand, Ye Ruiyang was a little overwhelmed by my weird behavior, but fortunately he didn't dig deeper.

"It's all said, that's prejudice. I wouldn't think so. Miller said.

"Not necessarily. My life is good, my parents are divorced, and life is getting better. There must be children in the world who have had bad days. I can't tell if there are more people like me or those people, maybe there are more of them, otherwise everyone wouldn't have this impression. Alas. The past days were terrible, but luckily I ran out. And thank you to my parents, who want me to say that the best gift they have given me is not this house, although without it we wouldn't have anywhere to brag about now......"

"And what are you talking about? Life? I asked.

"Hmm...... Neither is it. He turned his face to look at me, and slapped the sofa with his palm, making a sound that was not crisp or dull, "It's a good time now, but before the fourth grade, I really felt that I was quite redundant, and it was quite boring to live, arguing and even cursing each other all day long, and my brother can still attract me, he is really happy." So, I think a lot of people in the school are very irresponsible, both boys and girls. Whether it's falling in love, getting married or having children in the future, it's all a big deal, and you can't just do it casually. It's so hard to take responsibility for your own actions, you don't know what the price is behind one thing, and you do it......"

"Enough is enough, do you want to follow the head of the grade group to catch puppy love? Tell me, what's that gift, I don't want to hear you take a moral lesson here! Again, Millet interrupted him.

Ye Ruiyang looked at him and said that the best gift they gave him was separation. This taught him a lesson, people can't push themselves too hard, and sometimes it's better for everyone to take a step back.

That's right. It's a blessing to be able to go back, which shows that people still have a lot of leeway. But what if there is no way back? Just like on the field, when we only have the last line of defense, where can Boss Ye retreat? What about me, can I get back into the goal?

He slapped the couch again, switching from the slumped position. I thought he was going to put his foot in his slippers and stand up, and he did, but the next second he shook his shoes and kicked his cotton shoes away with his toes.

After several years, is Ye Ruiyang really "getting better"? I do not know. On that night of huddled together on the couch, I guessed two possibilities. He's really fine, so he can tell us both about his childhood experiences seemingly without any mind. It's also possible that he's not doing well, or he's not completely good, and that someone still needs to listen to his hidden bitterness. Perhaps for the past three months, he would only say to the younger brother who had never been mentioned before today. And on this night, he opened his heart to me and Millet. The two of us are "fox friends and dog friends" that he is willing to talk to with peace of mind. And as I listened, I realized more and more that I was very willing to listen to him, and to share his emotions if I could.

We sat around the table munching on takeaway fried chicken and listened to the wind blowing endlessly outside the window. After that, you can take turns to take a comfortable hot shower, return to the living room warmly, and lay down on the table to "rustle" your homework. If there is a question that they don't understand, you can ask them, and if they don't understand it either, we will discuss it together and we can always solve it. That's nice. I took a hard sip of the water cola from the paper cup, almost choking on the thick sugar flavor. Suddenly, I wanted to say to them, who also ate a lot of oil, that I could know you and be your friend, I am so happy. This kind of companionship and trust in each other is so precious.

If only I had understood this sooner. Now, where else can we go back?

With the drooping eyelids and the blurred lights, the homework was almost finished, and it was time to go to bed. We lay back on the couch and played two mobile games online. The thrill of teaming up to kill gradually wears away the bitterness of wandering. I'm still quite fun, as long as someone is with me.

Everyone yawned long. Miller asked Ye Ruiyang how he would live tonight. Ye Ruiyang said that it was okay, or you would sleep in a small room, and Ke Ke and I would sleep in a big bed. Who knew that Mi Le's face sank, and he said Why did Ke Ke live with you. Ye Ruiyang was stunned, and then countered and said, How do you know that Ke Ke doesn't want to live with me. I was puzzled, I still had to be "contested" one day? It's like a child whose parents are divorced, and the parents are clearly showing the benefits and asking me to follow them, which is a little funny to think about.

Am I so popular? I don't know what I'm good at. However, the strings have indeed been "robbed" by their teammates before. I remember that once Zhao Rui and Pu Yun quarreled in the locker room, and I asked Xianxian for a long time to know that they were fighting for "who is Ke Peixian's best friend". Zhao Rui's basis is that Xianxian has said similar things to him, and Pu Yun's reason is that Xianxian has overdone him and cleaned up the people who bullied him in the toilet. The two of them were arguing and almost made a move, which made people stunned. Xianxian looked broken and was dragged by them to ask the question. In the end, he had an idea and said that his best friend was none other than my brother. I must have blushed and my heart pounding. However, the problem was not completely solved, and they began to fight again over "who is the second best friend of Ke Peixian".

At that time, we were all so young, and we were willing to put each other angry about this kind of thing. What now? It doesn't seem to have fully grown up.

The compromise solution still came out: we slept on the big bed together, but Mi Le specifically asked me to cover a quilt with him, and Ye Ruiyang to cover his own. The reason is very appropriate: one of the three people likes to roll quilts, and the other two have a cold nine times out of ten. Ye Ruiyang said not necessarily, when he was very young, he slept with his parents, and no one had ever been frozen and cold because of the quilt.

Okay, cover it. Don't worry, son, Dad won't roll up your quilt. Millet jumped into the room. In addition to Brother Chuan, Ye Ruiyang has another father. Pull it down, what do you mean by that, Ke Ke is not like a gentleman than you. Ye Ruiyang pouted. Hmph, forget it, just by one point, I'm more than Ke Ke Ye. Miller said. Ye Ruiyang and I both asked what that point was. Miller said. Impossible, Ye Ruiyang's face was full of surprise, Ke Ke is obviously taller than you and stronger than you. Stop talking nonsense! I shouted angrily and pretending to be angry. Then you have what it takes to prove it! Millet grimaced at me.

Of course I didn't prove it. He is right, otherwise I would not hesitate to refute him with practical actions.

The two of them let me sleep in the middle, because Mi Le was afraid that Ye Ruiyang would fall asleep and turn over and squash him. I've never slept with three of them, and maybe I won't ever have such an experience in the future. Looking at it this way, tonight's experience was quite special. After all, when I was a child, I never slept in the same bed with my parents. I don't know if Ye Ruiyang will think of the nights he slept with his parents in the distant past. They weren't arguing very much at the time.

We're 13 years old, neither big nor too small, but I really can't remember some things from our childhood. Maybe it was because life didn't have much meaning at that time, it was so dull and uneventful, only the repetitive play and peaceful sleep every day. It wasn't until we began to grow up and begin to understand the world that the endless noise and noise gradually enveloped us. However, listening to the steady breathing of the two of them, I didn't seem to be too sad. Maybe at this time I can "take a step back" and retreat to them. I can sleep peacefully, have a dream with them that is not too long and not too short, and look forward to the rising sun tomorrow.