Opposite the office building of the Reading Micro Appraisal Center, there is a "hometown fast food restaurant" that has been open for many years on the street. Once, when Ai Xiang finished eating dinner and paid the bill, he looked at the short and fat boss with a kind face and asked by the way: "Where is the boss, you have so many flavors in this fellow fast food restaurant, and almost all the flavors of Tiannan and Haibei are here, are all the guests here considered to be fellow villagers?" ”

The boss laughed, his eyes narrowed: "I'm a person, when I was young, I can be said to have walked through the south and the north, and I really belong to the four seas." No matter where you come from, I just want to make every guest feel at home, as if they are in their hometown. Flavor, there are indeed many local characteristics, I think there is always one that will meet the needs of guests, right? That's why it's called the hometown fast food restaurant, which makes you laugh. ”

Ai Xiang praised: "You misunderstood what I meant, I mean the boss is really well-informed, very thoughtful, the name of the store is also very simple and does not play gimmicks, the sanitary environment in the store is also very good, no matter which dish is cheap and good, very fair, and it does have a feeling of being at home, so I was taught." ”

Since then, Ai Xiang has become a regular visitor here. In a single life, when a person is fed and the whole family is not hungry, he will not worry about three meals a day. Every time he works overtime at night, he will choose to simply order pasta here to replenish himself with some necessary energy.

In the evening, it was raining lightly outside, Ai Xiang walked out of the appraisal center building, the street lamps on both sides of the street looked a little hazy in the rain, he walked into the "hometown fast food restaurant" as usual, found a booth near the window, and ordered a mushroom green vegetable noodles.

Shiitake mushroom and vegetable noodles have become Ai Xiang's first choice, he likes the taste of shiitake mushrooms, and he always doesn't forget to tease himself after eating: "Ouch, I'm eating mountain delicacies again." Then he deliberately frowned and asked the waiter with a look of regret on his face: "You say, is it too expensive for me to do this?" The waitress who always had the same smile on her face was also used to laughing with Ai Xiang, and when she heard Ai Xiang say this, she would smile and say, "It's really wasteful, you must be a rich man." ”

Ai Xiang and every waiter here have become acquaintances, and every time he sees Ai Xiang walking into the restaurant, the little waiter who is in charge of welcoming guests will habitually shout: "Hello Dr. Ai!" Dr. Ai, please. ”

Once, Ai Xiang asked her with some curiosity, "Why do you call me like that?" Why do you think I'm a doctor? The little waiter asked, "Aren't you a doctor?" I've seen you in a doctor's lab coat several times, aren't all doctors wearing a lab coat? ”

Ai Xiang patiently told her: "Not all people in white coats are doctors, so I can't be considered a doctor." I'm a researcher, and although I have something to do with medicine, I'm not a doctor, and there's a difference between a researcher and a doctor. But every time the little waiter saw Ai Xiang, he still habitually called him Dr. Ai, and Ai Xiang would take the trouble to remind her every time: "Little sister, I have already told you, I am not a doctor, I am a researcher." You should call me a researcher. ”

Ai Xiang deliberately called the little waiter to his table and asked her, "Do you know the difference between a doctor and a researcher?" The little waiter replied truthfully with a smile on his face: "I don't know, I'm sorry, Dr. Ai." Ai Xiang smiled helplessly, but he insisted on correcting her every time, just as she still habitually called him Dr. Ai every time. Ai Xiang finished eating the green vegetables and mushroom noodles, and when he went out, the little waiter greeted him as usual: "Goodbye, Doctor Ai." Ai Xiang smiled and waved at her helplessly.

"Do you have to work overtime at night? You seem to have to work overtime every day, it's really hard. Security guard Li Zhiming saw that Ai Xiang had gone out for a while and came back shortly after getting off work, so he asked with concern. He has been working as a security guard in this office building for five or six years, and he is almost familiar with several young people who often work overtime.

Ai Xiang greeted him as he walked: "Brother Li, aren't you the same, don't work hard, you can't do it, you have to do a lot of things one by one, and everything has a time limit, there is no way, only overtime." Once you get used to it, it's not so hard. ”

Before leaving, Yu Mei repeatedly instructed Ai Xiang that the experimental and appraisal work of the second batch of samples sent by the criminal police team should be completed as soon as possible. The five children who were abducted and rescued in a timely manner, and there are more than 50 families with suspicious situations with the missing children reported in various places, and they need to be investigated and confirmed one by one through DNA testing. If these tests are done sooner, there is hope that the trafficked children will be able to return to their relatives one day sooner.

In the past few days, he has to work in the laboratory for more than ten hours every day, and he has completed dozens of experiments on sample testing. He set his own work schedule, and had to write out all the experimental analysis results by the end of the week, and complete all the analysis reports of the identification conclusions.

For Ai Xiang, the process of doing DNA identification experiments and analysis reports has a different psychological experience from others, because he himself is an outcast, a life that was abandoned soon after birth. He asked a thousand times and ten thousand times in his heart, but he couldn't figure out the reason why his parents abandoned him in the first place, because he was a normal child, and since his parents let him come to this world, why did they abandon him? He had no way of knowing the answer, and no one could tell him the answer.

Perhaps, this is a mystery that no one can solve. However, he will not give up looking for the bottom of the puzzle, and he will not give up constantly asking questions in his heart. As long as there is a clue, he will try to find the answer, even though he knows that this may be an answer that he will never find, he will not give up.

Ai Xiang decided to go to Beishan after completing the appraisal at hand, and his intuition told him that Beishan was a place that should have a special connection with him, and he didn't know why he had this intuition, but he always believed in his instincts, as if he believed in his eyes and ears.

No matter how much work is at hand, no matter how busy the work tasks are, Ai Xiang will not change his original plan to go to Beishan on the weekend. Because since he had already made this decision, he had to follow his instincts all the way. He wants to find where he came from, find his lost self, and find a mystery that may only care about him.

Before Yu Mei went out to attend the academic seminar, Ai Xiang hesitated for a few days, but decided to tell Yu Mei what was on his mind: "Sister Mei, I want to go to Beishan for a walk." ”

Yu Mei thought that he needed to take a break because he was often overworked, so she looked at him with concern and said with some tiredness, "Do you want to take a vacation?" Or do you want to go for a leisurely break? The climate and environment of Beishan is very good, and the farmhouse there is indeed good, if you want to go for a walk, Beishan is indeed a good place, besides, the distance is not too far, if you take a car, it will take two or three hours to arrive. ”

Ai Xiang said with a heavy heart: "It's not for leisure, and I've never had the habit of going on vacation, I just want to find myself." I don't know if the mountains have lost me, or if I have lost the mountains, there are always many shadows of mountains in my subconscious, and I can always dream of many tall mountains. In my dreams, I wandered around the mountains like a bird, but I couldn't find a place where I could stay. This dream has always haunted me, and I often feel pain all over my body because I can't find a place to stay in that big mountain, and when my wings are tired, I will fall, and I will really fall down like a bird. Strange or not, you say, a little bird got lost in a big mountain, couldn't find a place to stay, couldn't find a home. ”

"The subconscious mind is indeed a very magical thing, and some of the subconscious mind seems to be innate, with imprinted traces in the dark. You just said that you want to go to the mountains to find yourself? You mean to say that you are a child of the mountains? Aside from this dream, apart from the subconscious, how do you know that you have such a connection with the mountain? And how can you be sure of such a connection? Can you be sure that you are from the mountains? Do you have evidence and clues? If you just guess, because of a subconscious guess, it's hard to say whether it's right or wrong, because there is no standard to measure, maybe there is a result, or there may not be any result. If there is a result, then the answer may or may not be. If there is no result, then become a fan, are you willing to keep looking for a fan? ”

"No matter whether there is a result or not, no matter what kind of answer the result is, I have to look for it, because this is a mystery of my own, and if I give up my efforts and are unwilling to find it, it will always be a mystery that no one will solve. I learned something about me from Guo Ying's mother, the director of the welfare home, and she gave me some clues that could confirm the existence of a certain kind of existence. It's been so long, and I can only look for valuable clues from those clues, and maybe I can find something. Ai Xiang's indifferent eyes flashed with brilliance.

Yu Mei understands this student with a special experience very well, she thinks that what Ai Xiang is looking for is not only the lost family affection, but also the loneliness in his heart. In this process of searching, the result may not be so important, because there are all kinds of similar results in this world, and there are all kinds of similar answers, and the results and answers he can find will not deviate too much. The important thing is that he may realize the true meaning of life in the process of searching, and that may be his best harvest.

There was a longing in Ai Xiang's eyes: "The wings in my dreams can't take me to find, I have to use my own feet to find them." ”

(Next Preview: Chapter 60: A Long Clue)