"What kind of person is your dean?"

Su Mo closed his eyes and replied calmly, "A good person." ”

He and Zhou Mingrui were sitting on the high-speed train to Licheng next door.

After learning that Su Mo took leave to return to the welfare home today, Zhou Mingrui pondered for a moment and made a request to go to the welfare home together.

Su Mo somehow thought of some episodes from school: Teacher, XXX is not feeling well, I accompanied him/her to the infirmary to have a look......

But in the face of Zhou Mingrui's sincere eyes, he finally nodded.

Some time ago, Su Mo was promoted to team leader, and it was not a problem to approve a fake note.

The high-speed train was running fast, and in less than two hours, they set foot on the land of Licheng.

"The welfare institute is ...... on Shangmin Road, Jiangtang District"

Walking out of the station, Su Mo introduced to Zhou Mingrui.

"If you walk there, it's about three kilometers, about half an hour."

Zhou Mingrui replied, "Okay." ”

He looked around with curiosity mixed with a little nostalgia, this satellite city reminded Zhou Mingrui of his hometown unconsciously.

It is out of touch with the fast-paced life of the modern metropolis, but it makes people feel extraordinarily leisurely and peaceful, quiet and peaceful, and it is even more lethal to the physically and mentally exhausted wanderer, with a self-evident beauty.

Led by Su Mo, they made their way to the welfare home.

Jiangtang District, since it will be named after this, there must be no shortage of rivers and lakes in the territory, and the two passed through a long embankment, and the willows on the bank lifted the curtain.

In June, the willows are full of green, and the clear river water is sparkling under the glow of the rising sun, like a silk brocade satin.

At 10:40 a.m., Su Mo and Zhou Mingrui came to the welfare home.

Su Mo sent the news that they were almost there, so when they arrived, there were already people waiting outside the orphanage.

It was an old lady with frosty white sideburns, soft eyebrows, a smile on the corner of her mouth, and after seeing the figures of Su Mo and Zhou Mingrui, she took the initiative to come forward to greet her.

The old lady was stiff-boned, walked step by step, and said hello to Su Mo after coming to the two.

"Xiao Mo, you're back."

"Hello Dean."

Su Mo replied stiffly, and Zhou Mingrui found that he straightened his body and looked a little nervous.

"Okay, okay, it's good that you're back." The dean responded with a smile and turned his head to look at Zhou Mingrui, "Who is this?" ”

"This is Zhou Mingrui, my friend, who came with me to attend the birthday party, you can call him Xiao Zhou."

Although they were friends, it was equivalent to bringing a stranger to the birthday party inside the welfare institute, and after introducing Zhou Mingrui to the dean, Su Mo looked down and smiled embarrassedly.

At this moment, Zhou Mingrui felt unprecedented surprise.

It was the first time he had seen Su Mo look so embarrassed.

The smile wasn't sorry, it was more like — I didn't know what kind of expression to show, so I lowered my head and smiled.

But Zhou Mingrui didn't have more time to delve into it, because when Su Mo finished introducing him, the dean talked to him in a warm tone.

Infected by Su Mo's serious attitude, Zhou Mingrui also concentrated on responding to the dean's greetings, but soon entered a relaxed state.

As Su Mo said, the dean is indeed a good person with a gentle personality and easy to get along with, Zhou Mingrui even vaguely saw Su Mo's shadow from her, no, in chronological order, it should be the dean who influenced Su Mo, and Su Mo was imitating the dean?

They didn't greet each other for long, and the dean led Su Mo and Zhou Mingrui into the welfare home.

The interior of the orphanage is decorated in a festive atmosphere, with colorful ribbons, a series of hanging flags of cartoon characters, long balloons woven into small animals, and fluffy sunflower handmade flowers in the shape of lions......

"Most of these are made by the children themselves." Su Mo said lightly to Zhou Mingrui.

"There's a lot of the decoration here that they've put in hand." The dean in front of him said softly, "Everyone is a good boy. ”

When passing by the classroom, the classroom was full of children of all ages, Zhou Mingrui curiously glanced inside through the window, and found that their expressions were more serious than the other, and they were staring intently at the big screen playing-

"It's Doraemon again......" he heard Su Mo beside him muttering with mixed emotions.

Again?

Zhou Mingrui turned his head to look, Su Mo saw his inquisitive gaze, hesitated, leaned closer and told him quietly: "This thing has been released since I entered the welfare home, and it is estimated that this posture has been put for twenty years......"

This is true love!

Zhou Mingrui was dumbfounded.

How much do the people in this welfare home like Doraemon!

Immediately afterwards, he thought of Su Mo's beloved blue fat thermos cup, and couldn't help twitching the corners of his mouth.

This is probably the so-called generation to generation, from generation to generation, and endlessly......

The dean led them to an office, picked up two jars of candy from the desk, and handed them to Su Mo and Zhou Mingrui one by one.

"Alright, it's time for lunch soon." The dean said happily, "The two big birthday stars are going to give gifts to the little birthday stars." ”

Holding the candy jar and going out with a confused face, Zhou Mingrui looked at the jar of candy in his hand, and then looked at the door that had been closed behind him, with a rather strange expression.

"Looks like the dean likes you very much."

A faint voice came from beside him.

Zhou Mingrui turned his head to look again, but at this time, Su Mo did not look back at him like before, and after saying something unclear, he kept staring silently in the direction of the office, and then bowed deeply.

"Let's go."

He dropped a sentence and left first.

Zhou Mingrui chased after him and asked, "Are you going to the cafeteria?" ”

"Hmm."

Su Mo responded sluggishly and dullly, his interest didn't seem to be very high, and after another two seconds, he reacted, and explained to Zhou Mingrui as he walked:

"June 1 is the collective birthday of the children in the welfare home, in order to let everyone know what gratitude and sharing is, this day is often given candy and marbles to the younger children as gifts, and when the younger children grow up, they will also take on the role of giving gifts.

"This year is an exception, because of the arrival of you and me, the dean temporarily decided to make us the birthday stars of this gift...... Xiao Zhou, congratulations on your birthday again. ”

Zhou Mingrui: "Is this also counted?" ”

Su Mo: "Doesn't it count?" ”

Zhou Mingrui was subtly exhausted, thinking about the birthday experience card he got accidentally, and then looked down at the candy jar he was holding, and felt a little ...... Flattered?

"By the way, Zhou Mingrui," Su Mo suddenly called his full name, "In 2012, did you think about what you could do if the end of the world really came?" ”

Armageddon 2012 is an apocalyptic theory that claims that a major catastrophe will occur on Earth on December 21, 2012, and is rumored to have originated from the apocalyptic prophecies of the Mayan civilization.

But in fact, December 21, 2012 is just a special period in the Mayan calendar, just like the rotation of the seasons and the leap of centuries, which means that the calendar is calculated from scratch, not destroyed.

And this special day is indeed an ordinary day.

"Hypothetical?" Zhou Mingrui thought about it carefully, and replied with some hesitation, "Under normal circumstances, there are tall people on top of the sky when the sky falls. But at the end of the world, if the tall man can't stand it, I don't think I can do anything? ”

Su Mo was silent for a moment, and then said:

"At the mention of this, I remembered that I had read a post-apocalyptic novel.

"When the end of the world comes, the protagonist happens to be lying in the underground freezer of the hospital for treatment, thus escaping and going into hibernation.

"And when this lucky man woke up from hibernation, he was already in the world ...... 10,000 years later"

"Lucky?" Zhou Mingrui interrupted him, and asked in a serious tone, "Unless that protagonist has nothing, otherwise he wakes up with nothing, do you really think this is a lucky person, not an unlucky one?" ”

Su Mo was stunned, then hooked the corners of his mouth, and couldn't stop laughing, laughing so that there were tears in his eyes.

Yes, perhaps the people who died in the old city are the real lucky ones, and those remnants of the old days who sleep on the source fortress have only the darkest future.

His crying and laughing appearance startled Zhou Mingrui, and asked cautiously and worriedly, "Su Mo, what's wrong with you?" You okay? ”

"It's okay, it's okay." Su Mo wiped his face and said in a relaxed tone, "I just remembered some of the past, and at that time, I really felt that the end of the world was coming." ”

A guess came to Zhou Mingrui's mind.

This may be a good opportunity for Su Mo to untie the knot.

He thought, so he boldly asked, "What does it have to do with your parents?" ”

Su Mo glanced at him sideways, showed a just right smile, nodded first, and then shook his head:

"I haven't seen that man since I was born.

"And Mom...... No, I'll call her Mother.

"She was a very beautiful woman and a very gentle mother, and I used to love her very much.

"On my sixth birthday, the previous one, she took me to the playground for a day to celebrate.

"We played in the playground all day...... Very tired, but very happy.

Then it started to get dark, and she bought me an ice cream at the stall, and then she took me to the playground bench, and squatted down and told me to stay here and wait for her to come back, she had something to do now.

"I sat on a bench and watched her leave...... Then, never came back. ”

Zhou Mingrui asked abruptly: "What about later?" ”

"And then," Summer said lightly, "she's dead." ”

Zhou Mingrui was so shocked that his footsteps stopped.

There are so many possibilities that can be derived from this sentence, and each of them corresponds to perhaps a very different answer.

Seeing that he stopped where he was, Su Mo didn't continue to walk forward, but just turned around and looked into Zhou Mingrui's eyes.

He whispered:

"'How Steel is Made' is the autobiography of the author, Paul Kochakin, and when I read it before, I was as shocked by his unfortunate life as you were for me.

Born into a poor working-class family, Paul was expelled from school at the age of twelve for offending a priest and sent by his mother to work as a handyman in the station cafeteria.

After the outbreak of the October Revolution, he joined the Russian Red Army, suffered a serious head wound in another battle, and after escaping death, he contracted typhoid fever and pneumonia.

"As he will be confined to his bed for the rest of his life, Paul also had suicidal thoughts at one point, but he still came out of the trough and chose to engage in literary creation, using the pen as a weapon to start a new life."

Su Mo's summary of this life, Zhou Mingrui was silent.

Although he knew that "How Steel is Made" was very famous, and he had copied it when he was in junior high school, he had not really read the book and understood the "ruthless fate" in the after-reading feeling.

Summer continued:

"Most of the people who stay in the welfare homes are unfortunate children.

"There are the injustices of fate, and there are also man-made misfortunes, and these misfortunes have added an indelible crease to the picture scroll of life.

"The crease is formed by the breaking of the fibers of the paper, and the broken fibers cannot be repaired, just like no matter how much they are diluted and forgotten, the misfortunes of the past cannot be completely erased."

Zhou Mingrui couldn't help asking, "Then what should I do?" ”

Su Mo smiled at him, and his tone was a little ridiculous:

"Since it can't be erased, then we can only continue to walk with this misfortune.

"Well, it's also necessary to complain occasionally, but it's useless to just complain.

"Even though this misfortune always exists in my mind, as long as I can create the same or even more happy memories with my friends, and use misfortune as a background for my life to remind myself not to repeat the mistakes of the past, I can spend every day well-

"I guess that's enough, right?"