Hello, How Long Has This Been Going On?

It was almost ten o'clock in the evening when Huo Ran walked downstairs against the moonlight.

He washed the dishes for half an hour, and the news on TV had long since finished, and the evening show began.

Then they unknowingly sat on the sofa and watched TV dramas, even if they didn't know the beginning and the end, they still watched it with gusto.

The two chatted one after another, and time passed like running water.

In the end, it was exactly half past nine when Huo Ran's phone rang an alarm clock, which broke the cozy atmosphere.

"Why did you set an alarm clock for 9:30? Do you have something to do?" Tao Zhi asked him curiously.

Huo Ran stammered: "Because you said before that you go to bed at ten o'clock every day, so I will remind you to stop chatting and go take a shower at nine thirty."

"But sometimes I forget the time, so I have to set the alarm clock."

Tao Zhi was stunned for a moment, and smiled in a good mood: "As a result, every day in the past two weeks, I didn't go to bed until almost twelve o'clock."

Huo Ran nodded with great emotion.

The self-control that he had used so well since he was a child disappeared completely during the magical voice call.

The moonlight was shining brightly, and Tao Zhiyue followed behind him. His footsteps landed on the ground made of hard stone slabs, making a soft sound, and the shadows of the trees around him swayed with the wind.

Huo Ran remembered something, looked up at the street lights, "The light here is really dark at night, I think I can complain to the property management, it's not safe."

"How do you know the street lights are dark?" Tao Zhiyue asked in surprise.

"You told me the day you walked home drunk."

"...How many things did I tell you that night?" Tao Zhiyue doubted, "I probably didn't tell you the password of the bank card."

"Although you have said a lot to me, this one really doesn't."

"Why does your tone sound regretful?"

"Is there?" Huo Ran held back his smile and said seriously, "Actually, you described the things you saw on the way home, and you also told me what you like and dislike. There are no sensitive topics."

"Although you have been drinking, you are sober. When I asked you why there is Cupid in your house, you still refused to tell me."

Tao Zhiyue seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.

"So why the **** is there Cupid?"

Huo Ran's curiosity is often very long-lasting.

"I won't tell you, you can ask me next time I'm drunk."

"No, there will be no next time, drinking will hurt your health."

"How about a Coke?"

"...I'll go for a run when I get back to the hotel!"

Tao Zhiyue laughed: "I'm just kidding, you must have not slept well yesterday, go back to the hotel and rest quickly, you have to work tomorrow."

Speaking of work, Huo Ran sighed.

"My dad will arrive tomorrow morning, and the planned itinerary should start in the morning. This week is probably non-stop visiting, meeting, meeting people, and eating. I hope everything goes well."

As he said that, he suddenly thought of a person, "By the way, the person I met yesterday, Jin Shaoyuan, if you meet him alone in the future, please don't talk to him."

"What's the matter? He looked quite normal yesterday, not like a dude at all."

"It was just normal yesterday, when I went to find him that day..."

Huo Ran thought about it, and decided to tell the truth.

He always remembered Jin Shaoyuan's description of Tao Zhiyue, that he was pretty good-looking.

Jin Shaoyuan is a pervert who can send roses to straight men for two months in a row, so maybe he can do anything else.

So Huo Ran wants to extinguish all possible flames in the cradle, not afraid of ten thousand, just in case.

"He doesn't understand respect at all. Once he is interested in someone, he will mess around. For example, he secretly found out the address of my new home, so he will send flowers here inexplicably."

"We were playing in Yanping that weekend, and he also asked someone to follow him, and even checked you."

He glanced at Tao Zhiyue nervously: "I know you will be very angry. I warned him that day, but I can go and warn him again tomorrow to make him stay away from you."

Tao Zhiyue stopped in his tracks.

"...What did he check on me?"

"I guess it's some basic information. He only told me that you are my junior." Huo Ran said casually, "Actually, I don't really believe what he said, so I didn't mention it to you a few days ago. Did you graduate from Yan University? I'm from the 21st-level School of Biological Sciences."

Tao Zhiyue was silent for a while, Huo Ran understood his possible anger now, didn't dare to make a sound, just quietly approached his hand, it was a bit cold, so he tried to warm it up.

After a while, Tao Zhiyue, whose palms were still cold, replied, "I'm in level 23, but I dropped out of school."

Huo Ran was astonished.

Tao Zhiyue asked him, "Isn't it strange that you dropped out after entering Yanda?"

"It's not this." Huo Ran shook his head immediately, and quickly organized his words, "I don't believe what Jin Shaoyuan said, because...you are two years older than me, so you should be my senior? Turns out you are really a junior. "

This time it was Tao Zhi's turn to be astonished: "How do you know... that I'm two years older than you?"

"It says on your PP profile that you are 26 years old." Huo Ran took it for granted, "I read it the second day I met you. At that time, I always thought you were a doctor and that you became a director at a very young age. , very powerful."

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he quickly patched them up: "Of course it is also very good at making games now!"

At night, the cicadas sang even worse, whispering silently among the trees, and the gate of the community was close in front of them, but Tao Zhiyue couldn't move anymore.

"So, up until that moment, did you think I was a 26-year-old programmer?"

Tao Zhi looked at him more firmly, with some very complicated emotions surging in his eyes.

The clear pupils seem to be filled with clear moonlight.

Huo Ran nodded, and then he began serious self-reflection, "Is there another item in my list of stupid things? It shouldn't be, this time I have a basis."

"Although my sister is a fifteen-year-old, but when we chatted before, I think you are indeed more mature than me. 26 years old is very reasonable. Of course, after meeting you, you look younger than me, but your genes make you look smaller. It's also normal, for example, my mother looks much younger than her peers, so..."

He was suddenly hugged very hard, and the unfinished words disappeared in the warm breath.

It was one long kiss.

Oxygen gradually ran out, and the softness of the exchange swallowed all sounds.

In this night when no one was around, it even seemed a little lonely.

When the person in front of him let go of his hand, Huo Ran didn't recover for a long time.

After a long time, he whispered: "Did it rain just now? It seems that some raindrops fell on my face."

"No, you're hallucinating again."

"Oh...then when can I have this hallucination again?" Huo Ran gave an example solemnly, "It's the hallucination that the watermelon came to kiss me on its own initiative."

"This is a random variation with a very small probability. Under normal circumstances, how can a watermelon be relative? It can't move."

"Then I can kiss the watermelon." Huo Ran said, "Today's watermelon is really delicious, very sweet."

In the ambiguous double meaning, Tao Zhi couldn't listen any longer, and kicked him: "It's ok, stop now, otherwise there really won't be a next time."

Huo Ran accepted it as soon as he saw it: "Okay, there will be a next time, I understand."

No one brought up the topic of a few minutes ago.

After leaving the community, Tao Zhiyue accompanied him to the bus station.

"Why don't you let the driver pick you up?"

"No, it will destroy this beautiful atmosphere." Huo Ran insisted, "There must be a beginning and an end, leaving a complete memory for today."

"Experience a day in the life of an ordinary person?"

"I'm also an ordinary person. You see, I didn't break the dishes when I washed them today." He explained, "It's because taking the bus back, I feel that I can enjoy the whole day more leisurely. Keep a calm expression in front of the driver."

"Well, I can catch the last train now."

The street lights on the road were much brighter, Tao Zhiyue looked down at his elongated shadow, Huo Ran looked at him, and then at the shadow that was swaying with their footsteps.

"That day I imagined you walking home alone, with only your shadow to accompany you."

"But now there are two shadows." Huo Ran tried hard to find the topic, "By the way, why don't you ask me what the School of Biological Sciences does?"

"Life science? Biological science?"

"You actually know." Huo Ran raised his voice, "When I was chatting with people who had business dealings with my dad, people always liked to ask me what I studied in college, whether it was finance or history. People were very surprised, and they even came over to ask me if I was engaged in biological weapons..."

"At the beginning I would explain to them very seriously, but later I met them many times, I simply nodded and said yes, and then their expressions would be particularly shocked, and they didn't dare to show it too obviously, so they could only pick up the glass and pretend to drink .”

"Usually at this time, I would raise my wine glass, pretend to be inscrutable, and bump into them."

From the corner of his eye, Tao Zhiyue, who listened carefully to his thoughts, finally smiled.

Huo Ran felt that his raised heart seemed to fall back to the original place.

"Many people thought it was strange for me to learn this, thinking that my dad was going to enter the field of biology. In fact, I chose it myself, because the most interesting thing I thought at that time was to travel around and see the world. I think the essence of the world is life, so of course life science should be chosen.”

"However, after enrolling, there is a gap between what I actually learned and what I imagined. In the first three years, I studied very hard. Every day, the dormitory, classroom, and cafeteria were on the three-point line. Fortunately, I finished the thesis ahead of schedule, and I was able to go out to play again."

"The professional knowledge is actually forgotten very quickly. If you don't touch it for a while, you will return it all to the teacher. But when you encounter new scenery, you will occasionally think of a few words you read in the textbook."

Huo Ran's voice was filled with vivid memories.

"One time I was snorkeling in the sea. The sea water was transparent blue-green. When I looked up, I could vaguely see the sunlight coming in, and an oval shadow like the bottom of a boat slowly drifting away in the distance."

"There are colorful tropical fish around, and there are dark seaweeds on the rocks and corals. The sea is so quiet that you can even hear the sound of blood flowing in your body."

"At that time, Navicula, which I had observed under a microscope before, suddenly appeared in my mind. Its shape is very symmetrical, like a boat and like a leaf. I saw it once and left a deep impression on it."

"I stroked my hand, and all the fish swam past me together. The broken sunlight shone like ripples. I was in the sea, but I felt that there were countless leaves that belonged to the land, and countless leaves that followed the waves. A boat chasing the waves."

Tao Zhi was so fascinated by the sound that he almost forgot to breathe.

"Life is fragile and tenacious, so the world formed by them is also wonderful and mysterious. This is the most important thing I have learned in the past few years." Huo Ran softly concluded, "Most of the time, I think this world is romantic. of."

"It's as big as the world, but we met twice."

"The other day you asked me if I believed in fate, I want to answer again." Huo Ran solemnly said, "For beautiful things, I believe that the world has written romances in advance, like leaves on the bottom of the sea and boats under a microscope."

"The other sad things are not fate, but the ripples of waving hands. They will eventually disappear in the wide ocean and will not become eternal."

At the end, Huo Ran was a little embarrassed and said: "If the plot in the movie is really useful, if hugs and kisses can make people forget their unhappiness, I can show up at any time."

Tao Zhiyue didn't speak, just looked at him and smiled.

The red light in the distance gradually became clear, and the last bus was coming here, like a ship sailing onto land.

At the moment of parting, he whispered, "I have a secret that I may not be able to tell you for a long time."

"But I will always remember what you said today, and I hope you can too."

Tao Zhiyue stood by the roadside, watched Huo Ran get into the car, and finally waved to him.

"Thank you, Huo Ran."

It was the first time he called the name so formally.

Huo Ran was sitting in the window seat, looking back, he saw him standing in the same place, quietly staring at the bus going away.

The isolated figure turns into a tiny dot, and eventually disappears.

He looked away, always feeling lost.

The thought of getting out of the car and going back immediately flashed in his mind, but Huo Ran still held back.

For a certain moment, he felt that Tao Zhiyue looked very sad.

He keenly noticed that although they were very close, they seemed to be separated by thousands of mountains and rivers. It was an emotion that no outsider could participate in.

Huo Ran knew that he was crying, it was not rain, but salty tears.

Dropping out of school suddenly in the eyes of others, the age that is extremely important, friends who have suffered accidents, families without relatives, and a regular and stable life...

Everything is like pieces of a puzzle scattered all over the place, and behind it is a secret that may be beyond imagination.

Huo Ran, who is always full of curiosity on weekdays, thought for a long time and decided not to fight.

He thought that the secrets that everyone wanted to keep should be respected.

On the last bus with few passengers, the electronic female voice softly announced the name of the next stop. Huo Ran was recalling the documents he had just received in the morning. The design department released the latest schematic diagram of the TOD project in Yanping City.

The project in Jinbei City has not been confirmed yet, but Huo Ran feels that the probability of finalization is very high. Once it is really done, he is going to discuss with Huo Zhendong and let him stay here.

On the dark brown leather notebook he carried with his luggage, there were a few lines written in a hurry.

The more Tao Zhi likes to write code, because it can be completed by him alone, and it is a building composed of virtual and cold symbols.

In the future, Jinbei City will build a large area of ​​the most magnificent building complex, which is a building built by countless people with bricks and tiles and wisdom, which can accommodate real people to walk and live in it.

From gray and disorderly to shining, they can witness together.

The street lamps outside the window and the darkness of night cast phantoms in the direction of passing away, and tall buildings are constantly left behind.

Huo Ran leaned against the window, his eyes calmly glanced at everything that passed by.

There seemed to be an illusion that the building had been completed, overlapping with the thick black and blue night sky.

So he smiled.