Adilina by the water

Every time I go on a blind date and sit opposite a strange man, after we have finished talking about the weather, our jobs, our hobbies, and whether we like chili peppers, I usually pull Lang Lang out for a few words.

I have a friend named Su Lang, usually I call her Lang Lang. She smokes (if the other person is smoking, I say). But she doesn't smoke cigarettes. She smokes ladies' cigarettes, which she gets from duty-free shops. It has mint in it, Lang Lang said. (I hesitate to finish the second part of the sentence if the person is moderately likable, or just smile.) It wouldn't be annoying to smoke it. Lang Lang wears his hair like this (if a woman happens to be walking by and the guy sitting across from me fixes his eyes on her, I use this to hook his eyes back into my face). Such a hairstyle can not afford to take care of the general people, wash once pressure once, both time and money. Of course a woman like Lang Lang can. Her boyfriends are all rich men. Lang Lang said that men should not be too poor, too poor will sour, poor poor, the most difficult to get along with. Lang Lang also plays the piano. (Most of the places I meet men these days are coffee shops. Such places are like bandits who will not rest until they have robbed people of their words. Fortunately, there is almost a piano in these places), she learned five or six years when she was a child, can play some simple music, she used to play in Guidu hotel for a few years. The money was good, with tips, but it was enough to buy Lang Lang a few clothes. She is a terrible spender. Lang Lang always jokes with me. She says my strengths are conservative and my weaknesses are too conservative. (When a man asks a woman about the details of her relationship with her boyfriend in the past, does it mean flirty?) . Lang Lang and I are good friends, but the ideological difference between us is very big. Her boyfriend's changing faster than the weather.

Lang Lang is my gold mine for small talk. When men hear my stories about Lang Lang, their eyes will tighten their wings and stay on me honestly. After listening to me for a while, their faces changed. Their subtle smiles became a staple of my later memories of them. Only one daredevil asked me. You call your friend now. I said nothing. When the man, Chen Mingliang, came in just now, the introducer behind him had his hand on his waist as if he were pointing a gun at it. He was the seventh man I had met. He was a physical education teacher at a normal university, but he looked like a doctor. The introducer introduced us to each other, his hands in his pockets, and nodded at me.

The introducer introduced us and then went away, leaving us alone. He relaxed himself into the chair, his long legs stretched out on either side of mine, reminding me of a large pair of scissors. His words were full of short sentences, as if they had been cut. We sat in a window seat and the sun's claws came through the glass at him, scratching as if that was the only thing that pleased him at the time. The way he drank coffee was different from others. He did not hold the handle of the cup, nor did he pluck the spoon with his flower fingers, but drank the cup with his hand. We were silent for about five minutes, and to pass the time we needed to finish a cup of coffee I talked to him about Lang Lang. I said I had a friend who told fortunes with tea. She can tell a lot about the character and fate of people she meets for the first time. Chen Mingliang did not move, but raised his eyes to me and said incredulously, "I don't believe it." I said I didn't believe it either, but a lot of people did. I watched as she told some people's fortunes, and I thought she was just being mystifying. But many of the people who had had their fortunes read by her came back later with their family and friends, and they said she was very accurate.

Chen Mingliang's expression changed subtly and finally settled into a sneer, "I don't believe it, unless you bring her here right now and show her to me on the spot."

"You think Lang Lang is a waiter? At a moment's notice?"

"Dare not come? Chen Mingliang gave a sneer. "Women are afraid to be serious."

"Not afraid to come." I corrected him calmly. "There's nothing to be afraid of."

"Then you send her." Chen Mingliang seemed to be reasonable, staring at me mockingly, "I understand women very well."

I laughed.

"Dare you? Chen Mingliang put his head close to me. His expression was completely different, as if he had just woken up after a nap in the sun. He pulled out his phone and filmed it in front of me. "Call your friend now."

"She won't come. Couldn't come if I wanted to. She's away."

Chen Mingliang squinted at me, as if I this person and my mouth has been integrated into the lie.

"Women are great liars." Chen Mingliang said bitterly.

"You are free to think so." I finished my cup of coffee and beckoned to the waiter. "Check."

As I took my wallet out of my backpack, Chen reached over and patted my hand, knocking my wallet into my backpack.

"I'll buy it." 'he said. "I'm a man."

I didn't argue with him. Out of politeness, I waited a while and walked out the door with him.

"Goodbye." I stood in front of the cafe, saying goodbye to the grumpy gym teacher.

He took out his cigarette, lit it, took a puff, puffed in the direction of a hotel, and asked me, "How about a room?"

I didn't know he had it in him. "You... What do you mean?"

He looked at me with a smile. "What else could be interesting?"

I wasn't really mad at him, but I slapped him in the face. Then I turned and walked away.

After a while, the cry came from behind me, "So you are pure? You're a virgin?"

I stopped and slowly turned to look at him. 'How do you know I'm impure? I'm not a virgin?"

Chen Mingliang stood in front of the cafe, and the look he left me with at the end made me happy.

Three days later, I got a call from my reference. She asked me what I thought of Chen Mingliang.

I said that's it.

She said Chen Mingliang was impressed with you.

Really? I didn't expect that. I asked the driver to stop at a bookstore. While paying for the bus, I told the agent that I had to go into the bookstore and that it was not convenient to make phone calls in the bookstore. We would talk another day.

The introducer asked me which bookstore I was in.

I said my name, said a quick goodbye and turned off my phone.

When I came out with a bag of books, Chen Mingliang was waiting at the door with a few newspapers in his hand. When he saw me, he grinned. "Finished buying the book?"

I said nothing.

Chen Mingliang was very familiar with carrying my book bag, "so heavy? When will you finish reading all these books?"

"What's it to you?

"Look at you, why are you so unfriendly?" Chen Mingliang said with a smile.

"What do you want with me? Still want a room?"

"Look at you, talking like that?"

"How do you say that?

"Look at you..." Chen Liang Liang's smile creased on his face, he cleared his throat, and then he was silent.

'Are you done? I took the bag back from him and walked on.

"Ah..." Chen Mingliang ran after me, "Let's find a place to drink coffee, casual chat."

I ignored him and walked straight on.

"Don't you have a friend who tells fortune with tea? How is she?" Chen Mingliang walked calmly. He took me three steps at a time.

I stopped. "And you want me to introduce you to my friend?"

"No... Of course it doesn't matter... Oh, don't get me wrong. You look at me like I've done something to you." Chen Mingliang's speech is a little unclear, "That day... I'm in a bad mood. That's nonsense. And didn't you slap me in the face? I thought we were even."

"Who's even with you?" I lost my temper for a moment and smiled.

"Smile funny good, you smile, sunshine followed bright." Chen Mingliang smiled, too.

We stood in the street for a while.

"I'll buy you coffee." Chen pointed to a cafe across the road.

I hesitated. "You bought me a drink last time. I'll buy you this time."

"You can buy it, but I'll pay." Chen Mingliang took the book from me again.

The cafe was newly opened and the smell of paint did not go away after renovation. I spent a minute with Chen Mingliang and then came. "What to do? 'he asked me.

I looked around and pointed to a tall building in front of me. "Go to your capital. There's a cafe on the second floor."

As we walked toward the Guidu Hotel, the vine leaves that tangled over the iron fence beside the sidewalk began to turn red, the color of which on closer inspection resembled a kind of rust.

"How many times have you been on a date?" Chen Mingliang asked.

"I don't remember, do you?"

"Just this once with you, my family had arranged it for me." "I had a girlfriend for several years, but I just broke up a while ago," Chen said.

'Why?

Chen Mingliang hesitated.

"Don't force it if you don't want to."

"No big deal. She kicked me off." Chen Mingliang smiled. "She has a boyfriend besides me. I scolded her for having two boats with one foot. She said she was the boat, and we were only OARS. She rowed with two OARS for a while, and chose one of them."

I laughed.

"Is it funny?" Chen Mingliang took a look at me, "I was angry all over with a shiver, we have been dating for five years I just a paddle? But I can't tell her. She teaches Chinese. I slapped her in the face, and I said, You've been using me as a paddle for so long, it doesn't matter if I slap you. She covered her face and cried. I mean, did you give in? Go ahead and enjoy yourself. It's a good thing I'm an oar. You'd be dead by now if I'd used it."

I looked at Chen bright one eye, "evil to gall edge born?"

"Can't you scare me? How else can I get out of this hole in my chest?"

We walked to the door of Guidu Hotel, in front of the revolving door, I took a step back and watched Chen Mingliang being mixed in by several door pages. He saw that I had not gone in, and came out again.

'What's the matter?

"Suddenly I don't want coffee."

Chen Mingliang's expression became cautious, "What's wrong? What did I say wrong again?"

I smiled.

"Don't laugh like that. I don't know why you laugh like that."

"... Why did you come to me again?"

"... Because you hit me."

I looked at Chen Mingliang, smiled, "You need to beat?"

"That's right." He laughed back. "Do you think I'm mean?"

For a while, Chen Mingliang and I used to meet at "Guidu," where the coffee tasted pure. But Chen Mingliang seems to go to the French window, always choose the window seat. "I can't stand the light in a cafe. It's like a bedroom." Bathed in the sun, Chen Mingliang's brown face, like a sunflower, bends toward me for a moment. "What do you think?

I just stir the coffee.

Chen Mingliang suddenly took off my glasses, "You don't wear glasses like a different person."

I reached out my hand, Chen Liang Liang's arm immediately reached out of my reach.

"Give it back."

"You're pretty." Chen Mingliang said with a smile.

"I'll be angry if you don't give it to me."

"You're sexy when you're angry..." Chen Mingliang slowly gave me back my glasses.

"Do you always play tricks on girls like that?" I put my glasses on.

"What about you? Are you always so serious with men?"

"Something like that."

"Because you're a virgin?" Chen Ming's bright eyes sparkled as he leaned closer to me. "You know what you're missing?"

I stared at him.

"Feminine." Chen Mingliang excited, "So you give men the feeling is always hard."

"What's hard? I glared at Chen Mingliang. "Do you think I'm dead?"

"I didn't say you were dead. You read too much, you're not sensitive to what you should be sensitive to, and you're very sensitive to what you shouldn't be." Chen Mingliang shifted to the sofa beside me. "I mean, you should live in a different way."

"If you want to repeat the old story, don't say it." I laughed.

"Look at you..." Chen Mingliang smiled, "When the point is clear, you must not be clear, should not be clear when you don't point..."

I waved at him to shut up.

A girl with hair down to her waist approached, her skin seemed transparent, her eyelids were covered with blue sequined eyeshadow, and her eyes flashed in a charming way. Looking at no one, she walked coldly to the piano and sat down. Every time she played, she began with "Adilya by the Water."

"Lang Lang used to play piano in the hotel."

Chen Mingliang close to my ear and said, "I can play..."

I stared at the hand in my lap. This big, weird colored spider used my leg as a canoe bridge, swimming back and forth. Then it stopped, as if it had lost its way.

After a silence for a while, Chen Mingliang sat back opposite me, one leg under the other, hands like two hugging spiders crawling on the top knee. He was alone for a while and lit a cigarette.

"Lang Lang plays the piano in the hotel," I think the words in my mouth are like the smoke in Chen Mingliang's mouth, which somehow escaped. "Men often come to her, and when the price is agreed, she will get a room with a man."

Chen Mingliang opened his mouth wide.

"To make money." I said.

"... How much is it?"

"A thousand at a time."

"Why does she want so much money? Buy clothes?"

"For her mother. Her mother is in prison."

Chen Mingliang sat down on the sofa beside me again. 'What happened?

"Lang Lang's mother is a makeup artist." I smiled at Chen Mingliang, "But it's not for the living, it's for the dead. She married Lang Lang's father and said she was a nurse. It took years for the story to come to light. Lang Lang's father was a drama writer without any fame. He would beat or scold at home. He drank outside every day and talked to everyone. Lang Lang's mother wants to divorce him, but he doesn't leave. Anyway, it got worse and worse. Lang Lang's mother had to wear gloves all day long at home in summer, which did not satisfy her father. He told people that sooner or later he would cut off his wife's dead hands. No one took his drunkery seriously, but once he had too much to drink, he did fight, and the result was that Lang Lang's mother accidentally cut Lang Lang's father's wrist, maybe by chance cut a vein or something, and there was too much blood, and he could not be saved later. Lang Lang's mother was sentenced to 20 years for manslaughter, and Lang Lang wanted to get her mother out of prison sooner."

"And then?" Chen Mingliang asked after a while.