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Chapter 54 Isn't Your Waist Bad?

After Jiang Sui fell asleep, he had a dream. The boat was sailing on the calm sea, and the waves were beating in a soothing rhythm. He was resting on Duan Zhuo's body, and he was also resting on the sky full of stars, as if he had accidentally fallen into a parallel time and space.

The dream was very beautiful and quiet, so that he was a little annoyed when he was woken up. He opened his eyes and saw Duan Zhuo's coat was draped over his shoulders, and there was a blanket on his body. The cabin was noisy, and everyone was waiting to disembark.

"Aren't you asleep?" He got up and asked Duan Zhuo.

"Snoozed for a while, are you hungry, do you want to take you to eat a bowl of noodles?" Duan Zhuo yawned after finishing speaking.

Jiang Sui got up and twisted his neck, probably because Duan Zhuo's thighs were not soft enough, the back of his neck was a little stiff from sleep, and was infected by Duan Zhuo's yawn, so he yawned and said, "Actually, I still want to sleep..."

Duan Zhuo smiled: "Then take you to my house first."

The pier I saw after disembarking was very different from what I saw when I came here. It was very simple and rudimentary as it appeared in the port movies. There were no staff in the docking station. Countless containers were piled up on the shore, dark green. Fishing nets can be seen everywhere, and the humid air is full of the salty smell of the ocean.

There are dozens of small fishing boats docked on the shore, some of which are so damaged that half of their hulls have sunk.

If Duan Zhuo hadn't been with him, Jiang Sui would have wondered if he had been kidnapped.

There was a hunchbacked grandpa sitting under a street lamp sorting out knotted fishing nets. He had dark skin and a half-lit cigarette dangling from his mouth. There was still a ball of thick fishing nets waiting to be untied by his legs. .

Jiang Sui glanced at the time, it was only four o'clock in the morning, and it was already dark.

"It's so early to work."

"Well, when the sky is a little brighter, we will sail out to sea and cast nets."

When they passed by, Grandpa kept looking at them, especially Duan Zhuo. After a while, a hoarse voice sounded: "Is it Xiao Duan?"

Duan Zhuo let out a "hmm".

"You've grown so tall." Grandpa shook the fishing net in his hand, "I haven't seen you for several years, and I almost didn't recognize you."

After exchanging a few words with Grandpa, Duan Zhuo turned his head and left, Jiang Sui hurriedly followed, and they walked along a Linhai road.

"Is that grandpa just now a relative of yours?" Jiang Sui asked curiously.

"No, I don't know."

"Don't know?" Jiang Sui was amused by him, "You don't know each other and you still gossip with people for a long time?"

Duan Zhuo threw up the mineral water bottle in his hand and caught it again: "I really don't know each other. I may have seen it a few times when I was a child. I don't have much memory. Thanks to my father, everyone on the island can call me My name, I also have another name 'Young Gang Master', it's funny."

Although the tone was joking, Jiang Sui could still feel his helplessness from his expression. Being "famous" in such a way since he was a child must have suffered a lot of cold eyes and malice.

Jiang Sui still remembers that when he was in the third grade of elementary school, a poor student from other places was transferred to his class. The boy's academic performance was always among the best and he was often praised by the teacher, but no one in the class wanted to play with him.The boy's Mandarin is very substandard, he rarely changes clothes, and rarely washes his hair. There is always a sour smell on his body and hair, and the smell of dried pickled radish.

Some people said that his house was in a pickled radish cellar, so it stinks every day, so some people nicknamed him "rotten radish", and slowly, this nickname spread throughout the grade.

During breaks, whenever boys pass by the corridor of any class, someone will pinch their noses and exaggerately shout: "The rotten carrot is here, everyone run!"

The onlookers didn't know him, didn't understand him, but they would all run away with a smile. No one would care what the person who was nicknamed felt like.

Thinking about it now, Jiang Sui blamed himself a little. Although he didn't join the booing at the beginning, he didn't stand up to stop it, and he couldn't even talk to that boy after graduating from elementary school.

It makes me sad to think that Duan Zhuo also endured such stares and ridicule in his childhood.

"Why didn't fellow villagers help you when you were young?" Jiang Sui asked.

Duan Zhuo asked back: "How do you know that no one will help me?"

Jiang Sui was stunned, secretly blaming himself for talking too fast and accidentally revealing his secrets, but he quickly reacted, rubbed his fingers on the back of his neck and said, "I mean, no other relatives took you in?"

Duan Zhuo shook his head: "I don't have any grandparents, and my dad is the only son. When he was young, he had a bad temper and offended many people. Our family didn't have any relatives who came to visit during the Chinese New Year. The only relative who had an impression was my uncle, but others Guangzhou, I don't know where he lives."

"So..." Jiang Sui pretended to be confused, "How did you live after that?"

"Later, I went to a welfare home, thanks to donations and help from some kind-hearted people in the society."

"Yeah, so there is such a channel... I really learned a lot today."

Turning a corner, it is a long uphill road. Looking down on the left side, you can see the dark sea water, and you can hear the waves crashing on the shore. For two vehicles.

The high beams of the car were reflected in the round wide-angle mirror, but Jiang Sui didn't care, he was just curious why the person who had been walking on the right suddenly ran to his left.

He didn't understand what was going on until he was startled by the sound of a horn behind him.

Turning his face away, he looked at the person next to him who was much taller than him.

Duan Zhuo put his hands in his pockets, kicking the stones under his feet while walking, frowning tightly, as if he was thinking about something on his mind, and it was rare for him to have such a conditioned reflex in this situation.

The wharf is a bit far from Duan Zhuo's home, but there is no taxi to take a taxi here. They can only choose buses or black cars. At this point, neither of these two cars are available, and they can only rely on walking.

The higher you go, the wider your field of vision, and the sky is brighter than when you got off the boat. You can see the outline of the archipelago dimly, and there is one that looks like a standing elephant.

Duan Zhuo said that there are five small islands in this sea area that are still inhabited by people. The one they are standing at is the smallest one, without even traffic lights, and the largest one is at the southernmost point.

"That's what you said, the one that looks a bit like an elephant." He pointed to the distance, "I went to high school on that island, and the economic conditions there are better than here."

"Then is your father over there?"

"Well," Duan Zhuo turned to look at him, "you will rest at home in a while, and I will pick him up."

The young man's tone was calm, but his eyes showed unquestionable firmness. Jiang Sui knew that Duan Zhuo didn't want him to follow for some reason, so he nodded in response.

They walked for about half an hour, seeing that there was no way ahead, Duan Zhuo finally stopped in front of a house, and fumbled for the keys from his bag with his backhand.

Jiang Sui looked around, and there were all self-built houses with a sense of age.

Duan Zhuo’s house has two floors, but it looks like it’s half-built and stopped. The walls are not painted, and the concrete in some places is cracked and falling, and the brown-red bricks are clearly visible.The guardrail of the balcony on the second floor was smashed by something, half of it was missing, and the slender steel bars were poking out in such a big way, and there was a room that hadn't closed the window, and a closer look showed that the glass was broken .

He seemed to understand the reason why Duan Zhuo was unwilling to take him back to his hometown.

How the hell do people live here?

"Have you lived here since you were a child?" Jiang Sui asked distressedly.

"No, when I was young, I lived on another island. Later, because my father committed a crime, all the cars and houses were forcibly auctioned by the court. My mother took me to escape the debt and hid here. This is me My grandparents built the house when they were young, so it's a bit old."

Looking at the cracks on the pillars, Jiang Sui thought that this seems to be a bit old, it is a dangerous building, and if a strong typhoon blows over, the roof may be blown off at any time.

Duan Zhuo opened the door, but reached out to block Jiang Sui at the door.

"Huh?" Jiang Sui was a little puzzled.

"Wait a minute, I'll clean up the room before you come in, it's too messy inside."

Jiang Sui immediately stretched his neck and said, "I'll clean it up for you."

"No," Duan Zhuo pressed his fingertips against his chest, insisting, "You just stay here, I'll call you when I'm ready."

"Why are you ashamed of me? I haven't seen any of your virtues?"

Duan Zhuo stubbornly pushed him away, drew a line on the ground with his foot, and closed the door behind him after entering the house, and then came the sound of rummaging through boxes and cabinets.

Jiang Sui thought it was funny, but he also obeyed the order.

He squatted behind that line, wanted to take out his mobile phone to play for a while, only to find that the signal at Duan Zhuo’s house was very poor, and he was stuck on the 2G network, so he walked out for a while, but the signal was still poor, so he had no choice but to give up resistance.

Secretly, Jiang Sui pushed the door open a crack, and saw Duan Zhuo was wiping the tables, chairs and benches with a rag, looking at the effort, as if he was going to wipe off a layer of paint on it.

As for... Jiang Sui muttered in his heart.

Since when did this kid care so much about his image?

"Can I come in?" Jiang Sui said, "I'm so bored to be outside alone, I want to talk to you."

He said so, how could Duan Zhuo not let him go.He found a small low stool from the utility room, wiped it repeatedly, and let Jiang Sui sit on it, but Jiang Sui only sat for a while before standing up and looking around.

There are quite a lot of rooms in Duan Zhuo's house, but most of them have been abandoned. There are many debris piled up that look like grandparents' generation, and there is even a shovel.

When I went upstairs, there was an empty balcony. Jiang Sui was afraid of being poked by the steel bars, so he didn't dare to go over and look down.

There are bedrooms on the left and right, and Duan Zhuo’s room is on the right. Although there is a layer of dust on the desk and the floor because no one has lived in it for a long time, the overall feeling is not dirty. The bed is very narrow and close to the wall. There was a pile of old books on the table, and a cheap-looking plastic desk lamp was on the corner of the table.

The plaid pillowcase and quilt on the bed also showed a strong sense of time. When Duan Zhuo put on the quilt, Jiang Sui helped mop the floor.

The mop at home is still very old-fashioned. Old clothes are cut into pieces and tied to a piece of wood, which needs to be wrung by hand. The bucket of water that Duan Zhuo just picked up is so dirty that Jiang Sui has no choice but to get it down. Go upstairs to change the water.

As soon as he picked up the bucket, the person next to him immediately jumped up to stop him: "You don't want to move!"

Jiang Sui thought he had done something wrong, and somehow felt like someone was pointing a gun at him, so he put it back and asked, "Why?"

Duan Zhuo snatched the bucket in his hand and said: "Isn't your waist bad? From now on, you can call me for such heavy work, and I will do it."

Jiang Sui couldn't laugh or cry, he licked his lips and said, "My waist isn't that fragile, is it?"

Duan Zhuo didn't listen to him, and went straight downstairs with the mop in one hand and the tin bucket in the other.

Busy until dawn, Duan Zhuo set off to pick up people.

With nothing to do, Jiang Sui took a book of Wilde's fairy tales from Duan Zhuo's table and opened it. The chair was too short, so he sat on Duan Zhuo's bed. As soon as he lay down, the bed board made a shocking movement, as if he was choking scratched its neck, making it breathless, and yelled at him to get away.

Jiang Sui lifted his butt as carefully as possible, and moved to the wall. The brown cushion underneath seemed to press an infrared detector, and it squeaked.

Good guy, it's late at night, you must wake up as soon as you turn over.

The cover of the storybook is curled up at one corner, and the pages are also yellowed. I don't know if it was found in a second-hand market or donated by someone else. Other people's names are written on it.

To Jiang Sui, this kind of book without colorful illustrations was no different from an English textbook. He only saw the part where the nightingale was looking for roses, and then he closed his eyes and fell asleep.

At nine o'clock, Duan Zhuo arrived at the gate of the prison on time, and there was no one outside.

Probably because of his relatively tall stature, the guards already remembered him after only a few visits, saying that the people inside were going through formalities and would not come out until later.

He leaned against a nearby banyan tree and looked at the iron gate that was as high as the wall.

When my mother was alive, she never brought him here, and no one else was allowed to bring him here. Later, when Zhang Sinan passed away, people from the charity organization asked him about his own wishes before bringing him here.

He hasn't come here many times in the past few years, about once a year, but every time he comes, Duan Zhihong is very happy, as if he wants to tell him what he has saved up, and he won't hang up the phone until the prison guard reminds him .

When Duan Zhuo was a child, like every boy, he had a strong sense of dependence on his father. Later, he gradually understood what kind of mistakes he made, and this sense of dependence disappeared, leaving only confusion at the moment.

He was worried about whether he would really reform himself, and also worried about how he would live after he was released from prison. Duan Zhihong only had a primary school education, and he might not be able to do express delivery.

All worrisome questions.

After waiting for more than half an hour, the door slowly opened, and Duan Zhuo got up to meet him.

It was less than a year since I saw Duan Zhihong last time, but he was obviously thinner, his cheeks were slightly sunken, his collarbone was prominent, and almost half of his hair was white. The loss of collagen made him look more than ten years old. .

With a small luggage bag in his hand, he walked slowly towards Duan Zhuo, as if he was wearing invisible shackles.

Duan Zhuo looked very uncomfortable, so he stretched out his hand to help him take the bag, it is very light, there should be nothing in it.

"Why have you lost so much weight? Have you not eaten recently?"

"I drank too much radish soup, and I have diarrhea."

Unlike when he came to visit before, Duan Zhihong said very little, he just cared about Duan Zhuo's life in Nancheng.

"The conditions over there are much better than those on the island, but the prices are higher..." Duan Zhuo said the same thing, "I even brought a classmate back."

Duan Zhihong stared, showing surprise, and then laughed again: "Looking for a girlfriend so soon?"

Although Duan Zhihong is not well-educated, he is much more enlightened than his peers in some respects. When Duan Zhuo came to visit him in his second year of high school, he was asked if he was in a relationship.

At that time, Zhuo felt quite speechless, thinking that he was so shabby, and he had a father in prison, and he couldn't even find friends, so what kind of girlfriend was he looking for.

But after three years, when we talked about this topic again, his speechlessness turned into embarrassment. He touched his nose and said, "It's my roommate. He said he wanted to come to the island to play, so I brought him back."

Duan Zhihong was even more surprised: "Your school is mixed with boys and girls?"

"..." Duan Zhuo was amused by his logic, "It's a male classmate, how could I bring back a female student."