After coming out of the farmers' wholesale market, Chujiu drove me to Xiaoyu's apartment.
It had been almost a month since I had visited my old military wife. We bought enough necessities and carried them upstairs.
The old lady was very happy to see us and communicated with Chujiu in sign language for more than an hour.
Chujiu and I cooked the dinner. During the meal, Chujiu asked the old woman how it tasted in sign language. The old woman thought about it for a long time, forced a smile on her face, and told Chujiu in sign language that the dishes were all cooked.
When we were saying goodbye to the old lady, she took out three red envelopes from the drawer and stuffed them into us.
The red envelopes were prepared during the Chinese New Year. I have been waiting until now, but Xiaoyu hasn’t come yet.
While chatting, Chujiu told the old woman that Xiaoyu was on a business trip and it might take a long time to come back.
The last stop was the No. 1 Hospital of the City. Chujiu still parked the car in the hospital yard, sat in the car, and did not follow me upstairs. In his words, it was just to deliver a letter, so there were not so many people.
The tutor of Junior High School was not in the office. The doctor on duty told me that the vice-dean was on vacation recently and enthusiastically said that he would forward the letter to the vice-dean.
When we arrived at the Armed Police Force, it was already past nine in the evening.
Since we had called in advance on Chujiu, we arrived at the gate of the army and there was already a guard waiting for us.
The guard exchanged greetings with Chujiu, jumped in the car, and wanted to take us back to school. I politely refused, but he said, "This is the commander's order, and we will be punished if we fail to complete it."
"Guo Guo, let's go to the cafeteria and noodle shop first. We just happened to be on the way."
After entering the school gate, I looked around the campus on the ninth day of the lunar month and lamented that the winter vacation had passed by without even realizing it.
"It's so late, there must be no one in the noodle shop, and besides, school hasn't officially started yet."
On the ninth day of the lunar month, it was probably because the food we cooked at night was not delicious and I wanted to go to the school cafeteria to fill my stomach.
The moment I walked into the school gate, my heart suddenly began to feel peaceful.
Looking at the familiar campus, everything that happened after the New Year seemed to be forgotten from my mind, and a strong feeling of exhaustion spread throughout my body.
At this time, I just want to go back to the dormitory, throw my backpack heavily on the hard bed, and then have a good sleep. I am really tired from driving in the past two days.
Unable to stand up to Chujiu's insistence, I could only follow him to the school cafeteria first.
The noodle shop was open, and the female boss was cleaning up the kitchen. When she saw us, she stopped what she was doing, greeted us happily, and asked us if we had had dinner.
Chujiu answered first, he had just arrived at school and hadn’t eaten yet.
The female boss smiled and said that she happened to be too busy to have dinner now, so she simply cooked some noodles so that everyone could fill their bellies, and she happened to cook bone soup.
The noodles were cooked by Chujiu. Chujiu, who once worked here, has not forgotten the skill of cooking noodles. He found various seasonings with ease and made three large bowls of extremely spicy pea noodles.
I was particularly puzzled. The Chujiu Noodles were so good that they were no worse than the female boss.
The food cooked at my mother-in-law's house tonight was either salty or bland.
Chujiu explained that the noodle shop’s seasonings were prepared in advance by the boss, and he could just cook them like a fool. The only difficulty was to control the temperature of the water below, which he had learned a long time ago.
After supper, I helped the female boss clean up the noodle shop. It was already eleven o'clock.
The service staff of the noodle shop could not report for duty until a week after school started. When the female boss was worried, she showed up on the ninth day of the Lunar New Year.
So the after-school time after the start of the ninth grade was once again used by the female boss in advance. The female boss laughed and said that the ninth grade was her lucky star, so she decided to let the first grade work for free for a week.
"Guo Guo, the lights in your dormitory are on. It seems they didn't go to the Internet cafe to play."
When they went upstairs, Chujiu guessed that Liu Yang and the others must be playing games in a group at the Internet cafe at this time, and the door to our dormitory was probably locked.
At this time, I saw the orange light through the glass of the bedroom door and window, and felt so close to me that even Chujiu grinned and rushed to open the door before me.
"Bang"!
Chujiu held her backpack and banged against the dormitory door out of habit.
"What are you doing? Guo Guo, since when did you get into the habit of locking the door of your dormitory?"
In his imagination, the door was knocked open as before, and Zhang Feng's cursing shouts came from inside.
However, nothing happened as he imagined. He did not expect that the door of the dormitory would be locked from behind. The agile Chujiu's head made a solid collision with the door.
"Who is it? If you knock on the door like that at night, you will be arrested and barbecued in Xinjiang. Wait a minute!"
Liu Yang's confused tone was filled with strong dissatisfaction. On the ninth day of the month, he covered his head with one hand and muttered in a low voice with a slumped face. The sun was rising in the west. The prince who stayed up late actually fell asleep at this hour...
After a while, the sound of the bed jumping to the ground was heard in the dormitory. Then, the dormitory door opened a gap, and Liu Yang's head poked out.
"It's you two. It scared me. I thought it was the dormitory aunt. The door banged so loudly."
After Liu Yang saw that it was us, his expression did not become relaxed, but instead became a little unnatural. He held the door frame with one hand and had no intention of letting us in.
"Fengzi, Chujiu, hey, doesn't school start the day after tomorrow? Zhang Feng and Zhiyong won't come until tomorrow."
"Liu Yang, what are you doing with your plane? You're having a silly time at school. Don't get in the way!"
I pushed Liu Yang aside who was blocking the door, and just wanted to throw the backpack I had carried all night on the bed.
Just when I reached out to push the door completely open, Liu Yang suddenly stretched out his foot and pressed it against the back of the door.
"Brother Feng, uh, wait."
At this time, I had realized that Liu Yang was not the only one in the dormitory.
Likewise, even Chujiu, who rarely talked to girls, noticed Liu Yang's abnormality and was staring at Liu Yang with a smirk on his face.
"I won't go in. I'm scaring you. Where's your usual energy?"
I took the backpack off my back and handed it to Liu Yang, asking him to just throw it on my bed.
"Well, how about you two go to an Internet cafe and stay all night? I'll treat you!"
Seeing me take a step back, Liu Yang scratched his head in embarrassment and told us that the Internet cafe outside the school is still open.
"Guo Guo, I feel so sleepy, hungry, and my mouth is dry. No, I want to sleep in your bed today."
Chujiu said that he was about to rush into the dormitory, which made Liu Yang nervous for a while. He pressed the door frame with one hand and took out two ten-dollar bills and handed them to Chujiu.
"Brother Chujiu, I'll give you a night at the Internet cafe, fried noodles and drinks. Are you satisfied?"
Chujiu took the 20 yuan from Liu Yang's hand, turned his head and winked at me, and said honestly: "Guo Guo, have you noticed that men and women in our school are not equal at all?"
"What's the meaning?"
Liu Yang, who was about to close the door, was stunned for a moment and asked following the topic of the ninth day of the lunar month.
"It says on the door of the girls' dormitory that boys are not allowed to enter, but there is no sign on the door of the boys' dormitory that girls are not allowed to enter."