flawed

Chapter 127 Shadow

"Xiao Yu...Jiang Yu!"

Jiang Yu suddenly sat up from the bed, breathing rapidly as if he couldn't breathe.

Qi Nuliang hugged him subconsciously, and patted his back: "You are having a nightmare."

After a while, Jiang Yu's tense muscles let out his strength, put his neck on Qi Nuliang's shoulders, and softly called brother.

"It's a dream, not real, don't be afraid." Qi Nuliang also breathed a sigh of relief, "What did you dream about, so scary?"

Not scary, but sad and painful.

In the darkness, he raised his hand, wiped away the tears overflowing from the dream to reality, hugged Qi Nuliang's back with both hands, and hugged him tightly.

"It's nothing, I dreamed...Mom, she's gone."

After hugging for a while, seeing Jiang Yu calm down, Qi Nuliang let go of his hand: "It's okay, I'll sleep with you next."

Jiang Yu grabbed Qi Nuliang's hand: "I can't sleep, brother, can you stay with me for a while?"

Qi Nuliang glanced at the alarm clock next to the bed, it was 02:30 in the morning.

"Okay, I'll be right next to you, I'll go out after you sleep."

Jiang Yu lay down as he said.In the dark, one breath, two breaths, and the sound of the clock beating.The "tick" sound of the second hand moving gently is also infinitely elongated in this night.

After a long few minutes, Jiang Yu seemed to have fallen asleep.Qi Nuliang was about to withdraw his hand, but Jiang Yu held his hand but did not let go: "I can't sleep tonight."

"What should I do?"

"I'm going to watch a movie. I'm wearing headphones, so I won't disturb you. Go to sleep."

Jiang Yu went to the living room, turned on the TV, picked a movie, but didn't turn on the sound or lights.

After a while, Qi Nuliang, who had returned to the cubicle, came out again with a quilt on his back.When he came over, Jiang Yu made room for a bit, and the two sat down side by side.He gave half of the quilt on his shoulders to Jiang Yu, and the two of them sat cross-legged on the sofa like two nests of melons, wrapping them tightly like rice dumpling skins.

The wind and snow outside were still whistling, but the room was unusually quiet at night, except for the sound of electricity from the refrigerator.But in the quilt, shoulders against shoulders, thighs against thighs, the temperature rose sharply.

"What movie are you watching? Turn on the sound."

"It's a boring movie, watching hypnosis. Aren't you going to sleep?" Jiang Yu adjusted the voice a few times, before the dialogue of the characters, the soft background music of the movie played.

"I'm also a little insomnia, let's watch with you for a while."

The movie has started for a few minutes, and it looks like an American western feature film, not the type Qi Nuliang likes.He was still staring at the screen, watching seriously, and hoped that this boring film would help him hypnotize.

Jiang Yu next to him was not paying attention to the movie, but was always moving around under the quilt.He put his arm around Qi Nuliang's shoulder, trying to hook him over: "Brother, lean on me."

"Why should I rely on you? Don't move around, take a good look."

Jiang Yu suddenly approached his ear and blew lightly into his ears: "The current atmosphere makes me really want to kiss you."

Qi Nuliang lifted the quilt, and kicked Jiang Yu out of the warm quilt neatly, pinching the edge of the quilt with both hands to wrap himself, like two doors closed to Jiang Yu.

Jiang Yu: "..."

He tugged at the quilt, rubbed his arms together and said, "Brother, it's cold."

"It's cold, go get your down jacket and put it on."

"...Don't be like this, I'm wrong, can't you?"

Qi Nuliang ignored him, just waiting for the dense goosebumps that spread from behind the ears to the back of the waist to go down.

"Brother, I was really wrong. I promise not to make such a joke. Give me some quilts."

Unable to bear the brat's pleading pleadings, and fearing that he would catch a cold, Qi Nuliang gave him the quilt after a while.

Now, people finally stopped.

The color of the movie is cold, and most of the shots are rolling mountains and herds of horses and sheep.Two young men hired by the farmer came to these mountains to herd sheep.Life in the alpine pastures is very difficult. They need to endure wind, snow and cold, and they must always be on guard against the attacks of wild animals.

The film started for a while, and it was just an ordinary grazing scene, and there was no conflict between the two protagonists working together.Qi Nuliang didn't know what kind of movie this was, but felt his eyelids feel heavy, and he yawned.

He glanced sideways at Jiang Yu, the boy's head was slumped on the sofa cushion, and his eyes had been closed.

The cold light of the TV flashed on his face, reflecting the shadows under his dense eyelashes and the high bridge of the nose, only his lips were exposed to the light, looking very soft.Qi Nuliang stared at this face for a while, took a pillow and put it on the side of Jiang Yu's face, and tucked the quilt.Following him, he yawned, adjusted a more comfortable posture, and turned his head to continue looking.

On a cold night, it seemed to be the same as this snowy night after the heating was turned off. In order to keep warm, the two protagonists in the movie finally slept together in that tent, as if they were nestling in the same quilt at the moment.

What followed was an unexpected plot by Qi Nuliang. The lust of the two male protagonists erupted like a volcano and spread like a wildfire. The two men were ecstatically intertwined like beasts in the small but warm tent...

The night ends and the day comes, and the protagonists resume their lives of shepherding and cooking.Only Qi Nuliang was still stuck in the scene just now, unable to recover for a long time.

He didn't know why Jiang Yu wanted to watch such a movie during the sleepless night, and he didn't even dare to turn his head to look at him now, for fear of meeting the other's waking eyes.Fortunately, the breathing in the ears was even and long, and Jiang Yu showed no sign of waking up.

Time and space seemed to stop together, only the movie continued, spreading this sad story before Qi Nuliang's eyes.

After coming down from the mountain, under the pressure of the world, the two finally parted ways and each lived a life of marrying a wife and having children.However, four years later, the two met again, and their old relationship was revived.This time, the two parties are no longer 19-year-old teenagers, but carry their respective families on their backs, carry more moral and secular shackles, and are still together without hesitation.

For the next ten years, they went fishing together as friends every year, disappeared into the depths of the forest together, and enjoyed a moment of stolen sweetness.However, in the seemingly peaceful life, there is real cruelty hidden.Their families—wives, parents, all feel pain.However, what is equally painful is the protagonist who once succumbed to the secular world but couldn't restrain his inner love.

Life has become a bowl of bitter soup, and the little bit of sweetness is useless to this great suffering. It is suffering, exuding a more bitter taste, until one of the protagonists dies unexpectedly.

When the living went to visit the parents of a dead lover, hoping to take his ashes, they found in his closet two overlapping clothes they wore when they were tending sheep in the mountains.In the end, he failed to take away the ashes and took the two clothes away.

The two-and-a-half-hour movie tells the depressing life of two gay protagonists.The heavy ending also weighed heavily on Qi Nu's conscience like a stone. He struggled to stick his nostrils out of the water like a drowning man, and took two deep breaths, but the feeling of blocked throat was not any better.

He gently moved Jiang Yu aside, tiptoed up, took the cigarette case from under the coffee table, and went to the outside balcony.

The sky was pale and already dimly lit.The snow stopped at some point, and the wind also stopped. The streets and trees outside were all white.The world is wrapped in white snow, and there is a kind of quiet cleanliness.

The windows were closed, but the glass windows couldn't shut the biting cold.Qi Nuliang exhaled a mouthful of gray mist, his mind was cleared up by the cold, and the heaviness in his heart seemed to have eased a little.

He suddenly remembered something that happened several years ago.

He quit his job at a textile mill and started driving a taxi.

After breaking away from collective life, he rented a small single room in an urban village by himself.He lives in isolation, and usually does not have much contact with anyone, only Deng Jianghua occasionally comes to see him.In this way, no one would wonder why he listened to the capital news, and no one would slander his relationship with Jiang Yu.

Late one night, he was about to take the last trip and then went home from work.At the gate of a university, I was stopped by a boy.

The boy opened the co-pilot's door and smelled heavily of alcohol when he got in the car.Qi Nuliang asked him where he was going, but the boy could not speak clearly and just said to go home.Asked where his home is, the boy said a northern city.

Qi Nuliang angrily asked him to get out of the car.

The boy took out his wallet and threw all the several hundred yuan inside to Qi Nuliang, asking him to drive as far as he could.

It could be seen that the child was not in a good mood, but Qi Nuliang didn't have to make trouble with the money, and planned to drive him around before sending him back to school.

After the car started, the boy didn't say a word.Passing by the store, Qi Nuliang got out of the car and bought him a bottle of water, asking him to drink some water to sober up.

Unexpectedly, the boy took the water, thanked him, and began to cry without warning.

From the intermittent and unclear description, Qi Nuliang heard that he had a boyfriend who dated at school, and the relationship between the two had always been very good.Unexpectedly, not long after graduation, the other party went home to follow the arrangement of his parents to have a blind date, called him to break up with him, and denied that he was gay like him.

Qi Nuliang looked at him from the inside mirror of the car, he was quite a gentleman, very young, only in his twenties.It's just that the pear-blossoming rain was crying on that fair face, which made his heart tighten, and he suddenly panicked.

Qi Nuliang was not a talkative person, but at this moment he couldn't help comforting him.He said that the social pressure is too great for two men to be together, and it is normal for the other party to choose to marry a woman, so it is easier to live happily.If he really loves him, he should think about the other person and bless him.

Not only was his consolation useless, but the boy started crying instead, asking Qi Nuliang: "What about me? Where is my happiness? Who will think about me?"

"……I have no idea."

"We've been together for almost three years, and he doesn't want me if he doesn't want me... Take me to your house, I don't want to be alone tonight."

"To my house?" Qi Nuliang stepped on the brake.

"Is there anyone else in your family? A wife? A child?"

By coincidence, Qi Nuliang really brought the boy back to the village in the city where he rented.

He was so drunk that he could hardly stand when he got off the car, Qi Nuliang carried him all the way back to his small bungalow.When he got home, he put the boy on the bed, wiped his face, and took off his shoes and coat.The boy fell asleep as soon as he touched the pillow.

Qi Nuliang finished smoking a cigarette, undressed and went to bed, and turned off the light.

That day, he slept with a strange young boy in his arms all night.

When he woke up the next day, the boy had gone away by himself.

He didn't have time to reflect on his outrageousness and absurdity, and he didn't have time to speculate on what kind of mood the unknown boy felt when he woke up and found himself in the bed of a strange man.He just saw a little bit of Jiang Yu in this boy.

They are as young, as green and clean.Could it be that Jiang Yu didn't fall in love with a girl in college, but found a man to fall in love with like this boy?Will she also cry and fall into the arms of some men who don't know where she came from after a breakup?

During that time, Qi Nuliang was flustered, he was worried that Jiang Yu would go astray, and even more worried that he would be tricked into doing something he shouldn't do.He hasn't been out of society yet, so he doesn't know how bad some people are in this society.When he was almost so worried that he couldn't help contacting Jiang Yu, he suddenly received a letter from Deng Jianghua.

In the letter, Jiang Yu wrote about his college life, the friends he made, the part-time jobs he took in his spare time, the activities he participated in, and the scholarships he got.Then he apologized, admitted his mistake, admitted that Qi Nuliang was right, and deeply regretted the disaster he had done.

In the end, he told Qi Nuliang that he fell in love with a very lively and lovely girl in college.If there is an opportunity in the future, I hope to introduce Qi Nuliang to him.

In the letter, he called Qi Nuliang uncle.

It was because he was worrying too much, Jiang Yu did not go astray, but returned to the right track.

But for some reason, after the worry disappeared, a new kind of discomfort surged in his heart that he had never felt before.He thought, maybe Jiang Yu called him uncle.They returned to the positions of elders and juniors, and after experiencing so much, they had to be alienated.

They've been in on and off contact since then.From these contacts, Qi Nuliang also knew Jiang Yu's general movements - when did he graduate, when did he sign the job, saw his girlfriend's photo, and learned that he was going to get married... All these made him feel relieved, And uncomfortable.

Now he knows that no matter what comfort or discomfort he had back then, it was all wasted.

After one cigarette was smoked, there was the sound of snow shoveling downstairs, and a golden thread appeared in the white sky.

It was almost dawn, Qi Nuliang rubbed his frozen fingers and went back to the house.