During the Snowstorm - Chapter 4

Lin Yiyang and Wu Wei waited beside a large parking lot, waiting for the bus they were about to take.

Although it has warmed up in the past two days, it is still windy and the temperature is low as it approaches dark.

Wu Wei put his hands in the pockets of his cold clothes and stomped his feet in the cold. Lin Yiyang was still playing with the phone with one hand, and seemed to be still laughing. What laughing? Wu Wei wanted to see, but was knocked away by Lin Yiyang’s elbow.

It happened that a Chinese bus was full of people. Passing through here, the driver saw Lin Yiyang through the window, stepped on the brakes, and shouted to the outside: “Back to New York? Take you for a ride?”

Lin Yiyang made a call, took advantage of the waiting tone, and said to the driver, “Your car is full, go first.”

The driver laughed and scolded “fake politeness” and popped a cigarette butt.

The crimson light drew an arc and almost landed on Lin Yiyang’s clothes. He stepped aside half a step and avoided it.

The phone just got through.

“Help me entertain two children. I have something to do temporarily, so I can’t take care of it,” he said to the person on the phone. “Yes, the game promised you.”

***

“You agreed?” Yin Guo was surprised.

The elevator door opened, and two men dressed in business walked in, separating the siblings.

“Come on.” Yin Guo leaned back against the elevator wall and urged in Chinese in a low voice.

“No, he said he wanted a friend to pay for it.” My cousin passed the phone around behind the two men and handed it to Yin Guo, so she could see it for herself, “I told him that it’s okay for a friend to come, and I’ll pay for it.”

Yin Guo casually looked at the chat records of the two.

Lin Yiyang didn’t reply much and said that he was on the road. According to his reply to Meng Xiaotian, he was saying that Yin Guo and the others were guests from afar. When they were here, they naturally asked him to come and invite them. This is the rule of the Chinese, even in a foreign country.

Meng Xiaotian originally wanted to invite him to dinner, but of course he refused to agree.

After a few words, Lin Yiyang turned to concern about their stay in Washington for a few days. Meng Xiaotian said that Yin Guo couldn’t leave New York for too long, so he only booked a hotel for one night and left tomorrow afternoon. He asked Lin Yiyang when he would come back here, but Lin Yiyang couldn’t tell.

His last reply was-

Lin: See you later.

As a result, Meng Xiaotian, the greedy ghost, even though he rejected Lin Yiyang’s suggestion of entertaining guests, he still had an obsession with that restaurant. The first thing he did when he got to the room was to make a reservation. Unfortunately it was full.

The two ate briefly in the hotel restaurant. After dinner, she took Meng Xiaotian to the nearby White House to take a set of photos and went directly back to the hotel.

Due to the rush to book the hotel that night in New York, there was only the last big bed left. The siblings all slept in their clothes, one at the head of the bed and the other at the end, and they slept very aggrieved. When they arrived in Washington, Yin Guo immediately asked for a room with two single beds, and was finally able to stretch out and sleep. After taking a shower, she couldn’t wait to get under the quilt.

“You have to get up early and go to see the nearby museums, there are many.”

This was the last sentence Yin Guo said before falling asleep.

When she was conscious again, she was awakened by the sunlight falling on her face.

There are takeaway boxes on the small dining table and desk in the house, which should have been ordered last night, but the cousin is gone. She lay on the bed and called Meng Xiaotian several times, but no one answered.

Yin Guo hugged the quilt lazily, and sent Meng Xiaotian a WeChat message: Where have you been? museum?

Everyday: In Georgetown.

Xiaoguo: Did you go by yourself?

Tiantian: No, Ringo specially woke me up in the morning and asked a friend to drive me there. He said that if he didn’t apply to NYU this year, he could try the school next year.

Xiaoguo: He is so kind to you.

Tiantian: Yes, good man. Just wait, come back later and buy you lunch downstairs.

Yin Guo turned over and got out of bed.

That person looked cold, but he really took care of Meng Xiaotian.

Pulling on her slippers, she stepped into the bathroom door, opened the drawer and found a new box of toothbrushes. He stopped all movements again, and pulled his slippers back into the room. She rummaged under the pillow to find her phone, and sent a thank you message to Lin Yiyang.

Xiaoguo: Thank you, and I specially asked someone to take my brother to visit the school.

Lin: Good to say.

Xiaoguo: [happy]

Lin: [coffee]

It seems that there is nothing to say.

She leaned against the wall and tapped the edge of her phone lightly on the wall. She was scared off by his indifference. It was rare to see someone who spoke so little. Seems like he’s more on tune with his cousin. Forget it, I don’t want to, thank you.

After that day, Yin Guo never talked to Lin Yiyang alone again.

Quan treats him as his cousin’s new friend in America and has nothing to do with him.

After the two returned to New York, the hotel also had spare vacancies. She quickly replaced the big bed room with two small rooms, filled a lot of daily necessities, and officially started short-term living.

The last time she came by herself was Zheng Yizuo’s guide, the standard tourist itinerary, all the landmarks. She didn’t want to go to these attractions this year, and let Meng Xiaotian explore by herself. Anyway, with Google Maps in hand, she couldn’t lose it anywhere.

From morning to noon every day, the two wandered around, mainly eating.

We parted ways in the afternoon and went our separate ways.

After all, she still has competition tasks and needs to train on time.

For more than a week after that, Lin Yiyang’s name would occasionally pop out of Meng Xiaotian’s mouth. It was Lin Yiyang’s supplementary recommendation when he was playing alone that day. With such a new friend around, Yin Guo saved a lot of effort, and she gradually got used to his presence as she listened and listened. It was not like she was always thinking about thanking him for everything that happened at the beginning.

On Saturday, Yin Guo got up late.

Meng Xiaotian came to report on time. She was brushing her teeth and asked, “Where do you want to go today?”

“Near NYU.” My cousin leaned against the door frame.

Yin Guo rinsed his mouth and wiped his mouth clean: “Didn’t you go there a few times?”

“It’s fun over there,” Meng Xiaotian showed her a screenshot, it was a cafe, “I want to go here.”

CaffeReggio, she was inexplicably impressed by the name.

It’s okay to go, anyway, there is no fixed goal.

“On the day we arrived, the bar we went to was also nearby.” Yin Guo kept forgetting to tell his cousin.

“Really?” My cousin arrived here at the beginning of the day and couldn’t figure out where the bar was.

“Well, I want to show you when I pass by.”

Yin Guo combed her hair with a comb, and twisted her long hair into a loose ball, so that if it snowed, she would not be afraid of falling apart when she put on her hat. She was distractedly recalling the specialty store nearby, and wanted to take Meng Xiaotian through the carpet.

When she got to the door of the cafe, she finally remembered why she was so impressed by the name: the color was striking.

All green walls and awnings are hard to forget. At this time, most of the seats outside were empty, with only two young people wrapped in down jackets chatting in the wind. There are many guests inside, looking in through the glass, it is almost full.

“Is there no seat?” She glanced inside.

“It’s okay.” Meng Xiaotian smiled mysteriously.

Yin Guo looked at him strangely. Overcrowded and smiling so happily.

“Brother Lin ordered.”

Lin Yiyang?

She thought she was hallucinating: “You asked him out?”

“He asked me out,” my cousin pushed open the door. “He didn’t let me tell you in advance. He said that he would come to see you in time. If you can’t make it in time, just take it as our own coffee, so as not to miss it again.”

Yin Guo was pushed on the back by his cousin and sent to the cafe.

With a creak, the glass door closed behind her.

There are decorations hanging all over the wall, and people are chatting. There are many guests, and there are not many Asian faces, so you can see him at once.

He was sitting in the corner of the dark red couch under the oil painting of a huge portrait.

The man was leaning against the wall, wearing a black hoodie, and the cold suit was draped over the back of the chair. The table is small and the people are tall, so I had to put one arm on the small round coffee table and put the other hand on my knee, feeling that I was only half-length behind the table.

People are most alert to their mother tongue. He has heard Chinese and knows that they are here.

Looking up at her.

Is this the second time the two have officially met?

Yin Guo paused subconsciously, two or three steps away from him.

We talked a lot about words, but at first glance, they were still unfamiliar. The facial features and body shape would be familiar, but they were the first impressions left in the bar. Looking at it in the daytime, it’s slightly different…

Lin Yiyang’s eyes were always on her.

Under his gaze, Yin Guo slowly went to the coffee table, hung his backpack diagonally on the back of the chair, and sat down with his cousin. The table is really small.

He pushed over a menu: “Let’s see what you want to eat?”

“You order it,” she pushed back. “You are familiar, I have never been there.”

Lin Yiyang nodded, didn’t push back, ordered tiramisu and coffee for them, and ordered panini himself. Eating this kind of hard food used to fill the stomach, at first glance, he came directly without having eaten lunch.

After ordering, there was a brief silence between the three of them.

Yin Guo was afraid that she would chat with him like a cold scene on WeChat, so she simply looked down at her phone.

After looking through the circle of friends for a while, I went to swipe Weibo again, and finally came back and started to delete the dialog box. All in all, I have nothing to do. After I deleted it, I arrived at the dialog with Lin Yiyang.

It was the conversation ten days ago, and his last expression was [Coffee].

I didn’t expect to meet again, but also for coffee.

Seeing that neither of them spoke, Meng Xiaotian couldn’t help but smooth things out: “Chat, chat, how bad it is to be in the cold.”

So, he chatted with Lin Yiyang first, talking about this cafe from a university major. Lin Yiyang told him that this place was built in the early 20th century. In the past 100 years, this place has also happened to be a gathering place for artists and writers, so it is very likely that a certain writer came here before he became famous, such as Hemingway? Or maybe some pages of Catcher in the Rye are written here. Where there is an era, it can always bring a little legend, and celebrities will naturally be more attractive.

Lin Yiyang said a few words casually and did not repeat them.

But Yin Guo looked at the table in front of him, and around the pendants on the wall.

When he said it, it was quite a feeling.

When the coffee was served, Zheng Yi’s greetings also arrived.

She asked Yin Guo where she was playing today. She heard that it was from New York University. She remembered what she wanted to buy. Since Yin Guo was there anyway, why don’t she go today, so that she doesn’t have to make a trip by herself.

In fact, shopping is not troublesome, the trouble is that she forgot the name of the store.

Zheng Yi: If you ask Lin Yiyang, anyone who can recommend CaffeReggio will definitely know that place.

Just ask him.

Yin Guo asked for help: “My friend said that there is a small shop selling coffee beans here. Many restaurants buy beans there, and they will specially write where the coffee beans come from on the door sign to attract customers. But the front door is hard to find, you know ?”

Lin Yiyang thought for a while and said, “I’ll take you there.”

“No, you tell me your name, I’ll search the map and I’ll definitely find it.”

“I’ll drop by.” Lin Yiyang returned to her.

Afraid of delaying other people’s time, she drank the remaining half cup of coffee: “Let’s go then.”

The original intention was not to waste his time, but it was so obvious that it seemed like he was rushing for food…

Lin Yiyang glanced at the empty coffee cup amusingly. As if to say: in such a hurry?

This look, this expression, and this kind of smile also appeared the night we first met, when she stirred the cocktail with a straw and observed the liquor. Yin Guo subconsciously tucked the long hair on the side of her ear behind her ear, feeling very uncomfortable.

Meng Xiaotian completely missed this brief and subtle exchange.

He never heard of leaving, so he quickly wiped out the cake, took two sips of coffee, and wiped his mouth with a napkin. Looking at the two of them again, they have already got up one after the other, and are putting on their coats tacitly.

“You two are so fast.” Meng Xiaotian sighed.

How do you feel like you’re superfluous?