The Only You / There is No One Like You [Requested]

26-1

Not long after dinner, Ruan Ming Ke suddenly came back from the northwest. He didn't say the specific reason. 

Ruan Mian only remembered that during that time, her father locked himself in the study all day long.

Once, she couldn't sleep because of the heavy rain outside. She got up and went to the living room to drink water, only to find that the door of the study room was slightly open. 

Ruan Ming Ke was standing in front of the window, with a lonely and vicissitudes of life behind him, and a pile of unextinguished cigarette butts burning on the table. There was smoke all around, with a choking smell of smoke.

Perhaps hearing the movement outside the door, Ruan Ming Ke turned around and saw Ruan Mian. He put out the cigarette butt in his hand and walked toward her, "Why are you still up so late?"

"Can't sleep."

Ruan Mian looked at the white hair on her father's temples, blinked her eyes, and asked, "Dad, are you..."

what is it then.

She couldn't tell.

"Dad is fine, don't worry."

Ruan Ming Ke raised his hand to close the door of the study, and walked to the living room with Ruan Mian's shoulders, "Since you can't sleep, let's chat with dad for a while."

Ruan Mian and her father sat down in the living room. On the coffee table were the tea sets that Ruan Ming Ke usually played with at home. He turned on the light and picked them up late at night.

The aroma of tea soon filled the air along with the boiling water.

Ruan Mian pulled up a soft cushion and sat cross-legged on the floor. She did not have Ruan Ming Ke's leisurely elegance. 

In the past few times when Ruan Ming Ke asked her to comment on how the tea tasted, she could only use the word "delicious" and occasionally pulled it from her vocabulary reserve.

 After making several comments that sounded quite plausible, Ruan Ming Ke would smile and shake his head without saying much.

Ruan Mian took a sip of hot tea and listened to Ruan Ming Ke talk about the customs and customs in the northwest. Their project was established near the desert, where wind and sand filled the air all day long. At night, the temperature dropped sharply, and the stars hung low in the sky, as if they were within reach.

Ruan Ming Ke talked for more than half an hour. 

When he stopped talking, he asked Ruan Mian about her current situation in the past two years.

"Nothing special happened."

Ruan Mian put down the tea cup, "It's just about studying for the exam. I participated in the school's physics competition class in the second semester of my second year of high school and won the second prize. Then there's the college entrance examination."

Ruan Ming Ke smiled: "You can't just study every day, can't you make new friends? We Mian Mian are so good, you should have many friends around you, right? "

Ruan Mian hugged her knees and touched the tip of her nose sheepishly, "I don't know many people, but it seems that a lot of people know me."

She thought of the classmate records she wrote on the day she left school for the college entrance examination, one page after another.

The sound of rain pattered on the glass outside the window, and the aroma of tea filled the room. On the small table next to the sofa was a photo of their family of three taken at the entrance of the Sixth Middle School three years ago.