Chapter 23 Chapter 23 Antelope Canyon

In a blink of an eye, it was summer.He Ru's cousin in Xi'an sent her a letter, saying that her father was hospitalized last month and was diagnosed with liver cancer due to long-term alcoholism.Her father said in tears that he wanted to see her one last time. He Ru hesitated after reading the letter.After she arrived in the United States, she almost forgot about her alcoholic father.A large part of the reason why she firmly chose to go abroad was to get rid of the shadow of her former family and the psychological trauma left by her mother's death.She hadn't seen her drunken, short-tempered, hurtful father for nearly twelve years, and it was hard for her to even picture her father.Her father sometimes drank too much and quarreled with her mother, and would always scold He Ru for being a bastard, which made the mother and daughter cry every time.

As he grew older, He Ru became more and more taciturn among his classmates.Her reactions to the people and things around her are much more sensitive than those of her peers. However, her kind mother left her a message when she was dying, saying that her parents had loved each other back then, and she was indeed her father's own daughter, so why should she take good care of her father no matter what in the future? .However, He Ru didn't expect that after confirming the truth of her birth, she would become even more resentful towards her father.In the past twelve years, she has not called her father once, written a letter, and never returned home.

After her mother died, the concept of home no longer existed in her life. He Ru took her cousin's letter and thought about it for a long time, but finally decided not to go back.Because in her mind, she had long regarded her father as dead, and the last time she saw her father was at her mother's funeral. That was the only time she saw her father shed tears, but she left Xi'an to go back to school the next day without saying a word to him. He Ru called her cousin and said that she was busy with work and couldn't go back, and asked her cousin to help with the funeral. Her cousin also knew about their family's past, so he just sighed and said nothing more.He Ru said that she would remit eight thousand dollars to her cousin and the others right away.After the check was mailed, He Ru felt a little uneasy for two days.Her uneasiness was not because her biological father was about to die, but she did not want to see him for the last time.Instead, I feel sorry for what my mother said when she was dying.

However, she forgot about it after a few days.She didn't want the shadow that she had finally gotten rid of to linger in her heart again. A few days later, Liu Dongqi came back from Dallas, and He Ru ran into him while having lunch at that Sichuan restaurant.She thanked Liu Dongqi for the wild poppies, and Liu Dongqi smiled and said, "If you had invited me to your birthday party a few days earlier, I would have passed the matter of going to Dallas to get materials to others. I am not enough friends." .” He Ru said with a smile: "Didn't you already know my birthday from Bai Guo?" Liu Dongqi laughed and said: "If you don't invite me, then I will come to the door by myself, wouldn't it be a good intention?!"

He Ru wanted to make a joke with him and said, haven't you lost your mind a long time ago?The words slipped back to her mouth, and she changed her words: "Actually, I didn't have a party at all on my birthday, I just wanted to be alone, so I didn't invite anyone, but I'm still very happy that you sent flowers. Then Bai Guo came, and we chatted all night." Liu Dongqi said: "I send flowers to thank you for spending an unforgettable birthday with me last time! Of course, I also hope that after your 30th birthday, both of us will have a new starting point!" He Ru knew what he meant by "a new starting point" in his heart, so he smiled, said nothing, and buried himself in his meal.

Liu Dongqi asked He Ru, "Do you have any plans for this weekend? We can hang out together." He Ru said with a smile: "I don't have many hobbies, but when it comes to fun, then you have found the right person. How about we invite Bai Guo and Jiang Gu to go hiking together?" Liu Dongqi originally planned to go to the beach with He Ru to go fishing alone, or to play tennis together, but he didn't expect that He Ru would also involve Ginkgo and Jiang Gu, so he could only laugh and say: "Climb the mountain, I'm afraid When you come back, you will be so tired that you will lie in bed for a few days."

He Ru said: "The bouquet of golden poppies you gave me on my birthday is the state flower of California. I like it very much. Or I will take you to the Antelope Valley in Palmdale on weekends. There is the famous Valley of Poppies, and the scenery is very charming. !" Liu Dongqi laughed and said, "That's really great! I also started to like the faint fragrance of poppies." Jiang Gu is a very restless person. After living with Bai Guo, he seems to be suffering from weekend allergies.On weekends, Bai Guo would either drag him to the shopping mall or play around. For a person with his personality, it would cost him half his life.Bai Guo asked him to go hiking with Liu Dongqi and the others on weekends. As usual, he excused the mountain climbing on the pretext of doing an experiment.Bai Guo inevitably scolded him again.

Jiang Gu slept until twelve o'clock, then lazily ate a bowl of noodles and went to the laboratory.Wu Xiaotian was already there.Ever since Stacy quickly poured out Jiang Gu's thoughts to Wu Xiaotian last time, Jiang Gu felt a little uncomfortable, and the two talked less when they met.A few days ago, PNAS replied to the letter, saying that it has decided to publish the paper with Wu Xiaotian as the first author, but only needs to make minor changes and add some data. Wu Xiaotian finally breathed a sigh of relief. But Jiang Gu was not convinced in his heart, his name was placed in the second place, which was an irrelevant position.He always believed that Wu Xiaotian was under the special care of Xu Mei, so he could produce results so quickly.So when I saw Wu Xiaotian, I just ignored him.

On the weekend, Liu Dongqi, He Ru, and Bai Guo drove his new JAGUAR car along Highway 405 to the north for more than an hour, then turned to State Highway 14, and soon came to Antelope Canyon in the Mojave Desert. At this time, the bright spring sun shines on the vast desert, and under the boundless blue sky, there are seemingly endless golden poppies.Liu Dongqi looked at the distant sky and said: "The sky here looks blue and clean, unlike LA, which is gray." He Ru said with a smile: "The air here is particularly fresh. I come here every spring. The feeling is different every time I come!"

Bai Guo smiled and said: "This year you come with us, the feeling may be even more different!" He Ru remained silent. Liu Dongqi looked back at them and said with a smile, "This is the first time I've seen so many flowers! It's so beautiful!" The three of them drove into the parking lot in front of the valley garden, carried their drinks and waited to enter the valley, found a hiking trail and went up the mountain.On both sides of the road grew short-leaved yucca trees and juniper trees, and the branches of those yucca trees were full of white flowers, which set off the orange-yellow wild poppies all over the ground, quite intoxicating.

He Ru and Bai Guo could still keep up with the tall and burly Liu Dongqi in the first 400 yards up the mountain, but they gradually distanced themselves from him. Every time Liu Dongqi climbed dozens of yards, he would stop and wait for the two of them.He Ru shouted out of breath: "Hey, are you Hiking or Running?!" Liu Dongqi laughed and said, "I'm already taking care of your physical strength." It was not easy for He Ru and Bai Guo to climb to the half-valley, their faces were flushed, and their bodies were soaked.He Ru bent over and gasped for breath, and Bai Guo lay on the grass on his back.Liu Dongqi hurriedly said to her: "You must not lie down when you are tired, or you will lose energy after a while. Looking at you like this, you must have lacked exercise when you were young." When He Ru heard the word "when you were young", your heart suddenly "thumped".According to Liu Dongqi, he is not young anymore.Thinking that she had just passed her thirtieth birthday a few days ago, although she herself didn't take this age seriously, in the subconscious of others, she was indeed different from before. Liu Dongqi noticed that He Ru was in a daze, and knew that he had slipped his tongue, so he quickly said: "Why don't we go down the mountain and take a stroll in the valley, the air there is also good, and it is close to the poppies, the scenery may be more suitable for you .” He Ru straightened up and said, "No, I have to climb to the top of the mountain no matter what I say today! Before, I only went halfway up the hillside every time, and I haven't really seen the panorama of the valley yet!" Liu Dongqi looked at Bai Guo, and Bai Guo straightened his eyes and said, "I didn't expect that mountain climbing would be so tiring. It's a real pain! I don't want to climb anymore. I'll just stay here and wait for you to come down." Liu Dongqi and He Ru climbed one after the other for more than an hour before reaching the top of the mountain. The two overlooked the valleys, and saw the golden orange wild poppies all over the mountains, swaying gently in the breeze, dazzling, the whole land seemed to be covered with a soft golden carpet. Liu Dongqi took a deep breath and said, "This scene reminds me of Ed Lunpo's." He Ru said with a smile: "The wild poppies in California are different from the poppies we usually think of. They are a kind of wild flowers. You can see that they have no stems, and the flowers are almost open against the ground. Their vitality is particularly strong, unlike Ordinary flowers are so fragile." Liu Dongqi smiled and said to He Ru: "Now I understand why you come to this valley every year. The beauty here cannot be expressed in words! It feels like being intoxicated!" He Ru said with a smile: "Every time I look at the pieces of orange, I really feel that my soul has been washed!" The two sat down under a yucca tree.Liu Dongqi said to He Ru: "I didn't expect you to be so strong." He Ru wiped the sweat off his face, took a heavy breath, and said with a smile: "I have always had this temper since I was a child. I must do what I want to do! Besides, think about it, I am willing to give up such a beautiful scenery ?!" The two sat on the mountain for more than half an hour, thinking that Bai Guo was still halfway down the mountain, so they went down the mountain.Unexpectedly, the road down the mountain was not easy, Liu Dongqi was worried that He Ru would slip and fall, so he walked ahead. When he passed a large steep rock, he jumped down first, and then reached out to hold He Ru's hand.He Ru waved his hands and said, "It's okay, I can climb down by myself." She turned her back, supported the rock with both hands, and slowly stepped back.When she was only three yards away from the slope below, her right foot suddenly stepped on the air, her body tilted, and she fell down. When Liu Dongqi wanted to help her, it was too late.He Ru touched the ground with his left foot, flashed, and fell to the ground, and was about to roll down the slope immediately. Liu Dongqi panicked, rushed over without thinking, and grabbed He Ru's arm, but his right chest hit a small rock heavily because of too much force.Suddenly he only felt a dull pain in his chest, but he still held back the pain and pulled He Ru up with great effort. He Ru didn't fall very hard, but when his left heel hit the ground, he felt a little numb.She sat down, took off her sneakers, pinched her left heel, and said to Liu Dongqi embarrassedly: "Thank you for giving me a hand, otherwise I'd have rolled to Bai Guo by now." Liu Dongqi smiled with difficulty.He Ru put on his shoes and said, "Okay, I'm fine, let's go down the mountain quickly, Bai Guo must be waiting impatiently." Liu Dongqi was about to stand up when suddenly his right chest felt like a needle prick, and he groaned in pain.Only then did He Ru realize that something was wrong with him.She hurriedly asked Liu Dongqi: "Are you injured?" Liu Dongqi smiled and said: "It's okay, just go back and rub it and rub it." He struggled to stand up with his left hand, clapped his hands and said, "Let's go." When going down the mountain, He Ru said shyly, "It's all my fault for being self-willed. If I had asked you to help me just now, this wouldn't have happened." Liu Dongqi pressed his left hand on his right chest and said he was fine.When the two passed by the place where Bai Guo had just been lying down, they found that she had already gone down the mountain. As soon as Bai Guo saw them, she shouted: "What are you doing? I have been waiting here by myself for almost an hour. When three cars passed by, the owner of the car stopped and asked me if I could help. I thought you were having fun. I’m happy, I don’t want to go down the mountain anymore!” He Ru told her about the accident just now.Bai Guo said hastily: "Then we have to send Liu Dongqi to the emergency to check and do an X-Ray." She asked Liu Dongqi to give her the key and she would drive. Liu Dongqi wanted to be brave at first, but he twisted his body and got into the car seat. When his right hand rested on the steering wheel, his right chest felt like a needle prick, so he had to sit in the back seat with He Ru.