Chapter 11 Section VI

Liu Xu wakes up very late every morning, usually after nine o'clock when she opens her eyes.At this time, Luo Yang had already left the house. Liu Xu lay lazily on the bed with her eyes open, stretched out her body, listened to the subtle ticking of the cute little black bear-shaped alarm clock on the bedside table, and began to plan how to pass the day in her heart.The house was very quiet, and Xue Er didn't know where to hide.Before the winter vacation of primary and secondary schools, it was quiet outside the window, and the noise of children could not be heard.She seems to be the only one left in this quiet world, or she has been forgotten in this quiet world.But this is nothing to Liu Xu.She was used to being forgotten, and she was trying to forget herself.For example, she has almost forgotten what happened last night, so she is in a good mood now.

I heard that there is a beef noodle restaurant that has a booming business. It wants to open a chain store, and the franchise fee is 200,000 yuan.Liu Xu sneered.She rarely fools her stomach with beef noodles.People like her account for an unknown proportion, and the total population of this city is only over 200,000.A small beef noodle restaurant dares to make pie like this. People nowadays are really crazy about money.However, in this western city, what should you eat if you don’t eat beef noodles in the middle of the morning?People don't have many choices.Therefore, Liu Xu often combines breakfast and lunch, and she often worries about breakfast, and only thinks about it when she leaves the house.

The handbag I bought yesterday is too old-fashioned. It should be replaced with an orange one to match that beige coat. The owner of the Jinse Nianhua clothing store said that there are new dresses on the market today, which are suitable for middle-aged women. ... Tianzi Beauty Center has a new beauty program, it is said that the effect is good, you can try it.Well, go to Tianzi Beauty Center today. After everything was considered, Liu Xu turned over and got out of bed.After some freshening up, she first drank a glass of cold boiled water, and then drank a glass of warm honey water.This is what she saw in a magazine introducing women's life: getting up early and drinking cold boiled water with honey on an empty stomach is a key step in beauty.Over the years, she has persisted and it has become her daily compulsory course.After drinking the honey water and rinsing her mouth again, she sat in front of the dressing table and seriously put on makeup.Toner, liquid foundation, blush, powder honey, eye shadow, mascara, eyebrow pencil, lipstick, are busy in her hands.Half an hour later, she looked at the carefully groomed face in the mirror: lemon-colored skin with light pink, straight nose, thin and charming eyebrows, plump and charming lips.The only thing that dissatisfied her was that her eyes, which were originally not too big, were abruptly enlarged and hollow under the effect of indigo eyeshadow and mascara, and her eyes were dry and scattered.The charm of the eyes is beyond the power of any cosmetics.Especially below the eyelids and near the cheekbones, there are several brown patches the size of fingernails.She didn't know when or how those plaques settled on her face.Although I applied a thick foundation, it still couldn't hide the insane eye-catching of the brown spots.Are they a sign of age?They played a mocking face like a prank, destroying her original peaceful mood.She walked away from the mirror and rewashed her face in anger, only applying a little moisturizer.She suddenly found that although her skin color was darker without makeup, which was the sub-yellow color of people in subtropical regions, those spots were not obvious.And her lips are naturally plump, with distinct lip lines, and there is a beauty mole the size of a mung bean on the lower left corner of her lips, paired with shiny black and thick curly hair, she has a unique charm—even though she knows that there are countless hidden beauty spots on her head. Clear white hair, that shiny black was bleached and dyed in a hair salon.

Liu Xu looked at herself without makeup in the mirror for a while, and felt relieved a lot.She picked up the jade bracelet on the dressing table and put it on her left wrist, changed her clothes and walked out of the house.She was ready to spend the day well to make up for the many shortcomings she left on her wedding anniversary.Although this made up for a little later than yesterday and the lack of the key role of "husband", she still brought great interest to it. At about ten o'clock, Liu Xu came to Taiwan Yonghe Soymilk Store not far from the residential area to have breakfast.There was no one in the store at the moment, and it was very quiet.

Taiwan's Yonghe Soymilk store is small, with only a dozen plastic tables, light blue, covered with white tablecloths and lace trims, which look pleasing to the eye. The waiter came over, and Liu Xu ordered a cup of sweet bean juice and two pieces of shortbread, and then sat in a corner, facing the window facing the street, eating breakfast slowly and carelessly—she had never been so slow before, she seemed a little Absent-minded and laid-back, with the elegance of a mature woman. The bean juice was steaming hot.The shortbread is freshly baked, with black sesame seeds sticking to the pale yellow shell. Take a bite, the shell is crispy, the inside is soft, sweet but not greasy.

Liuxu is a regular customer of Yonghe Soy Milk in Taiwan.Sometimes, instead of eating shortbread, she would order a cake steamed with cornmeal. Tasting the sweet and sour taste, she seemed to return to the past—the distant youthful time that was lacking in material but full of dreams. At that time, Liu Xu lived in a place called Shahu Village in the countryside.Every year when new corn is harvested, my grandmother steams the cornmeal to make cakes and asks Liu Xu to send them to the mother and son of the Luo family who live in the same courtyard.At that time, white sugar was not available, so saccharin was used instead, and the steamed cake always had a bit of astringent taste, but mother Luo said it was delicious every time.

Under the caress of their grandmother, Liu Xu and Luo Yang grew up eating corn flour cakes.Later, when her grandmother passed away, Liu Xu imitated her grandmother's example and steamed corn flour cakes.When Luo Yang returned to the village on vacation, she also entertained him with this common delicacy. How sweet he ate it!After marrying Luo Yang, at first Luo Yang also accompanied her to the breakfast stalls to eat fat cakes, but he didn't eat them himself, he just stood far away and waited for her, enduring her indecent eating at the breakfast stalls on the street and waiting on the side of the road.After so many times, Luo Yang looked impatient, frowned and asked, is it really that delicious?Only then did Liu Xu suddenly realize that Luo Yang's love of eating cakes back then was accommodating her and taking care of her self-esteem.Now he doesn't want to accommodate her.They were originally a pair of seemingly incompatible people, why did he still put on a gesture of accommodating? ...When everything is clear, life is so boring!So Liu Xu stopped patronizing the breakfast stalls on the street.

Unexpectedly, such a well-known breakfast restaurant as Taiwan Yonghe also sells such crude dim sum as fat cakes, which has become an important reason why Liuxu often visits Yonghe.When the sour-sweet steam from the hair cake blows towards her face, she will think of the new corn back then, and think about the person who once loved to eat corn flour hair cake just to please her. Outside the breakfast shop, the street is already very lively.There are pedestrians and vehicles passing by in front of the window, and Liu Xu is far more interested in them than the breakfast in front of him.A middle-aged man with a briefcase under his arm walked by.In fact, it is an indecent image to hold a briefcase under the armpit.Two middle-aged women walked side by side and talked loudly, probably discussing the children at home.A young woman with a subtropical complexion appeared in front of the window of the soya-bean milk shop. She was wearing a white down jacket, with flowing long hair, and she walked gracefully and charmingly.Inadvertently, the young woman suddenly turned her head and spit towards the window.

Liu Xu couldn't continue eating breakfast, she put down the half-drinked soy milk, got up and left. Liu Xu walking on the street was a little angrily.On the land of Shacheng, those who are educated, rich, and fashionable, still have bad habits and can't get rid of the inherited vulgarity.No wonder the SAR was built in the south instead of the west.The wind and sand here, the drought here, the desolation here, as well as the phlegm stains that can be seen everywhere in the streets and alleys here, and the reminders such as "It is forbidden to defecate here" written on some corners, are as many as there are uncivilized people here. .After that, Liu Xu decided to eat in a different place from today, preferably a secluded place where no pedestrians can be seen.Thinking about it this way, she seemed unwilling to be with pedestrians, so she hailed a taxi and soon came to the pedestrian street in the city center.

On both sides of the pedestrian street are row upon row of clothing stores and supermarkets.Liu Xu's family wandered side by side.She sometimes buys some clothes, shoes and hats, sometimes she doesn't buy anything; but she must buy dim sum, fried chicken legs, grilled sausages and other cooked food in the supermarket every day to take home as dinner for her and Cher.Therefore, by the time she walked the entire pedestrian street, she had already carried two large bags of things in her hand. Tianzi Beauty Salon is at the end of the pedestrian street.Liu Xu's happiest time is spending two days in the beauty salon every week.She loved the flattering compliments from young but sophisticated beauticians.They all called her "Sister Liu".She believed that the eyesight of these little girls would not be so poor that they couldn't see that she and them were from two different ages, and she should be their "auntie" at all.But Liu Xu never broke the compliment.On the contrary, she often has the illusion that she is almost the same age as those little girls.This illusion satisfied her and made her confident.The little girls surrounded her and said, Sister Liu, is your child in junior high school?She proudly replied that he was about to graduate from college.They coincidentally clicked their tongues in praise, Sister Liu, you really know how to take care of yourself!Then they said that the anti-aging products just launched in the beauty salon have miraculous effects, and the price is a bit expensive, but this is not for ordinary people, only those like you, Sister Liu, are worthy of it.Liu Xu nodded, and then the fragrant essence, anti-wrinkle cream, and whitening mask were applied to her face layer by layer.She was lying on the beauty bed with her eyes closed, and the beautician massaged her face, head, and shoulder blades just right. The comfort and comfort came to her, and she could take a nap with her whole body stretched.When Liu Xu stood up from the beauty bed and walked out of the beauty salon with a radiant face, it was basically five o'clock in the afternoon.Sometimes she will find a place to have dinner, it doesn't matter whether it is a big hotel or a small food stall, as long as she is not hungry.In contrast, she still likes to eat hot pot, and likes the hot atmosphere and hot style of the hot pot restaurant.The house is indeed too deserted, she sincerely likes to be lively and longs for it.However, she never goes to the hot pot restaurant when she is alone.In private, she thought that if she sat alone in a bustling hot pot restaurant, she would look downcast and silly.She has long passed the age of foolish fantasies about romantic feelings.In order to solve this contradiction, she can occasionally invite three or five friends (sometimes just acquaintances who have met once or twice) to go to the hot pot city, and then go to the karaoke hall for entertainment, and she will pay for everything.Every time everyone had a great time, they all praised her for being sincere and forthright, which was interesting.Therefore, Liu Xu made many friends outside, men, women, young and old, and people of all levels.

In the evening, if Luo Yang doesn't take her to participate in social activities (such opportunities to participate in social activities with Luo Yang are too few for her), Liu Xu usually spends at home.Before night fell, she would turn on all the lights. The hallway, living room, bedroom, study, kitchen and dining room, even the toilet and balcony were brightly lit.In the bright light, she felt warm and at ease, even a little happy and intoxicated, as if all the helplessness and boredom had been driven away by the light.Then she lay half-sleeping on the three-seater sofa under a small blanket and watched TV, usually long soap operas.She accompanies the ups and downs of the fate of film and television characters with mixed sorrows and joys. Sometimes she can use up half a box of facial tissues in one night to wipe her uncontrollable tears.When not watching TV, Liu Xu played with the purebred Persian cat, feeding it fried chicken legs, grilled sausages, canned tempeh fish, luncheon meat, etc.Xueer was raised fat and thick, with shiny fur.She likes to hold Xue'er in her arms, screaming obediently, as if she suddenly found support in her empty heart.Sometimes Liu Xu also sits in her son's room and surfs the Internet, reading online novels and online shopping guides.But she never participated in chatting, those fabricated personal files and stories, and the cloud-covered screen names used by chatters are all pediatrics, not of interest to a woman of her age. But Liu Xu usually does not sit very late at night, she knows the importance of adequate sleep and water to maintain a youthful appearance.At ten o'clock, she took a hot bath first, then drank a large cup of cold water, and fell asleep soundly on time with her Persian cat Cher. Liu Xu's time is always so easily passed away.Under normal circumstances, she doesn't care much about whether Luo Yang comes home on time; on the contrary, if Luo Yang wants to go home for dinner one day, it seems to cause her a lot of trouble, and Luo Yang is too embarrassed to come home and trouble her.There is such a capable and considerate man, Liu Xu dare not ask too much of him, and it is not good to always ask such silly words as "love or not".She feels that compared with those shabby women who have no money (such as Tan Meijuan who is always worried about losing her second-hand car), she is basically happy. Until this day, when Liu Xu met Lu Xia at Tianzi Beauty Salon, her heart that had just calmed down stirred up ripples again. Liu Xu and Lu Xia have known each other for a long time.In the mid-1970s, Lu Xia went to Shahu Village on the edge of the Tengger Desert to jump in the queue. Liu Xu, who lived there, once took care of her like a sister.However, due to a certain chance, Liu Xu left Shahu Village and returned to Shacheng first, and Lu Xia was able to return to the city two years later.They never met again, even though they lived in the same city.