Capítulo 12: Chapter 12: Dilemma and entanglement

After several beeps, the phone was finally connected. Before Xu Tianna could speak, Su Ran pretended to be concerned and asked, "Have you taken the antipyretic and cough medicine I bought for you?"

"Yes." Xu Tianna's response was as calm as water, but it seemed to lack some of the disgust in the past.

"Are you feeling better?" Su Ran continued to ask.

"Better." As soon as Xu Tianna finished speaking, another cough came.

"Put on more clothes, sweat a little, and you will recover soon." Su Ran still spared no effort to express his concern.

"I'm not going out, why do I need to wear so many clothes?" Xu Tianna asked back.

Seeing that Xu Tianna had been drawn into the conversation, Su Ran finally told the truth: "To be honest, I'm at the police station now. I had a fight with someone and the fine is not enough to pay. Can you come and help me?"

Xu Tianna was obviously stunned for a moment, then asked: "You had a fight with someone?"

"That's right, that guy is too arrogant, I'm going to teach him a lesson so that he won't be so reckless." Su Ran said confidently.

"I think you are the one who lives as you please." Xu Tianna choked Su Ran mercilessly, neither saying that she would come nor that she wouldn't come, which made Su Ran feel uneasy.

"Are you coming or not? Give me a definite answer." Su Ran urged anxiously.

Xu Tianna fell into silence, and this silence seemed to have a hint of deliberate difficulty.

"Come quickly, the police here are about to torture me!" Su Ran was extremely anxious and deliberately exaggerated.

As soon as he finished speaking, the police shouted angrily: "We are the people's police, do you think we are the underworld? What's the use of lynching!"

Su Ran quickly covered the phone and apologized in a low voice: "Comrade police, calm down, I just exaggerated it, I want her to pay the fine quickly, so that I can go out and save you trouble, please bear with me."

The police impatiently made a gesture to get it done quickly and said no more. Su Ran was anxiously waiting for Xu Tianna's reply, thinking in his heart that if she refused to come, he might really have to trouble Fang Yuan and his wife, but that would be inappropriate.

Xu Tianna seemed to have gone through a difficult ideological struggle before asking: "Which police station?"

Su Ran was as if he had been pardoned, and hurriedly replied: "Guanqian Police Station."

Xu Tianna said "hmm" and hung up the phone. Her ambiguous attitude made Su Ran feel uneasy. Thinking of her previous experience of abandoning him in the wilderness 30 kilometers outside the city, Su Ran couldn't help but worry whether she would repeat the same trick and trick him again this time.

After the police left, Su Ran stayed alone in the interrogation room. The cold walls around him and the eight characters on the wall that symbolized the majesty of the law, "Leniency for confession, strictness for resistance", made him feel depressed. He was eager to leave this place as soon as possible, but as time passed, he became more and more suspicious whether he was tricked by Xu Tianna again.

Half an hour later, the closed door was finally opened, and a female police officer walked in and said to him: "Su Ran? Someone paid the fine for you, take your ID card to register."

This sentence instantly relaxed Su Ran's tense nerves, and when he stood up from the chair, he felt a little exhausted. But at this moment, he felt more relaxed and happy to get out of trouble, and secretly thanked that she came to save him after all.

Su Ran and Xu Tianna walked out of the police station side by side. He looked at the outside world and felt as if he was in another world. Even the air with car exhaust seemed to smell particularly fresh at this moment.

Xu Tianna raised her hand and gently tucked her messy hair behind her ears, covered her mouth with the back of her hand, and coughed again. Seeing this, Su Ran couldn't help but feel a little guilty. She came to help him solve this trouble despite being sick.

"I'm really sorry to bother you with what happened today. The fine and the money I owe you before..." Su Ran scratched his head and said with an embarrassed look on his face, "I'm afraid that the salary next week won't be enough to pay it back."

Xu Tianna didn't care much about paying back the money. She stopped and looked at Su Ran and said, "Since you know you've caused me trouble, don't cause such trouble again in the future."

Su Ran smiled self-deprecatingly and said, "You said I was a scumbag, fighting, being cynical, these things are considered qualified scumbags."

Xu Tianna looked at him, without saying a word, but the disgust for him in her eyes reappeared. Perhaps in her eyes, this was just Su Ran's stubborn nonsense, but she couldn't understand that behind this was actually Su Ran's slightly depressed self-deprecation.

Xu Tianna continued to walk forward, and Su Ran hurriedly followed her footsteps, and discussed with her in a soft tone: "Next week, when I get my salary, plus the money my father left me, I can pay back the money I owe you, but this way, I will have no money to rent a house. How about this, I will pay you back first, and you let me stay for another month, and when my financial situation improves, I will move out."

Xu Tianna looked at him with an unpredictable look.

Just as Su Ran and Xu Tianna looked at each other in silence, a taxi stopped abruptly not far away. The door opened quickly, and Le Yao hurriedly got out of the car with a handbag.

Le Yao came to Su Ran and stood face to face with Xu Tianna. The two were of similar height, and although their dressing styles were different, they both exuded unique temperaments, and they were both rare real beauties. Even the two male police officers passing by couldn't help but take a few more glances.

"Why are you here?" Su Ran asked with a puzzled look on his face.

Le Yao said with concern and nervousness in her tone, "Robben called me and said you were sent to the police station for fighting in a bar."

"It's okay now." Su Ran replied with a casual look.

Le Yao did not respond to Su Ran, but turned to Xu Tianna and said, "Miss, please step aside for a moment. Su Ran and I have a few private words to say."

Xu Tianna had no intention of staying with Su Ran. She just nodded slightly when she heard it, then turned to her car and drove away.

This night seemed destined to be full of troubles and entanglements. Su Ran couldn't help but feel a little irritated and habitually took out a cigarette and lit it.

Le Yao looked at the direction where Xu Tianna left and asked, "Did she pay the fine for you?"

"Isn't this obvious? Don't ask, okay?" Su Ran said with a hint of impatience.

"What is your relationship with her?" Le Yao asked.

"Whatever relationship you think it is, it is what relationship it is." Su Ran replied perfunctorily.

Su Ran's perfunctory and impatient attitude made Le Yao look a little depressed, and she fell silent.

After smoking half a cigarette, Su Ran finally said to Le Yao: "You go back, the wind is strong, you just had surgery, your body can't bear it."

Le Yao shook her head and didn't intend to leave, and asked again: "Why did you fight? Is there something bothering you?"

Su Ran was slightly stunned. After Le Yao asked this, he couldn't help but reflect on the reason for his fight. After two years of hanging out in the bar, he had met all kinds of people, including drunken and violent people. In the past, he chose to turn a blind eye, so why couldn't he bear it today?

Although he didn't want to admit it, this was indeed related to the news that Lin Yue was about to return to China. In the past, she was far away in a foreign country, and the pain was like an undercurrent lurking in her heart, appearing and disappearing from time to time. Now that she is about to return, the pain will burst out like a surging tide, stimulating his fragile nerves.

Su Ran looked at Le Yao, wiped his face vigorously with both hands, and said: "Please, don't ask, okay?"

"Su Ran, do I bore you so much?" Le Yao said with tears in her eyes and a trembling voice.

Su Ran was silent, just kept smoking, and he and Le Yao were in a stalemate in the cold wind, as if they were performing a classic drama of "man silent woman crying".

After a long time, Le Yao finally said to Su Ran: "I will go to Hengdian next week, and the crew will start filming in advance."

"Really? I wish you a bright future in advance." Su Ran replied casually.

Le Yao looked at him with a complicated look and said softly: "I tell you, I don't want you to bless me, but I hope that you can live a good life when I am not around, at least be happier."

Su Ran remained silent, with mixed feelings in his heart, and various emotions intertwined, but he couldn't figure out where the source of these emotions was.

Le Yao took out a pen from her handbag and said to Su Ran, "Give me your hand."

Although Su Ran didn't understand why, he still mechanically stretched out his hand in front of her.

Le Yao wrote a mobile phone number on his hand and said, "I will stay in Hengdian for a long time this time. If you are in a bad mood or have something on your mind, just call me at this number. We can at least chat like friends." After a pause, she added, "This number is on 24 hours a day."

Su Ran didn't know what to say for a moment, and just looked at her silently.

Le Yao put the pen back into her bag, smiled at Su Ran, and said, "Next time we meet, maybe we should say it's been a long time. Bye, Su Ran."

Looking at Le Yao's leaving back, Su Ran suddenly felt a sense of sadness for parting. Perhaps, after getting along for a long time, even if he often gets tired of the trouble she brings, he will still feel a little reluctant.

It was late at night, and Su Ran thought to himself, where should he go back? Although he still lived in that old but warm house, he was still shameless and refused to leave. If Xu Tianna insisted on him leaving, where would he go with the melancholy, loss and loneliness that troubled him? Was he really going to throw them all into the endless darkness? No, he didn't want to leave. He decided to have a good talk with Xu Tianna, even if he had to beg her to take him in, just to have a place to stay and to put away the melancholy, loss and loneliness that had nowhere to go.