Chapter 276
During the period when he studied in England, Meng Li felt the taste of loneliness .
It was true that physically and biologically, he was not alone . During the days, he was at school with teachers and classmates . In the evenings, his host family was very warm and considerate . But there was no place better than home, his real home . Wandering about in a foreign land, breathing the air of a foreign country, eating the food of a foreign country, and hearing the language of a foreign country all made Meng Li feel like a fish out of water .
Before he left China, he was ambitious . He decided that after completing his academic program in England, he would try his best to find a job there and would not return to China . Was there anything good about his home country? Food safety issues, air quality issues, and some persistently unresolved social chaos . . . However, when he did go abroad, he began to miss the things that he once abhorred—no matter how poor the air quality was, he was familiar with the air; no matter how severe the food safety concern was, at least the food was delicious; as for social chaos, why did it have anything to do with him?
He wasn’t the only one that was unable to adapt to the environment . Among his fellow classmates that went to England at the same time with him, several of them lost themselves because of sudden changes in the environment .
His host family was very warm to him . Although he never found his way to blend in, he had to admit that the family was very warm and hospitable, and they did not treat him as an outsider . It’s just that he shackled himself and always felt alienated, suspecting they were judging him with strange looks .
There was a puppy at the host family . He didn’t pay much attention at first, because pet keeping was so common among families abroad . In addition, he couldn’t recognize the breed of the dog, for he never saw such a breed in China . After inquiring the host family, he learnt that its name was Julie, and it was a Cocker Spaniel .
The host family was just so nice . They might have sensed that Meng Li was a little unhappy, and they assigned him a task—taking Julie for a walk outside twice a day, in the morning and in the evening .
This task was easy but time-consuming . Cocker Spaniels were hounds, which were more active and energetic than ordinary breeds of dogs . Each walk took a long time, and he must shoulder the responsibility of picking up its feces .
Meng Li had never raised a dog before . He was not expecting to get one, but he didn’t reject the idea either . He just hated walking in the streets and suddenly stepping on dogs’ feces . Only after living in the small town in England did he know that, because of the large population of dog-keepers, the situation of rampant spreading of dogs’ feces in England was not much better than in his home country .
Julie looked just like this one in the showcase . They both had a pair of large, round brown eyes, and their clear-cut cheeks made them look like serious old philosophers when they were not barking . Meng Li often forgot that Julie was actually a young female dog; he always called it "Old Chu" .
Cocker Spaniels have very long fur, are very active and like burrowing . That’s why when he took Julie out for a walk, its fur would be hooked by grass and thorns, and then it would sob painfully . When Meng Li helped untie its tangled furs, it would happily lick his hand in gratitude, and then it quickly forgot the pain and went on burrowing among the grass .
At first, Meng Li only walked the dog near the host family, but gradually he went farther and farther, sometimes even going all the way to the outskirts of the town . As days went by, residents along the route started to recognize him and they would greet him . Occasionally, some people would catch up with him and walked their dogs with him .
Days passed plainly liked that and nothing memorable happened until the end of his studies . After graduation, he changed his mind and decided to return to his motherland, which was not perfect yet very familiar to him . The night before boarding the plane, the host family had a lively farewell party for him on the lawn in their backyard, and many residents of the town, whom he knew or had never met before, came to attend the party .
He prepared a lot of presents, hugged and thanked the family members one by one, and said goodbye to Julie . Julie probably didn’t know that he was about to leave . It just bit the bottom of his trouser leg to drag him out, urging him that it was time to go out for a walk . He patted its head, pulled out the trouser leg from its mouth, and said goodbye to it in Chinese so that it wouldn’t understand what he had said . Julie stopped badgering him, it just glanced at him and then ran away to play with the other dogs brought by the guests .
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