Chapter 23: Promises

"Ah, it's too late. Please help me record the video, Tong Anyu. I feel like I'm almost done with the training."

Hearing Miao Wen's exclamation, Tong Anyu picked up his phone, stood up and found a suitable position to record the girl.

Facing the camera, Miao Wen played the song again, with a serene expression and elegant posture, completely different from her usual image of a two-dimensional girl.

After the song was over, she relaxed her tense posture and asked the girl who recorded the video, "How is it? Is it good enough?"

"no problem."

Miao Wen cheered, then stretched in front of the piano and said, "Thank you, Tong Anyu, for helping me correct my mistakes so early in the morning. I declare you my goddess!"

"Don't give me that." Tong Anyu sat back in his seat. "I'll drop the video for you. Take it."

Miao Wen turned to look for her phone, then noticed Xia Cun's gaze fixed on her. She paused and asked, "What's wrong? Is there something wrong?"

"you are cute."

"Ahem—" Miao Wen suddenly choked, her face flushing. "I'm not mad at you, so stop flattering me."

"It's true."

"Ah, shut up! I can't stand being praised." She was telling the truth, for a blush crept into her cheeks.

"Why?" Will a girl who is good at bragging feel shy when others praise her?

"Why so many whys? Don't be so curious!"

After a few rounds, Tong Anyu laughed out loud beside her, and Xia Cun finally turned to look at her. This seemed to be the first time she heard Tong Anyu laugh out loud.

Tong Anyu met her gaze, suppressed his smile, and started to video chat with Miao Wen. After the video chat was successfully completed, he said, "I have something else to do. I'll be leaving now. Call me next time you need help."

"Okay."

Tong Anyu left the piano room, leaving Xia Cun and Miao Wen alone. Miao Wen first sent the video to her piano teacher, then threw down her phone and complained to Xia Cun, "My dad hired a really tough piano teacher for me, and he even made me turn in my homework remotely. I wanted to go home, but now that I've got all these classes, I've decided not to."

Miao Wen's father seems to attach great importance to her studies. Even when she was "couching up to others" outside, he arranged online classes for her, and now he also remembers to remotely check her piano practice progress.

Xia Cun seemed to be thinking about something, and suddenly asked, "Do you also need to study hard?"

"Um?"

Miao Wen reflected on her question for a moment, then seemed to understand what she meant. She said, "Everyone has their own aspirations. Some are just messing around, while others are studying hard. Take He Shizhao, for example. He has such a family background, and he can still consistently score 40+ in the Predicted. Parents like us are inevitably under a lot of pressure, not to mention the current market—help, why am I telling you all this? It's all my dad's fault for nagging me all the time. I've been completely brainwashed by him!"

Xia Cun tilted his head.

"Your father sounds very wise."

Miao Wen chuckled. "He'd be so happy to hear that, but…" She shrugged. "In the eyes of others, he's just a nouveau riche, all thanks to his good investment luck. So us, the Miao family, are counting on me, Little Miao."

"So, are you good at studying?"

"Actually, I think it's pretty good. Last school year, Mock scored 33 points, but my dad still hired me to get tutors to help me consistently score 35+. It's so difficult."

Xia Cun found that she didn't understand at all. After thinking for a while, he just asked: "Where will you go to study in the future?"

"If nothing goes wrong, it should be the UK. Although I haven't decided which school to apply to yet, I'm really looking forward to it!"

"expect?"

"Yes, a new country, a new school, new friends, and I don't have to live with my parents forever." Miao Wen finished speaking and asked her, "Why do you always talk about me? What about you?"

Xia Cun was silent for a long time before he said, "I don't know."

She never knew.

Although Ren Yi never knew what school she would attend or what major she would choose, she knew she would eventually join a real band and become a real drummer. Only Xia Cun didn't know; she seemed so surprised she didn't even have any expectations.

What should I do?

どうしよっかな?

…

She held her chin, sitting alone on a lounge chair at one end of the swimming pool, staring at the water in a daze.

So quiet.

Are other people doing nothing like her?

Perhaps disturbed by the silence, she put on her headphones and covered her ears. Her thoughts wandered in the afternoon, and at some point, she realized that someone had sat down on the recliner next to her.

Turning around, she saw the baby-faced boy looking at her with a smile.

He pointed to his ears, signaling her to take off the headphones. Xia Cun was puzzled, but she still sat up straight and took off the headphones. Lin Jiaci then smiled and said the first sentence to her when they met: "Your name is Xia Cun, am I right?"

Xia Cun did not answer.

So he pretended to curl his lips and said dissatisfiedly: "You look like you really hate me, why?"

Maybe he really is a perceptive person.

"Because I don't like you looking at me like that."

"How do I look at you?"

Xia Cun said nothing and had no expression.

Lin Jiaci then started laughing again and said, "Well, of course I'm looking at you like this because I heard something interesting."

"What's going on?"

"I can tell you, but can you please—" He only said half of the words, his eyes passed over the girl and looked somewhere behind her. His smile changed subtly, but he still maintained the curve of his mouth, "Mizuno-san, what's the matter?"

He calls Mizuno Shinji like Jiang Song.

Xia Cun turned around and looked at Mr. Mizuno who was walking towards the swimming pool. He heard him answer: "I have something to say to Xiao Xia."

Lin Jiaci narrowed his eyes and smiled, "That's really unfortunate. I just spoke to her."

Mizuno ignored him and just asked, "Xiao Xia, would you mind talking to me in the study?"

Xia Cun shook his head and followed him to the study at the end of the second floor.

As soon as she came in, she found a display screen showing surveillance footage from every corner of the villa, and the enlarged picture in the center was the surveillance footage by the swimming pool.

It's like watching a spy movie.

Her eyes brightened and she looked at Mr. Mizuno who sat back at the desk.

The desk had become his work desk in a short while, and after he sat down, he pulled out a pair of black-framed glasses from the glasses case beside him and put them on. They weren't large frames like Xiao Lan's, but rather slightly flatter, giving them a squared-off look.

"Are you nearsighted too?" she asked him.

"It's only mild." As for what degree of mildness is, "If you keep standing there, I'll need glasses to see your expression clearly."

“…”

He seemed to be saying that she should sit over there.

Xia Cun walked over and sat in the chair opposite him, and then found that the medicine on the table was her medicine - it was almost time to take the medicine.

A flash of inspiration struck her at this moment. She thought that Mr. Mizuno might have caught her rummaging through the medicine cabinet yesterday morning. She couldn't help but stare at him for a moment, then silently swallowed the medicine and finally asked him, "What do you want to tell me?"

"I think you already know what I said to the others," Mizuno pointed out calmly, "so I should apologize to you first. I'm sorry for treating you as an 'accomplice' and causing you some trouble."

“…”

"But before that, I have already communicated with Miss Xia Lan. As your guardian, she agreed to my plan."

Xia Cun was stunned. So, Xiao Lan already knew about this when she was still in the air?

"Why?"

"What do you mean?"

Xia Cun thought about it and finally asked: "Why did she agree?"

"I don't want to speculate on her intentions. You should ask her about this yourself."

His answer was exactly the same as Miao Wen's, and Xia Cun couldn't help but fall into a new silence. But Mr. Mizuno said, "But I can tell you something I know."

"What?"

"After we separated in the garden yesterday morning, I called Miss Xia Lan first. I told her that you seemed to be troubled by something. Do you know why I did this?"

As expected, he was the one who woke Xiao Lan up first.

But Xiaolan always turns on the sleep mode of her phone when she sleeps, and no one except her can call her, so why can he call her?

"Why?" she asked absentmindedly.

"Because this is the agreement between her and me."

The word "agreement" made Xia Cun frown slightly, while Mizuno pushed his glasses, his tone still steady, "She told me that if you feel even the slightest bit strange, I must tell her immediately."

Xia Cun was stunned, and his breathing seemed to be stagnant.

So, was it because of her that Xiaolan allowed other people's calls to wake her up?

As if she felt a furry little animal poking its head out from her heart, she put down the glass in her hand and rubbed her itchy eyes.

Mizuno said on the other side: "There are a lot of bacteria on your hands. Direct contact with your eyes will cause damage to your eyes."

"I have good eyesight."

"I used to have good eyesight."

“…”

Mizuno said this, then changed the subject and asked, "Are you feeling better now?"

Xia Cun suddenly looked up, pursed his lips and nodded after a long time.

It seemed so, because she just realized that Xiaolan was secretly caring about her like this.

Mizuno smiled slightly at this. In a world only he could sense, one unusual alarm had been lifted, but in that same world, countless other alarms were still flashing red. So, shouldn't this kid repay him?

"What will you do next?" he asked suddenly.

"Hmm?" Xia Cun looked bewildered. "What?"

"One has to do something, doesn't one?"

"But I don't seem to know what to do."

"Isn't there anything you want to do?"

No? Of course there is.

She wanted to go to the swimming pool, wanted to tell Xiao Lan how much she loved her, wanted to talk to Ren Yi, wanted to pick up shells on the beach, wanted to go back to her room, wanted to know what she could do or what she could look forward to, wanted to watch another episode of Gromit, wanted to ask Jiang Song why he was hiding in the room and not talking...

But these things are so confusing, so contradictory, and not important at all.

Finally she said, "I want to rub my eyes."

Mizuno slowly took off his glasses and said, "If you really want to rub it, you can. People always do stupid things, don't they?"

“…”

"Xiao Xia, it seems like the time is almost up. My second guest is about to arrive." Mizuno said, raising the remote control to turn off the surveillance screen.

Almost at the same time, someone knocked on the study door.

"Come in."

The door was pushed open, and Lu Xu poked his head in stealthily. Xia Cun left the study under his surprised gaze.

The corridor on the second floor was brightly lit. Xia Cun paused in the silence, and after a long moment of contemplation, she headed to the room she knew who it belonged to after just one pass. There was a whiteboard hanging outside the door with the words: "I'm too depressed to talk :( "

She knocked on the door of a depressed man.

It took a long time before the door was opened.

The boy appeared at the door, his hair wet and slippers dangling. His gloomy expression turned into surprise the moment he saw the girl. Then, in a manner that seemed strangely familiar to him, the girl entered the room, leaned against the door, and looked up at him.

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The author has something to say: The growth line makes me panic (>_<)

Worrying is too heavy, too abstract, and too complicated, but I can't help but grow! So, what on earth are you playing, Shinji Mizuno? (Well, Mr. Mizuno has been deeply involved in adolescent psychology for many years, just for today...

Next chapter, I will write some silly plot to adjust it. I hope I will be successful (light a cigarette)