Chapter 60: Peace and Safety

Christmas Eve is in two days.

When we returned to school on Monday, the Bentley drove all the way through the center of Jiangcheng City, and the festive atmosphere was already very strong.

Giant Christmas trees have been erected at the entrances of major shopping districts, hung with snowflakes of all sizes and dotted with thousands of gold and silver metal balls, illuminating the entire street with glittering lights.

The students in Class 4 joined in the fun and pasted a Christmas wreath made of colored paper on the classroom door, which was a festive sight with red and green colors.

The dean of studies shook his head as he passed by, "Students nowadays are clueless about traditional festivals, and they're more enthusiastic about celebrating foreign festivals than ever before!"

Teacher Ding didn't say anything.

They are just 16 or 17 years old. It is their nature to love playing. There is no need to make such a big deal about it.

Su Xia booked a high-speed rail ticket for the afternoon and packed her luggage. During morning self-study, she went to the teachers' offices of various subjects, filled her schoolbag with papers, and hugged He Miao goodbye.

As soon as I reached the bottom of the teaching building, my feet seemed to be out of control and I walked straight towards the administrative building.

The temperature in Jiangcheng was not enough to hold the snow. The light snow predicted in the weather forecast melted as soon as it fell into the air, leaving the ground covered with water and fallen leaves.

The wind blew her bangs into a mess. Su Xia held up her schoolbag to block the rain and stood on tiptoe to look into the window skillfully. There was no one there. The person she wanted to see was not there.

She lowered her head in disappointment and sighed softly. Just as she was about to turn around and leave, she heard footsteps.

Xu Jiqing came out of the building entrance. His school uniform jacket was snow-white and zipped up to the top. His handsome face was as indifferent as ever.

He almost ran over.

Su Xia didn't see clearly what he was holding in his hand until he stood in front of her and opened the black umbrella above her head. Then Su Xia realized that he had forgotten to open it.

Xu Jiqing's tone was very hard, "Don't you know it's going to rain?"

"I forgot my umbrella."

Su Xia also felt stupid, and the tips of her ears turned red. "I thought I could see snow today."

Xu Jiqing was on the side of the wind, with thin but broad shoulders. When he stood there, Su Xia's flying bangs stopped moving.

His umbrella is black.

In the gray rainy morning, only the space between them was dark.

The moist and cool air blew towards my face, carrying with it the clean soap scent of the boy's body.

Su Xia could vaguely feel Xu Jiqing looking at her, but she didn't dare to look up, and her heart beat inexplicably faster.

"What do you want to see me for?" he asked.

"I have a competition during winter break. I've signed up for a cello class at the Central Conservatory of Music and will be leaving this afternoon. I probably won't be back this semester."

Su Xia unzipped her schoolbag and pulled out the bulging square gift box from her outer pocket. She carefully adjusted the bow on it and said, "This Wednesday is Christmas Eve. I bought you an apple, but I can only give it to you now. I hope you don't mind."

Xu Jiqing took it.

The gift box is wrapped in bright red and contains a beautiful red apple, which is very Christmas-like. Even the small card on it is very fashionable.

But in the transparent window, the words engraved on the fruit peel are "peace and safety", which is out of place.

Seeing that he had been reading this line of words, Su Xia's face also became a little hot. She explained to him softly, "There is no custom of eating apples on Christmas. I think this blessing is the best and most down-to-earth."

Xu Jiqing looked at her rosy cheeks and said, "Yeah."

Su Xia smiled, her two dimples sunken in, and her eyes were gentle and bright.

She seemed to have gained confidence, and she said the blessing again seriously, "Whether it is this year or when he grows up, I wish Xu Jiqing peace and safety every year."

Xu Jiqing tightened his jaw and responded again.

A few fallen leaves drifted down, and he leaned towards the wind and asked her, "Is Beijing cold?"

"It's so cold, about 7 or 8 degrees below zero."

Su Xia shook her shoulders, her voice crisp, like a bird hopping on a branch, "I'm terribly cold. I've brought a scarf and gloves, and several large ankle-length down jackets. Have you seen them? They're the kind that swimmers wear when they enter swimming competitions on TV. I thought I'd look fast in them, but I ended up looking like a caterpillar pancake. My mom laughed at me for days."

"The National Mathematics Competition seems to be postponed. It's almost the New Year. How cold will it be next winter when you make the provincial team?"

She raised her head. The boy had a sharp jaw and his long, straight eyelashes drooped, making it impossible to see the expression in his eyes.

Thinking of the national competition that Xu Jiqing had given up in his previous life, Su Xia felt depressed.

A surge of impulse surged in her heart, and she got so excited that she suddenly had a grand ambition that she hadn't had when she was chatting with Su Xiaojuan.

She raised her bright eyes and said, "I... I actually want to try to take the self-recruitment exam for a school in Jing City. If I succeed in the competition this winter, I can go to Jing City with you to take the exam next year."

Xu Jiqing later studied at Tsinghua University.

This is a place she could never reach in her dreams, but there are so many good universities in Beijing, who can say that she has no chance at all?

She didn't know how much she meant to Xu Jiqing, and how attractive it would be to study in the same city as him in the future.

Su Xia was almost relying on instinct, trying his best to tie the other person's fate to his own.

With that kind of background, how many times more effort did he have to put in to make it to such a powerful final?

Su Xia dreamed of sending him to that examination hall.

Her heart was burning with passion, and after she finished speaking, she was worried that the other party might not like it, so she raised her face cautiously, "Xu Jiqing, do you want to go with me?"

The boy was silent for a long time.

It was so long that she felt her question was too narcissistic, and then she heard a low, hoarse voice, "I do."

How could I not want to?

For the first time since he was born, he wanted to live for himself, and for the first time, he had a place he truly wanted to go.

Right next to her.

-

Finals week passed uneventfully.

The names on the honor roll changed a lot, but the names in the first row remained as stable as Mount Tai. The students of No. 1 Middle School began their winter vacation with endless calls for God Xu.

For Xu Jiqing himself, such honor is meaningless.

The suspension in his second year of high school meant that the prize money he might have won in the national competition was gone. He needed to work harder and day and night to complete his saving plan as originally planned.

Xu Jiaojiao is already seven years old.

With every year the little girl grows older, the possibility of her recovering normal language ability decreases by one point. Time waits for no one.

He came back early that day.

The doors of the old tube-shaped buildings are made of synthetic wood boards and have almost no sound insulation. If you speak a little louder, the sound will float through the gap in the door into the corridor.

The lights in the living room were on.

Lin Yuezhen was chatting with another middle-aged woman, their hometown dialect interspersed with faint sobs.

"...Everyone tried to persuade me, saying that the past was in the past... Ah Qing had good grades and could endure hardships. When we were in Ontario, the neighbors gossiped about our family, saying I was useless and Jiaojiao was deaf. A group of people banged on our door in the middle of the night to collect a debt owed by his father. If he didn't have the money, they would just hack at the door with a knife..."

"If it weren't for Ah Qing, Jiaojiao and I would probably still be hiding in the hut, not even daring to go out."

"I know that Ah Qing practically sold herself out to give us the opportunity to start over here. Jiaojiao can go to school and is smiling more and more every day."

"Even for Ah Qing, I swore that I would never look back."

"But I actually softened my heart," Lin Yuezhen covered her face with her thin hands, tears streaming from between her fingers. "He called me two days ago and said he had no family left in this world. He called me every month from prison for two years, and I was the only one who answered his phone."