Extra First Sight

In September, the scorching heat has not yet subsided and the scorching sun is hanging high in the sky.

In the garden full of flowers, the flowers that were worth thousands of dollars for people to appreciate have lost their former beauty.

Broken flowers were scattered everywhere, and the gravel road was covered with bloody footprints.

A large number of palace maids and guards fell beside the pavilion with gauze curtains, and blood gushed out like a stream, dyeing the bright lotus flowers blooming by the lake red.

A few sharp cries could be heard a little further away. The owners of the voices shouted to protect the emperor. Light and shadows flashed in the air, and heads flew into the air one after another.

As the majestic female voice sounded, the flashing of swords and sabers stopped, the chaotic sounds disappeared, and only a few faint gasps remained.

The sun sets, and the last bit of light disappears.

A torch lit up the darkness, and a woman wearing a crown came out of the darkness into the orange flames.

She stared at the old man lying on the ground with panic in his eyes, and a frown appeared on her stern face.

"Father, who says a girl can't succeed to the throne? I want to sit on your throne."

“Crack!”

"Filming is over, let's call it a day."

After the woman finished speaking, an inopportune voice suddenly sounded in the air.

Next to the pavilion, a young man with braids held up a loudspeaker and shouted "Cut", and the staff on the scene stopped working after hearing it.

The woman wearing the crown immediately stepped out of the role, took off her heavy yellow robe, threw the clothes to her assistant, and took the mini electric fan to fan herself.

"Thank you for your hard work, everyone. I asked my assistant to buy some coffee and desserts and will bring them to you later."

"Thank you, sister. I'm sorry to have cost you money again."

"You're welcome, enjoy your meal."

The beads on the crown on the woman's head swayed, following the movements of her master and saying goodbye to everyone.

The staff quickened their actions and quickly summarized the scene.

The other actors took off their equipment, drank water, said goodbye to the staff and left the set.

When the lakeside was almost cleaned up, there was some movement among the pile of corpses.

A purple hand emerged from the pile of corpses, grabbed the fake stone that was pressing on the body, and used both hands and feet to push the prop away.

A girl with two buns, a pale face and black blood at the corners of her mouth stood up from the pile of corpses.

She pulled out the arrow from her shoulder, smoothed out her wrinkled clothes, and found her fallen cloth shoes from a pile of weeds.

I shook off the stones in my shoes and put them on, then followed the route I remembered to get to where the staff were resting before it got completely dark.

There weren't too many people queuing here, and the girl happily lined up behind a few people.

After waiting for a few minutes, she came to the front of the line and wrote her name in an open notebook.

There was a middle-aged woman sitting opposite me. Without even raising her head, she glanced at the name, took out two red bills from a stack of banknotes and put them into a brown envelope.

"Xu Ran, right? This is your salary, a total of two hundred. Keep it. And listen to me, I'm treating you today. When you leave later, go to the logistics department to get a dessert."

Xu Ran's eyes lit up, and he took the envelope and thanked her repeatedly, "Thank you, sister, and thank you, sister Ting, I will definitely enjoy it."

The word "sister" made the middle-aged woman's eyes slightly curved, and her expression softened. "Go quickly! Otherwise you may miss it if you are late."

Xu Ran glanced at the queue on the other side, thanked them again and again, put the envelope in his pocket, and ran to the logistics side to queue up without even having time to change his clothes.

She was lucky because when it was her turn, there was only one portion left and a small piece of cake was broken, so the logistics staff simply gave it to her.

She thanked Sister Ting and the logistics staff again, and returned to the changing room contentedly to change her clothes. Then she put on her backpack and walked out of the filming base with two pieces of cake and coffee.

It was almost eight o'clock when I went out. Although the temperature was not as hot as in the dog days of summer after the beginning of autumn, it was not much cooler either. I could still feel the stuffiness when walking on the road.

Just a few hundred meters away from the filming base, Xu Ran's stomach started to growl. In addition, there were food stalls everywhere not far away, and she felt like she was starving to death just by smelling them.

He gave up the plan of taking the bus, took out the two hundred yuan that he had just received and a hundred-yuan bill, and walked to a sausage stand.

The stall is not big. Compared with other people’s carts, there is only a wooden table here.

The sausage grill was working, with two roasted starch sausages on it. There was also a foam box at the foot of the table with a sign that said "Popsicles" hanging on it.

The sausage stall owner was a girl about the same age as Xu Ran.

The girl had short yellowish hair that was slightly split at the ends. She was wearing a black T-shirt on her overly thin body and a pair of jeans with badly worn cuffs.

She sat on a cardboard box, memorizing words in a vocabulary notebook under the dim street light.

Xu Ran looked at the girl for a few seconds, pointed at the foam box next to her and asked, "How much are the sausages and popsicles?"

Lin Jin withdrew her gaze from the vocabulary book and saw the person who came put down the book silently and stood up.

"Two grilled sausages are five dollars, and popsicles are available in one, two, or three dollars. Which one do you want?" she said as she opened the foam box.

There were a lot of ice cubes and ice packs in the box. Perhaps because it had been so long, a lot of ice had melted and a lot of water was floating in the box.

Xu Ran took four popsicles that cost three yuan each, bought two starch sausages, took a bite of half of one, and handed the hundred-yuan bill to Lin Jin.

"Give."

Lin Jin paused, retracted her outstretched hand and shook her head, "I can't make the change, do you have any change?"

"Then I'll scan Fetion, and you give me the QR code." Xu Ran hooked his fingers around the plastic bag, freeing his hand, put the money back into his pocket, took out his phone, and opened Fetion.

However, Lin Jin still shook her head, "I don't have Feixin, you can take it and eat it, I'm going to close the stall anyway."

"No way, wait for me to change some coins."

Xu Ran looked around and walked to the front few stalls to ask, but several of them were busy and ignored her.

When I finally got the change and was walking back, there was a commotion in the crowd and someone shouted that the urban management officers were coming.

The snack stand owner who was busy at first stopped immediately, climbed into the car hurriedly and drove away.

After a period of chaos, the snack street immediately lost all its liveliness.

Xu Ran walked back to the place where he used to sell grilled sausages, but the place was already deserted, not even a shadow of a person could be seen.

She held the change in her hand, which was scattered in the wind. After searching everywhere for Lin Jin without success, she had to give up and go home.

The next night, after class, Xu Ran took several buses to get to Shudian.

Today's snack street is as lively as yesterday. After work, the extras and crew members basically booked the entire snack street.

There was a lot of activity in front of every stall, and the air was filled with the aroma of food.

Stinky tofu, hand-pulled pancakes, wontons, pan-fried buns...

Xu Ran walked around the snack street with a saliva in his mouth, but he didn't find the stall he was looking for. After asking around, no one knew where the sausage stall was, so he had to go home with the money in his hand for the second time.

From that day on, she would come to the store first after school, staring wide-eyed as she searched for the small wooden table among dozens of stalls.

Hard work pays off. After five days of searching, Xu Ran finally saw the familiar wooden table on Friday night.

This time the sausage stall moved to a new location and was sandwiched between two snack stalls.

There were two stalls, one selling fried rice and the other selling wontons, and both were doing very well.

The sausage stall in the middle seemed to be forgotten amid the bustling noise and not many people visited it.

As night falls, the yellow street lights on the roadside light up on time.

With the light source, the moths that were flying around in the sky like headless flies found their way and circled around the street lamps, flapping their wings and making an annoying buzzing sound.

Under the street light, Lin Jin sat quietly on the ground, reading a book.

Xu Ran took a closer look at the cover and saw that Lin Jin was holding a high school physics book. He then looked at the content and found that the page was turned to the second half, and the book was almost finished.

Xu Ran walked to the wooden table and stopped. "Boss, do you remember me? I bought something last Sunday but I haven't paid you yet."

Lin Jin looked up when she heard the words, and was a little confused when she saw the person coming. She relaxed her brows after a few seconds.

"It's you! I told you not to give it to me, so why did you come here specially?"

Xu Ran quickly refused, "No, it's not easy for you to make money, I don't want to eat a free meal." She took out a twenty-yuan note, "I brought change this time."

Lin Jin paused, glanced at Xu Ran's smiling face, closed the book, stood up and took the banknote, "Do you want to eat anything today?"

"Eat, let me think about it!"

Xu Ran scratched his chin, and tossed between the sausages and popsicles. His hand fell above the sausage machine. Just as he was about to say he wanted to eat the sausages, he heard a sudden commotion in the crowd.

"The city management is here."

As soon as the words fell, Lin Jin, who had been silent just now, suddenly looked flustered.

He hurriedly opened the cardboard box at his feet and stuffed the sausage grill into it. Then he folded the table, threw his schoolbag on his back and ran away quickly holding the box.

The same thing happened to the food stall next door; all the carts disappeared within a few minutes.

“Pah—”

A blue book was thrown to the ground.

Xu Ran stood there and watched Lin Jin running towards another street. His feet were faster than his brain. He picked up the book and followed her in one step.

By the time her brain came back to its senses and she realized what she had done, she had already run two blocks away with Lin Jin.

It has been a long time since I ran such a long distance in one breath. It was more tiring than running 800 meters in physical education class.

"Wait for me..."

Xu Ran leaned against the wall, gasping for breath. Looking at Lin Jin who was about to disappear from his sight, he finally opened his mouth to call her to stop.

"Wait a minute, I can't run anymore."

Lin Jin, who was at the front, heard the voice and glanced back. She saw Xu Ran leaning against the wall, gasping for breath, and slowly stopped.

"What are you doing following me?"

Xu Ran opened his mouth and gasped, fanning himself with the book, and walked forward a few steps, holding on to the wall, "Your book... your book fell."

Lin Jin turned her head suddenly. In her panic, she had not zipped her schoolbag properly, and the physics book she brought was long gone.

Xu Ran came to Lin Jin and sat down, "Here, how come you can run so fast... I almost... I almost couldn't catch up with you."

Lin Jin lowered her eyes and stared at the footprints on the cover of the book. She put down the box and the table, took the physics book, stuffed it into her schoolbag and zipped it up.

"It's just a book. There's no need for you to catch up."

Xu Ran waved his hands while panting, "Who said I was just returning your book... My sausages... They haven't been grilled for me yet!"

Lin Jin:......

Lin Jin glanced at the sky. "It's too late today. I have to go back to school right away. How about you come find me tomorrow?" She took out a notebook and a pen from the side pocket of her schoolbag. "Leave me your phone number. I'll let you know when I go to the stall tomorrow."

Xu Ran swallowed his dry throat and read out a string of phone numbers, "Are you going back to school on Friday?"

"Yes, I live on campus." Lin Jin repeated the number to confirm that it was correct before closing the notebook and putting it back into her schoolbag.

Xu Ran felt better, a smile spread across his lips as he asked, "My name is Xu Ran, what's yours?"

Lin Jin paused while zipping her clothes and lowered her head slightly to look at Xu Ran.

The girl was very beautiful, with a pair of bright eyes, which were looking at her at this moment, just like the brightest star in the sky.

Lin Jin lowered her eyes to hide the ripples in her eyes and gently uttered a few words.

"My name is Lin Jin."