Chapter 31: Shells and Checks
The shell curtains and bead curtains were hung together, and the wind blew in, making a soft sound.
Holmes lay in a swaying sunlight, while Xia Cun sat on a window ornament, staring at his phone intently.
About half an hour ago, she received a notification that the package had been delivered to the post station, so she had been waiting for the message that Ren Yi had signed for it since then.
Finally, at some point, Xia Cun jumped down from her seat. Holmes was startled at first, then stood up and followed her. She took the large patchwork bag from the bag rack, stuffed the empty glass jar on the table into it, slung it over her shoulder and left the bedroom.
In the bright living room, Xia Lan was curled up on the sofa, working. She saw Xia Cun rush out without a word. After the door closed again, she teased Holmes, who was wagging his tail at the door, "What's wrong, kid? Is she ignoring you?"
Holmes looked back at her, tilted his head, and then ran to the sofa and snuggled up to the carpet.
It's actually not bad to have a dog. Xia Lan suddenly had an idea.
In a sense, Xia Cun is actually more like a dog, but the inspiration for her to create that comic was a metaphor from Ren Yi.
By then, her sister had passed away, and she was still in college. While she was at school, Xia Cun stayed with Han Fu until summer vacation, when she finally brought him home. She knew Han Fu's struggles managing the fruit shop while also caring for two children were tough, so she offered to let Ren Yi stay at her house for the summer. She knew that Ren Yi would suffer greatly, given Han Fu's partiality, and she hoped to relieve her of such hardship.
People are so tired, don’t work too hard.
Once, she took her two children to the amusement park. When they were at the dessert stand, they saw a black cat passing by. Ren Yi suddenly said that Xia Cun looked like it. Xia Cun was eating an ice cream cone and seemed not to hear anything. It was she who asked Ren Yi why. At that time, Ren Yi's language system was not rich enough. It was Xia Lan who perfected Ren Yi's point of view after continuous questioning.
In Ren Yi's eyes, Xia Cun was like an abstract cat, an abstract cat that appeared and disappeared, as if being blown by the wind or burned by fire.
Not long after that, Xia Zun disappeared on a rainy day.
She found her at night, and the inspiration for the long comic and her first work came into being. After that, she inexplicably went against her original career path. In fact, this was considered a lucky thing for most people. After all, she had never worked in the years since graduation, which had already surpassed 95% of her peers.
But the days of creation are also dark and gloomy, Xia Lan thought, throwing away the productivity tools, hugging Holmes and rubbing him angrily for a while.
On the other side, Xia Cun had already run all the way to Ren Yi's house.
She knocked on the door and it opened quickly.
Ren Yi was wearing a dark grey distressed T-shirt and matching cropped overalls that day, looking very cool, and her dark complexion made her look even cooler. It's hard to imagine her using a beagle as her profile picture, as she looks like someone who would use a photo of a rock star from the last century.
She glanced at Xia Cun, turned around and went into the house. When Xia Cun followed her in with ease, her forehead twitched and she couldn't help but speak: "Close the door."
Xia Cun never closes the door, always feeling that there is no danger following him.
"oh."
She turned around, closed the door, and then followed Ren Yi to her room in silence.
Compared to Xia Cun's cozy bakery-style living room, Ren Yi's bedroom didn't have much. There was only a drum set in the corner, a bed, and a desk. After Xia Cun entered the room, he subconsciously looked at Ren Yi's desk. It was neat and tidy, except for a delivery box on the table, which made it look a little messy.
Ren Yi sat down silently in the seat in front of the desk, without asking Xia Cun to sit down, and looked at the shells in the express box by herself.
Xia Cun walked over to her and took out an empty glass jar from her bulging cloth bag. The bottom of the jar made a dull sound when it hit the table. Then she said in a serious voice, "It will look very nice if you use this jar to hold it."
It was only after Ren Yi signed for the package that Xia Cun suddenly regained a sense of confidence, the same confidence she had felt the day she received the jar of shells. The only difference was that the shells she packed at the courier station didn't come in a nice glass jar, so she took this jar with her, as if that would be foolproof.
Ren Yi looked at the smelly shells in the paper box, then looked at the bright and heavy jar, and could not help being speechless.
What? Did you think she wouldn't be angry with you? What were you doing earlier? You didn't even say a word to her. What is she afraid of? Ren Yi didn't ask a series of questions until Xia Cun took the initiative to ask her again.
"Are you still angry?" It sounded like a validation.
"You think that's the gold you sent me?"
"Shells used to be money."
"The past is the past. This is the 21st century." Ren Yi picked up a pink shell and said, "I thought you didn't know I was angry."
"You didn't talk to me."
So she knew she was mad at her.
After hearing this, Ren Yi's attitude, which had been somewhat relaxed, became a little stiffer and a little irritated. Xia Cun was always like this. If she didn't talk to her, she wouldn't take the initiative to look for her.
It was the same summer three years ago. It was she who finally broke the ice with Xia Cun after their cold war, because she realized he couldn't even explain himself. If the bassist in the band hadn't told her that Xia Cun acted that way because he'd heard the handsome leader badmouthing her behind her back, she might never have waited for him to even open his mouth.
It was very annoying. What was the point of having a mouth? But she had known about this kind of thing for a long time, and she was not angry this time because Xia Cun didn't take the initiative to talk to her.
How should I put it? It's just annoying.
The more Ren Yi thought about it, the angrier she became. However, Xia Cun still stubbornly asked her, "Are you still angry?"
As stubborn as her hair, Ren Yi finally turned her head and said to her, "Yes."
"Why?"
"What do you want me to say? Can't you figure it out yourself?"
"Because you discovered that I really like Jiang Song."
Xia Cun suddenly spoke with such certainty that Ren Yi was furious.
This guy obviously knows everything, yet he still insists on asking her!
However, when Ren Yi saw that bewildered face, she immediately became less angry. She felt like being with Xia Cun was like riding a roller coaster, with her mood fluctuating.
Her tone was less aggressive, but still irritated: "You know it, and you're still asking."
Although it was a bit hypocritical to say this, when she heard from Miao Wen that Xia Cun and Jiang Song had left without a care in the world, she actually felt as if she had been forgotten on the deck. Or rather, at that moment, she felt as if everyone else had been forgotten on the ground, while Xia Cun had left the earth as if he had grown wings, and flew away with a vase boy.
What's so good about that guy?
Apart from being pretty and having a good family background... well, she didn't know anything else.
But how could Xia Cun have someone he likes?
At that moment, Ren Yi felt that her default "safety boundary" was breached by something, perhaps a helicopter, or perhaps Jiang Song.
She knew very well that Xia Cun was a dreamy person. She would be attracted to all dreamy things and would abandon all things that she was not interested in and hated. She was always immersed in her own world and her world would not accommodate more people.
But that day, she discovered that there might really be someone new in Xia Cun's world, someone who was more suitable to be a friend than her. She also discovered that she didn't want to be abandoned by Xia Cun at all, and she didn't want Xia Cun to fly away to a place she couldn't see.
So annoying. So hypocritical.
Ren Yi was getting a little annoyed with herself, so she suddenly stood up and sat in front of the drum stand to play the drums. After a long while of exerting all her strength, she turned back and said to Xia Cun, "Okay, I'm not angry anymore."
After she finished speaking, she saw that the shells had been put into a glass jar and placed on her gray and dull desk like a jar of candies.
Okay, I'm really not angry anymore.
…
The two went to buy milk tea. On the way, Xia Cun told Ren Yi that there was a new dog at home after she returned home. Ren Yi said speechlessly: "That's just a puppy that Sister Xiaolan took care of. She didn't raise it. Are you jealous of this?"
"How do you know?"
"The day after it arrived at your house, Sister Xiaolan brought the dog to my mom's shop."
Well, their relationship was that Ren Yi called Xia Lan "sister," and Xia Lan called Han Fu "sister."
Perhaps there is no clear dividing line between age and title.
Then the two of them went to the park with milk tea in their hands, sitting in the shade of the trees by the lake, not afraid of the heat. Ren Yi then told Xia Cun: "Actually, I was outside yesterday, with Miao Wen."
Xia Cun turned to look at her.
"What are you looking at? It was you who wanted to tie the knot for us."
Xia Cun just blinked and said, "What will you do together?"
"She invited me to a comic convention, but honestly, I wasn't very familiar with the characters... Then we went shopping at the mall and had some rice noodles and sausages together. This young lady is quite down-to-earth."
"What will you talk about?"
"We talk about all sorts of things: comics, anime, bands, school gossip..." She listed them off and paused, "And you."
Xia Cun yawned, showing no awareness of being the subject of the conversation.
Ren Yi: “…”
She knew Xia Cun might be about to start daydreaming again, so she finally asked at this moment: "What's going on between you and Jiang Song now?"
In fact, she wanted to ask directly whether Jiang Song would stop contacting her and whether he would leave her world forever. But that was too cruel and too boring. Why should she really care about what Xia Cun thought? Besides, he would leave sooner or later, right?
The boy's thoughts were flying in the park.
Xia Cun frowned when Ren Yi suddenly mentioned Jiang Song, almost imperceptibly, and it was very likely that she herself did not notice it.
After a while, she said, "Jiang Song sent me a message last night, saying he really wanted to play with me."
"Oh, and then?"
"But he said he was very busy when he got home."
"Scumbag talk."
"I will attend his birthday party in three days."
"Oh, I heard Miao Wen was also invited."
They seemed to be talking about the same person and the same thing, but they were inexplicably disconnected. After chatting for a long time, Ren Yi asked, "What about you following him? Will you let him know?"
Xia Cun seemed to have some sense of reality and turned to look at her.
"I'll give him a gift, provided he forgives me for stalking him."
"Does that mean you'll tell him about this?"
"Won't."
“…” It’s useless to ask.
"But I will make him agree to this condition before giving him the gift."
"Isn't this just a blank check?" Ren Yi complained, then asked, "What if he doesn't forgive you?"
Xia Cun was silent at first, as she had never thought of such a situation. Then she said seriously, "Then he does not have the virtues of a prince."
“…”
Ren Yi stared at that cute expressionless face for a while, and finally broke down, chuckling: "You actually still remember the prince's virtues."
This should be the topic that Sister Xiaolan discussed with them when they were very young while watching Disney movies. She remembered that Xia Cun's aesthetic taste for princes was very strange, but she had forgotten exactly how it was strange because it had been so long.
Xia Cun couldn't remember it clearly, but she felt that her aesthetic taste for the prince should have changed now.
She continued to think about what Ren Yi asked. If Jiang Song didn't forgive her, what should she do?
Then let’s change the conditions.
She imagined another condition, completely forgetting that she had not received this blank check.
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