Chapter 5 〇五かわいい
The background music of the game is light and cheerful, accompanied by the sound of footsteps, which is calming and healing.
In stark contrast, the living room was completely silent, as if every pair of eyes were fixed on the young man on the sofa.
He raised his head, his eyes sweeping over everyone there, including Xia Zun, and smiled nonchalantly: "Gomen, you know my memory has always been bad." Then he said as if suggesting, "If it's winter, it seems like it would be nice to go to Otaru for a walk."
Zhuo Manyi's originally ugly expression improved after the second half of his words, but she still seemed to feel humiliated. She stood up and said, "Let's talk about it in the winter. I'm tired and want to go back upstairs to rest."
She walked towards the elevator, exchanged glances with Xia Cunshi as she passed by, then raised her chin and walked into the elevator.
Everyone's attention then shifted to Xia Cun.
The girl still had that expressionless look on her face, as if nothing in the world could affect her emotions.
Her hair is as hard as her expression, and the ends of her hair always stubbornly stick up beside her ears, which adds a sense of movement, making her look smart and clever.
Zhou Yun couldn't help but move closer to Jiang Song and whispered to him, "Kawaii yo na?" (Isn't it cute?)
Jiang Song ignored him, lowered his eyes, and continued strolling in the game.
Zhou Yun didn't care, turned his head and shouted in another direction: "Sister Emma, I want to eat ice cream."
Emma is the life manager of the villa halfway up the mountain. She is in her thirties and is currently sitting at a small square table, making tea elegantly.
When she asked someone to bring the ice cream, Xia Cun had already sat down in front of the high floor-to-ceiling window.
Outside the window is a swimming pool, sparkling with blue light like a gem.
It is Xiaolan’s favorite color.
So what color does Jiang Song like?
He was playing the cutest game, but he said such sad things. Was he mean or sincere?
After all, he might not remember them.
She let her memory flash back, her thoughts racing. Finally, she pulled out her phone and wrote something down in her notes: "5. Bad or terrible memory."
Because he didn't remember her name, and he wouldn't remember her next summer.
"Hey, Xia Cun, do you want some ice cream?" Someone called her from behind. It was Zhou Yun.
Zhou Yun is an ugly boy.
Of course, this was just Xia Cun's aesthetic. In fact, Zhou Yun was also a popular boy on campus. He came from a well-off family in international trade, and he had a cheerful personality and good looks, which made him very popular with girls.
But he had a buzz cut, which was the main reason why Xia Cun thought he was an ugly boy. To her, he looked like a whole piece of uncut toast.
"Xia Cun, come and play with us." Banli was also calling her. He and Lu Xu started playing a card game.
Xia Cun refused Banli's invitation, but still went to get a cup of ice cream. When he was about to walk back to the floor-to-ceiling window, he found a fat blue cat appeared in the living room.
"Hey, Sister Emma, where did the cat come from?" Zhou Yun asked.
Emma smiled brightly upon hearing this and said, "It's Senior Cat. He has been living here all the time. If you mind, I can have someone take him away temporarily."
No one spoke, as if waiting for someone to make the final decision.
Lu Xu turned around and asked, "Jiang Song, aren't you always allergic? Are you allergic to cats?"
He won’t.
Xia Cun thought expressionlessly, and then he saw the blue cat running straight towards Jiang Song, leaping lightly, jumping onto the sofa and rubbing against his knees in a familiar manner.
Jiang Song finally put down the game console, reached out and rubbed the blue cat's head, and said for a long time: "Ka wa ei ei."
After a pause, he asked, "Emma-san, what's its name?"
"Oh, Tom." Ms. Emma replied in a gentle voice.
"Yo, I'm so uncreative."
Even so, he still rubbed Tom the cat. Emma just smiled and said nothing.
Xia Cun held the ice cream and looked at it for a while until she heard someone say to her, "If you like it, you can touch it."
She turned her head and raised it slightly.
He Shizhao stood not far behind her. He was a tall boy, about the same height as Jiang Song, with three-dimensional features, but he looked a little cold. He seemed to have left for a moment, then picked up the game controller again, walked past Xia Cun and sat on the sofa where Jiang Song was.
The two young men sat together, which was pleasing to the eye, but Xia Cun only had eyes for Jiang Song and the blue cat.
She wanted to take a sneak shot.
If she could draw like Xiaolan, she might be able to draw this scene, but she always gave up halfway and has not been able to learn to draw well so far.
She didn't go forward, and when she sat back in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, the ice cream had softened a lot.
It's avocado-flavored ice cream, her favorite color. What color would Jiang Song like?
They sat there until dusk fell and the chef prepared their first dinner since their stay.
Nine teenagers sat around a long table. Emma did not stay with them, but went to the staff lounge to eat with other staff members.
This was the first time Xia Cun had dined at the same table with them since joining the summer group.
She sat at the edge of the long table, across from Miao Wen, the girl who had sat behind her in the car, and to her left was Tong Anyu. Across from Tong Anyu sat Zhuo Manyi, who was next to Jiang Song, and across from Jiang Song sat He Shizhao. Further away, Lu Xu and Zhou Yun sat facing each other, while Banli sat beside Lu Xu, with no one across from him.
Even at the dinner table, Jiang Song and He Shizhao firmly occupied the center. This certainly cannot be called a discovery, but rather a long-standing prudent practice.
Xia Cun remembered Ren Yi's words again, don't be corrupted.
Then she thought of a movie she and Xia Lan had seen: The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. Xia Lan had said that the dining table was the stage for class. She didn't understand the movie, but she remembered the title and the meal in the movie that she couldn't eat.
But perhaps because it was just a microcosm of that stage, she still managed to have dinner.
The teenagers were talking in her ears. Zhuo Manyi was no longer angry. She even followed up on Jiang Song's words from the previous afternoon and started seriously planning a trip to Hokkaido for the winter vacation.
Seeing Jiang Song's laziness and indifference, she remained calm and asked the girl opposite: "Tong Anyu, your brother settled in Japan, right?"
"Yeah, but in Kyoto."
"Ah, I regret not taking Japanese."
Zhou Yun immediately took over the conversation: "Why do I remember someone saying that I was taking Japanese as an elective, and she would never enter the Japanese class?"
"Shut up!" Zhuo Manyi glared at him, her fair cheeks flushed.
Xia Cun stared at her, but sensed a gaze coming from the girl's side. She turned her eyes and found Jiang Song.
"What should we do tomorrow?" he asked suddenly, as if talking to her.
"Since we're here, of course we'll go to the beach," said Zhuo Manyi.
"But you said this beach was boring this morning."
"Zhou Yun, will you die if you don't talk back to me?"
Zhou Yun smiled, pretending not to hear, and changed the subject: "Since we're here, it's nice to go to the beach and surf."
When Lu Xu heard the word "surfing", he raised his watch in agreement. Then he looked at Jiang Song and He Shizhao, and they both seemed to have a calm reaction.
But Jiang Song quickly smiled and said, "Okay, I haven't experienced the beaches in China anyway."
The atmosphere immediately became more lively. Tong Anyu asked the boy next to him, "What about you, He Shizhao?"
He Shizhao said calmly: "You guys go ahead, I don't like sunbathing."
Zhuo Manyi bluntly pointed out: "You are always not with us."
"No," Zhou Yun also agreed, "What's the point of staying stuck in the house all the time?"
He Shizhao did not express his opinion, and Zhou Yun shrugged.
Lu Xu thought of something and asked, "By the way, He Shizhao, your family has a yacht here, right? Let's go play on it someday."
"Let me ask."
Still speaking in a cold tone, Lu Xu had no choice but to change the subject again.
Xia Cun noticed the girl opposite him. She and Miao Wen were the only two people who didn't speak during the entire dinner.
Miao Wen has bangs and her hair looks soft, which is completely different from her.
Perhaps it was fate, but Xia Cun had already met her when she entered high school. It was in the school library, the only shared space between the International Department and the main campus, where she met Miao Wen, who was reading a comic. It was the first time she'd seen someone reading Xia Lan's work in real life, and it felt strange.
As if sensing her gaze, Miao Wen raised her eyes. When they met, she showed a suspicious expression, but ultimately said nothing.
After dinner, the departure of Jiang Song and He Shizhao gave the other teenagers more freedom, and they began to explore other spaces in the villa.
Xia Cun also walked into the garden and then walked back to the swimming pool in the warm sea breeze.
She wanted to swim so badly, but did she never go into the water again after she learned how to swim?
She could never do the same thing for long, her mind was always jumping around and she had no focus.
The watch reminded her that it needed to be charged, so Xia Cun got up and returned to the villa.
The boys were away, leaving only three girls sitting in the living room. Zhuo Manyi was holding a copy of Fudge magazine and chatting with the other two. Seeing her heading straight for the elevator, she called out, "Xia Cun, won't you come and talk to us for a moment?"
"I need to go recharge."
"Hey, that's very rude." She complained.
At this moment, Xia Cun was sure that the person who said "rude" while climbing the mountain was not her, but it seemed to be a girl's voice, so could it be Tong Anyu?
"I'll come down again."
As she said, she simply put the watch down to charge and then went back into the living room.
Senior Tom was there too, but he was curled up on the separate sofa, showing none of the enthusiasm he had shown towards Jiang Song during the day. Xia Cun squeezed in to sit beside him, and he wasn't afraid of strangers, just moving further into the corner.
Zhuo Manyi looked at her and suddenly asked, "Were you staring at me while we were eating just now?"
Miao Wen also looked at her, as if wanting to say the same thing.
"Because you're beautiful."
“…”
Zhuo Manyi was stunned and forgot what she was going to say for a moment.
She knew she was beautiful, and had always been praised, but this seemed like the first time someone had said it so seriously. She paused for a moment, then raised her chin proudly, "You, you're quite cute too."
After a moment of silence, she asked the same question:
How on earth did she join them?
The summer vacation group was founded by Jiang Song's personal assistant, Mr. Mizuno, who brought everyone together. That day, the teenagers discovered a strange account they had never seen before. The profile picture was Gromit from the TV series "Dogman" and the ID was "Xia Zun Zun Zun."
On the first day she met Xia Cun, Zhuo Manyi asked Jiang Song who she was, but Jiang Song didn't know either, as if he didn't care whether there was one more or one less person.
It was not until this night that she finally asked Xia Cun about her origins, but she only got the same answer - it was a secret.
"What's so mysterious?"
Zhuo Manyi muttered, but in her heart she was thinking: Could she be a hidden princess? But apart from being cute, she doesn't look like one in any other way.
Thoughts are just thoughts after all.
She gave up asking further questions and instead asked a question directed at everyone: "What gift are you planning to give Jiang Song for his birthday?"
At the same time, Xia Cun received a new message, she opened her phone and took a look -
"Did you find anything today?"
The author has something to say:
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かわいい（kawaii）[sunglasses]
It’s so hard to guess who Jiang Song is praising. Could it be senior Tom?
A long-term prize-winning guessing game: Who sent the message?
The first person I guessed, I would praise her, hug her, and kiss her (crossed out)
Finally, here’s a basic Japanese tip: Jiang Song always calls someone “so-and-so-san”, which means “so-and-so-san”, and “existence” is “sauce”. “Existence” is pronounced in Japanese, so please imagine some pronunciations of “kawaii”!
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