Chapter 22: Blurred and Clear
The night was diluted by the lights in the corridor, and Xia Cun found that the corridor was very clear when standing here.
She was about to go and turn on the lights in the open-air garden, but He Shizhao stopped her.
"No need to turn on the lights."
"Maybe someone will lock us up here."
“…We are not fools.”
It turned out that she wasn't the weird one in this matter. Jiang Song was the fool.
All sorts of thoughts flashed through Xia Cun's mind, and he sat down at the round table in the garden in the dim light.
Her eyes gradually adjusted to the night, and the boy's features opposite her gradually became clearer. She saw that his eyes were also looking at her.
"What are you talking about?" she asked He Shizhao.
He Shizhao remained silent, as if he had nothing to say to her at all, and the last question he asked seemed to confirm this, because it was a stupid and meaningless question.
"Are you sick?"
In fact, he could tell the moment she started talking that her voice was different from usual. It was hoarse and slightly nasal, clearly due to a cold. But even more noticeable than these tangible changes was a shift in another dimension: the emotion that tinged her voice.
What kind of emotion is it?
Is it because of Jiang Song?
He didn't wait for her to answer that stupid question, but jumped to the next question, which might lead him back to the question he had been interrupted with on the yacht: "Have you known him for a long time? When?"
There is no named "he", but only one person.
Then Xia Cun's voice rang out, as if from another dimension. She said, "I think we met that day while climbing the mountain."
It was because that day that Jiang Song remembered her name and got to know her.
Her answer elicited a soft chuckle from He Shizhao, a mocking one. Perhaps he was mocking a liar, or perhaps he was mocking himself for asking another foolish question. In any case, he didn't believe her answer.
How can anyone say they "should" have known someone at a certain time? Isn't the answer to this question certain and unique? Just as certain and unique as they met on Children's Day seven years ago.
"Then I should go hiking too."
The tone was ambiguous, making it hard to understand his intention. Xia Cun could only follow his words and imagine what it would be like if He Shizhao had climbed the mountain with them that day.
If Zhou Yun hadn't sent him a photo of a table of Japanese food along the way, would Jiang Song still have given up climbing? Of course he would, because he didn't want to go down the mountain because of Zhou Yun's tricks. So what would He Shizhao do after he gave up?
“Then you will definitely reach the top of the mountain.”
He Shizhao would refuse to go back with him just like he refused Jiang Song's cookies. He would not indulge him and would go to the top of the mountain. However, He Shizhao denied her guess.
"I won't."
After all, it was just a hypothesis and he would never have reached the top of the mountain that day because he didn't go hiking.
Xia Cun didn't respond, perhaps because he didn't know what to say.
The night breeze whistled across the terrace. Was it the mountain breeze or the sea breeze? Could the chirping of insects in the wind be solely the work of insects and not fish? Would my cold be better tomorrow? What did He Shizhao want to say?
All her thoughts went back and forth, and she finally recalled the question she hadn't heard clearly on the boat. She suddenly asked him, "Do you want to ask that question again?"
His thoughts were suddenly exposed, and He Shizhao actually tensed up for a moment, but the night blurred his tension, and he then asked that clear question in a vague voice.
"You don't actually want to talk to me, do you?"
——These are all the questions he has about Xia Cun.
Or perhaps it shouldn't be called a question, but rather a fact he had known since childhood: because she hated his brother, she hated him too, and she didn't want to talk to him. And now, he was just asking her for confirmation.
He likes verification and everything that is certain.
On the contrary, Xia Cun was too vague, like a cloud of changeable shapes. The only thing he could be sure of about her was that she didn't want to talk to him. But he hadn't asked her for confirmation yet.
Through the dim night, he saw the girl tilt her head and blink her bright cat-like eyes, as if she didn't understand where his question came from.
"I don't."
So innocent and so sincere, I can feel it even if I can't see anything clearly.
But he didn't believe it. He was certain she had, regardless of whether it involved framing an innocent girl. "No? Then why don't you ever talk to me?"
She didn't talk to him when he was ten, and she didn't talk to him when they met again at school when he was sixteen. Now he is seventeen, and she still doesn't talk to him.
"That's because you don't look like you want to talk to me."
"That's because I know you don't want to talk to me."
She seemed to be frowning.
Did she feel that his arbitrariness had led to a misunderstanding of her?
She didn't say anything, so he seemed to have found another piece of evidence and said, "Look, you don't talk to me at all."
“…”
Xia Cun frowned, because it seemed like this was the first time she had trouble talking to someone, while in the past she was the one who made others feel troubled.
Is he a little weird?
She suddenly stood up and walked towards the bright light of the open-air garden. He Shizhao clenched his palms inch by inch as she moved, and the tangled thread of his thoughts began to grow wildly again.
But the lights on the terrace suddenly lit up, and more than just a spark appeared. He stared blankly at the girl approaching him, the girl looking down at him, and moved his Adam's apple, as if he was uneasy.
Why? She became so clear, so sharp.
"He Shizhao, you told me your brother was a self-righteous person, but now it seems that you are not bad either."
Xia Cun said without allowing any argument, "I've already said no, but you're still stubborn."
If Xia Lan were present, she would praise her for using two idioms correctly.
He Shizhao frowned, as if dissatisfied with her assessment, but also uneasy at the realization. He was speechless for a moment, but he didn't hesitate in his answer. "But you never talk to me."
"So, you actually want to talk to me?"
The question was so direct that He Shizhao couldn't help but choke.
Is that so? It seems so, but it’s not entirely true.
Suddenly, he became unsure.
-
The cold medicine seemed to have stirred all the long conversations into his dreams. That night, Xia Cun had a series of dreams, so much so that when he woke up, he felt like he had gone through another long semester.
She always dreams, and her dreams are always filled with various colors and details: golden banana trees, pink grass, fan-shaped flower rosters arranged like protractor scales, and black spots on rotten avocados...
Xiao Lan said that it was a sign of her active brain and that it would be very tiring, so she would forgive her for being distracted a lot of the time. But Xiao Lan also loves to be distracted. When her eyes are astigmatism, where will her mind abandon her dullness and go?
When Xia Cun woke up, the first thing he thought of was Xia Lan, and then he combed her curled hair in the bathroom.
There was a British variety show on the TV in the living room, watched only by Ban Li and Zhou Yun. Xia Cun, a piece of toast in her mouth, perched behind the sofa, as quiet as if she didn't exist. It was a pottery competition variety show, and she watched it for a while, thinking Xia Lan might like it.
Zhou Yun was aimlessly scrolling through his phone while saying to his class calendar, "How boring! If only Miss Zhuo were still here, I could drag her along to play with the clay..."
"If you want to go, I can go with you."
"Who wants you to accompany me? You're so boring that you can't even argue with me."
"I can also argue with you."
"Hiss...stay away from me."
As they were talking, He Shizhao came down the stairs. The two of them greeted him, and then noticed that his gaze was fixed behind them.
Zhou Yun turned around and saw Xia Cun unexpectedly. He exclaimed, "Wow! It's you... When did you start standing here?"
"Before I finish three slices of toast."
What kind of answer was that? But Zhou Yun wasn't really asking her. He just leaned back on the sofa and lamented, "Boring."
"You can study when you're bored. You haven't started your homework yet." He Shizhao had already walked into the living room and said to him.
"I'm just bored, you're trying to kill me." Zhou Yun pouted, but still picked up the iPad beside him and said to him, "But I haven't figured out how to answer my dad's question. Can you help me with it?"
He Shizhao took the tablet easily. At this moment, he and Xia Cun were only separated by a sofa and Zhou Yun.
The girl was standing on the steps behind the sofa, about the same height as him. Perhaps because her condescending attitude from last night was still clear in his mind, he could only deliberately restrain his eyelids from drooping to avoid meeting her eyes.
"Good morning."
The girl's voice rang out, and He Shizhao paused in taking the tablet. He raised his eyes to look at her. After a moment's gaze, he looked away again and said calmly, "Good morning."
As he spoke, he sat down on the sofa in an unnatural posture. On the tablet Zhou Yun handed him, words like "winery," "workers," and "production reduction" shifted like clouds, and only gradually became clearer after the girl left the living room.
…
Xia Cun followed the faint sound of the piano, searching through the tea room until the sound became closer. She pressed her head against the door, listening to the piano's movement through her body through bone conduction until it stopped.
She pushed open the door, and the two people in the piano room looked over at her.
Miao Wen, who was sitting in front of the piano, was a little surprised. After staring at the girl outside for a few seconds, she asked her, "Do you want to come in?"
Xia Cun paused for a few moments, then slipped into the room through the gap like a cat, and pressed his back tightly against the door.
So this is what it feels like to be stuck behind a door?
The heart will beat fast.
"Come and sit down, why are you standing there?" Miao Wen greeted, as if the previous silence did not exist.
Xia Cun walked over slowly and sat down on a chair next to Tong Anyu.
Both girls looked at her. Miao Wen looked at her for a while and couldn't help but sigh: "Okay, I didn't mean to scare you."
Xia Cun blinked in confusion.
Miao Wen and Tong Anyu looked at each other before saying, "Did you think everyone was acting weird yesterday?"
She nodded. They all seemed to be very angry yesterday. After returning to the villa, no one spoke. They finally spoke after dinner.
"Actually, it was Mr. Mizuno who asked us to do this."
When the two teenagers abandoned the boat and fled, the rest of the teenagers suddenly seemed to be shrouded in a shadow, with anger or grievances intertwined and changing, until Mr. Mizuno's video was connected to the yacht.
As if to appease them, he proposed a method of "counterattack" or "revenge", which was to respond with indifference and indifference.
The power is limited - he certainly won't come up with any truly lethal ideas, but at least this will give them a chance to vent.
Who made Jiang Song always disregard other people's lives?
And that strange girl, why does she always hang out with Jiang Song? Do they really have some unusual relationship? Was her joining because of Jiang Song in the first place?
"What about Xia Cun?" Miao Wen asked.
At the top of the screen, Mr. Mizuno simply smiled at everyone and said, "As an accomplice, I think I should scare her a little. What do you think?"
“…”So sinister!
"So, don't blame me for being ruthless. After all, you've been too much too." Miao Wen said.
Xia Cunze blinked blankly, as if trying to process some emotion. After a long moment, she asked, "What about Ren Yi?"
"Well...you'll have to ask her yourself."
Miao Wen's tone was a little evasive, and Xia Cun understood that the reason why Ren Yi ignored her couldn't be that simple.
There was no reason for Mr. Mizuno to control Ren Yi. He couldn't even control her, not even if he was Superman or Black Butler. Ren Yi only obeyed the supervision of Han Fu, the owner of the "Hard Woman Fruit Shop."
Xia Cun hung his head.
Is it all Jiang Song’s fault?
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