Chapter 31
At seven o'clock in the morning, the commercial street was still asleep. Only the rustling of the cleaners sweeping and the whooshing of the early morning buses echoed in the quiet street.
Xie Qingyan arrived at Moyunzhai with her schoolbag on her back, took out her key and opened the heavy wooden door.
Before accepting the part-time job, he had already told Mr. Shen that he hoped to come to the bookstore early on the weekend to read. Mr. Shen, of course, had no objections and readily gave him the backup key to the bookstore.
The familiar scent of old books and the smell of dust wafted over him. He turned on a few lamps, and the warm yellow light dispelled the dimness in the room.
After putting down his bag, he didn't immediately start organizing the bookstore. Instead, he took out his thick Oxford dictionary and vocabulary notebook. His mind was clearest in the morning, and he planned to finish his vocabulary practice for the day first.
The bookstore was so quiet that the only sounds were the scratching of his pen on the paper and the occasional soft turning of pages.
Half an hour later, he closed the dictionary and rubbed his slightly sore eyes. After resting for a moment, he took out his English listening comprehension exercises and the black MP3 player, and pressed play.
There was no sound.
He checked the volume; it was fine. He pressed the play button several more times, but the MP3 player remained silent. Somewhat helplessly, he fiddled with this still somewhat unfamiliar modern gadget, trying a few buttons that Jiang Ci remembered operating, but to no avail.
After hesitating for a moment, he took out his new phone from his pocket. There were only three contacts on the screen: Xie's parents and Jiang Ci.
His fingertip paused for a moment over Jiang Ci's name before he pressed the dial button.
"Beep...beep..."
The phone was answered after only two rings. Jiang Ci's voice came from the other end, deep and clear, with the distinctive sound of dawn: "What's wrong?" There were no pleasantries; he went straight to the point.
“Jiang Ci,” Xie Qingyan’s voice carried a hint of barely perceptible embarrassment, “the English listening device you gave me isn’t working. I pressed play and adjusted the volume, but no sound came out.”
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone, followed by a reply: "Wait a minute."
The call was disconnected before Xie Qingyan could even respond.
Xie Qingyan stared at his phone, somewhat bewildered. Wait for him? Wait for him to think about how to provide remote guidance?
He was holding his MP3 player, trying to study it some more, when the wind chimes at the bookstore entrance swayed in the breeze, their clear "ding-a-ling" echoing in the air.
Xie Qingyan looked up in surprise.
Morning light streamed in through the open door, outlining a slender and upright figure. Jiang Ci stood there in the morning light, like an elf descended to earth, so unreal.
His hair seemed a little disheveled by the morning breeze, and his breathing was slightly rapid, though his eyes were bright and he was looking at him.
Jiang Ci actually came directly here? How did he manage that? You know, it takes about forty minutes by taxi from the Jiang family to here.
Unless he comes over as soon as he receives breakfast.
Xie Qingyan was momentarily speechless and just stared at him blankly.
Jiang Ci strode in, closing the door behind him to shut out the morning breeze. He walked up to Xie Qingyan, his gaze sweeping over his face to make sure everything was alright before settling on the MP3 player in his hand.
“Let me see.” He held out his hand.
Xie Qingyan subconsciously handed over the MP3 player.
Jiang Ci took it, glanced at it twice, gently pushed a small, inconspicuous switch on the side with his fingertip, then took out a pair of white earphones from his coat pocket and, without saying a word, naturally and gently inserted one of them into Xie Qingyan's right ear.
The cool plastic shell touched her earlobe, sending a slight shiver through her. Xie Qingyan's body stiffened slightly.
Immediately afterwards, clear and standard English conversation, accompanied by a slight static sound, flooded into my ears.
At the same time, Jiang Ci's faint, clean scent wafted in, along with his deep voice: "Idiot. You accidentally activated headphone mode, so the sound is only output from the headphones by default, and of course there's no sound from the speaker."
His breath brushed past her ear, and his voice, transmitted through the earphone, reached Xie Qingyan's senses with unparalleled clarity. Xie Qingyan felt a strange heat rising to the skin of her right ear and the small patch of neck where his breath had touched.
He hurriedly took off the earphone, as if it were a hot potato, his heart pounding. "I... this is my first time using this," he explained softly, his cheeks slightly flushed.
Jiang Ci glanced at Xie Qingyan's slightly reddened earlobes, a faint smile flashing across his eyes, gone in an instant. He took the earphone Xie Qingyan handed back and placed it back on the table along with the MP3 player, as if the almost intimate gesture from just moments before was perfectly natural.
"How did you get here?" Xie Qingyan finally found her voice and asked the crucial question.
Jiang Ci walked to the counter and leaned against it casually, his gaze sweeping over the rows of bookshelves in the bookstore. His tone was as indifferent as if he were just saying that the weather was nice today: "They've all gone out, and I'm quite bored at home alone. It's early in the morning, and I have nowhere to go." He paused, his gaze returning to Xie Qingyan, "So I came to take a look. By the way," he picked up the light blue insulated box he had been carrying, "I'll return this to you."
The reasons are sound and irrefutable. They disguised "coming specifically to see you" as "having nowhere else to go and just passing by."
Xie Qingyan took the insulated box, and her fingertips touched the warmth left on the box from the other person's palm, which warmed her heart as well.
"But won't you be found out if you sneak out? What if your father finds out..."
Xie Qingyan couldn't help but feel worried. According to Jiang Ci, his father would definitely send someone to monitor him.
"Don't worry, I managed to get rid of those people who were watching me." Jiang Ci didn't say how he got rid of them, but it did take some effort, but at least he wasn't being watched anymore.
Xie Qingyan had no doubts; he trusted Jiang Ci as much as Jiang Ci trusted him.
Remembering something, he turned around and took out the stack of junior high school textbooks and notes from his schoolbag, placing them neatly on the counter.
“I’ve finished reading through this set of junior high school textbooks and notes. I’ve learned a lot from them, thank you.” He said sincerely.
Jiang Ci simply gave a light "hmm," glanced at the books, and showed no surprise. He had already experienced Xie Qingyan's learning efficiency firsthand. He didn't even bother to look at them, as if he was certain that if the other person said he had finished reading them, then he must have truly digested and understood them.
He didn't want to mention Wen Heng. For some reason, the two words lingered on his tongue before he swallowed them back. He even felt a faint pang of regret—regret for borrowing the notebook, regret for indirectly connecting Xie Qingyan and Wen Heng, regret…for letting so many people see Xie Qingyan's brilliance. This pearl, which had only shone quietly in his dark world, was now being presented to so many more people.
This secret, possessive, bittersweet feeling lingered in his heart, but he would not voice it.
However, Xie Qingyan brought it up on her own initiative.
“By the way,” Xie Qingyan said naturally as he organized his textbooks, “this set of notes is really fantastic. It’s well-organized, highlights the key points, and adds a lot of common mistakes and expands on the concepts. After reading it, many things I only vaguely understood before suddenly became clear.” He looked up at Jiang Ci, his eyes clear, “Please tell Wen Heng for me how much he’s thanked me. His notes were a huge help.”
Jiang Ci: "..."
The bitterness in his heart spread instantly, like a drop of lemon juice. His face remained impassive, almost expressionless, except for a barely perceptible tightening of his jawline. He gave a curt reply, "Mm. I'll pass it on."
Xie Qingyan was completely unaware of Jiang Ci's subtle emotional shift. After expressing his gratitude, he put the headphones Jiang Ci had given him back on, pressed play, and focused intently on the world of English listening practice. His brow furrowed slightly, his eyes serious, he was completely absorbed in learning.
Jiang Ci looked at his profile, and the inexplicable anger in his heart quietly dissipated. He walked to the old sofa by the window in the bookstore and sat down, taking out the thick "Introduction to Calculus" from his backpack and quietly flipping through it.
Morning light streamed through the glass windows, transforming into warm beams that bathed the bookstore's slightly worn floor, causing dust motes to dance gently in the light. The bookstore was quiet, save for the occasional soft rustling of pages turning and the faint, almost imperceptible, English conversation leaking from Xie Qingyan's headphones.
One sat, the other stood, separated by a window, each immersed in the world of their books. A silent peace and tacit understanding flowed in the air, as if they were meant to be, sharing this tranquil morning light.
Time slipped quietly to 9:30, and it was time for my part-time job.
Xie Qingyan took off his headphones, ending his listening practice. He glanced at the time and said to Jiang Ci, "I need to go to work now."
"Hmm." Jiang Ci didn't even look up, just responded with a sound of understanding.
Xie Qingyan rolled up her sleeves and began skillfully cleaning the bookstore. She wiped the bookshelves, organized the scattered books, and categorized and put the newly arrived books back in their proper places... her movements were quick and quiet.
Jiang Ci remained seated on the sofa, reading, but her gaze would occasionally drift from the pages to follow the busy, slender figure. She watched him tiptoe to reach for dust on high shelves, carefully categorizing heavy ancient books, and the fine beads of sweat on his forehead…
Just then.
"jingle--"
The bookstore door was pushed open again.
A boy wearing a light blue jacket and black-rimmed glasses walked in, his gaze instinctively first falling on the pile of ancient books in the inner room.
It's Wen Heng.
He clearly hadn't expected that there would be anyone else in the bookstore besides Xie Qingyan so early. His gaze swept over Xie Qingyan, who was wiping the counter, and then, naturally, fell on Jiang Ci, who was sitting on the sofa by the window.
Two teenagers, one busy in the morning light and dust, the other sitting quietly reading beside an old sofa and a pile of books.
The new visitor stood at the door, his gaze shifting back and forth between the two.
The air seemed to undergo some extremely subtle and indescribable change at that instant.
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