Chapter 55 Her name is Twenty-six...
Tao Siyun didn't know exactly what time she fell asleep last night. She vaguely remembered waking up several times in the middle of the night, only to drift back off again. Her dreams were so disjointed that all she could recall after waking were fragments, very vague. Her dreams were devoid of color and sound, like a disjointed pantomime she'd watched while asleep.
Tao Qian prepared breakfast and told her to get up, but Tao Siyun habitually stayed in bed. Winter is a strange season, prone to laziness. For someone like her who hibernates, the colder the weather, the more she becomes attached to her soft bed, like a baby to its mother's womb. Therefore, she simply couldn't get out of bed.
However, Tao Qian was like an alarm clock, knocking on the door every few minutes.
This is a habit he developed since childhood as an older brother.
This is a bit of a long story.
On Tao Siyun's first day of elementary school, she was startled awake by the alarm clock on her bedside table, which went off at the exact same time. Frightened to death, the little girl burst into tears. The family tried to comfort her for a long time, but Qin Shu finally removed the alarm clock from her room.
From then on, the task of waking her up fell on the ten-year-old Tao Qian.
The siblings' rooms were on the second floor. Every morning, Tao Qian would wake up ten minutes early, get dressed, and go to his sister's room. Because his parents had repeatedly warned him not to scare his sister, Tao Qian was extremely careful even when opening the door. He would tiptoe into the room and gently wake her, using various methods, including rubbing her face, pinching her nose, pulling her ears, and prying open her eyelids, to force her to turn on her phone.
After the little girl woke up, she put on her clothes and socks with the help of her brother, and then the two of them went to wash together hand in hand.
At that time, Tao Siyun was only a little kid, about the same height as the washbasin at home. Every day when he brushed his teeth and washed his face, he had to be carried to a small stool.
After washing up, Tao Qian took his sister downstairs, and Qin Shu would comb and braid Tao Siyun's hair while they were having breakfast.
"It's eleven o'clock. Let's go out for a walk after breakfast."
"Didn't you want to go to the supermarket last night? Hurry up and go early. It's New Year's Day today and there will be a lot of people."
Tao Siyun stared at the crystal chandelier on the ceiling for a long time. Amid Tao Qian's constant knocking on the door, he fumbled for his cell phone, opened it, and checked the time.
How can it be eleven o'clock? It's clearly not even nine o'clock yet...
She closed her eyes and buried her head in the quilt.
After a few seconds, he suddenly remembered something, turned over and took out the envelope that had been under his pillow all night.
There was a sentence written on the folded left wing:
Her name has twenty-six strokes.
The boy's confession was very subtle. Although it was seven years late, when she unfolded the paper again, her heart was still beating fast.
Tao Siyun covered his slightly red face and felt for the first time that his name seemed to have too many strokes.
…
Early in the morning, my cell phone kept ringing. After replying to the New Year greetings sent by my WeChat friends one by one, I felt sleepy again.
Seeing that it was still early, Tao Siyun prepared to take a nap, but she didn't expect that it was almost noon when she woke up.
It took her quite some time to get up. She finished tidying up slowly, and then the brother and sister went out.
While waiting for the elevator, Tao Qian casually mentioned: "I need to buy two pairs of Spring Festival couplets later and put them on the door opposite me."
"Ah?" Tao Siyun subconsciously glanced at the door of Xu Ji's house, and hesitated visibly. He said disapprovingly, "This is not good..."
"It's Chinese New Year, how can you be so embarrassed to only post about your own home?"
"But if we do that, won't it seem like we're being too proactive?"
Tao Qian snorted lightly, and suddenly said with emotion: "Sometimes, only when we take the initiative first will others appear passive. Do you understand?"
Tao Siyun looked at him in confusion, feeling that there was something else behind his words.
"I don't understand, forget it."
The elevator reached the underground garage on the first floor. Tao Qian drove out of the residential complex, passed Laixin Street, and glanced at the dessert shop at the intersection.
"Do you want some egg tarts?"
"Hmm..." Tao Siyun saw that many people were queuing up and didn't want to wait. "There are so many people. I'll buy it when I come back."
Tao Qian stopped the car and unbuckled his seatbelt. "We only have one box of egg tarts a day. Once they're sold out, they're gone."
Tao Siyun looked up from a break in Candy Crush and asked in a puzzled tone, "But why was I able to buy two boxes last time I went there? Does this also depend on luck?"
Tao Qian frowned, made an unhappy "tsk" sound, and reached out to pinch her face, "What do you mean?"
"Ouch...it hurts! Stop pulling my face!"
"Let me give you some basic knowledge. From a genetic perspective, our appearance is probably between 40% and 50% similar."
"You were the one who said my parents were partial and gave me all the good genes, so I'm prettier than you. Isn't that a fact you've already acknowledged?"
Tao Qian held her face and rubbed it vigorously, like kneading dough, "This does not include appearance."
"Let go!"
Tao Qian snorted, got out of the car, and the door was slammed shut. Tao Siyun lowered his head again, opened the WeChat dialog box, and replied to Xu Ji's message from a few minutes ago.
Xu Ji: Happy New Year!
There doesn't seem to be much difference between "Happy New Year" and "Happy New Year's Day" in terms of meaning, and he already said it last night...
Tao Siyun didn't know what to reply, so after thinking about it, he simply added a small tilde at the end: [Happy New Year~]
After a long while, Xu Ji asked: [What are you doing?]
Tao Siyun glanced through the car window at Tao Qian who was queuing outside and replied in a serious tone: "I'll sit in the car and wait for my brother to queue up to buy me egg tarts, and then we'll go to the supermarket together."
Things had been getting a little awkward between them since yesterday. Tao Siyun, realizing he knew his secret, took the initiative for once and asked, "What about you?"
Xu Ji: [At the tennis court, going home soon]
Not sure why, but Tao Siyun subconsciously asked, "Are you going back to your parents' house?"
Xu Ji: [Yeah]
Tao Siyun pursed his lips and typed a word awkwardly: [Oh]
Xu Ji added: [I will go back tomorrow]
go back……
Refers to the large flat in Jian'an Lane.
In the locker room.
Song Liwei pulled up his pants, turned his head and glanced at his nephew who was looking down at his phone. He asked in confusion, "What are you doing? Why haven't you changed your clothes yet? Your mom will call again soon. Are you chatting with your girlfriend?"
Xu Ji raised his eyes, hesitated for two seconds, and rarely explained to his uncle: "She's not my girlfriend yet."
Song Liwei said "Yo yo" in surprise, walked over and patted Xu Ji on the shoulder, and said jokingly: "You have a target? That's good."
He was fourteen years older than Xu Ji. He had never acted like an elder since he was a child. He was raised by his sister and brother-in-law. Basically, he was the half-son raised by Song Jing and Xu Jiang. He treated his nephew like a brother. "Do you have a photo? Let me see it."
Xu Ji put away his phone in time, opened the wardrobe door and began to take off his clothes.
"Hey! What's wrong with showing it to your uncle? You're so stingy."
"Keep it secret for now."
"Your character." Song Liwei laughed and punched him, then closed the door and went out: "I'll wait for you outside!"
***
Tao Qian bought Portuguese egg tarts and a bottle of hot milk.
The tarts come in a box of four, piping hot and generously filled. The outer crust is made of butter, baked to a crispy, distinct layer. The egg liquid in the middle turns caramel after being cooked. A bite of it is filled with a rich, milky aroma, and the texture is smooth and tender, like pudding.
Tao Siyun left two egg tarts for Tao Qian, unscrewed the milk and took a sip.
"Are you full?"
"Um."
After Tao Qian finished the remaining two egg tarts, he drove to the supermarket.
Tao Siyun has always liked going to supermarkets and shopping malls with her family. These shopping places, which are usually for family members, make her feel like she is back in her childhood.
One of the things she looked forward to most in the past was when Tao Daiming and Qin Shu would take her and Tao Qian to the supermarket on weekends or holidays. The family could spend two hours in the supermarket, with her father pushing the shopping cart and chatting hand in hand with her mother, while she and her brother would run ahead to pick out some of their favorite snacks and toys and then put them all in the shopping cart.
Looking back at my childhood, it was filled with warmth and happiness everywhere.
Many years ago, she saw the embodiment of happiness from her parents from a child's perspective. Fortunately, the happiness she felt at that time has continued to this day.
Tao Qian picked two pairs of Spring Festival couplets, and Tao Siyun picked two "Fu" characters.
"Let's go."
Tao Qian pushed the shopping cart with one hand on his sister's shoulder.
Tao Siyun walked next to him and threw a bag of finger biscuits and two packets of yogurt jelly into the car.
I had almost bought all the ingredients and snacks, but when I was waiting in line I remembered that I hadn’t bought the dumplings.
Tao Siyun stuck out his tongue and said, "I was so busy picking out pizzas that I forgot the most important thing."
There were a lot of people in the supermarket on New Year's Day, and there were long queues at the self-service checkout area and the manual checkout area. Tao Qian queued here and asked Tao Siyun to get a few bags of dumplings.
Fortunately, the frozen section is not too far away.
Peanut and red bean paste fillings are commonly eaten at home. Tao Siyun subconsciously felt that chocolate fillings would not taste good, so she very conservatively replaced them with the fresh milk Longjing tea flavored glutinous rice balls and taro paste glutinous rice balls that she had eaten before.
After closing the freezer door, she looked up and her eyes met the person who was looking at her from the opposite side. Tao Siyun stopped moving instantly.
"Si Yun?" Before she could speak, the person who came greeted her first.
Zhou Yu was wearing a dark down jacket and a pair of thin-framed glasses. He looked at her through the thin lenses. All the fatigue he had felt in the past few days disappeared the moment he saw her. A gentle smile flashed in his eyes. "It really is you! I thought I had the wrong person."
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