Chapter 44
Jian Sheng resigned herself to her fate and stopped. When she looked up again, the other person was already walking towards her.
She turned around slowly, waiting for Jian Qingyao and the girl next to him.
Not too close, not too far. The girl looked fair-skinned and wore a long midi coat. She was slender yet elegant. Her long, wavy hair reached her waist, and her lips were pressed into a straight line, suggesting she wasn't in a good mood.
As she approached, she smiled at Jian Sheng and said, "Hello, Ni Xiaoman."
"Aren't you going to introduce me?" She raised her arm and touched Jian Qingyao's arm.
Jian Qingyao's expression stiffened, and he pulled his arm back slightly: "Sister."
"Oh, dear? You're very pretty, hello little sister." She didn't care about Jian Qingyao's actions, her eyes crinkling with a smile, poised and graceful. "I'm your brother's... classmate."
He paused for a moment, but his tone remained unchanged.
Jian Sheng nodded and said with a smile, "Hello, sister."
Ni Xiaoman's bright eyes made her a little restrained, and her movements seemed hesitant. After a few seconds, she turned her head to look at Jian Qingyao, whose face was gloomy: "Why did you stop me?"
Jian Qingyao's composed face froze: "So you're taking your anger out on me, huh?"
He glanced at Ni Xiaoman and replied, "Cousin, you should go back first."
As soon as she finished speaking, Ni Xiaoman couldn't put on a smile anymore, and she didn't say anything; the air was silent.
Jian Sheng sensed something was wrong and frowned, saying, "I'll be going now."
She waited a while, and seeing that Jian Qingyao didn't speak, she was about to take a step when he called her again: "Where are you going?"
"What did you buy?" He snatched the bag from Jian Sheng's hand and rummaged through it.
"That's rude." Jian Sheng didn't stop her, but gripped her cold hand tightly. "Take it and give it back to me."
"Tsk." He made a lot of noise rummaging through the snack bag. "No manners at all."
Jian Sheng turned her head and inadvertently glanced at her elegant older sister standing next to Jian Qingyao.
Her hands were in her coat pockets, her eyes fixed on Jian Qingyao's movements, and her forehead was slightly furrowed.
Noticing her gaze, she turned to meet Jian Sheng's eyes. Jian Sheng's eyes flashed with amazement. Not knowing what expression to make, he could only twitch the corners of his mouth and nod slightly at her.
Ni Xiaoman was amused by her actions and raised an eyebrow and winked at her: "Where does your little sister go to school?"
Jian Sheng responded: "I'm in the second year of high school at No. 7 Middle School."
She thought for a moment, then added, "Are you in the same school?"
"Yes, he's in the same class as me." When Jian Sheng mentioned Jian Qingyao, he could hear the strangeness in her tone, a faint sadness mixed in her suppressed voice.
Jian Sheng pursed her lips. Jian Qingyao was in love with a beautiful woman with a gentle and elegant demeanor.
She glanced at Ni Xiaoman and Jian Qingyao a few times, then slowly lowered her eyelashes.
Just then, Jian Qingyao took a few lollipops, unwrapped them, and popped one into his mouth. He glanced at Ni Xiaoman, who was standing quietly waiting to the side, and gave her another one.
Then, the bag of candy and snacks landed in Jian Sheng's arms. She shook the bag and said, "Can we go now?"
Jian Qingyao still didn't let her go. He turned his head and said, "You go back first. Grandma asked me to take her out to eat."
After speaking, he smiled and raised his eyebrows at Ni Xiaoman, but there was no smile in his eyes.
Ni Xiaoman didn't move. He softened his tone and said, "Really, you heard what happened on the phone just now. I'll come see you tomorrow, okay?"
Hearing this, Ni Xiaoman finally relented: "Then... I'll go first."
"Don't stand me up," she said.
"No, let's go, let's go." Jian Qingyao put one hand in his pocket, waved the other at her, and then stood next to Jian Sheng.
"Why did you lie to her?" Jian Sheng looked up and waved to Ni Xiaoman, who was walking a long way but still turning back.
Her tone was indifferent, indicating that she didn't really want to get involved in Jian Qingyao's life.
Jian Qingyao licked his lips and pinched his nose: "Damn, it's freezing! My nose is sore from the cold."
“I didn’t lie to her. Grandma really called me. She’s going to see some kind of play with her best friend tonight and doesn’t have time to cook, so she asked me to take you out to eat.”
After he finished speaking, he showed her his phone, and the call log showed that it had been eleven minutes earlier.
She gave a simple "oh" and said calmly, "Can I go home?"
"Going home? Come on, let's go eat hot pot." He grabbed Jian Sheng's arm, which she was resisting, and pulled her upstairs in the mall.
Jian Sheng was discouraged. She was used to Jian Qingyao's unpredictable moods, but what was annoying was that she didn't really want to have dinner with him.
Even after being seated in the restaurant, Jian Sheng was still pondering how to leave.
The sound of ordering food stopped, and she heard Jian Qingyao speak to her impatiently: "Can you stop looking down all the time? You're clutching that tattered garbage bag so tightly. Nobody's going to steal it from you."
Jian Sheng didn't look up, staring at the grooves on the wooden table: "You ate it even though it was garbage."
Her tone remained unchanged, still very flat, so much so that it took Jian Qingyao a while to realize it.
He was going to be angry, but somehow she made him laugh.
Jian Qingyao let out a soft groan as the pot was served. He peered through the rising steam at her reserved head.
The warm yellow light gently caressed her melancholy hair, tracing down her forehead and landing on the wrinkles between her brows.
"Fine, I fucking love eating junk food." Jian Qingyao touched the cigarettes in his pocket, took out the lighter, paused, and then put it back along with the cigarettes. "Eating hot pot isn't about eating you, why are you so nervous?"
His calm tone was accompanied by the fluctuating sounds of conversation and laughter around him, which made Jian Sheng feel uncomfortable.
She put down the bag, smoothed her brow, placed her hands on the table, and looked at him with a stern face.
Jian Qingyao tossed her hair: "You've never eaten this before?"
Jian shook his head.
"You've never had hot pot before?" He raised an eyebrow. "Didn't Jian Zihua take a lot of money from my dad over time? That shouldn't be the case."
She didn't know that Jian Zihua had been taking money from her uncle: "One after another?"
Jian Qingyao paused for a moment: "You really don't know?"
Jian Sheng then asked, "He also took money from me...."
"?" Jian Qingyao's pupils dilated involuntarily, and Jian Sheng finally saw some emotion on his face other than impatience and irritability.
"You're not really fucking going to go with him to collect bottles in Jeju, are you?" He froze, "You...."
Jian Qingyao scanned her numb face, trying to elicit a reaction she should have, but there was none.
He couldn't understand why He Ying would call her grandmother and say that Jian Zihua would collect bottles to support Jian Sheng's education. What kind of nonsense was that?
"You really don't know?" he asked again.
Jian nodded in a low voice: "He never gave me a single penny, nor did he ever take out any money in front of me. Half of his drinking expenses were paid by me, and the other half..."
He said he earned it by collecting bottles.
So when she ran out of money, Jian Zihua told her to pick up the trash. He even said he had a secret trick to teach her, claiming she could make over a hundred yuan a day.
Jian Sheng's words stuck in his throat, and Jian Qingyao didn't say much either.
The plates on the table were served during the brief silence between the two. Jian Qingyao then started adding meat and vegetables. He had ordered a hot pot with two broths, one spicy and one tomato.
After he had almost finished eating, he went outside again.
As Jian Sheng watched the soup gradually bubbling in the pot and smelled the sour aroma of tomatoes wafting towards his nose, a sudden tightness gripped his chest.
As he hung his head, lost in thought, two small bowls suddenly appeared beside the table.
"It's ready. Dip it in any bowl you like, one spicy and one not spicy." Jian Qingyao said and walked away again. A little while later, he slowly returned with the bowl.
Jian Sheng looked up and whispered a thank you.
"Heh, now you know how to speak nicely." Jian Qingyao scooped out a spoonful of meat, and with chopsticks he hadn't used before, picked up several pieces of meat and put them on her plate. "Hurry up and eat, I still have homework to finish."
"Oh." He still has two days of vacation left.
Jian Sheng ate the food, which was burning her mouth, and sipped the plum juice poured by the waiter. It was delicious, and the hot pot was also very tasty. Gradually, the feeling of embarrassment faded away from her.
Seeing that she was enjoying her meal, Jian Qingyao was happy not to say anything out of turn.
The world has many facets, and so do people. According to his thinking, if Jian Guangyao loves him, then Jian Zihua will naturally love Jian Sheng as well.
But not all parents are the same.
Jian Zihua spoke in a high-sounding manner, rambling on with Jian Guangyao for a long time on the phone, and finally successfully received tens of thousands of yuan from Jian Guangyao. He thought it was used for Jian Sheng, which made her angry for a long time.
He could see some of her subtle movements and clothing items, and his mind was racing with conflicting thoughts.
For the first time, Jian Qingyao felt despicable because of his own arrogance.
He is not a conventional person in the strict sense, and he never restrains himself, but some of his behaviors and thoughts are influenced by positive education.
When I saw Jian Sheng, my first reaction was anger. I was angry because his father knew that Jian Zihua was gambling with the money, but he still believed that Jian Sheng would change him every time.
It wasn't until last year, when Jian Guangyao stopped paying attention and had a fight with Jian Zihua, that he realized his father had been supporting him all along.
This also led him to treat all voices equally.
His complex emotions slowly collapsed on the steaming hot pot, just like the vegetables that had been stripped bare and cooked in the pot, utterly withered away.
Jian Sheng continued to eat with great enjoyment, unaware of what the person opposite him was thinking.
At this moment, the unbridled laughter of the person sitting behind her became a normal backdrop, and could even inspire her to gradually become more and more excited.
After eating for a while, she noticed Jian Qingyao was lost in thought, so she waved her hand in front of his face a few times: "Aren't you going to eat?"
Jian Qingyao realized what was happening and nodded, "You eat first, I like it cold, I'll wait a bit."
"Oh." Jian nodded, picked up a piece of beef, tried dipping it in the spicy sauce a few times, and found that it was more fragrant than spicy. She was quite satisfied and continued to use the same spicy sauce.
"Are you two dating?" Sensing the unusual silence at the dinner table, Jian Sheng thought for a moment and asked, "That pretty lady from earlier."
Jian Qingyao was stunned for a few seconds before replying, "Mm."
“Oh, how lucky…” Jian Sheng blurted out for no apparent reason.
I finally spoke my mind.
However, Jian Qingyao wasn't angry. He smiled deeply and said, "You're right."
He is very fortunate. Ni Xiaoman is not only beautiful and academically better than him, but also gentle in nature. She is also a piano grade 10 student and has been dancing Latin for eight years. She is very outstanding. Her life will continue to be a flowery journey on the shining stage.
But he was different. He was a free spirit, impulsive, adventurous, undisciplined, and short-tempered person who would start cursing at the slightest provocation.
He's climbed too high.
"Then why are you so grumpy with her?" Jian Sheng swallowed the corn in her mouth and couldn't help but say.
Jian Qingyao didn't deny it, but he didn't want to say too much: "Kids shouldn't worry about so much."
“What do you mean, ‘kid’? I’m only two years younger than you.” She glared at him.
“If you’re not an adult, you’re a child.” Jian Qingyao took out his phone and did something on it, ignoring Jian Sheng.
Jian Sheng finished eating and sat down to wait for him.
A moment later, I heard him say, "Come with me to get something later, you can go back by yourself, I have something to do."
"Oh." He said he had homework to do, but Jian Sheng ignored him and asked, "What time is it?"
He glanced at the time on his phone: "It's exactly eight o'clock, not late."
A chill was blowing in from outside, and many stalls were set up at the entrance, emitting steaming white smoke.
The hustle and bustle of people coming and going and the noise of car horns seemed very lively at this time.
Jian Sheng followed closely behind Jian Qingyao to the entrance of a milk tea shop.
She stood a few meters away waiting. Jian Qingyao said something to the shop assistant, then came over with a cup of milk tea and put it in her arms, his movements not too rough.
Jian Sheng took it and said, "I'll take it back for you. Will you drink it when you come back?"
Jian Qingyao stood there for a long while before finally speaking: "Are you stupid?"
Jian Sheng understood what he meant, but she didn't expect him to be so kind.
She was holding the milk tea, which was still warm, and was about to speak when suddenly a familiar voice rang out from behind her.
"Didn't you say you had something to do and would be late?"
The two turned to the side, and three or four figures were walking towards them.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
