15
The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus said: You cannot step into the same river twice.
Just as Zhong Yan had thought.
She won't have two summers that are the same.
Jifeng said she would have many summers.
Zhong Yan had no way to refute him, or refute a pair of eyes that shone brightly under the starry sky.
How could she describe this rare and irreplaceable summer?
A summer where even the sea was as beautiful as a jewel.
She was unable to sleep at night, pondering her future.
It's like examining a riverbed blocked by silt, pondering whether there's a way to reopen it.
Sixteen days ago, she would have been 100% certain to step into the sea; now, she hesitates.
COCO said that Jasmine Milk Tea Shop will launch new drinks on August 19th, and she was fortunate enough to be among the first customers.
Chen Baoran was going to teach her how to sculpt slender-waisted ceramic vases and animal head sculptures, guaranteeing that she would become quite skilled in the craft.
The baby petrels cannot be released into the wild yet.
Monsoon...
She told Ji Feng to see him tomorrow.
"See you tomorrow" is a promise.
Unlike the vague concepts of "another day" or "next time," it is seriously defined as tomorrow.
She didn't know how long this agreement would last.
Perhaps it will be at the end of summer, or perhaps it won't be until the end of summer vacation.
Perhaps it's because her mind is filled with more pessimism that she can't help but think about it.
One day, someone will break their promise.
Before that, she didn't want to miss "tomorrow".
It's like an addictive game that sets up incredibly tempting hooks to lure players into its world.
When asked about her gaming addiction, the younger sister's excuse was: "I want to know what will happen next, and what the reward will be."
Unknown events, unknown rewards.
Zhong Yan had never played games before, but at that moment she empathized with her younger sister.
The unknown is just too tempting.
She got up to prepare breakfast for Little Seagull.
Its breakfast is no longer suspended still by a rope, but is casually tossed out by the swallow, allowing the little swallow to fly over and catch it. The little swallow is not always successful in catching food, but everything is developing in a positive direction.
After Xiao Haiyan finished eating, she prepared breakfast for herself.
After shopping at a small supermarket, she now has basic seasonings and clean, pretty plates.
She fried eggs, toasted bread in a pan, and served it with softened cherry tomatoes.
The coffee table was wiped until it revealed its original color.
The small bottle also contained wildflowers picked from the roadside.
It adds a lot of life to the place.
Zhong Yan sat on the ground and finished her breakfast.
She looked around and suddenly realized that this was not her eternal "paradise" and that she would soon be returning to another world.
A world she would rather die right now.
This thought instantly trapped Zhong Yan again, and she couldn't even concentrate on swimming.
"What's wrong?" Ji Feng noticed that she was frequently distracted.
Distracted thoughts while in the sea are not a good thing.
Zhong Yan could talk to Ji Feng about anything, except for this one thing, which was a secret she had to keep buried deep in her heart.
"It's nothing, I'm just a little tired," she lied.
Ji Feng looked at her and didn't ask any further questions, but people with guilty consciences are always worried that their lies are not perfect enough, so they embellish them to make them more convincing.
Zhong Yan said, "My mom sent me some materials for the CET-4 and CET-6 exams, as well as review materials for the teacher qualification exam. I'm going to study."
Monsoon said indifferently, "Keep it up."
Zhong Yan changed the subject:
"And you? Have you achieved any results from your previous research?"
Monsoon said, "No."
Ji Feng wasn't particularly interested in talking about sex, but Zhong Yan still asked curiously, "Why?"
"There wasn't enough time."
Zhong Yan's eyes trembled slightly. "...Did I take up too much of your time?"
“This little bit of time is nothing to you,” Ji Feng smiled. “I just… ran into some difficulties.”
Zhong Yan had never heard Ji Feng speak like that before.
She suddenly felt sad for no reason, extremely sad.
She looked at him and said, "You can definitely overcome this."
Ji Feng responded softly, but did not continue the topic.
Zhong Yan learned the breaststroke on this day.
She can break free from the monsoon's grasp, swim a few meters, and then turn back.
The waves rise and fall, and she is a little yellow frog drifting with the current.
In the distance, children were cheering and splashing in the waves.
Seabirds soar through the sky, skimming past fluffy white clouds.
Zhong Yan's head would sometimes plunge into the water and sometimes rise above it, her blurred vision gazing at the monsoon floating in the water in the distance.
He seemed to be laughing and saying something, but she couldn't see or hear him.
All I could do was laugh it off.
/
In the afternoon, Zhong Yan went to the pottery studio to learn pottery from Chen Baoran.
Chen Baoran talked about his experiences.
"...My biological father was truly a complete scoundrel. My mother couldn't stand him anymore and left with my younger brother, saying that I still needed to study and couldn't be held back...I dropped out of high school and used my father's insurance money to buy this shop. Luckily, I still have this skill. I've always liked playing with mud. I wasn't very good at studying. The only thing that man was right about was that my education was a waste...Although he said that because he lost a bet and couldn't afford to pay my tuition."
"Although I have achieved nothing in my studies, I am not a useless person." Chen Baoran is very optimistic. Her pottery is very exquisite, with both cute cartoon styles and quirky and interesting styles. She can make a living with her skills.
Zhong Yan said, "You're amazing."
“You’re even more amazing. With such good grades, you have a brighter future ahead of you.” Chen Baoran winked at her.
Zhong Yan said, "I don't know, I... I'm very confused."
Chen Baoran put down the clay in his hand and slid over to her side.
"Feeling lost is normal. Nine out of ten people in the world don't know what they want to do. It's like hiking in the wilderness; not every intersection will have a sign telling you that this is the right way," Chen Baoran said. "I wouldn't dare say that not studying is completely the right thing to do. What if I went to school and became a billionaire?"
Zhong Yan couldn't help but laugh at her exaggerated tone.
Chen Baoran said with a smile, "We'll just see how it goes. If it doesn't feel right, we'll take another route at the next intersection."
Zhong Yan's heart pounded like a drum.
The next intersection is right in front of her.
"Thank you, Baoran."
"You never smile usually, but when you do, it's so sweet." Chen Baoran chuckled and pinched her cheek. "You should smile more, baby."
Zhong Yan couldn't help but blush.
She had very few friends her own age, and she didn't know how enjoyable it was to joke around with friends.
"If all else fails, you can do pottery with me. Your hands are very steady; you can carve such fine lines in one go."
“With steady hands, you could be a surgeon,” Coco said as she came in from outside.
“Yes, a steady hand can do all kinds of precision work. You see, you’re good at many things too,” Chen Baoran praised her.
"Ji Feng didn't come this afternoon?" COCO suddenly asked.
Zhong Yan said, "He said he had something to do and was at home."
COCO asked, "Do you have time to go to his house? My uncle said he urgently needed something, but he can't get in touch with him, so he asked me to bring it."
She shook the large plastic bag in her hand.
"But Ranran and I need to take Grandma Chen to see a doctor, please help us."
Zhong Yan had never been to Ji Feng's house before; she only knew from Coco that his family owned a detached old house on the island, right next to an abandoned seafood factory.
Before leaving, she made a special call to Ji Feng.
Coincidentally, she got through.
Ji Feng said he was busy just now, and if Zhong Yan was not available, she could leave it at the pottery studio and he would pick it up later.
Zhong Yan said she wasn't busy.
In fact, Jifeng knows best about her life on the island.
Without Ji Feng, Chen Baoran, and COCO, she probably would have stayed at home from dawn till dusk.
Following the location shared by Ji Feng, Zhong Yan walked for about ten minutes before arriving at the destination.
Most of the old houses on the island are privately built, and they vary in shape and color. Some have mottled walls, while others still have thick paint on the outside.
Ji Feng's house was clearly built later; the courtyard walls had been painted, but the wrought iron gate still had a European-style scrollwork pattern.
She found the video doorbell on the red brick wall next to her, pressed it, and the iron gate opened.
Zhong Yan squeezed through the crack in the door.
Unlike other "farmhouse" courtyards, the Ji family's courtyard is very tidy, with colorful stone flower beds and clean, new-looking anti-corrosion wooden floors.
Zhong Yan stood in the courtyard for a while when Ji Feng's message arrived.
"I'm in the backyard workshop."
Zhong Yan walked around the two-story building and entered through a side path.
The backyard has a cement floor, covered in mottled blackish-gray stains, as if it had been repeatedly blackened by some kind of fuel, a stark contrast to the clean and tidy front yard.
What surprised Zhong Yan even more was the monsoon.
The monsoon was dusty and dirty.
He stood in front of the garage door, one leg bracing against the closing door, wiping his face with a tissue. The small tissue was no match for the large amount of filth, and no matter how hard he tried, it was impossible to wipe it off his face in a short time.
"It must be hot outside, come in and cool off."
Zhong Yan carried her things and entered the garage through the crack in the door he had left open.
The garage is large enough to park four cars.
But there wasn't a single car inside; it was full of instruments she couldn't understand, and some kind of cylindrical shell hanging in mid-air.
Ji Feng usually keeps himself neat and tidy when he's out, but inside it's a mess. As he walks, he kicks bottles, cans, or steel pipes that he hasn't had time to tidy up under the table.
"Are you building something?"
Two machines were clattering away, their flexible robotic arms spitting out white material and "drawing" an accessory on a tray as they moved left and right.
"Okay." Ji Feng took the plastic bag from her hand, took out the materials inside, and put them on the table where he had just been working.
Zhong Yan looked left and right, finding everything novel and fascinating.
This place is just like the scientists' studios you see in movies.
Various precision instruments, parts reflecting a metallic sheen, and computer screens displaying various charts and parameters, both static and dynamic.
"Sit here and rest," Ji Feng said, pointing to an empty stool.
Zhong Yan pointed to the side of her face, "Your face is still dirty here."
Ji Feng wiped the small patch of dust a few times with a tissue, but still couldn't get rid of it. Zhong Yan couldn't help but reach out to him, and Ji Feng subconsciously handed her the tissue in his hand.
Zhong Yan approached Ji Feng, stretched out her right hand, and stared intently at the small patch of gray-black.
Through the tissue, soft fingertips gently wiped across her cheek, removing the ash and leaving behind a blush.
Before Zhong Yan could get a good look, Ji Feng hurriedly turned his face away, his hair sticking up messily under his baseball cap, and the tips of his ears had an unusual red tinge.
Zhong Yan hadn't noticed whether his ears were red before, nor did she know why they were red.
Ji Feng carried her on his back, leaving her with the words, "Sit down for a while."
He began to clean up the mess he had just made: a pile of burnt-out black ash and some test tubes and beakers with strange residue, as if it were an urgent matter.
Zhong Yan followed behind him, wanting to help.
Since cleaning her aunt's house, she has become good at cleaning and sorting things into boxes, which inexplicably relieves her stress.
The monsoon couldn't stop Zhong Yan's "kindness," so it could only assign her some safe and clean jobs.
Zhong Yan carefully collected the clean experimental instruments while curiously examining the drawings on the screen in the distance.
Are you working on aircraft engines?
“It’s just an improvement,” Ji Feng said. “Haven’t you heard the saying that large aircraft are considered the crown jewel of the industrial field, and the engine is the jewel in the crown? It’s not something that one person can do to overturn the table and redesign a new engine?”
Zhong Yan said with shame, "I didn't realize it was so difficult."
Ji Feng nodded and said, "If someone could effectively and safely improve engine performance by 100, engines could be directly iterated upon."
Zhong Yan knew nothing of this and could only stare intently at Ji Feng.
She wasn't used to looking people in the eye. At school, to avoid socializing, she always lowered her eyelashes and stared at the book in her hand.
People and things in the outside world are merely distractions to her.
She wasn't interested either.
However, the monsoon was a book she wanted to read.
She stared intently at him, trying to glean information from him.
Why is he so amazing and knows so much?
The monsoon becomes very talkative at this time of year.
He mentioned that increasing turbine temperature can improve engine efficiency and thus obtain greater thrust, but the increased temperature is limited by the melting point of the alloy, which involves how to protect these key components from being scrapped due to the melting point, and also involves material innovation, coating improvement, or the high-efficiency cooling technology and staged combustion technology that he is currently trying to research.
Zhong Yan was forced to cram in a lot of useless knowledge; information that she understood, partially understood, or didn't understand at all came flooding in.
She spoke up during a brief pause, suddenly asking, "Ji Feng, did I make you nervous?"
Ji Feng paused, somewhat taken aback, "What?"
Zhong Yan belatedly realized that she had spoken her true feelings aloud. In a moment of panic, she didn't know where to look. She was eager to explain, but didn't know how. She could only whisper the truth, "I heard from others that you talk more when you're nervous."
Ji Feng took a step back, his elbow nearly knocking over the test tube rack. He hurriedly steadied it before standing up straight, raising the brim of his cap, then lowering it again. After a moment, he smiled and asked, "Who said that?"
Zhong Yan said, "I don't remember."
Ji Feng glanced at her. "Do you know that you bite your lip when you lie?"
Zhong Yan quickly loosened her jaw and raised her eyes.
Just as Ji Feng was about to meet her gaze, he looked away. "Let's clean up later. Are you thirsty? There's ice cream in the kitchen..."
Zhong Yan stared at his ear from behind.
It seems to have become even more popular.
"Can I stay here and watch you do your research after I finish my ice cream?" Zhong Yan asked, holding Xiao Haiyan, as she caught up with him.
After thinking for a while, Ji Feng replied, "Sure, if you don't find it boring."
Zhong Yan then asked, "Can I come here to see it tomorrow too?"
Jifeng said, "Then we'll have to charge an entrance fee."
/
Saturday, August 16, 2025
Is the monsoon blushing?
Why? Because I wiped his face.
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