Chapter 2
Lijin Garden is a relocated community located on the edge of the city center. It has been built for nearly 20 years and the various facilities in the community are relatively old. However, due to its good location and nice environment, housing prices have continued to rise in recent years.
It takes less than half an hour to get here by taxi from Jiayuan Middle School.
Jiang Wan and Chen Wulin finally parted ways on bad terms. When she got home, Jiang Huainan was squatting in the living room, struggling with a 29-inch suitcase.
Hearing the sound of the door opening, Jiang Huainan turned around and asked, "You're back. Have you eaten yet?" He tried to stand up, but because he had been squatting for too long, he felt dizzy when he got up halfway. Jiang Wan was blind and quick-witted. She threw down her schoolbag and came up to help him, but her foot accidentally kicked the suitcase on the ground, knocking him to the ground.
Although the living room floor was carpeted, such a hard fall could still be fatal for Jiang Huainan, who was nearly fifty years old. He lay on the ground, gasping for breath while facing the chandelier on the ceiling, but he did not forget to tease his daughter: "Jiang Wan, even if you want to pull out my trachea, there is no need to rush it now."
Jiang Wan was also hit hard, but she was young after all. She rolled on the ground and rubbed her arms before getting up on her own. She said stubbornly, "Of course there's no rush. You haven't told me your bank card password yet."
What a story of a loving father and a filial daughter.
After this fall, the two of them gave up the idea of going out to find food.
Jiang Huainan was applying a plaster on himself in the bedroom, while Jiang Wan was lying on the sofa in the living room, using his phone to order takeout. She ordered a few dishes according to her and Jiang Huainan's preferences. She was about to place the order, but after thinking about it, she told Jiang Huainan the names of the dishes.
From her favorite stir-fried beef to her father's favorite Huangshan stinky mandarin fish, Jiang Huainan listened in the bedroom and remained silent for a few seconds.
Jiang Wan called him but got no response, so she got up and went to his bedroom. Just as she was about to knock on the door, it opened, and a strong musky smell hit her nose. Jiang Huainan raised his hand and slowly stretched his muscles. He took the phone from Jiang Wan's hand and walked to the living room, muttering to himself: "Order another Fuqi Feipian, Xiaosheng loves it."
Jiang Wan followed behind in silence for a few seconds, then added, "Would you like to order some rice dumplings with fermented glutinous rice?" This was also what Jiang Sheng liked when he was alive.
In the evening, the father and daughter happily gathered around a table of takeout. Jiang Wan was already starving, but Jiang Huainan was busy taking photos of each dish. After taking the ID photo, he had to take a full-body photo, and after that, he had to take a family photo.
Jiang Wan stretched out her chopsticks and looked at Jiang Huainan, who was holding a mobile phone and burying his head in his circle of friends, with a bit of unbearableness.
Vain old people.
"Go and like my post." Jiang Huainan fiddled with it for a long time and finally looked up. Jiang Wan picked up his phone and clicked on the circle of friends, and his eyes went dark.
[I'm going on a trip tomorrow, and my dear daughter made me a table of dishes as a reminder.]
Jiang Wan wanted to say, "Old Jiang, you can act all you want, but can you please not bring me along every time?" She had already anticipated that when she went to her grandfather's house for the New Year's Eve dinner this year, her aunts and uncles would definitely surround her and ask her to show off her skills.
She thought there was no need to set off fireworks during the New Year, so she just set up a fire in the kitchen to cheer everyone up.
Not long after Jiang Wan clicked the "like" button, he received a message from Li Wan.
[Why is Jiang Huainan so ridiculous? Who is he showing off to by ordering a bunch of takeout?]
Jiang Wan wondered, if it weren't for his ex-wife, she'd definitely known her father's character inside and out. After Li Wan and Jiang Huainan divorced, they remained friends on WeChat because of Jiang Wan. Every time Li Wan casually posted a beautiful photo from her European trip, Jiang Huainan would eagerly post a hundred to prove he was doing just fine. The two of them quietly competed, neither willing to give in.
[Seeing through but not speaking out] Jiang Wan put down his phone. Jiang Huainan had already started drinking. He poured himself a glass of liquor and looked at Jiang Wan with the bottle in hand: "Have a drink?"
Jiang Wan picked up a shrimp and put it in the bowl: "I can't drink white wine."
Jiang Huainan said nothing, but just smiled, but there was a hint of loneliness in his smile: "When your uncle was your age, he could drink half a catty of white wine without blushing."
After they finished eating, Jiang Huainan cleaned up in the restaurant, while Jiang Wan lay on the sofa in the living room holding his phone and put a motion sickness patch on him.
A month ago, Jiang Huainan casually bought a drink at a canteen, hoping to get another one, but unexpectedly, he won a ten-day trip to northern Xinjiang. He initially thought it wouldn't be a good time to travel, considering Jiang Wan was about to take the college entrance exam. However, the prize wasn't something he could cash out, and Jiang Huainan struggled for days. Ultimately, Jiang Wan persuaded him not to waste his luck, saying she could handle the exam on her own.
Jiang Wan had been a poor student until her ninth year of junior high. After that, as Jiang Huainan put it, the Jiang family's ancestors finally managed to secure connections below the grassroots level, and Jiang Wan suddenly embarked on a path of retaliatory study. She even failed to qualify for the physics competition in her second year of high school, which became a source of obsession for her. Her dreams at night featured Newton and Galileo vying for her favor, scaring her into cold sweats. Later, she developed a fever of nearly 40 degrees Celsius, forcing her to be hospitalized.
Chen Meiyun held her hand, tears streaming down her face. "Are you sick? Do you want to be Marie Curie?"
"Just based on your looks, you're more than qualified to be an academic Daji."
"As many sci-fi books as you want!"
Jiang Wan still held her hand and answered weakly but seriously: "If I want to be, I will be the Academic King Zhou."
＊
I don't know when it started raining outside the window. The raindrops hit the nylon awning upstairs. The rain and fog gradually spread, and the lights in the distance became increasingly blurred and difficult to distinguish.
"By the way, there's something I haven't told you yet." After cleaning up the kitchen, Jiang Huainan wiped his hands and sat on the sofa.
After Jiang Wan ordered motion sickness patches for Jiang Huainan online, she casually opened the game that Chen Meiyun had shared with her last time and started working on the task. "What's going on?"
"The room above our studio was rented out a few days ago. I heard it was rented to a boy."
"It's not very convenient for you to stay in the studio anymore. Why don't you stay at your aunt's house for a few days?"
Jiang Wan felt that there was no logic between the two and said casually, "He sleeps upstairs, not in my bed. Why is it inconvenient for me?"
After she said this, Jiang Huainan fell silent.
The two of them were silent for a long time, until Jiang Wan inadvertently looked up and suddenly noticed that Jiang Huainan, who had been silent the whole time, had put his head close to her phone, almost sticking to it: "Husband?!"
Jiang Huainan stared at her with disbelief.
To be honest, Jiang Wan'er hadn't seen such a colorful expression on Jiang Huainan's face for a long time. She even admired it for a few seconds.
"Who are you calling husband?" Jiang Huainan pointed at the dialog box in the game with a trembling finger and questioned her, "Jiang Wan, the college entrance examination is about to start, and you're dating me online?!? Who the hell is this person?"
In fact, Jiang Wan himself didn’t quite understand who was who inside.
But she still put down her phone and asked Jiang Huainan sincerely, "There are four of them here. Which one do you want to ask about?"
＊
The next day, when Jiang Wan woke up, Jiang Huainan had already left, leaving her breakfast on the table. After breakfast, she went to the library to review. By the time she finished four sets of exams and came out, it was already past noon.
Jiang Wan was starving, but she still decided to go back to the studio for some noodles. She found a dessert shop near the library to fill her stomach. Just as her red bean smoothie arrived, she received a call from Chen Jin. Chen Jin was a teacher who worked with Jiang Wan's studio. Jiang Huainan had left the studio entirely in Chen Jin's care while he was traveling.
"Xiao Wan." Chen Jin is 28 years old and has just escaped from a failed marriage.
"Teacher Chen." Jiang Wan put down her chopsticks and met the eyes of a boy sitting across from her who had been stealing glances at her. Jiang Wan recognized the uniform he was wearing. It was from Experimental No. 3 Middle School, the same high school Chen Wulin attended.
Jiang Wan's beauty is obvious to all. When she has no expression, her face looks very cold, but when she smiles, she is very sweet. She doesn't look like a traditional beauty. She has a small square face, long and round eyes, and dark pupils. When she stares at people like this, it is hard to resist.
The boy looked away uncomfortably, and kept scooping from the empty bowl in front of him with his chopsticks.
As expected, when people are embarrassed, they will pretend to be busy.
Chen Jin told Jiang Wan that a sketching model would come to the studio tomorrow. Her child had a high fever and needed to be sent to the hospital, so she had to trouble Jiang Wan to entertain the model.
Jiang Wan didn't want to go home, so he agreed immediately.
Before opening his art studio, Jiang Huainan worked as an art teacher in a famous public school in the city. Later, after divorcing Jiang Wan's mother Li Wan, he gave up this lucrative position in the system and scraped together money to open an unpopular art studio in an old alley in the city.
Although the alley where the studio is located is very old, it has a nice name, Luoying Lane. There is also a time-honored noodle shop at the entrance of the alley.
It wasn't lunchtime when Jiang Wan entered the shop. The owner was hunched over the cash register, watching TV, while the shop assistants were cleaning with mops and buckets. A wall-mounted fan was swaying, blowing air.
The clerk looked at Jiang Wan and asked her with a smile if it was the same as before.
As usual, a bowl of fish-flavored shredded pork noodles. After ordering, the waiter pointed inside and said, "They're cleaning outside. Please sit at the table inside."
There was a customer eating noodles at the table near the kitchen.
As Jiang Wan walked over, her gaze lingered on the T-shirt he was wearing for a second longer. It was a limited-edition collaboration between F-brand and a top international luxury brand. Chen Meiyun's idol brother had one, and she'd been clamoring for it, too. Unfortunately, it was so popular that it sold out in less than 20 seconds on the first day of release.
Chen Meiyu was sad about this for a few days.
Jiang Wan thought that her birthday was coming soon, so she planned to buy her one. She also secretly looked for many channels, but the price increase was too high, so she couldn't make a purchase.
Unexpectedly, she encountered one right now. Jiang Wan suddenly had an inexplicable idea in her mind: should she negotiate with the other party to resell the clothes to her, or ask the person where she bought it?
Unfortunately, no matter how much she thought about it, she still wasn't as good as that. Jiang Wan sat down at the table next to him, and before the noodles arrived, she told Chen Meiyun about it.
Chen Meiyu immediately went crazy: It must be a fake.
Jiang Wan didn’t think so, because his temperament was not similar.
The handsome guy was dressed quite neatly, wearing a limited edition black T-shirt with matching overalls and a black baseball cap. This all-black outfit would be hard for most people to pull off, but since he had fair skin, the black and white combination gave him a more abstinent aura.
The handsome guy also has a good figure. Although he is sitting, it is not difficult to see that he has long legs and a tall body, broad shoulders and back, and the muscle lines at his elbows are beautiful but not exaggerated. It can be seen at first glance that he exercises a lot.
Yunyun wants to go to bed early: I don’t believe it unless you send me a photo.
Jiang Wan thought that this shouldn't be a difficult task.
Later I found out that this was indeed a very difficult task.
The crisp and mechanical clicking sound of the mobile phone rang out in this ordinary noodle shop bathed in the bright warm sunshine.
When the other person's deep and emotionless eyes swept over her, Jiang Wan held the phone without moving. She thought he would curse.
But no.
Even the person's originally expressionless face suddenly broke into a smile, and his half-closed eyelids revealed a bit of casualness and unruliness, as well as a hint of condescending disdain.
Although her smile is refreshing, the sense of oppression revealed in her eyes is quite lacking.
The young man tilted his head slightly, and under the pure black brim of his hat, his bangs gathered into a row, pressing down on his cold eyebrows and eyes, making him look even more fierce and intimidating.
Jiang Wan stared at the beautiful and sharp eyes. The more he looked, the more he felt a sense of déjà vu. A long-lost yet strange sense of familiarity gradually emerged in his mind.
She wanted to ask: You look like someone I know.
But I also feel like this is too much like a pick-up line.
"Actually, you—" She stopped mid-sentence.
Before Jiang Wan could even think of how to start, the other person had already calmly opened a can of Coke for himself, then looked back at her calmly: "Why don't you continue? Did you forget the words?"
Jiang Wan: Why are you urging her again?
"Do you want me to remind you?" The boy tapped the aluminum bottle of Coke with his slender and beautiful fingers, and seemed to think about it before raising his head.
"You look like someone I know."
"Did you want to say this?"
Jiang Wan was shocked for a second. How did he know that?
Lu Jiyu glanced at her speechlessly, his face full of surprise, unable to hide the truth. He rudely retorted, "You're from the Qing Dynasty, and you're using that phrase to flirt with someone? The internet is changing so rapidly. Why don't you go back and sign up for a class before you come out again?"
It’s this long-lost strong flavor.
Jiang Wan was sure, you don’t look like him, you are him.
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