Chapter 37
"Lu Beibei, Li Mu and I have always been curious about what kind of girl you like."
"I didn't expect your sniper target would be a scumbag."
"People say innocent men are most likely to be deceived by bad women. Rounding it off, it turns out you are an innocent man."
Two days before the college entrance exam, Zhou Zifang, bored from reading at home, called Lu Jiyu to arrange a date. He didn't want to play basketball, watch movies, or do anything else, so he ended up taking her to the mall to browse the boutiques. Taking advantage of Lu Jiyu's presence, Zhou Zifang tried on every style in the store that he'd usually wanted to try but hadn't dared to.
Lu Jiyu sat on the sofa, either with his head down in a daze or fiddling with his cell phone.
The most outrageous thing was that Zhou Zifang tried on new clothes for the salesperson under his intense gaze. I don't know how many times he winked at the salesperson.
As a result, he asked whether the person was good-looking.
Lu Jiyu said without any hesitation, "It looks good."
Zhou Zifang was so embarrassed that he ended up spending a huge amount of money to buy a T-shirt that cost 30 yuan and was a buy-one-get-one-free deal at the Dongmen Market.
Then he regretted it as soon as he left the house. Zhou Zifang pondered for a few seconds why Lu Jiyu had schemed against him and began to make amends.
"I just said she was a scumbag. I didn't mean to say she was a bad person."
Lu Jiyu was walking ahead when he suddenly stopped and gave him a cold and arrogant look. "Back in our second year of high school, the girls from Class 6 called a scumbag on the basketball court, and who jumped three feet off the ground? Why are you still so hypocritical, brother?"
Zhou Zifang felt that Lu Jiyu was hopeless: "Aren't I just standing up for you?"
"Go find whoever needs you."
Zhou Zifang was provoked by Lu Jiyu's ungrateful look, so he stopped pretending to be a filial brother and started to speak ill of Lu Jiyu.
"But I think what you said was indeed quite harsh. What does it mean to fall in love with everyone you see?"
Zhou Zifang had just recovered from a massive loss and desperately needed to extort money from Lu Jiyu to soothe his wounded heart. After the two of them walked through the food court of the mall, Zhou Zifang chose a Japanese barbecue restaurant with an average cost of over 1,000 yuan per person.
Under normal circumstances, Lu Jiyu would have struggled a bit, or made some sarcastic remarks, but now he was so easy to talk to and just walked in.
After Lu Jiyu returned, he did wonder what was going through his mind when he said those four words.
In the end, it all comes down to his instinct. He can't change his sharp tongue, just like a dog guarding its food.
It was just past dinner time and there were not many people in the barbecue restaurant. The two of them chose a seat near the corner and sat down.
Zhou Zifang took out his mobile phone to scan the code and glanced at the person sitting opposite him.
To be honest, Lu Jiyu looked fine, clearly dressed up, and dressed in his usual shirt and casual trousers style. The limited-edition sneakers he was wearing certainly made Zhou Zifang jealous.
Zhou Zifang saw that he had been scrolling through his phone non-stop since he sat down, and even had to be urged several times before he was willing to order. Zhou Zifang thought that if this young master had not been the victim today, he would not have had such patience to serve him.
Well, since he's the sponsor.
After placing the order, Zhou Zifang offered some advice: "Actually, it doesn't matter if you said one or two wrong things. I think Jiang Wan seems quite reasonable. Just apologize to him sincerely and say that you were blinded by greed and had a momentary madness. I don't think he will give you any hard time."
Lu Jiyu finally looked up, his phone on the table. Zhou Zifang glanced at the still-lit screen; he was checking plane tickets. He was still the same as always, buying a plane ticket and disappearing whenever he felt down.
There was a Japanese song playing in the store. I couldn't understand the lyrics, but the tune sounded sweet. So sweet it made me sick.
"How to apologize? She deleted my WeChat." Lu Jiyu sighed.
Zhou Zifang was trying the free side dishes in the restaurant, but he didn't expect Jiang Wan to be so stubborn.
"This girl always looks calm and indifferent. She's pretty and doesn't have any strange temper. I didn't expect that she's actually quite capable." Zhou Zifang said to himself, and for some reason he felt a sense of admiration for her.
Across from him, Lu Jiyu leaned slouched against the back of the sofa, staring at him with a pair of shiny black eyes without saying a word, which made Zhou Zifang feel a little guilty.
Since the good way doesn't work, let's take the bad way.
"Brother, didn't I remind you a long time ago? Jiang Wan is not suitable for you, and now is the perfect opportunity to break it. What do you say--"
Lu Jiyu stretched his legs forward from under the table, and Zhou Zifang immediately covered his legs and screamed, "Damn it, Lu Beibei, you really don't know what's good for you."
Zhou Zifang stopped pretending: "I say you should buy a plane ticket to the capital right now and try to cry down the Great Wall and see if they'll pay any attention to you."
＊
Today is Jiang Ying's birthday.
Jiang Huainan picked out a few gift boxes of local specialties he brought back from his travels that neither he nor Jiang Wan liked, and went to someone's house to eat.
On the way there, Li Wan sent several messages asking.
Mr. Li: When your father went to your aunt’s house for dinner, what did he bring?
Jiang Wan knew that Li Wan would ask this question every year, so he sent her the photos he had taken a long time ago.
Jiang Ziya: Don't worry, none of them are valuable.
Li Wan just thought Jiang Wan was naive.
Mr. Li: Have you ever opened the gift box and taken a look? Maybe there is cash inside.
Jiang Wan thought that Li Wanping might have watched too many anti-corruption TV dramas, which had broadened his horizons and made everyone he met look suspicious.
Jiang Wan didn't reply for a long time, so Li Wan sent several more messages.
Mr. Li: You're still young, and you don't understand how deeply your father loves your aunt and her family. On your third birthday, your aunt had a miscarriage, and to comfort her, your father took the birthday cake I bought for you directly to her family's home. And later, when your uncle was laid off, your father gave money to her family several times, both overtly and covertly.
Mr. Li: I'm not that sophisticated and self-serving. She's your father's biological sister. When someone's in trouble, we should help where we can, but we can't do that by robbing Peter to pay Paul, right? We're not short of money now, but I won't let any of Jiang Wan's money go to anyone else.
When Chen Meiyun was in fourth grade, she came to visit Jiang Wan's house. Jiang Ying had been discharged from the hospital after surgery that day, and Jiang Huainan and Li Wan had been planning to visit her. But less than two hours later, they suddenly returned and erupted in a heated argument in Jiang Wan's living room.
Chen Meiyun, who was hiding in the room with Jiang Wan at the time, was frightened and shocked. She whispered to Jiang Wan, "Uncle and Auntie are obviously very good people, why did they quarrel like this?"
This problem is unsolvable, not to mention at that time, even for Jiang Wan now.
Perhaps the end of any intimate relationship is nothing more than regret and bad words.
Today, Jiang Ying personally cooked a table full of dishes. Jiang Huainan recounted his experiences in Saibei. Jiang Ying's husband, a quiet man, occasionally agreed with Jiang Huainan, but spent the rest of the meal drinking. Halfway through the meal, Lin Jun brought in a cake. Jiang Ying closed her eyes, blew out the candles, and wished Lin Jun good grades on this year's high school entrance exam.
Lin Jun stood aside with a frown on his face. Jiang Wan saw it and glared at him. The other party immediately stood still.
After finishing the cake, only three adults were left at the table. Jiang Wan used the excuse of checking Lin Jun's homework as an excuse, and the two of them went to their room to kill time.
Lin Jun was lying on the bed reading a racing magazine, and out of the corner of his eye he glanced at Jiang Wan who was playing Minesweeper in front of his computer.
"Sister, didn't you say you would give me tutoring?" He said this deliberately.
Jiang Wan turned his head to face him: "Why, do you really want to learn?"
Lin Jun immediately curled his lips and turned over in bed: "Just pretend I didn't say anything."
After playing for a few rounds, Jiang Wan felt that it was boring. She stood up and looked around Lin Jun's room. There were a lot of things and they were messy. There was a pile of Lego models in the corner, placed crookedly, and covered with a thin layer of dust.
Then, quite casually, she thought of someone's room. She had been there twice, and except for the two snowboards in the corner of the restaurant, the rest was so clean that it looked like no one had ever lived there.
"Lin Jun, let me ask you a question."
Jiang Wan stood at the head of the bed, his hands on his shoulders, his face serious.
Lin Jun put down the comic book in his hand, slowly turned his head, and looked at Jiang Wan with his small eyes full of confusion.
"Suppose there's a very beautiful girl who's excellent in every way and likes you. She's showing her affection to you, and you—" Jiang Wan paused before continuing, "and you're also very interested in her."
"But one day you accidentally discovered that she was a 'sea king' in the past. Would you think that she was just playing around with you, or was she really serious about coming ashore?"
Jiang Wan asked seriously, but Lin Jun couldn't help but burst out laughing.
"Sister." He pointed at himself and said, "Do you think a beautiful female sea king like me would be interested in me? I'm also a Ka Yan, okay?"
"You ask a question that I really can't answer."
It was rare for a kid like Lin Jun to be so self-aware. She looked at him with regret. Actually, the Jiang family's genes were pretty good. Jiang Ying wasn't exactly beautiful, but she was pretty much ahead of her peers. It was just that Lin Jun hadn't inherited any of the Jiang family's beauty genes.
"Since you know everything, why don't you study hard? Are you really planning to rely on your parents for support in the future?" Jiang Wan rarely acted like an older sister in front of Lin Jun, except when she wanted to beat him up.
Lin Jun curled his lips: "I just don't like studying. I'm not a born study maniac like you guys. Last time your dad used you as an example to say that you could finish ten papers in one night. Please, I can still work hard if you ask me to eat ten bowls of rice in one meal, but forget it if I have to finish ten papers."
"Also, sister, which handsome guy have you taken a fancy to now?"
Jiang Wan?
Lin Jun sat up from the bed and counted on his fingers as he recalled to her: "Beautiful, excellent in all aspects, and a female sea king, isn't this you?"
Jiang Wan refused to accept the offer and pretended to hit him: "Who do you say is the Queen of the Sea?"
Lin Jun dodged and begged for mercy: "I'm wrong, I'm wrong, it's the female Pirate King, you are the female Pirate King!"
＊
When I returned home in the evening, it started to drizzle.
Jiang Huainan's second-hand Volkswagen was driving at 50 mph on the city's main road, with occasional impatient horns honking from behind. But Jiang Huainan, with his calm demeanor, was not in a hurry at all.
Jiang Wan sat in the co-pilot seat, adjusting the radio frequency, and finally found a music station among Peking Opera and international news.
There is a huge traffic jam at the red light at the intersection.
Jiang Huainan glanced around, then looked at Jiang Wan, who was sitting in the passenger seat, staring blankly at her phone. He couldn't help but secretly glance at her phone screen. It was a pitch-black profile picture, and he couldn't see it clearly, but his intuition and common sense told him that it was a boy's profile picture.
Alarm bells suddenly rang in Jiang Huainan's mind.
He cleared his throat. "What are you looking at so intently? Be careful not to damage your eyes. Do you remember when you were little and saw your deskmate wearing glasses? You were so envious and insisted on wearing glasses too. But your mother—your mother took you to the optician's and said your eyesight was fine. But you refused to give in. When you got home, you started acting up. You read in the scorching sun and deliberately watched TV very close to the TV. Then one day at dinner, you happily announced that you couldn't see the words on the blackboard clearly. Your mother was very angry, but she had no choice but to take you to get glasses."
"But after wearing glasses, you felt ugly and sad, so you tried every possible way to restore your eyesight. Your mother and I scolded you for this. But with your persistence, you actually healed your eyes. You really are a person with great endurance in everything you do."
Jiang Wan was too lazy to expose him. She clearly remembered that Jiang Huainan had said that she liked to mess around for no reason, which not only wasted people's energy but also wasted money.
How did it suddenly change, and after being polished over the years, it became one of her good qualities.
Jiang Wan looked out the window at the wet street and sighed deliberately, "Raising a child is really hard."
The streets were bustling with traffic. A family of three, holding umbrellas, crossed the crosswalk. The young father held his child on his shoulders, while the mother, laughing, tried to stop them. The child was so happy that he kicked his legs, and his light yellow rain boots were wet and shiny in the streetlight.
Jiang Huainan nodded: "That's what I thought at the time, but now I think about it, you are a very worry-free child."
Jiang Wan turned up the volume of the radio a few notches: "Worry-free is not a good compliment."
Jiang Huainan didn't hear clearly. Just as the car in front of him started moving, he asked something in a panic. However, not many cars moved in front of him and the traffic light turned red again.
Jiang Wan leaned back in his chair, letting the traffic jam make him a little sleepy. "Old Jiang, do you know what's worse than falling in love with the same man three times?"
Jiang Huainan looked at Jiang Wan in disbelief.
"I waited for the red light three times at the same intersection."
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