Chapter 53
The other girl traveling with Jiang Wan and the others was Xiao Lin, three years older than them. She was attending university in another province, and the three of them had agreed to meet directly in Urumqi.
Jiang Wan and her friends' flight was delayed, and they landed in Urumqi at 8 p.m., but thankfully, it was still bright as day there. Chen Meiyun, dragging her suitcase, sighed excitedly. When the two of them left the airport, their hotel attendants were already waiting outside.
As soon as Chen Meiyu got in the car, she held up her mobile phone and kept taking pictures of the scenery outside the window. Jiang Wan also took two random pictures and sent them to Jiang Huainan as a report.
After Chen Meiyu finished filming the video, she added some music and posted it on her Moments with the caption "Beautiful Xinjiang, I love my China."
Jiang Wan was very cooperative and was the first to run over to like the post.
After clicking the like button, she refreshed her Moments again. Jiang Wan was sharp-eyed and noticed at a glance that another name appeared behind the Moments post she had just liked.
Ji Yu from Experimental No. 3 Middle School.
She pretended not to notice and turned off her phone, continuing to listen to the hotel driver recommending nearby restaurants. Chen Meiyun, who was sitting next to her, was chatting intently on her phone. Jiang Wan originally thought she was talking to Wei Lin, but she angrily handed her phone to Jiang Wan.
"Damn it, Zhou Zifang is so shameless. He actually copied our itinerary plan directly. I shouldn't have been soft-hearted and showed him ours."
Chen Meiyu specially paid someone online to plan the itinerary for Jiang Wan and the others.
While listening to her curse words, Jiang Wan took a moment to glance at the chat history between Chen Meiyun and Zhou Zifang: "Are they arriving tomorrow? How many people?"
"There seem to be four of them? But I heard Lu Jiyu isn't coming because he flew to Spain. Otherwise, I could have reluctantly joined them in a group."
Jiang Wan took out her phone and took two pictures of the setting sun in the distance. The cool evening breeze blew straight into her face. She took the time to ask, "Why?"
"Lu Jiyu takes great photos. With him, we don't have to spend extra money to hire a photographer."
Chen Meiyu is also a good calculator.
Their hotel was located in the heart of Urumqi. After dropping off their luggage, Chen Meiyun and Jiang Wan took a taxi to the nearby Wanda Plaza for dinner. Since they were leaving Urumqi the next day, their schedule was a bit tight. After dinner, they immediately rushed to the main attraction of their stop, the Grand Bazaar.
The two of them ate and shopped along the way, appreciating the exotic scenery of their motherland, and then returned to the hotel and lay down on the bed, too tired to move.
"Dong Lin will arrive in Urumqi tomorrow. She said she'll pick us up directly after getting a car. It's a long journey, so she asked us to prepare some food and drinks."
Jiang Wan opened the food delivery app, found a nearby convenience store, and suggested, "Buy some mineral water? And some bread and snacks?"
"Sure." Chen Meiyu, who was lying on the other bed, had been excited all day and was now so sleepy that she could hardly open her eyes.
"How many bottles of water do you want to buy?"
"Why not just buy a case?"
Jiang Wan was just about to ask if it was too much, but Chen Meiyu on the other side was no longer moving, her breathing was regular, and it seemed that she had fallen asleep.
After Jiang Wan placed the order, he covered her with the quilt and then quietly went to the bathroom to take a shower. When she came out with her hair wrapped, she received a call from the takeaway boy.
The things were all left at the hotel front desk. Jiang Wan thought for a moment and decided to just move them to the car tomorrow instead of moving them to the room. However, to be on the safe side, she still picked up the room card to check if the items were delivered correctly and said hello to the hotel front desk.
It was already one in the morning, and the hotel lobby was still bustling with people. The nights in Urumqi were quite chilly. Jiang Wan had thrown a sweater over her pajamas, her hair hanging loosely down her back without drying. However, the hotel reception desk was empty, and Jiang Wan looked around but couldn't find the takeout she'd ordered.
She stood there, bored, waiting for a while. The reception desk faced the open door of the hotel, and it was quite cold when the wind blew in. She was checking her phone to kill time. She heard the sound of a suitcase wheel rolling behind her, but she didn't pay attention. She just raised her head and tried to shout to the people around her: Hello, is anyone there?
Another gust of cold wind blew in.
But this time, there was something unusual in the wind, a faint fragrance, a cold woody scent, a little familiar, Jiang Wan had only smelled it on one person before.
Just as her thoughts were drifting, the roulette wheel stopped spinning three steps behind her. Like a sudden pause in a piece of music, everything came to an abrupt halt.
Jiang Wan didn't turn around. Outside, she could hear the constant clatter of cars speeding by, the smell of a distant barbecue stall drifting through the air, and the intermittent presence of folk-inspired music accompanied by the gleaming neon lights. In this early morning, which wasn't entirely silent, she could clearly hear her own heart skipping a beat.
Smell is indeed the most stubborn of human scents. Just the smell of something familiar would remind her of him. Someone plucked a string in her mind, causing her to have unfounded fantasies. And then—
"Hello, miss." The man behind her spoke. It was the voice of a complete stranger, and she didn't even need to turn around to confirm.
Spain and Xinjiang are separated by countless kilometers. She remembered his silence that day and knew that was his answer.
Jiang Wan couldn't say that he wasn't disappointed, but he felt that this was reasonable.
She turned around anyway and faced the man standing behind her in casual business attire.
The man put one hand on the handle of the 21-inch suitcase next to him and asked politely, "Excuse me, is the front desk staff not here?"
There was a "ding" sound from the elevator hall not far away, and a staff member in hotel uniform trotted towards them, repeating "sorry" over and over again.
Jiang Wan did not answer the man's question. Her attention was now completely attracted by the young man who suddenly appeared at the door of the hotel.
Behind him was the sound of a man talking to the staff as they checked him in. The sound seemed to float in a vacuum, making it feel as if everything was a dream.
But she was very clear that at this moment, the pair of eyes that were staring at her unconcealedly and giving her a tired smile were Lu Jiyu.
He wore a dark grey windbreaker with black casual trousers, and with his sharp eyes, even the circle of mud on his trouser legs did not make him look awkward.
Lu Jiyu was like a night traveler who had just traveled through countless time and space, and rushed back home in the night as dawn was about to break, at the last moment of his destiny.
Maybe she should go up and say hello to him at this moment.
But Jiang Wan suddenly turned around the next second and walked directly towards the elevator hall. Even when he was standing in the bright elevator, Jiang Wan's mood seemed to be still in the clouds.
She hadn't felt anything like "surprise" or "pleasure" in her life for a long time. She remembered when she was little, every summer when Jiang Huainan went away for recuperation, she would ask him to bring her a gift she wanted, a doll or an accessory. Jiang Huainan readily agreed, but every time he came back, the gift he brought wasn't the one she wanted.
Jiang Wan doesn't like it.
Chen Meiyu asked her why. Could it be that she didn't like the same doll at all just because it had a different color?
Yes. She doesn't like it.
Jiang Wan didn't like them satisfying her needs in their own way.
That's not love.
That can be said to be control, indifference, or perfunctory, but it is definitely not love.
After all, he never made mistakes when buying gifts for Lin Jun.
Jiang Wan did not go back to her room directly after coming out of the elevator. She paced back and forth at the door. A middle-aged man passing by their room looked at her suspiciously, probably thinking she was a criminal.
Jiang Wan finally took out his cell phone and called Lu Jiyu.
The person on the other end of the phone quickly picked up.
"Sorry, I have to take a call first." Jiang Wan didn't say anything after hearing Lu Jiyu talking.
Wait until we reach a secluded place.
Lu Jiyu said hoarsely: "I ran pretty fast just now."
There is no dissatisfaction in the expression, it is just stating a fact calmly and even gently.
Jiang Wan looked up at the several scribbled decorative paintings hanging on the elevator hall wall, and his mood relaxed. "No matter how fast we go, we can't be as fast as you. You can visit Spain and Xinjiang in one day."
The other end said lazily: "I want to, but unfortunately I don't have the energy."
"Why don't you go to Spain?"
"Didn't you ask me to come to Xinjiang?"
"Oh, you come just because I tell you to?"
"Yeah, I'm tired of playing with my older brother and younger brother, so I wanted to try something different."
After a brief silence of three seconds, Jiang Wan followed up his words and asked as if nothing had happened: "For example?"
The guy on the other end of the phone laughed, a bit helplessly: "What do you think?" Then he asked himself: "An underground boyfriend who can't be seen in public?"
He is more direct than she is.
Jiang Wan suddenly felt a sense of relief. She stared at the lines in the painting and said calmly, "Lu Jiyu, you said that yourself."
She couldn't hide her pride, and Lu Jiyu also returned to his usual tone, angrily retorting to her: "Don't be too happy too soon, aren't you smiling very happily now?"
Jiang Wan felt that he was a bit like a kitten with its fur blown off. She was very patient and smoothed his fur. "You're not happy, my secret boyfriend."
Who knew this young master was so difficult to serve?
"Oh, are you still unhappy?"
"So I said I was happy?"
Forget it, Jiang Wan and the others should change the topic: "Have you checked in?"
"What's wrong?" Lu Jiyu looked up and glanced at the front desk not far away.
"Which room do you live in? I'll come find you."
Lu Jiyu placed his fingers on the bookshelf beside him and asked, "Are you going to do something this big?"
Jiang Wan knew he was playing and deliberately provoked him: "Are you scared?"
I'm not afraid of a ghost.
Lu Jiyu twirled the room card on his fingertips: "1082, if you don't come, you're a dog." Girlfriend.
Jiang Wan hung up the phone directly.
Lu Jiyu stared at the black screen of his phone, rolled his Adam's apple, and cursed at himself: "You conspicuous bag."
There was a problem with the computer at the check-in desk, so Lu Jiyu lingered downstairs for a while before going upstairs. Room 1082 was just across from the elevator. As soon as Lu Jiyu got out of the elevator, he saw Jiang Wan standing at the door of the room, waving at him expressionlessly.
"If you had come any later, I would have been called to the police and arrested."
Lu Jiyu swiped his card and walked into the house: "Why?"
"People thought I was a thief."
Jiang Wan followed Lu Jiyu into the room, naturally enough. But just as she was about to go in, Lu Jiyu put his bag on the shelf and then dragged a chair into the hallway leading to the room. He sat down on it and stopped Jiang Wan from entering the room.
Lu Jiyu had been busy all day. As soon as he sat down, he took a deep breath, then looked up at Jiang Wan and said, "Tell me."
"say what?"
"What do you want to see me for?"
Jiang Wan remained calm and asked, "What else can a girlfriend do when she finds a boyfriend?"
On the phone, they could play around with this name for a while, but when they met face to face, Lu Jiyu still wasn't quite used to it. He changed the subject subtly: "What were you doing downstairs just now?"
"I ordered a takeaway but can't find it. I'm waiting for the staff to find it for me." Jiang Wan said as he looked into the bedroom. Lu Jiyi raised his hand, leaning it loosely on the hotel's dressing mirror, blocking people from entering: "Where are you going?"
Jiang Wan didn't give up and poked her head inside, putting her hand on Lu Jiyu's arm: "Is it not okay to look into your boyfriend's room?"
Hearing her calling him "boyfriend" left and right, Lu Jiyu felt itchy inside, with an indescribable feeling.
Lu Jiyu withdrew his hand, put his hands on his shoulders, and smiled with his chin half raised: "Isn't it the same when you look at yourself?"
"Everything depends on me, so why not just date myself?"
Lu Jiyu: What's the connection? How can these two things be connected?
He was very tired now and really couldn't muster the energy to deal with her: "I'm exhausted. I'm going to take a shower and go to bed. Can I play with you tomorrow?"
Jiang Wan had no intention of leaving, and looked down: "What's wrong with your shoes?"
Speaking of this, Lu Jiyu belatedly realized that he was feeling uncomfortable. He moved his feet, and the damp feeling was still vivid.
"I accidentally stepped in the mud when I was walking over here."
He stood up and walked towards the bathroom. It was obvious that he was going to take a shower, but who knew that Jiang Wan would follow him in. Lu Jiyu had no choice but to hold on to the door, blocking the man outside and not letting him in: "You want to follow me? You are a pervert."
He was a little angry, but Jiang Wan just thought it was funny. But she was afraid that he would really get angry, so she didn't get angry with him anymore.
"Don't worry, I'm just going in to get a hairdryer."
"hair dryer?"
Jiang Wan walked under the sink and took out the hair dryer: "Chen Meiyun fell asleep, I can't blow dry her hair."
Lu Jiyu finally came to his senses and leaned against the door with a tired expressionless face, looking at her with a hurt look: "After going around in circles for so long, this is the real reason you came to see me, right?"
Jiang Wan walked out with the hair dryer, leaving the bathroom to him: "I'm not angry that you're playing tricks on me, but you're angry now?"
"How did I play tricks on you?" Lu Jiyu said, realizing what she was referring to. "I told Zhou Zifang I was coming to Xinjiang, but he didn't let me join the group and kicked me out. If anything, he was playing tricks on you."
Jiang Wan was curious and wanted to ask again: "But you didn't answer me at that time--"
Lu Jiyu knew she still resented the phone call on graduation day: "I can't help it. I'm not only sensitive, but also pedantic."
"and you--."
Seeing that Jiang Wan was about to ask more questions, Lu Jiyu directly put a finger against her head and quickly pushed her out of the door, then slammed the door shut: "If you ask me again, I will call the police."
Jiang Wan: ...
＊
Chen Meiyu goes to bed early and wakes up early.
Because they had an appointment with Dong Lin to meet at the hotel at nine o'clock, they got up and washed up at seven-thirty, and went downstairs to have breakfast at nine o'clock.
The restaurant's breakfast was no different from any other, save for a few local specialties. Jiang Wan, who always had a good appetite in the morning, tried a bit of everything and even a cup of the local salty milk tea. She'd been curious, but it turned out to be surprisingly good.
Chen Meiyu had a normal appetite in the morning. After sitting down and eating a few bites, she realized that she had forgotten to bring her cell phone with her.
"Wanzi, take your time eating. I'm going upstairs to get my phone."
The table where Jiang Wan and her friends sat was in the middle of the restaurant. Directly in front of her was the floor-to-ceiling window, with a row of tables and chairs in front of it. Jiang Wan glanced at the boy in a baseball cap sitting at the table across from them, then looked back at Chen Meiyun. "Okay, I'll come up to get the luggage after I finish eating."
In fact, Jiang Wan had almost finished eating. As soon as Chen Meiyu left, a new WeChat message came in on her phone on the table.
Experimental No. 3 Middle School Ji Yu: Come over?
Jiang Wan finally looked up and towards where the sender was sitting. Lu Jiyu was dressed in a light-colored outfit of white and light gray. His hair had grown considerably longer than when he returned from the drive. Jiang Wan still preferred this length.
Lu Jiyu hugged his shoulders with one hand, put the index and middle fingers of his left hand together and hooked them at Jiang Wan like beckoning a kitten. The sleepiness on his face was still obvious, and his eyelids were half-closed and expressionless, giving him a vague and soft look.
The restaurant was playing a very soft piano piece, the melody was gentle and long.
Jiang Wan picked up the phone next to him and replied: You just arrived?
Lu Jiyu picked up the orange juice on the table and took a sip, then slowly typed: I was just about to leave when I saw you come in.
Jiang Wan leaned back and glanced at the boy opposite her while typing. The other party was also looking at her: Why didn’t you come over to say hello just now?
Experimental 3, Lu Jiyu: Are you sure you want it?
After sending this message, he suddenly stood up holding up his phone. Jiang Wan saw him walking towards him, but he just passed by without stopping. He shook his phone and said, "Zhou Zi, when are you leaving? Send me the time. See you at the hotel gate."
Jiang Wan was stunned: "You want to go with us?"
Lu Jiyu had already walked two steps away, but after hearing her question, he turned back and stood in front of her. Zhou Zifang on the other end of the phone had lost his patience and hung up, so Lu Jiyu simply sat down across from Jiang Wan.
"Zhou Zifang only rented a car, and there were four people in their car. What? Are you planning to let me lie in the trunk?"
Jiang Wan's face was tense and he seemed to think seriously for a few seconds: "That's indeed not good. Chen Meiyun is still waiting for you to take beautiful photos of her."
"That's great. I can finally make some contribution to society."
Jiang Wan could tell that this person was about to lose his temper again, so she pouted at Lu Jiyu at the right time and said, "Hey, try this."
She pushed the half-drunk salty milk tea in front of her to the other person.
Lu Jiyu raised his eyelids to look at him, and asked in a rather naughty tone: "Give me what you can't drink?" Although he said this, Lu Jiyu still cooperated and raised the cup to try it, but when the rim of the cup was about to his mouth, he had no time to take a sip.
There was a crisp "bang" sound, and Lu Jiyu paused holding the cup. He looked at Jiang Wan opposite him, who suddenly clinked glasses with him with a faint smile on her face, and was a little confused.
Jiang Wan hadn't put down the apple juice in her hand yet.
Gradually more and more people came into the restaurant, and the waiters who were busy cleaning up were shuttling back and forth in this small space.
There was a lot of noise around, but her voice was loud enough to drown out everything else.
“morning~.”
Boy friend.
She was toasting.
She is celebrating.
Lu Jiyu, having regained his composure, suppressed the strange throbbing in his heart and handed over his cup, clinking it with the other person's, and casually said, "Morning."
girlfriend.
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