Chapter 32 Chapter 32 Elementary School Students’ Douqi Journey to Kansai…
"Huh, I'm so hungry, this is the taste~!" Sitting in a private noodle shop deep in the alley, Quan Xingai tasted the flavor she missed. She originally planned to eat Ichiran Ramen, a chain store, but when she arrived at the store, she found a long line in front of the store and she would have to wait at least an hour for a seat. Neither Quan Xingai nor Quan Zhilong were the type of people who could wait in a long line, so they simply left.
Then Quan Xingai thought of a nearby home-cooked ramen restaurant that had been open for almost three generations.
This trip was all about love, so even the wealthy Quan Zhilong had to reluctantly follow his usual itinerary. With nowhere to use his cash, he could only follow the girl, riding the subway, transferring, and searching for directions. In Japan, he'd always been in his car, commuting between work, hotels, and restaurants. It had been a long time since he'd experienced such a simple trip.
He found himself going out on his own without the help of the team, and sometimes being as clumsy as a Muggle. In contrast, Xing Ai on the other side was not only fluent in Japanese, but also very good at finding maps and routes!
Kwon Ji-yong rubbed his nose. His life now was based on the principle that if money could solve the problem, it wasn't a big deal. Even when he went on a trip, it was always arranged by a team of staff and a few close friends. But now, he'd met his demon star—a star who preferred to explore the world by public transportation. Kwon Ji-yong could only console himself that even such ordinary trips offered many other pleasures.
"You talk like you eat it often. Has RD ever entered the Japanese market?" After finishing his noodles, Kwon Ji-yong asked Xing Ai, who seemed to be quite familiar with Japan, with a suspicious look on his face.
"Well, I've never been to Japan, but I'm quite familiar with it. I was almost adopted by a Japanese couple when I was a child, so I learned Japanese and have been to Japan several times." Quan Xingai spoke half-truthfully. She did remember this happening when she was a child, but Quan Xingai was already 7 years old at that time and had begun to understand things. The couple felt that she was too old and finally sent her back to the orphanage.
After hearing what the girl said, Quan Zhilong's face showed an expression of regret and heartache. He felt that he would wake up in the middle of the night, slap himself and shout: I deserve to die.
"My dear Xing'ai, it has not been easy along the way." Quan Zhilong couldn't help but walk forward and touch Xing'ai's head.
"Don't look at me like that. I can support myself now and live a good life." Quan Xingai knew the other person's kindness when he saw his eyes. He was so moved that his expression became kind.
The memories of the past life and this life merged together, reshaping the two memories into a new her and also healing the 'self' in the past memories.
"Of course I know. Xing Ai is a hot girl right now... Um... What are you doing?"
"That's crazy! Even though it's the off-season and there aren't many people around, you should still pay attention." Before he could say the word "female idol", Quan Xingai covered Quan Zhilong's mouth with her hand.
"Arathor, I understand..."
After the two of them left the shop, Quan Xingai took Quan Zhilong to take the subway back to Kansai International Airport.
"Mo Ya, you took the subway for so long to come to Osaka just to eat a bowl of noodles?" On the platform, Quan Zhilong looked at Quan Xingai with an accusing look on her face, who looked as if it was a matter of course.
"Yeah, I really, really wanted to eat tonkotsu ramen. It tasted so good. I'm satisfied, so we went back to the airport and took the Haruka train to Kyoto."
This small shop was also a shop she used to eat at often. It has been open for 80 years and has been passed down from grandfather to father, and will soon be passed down to his son. Fortunately, the taste has not changed. After eating, Quan Xingai felt that the healing feeling she felt was definitely related to the satisfaction of her appetite.
"This is the first time I've met someone like you who would go back so far just for a meal. No wonder you checked in your luggage after getting off the plane." Kwon Ji-yong looked at Jeon Xingai with admiration. In fact, Li Zhuhe would sometimes drag him to a long way to eat at a good restaurant, but it was rare to meet someone as thorough and not bothered by the trouble as Jeon Xingai.
“Don’t you think that traveling by yourself and satisfying yourself is the real way to be on the road?” In the past, Quan Xingai often traveled around the world with a backpack on her back, both to find inspiration and to relax.
Kwon Ji-yong, wearing a mask, looked at Jeon Seong-ae with an inquiring look as she went to look at the train schedule after she finished speaking. The feeling she gave him was too similar to that of the woman who had left, but Sarah had indeed left three years ago.
It has to be said that although Kwon Ji-yong doesn't want to admit it, every time he is with Jeon Seong-ae, he doesn't feel like an older man. Instead, he is drawing strength from Seong-ae and looking for a sense of security by her side.
Otherwise, why would I have followed you to Japan?
*
"I thought you'd be relying on public transportation forever." After arriving in Kyoto and exiting the station, Jeon Seong-ae headed straight for the rental car agency. Quan Zhilong consciously stood by the driver's seat, propped up the car door, and breathed a sigh of relief. Thankfully, this guy at least knew about renting a car. He'd actually thought he was getting on a stolen car and about to embark on a grand tour of Japan's railways.
"Oppa, you are such a delicate little dragon. Look at your expression after seeing the car. Wow. You be the driver." Quan Xingai threw the keys to the other party, threw the luggage into the car, and then sat naturally in the passenger seat and looked at Quan Zhilong's expression as if he came alive after getting in the car.
"I've followed you through mountains and rivers for so long, and this is how you treat your travel companion?" Quan Zhilong turned around and pinched the girl's cheek. The girl, unwilling to admit defeat, also reached out and pulled the other's cheek.
The two elementary school students could no longer control their childish emotions while still on the road.
"Hold on, hold on. I'll tell you how to drive later. I've booked a single-family house on the outskirts of Kyoto." Quan Xingai said excitedly.
Then after driving, the resentful elementary school student duo of Kwon Ji-yong and Jeon Star-ai started an endless quarrel.
“Speed up, speed up!”
“Safety is important!”
"Oh no, another car is coming to miss us! Why are there so many biker gangs in Japan now? Let's overtake them!" Quan Xingai was sitting in the passenger seat and saw a convoy of modified cars passing by on the road. It was as if he was in Initial D, shaking the whole street.
"You're crazy! Why would you bother with these youngsters? They're just a team. How can we compare with them?"
"Just think of us as AE86. How can we swallow this?" The girl, who was quite road-rage, watched angrily as the cars behind her passed her one after another.
"Don't take this road, just take a smaller road." Quan Zhilong didn't continue to listen to the navigation instructions and turned directly into a small road planted with pine and cypress.
"Where is this place? Let me see, we're on the wrong track. We've taken a long detour."
"Don't worry, take it slow. The best scenery is on the road. Look at this field, isn't it beautiful?" Kwon Ji-yong opened the car window to let the wind in freely, letting his smile spread freely. He shouted loudly to the girl next to him.
The fields outside Kyoto are still bleak in winter, with no wind in the clear winter sky.
"Hiss - it's so cold - it's winter, close the window quickly!" The bleak cold wind blew, and Quan Xingai shouted back at Quan Zhilong, who was standing next to her in the cold wind but exuding a lot of happiness.
The car was driving on the deserted streets outside the city. Quan Xingai looked at the map. The correct direction was in the northwest corner of the city, but they were now in the southeast corner of Kyoto, separated by a whole diagonal, and were driving farther and farther away.
"We can drive all the way south like this to Australia."
"Okay, let's go back. Xingai, please try navigating again. I can't seem to find the way..."
"Oppa, let's stop by the roadside. I think the precious little dragon just needs to sit down. I'll be your driver." Quan Xingai smiled, his eyes like the howling north wind.
"..." The car stopped on a country road. A speechless man got out of the car and met the woman who had exchanged seats with him in front of the car. "The sky is getting gloomy. It's going to snow soon, Xing Ai-san."
"Don't worry, Jiyong-san, we'll be at our residence soon."
The arrogant man sat in the passenger seat, while the confident woman took the steering wheel.
However, the elementary school students' quarreling behavior had not stopped yet. On the way back, the originally sunny weather turned into heavy snow. When the car drove into Kyoto, the Kamogawa River, the soul of the city, flowed quietly. The riverbanks, which were always bustling with people, seemed particularly quiet without the crowds. Kyoto without tourists seemed to take them back to the Edo period in the heavy snow.
"With such heavy snow, we should go to Gion. Wouldn't it be very atmospheric?" Kwon Ji-yong suggested enthusiastically.
"Oppa, do you want to go?"
"But doesn't Xing'ai feel cold?"
"Then Oppa wants to go, right? Risk your life to accompany the gentleman!"
The driver stepped on the accelerator and drove to the vicinity of Gion. Snow clouds were falling low over the entire earth, and the whistling wind seemed to interpret the mood of Matsuo Basho's haiku "In Kyoto, every time I see snow falling, I recall the past."
After parking the car, the two of them took a stroll under the awning on the sidewalk. On the roadside, groups of local people in warm-colored underwear were leisurely watching the snow. Quan Xingai bought an umbrella and two cups of coffee at the FamilyMart nearby.
We walked forward and soon arrived at Hanami-koji. Kabuki actors in gorgeous clothes were jogging along in their wooden clogs, and from a distance it looked like a painting.
Quan Xingai seized the opportunity and took ten thousand photos along the way, including Kyoto in the heavy snow, Gion in the snow, the running geisha and her melancholy boy.
They walked through Gion on Hanami-koji Road, strolled casually along the alley, and came to a small shrine. The heavy snow covered the shrine like a red dot in the white.
"It seems like nothing has changed here." Quan Xingai sighed.
She was born in Japan, but she is not Japanese; she has American citizenship and started her career in the United States, but she is not American; she has Korean and Italian bloodlines, but she is not from those places.
However, when she wanted to untie her knot and say goodbye to the past, she still chose to come to Japan.
"Were your adoptive parents from Kyoto?" Kwon Ji-yong held an umbrella and watched the girl standing in the snow with her hands folded in prayer facing the shrine, but she did not make a wish or draw lots, she just rang the bell.
"Zhilong, come and ring the bell with us. Isn't praying in the snow very poetic?"
The ethereal sound of the bell echoed in the snow, and time seemed to travel back to 10 years ago, the same snow, the similar backs, the similar movements.
"No, but they brought me here."
"Kyoto's four seasons are all said to be most beautiful when the leaves turn red, but I think Kyoto is most beautiful when it's covered in snow. Let's get drenched in the snow together. Does that mean we'll grow old together?"
"Why are you looking at me like that? Do you think all I care about is American fast food? Zhilong, you're looking down on me again, little dog. As punishment, no kissing allowed today."
"Forget it, let's make peace. Let's go to the Kabuki house to see the geishas. No one will notice us."
"Actually, since I arrived in Kyoto, I have been immersed in memories of the past. Do you know Sarah?" Kwon Ji-yong's voice came from the empty shrine, sounding a little lonely.
Heavy snow, black down jacket, red scarf, wrong time, wrong height, wrong person - but the feeling is right.
The girl turned around suddenly. She was not overly tall, nor did she have the pair of upturned honey-colored pupils in her memory, nor did she have playful sun spots dotted on her face, nor did she have a smile as sunny as California. But she did have a pair of big, sparkling eyes like a deer, and dimples at the corners of her mouth. They were clearly two different people, but in the shrine it seemed as if time and space overlapped.
"I miss her a little, can you let me hug her?" Kwon Ji-yong threw away the umbrella and hugged Jeon Xingai tightly.
"...You, you forgot, she, she is my idol, Oppa, do you have any story with my idol? You sound so sad." Kwon Ji-yong couldn't see Jeon Xingai's expression, and her voice sounded full of longing.
"Sarah, we agreed to grow old together after we got caught in the snow."
"Hey, hey, should you call me... um, 'Kuna?'? I don't think the pronunciation is right. I don't mind if you call me 'Oune-san-sama'." (Onee-sama)
"Stupid Sarah, it's Nuna, Nuna, baka~~~"
……】
It's really interesting. He and a person who looks very much like Nuna are standing in the place they have been before and thinking about the same person. Is this a joke of fate or a gift of fate?
"The whole world doesn't know that we once loved each other." The sad kitten hugged the girl and tilted his head back, letting the snowflakes hit his face and mix with his tears.
"The snowflakes know, the shrine knows, the puppy knows, the kitten knows, and now, I know too." Quan Xingai slowly patted Quan Zhilong's back. Sadness somehow spread to the corners of her eyes. When the snow fell, it seemed as if the whole world was creating a sad atmosphere.
"Actually, you two are not alike at all. You are not the same height, you are not the same appearance, but you always remind me of her. Now I find that you finally have one thing in common." Kwon Ji-yong said while holding the girl's cheeks. His eyes were red and deep. I don't know if he was looking at Quan Xingai, or looking at someone else through Quan Xingai.
"What?"
Then Quan Zhilong leaned close to her ear and kissed her tenderly in the small universe behind her ear. "You have a small red mole behind your ear, just like me."
The howling wind was accompanied by snow all over the sky. The red scarf was blown up by the wind, covering most of the girl's face, revealing only a pair of somewhat sad eyes. Obviously, everything about her was different, yet it seemed as if she had been seen before, as if an old friend had returned.
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