Chapter 53 Red Scarf Xiaoman Gift

It has been a long time since Ye Man looked forward to a holiday so much.

Christmas is not even worthy of a holiday among all the major and minor festivals throughout the year. Most people just celebrate it for fun. Ye Man used to remember it only after others had already celebrated it.

To him, Christmas is a time when the store is crowded and busy, but there is no extra overtime pay or bonus, which makes him secretly complain.

——On New Year's Eve, when everyone just wants to go home to reunite with their families, he stays to help out and gets double the salary. By two or three in the morning, when the store is done, there is still a lot of food to pack up. He is happy to do this kind of work.

Thinking carefully, it seems that nothing special and good will happen on Christmas this year. Ye Man himself is also confused as to why he is looking forward to this day.

Maybe he had been thinking about the day for too long and thinking about it too much in his heart, so even ordinary days became extraordinary. Or maybe he was infected by the enthusiastic and joyful atmosphere of the people around him and began to feel that it was a day worth being happy.

After much thought, Ye Man accepted the advice he got from the nurse who took care of him, searched online, and made comprehensive references before deciding to give a scarf as a gift.

Originally, he wanted to buy a very expensive brand, but Ye Man asked the system to help him choose. He didn't know what these scarves looked like and which one was suitable to give to Xu Huaiting.

The system said sullenly, "I don't want to pick a gift for that old bastard."

After hearing this, Ye Man turned off his phone and lay on his back on the bed, as if thinking about something.

Seeing him like this, the system panicked: "Don't be silent, can't I choose for you?"

Ye Man: “No need.”

The system secretly cursed its ancestors and said, "Don't be angry. Turn on your phone and I'll show you which one to buy for him."

Ye Man didn't move: "I'm not angry, I just feel that I really shouldn't let you choose for me."

He said he delivered it, but he just made the gesture of paying and handing it over. It looked like he was selected by the system. He was completely in the dark throughout the whole process and didn't feel any involvement at all.

"And I can't tell him that it was you, Brother Tong, who chose the style for me. If he asks about it, should I tell him that I just bought one for him at random?" That's too thoughtless. Does the person really need a scarf that he just bought at random?

Ye Man felt bad.

But how can we make people feel that we put our heart into it?

You can't ask him to weave, right?

......

Ye Man bought a box of wool.

There was a tutorial next to my phone. After trying it a couple of times, confusion was written all over my face.

Aunt Zhou went to make afternoon tea for him. When she came back with egg pie, she saw Ye Man sitting on the sofa, fiddling with two knitting needles in her hands, and her body was tangled with colorful yarn.

I don't know how he did it, but he tied himself up with wool. In his hand was a ball of wool that was hard to tell what it was, with wool of various colors scattered on the sofa and the floor.

Hearing Aunt Zhou coming back, Ye Man seemed to be somewhat aware of the mess she had made. She looked panicked and tried to hide the wool.

As soon as he moved, his body was entangled in the wool that made his head hurt, and he fell into the sofa.

Aunt Zhou was almost frightened by him. She put down the egg yolk, yelled at him not to move, and quickly found a pair of scissors to cut the tangled wool and rescue her little master from inside.

I couldn't help but mutter, "Luckily he fell on the sofa. What if he fell on the ground? He would be hurt. A kid this big is always so impulsive and hurts himself. Aunt Zhou would be so heartbroken!"

Listening to Aunt Zhou's reproachful voice, Ye Man's nervous mood gradually eased.

He relaxed and stopped trying to hide or cover up. He touched his nose and said, "I'm sorry."

It was his conditioned reflex that he felt he had gotten into big trouble, so he thought of hiding.

Neither happy nor angry, Aunt Zhou had any idea about these messy balls of yarn. She cut off the unusable ones and put them in a garbage bag to be thrown away later. She sorted out the rest, let Ye Man sit next to her, gave him the egg yolk, and asked him what he wanted to do with the yarn.

"...I want to knit a scarf."

“You weave it yourself?”

Ye Man nodded, then shook his head: "Forget it."

"Hey, what style of scarf do you want? Auntie Zhou will weave it for you. If the style is not complicated, I can weave it very quickly. I can make one in two or three days."

Aunt Zhou picked out something from the box: "What color do you want to knit?"

Ye Man looked at the wool.

The treatment has shown some results recently. He previously thought that it couldn't be cured anyway, so he might as well give up.

As a result, after this period of time, the only eye I could use was able to see things a little more clearly.

Before this he could hardly see anything and could only sense light, but recently he could see some bright colors more clearly.

This improvement made Ye Man feel that if he persisted, he might be able to recover better. Even if he was in a state of severe myopia where he couldn't tell the difference between humans and animals at a distance, he was happy at least he wasn't completely blind.

From a practical point of view, such eyes are basically equivalent to being blind, but it makes people feel more at ease and better than opening their eyelids and seeing darkness.

"...red." He whispered, "I want a red scarf."

Aunt Zhou picked up Hong's ball of yarn, took the knitting needles that Ye Man had been fiddling with for a long time, and sat down next to the sofa. "Anything else you want?"

"Just a little longer and thicker."

Aunt Zhou was an expert crochet knitter. Ye Man took a bite of his egg tart, and he relaxed and started talking more. "My mother knitted me a red scarf for the Chinese New Year. I thought it was ugly and didn't want to wear it, but she insisted that I wear it, saying that red should be worn during the Chinese New Year to remove bad luck and bring good luck in the coming year."

From then on, he always liked to buy red scarves.

And I insist that this colored scarf has some different mysterious power in it.

If you ask him what color is best, the answer is definitely red.

Not only because he thought the red one was the most eye-catching. Although he still felt that this color scarf looked tacky, he could not give in for the sake of a little bit of metaphysical power.

When Aunt Zhou heard the first half of the sentence, she thought he was talking about Qin Fangrui, but only after hearing the second half did she realize he was talking about his own mother.

This thought made her stunned for a while.

The scarf had a simple pattern and Aunt Zhou wove it very quickly, finishing it by Christmas. At the final stage, under her supervision and guidance, Ye Man carefully sewed the word "Xiao Man" on an inconspicuous place with a darker red thick wool thread.

The character "小" had several fewer stitches than the character "叶", so Ye Man quietly took some time to do it.

Just this took him several hours, and he didn't know how many times he made mistakes in the sewing. He had to take it apart and sew it again many times. If he wasn't careful, he would put it in the wrong place and sew something weird.

It was done. Touching the protruding stitches, Ye Man narrowed his eyes.

This way, he won't be unable to recognize the scarf he gave to someone when the other person wears it. With this mark, when the person puts it on and touches it, he will know that it is the one he gave.

Unique anti-counterfeiting identification.

Ye Man's recent condition has been noticed by his family.

She was asking about Christmas, and asked Aunt Zhou to knit a scarf for her... Chi Jue remembered the last time Xiao Man asked him about the dating process, and alarm bells immediately went off in his heart.

Ye Man always felt that Chi Jue was staring at him very closely these past two days.

Every time he was about to go out, the other person would pass by unintentionally and ask in a friendly manner what he was going to do, who he was with, etc.

Ye Man innocently answered: "Go to the hospital, relax." At the same time, he nervously asked the system whether Chi Jue had noticed that he was planning to secretly take a photo of him on Christmas Day.

"Brother Tong, did I give myself away somewhere? How did he find out?" Ye Man was shocked.

He felt that he had hidden his little thoughts very well, and he couldn't figure out how Chi Jue deduced this no matter how hard he racked his brains.

"As expected of the protagonist, his IQ is too scary. He can even think of this. How can I fight him?"

System: "I don't think he thought that deeply..."

If Chi Jue could infer this conclusion from Ye Man's condition over the past two days, then it's not that his IQ is terrible, this guy is simply cheating, right?

"Then why does he always follow me? Isn't he on guard against me doing something bad to him?" Ye Man asked righteously.

Chi Jue thought he was being very secretive, but Ye Man immediately sensed that the other party had been intentionally watching him these days.

Especially on Christmas day.

Chi Jue has been sitting in the living room since early morning.

After Ye Man came down, he walked up to her naturally and insisted on taking Ye Man to watch a movie.

After a while, she pulled Ye Man aside and said she wanted to bake apple pies and cookies with him.

Ye Man said he didn't know how to do it, and Chi Jue said that it just so happened that he didn't know how to do it either, and they could learn together. According to him, it was a rare opportunity to have a break, and they must take this opportunity to cultivate brotherly feelings.

Ye Man opened his mouth to refuse, but Chi Jue smiled and said, "Or do you have something important to do today? Or do you have someone important to meet?"

Ye Man was silent and followed him to make apple pies to cultivate their relationship.

He looked calm on the surface, but secretly he was so anxious that he was sweating.

Two people stood in front of the kitchen island, their hands covered with flour. One of them was absent-minded, as if he would run away if he couldn't keep an eye on him for a second; the other one was staring at him intently, not giving him any chance to slip away.

Ye Man was extremely anxious, but he had to pretend to be calm and pretended to casually inquire about the time Chi Jue would go out today.

He has to go out, right? I can't just keep hanging around with him till tomorrow morning, right? Does he still want to go on a date?

Seeing the anxiety on Ye Man's face, Chi Jue breathed a sigh of relief: "I plan to go out at six or seven o'clock later, what's the matter?"

In fact, that is not the case.

But these words made Ye Man breathe a sigh of relief.

He finally found an opportunity and secretly called his ancestor in the toilet and passed the news to him.

The two were still in a cold war a few days ago. Ye Man hadn't called him for several days, and they only communicated through voice messages.

After answering the phone, Xu Huaiting's tone became calmer than before: "I understand. I'll have Secretary Chen drive to pick you up later, still at Red Maple Mountain Park."

Ye Man lowered his voice and said, "No need. I'll ask Xiao Wu to drive me there later."

How could Chi Jue let Secretary Chen come over to pick him up so easily if he was staring at him so closely?

Ye Man planned to find an opportunity to sneak out.

The head paused, and the temperature dropped a little: "It's up to you."

......

At around four o'clock in the afternoon, the damn apple pie and cookies were finally baked.

Ye Man sneaked out under the pretext of going to the bathroom, intending to reunite with his living ancestor a while in advance and ambush the scene early.

Before leaving, he did not forget to put on his red scarf and asked Xiao Wu to meet him at the door of Chi's house in advance.

Just as I walked out of the door, I heard Xiao Wu talking to someone, and another voice sounded familiar.

"Ye, Ye Man," the boy was so nervous that he stuttered, "Do you still remember me? Jiang Hao, you stayed at my snail noodle shop for a while."

The boy was very tall, with a neat crew cut. He had dressed up before coming. He didn't wear the grey sports suit that he usually wore when he went out to play ball or hang out with his classmates. Instead, he wore a coat, which made him look less youthful and more handsome. At first glance, he was a handsome sports student who was popular in the school.

When he saw Ye Man for the first time, he avoided his gaze at first, then saw Ye Man holding a blind stick, and then he carefully observed his eyes, with shock on his face.

Just over two years had passed, less than three years, but Jiang Hao's voice had changed from that annoying duck voice to a cheerful male voice. If he hadn't told her who he was, Ye Man would have almost failed to recognize him.

The system has heard Ye Man mention the snail noodle shop more than once; he always talks about it.

I thought Ye Man would be very happy to see an acquaintance.

Ye Man's attitude was unexpectedly cold.

He seemed not to want to talk to Jiang Hao. Xiao Wu noticed that the boy next to him had a complex expression of emotions on his face, including embarrassment, panic, and something else that was difficult to describe.

Ye Man didn't want to pay attention to him. "I have something to do. If you have something to say, please say it quickly. I'm leaving after you finish speaking."

Jiang Hao said quickly: "I left for the special student recruitment, and I have received the university's admission notice. I will go to Xucheng to study in college soon. My parents want to move the store to where my school is. My mother said that she wanted to see you before she left, and asked me to invite you to her house for a meal and a chat. You left in a hurry before, and she missed you and wanted to know how you were doing recently. She was afraid that if she didn't tell you, you would come back one day and find that the store was closed and everyone was gone, and you would be sad..."

Ye Man was silent for a while, then asked, "When are we leaving?"

"Tonight, the ten o'clock train..."

Leaving tonight.

Ye Man hugged her scarf tightly: "Why didn't you come to see me earlier?"

"......" Jiang Hao hummed and ahed for a long time, and replied awkwardly: "My mother asked me to come to you a long time ago, but I... kept dragging it on..."

I kept waiting until the last day, knowing I would miss the chance if I didn't come, so I mustered up the courage to come over.

Xiao Wu called Ye Man "Master Xiao Man".

This title made Jiang Hao shudder with fear for no reason.

He shouted loudly: "It's okay, if you are busy, we can meet again in the future!"

Ye Man lowered his eyes calmly: "How did you get here?"

Jiang Hao: "Take a taxi to the nearest place and then walk over."

Ye Man asked Xiao Wu to drive over, then turned to Jiang Hao and said, "Come in."

Then I told Xiao Wu the address of the snail noodle shop.

After getting in the car, Ye Man did not speak to Jiang Hao. He let him sit stiffly beside him while he lowered his head and fiddled with the scarf in his hand.

I thought, it’s just a meal, it won’t take long, and I should still have time to get to Red Maple Mountain.