The phone was heating up. Lin Zhixia held the phone case tightly and said softly, "Saturday morning at 8 o'clock, at the school gate, see you there."
Jiang Yubai responded: "See you on Saturday."
Lin Zhixia suddenly remembered that when she and Jiang Yubai were desk mates, they often said "see you tomorrow" to each other - that was several years ago, and she missed it.
There was a light rain on Saturday morning.
Although the rain was light, the wind was strong. Lin Zhixia ran to the school gate quickly and saw Jiang Yubai. Jiang Yubai was holding a black umbrella, with his slender fingers wrapped around the handle. He looked clean and spotless. Even though the pervasive mist soaked his clothes, he was still a bright sight in the rain.
Lin Zhixia shouted happily: "Good morning!"
"Good morning." Jiang Yubai greeted her and raised the edge of his umbrella slightly.
Lin Zhixia understood what he meant. She slipped under his umbrella and said, "Jiang Yubai, I feel that you are becoming more and more mature."
Lin Zhixia thought he would say "thank you", but he didn't say anything. He just turned his head to look at her, and she immediately asked, "Why are you looking at me?"
He explained: "I haven't seen you for a long time."
What he said makes sense.
Lin Zhixia took a step forward, the raindrops rubbed the umbrella and brushed across her sleeves, and the umbrella in Jiang Yubai's hand tilted towards her - she noticed this. She held his wrist carelessly and turned it lightly, so that the handle of the umbrella stood upright in his palm.
"You..." He only uttered one word.
Lin Zhixia helped him complete the question: "Can't I touch your hand?"
"That's not the case," Jiang Yubai said frankly, "Of course you can touch it."
Even so, his actions were still very reserved. He would not take the initiative to approach Lin Zhixia, always keeping a distance from her intentionally or unintentionally. He was polite, noble, proud and not to be teased. Compared to when he was nine years old, Jiang Yubai was much more complicated and difficult to understand now.
Jiang Yubai aroused Lin Zhixia's curiosity.
After the two got into the car, Lin Zhixia hugged a soft pillow with her left hand, and stretched out her index finger with her right hand, with her fingertips resting on the back of Jiang Yubai's hand.
Jiang Yubai clenched his fist, with a protruding knuckle at the top of his fist. Lin Zhixia felt along the protruding knuckle of Jiang Yubai, and her fingertips went back to the back of his hand, touching a noticeable blue vein.
She stared at his hands intently, slowly pressing on the veins, then releasing them, and pressing again, like a kitten teasing a mouse.
Jiang Yubai said nothing. He turned his left hand over, palm facing up.
Lin Zhixia suddenly asked: "Do you remember that in elementary school, our classmates liked to read palms and tell fortunes?"
"Remember," Jiang Yubai described, "the squad leader often said that there are career lines, marriage lines, and life lines in the palm of your hand."
Lin Zhixia said softly: "Now I am going to read your palm. Please call me Master Lin."
Jiang Yubai was very cooperative: "Master Lin."
Lin Zhixia drew a circle on his palm. He folded his five fingers, as if grabbing an imaginary object in the air: "Are you calculating career, marriage, or life?"
Lin Zhixia laughed out loud: "Which one do you want to hear the most?"
Jiang Yubai said truthfully: "Career."
Lin Zhixia pretended to be thinking. She touched a line on his palm, moved her fingertips up to the base of his finger, tapped it lightly, and said, "Prosperity, good fortune in career, good luck, and good fortune, and good ways to make money."
"Thank you for your guidance, Master." Jiang Yubai politely accepted his verdict.
Lin Zhixia was overjoyed: "I acted very similar, didn't I?"
Jiang Yubai suddenly turned around and grabbed her hand: "Master Lin, could you please calculate my life and marriage for me again? I don't know much and I've never asked anyone to calculate it for me before."
Lin Zhixia's favorite game in her life is role-playing. Jiang Yubai always has a great time playing with her. They have been playing this game since they were little, especially in Chinese and history classes in junior high school, where they acted out almost all the famous scenes in the textbooks.
However, Jiang Yubai had never held her wrist like he did now. She sat still, as if there was a lake in her heart, rippling with ripples, and Jiang Yubai's shadow gradually emerged in the ripples.
She didn't want to be shy at this time. She maintained a calm tone: "Okay, let me calculate your life... Not bad, both good fortune and longevity, good fortune as vast as the East Sea, and longevity as vast as the South Mountain."
Jiang Yubai smiled faintly: "Why do you only know how to say nice things?"
Lin Zhixia said stubbornly, "I only tell the truth." Then she provoked him, "Are you questioning my ability? The Lotus Sutra says that all sentient beings possess the wisdom and virtues of the Tathagata..."
Before Lin Zhixia finished speaking, Jiang Yubai moved an inch closer to her. She inexplicably dared not look into his eyes, and her gaze suddenly moved down and stopped at his collarbone. He would button up his clothes to the top on weekdays, and maintained a serious, dignified and conservative style of dressing all year round. But after he turned fifteen, his personality became a little more open.
Lin Zhixia sincerely believed that Jiang Yubai and her brother should have a lot in common and could chat with each other. If she had the chance in the future, she would try to mend the relationship between Jiang Yubai and Lin Zeqiu.
Lin Zhixia's mind was full of random thoughts, and Jiang Yubai reminded her: "You haven't been married yet."
As soon as he said this, Jiang Yubai felt that he was a bit abrupt. He just wanted to know what Lin Zhixia would predict, after all, that was a long time in the future. He leaned on the armrest of the chair, and for some reason, he suddenly remembered Li Bai's "Changgan Xing", the poem is the source of the term "childhood plums and bamboo horses", which reads: "The man rides on bamboo horses and plays with green plums around the bed. Living together in Changgan, the two children have no suspicion. At fourteen, I became your wife, but I am too shy to open my eyes..."
He retreated to the corner of his seat.
The distance between him and Lin Zhixia became even greater.
This made Lin Zhixia unable to stop.
Let me ask, why does Jiang Yubai seem to be so close to her and so far away from her?
What is Jiang Yubai thinking?
How much cooperation can Jiang Yubai have when playing games with her?
The above three questions are all within the scope of Lin Zhixia’s research.
Lin Zhixia said with interest: "I can also predict marriage! I have seen your uncle's wife. You will definitely be similar to your uncle in the future. You will have a beautiful and lovely wife. You will be in harmony with your husband and wife, your family will prosper, and you will live a happy life."
Jiang Yubai silently wondered in his heart, could she imagine him and another girl developing a family relationship? She didn't seem to mind at all.
Jiang Yubai couldn't help but feel that his future was unpredictable.
Seeing his complicated expression, Lin Zhixia immediately asked, "What do you want from your future girlfriend?"
Jiang Yubai expressed it in a cryptic and indirect way: "Can you figure out where I will meet her?"
"I don't know about that," Lin Zhixia pretended to be profound, "You have to grasp your own destiny."
Jiang Yubai said nothing.
Lin Zhixia deliberately tested him: "In a few months, you will go abroad to study at university. Maybe you will be in Cambridge..."
"No." Jiang Yubai said with absolute certainty.
The car slowed down and stopped on the long road in front of a mansion.
The rain covered the sky and the earth, swallowing up the clouds and the sun, and there was no sign of abating. Jiang Yubai held up an umbrella and got out of the car first. He stood by the car with the umbrella. When Lin Zhixia came out, he covered her tightly, and the mist filled her eyes. He only said: "It's a bit cold today. What do you want to eat?"
"Shrimp dumplings." Lin Zhixia replied.
The housekeeper opened the front door for them, and Jiang Yubai handed the umbrella to the housekeeper. It was still raining outside, with strong winds howling, but the room was warm and clean, creating an extremely comfortable environment.
Jiang Yubai took Lin Zhixia upstairs. They seemed to be going to accomplish something big, and their steps were very fast. Lin Zhixia asked him, "Have you ever picked skirts for other girls?"
"Never," Jiang Yubai said, "You are the first."
"Is it also the last one?" Lin Zhixia asked again.
Jiang Yubai seemed to have seen through her thoughts. She was not as indifferent to their future as he thought. His tense heartstrings relaxed a little, and he said softly, "Yes."
Lin Zhixia was led by Jiang Yubai into a spacious room, where a designer in her thirties and her female assistant were standing in the middle of the room.
The designer greeted Jiang Yubai and Lin Zhixia respectively with a very gentle attitude, and opened a picture album for them, inviting them to choose the type of skirt they liked. The designer sister said that any style could be further improved according to Lin Zhixia's requirements.
Lin Zhixia flipped open the album and looked at it silently. She looked at more than a dozen skirts and exclaimed, "So beautiful."
She picked out a burgundy dress with a V-neck and a waist. The skirt was draped and flowing, which had a rather ancient Greek style of unrestrained beauty. She stared at it for a long time. Jiang Yubai suggested that she should not hesitate and pick out the dresses she liked. He would buy them all at once.
Lin Zhixia concealed her shock. She pointed at the red skirt and said, "This one is enough. Do you think it looks good?"
Jiang Yubai praised: "It looks good."
Lin Zhixia opened another picture album and began to choose shoes. She realized that there really were crystal shoes in the world, real crystal shoes, but she was not interested in the fairy tale of Cinderella. She remembered that Cinderella's name was "Cinderella". If she were to write a fairy tale, she would make Cinderella a queen, call herself "Cinderella I", and lead the people to create a glorious industrial revolution.
She turned over the page about crystal shoes and chose a pair of black high heels with bows. The heels were about 4cm, not too high, but acceptable to her.
Lin Zhixia returned the album to the designer sister. The sister and her assistant took Lin Zhixia to another small room and used a cloth ruler to measure various sizes. Lin Zhixia chatted with them, asking them about their daily work and whether it was hard. They answered Lin Zhixia's questions patiently, and the whole conversation process was relaxed and pleasant.
The designer left a business card. She said that after the clothes and shoes are finished, they will send someone to pack everything and deliver it to your door. Since the clothes are handmade and custom-made, it will take about nine weeks to cut and sew.
Nine weeks.
Lin Zhixia calculated in her mind that nine weeks later, Jiang Yubai's graduation prom would begin and her sophomore year in college would also come to an end.
A prom, as the name suggests, is for dancing.
But Lin Zhixia knew nothing about dancing.
Lin Zhixia's university also held various dances, but Lin Zhixia never went. She was obsessed with studying and the laboratory. When she had free time, she rarely went out to socialize, preferring to run on the school playground with her roommate Feng Yuan. They ran four or five times a week, at least two kilometers each time, all for the sake of the university's physical education test scores.
Yes, Lin Zhixia can run 800 meters without stopping and can do sit-ups continuously, but she has never danced a dance. Jiang Yubai told Lin Zhixia that their school has chosen waltz and everyone needs to practice it consciously. Of course, it doesn't matter if you don't practice it, Jiang Yubai doesn't know much about the music and dance steps.
Lin Zhixia was skeptical about what he said.
However, Jiang Yubai did arouse Lin Zhixia's interest in dancing.
She always likes to explore unknown areas.
In order to squeeze out time to practice the waltz, Lin Zhixia decided to finish the homework of the "Software Engineering" group early.
The front-end and underlying architecture of the software have been completed - these tasks took Lin Zhixia a lot of time. Lin Zhixia recorded the current results and sent them to the teaching assistant senior. The senior praised Lin Zhixia's programming skills and said that perhaps the school would be willing to buy this software and promote it to the entire Beijing university circle.
When Lin Zhixia heard that the software could be sold, she became excited.
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