Chapter 2
He Xi ran back to the house. The living room was empty, with only a fan blowing.
Slumped on the sofa next to her, she pulled up the collar of her short-sleeved shirt with one hand and let the cool breeze from the fan blow in intermittently to cool down.
As soon as Yan Runqing entered the house, he saw his daughter's unkempt appearance. "I told you not to drag yourself around without an umbrella. Look how sunburned your face is."
"...Well, I stayed up late last night and did a few more papers."
He Xi refused to admit his procrastination, and to avoid being nagged again, he quickly got up and went to the kitchen to serve himself some food.
"Didn't that naughty boy He Xu come back with you?"
Yan Runqing followed her into the kitchen, took the chopsticks for noodles from He Xi, and couldn't help but knock on her hand that was shaking like she had Parkinson's disease.
"Just do it! You're so skinny and yet you're still picky about food!"
"No, I just have no appetite in this hot weather."
He Xi is nearly 1.7 meters tall and weighs over 110 kilograms. If he eats less, Yan Runqing will chase him and nag him.
"You two siblings keep teasing me all day long. One of you picks on me and the other doesn't even come back. How am I supposed to cook if it's like this?"
Helplessly, she added another spoonful of noodles. If she had known earlier, she would have taken a detour to the playground to call He Xu to come back together.
After all, she can't bear the scolding alone.
After dinner, she went back to her bedroom upstairs in her slippers.
Because it's located right next to a prestigious school, rents in this urban village on Yixing Road have been rising year after year. While the buildings of the surrounding neighbors undergo new developments year after year, He Xi's two three-story buildings, one on the north side and the other on the south side, stand out.
She pushed open the door and lowered the bamboo curtain that blocked her view. She then relaxed in the rattan chair in front of the window, holding her phone and watching videos.
The hot breeze blew up the white curtains, and the sunlight on the glass took advantage of the gap to jump onto her pretty cheek, and the shadow cast on the wooden floor appeared and disappeared like playing hide-and-seek.
He Xi turned sideways to avoid the dazzling sunlight and switched back to WeChat with some boredom. The group chat interface of the three people was now almost flooded with messages.
She admired Xiang Yuzhi so much that right after the end of the semester, he started counting the time on his fingers and went out to play.
"Thank you, Xiao Xiang, for traveling around our beautiful country for us [bows]."
"However, there has to be a limit to attracting hatred, right? If you keep spamming me, I'll kick you out [dog head]."
He Xi was crying as she looked at the running out of memory on her phone and started joking with her.
"Don't worry, I'm just bored."
He Xi didn't believe her lies. He flipped through several photos and finally found the man's hidden trick.
"Sure, you can. I was wondering why you, someone used to being free, would want to join a tour group? It turns out you have other intentions."
Xiang Yuzhi is usually unrestrained, and what makes her linger is nothing more than delicious food and beautiful women.
He Xi perked up, but unfortunately, after sending the message and waiting for a long time, there was still no response from the other party. She threw her phone down in disappointment and fell asleep on the bed.
*
It was the height of summer heat. The occasional swaying leaves outside the window stopped the wind, and the heat gradually gathered in the room.
When he woke up again, the light in the room had dimmed. He Xi felt that his body was soaked with sweat, and the clothes wrapped around his skin made him feel stuffy and uncomfortable. His throat was also dry.
I grabbed the phone from the bedside table. It was 4:26, so it was still early.
"It looks like it's going to rain."
She muttered something in confusion, clicked on the weather column and saw that her guess was confirmed - moderate rain from 4 to 7 pm.
The notification bar was still overflowing with messages, "He Xixi, come out and take care of your brother!"
He Xi was baffled, and the more he read, the more speechless he became.
She sometimes felt very strange. For some reason, her annoying brother He Xu seemed to be very submissive in front of Xiang Yuzhi. They would chat and play games together from time to time.
It's just that Xiang Yuzhi is both inexperienced and playful. When he's in the mood, he's sweet and obedient, which makes He Xu lose his mind. Occasionally, when he gets angry, the two of them will inevitably argue back and forth in the group.
Usually at this time she chooses not to get involved.
Her throat was so dry and itchy that He Xi dropped her phone, grabbed a loose cotton and linen knee-length skirt, and went downstairs. After drinking some water, she went downstairs to take a shower.
Unexpectedly, as soon as she opened the bedroom door, her shoulder-length smooth hair was blown all over her face by the strong wind outside.
On the rooftop of the north building, clothes hung out to dry by some tenant were covered in dust and scattered all over the floor.
Seeing that it was about to rain, she ran downstairs in her flip-flops, grabbed the laundry basket, and ran to the roof of the north building. When she had collected several pieces of clothes, the rain began to fall.
Just as she hid in the corner of the second floor, she seemed to remember something and looked into the alley not far away. The alley was empty, with only the whistling wind blowing through it, and there was no sign of anyone.
She frowned and looked back. Just opposite the stairs was Grandma Li's yard. An old pear tree was being pulled by the raging wind, and green pears the size of a palm rolled all over the ground.
"Damn weather." She pursed her lips, swallowed, and went downstairs holding the railing.
Before I had taken a few steps, some familiar shouts mixed with the sound of rain suddenly floated into my ears.
Not long after, He Xu, soaked to the skin, rushed into the yard, holding a basketball. He was followed by a tall boy who looked strangely familiar.
*
The sound of rain outside and the sound of water in the bathroom poured into her ears. Even from a long distance away, she could still hear He Xu calling for his mother.
When I tried to listen carefully again, the voices became faint and unclear.
He Xi slowly rinsed off the foam on her body, grabbed the dress at hand and put it on, dried the ends of her hair with a towel, wrapped it around her head to tie up her wet hair, and walked out of the bathroom.
The voices just now had disappeared. She turned to the living room and saw the boy's back on the sofa, which she was very familiar with.
"Look what you've done—!"
She questioned the person on the sofa in a bad mood, opened the refrigerator, took out half a watermelon, held it in her arms and ate it.
"I'm talking to you, are you mute?"
For a long while, the person on the sofa didn't move. He Xi quickly walked over and pushed him, not forgetting to stuff a spoonful of watermelon into his mouth.
His cheeks were puffed up like a squirrel, and he chewed the watermelon deliberately with a crunching sound. Then he lay on the back of the sofa and looked over to envious He Xu.
The moment their eyes met, He Xi froze in place.
"Um... ahem... why are you staying at my house?"
The boy's cold eyes were exactly the same as the ones she saw at the gate of Grandma Li's house at noon.
This realization shocked He Xi so much that a mouthful of watermelon got stuck in her throat, and her face turned red from holding it in for so long.
Yan Runqing, who had just come from the kitchen with ginger tea, saw this scene and glared at He Xi.
"How rude! This is a classmate your brother just brought home. It's raining so hard outside, so he came home to take shelter."
The boy's eyes met hers for a few seconds before he looked away without saying a word.
He Xi was somewhat disappointed, patting his chest and secretly feeling suspicious.
Suddenly, my hand felt light, and the naughty monkey He Xu rushed in from outside the door without me noticing.
"Thanks, sister. I'm really thirsty."
“…Please have some shame.”
He Xi raised his foot and kicked He Xu's calf. He didn't use much force but it made him scream and run to the sofa.
"I won't be used to it if you two don't quarrel one day." Yan Runqing looked helpless and turned to get a cup from the coffee table.
He Xi's head was buzzing. She moved from the doorway to Yan Runqing's side and muttered softly, "He Xu's friends..."
Yan Runqing understood her daughter's concerns. "I heard that he is also a student of No. 6 Middle School and they met on the court." She specifically asked when the boy just walked in.
"…oh."
He Xi recalled the boy's cold, sharp look when they met at noon, and was still skeptical about this statement. But she didn't ask any more questions, just raised her eyes and secretly glanced at the boy on the sofa, but was caught by He Xu.
"Sister, why is your face so red? Don't tell me you're crazy about my brother Lin, this infuriatingly handsome face."
The people who had been feeling a little guilty about stealing the watermelon now seemed to have found a winning strategy and started to tease and embarrass her.
"boring--!"
She looked at He Xu's eyes that were about to cramp, grabbed a nearby exercise book and threw it at him, "I'm so mad at you, even a watermelon can't stop you!"
He Xu saw something whizzing towards him, and subconsciously picked up the watermelon to block it in front of him. With a "click", the exercise book and the spoon fell to the ground at the same time.
He Xi watched as a piece of watermelon pulp that was hit by the exercise book flew off the boy's face and rolled down to the ground.
Oh my god, this is embarrassing.
*
He Xi looked at the exercise book on the desk that was stained with watermelon juice, and thought of the scene just now.
When the watermelon slid down the boy's face, she tried her best to hold back from bursting out laughing on the spot.
I still remember that the boy's face turned dark very quickly, and his expressionless look was really scary.
He seemed to be completely immune to his own seemingly insincere apology. In the end, He Xu came out to smooth things over and took him to his room.
Do you have to be so arrogant and stingy?
He Xi poked at the test paper he was working on, and was finally fully awakened by the cool breeze after the sudden rain. He opened his workbook and began to practice the exercises from the unit he hadn't finished at noon.
In He Xu's room next door, the sound of keyboard typing could be heard. The two of them had been staying in the room playing games since the afternoon and probably hadn't moved at all.
"Bullshit classmate! Nine out of ten times, this confession was orchestrated by He Xu."
She frowned and complained in her heart, becoming very angry when she mentioned these things.
When He Xu was in the second year of junior high school, he followed a few so-called friends and skipped classes to go to the Internet cafe all day long. It was not until his test scores plummeted that his family noticed something was wrong.
Yan Runqing spent the entire third year of junior high school shutting down his stall and watching him, and even so, he only barely passed the high school entrance exam and was admitted to No. 6 Middle School.
But who would have thought that after not paying much attention to him for more than ten days during the summer vacation, he seemed to be showing signs of repeating his old mistakes.
"Buzz—buzz—"
The phone on the table vibrated wildly, interrupting He Xi's already distracted thoughts. She quickly answered the video call.
"I'm so tired. Do you know how many steps we walked today?!"
Xiang Yuzhi's face, which was two shades darker, leaned in front of the screen, his voice a little excited.
He Xi listened to her complaints and watched the background of the phone screen opposite her constantly changing with her dancing movements.
"How's it going? Did you manage to chat up any handsome guy?" As soon as she finished speaking, she knew something was wrong.
The person who was chattering just now was silent for a moment, muttered a few words and then continued talking, his voice was obviously much lower.
Just when He Xi was feeling a little embarrassed, her phone vibrated to indicate that there was a new message. She reduced the video window to see it.
"Sister Xixi, I'm back at Yixing Street. Do you want to go out and play? I'll treat you to barbecue."
Hu Yang's family had moved to Nanhu District a few years earlier, and they'd only come back to collect rent. After the high school entrance exam, he'd messaged her saying he'd be back for a few days during the summer break, and they'd planned to hang out together. He Xi was busy reviewing at the time, so she casually agreed without taking it seriously.
Ten seconds later, another message came on the phone, "Sister Xixi, come with He Xu later."
"Someone's asking you out again? Look at you, you look so constipated!"
He Xi rolled her eyes at the person opposite her, and the pain she felt just now wasted.
Xiang Yuzhi felt that her coquettish expression was adorable and she couldn't stop giggling. She thought of He Xi, whom she had just met. She was quiet, withdrawn, and taciturn. It seemed that nothing could make her smile.
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