Chapter 53: Past Events
The noise in the store died down, leaving only the sounds of Shen Xiyu and Liang Qi playing and tidying up.
"Squeak——" the heavy door made a harsh sound.
Both of them looked up at the door.
A woman in a thick white lambskin coat brushed the snow off her body and came in, rubbing her hands and muttering, "It's freezing! It's freezing!"
"Sister Xiao Wan?"
Ji Wan was stunned for a moment when she saw Chen Xiyu. "Xiyu? Oh my god, you haven't been here for a long time."
"It was too cold recently and I was too lazy to go out." Shen Xiyu handed the broom in his hand to Liang Qi behind him, and walked to the bar to pour a glass of hot water for Ji Wan.
Ji Wan took the water and said, "Students are different from us office workers." She took off her coat and casually draped it over the backrest. "With Jiangcheng's awful weather this year, I've worked the night shift for three days in a row, and I'm freezing cold every day after get off work."
"This year is indeed colder than in previous years, and the snow has been falling non-stop."
"Isn't it?" Although Ji Wan looked tired, his eyes were bright and he didn't seem sleepy at all.
"But it's so late, Sister Wan, can you get up tomorrow?" Shen Xiyu saw that her cup was empty, and poured her another half cup.
Ji Wan suddenly got excited when she mentioned this. "I finally have a day off tomorrow. I'll be resting for two days straight!"
She leaned back, felt something hit her, and heard the sound of someone falling to the ground.
Ji Wan turned her head and saw a tall boy wearing a black sweater. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, revealing his bony yet powerful forearms, with veins bulging on the back of his hands.
"Sorry." Ji Wan hurriedly helped him pick up the mop that he had knocked to the ground.
Liang Qi took it, nodded slightly, and said nothing.
He walked past Ji Wan and pinched Shen Xiyu's cheek as he passed by her.
"You haven't washed your hands, Liang Qi!"
Chen Xiyu watched Liang Qi walk to the bathroom with his signature smirk on his face.
"So handsome." Ji Wan's eyes lit up, and he whispered in Shen Xiyu's ear, "Is this Guan'er's new winter vacation worker?"
Shen Xiyu lied without changing his expression or heartbeat, "Yes, he is very hardworking, our Xiao Liang."
"Do you two know each other?" Ji Wan asked curiously.
Shen Xiyu suppressed a laugh, "Not familiar, not very familiar."
"You're not going to give me a name again?" Liang Qi pinched her earlobe from behind.
Shen Xiyu's earlobes were sensitive, so she smiled and dodged Liang Qi, then took his hand and placed it on her shoulder.
"I'm not kidding you anymore, Xiao Wanjie." Shen Xiyu's voice was still smiling, "This is my boyfriend, his name is Liang Qi."
"Why didn't you tell me earlier, you silly girl?" Ji Wan wasn't really angry. After all, she could guess from their interaction just now, "You just like to lie to people, don't you?"
Chen Xiyu's two shallow dimples appeared.
"This is Xiao Wanjie." Shen Xiyu tilted his head slightly and said to Liang Qi who was standing behind him, "Uncle Guan's friend."
"Sister Xiaowan." Liang Qi greeted her.
Ji Wan curled her lips and said, "I'm not here to watch you guys show off your affection anymore. Where's Lao Guan? Is he in the back?"
"Yeah, Uncle Guan is making snail noodle hotpot."
"I'll go over to inspect the work." Ji Wan waved at the two of them.
*
"Go and make me a drink, old man."
Ji Wan kicked the man next to him.
"Aren't you going to work tomorrow?" Bai Guan put a meatball into his bowl, unmoved by Ji Wan's words, sitting as steady as a rock.
"I won't come to your place tomorrow because I have to go to work. Go quickly."
She shook Bai Guan's arm, shaking the meatballs between her chopsticks off, making him unable to eat them, so he had to stand up and mix the food for her.
"A bunch of ancestors."
…
Shen Xiyu was halfway through his meal when he was ready to leave the table.
"I'm stuffed."
"Eat just this little again?" Uncle Guan frowned.
Liang Qi grabbed her wrist and said, "Sit here and eat some more."
Shen Xiyu had no choice but to sit down.
Guan Shu was surprised and said, "Hey, there are still people who can control you."
Ji Wan was already a little drunk. He held the bottle of wine and pointed at Liang Qi.
"Let me tell you, Xi Yu, handsome men are not good people."
Shen Xiyu sat down and leaned against Liang Qi, "Beautiful women are not good people either."
"Hahahahahahahahahaha." Ji Wan laughed, "You are still the most interesting one. Why did you follow such a dull guy?"
"Just drink yours." Bai Guan put the mouth of the beer bottle into her mouth.
"vomit……"
…
A strange silence spread among the four people. The only sounds in the air were Ji Wan's vomiting and an indescribable smell.
"You're not going to eat now, right?" Shen Xiyu asked the two people who were still awake.
"...I'm going out to smoke a cigarette."
*
The street lights under the eaves outside the pub were never turned off all year round. Bai Guan used his sleeve to brush away the thin layer of snow on the wooden bench. Outdoors in winter, the lighter was particularly unresponsive and he pressed it several times but no light came out.
"Hold."
When I was getting annoyed, the person next to me handed me a fire.
Bai Guan raised his eyelids and saw that it was the person he expected.
"Do you smoke?" The smoke exhaled from the white pipe merged with his breath.
Liang Qi casually put the lighter into his coat pocket and refused the cigarette handed to him by Bai Guan.
"I used to smoke, but now I rarely do."
Bai Guan smiled and said, "Because you're in love?"
Liang Qi lowered his head, with the tip of his chin hidden in the scarf. The scarf was specially put on by Shen Xiyu when he came out.
"Maybe."
The tiny specks of smoke on the ground were extinguished by the white tube.
"When I first met her, she was completely different from now." Bai Guan put his hands in his pockets and shrank his neck due to the cold.
"The weather that summer was also extremely hot, and she came here to ask if I wanted a part-time job in the store."
Liang Qi didn't respond, but Bai Guan knew he was listening.
"She always liked to drink coffee in my shop and sit there all day long." Bai Guan recalled Shen Xiyu at that time.
"You might not believe this," Bai Guan said, laughing at himself. "She looks a lot like me when I was young."
"But she's more capable than I am."
"That's getting off topic." Bai Guan couldn't help but light another cigarette. "Do you have time to listen to the rest?"
Liang Qi was stunned for a moment, his thoughts drifting to a time and space he had never been to. As a third person, he watched Shen Xiyu walking alone in the night, sitting alone in the place where she often sat, in a daze.
"She's a perfect match." Bai Guan saw Liang Qi staring at something in a daze, "and then his soul escaped while he was talking."
Liang Qi's thoughts were drawn back to the present winter.
"Of course I have time. I have time to listen to everything about Shen Xiyu."
"Stop, stop, say this in front of her. I really don't like to eat dog food."
"Then one day, she asked me if I would accept part-time work."
Bai Guan thought back to her appearance at that time and laughed at himself. "She didn't look like she was looking for a job at all. She looked like she wanted to buy my shop."
"I wasn't in a good mood at the time, and I got mad at her for being so arrogant and unaware of it."
This was the Shen Xiyu Liang Qi had never seen before. The Shen Xiyu he knew was smooth and sharp. He could not imagine the Shen Xiyu described by Bai Guan.
"I just choked her twice." Perhaps because he was freezing or because he was talking about something heavy, Bai Guan sighed deeply. "Now that I think about it, I actually regret it."
Liang Qi instinctively felt that the following words were not what he wanted to hear.
"You should know her. We exchanged a few words and she refused to come back."
This is something Shen Xiyu would do, Liang Qi thought.
"That night, I was about to close the shop when she came over." Bai Guan's voice suddenly choked up. "I have a bad memory, but I really can't forget that day."
The second week after losing contact with Zhang Weifang, Shen Xiyu's card was frozen.
The next day, Zhang Weifang's mother found her.
There were many people in the restaurant that day, and after hearing the woman's request, Shen Xiyu didn't want to deal with her at all.
"You're putting him under house arrest now. I can definitely call the police."
It was like poking a woman's soft spot, "I'm his mother!"
"Does he want a cheap mother who only gives birth but doesn't raise her?"
"Chen Xiyu!" She grabbed the water on the table and splashed it on Shen Xiyu's face, "Who do you think you are!"
Drops of water flowed down Shen Xiyu's chin, gathering and dripping onto her collarbone.
Shen Xiyu had some tinnitus, and she could feel people talking around her.
“Snap—”
As the woman screamed, Shen Xiyu slowly poured the warm coffee on her head.
"Xi Yu? What are you doing!?"
It was Zhang Weifang's voice.
Shen Xiyu suddenly felt a little dizzy. She seemed to have lost her memory. Wasn't she arguing with his mother here because of Zhang Weifang?
Why? He wasn't locked up? Why didn't he contact me? Why didn't he defend himself?
Zhang Weifang took a tissue to wipe her face.
Shen Xiyu watched coldly as the two people acted out the disgusting scene of a loving mother and a filial son.
Noticing the water marks on Shen Xiyu's face, Zhang Weifang finally realized something, but he still didn't know what to say.
"You go out first."
"son……"
Zhang Weifang was exhausted, "You go out first."
“…”
"Xi Yu, I..."
"So she didn't restrict your access?"
"It was at the beginning. Our relationship has eased up in the past two days, so we've become much more relaxed." Zhang Weifang didn't dare to look up at Shen Xiyu's eyes.
"Then why didn't you contact me?"
"I, I have my own difficulties, Xi Yu."
Shen Xiyu couldn't stop crying, but he forced himself to hold back the tears that welled up in his eyes.
"So? You have your difficulties, and your mother has hers, so you forgive each other. Mothers are kind and children are filial, right?"
"Xi Yu, don't say such harsh words."
"Is it what I said that's disgusting, or is it what you did that's disgusting? Does your dad know in the underworld that you reconciled with that cheating woman?"
“Snap—”
The left side of Shen Xiyu's face quickly became red and swollen, and her hair covered half of her face, covering Shen Xiyu's expression and her remaining self-esteem.
Without warning, her clenched fists loosened powerlessly. She was a person who cared about her reputation. Today's events were too absurd. She felt that she didn't have the strength to stand here any longer.
…
For a long time afterwards, Shen Xiyu did not touch any of the money Zhang Weifang gave him.
Zhang Weifang's mother asked her out again in the name of her son. Of course, a war without gunpowder was inevitable, but Shen Xiyu no longer felt anything about it.
She was also forced to witness the long struggle between mother and son, the lawsuit over the inheritance, the falling out, and then the easing of their relationship due to blood ties...
But she sometimes didn't understand why Zhang Weifang's mother thought she had bewitched Zhang Weifang, which was why her son wanted to break off relations with her. However, Zhang Weifang always acted like he was fighting for himself, and they always inadvertently created the illusion that he had a close relationship with Shen Xiyu.
But what did this have to do with her? She wasn't even related to either of them by blood.
Later she figured it out: she was a fig leaf that the mother and son had tacitly found for each other.
The inappropriate behavior between her and Zhang Weifang that day seemed to be forgotten by both of them as time passed.
I think Zhang Weifang still feels guilty, so he is being extra nice to Shen Xiyu now.
I think Shen Xiyu has a bad memory, so I forgive him silently now.
*
"She told me this when she was drunk." Bai Guan couldn't resist the urge to smoke again. "She used to like sneaking a drink of my wine."
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The author has something to say: It’s late [poor]
Next chapter 7.9
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