49 God always rewards those who work hard
The afternoon sun was like melted butter smeared on the cobblestones of Unter den Linden, and the intertwined shadows of the two people were dragged out behind them in long, slender lines. Liu Yuwei suddenly stopped, pointing her finger over the dry treetops at the building in the distance. "Look, that dome is the Reichstag. It was there that Hitler committed the arson that shocked the world!" Jin Lang looked in the direction of her finger, but was involuntarily hooked by a naughty strand of hair behind her ear. The breeze blew, and the black hair swayed gently, as if silently calling out. He raised his hand for some unknown reason, and when Liu Yuwei looked back with his knuckles hanging in the air, he had to turn around abruptly and touched the back of his head awkwardly. Passing by the statue of Frederick the Great, Liu Yuwei patted Jin Lang on the shoulder. "Our school is a little further ahead!" She raised her chin proudly. "Before World War II, this was Germany's premier institution of learning. Einstein and Marx were both my alumni!" At this, Liu Yuwei couldn't help but laugh, and a few wrinkles formed at the corners of her eyes. "Philosophers simply interpret the world in different ways; the point is to change it!" Jin Lang muttered casually. Liu Yuwei, walking ahead, was quite surprised and turned abruptly. "You still know our school motto?" "It's on the wall in this building!" He pointed to the white building behind the statue. "You sent me a photo! But I can't understand German, so I looked it up online." "You're quite clever, then. You still remember it after all this time." Liu Yuwei curled her lips, a hint of annoyance hiding beneath her lashes. "I just did this last-minute homework yesterday. I wanted to show it off!" Continuing down the street, Liu Yuwei suddenly remembered something and turned into a small alley. Jin Lang spotted her lingering in front of a souvenir shop, looking around, and asked, puzzled, "Are you looking for anything?" "No!" She looked a little dejected. "There used to be a really good ice cream shop here. I wanted to bring you there... but I guess it closed down..." "Wait a minute!" Jin Lang said, and walked straight into the small shop. The bell on the glass door chimed crisply. A moment later, he walked out and pressed a refrigerator magnet shaped like alkaline bread into Liu Yuwei's hand. "What's this?" Liu Yuwei looked at him in confusion. "Buy a refrigerator magnet and get the new address of the ice cream shop for free!" He then pulled a small slip of paper from his pocket. "So they've moved?" Her eyes widened in surprise. "Want to go look for it?" "Of course!" The two followed the directions on Google Maps and found it successfully...
The afternoon sun was like melted butter smeared on the cobblestones of Unter den Linden, and the intertwined shadows of the two people were dragged out long and thin behind them.
Liu Yuwei suddenly stopped and pointed his finger over the dry treetops at the building in the distance.
"Look, that dome is the Reichstag. It was there that Hitler committed the arson that shocked the world!"
Jin Lang looked in the direction of her finger, but was involuntarily hooked by a naughty strand of hair behind her ear.
The breeze blew by, and the strand of black hair swayed gently, as if silently calling out to him. He raised his hand for some unknown reason, and when his knuckles were suspended in the air, Liu Yuwei turned back. He had no choice but to turn around abruptly and touched the back of his head awkwardly.
Passing by the statue of Frederick the Great, Liu Yuwei patted Jin Lang on the shoulder and said, "Our school is a little further ahead!"
She raised her chin proudly, "Before World War II, this was the highest institution of learning in Germany. Einstein and Marx were both my alumni!"
At this point, Liu Yuwei couldn't help laughing out loud, and two fine wrinkles appeared at the corners of his eyes.
“Philosophers only interpret the world in different ways; the point is to change it!”
Jin Lang muttered softly without thinking.
Liu Yuwei, who was walking in front, was quite surprised and turned around suddenly.
"Do you still know our school motto?"
"It's on the wall of this building!" He pointed to the white building behind the statue.
"You sent me photos! But I don't understand German, so I searched online."
"You're quite smart, you still remember it after all this time."
Liu Yuwei curled her lips, a hint of annoyance hidden beneath her eyelashes. "I just did this homework yesterday. I wanted to show it off!"
Continuing walking along the street, Liu Yuwei suddenly remembered something and turned into a small alley.
Jin Lang saw her wandering around the door of a souvenir shop and asked in confusion, "Are you going to buy anything?"
"No!" She was a little dejected.
"There used to be a delicious ice cream shop here. I wanted to bring you there to try it... but it probably closed down..."
"Wait for me!"
After Jin Lang finished speaking, he walked directly into the small shop, and the bell on the glass door made a crisp sound.
After a moment, he came out and stuffed a refrigerator magnet that looked like alkaline bread into Liu Yuwei's hand.
"This is?"
Liu Yuwei looked at him in confusion.
"Buy a refrigerator magnet and get the new address of an ice cream shop for free!" He then took out a small piece of paper from his pocket.
"So you're moving?" Her eyes widened in surprise.
"Want to go look for it?"
"certainly!"
Following the instructions on Google Maps, the two successfully found the small shop that Liu Yuwei remembered.
The various ice creams in the freezer were shining temptingly under the spotlight, but Jin Lang's eyes fell on Liu Yuwei's cheeks, which were slightly red from the wind.
"Can you stomach ice cream right now?"
After saying that, I remembered that she always loved to wrap herself in a blanket and eat ice cream in winter.
"Sure..." She frowned and curled her lips, "I have medicine in my suitcase anyway!"
"How about buying one and eating it first?"
Jin Lang took the initiative to suggest, silently adding in his mind, "like we did before." Back then, she always said, "Just a bite," and then naturally snatched the ice cream from his hand.
"No!" Liu Yuwei refused without even thinking.
Jin Lang remained silent, looking at the figure lying on the glass cabinet. She suddenly turned her head, her dimples filled with an overflowing smile.
"Buy two! You can try a few more flavors!"
The sparkling look in her eyes perfectly matched the naughty girl in her memory.
As the two walked out of the door, Liu Yuwei took out her mobile phone, framed the ice cream in her hand, and left the other half of the screen empty for her other hand to be in the frame.
"Why are you standing there? Waiting for your ice cream!" She raised her eyebrows.
Jin Lang thought she wanted to take the photo herself, but upon hearing that, he stood sideways next to her, his fluttering hair brushing his chin. On the screen, two hands were touching each other, and four irregularly shaped ice cream balls in yellow, white, green and brown were teetering on the edge of collapse, just like his extremely sweet yet precarious mood at the moment.
Putting away the phone, Liu Yuwei licked the green pistachio-flavored ball, a happy and satisfied expression on her face.
"Can you send me the photos later?" Jin Lang asked cautiously.
"I didn't even see the photo we took just now. Let's barter!"
Liu Yuwei glanced at him and said unhappily.
"You're quite vindictive!" The man chuckled and muttered softly.
"It's never too late for a gentleman to take revenge!"
Jin Lang heard her words and turned his head for a moment, his nose suddenly touching the cold. The next second, the soft ice cream slid to his lips. He subconsciously stretched out his tongue to lick it, and the sweet cream flavor melted in his mouth, mixing with the aroma of hand cream lingering on her fingertips.
Seeing his funny look, Liu Yuwei covered her mouth and bent over with laughter.
Jin Lang looked at the lovely swirl on her hair, and suddenly hoped that this moment would pass more slowly and more slowly like melting ice cream.
In the distance the church bells chimed five times, and the setting sun had begun to gild the Berlin TV Tower.
…
The afterglow before sunset gently enveloped Alexanderplatz like a veil. They visited all the attractions as planned and finally stopped under the World Clock, where a slightly overweight man was singing with a microphone.
What was supposed to be a light-hearted duet between a man and a woman was tinged with a lingering sadness due to the singer's deep and mellow voice.
This turret-shaped clock displays the time in 24 time zones around the world. People gather here for various reasons: to wait, to find shelter from the sun, to avoid the rain, or to perform.
Liu Yuwei looked at the "Peking" under the number 19 - the time there was six hours ahead of Berlin, just like the years that had passed between them.
"Let's go, there's a nice bar over there, I'll buy you a drink."
Liu Yuwei suggested, her voice no longer as cheerful as it had been in the afternoon, as if the passage of time had taken away all the joy.
"Do you still remember the song just now?" Jin Lang followed her and asked softly.
"Um."
The song, "Lucky," was sent to Liu Yuwei by Jin Lang before she boarded the plane. When she first arrived in Germany, she played it on repeat for ages, knowing every line by heart.
34 seconds
Lucky I'm in love with my best friend
1 minute 10 seconds
Every time we say goodbye
I wish we had one more kiss
I'll wait for you I promise you
1 minute 33 seconds
Lucky we're in love in everyway
Lucky to have stayed where we have stayed
Lucky to being home someday
It's so inappropriate to end a happy half-day with this song.
For a long while, neither of them said a word.
The setting sun dyed half the sky red, as if someone's heart was bleeding.
…
As dusk lingers, the small bar feels like a tranquil island in the city. Warm orange lighting, mingled with the aroma of malt, and the quaint decor evokes the feeling of stepping into a storytelling art film.
When the beer was served, white foam was jubilantly climbing to the edge of the glass on the surface of the amber liquid.
"Try it! This is the best beer in Berlin! Director Liu has personally verified it!"
Liu Yuwei tapped the wall of the cup lightly with her fingers, tilted her chin slightly, raised the corners of her eyes as if she was savoring a delicacy, and continued to talk to herself.
“Yeah, that’s the taste!”
"When you're in Berlin, you still have to drink beer. Ren Yiming only drank red wine for many years after returning to China. He said he had enough beer in Germany!"
Jin Lang raised his glass and tasted it, and it seemed to be no different from what he drank last night.
Liu Yuwei held her chin in her hand. Seeing his brow furrowed slightly, she suddenly burst into a giggle. She leaned forward, lowering her voice as if she was afraid of revealing the secret, "Isn't it the same taste as Tsingtao beer?"
Jin Lang forced a stiff smile on his lips, "It does look a bit like it."
After hesitating for a moment, he asked.
"Did you drink a lot during those two years?"
Liu Yuwei was stunned, her eyelashes trembling like a frightened butterfly. She raised her glass again, her tone natural, as if she were just chatting casually.
"It's okay! I don't dream when I'm drunk!"
Jin Lang gripped the beer glass tightly, his knuckles turning white as the cold spread through his fingertips, eroding his heart inch by inch. He gulped down a few mouthfuls, the liquid sliding down his throat and hitting his chest slightly.
"Did you have a good time during those two years?"
His throat tightened and his voice was hoarse. He knew the answer, but he couldn't help asking.
"It wasn't very good. I had insomnia, academic pressure, and the food was terrible. So I returned home as soon as I graduated!"
Liu Yuwei put down her wine glass and scratched the wood grain on the table with her nails. The moment she raised her eyes, she met Jin Lang's slightly red eyes. The glint in his eyes was filled with unspeakable heartache and guilt, which made her heart ache slightly.
"Jin Lang, you came here to see me this time, right?"
Her voice was calm, as if she already knew the answer.
Jin Lang's Adam's apple rolled up and down, and he nodded heavily, his brows almost twisted into a knot, his eyes full of seriousness.
"Yes, I have something to tell you!"
"Ladies first, how about letting me speak first!"
Liu Yuwei raised the corners of his lips and a faint smile appeared on his face.
Jin Lang didn't know what she was going to say. He stroked the wrinkles on his jeans with his palm, afraid of hearing a rejection in the next second. He was silent, not knowing how to respond.
"Let me tell you a story about my childhood!"
Liu Yuwei seemed to see through his nervousness and took the initiative to break the deadlock.
Hearing this, he straightened his back and cleared his throat, "I'm all ears."
Liu Yuwei poked the water droplets on the wall of the cup with her fingertips, and her eyes seemed to penetrate the warm orange light in front of her and drift into the distance.
"You know my mom is a lawyer and my dad is a university teacher, right?"
Jin Lang hummed, and leaned forward unconsciously, wanting to be closer to her.
"My mother is what others call a strong woman. She devoted herself to her career and rarely paid attention to me. When I was a child, it was basically my father who took care of my daily life."
"But he's a grown man, and he's not good at some details, like braiding my hair." Liu Yuwei covered her mouth and smiled. "After physical education class, all the boys in the class called me Mei Chaofeng because of the ponytail he tied."
"I was so angry that I learned to comb my hair myself. As a result, I could only wear a hairpin for a long time, but there were always a few strands of hair that wouldn't obey me. Then I got a new nickname, the Lobster..."
Liu Yuwei lowered his eyes, as if lost in memories.
"I was really skinny back then. My dad enrolled me in swimming lessons for several summers in a row to help me stay in shape. It's that open-air swimming pool in People's Park, you know?"
She looked expectantly, but Jin Lang shook his head.
"Oh yes, your house is in the west, it's indeed a bit far away." She seemed to come to her senses suddenly.
"Later, for convenience, my dad took me to get a very short haircut."
She gestured with her hands behind her ears.
"I don't know how effective it is in strengthening my body, but every time I swim, my appetite does increase."
"Oh, right, there's some fried game at the swimming pool entrance." Her eyes suddenly lit up. "When I'm hungry, I can have a sausage or fried cod. It's so blissful!"
The woman's voice was full of longing, as if she had returned to the hot summer days of her childhood, when the air was filled with the smell of disinfectant chlorine and fried food.
Liu Yuwei's eyes were wandering, and her whole body seemed to be wrapped in memories.
"What happened next?" Jin Lang asked softly.
"Eat a lot, get tanned, and have short hair."
Her voice suddenly turned cold. "Since school started, more classmates have given me nicknames."
"My grades weren't very good at the time, so it was useless to complain to the teacher. If I couldn't afford to offend them, I could just avoid them. I just stopped arguing with them."
There was a hint of stubbornness and helplessness in her tone.
"Then I gradually became invisible in the class. The head teacher and classmates ignored me."
"In fourth grade, our class had a new math teacher named Zhang. She was very nice and spoke gently to everyone."
Having said that, Liu Yuwei's eyes softened again.
"One time, I went to deliver my math homework during recess, and she asked if I could help her."
"I was a little hesitant at first, but then she said she just wanted to help buy breakfast. I agreed without hesitation."
"From then on, every few days during recess, I'd walk out of the school gate, holding an imperial edict, and go to a food stall in the alleyway to buy two fried sesame cakes, one meat and one vegetable, for 1.5 yuan."
"At that time, I felt that I must be Teacher Zhang's favorite student. My math grades also skyrocketed, and I ranked first in our class several times!"
"Until one day I accidentally overheard the math class representative telling others that Liu Yuwei was so silly and happy all day long. Did she really think Teacher Zhang liked her? When she knew that our class had given two spots in the Olympiad to me and the class monitor, she would probably cry her heart out!"
Her smile gradually froze and her voice became a little choked.
Jin Lang's brows were twisted into a "川" shape, and he imagined the scene of little Liu Yuwei curled up in a corner of the stairs and crying. His fists under the table clenched tighter and tighter, his nails almost digging into his palms, and indescribable heartache and anger surged in his chest.
"To prove myself, I started studying very hard and finished fifth in my school after graduating from elementary school. I didn't even slack off during summer vacation and ended up third in my grade on the junior high school entrance exam."
Liu Yuwei raised her chin, her tone filled with the pride of a butterfly emerging from its cocoon, but the confident gleam in her eyes was fleeting and quickly shrouded in mist.
"Unfortunately, I inherited my dad's genes and started breaking out like crazy during puberty."
"I don't want to repeat the same mistake of being called pockmarked or toad, so I try to avoid sports meets, art festivals, class activities, and any other crowded places with lots of classmates."
“It’s good to be alone. I can focus on studying!”
"At that time, our school's monthly exams were arranged according to grades. Every time I sat in seat 1, class 1, seat 1, my classmates looked at me with envy."
“That was probably my most satisfying moment.”
Her pupils lit up with tiny lights, then quickly dimmed, like the dust falling after a firework explodes.
"Luckily, my mom's work got back on track during those two years, so she had time to take me to the dermatologist. You see, scientific treatment really can prevent acne scars."
Liu Yuwei reached out and stroked her smooth cheek gently.
"Anyway, the three years of junior high school passed by in quiet study."
"Later, after the high school entrance exam, I went to No. 1 Middle School!"
After talking for a long time, Liu Yuwei seemed a little thirsty. She tilted her head back and drank most of the glass of wine. A few strands of hair stuck to her flushed cheeks.
Jin Lang's hand holding the wine glass was sweating. He knew that the story was about to enter a familiar track, but his heart was beating uncontrollably.
"Actually, I heard your name before the first year of high school started. My junior high school teacher said that the top scorer in this year's high school entrance exam was in Nanshi District, a boy named Jin Lang. He only lost three points on his Chinese composition and one point on his English composition."
She suddenly looked up, her eyes piercing his. "I was thinking, if I hadn't changed that multiple-choice question at the end of the comprehensive science exam, first place would have been mine."
"You know everything that happened later. After the start of the first year of high school, Song Miao became my deskmate."
The air suddenly became thick. Jin Lang opened his mouth, but his throat seemed to be stuck with malt sugar and he couldn't make any sound. He could only watch her finish the wine in the glass.
Liu Yuwei turned the empty wine glass, and the remaining liquid reflected rainbow colors under the light.
"Song Miao is probably the first true good friend in my life."
Her voice suddenly became so gentle that it could squeeze water out of her.
"She is beautiful, enthusiastic, generous, open-minded and brave. She has all the qualities I envy. I think if I were a boy, I would definitely fall in love with her."
Memories flooded back, and her eyelashes trembled violently.
"We went to and from school together, walked arm in arm to the cafeteria, and complained about our physics teacher's funny accent together..."
Having said this, she suddenly froze, and the curve of her mouth solidified into an icy edge that pierced into Jin Lang's heart.
"We went to the stadium together to watch you play, swapped duty with others to check on the hygiene in your class, and screamed for you crazily under the stage at the art festival..."
The last few words were almost squeezed out from between the teeth, with a bitter taste of age.
"Actually, in terms of priority, I don't think I am the latter." She sighed slightly and said word by word.
"It's just that God always rewards those who work hard."
As soon as she finished speaking, she suddenly stood up, and the chair made a harsh sound on the ground.
Jin Lang thought she was going to leave, and hurriedly grabbed Liu Yuwei's wrist. The alcohol seemed to ignite his body, and the warmth from his palm made his heart tremble.
"I'm going to buy another glass of wine. You can't finish the wine before you finish the story!"
She turned her head with tears in her eyes, and after she finished speaking, she patted the bony hand comfortingly.
"I'll go with you."
Jin Lang spoke almost reflexively.
Liu Yuwei casually tied her long hair into a high ponytail after entering the room. At this moment, Jin Lang followed closely behind her, his eyes fixed on her back. Her hair swayed back and forth with her steps, but the arc of her swing was like a blunt knife, cutting into his heart as the story just now continued.
Author's Note
Lazy Cat on the Cloud
author
04-20
I don't know how you feel about reading this, but I wrote it with such a gusto, this chapter is so fat, I wanted to post it as soon as I finished it. Writing is such a joy I haven't felt in a while (before, I was so stressed, thinking my writing was terrible). I'll definitely say what I need to say in the next chapter, and let Jin Lang earn me some sympathy! PS: Lucky is really nice, and it was one of the motivations for writing this. Upvoting it to the wall!!
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