"Really?" Meng Ziqiu was particularly gossipy. "That 'Night Talk with Egret'? Is she pretty? How did you meet her? Was it at Wuqi Mountain?"
"..." Xu Qian pushed his face away, looking disgusted. "Alright, stop asking. The answer is I didn't 'chase' him." Not only did he not 'chase' him, he didn't even see his shadow. Heaven knows he checked the status every week without fail, but nothing came up!
"No... I didn't manage to catch her." Meng Ziqiu immediately fell silent. If even someone like his older brother couldn't catch a fairy, then she must be the fairy among fairies.
Just as the two were talking, Meng Ziqiu's phone suddenly rang.
"Huh? Feifei? Why is she calling me?"
"Sister Feifei?" Meng Liangchen turned around and said.
Meng Ziqiu pressed the call button. "Hey, what brings you to call me? Oh... I was out for a while and the signal was bad there, so I couldn't get through. Hmm, I just got back to Weicheng today... Ah, today?" Meng Ziqiu looked at the two people beside him. "It might not be possible today. I have some friends here... Okay, I'll talk to them."
"Is Sister Feifei looking for you?" Meng Liangchen asked.
"Yeah, your brother Xiao Bei is here on a business trip and asked me to come over for a get-together."
"Go ahead and do what you need to do," Xu Qian told him.
"Brother, you go ahead. We can just take a taxi back; it's not far."
Meng Ziqiu thought that with his brother by his side, there shouldn't be any major problems, so he agreed.
So Xu Qian and Meng Liangchen waited for a car by the roadside, but because it was rush hour, several cars were full.
Xu Qian glanced at Meng Liangchen, hesitated for a moment, and asked him, "Do you mind if I ask you a question?"
Meng Liangchen was slightly taken aback, but agreed, "Sure, go ahead and ask."
“I heard from your brother that the Meng family hasn’t had a ‘mountain guardian’ since your grandfather’s generation, and everything about the ‘mountain guardian’ has become a secret of your Meng family. So, how did those people find you?” He paused for a second.
Meng Liangchen understood what he meant by "that group of people," but the question was a bit complicated to explain. He briefly summarized his thoughts, "I'm not entirely sure about the specifics, but I think it might be related to the inscription on my arm. After winter vacation started, I stayed at home and hardly went out. I remember going to the supermarket to buy vinegar that day, but on the way, I was knocked unconscious. When I woke up, I was at Chang'ai Mountain. I vaguely heard them say something about 'identical patterns,' and then they drew my blood..."
“Inscription…” Xu Qian stroked his chin, lost in thought. He realized he really needed to make time to go to the desert again. What was the connection between that inscription and the Meng family…?
"Brother Xu, why don't we take the bus back? It's so hard to get a taxi here. The bus might be faster," Meng Liangchen suggested.
"Okay." Xu Qian nodded in agreement.
Led by Meng Liangchen, the two arrived at a nearby bus stop, and soon a bus arrived.
"You can get there by taking bus number 85."
Xu Qian got on the bus, and Meng Liangchen paid the fare, as he had a bus pass.
"Meng Liangchen? Where did you go the other day? You didn't answer my calls, I thought you had run off somewhere!" A young boy suddenly called out to Meng Liangchen.
"Qi Rui, what are you doing here?" Meng Liangchen explained to Xu Qian, "I'm your classmate."
"You came here to hang out with your teacher and the others? We just parted ways. Wait, where have you been lately? Have you been missing?"
"I just went on a trip with my brother. The signal was bad there, so I couldn't receive the call." Meng Liangchen chuckled dryly. He couldn't very well say that he had just escaped death.
"Huh? What place is this? Are there still places without signal?" Qi Rui was completely confused.
"Yeah, it's a really remote place. By the way," Meng Liangchen changed the subject, "did you do your winter break homework?"
"...We can still be friends if we don't talk about homework."
Meng Liangchen laughed, "Alright, alright, let's not talk about homework, I haven't done it anyway."
"Huh? What's going on? Our top student didn't do his homework either? What do you say? Shall we meet at KFC tomorrow?!"
"We'll see. I'm a bit tired after just getting back."
“Okay,” Qi Rui then noticed the person standing next to Meng Liangchen and was taken aback. “Who is this?”
"Oh, he's my brother's friend. We came out to eat together, but my brother was just called away by someone else."
Xu Qian smiled at the child as a greeting.
Qi Rui scratched his face, suddenly feeling inexplicably embarrassed.
Two stops later, Qi Rui got off the bus with a flushed face.
“Your classmate looks sick,” Xu Qian said to Meng Liangchen.
"..." Meng Liangchen looked around and saw that almost 80% of the women and 50% of the men on the bus were staring at his Brother Xu. Thinking of this, he couldn't help but sigh, "Brother Xu, do you have a more discreet way of disguising yourself...?"
"What does it mean to be low-key?" he asked, puzzled.
"It's the uglier one."
"..." I think you're making things difficult for me, Fat Tiger! What can I do when the Valley of a Thousand Flowers has its own innate charm buff?!
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