Chapter 14 Goodnight, Panpan
Chapter 14
Yu Pan had seen many truck drivers in Xishan Village. In his memory, they would only make one trip a day, and spend the rest of their time either squatting under the roots of trees smoking pipes or playing cards. They seemed very idle.
After learning that Shen Yanzhou had been transferred to be a driver, Yu Pan thought he would have more free time, but who knew that Shen Yanzhou would be even busier than before.
Yu Pan would get up at five or six every morning, have a quick breakfast with him, and leave the house still feeling dazed.
It's usually after nine o'clock at night, sometimes even close to eleven, before the familiar footsteps come from the door.
Several times, Yu Pan wanted to ask Shen Yanzhou what he was busy with, and why being a driver could be so tiring.
In the morning, Shen Yanzhou ruffled her hair and coaxed her, saying, "I'll tell you when I get back tonight."
In the evening, as he was revising his manuscript at the table, he became drowsy from listening to Shen Yanzhou washing up.
By the time Shen Yanzhou finished packing, he was so sleepy he could barely keep his eyes open, and he forgot all the questions he wanted to ask in his dream.
About half a month passed like this. One evening, Yu Pan was sitting by the window reading "Evening Primrose Collection" that Shen Yanzhou had bought for him a couple of days earlier when he suddenly heard the sound of a car engine downstairs, followed by Shen Yanzhou's voice: "I'll go upstairs and call someone."
Yu Pan's heart skipped a beat. She peered out the window and saw Shen Yanzhou standing next to the truck, while Tan Ming was pushing open the driver's cab door, holding a rolled-up paper tube in his hand.
Before he could even pull himself back, Shen Yanzhou had already climbed the stairs, carrying a faint smell of smoke, but with a smile on his lips: "Panpan, let's go out to eat."
Yu Pan blinked, pointed in Tan Ming's direction, and gestured, "He's going too?"
"Hmm." Shen Yanzhou found a slightly thicker coat for Yu Pan and draped it over her elbow. It was the transition between spring and summer, and the evenings were still chilly. "We closed a deal, let's celebrate."
As they came downstairs, Tan Ming was leaning against the car smoking. When he saw them come out, he shoved the paper tube in his hand into Chen Yanzhou's arms and said, "Take it. I'm a rough guy, I might not be able to find it tomorrow."
Shen Yanzhou took it and, seeing Yu Pan staring at what was in his hand, handed it to him: "Take this and play with it."
The paper tube was stiff as a board. Yu Pan held it and tapped it against the palm of her other hand. After tapping it, she felt like a little tyrant at school and couldn't help but curl the corners of her mouth.
Shen Yanzhou noticed that he was in a good mood, so she put her arm around his shoulder and whispered in his ear, "What are you thinking about? You seem so happy."
Yu Pan tucked the paper tube under her arm and gestured out what she had just been thinking.
“You’re still a little tyrant.” Shen Yanzhou replied with a sign language.
"Why can't I be a little tyrant?" Yu Pan gestured, raised her chin, glared, and looked very fierce.
Shen Yanzhou chuckled, amused by his words, and reached out to pinch his cheek. "Alright, alright, you are."
“I think…” Tan Ming, who had been standing to the side, suddenly spoke up, “Should I also buy a sign language book and learn?”
Before Shen Yanzhou and Yu Pan could ask, Tan Ming explained, "Otherwise, if you two are gesturing at each other, I won't be able to get a word in edgewise. Are you secretly cursing me?"
Yu Pan: ...
Seeing Yu Pan's guilty look, Tan Ming was immediately shocked: "You really were secretly cursing me?"
Yu Pan immediately lowered her head, feeling somewhat guilty.
Upon seeing this, Tan Ming immediately clicked his tongue in astonishment: "So you really are secretly cursing me?"
Yu Pan quickly shook her head and waved her hands.
Shen Yanzhou laughed, though. Yu Pan was meeting Tan Ming for the first time, and he did indeed gesture to him that the driver uncle looked like someone not to be trifled with.
After that, he always called Tan Ming "Uncle Tan Ming". Later, when he learned that Tan Ming was only 24 years old, he quietly changed the title of "Uncle" to "Big Brother".
The three of them joked and laughed all the way to the store.
At the same small restaurant as last time, Tan Ming poured himself a cup of tea as soon as he sat down, smacked his lips, and said, "To be honest, I still think it's uncertain. The owner was playing games with me the day before yesterday, saying 'let's see how it goes,' so how come he signed so readily today?"
Shen Yanzhou was rinsing Yu Pan's chopsticks without looking up. "His hotel will open at the beginning of next month, so he definitely needs to finalize things in the next couple of days. Our factory's 'Galaxy' chopsticks are large enough and reasonably priced, so he has no reason to choose another company."
“But when you tell him you’re not satisfied and you’ll get a refund on the spot, I get nervous just listening to that.” Tan Ming leaned back in his chair. “I’ve been driving for so many years, and I’ve seen too many people who say they’ll consider it, but then turn around and go find someone else.”
"Our goods are fine, what are we afraid of?" Shen Yanzhou handed the hot chopsticks to Yu Pan, his tone calm. "The lobby where he talked to us the day before yesterday had such a large string of crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. He obviously wanted to make it look grand."
Yu Pan sat on the side and listened for a while before she understood that Shen Yanzhou was not just a driver.
The fireworks and firecrackers industry is in its off-season after the Lunar New Year. Their factory encourages its employees to bring in business, and they get a share of the profits.
Shen Yanzhou approached Tan Ming for a collaboration. Tan Ming didn't know much about fireworks and firecrackers, but he had a car that could travel to other places. The two of them, one handling business and the other managing transportation, worked for more than half a month before finally closing the deal.
Yu Pan lowered her head and touched the contract tube in her arms, suddenly remembering that some time ago, Shen Yanzhou had been practicing smiling in front of the mirror.
At the time, Yu Pan thought she was still half asleep and had misread it, but now she knows it's true.
Tan Ming patted Shen Yanzhou's shoulder with a smile, "At first I advised you not to have too high hopes, but I didn't expect that you, this quiet little thing, are full of ideas."
Shen Yanzhou didn't reply, but turned to ask Yu Pan, "Would you like fish or ribs?"
Yu Pan pointed to the ribs, and when he picked up the food, he deliberately put a piece of roasted pork in Shen Yanzhou's bowl.
Looking at Shen Yanzhou's composed profile, Yu Pan suddenly felt that this person must have some ulterior motives, knowing exactly when to play it safe and when to charge ahead.
On the way back, the wind was indeed cooler than in the afternoon. Shen Yanzhou gave Yu Pan the coat he had brought and walked beside him at his pace.
Yu Pan suddenly gave Chen Yanzhou a thumbs up.
It means: You are really amazing.
Shen Yanzhou understood, took his hand, and then frowned because of the coldness of Yu Pan's hand. He turned around and wrapped his hand in his palm: "Hurry up, let's go home."
Forced to quicken their pace, after parting ways with Tan Ming, the two opened the door and went upstairs. In the darkness, Yu Pan wrote her question in Shen Yanzhou's palm: "Is the commission enough to buy a large dictionary?"
Shen Yanzhou laughed, "That's enough to buy five Chinese dictionaries."
Yu Pan's eyes widened in surprise, and she gripped Shen Yanzhou's hand tightly.
He looked at Shen Yanzhou's tall figure. Actually, he didn't care about the dictionary; he just thought Shen Yanzhou looked very cool with his confidence.
…
Meanwhile, Yu Pan's manuscript, which she planned to send to the magazine, was almost finished.
After submitting the manuscript, there was a little more hope for the future.
Every morning, Yu Pan would stand by the mailbox at the door for a while, peer inside, and only leave reluctantly when she saw that it was still empty.
The old man at the bookstore, seeing that he came so often, chuckled and teased him, "What's the rush? Magazine reviews are slow; it takes at least half a month."
Yu Pan knew he couldn't rush things, but this was his first submission, and it would be a lie to say he wasn't hopeful. While working on other manuscripts, he kept thinking about whether the one he had sent in would be accepted.
Looking at him, the old man suddenly remembered that when he submitted his first article, he was practically waiting outside the postman's house.
Oh well, it's all something we have to go through.
After securing the next order, Shen Yanzhou became noticeably busier. He not only had to deliver goods and deal with surrounding distributors, but also had to search for new partners.
Dealing with people is never easy. That day, Shen Yanzhou took Tan Ming to three towns and encountered a difficult customer who insisted that the firecrackers he had delivered last time "did not explode loud enough" and kept pestering him to refund the money.
Tan Ming couldn't help but retort, and the customer immediately launched an attack, dragging things out until dark before finally managing to leave.
The road where the client lived was narrow and the car couldn't get in. The two of them got soaked in the rain on their way back, and there were hardly any dry spots on them from head to toe.
When Shen Yanzhou arrived home and opened the door, Yu Pan was tending the coal stove to boil water. Upon seeing him like this, her face turned pale.
Fortunately, he had already boiled water to keep it warm, and quickly pulled him to the bathroom. His hands were shaking as he looked for clean clothes for Shen Yanzhou.
When Shen Yanzhou came out after taking a shower, he saw that the man was still frowning and comforted him, "Your brother is as strong as an ox."
"Even cows can't withstand this kind of rain!"
After gesturing, Yu Pan pressed him down into a chair, took a dry towel and dried his hair, her movements serious and slightly annoyed.
"It's really nothing." Shen Yanzhou pulled him into his arms, made him sit on his lap, and looked down at Yu Pan's fingers.
A thin callus has formed on the first joint of my middle finger.
This is from holding the pen so much lately.
Yu Pan nestled in Shen Yanzhou's arms, looking up at him intently.
In less than a month, Shen Yanzhou became darker and thinner, with faint dark circles under his eyes, and his eyebrows and eyes looked more furrowed.
“You’ve been working too hard lately,” Yu Pan wrote on Shen Yanzhou’s palm.
After finishing writing, she patted Shen Yanzhou on the shoulder and squeezed his arm, her eyes filled with unconcealed heartache: "You've lost weight. Don't push yourself so hard, you'll get sick."
Shen Yanzhou pinched his cheek and hugged him tighter. "Brother knows his limits. After we're done with this busy period, I'll take you fishing by the lake. We'll fish all day long, and do absolutely nothing, okay?"
Yu Pan nodded and buried her face in Shen Yanzhou's neck, inhaling the faint scent of soap on him.
Shen Yanzhou touched the back of his head and suddenly said, "Don't worry too much about your manuscript."
Yu Pan's shoulders stiffened slightly. She looked up at him, a barely perceptible hint of nervousness flashing in her eyes.
“Even if it doesn’t work out this time,” Shen Yanzhou kissed the corner of his mouth, her voice soft, “it’s not that you wrote badly, it’s that they have no taste. Besides, weren’t you quite happy when you were writing it? That’s enough.”
No matter how tired he was after get off work each day, he still kept an eye on Yu Pan.
Shen Yanzhou remembered that when Yu Pan was revising the manuscript, he would sometimes smile foolishly at the manuscript paper, and sometimes he would frown and bite his pen. His focused expression was more important to him than any result.
Yu Pan blinked and wrote on Shen Yanzhou's palm, "Yes! You too!"
"Um?"
“When you’re working,” Yu Pan wrote slowly, “don’t push yourself too hard. Being happy is the most important thing.”
Shen Yanzhou paused for a moment, then smiled and kissed him on the forehead. "Okay."
The rain outside had stopped sometime earlier. Shen Yanzhou reached out and pulled the light cord, and by the moonlight streaming in through the window, carried Yu Pan to the bedside.
As I lay down, I hugged him and tucked him in. "Go to sleep. I'll get up a little later tomorrow."
Yu Pan snuggled closer to him, wrapping her arms around his waist, counting Shen Yanzhou's heartbeats in her mind.
Before he drifted off to sleep, he felt Shen Yanzhou whisper something in his ear, the voice so soft it was like the wind brushing across the water.
He didn't hear clearly and subconsciously snuggled closer to Shen Yanzhou.
Shen Yanzhou chuckled softly and placed a long kiss on his lips, his voice tinged with breath: "Goodnight, Panpan."
A note from the author:
----------------------
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
