Chapter 138 Progress "...Too indecent."...
It is difficult for normal people to imagine how marginalized people live; their life is like that of a frightened bird.
Afraid of being asked about family, afraid of being questioned, afraid of filling out forms, afraid of writing emergency contacts.
She didn't have any emergency contacts, and her palms started sweating with fear when she saw the column for parents.
Her mother couldn't stand the domestic violence and ran away, leaving the young girl to face her violent father alone.
At that time, she only thought about one thing: studying.
Only good grades could allow her to go to a good school. The good school was far away, so she had to live on campus so that she could leave home with a legitimate reason.
Unexpectedly, before she left home, her father left home first.
He got into a fight with someone after drinking and injured him, almost causing a death. He had no money to compensate the victim, so he was sent to jail.
She felt relieved, but not at ease.
She became the daughter of a criminal.
Song Jin has been able to sense the contempt and fear in other people's eyes since he was a child, as if violent crime was hereditary.
She wanted to fit in but couldn't. Even if the children didn't mind, the parents would. She heard some parents secretly tell their children not to play with her.
So she gave up making friends with her classmates and started to please the teacher. Studying hard was the best way to please the teacher. She learned fast calculation at that time in order to participate in competitions, win awards, and get praise from the teacher.
Just to get that little bit of affirmation, Song Jin paid a lot.
In the mind of young Song Jin, only the competition rankings did not discriminate against her. Apart from that, everything and everyone else discriminated against her.
Things do not discriminate against people. This idea is closely related to Song Jin's inferiority complex back then.
This inferiority complex became stronger after she entered society. She went from trying to please her teachers to trying to please her boss, thinking that she would be rewarded for her hard work. However, who knew that the reward would be to take the blame, be sent to jail, and turn her from the daughter of a criminal into a real criminal.
So Song Jin ran away with the money and died. No one knew where the money went. She only knew that after a person dies, everything that happened in his or her life has nothing to do with her anymore.
Song Jin didn't want to mention even a word about the unbearable past. When she traveled through time and space and was born as a slave in a family, her first reaction was not to feel relieved, but rather that it was a punishment from God.
Ji Shubai would not understand all this. At least in his heart, he and his parents had a clear conscience, but Song Jin felt guilty, so she couldn't say it out loud.
The closer we are, the harder it is to say.
Faced with Ji Shubai's questioning, she lowered her head and did not answer.
"It's okay. If you don't want to talk about it, just don't talk about it." He squeezed her hand and said, "It's almost noon, and the sun is getting brighter outside. Can you accompany me to bask in the sun?"
Song Jin nodded.
The sun climbed overhead at noon. Song Jin felt cold while sitting in the cabin, but felt hot when he stepped into the sun. It was like two completely different worlds, with a clear distinction between cold and hot.
She held onto the side of the boat. The lake surface was flashing dazzling light under the scorching sun. Song Jin closed her eyes, feeling the warm spring breeze gently sweeping across her cheeks. It was truly intoxicating.
Just as Song Jin was enjoying the spring breeze, Ji Shubai plucked the strings of the pipa in his hand behind him. When Song Jin turned around, he saw Ji Shubai sitting there with a pipa in his arms.
She always thought that when Ji Shubai got old, he would have white hair, long flowing beard, and sit under a pine tree in a green robe. If he had a musical instrument in his hand, it would be a guqin, so as to live up to his current handsome appearance.
However, at this moment he was holding a pipa and plucking the strings.
Song Jin didn't understand music, so he didn't know that Ji Shubai was playing "Sunset Xiaogu". He just felt that the rhythm was light and soothing, with neither the urgency of "Ten Sides of Ambush" nor the depression of "Zhaojun's Complaint".
She likes this piece of music.
Song Jin walked slowly to the stool next to Ji Shubai and sat down, listening quietly to him finish playing a song.
"When did you learn to play the pipa?" Song Jin was a little surprised.
She always thought Ji Shu was an idiot who only cared about studying, so how could he learn a musical instrument, and the pipa at that.
“This is my mother’s legacy.”
When talking about his mother, Ji Shubai's voice became much softer.
"After my mother passed away, Mother Chen helped me sort out her belongings, and I saw this piano."
"Mother Chen told me that my mother was very good at playing the pipa, but I have never heard her play it."
"After my mother died, this was the only thing among her belongings that could make a sound, so I learned to play it, but now I rarely play it."
He hugged the zither and asked Song Jin: "What other music do you want to hear?"
Song Jin didn't know how to play Pipa music, so he just said, "I want to listen to something light and lively."
Ji Shubai smiled, adjusted his posture, and swept his slender fingers across the strings.
At that moment, Song Jin felt that such days seemed pretty good.
After returning that day, Song Jin calmed down and no longer resisted Ji Shubai, but he no longer went to Ji's house easily.
Ji Shubai's indulgence towards her seemed like a doting with a reason. Song Jin was very careful, fearing that he would withdraw his love one day.
The two men returned from the fields and the Lu family restaurant reopened. Faced with some gossip, everyone turned a deaf ear to it and ignored it under Song Jin's instructions. Everything was slowly getting back on track.
Song Jin designed several more Sudoku puzzles, some difficult and some easy. The easy ones could be solved in a cup of tea, while the difficult ones could not be solved in half a day, especially the traditional Chinese numbers, which were not as convenient as Arabic numerals and took a lot of effort.
Song Jin posted a puzzle every day, and the first person to solve it would receive a boiled chicken. In the first two days, all the puzzles were quickly taken away, but then the time became longer and longer, and finally no one could solve it that day, so someone copied the puzzle and left, only to return the next day to claim the chicken.
This was the effect Song Jin wanted, a disguised form of publicity, because those who could solve problems were not too poor, and poor people could not go to school. This group of people competed with each other in solving problems, which just achieved the purpose of publicity.
Accurate target customers.
Among all the guests who came to copy questions, there was one who came every day, and that was Qingshan.
After Ji Shubai solved the problem, he did not come to exchange for the chicken. He just wrote the answer in a gift box and asked Qingshan to bring it to him every day, which was quite provocative.
Seeing him like this, Song Jin decided to tease him, so one day he gave him a question, put it in a box and asked Qingshan to take it back.
Qingshan did not come the next day, nor the third day, and still no sign of him on the fourth day. On the fifth day, Qingshan handed her a gift box, which contained not the answer but an invitation to go boating on the lake.
Song Jin couldn't help but laugh. You must have lost a lot of hair because I challenged you.
The next day, Song Jin dressed neatly and went there happily.
As soon as the sedan chair landed by the lake, Song Jin saw Ji Shubai, who was frowning in front of him. When he got closer, he could even see the dark circles under his eyes.
"Ah, Master Ji, you are so tired. You have to accompany me on a boat trip today. You must have worked hard."
Song Jin walked past him without bowing, and his words were full of teasing.
Ji Shubai was somewhat happy and somewhat unhappy.
He was happy because Song Jin had offended him again. Did this mean that she was not so repulsive to him anymore?
He was unhappy because he had been working on the problem for several days without success and was very discouraged. Also, as the problem was specifically assigned to him, he did not ask anyone else to help him, so he had to bear all the pain alone.
"Miss Lu," he chased her onto the pleasure boat, "You haven't given me an answer yet."
Song Jin chuckled twice and continued walking forward. Ji Shubai took a long step and stood in front of him.
"Give me the answer first."
"Lord Ji is so impatient." Song Jin adjusted her hair bun proudly and turned a deaf ear to his question.
"I tried it many times, but the numbers kept coming up wrong. I just wanted to know what the answer was."
Song Jin looked at Ji Shubai's frown and couldn't help laughing: "My Lord, if you coax me, I will be happy and I will naturally give you the answer."
Ji Shubai's face turned pale. Song Jin looked like... a playboy in a storybook who flirted with decent girls, and a man of bad character.
Ji Shubai's face turned from blue to white, and then from white to red.
I want to coax her, but I feel something is not right. I want to scold her, but I'm afraid she will be angry.
How could she tease me? I wasn't drunk today.
"It's not good for you to do this."
"What's wrong?" Song Jin asked as he got closer.
"...Too indecent."
Song Jin chuckled after hearing this: "Master Ji is so pedantic. Never mind, I won't tease you anymore. Why didn't you think that it might be a wrong question?"
"Ah?" Ji Shubai suddenly realized: "Are you kidding me?"
"Is the master angry?" Song Jin's fearless look made Ji Shubai helpless.
"You're bullying again."
She walked around Ji Shubai and said, "So what if I bully you? Are you going to beat me up again?"
Song Jin was a little unscrupulous. Ji Shubai was already feeling guilty, and now he had to mention the whip. The more he talked, the more guilty he felt.
"Do you blame me?" Ji Shubai followed behind Song Jin, his voice a little weak.
"Why do you blame me?"
"Blame me for treating you like that."
"There have been many times when the master has been mean to me. Which time are you referring to?" Song Jin spoke rather heartlessly, as if the whip had not hit her at all.
Ji Shubai couldn't help but care about it, he curled his lips and said nothing. Song Jin didn't hear him, he stopped and looked back, he saw his resentful look, he couldn't help but laugh: "I was just teasing you, how come you can't understand a joke."
“I just can’t hear it.”
Seeing how serious he was, Song Jin couldn't laugh anymore and answered him seriously, "I don't blame you."
"Is it really not strange?"
She pretended to be relaxed: "Sir, I have met many people in my life, but not many of them are good to me. If I were to talk about who has been bad to me, you wouldn't even be on the list."
Song Jin said it lightly, but his voice gradually became lower. Ji Shubai's heart suddenly tightened when he heard that voice, and he couldn't help but move closer: "I will treat you well in the future."
Song Jin turned his head away and continued walking forward: "I don't like to hear people promise anything."
It is better to do something well than to say it well. Ji Shubai knew it, so he said nothing more and followed him.
Song Jin found a place to sit on the pleasure boat with ease, and asked Ji Shubai to play a song for her without any hesitation. As a result, Ji Shubai also started to joke with her.
"If you want me to play, you have to give me something, right?"
Song Jin looked at Ji Shubai's smiling expression and his lips that had recovered, and couldn't help thinking: Sooner or later I will give you another bite to let you know how powerful I am, and see if you dare to ask me for things again.
Seeing that she didn't say anything and just stared at his lips, Ji Shubai couldn't help but think of the day when she leaned in his arms and bit her lips, and his face turned red.
"Forget it," he sat up straight, picked up the pipa, and said, "I am a magnanimous man, I won't bother with those things. What do you want to hear?"
Song Jin didn't know any pipa music, so he told him to play whatever he wanted, and added at the end that he wanted to listen to something light and lively.
Great suffering and great sorrow are not suitable for her.
Song Jin just sat by the window, basking in the sun, stretching his hands out of the window, feeling the breeze flowing gently through his fingers, feeling extremely comfortable.
Ji Shubai didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with this. He sat there holding the pipa and played a tune facing the wind.
He asked Song Jin to come out today, not only because of the unsolvable problem, nor to play a song for her, but to bring her good news.
The Chai family decided to invite her to teach Baobao.
Mrs. Chai had decided to invite Song Jin to teach Bao Bao because she had a good reputation among the men. Later, she delayed it because her reputation was ruined by someone. Now, she was asked to go back. Song Jin couldn't think of a reason for a moment, so she had to turn around and ask Ji Shubai.
"Did you help me persuade Mrs. Chai?"
"She was planning to invite you anyway, why should I try to persuade her?"
"Isn't she afraid of my bad reputation?"
Ji Shubai said: "Reputation grows in other people's mouths. If you are good, it is other people's mouths that say you are good. If you are not good, it is also other people's mouths that say you are not good. People's reputation will not always be good, nor will it always be bad. You are not an unforgivable person. If you and I were in the same position, you would definitely advise me in this way. Why are you confused now when it comes to yourself?"
Song Jin sneered and sighed, "This is what they call a bystander sees more clearly than an insider."
Ji Shubai put down the pipa and sat next to her.
"Can I visit you often at Chai's house in the future?"
"You can come to take my class for free, but you have to call me Master's Wife."
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