Menglanjian! Menglanjian!
"Menglanjian! Menglanjian!"
43.
The highlight of the year-end banquet is always the lucky draw.
The lottery first draws for labs, then three grand prizes, with this year's first prize naturally provided by the host lab. Last year, Xie Daquan from the accelerator got a fully automatic coffee machine, and Xue Xiangyi from heavy particle physics had already spread the word that he would definitely get a big prize to outdo Xie Daquan.
Xie Daquan was just waiting to see the show. When the host invited Xue Xiang to the stage to speak, Xie Daquan's eyes lit up when he heard the word "dishwasher" from Xue Xiang's mouth - everyone knew that his house was being renovated recently and he was just missing some big items.
Xie Daquan was the first to stand up and applaud from his table, shouting, "Old Xue! Awesome! Give me a round of applause!"
Xue Xiang looked at Xie Daquan with a smile, thinking to himself with pride, "Chongming's idea is really brilliant. Isn't a dishwasher more eye-catching than Xie Daquan's coffee machine?"
He rummaged through the raffle box, and after an exciting fifteen seconds—
"Number 23!"
After nearly half a minute of whispering, a scream suddenly erupted from the table in the heavy particle lab. Meng Lanjian was holding the lottery numbers and information that Chongming had slipped into her hand after hearing the numbers; the student ID and name filled in on them were hers.
The group of people in the lab had only just sat down after a long day of work, and hadn't even had a few bites of food before starting the raffle. At first, no one paid attention to the raffle, until Xue Xiang finished reading it aloud for the first time. Chongming, who hadn't really spoken to Lan Jian all day, took a slip of paper from his pocket and slipped it into her hand, which was next to a damp towel. Everyone was too busy eating to notice this.
Lan Jian opened the note in confusion, which drew the attention of the younger female students.
Nie Mumu exclaimed excitedly, "Senior! The dishwasher! You really won it!"
After having hot pot last time, Lan Jian complained that it would be great if the break room also had a dishwasher. She might have mentioned it casually to Chongming later, or she might not have, but she never expected that the dishwasher would be hers in a lottery.
It should be noted that Meng Lanjian has never won a prize in his life.
Meng Lanjian, who had been depressed all day, was still dazed when she went on stage. Xue Xiang joked, "Lanjian, you live in the school dormitory. If you can't fit this big item, the laboratory is right next to the tea room. You can fit it there."
Meng Lanjian said frankly, "I had already thought that if I were to draw it, I would put it in the tea room."
A cheer erupted from the audience.
Xue Xiang was so smug he was practically waving a big flag on stage, shouting, "Look at our Lanjian, what a vision!"
"Menglanjian! Menglanjian!"
The 12th-floor hotpot group began chanting Meng Lanjian's name, creating an unprecedentedly enthusiastic scene.
Looking at Meng Lanjian, who finally broke into a smile on the stage, Chongming felt a warm smile in his eyes as well.
After finishing their work that evening, everyone started to leave in different cars. Meng Lanjian was helped by Zhuang Huiting to get into Guan Shaoxiao's car to go back to school. She and Chongming exchanged a glance across the crowd. Ye Ni was standing next to him, and Meng Lanjian felt uncomfortable just looking at the scene. She turned around and got into the car. Even Zhuang Huiting noticed that she was a little upset and started to defend Chongming.
There were other people on the bus. She lowered her voice and whispered in Lan Jian's ear, "That Ye Ni really knows how to handle things. I don't think Chongming paid much attention to her. Don't be upset."
Lan Jian shook her head. "It's not because of that."
Zhuang Huiting pressed for more information, but Lan Jian refused to say anything more. It wasn't until the group returned to school that they learned Lan Jian had also returned to the lab and hadn't come out for a long time. The next day, the winter break would officially begin, and the Nuclear Research Institute would be shut down for a week during the Lunar New Year holiday due to water and power outages. Some people also needed to do some finishing work.
She called Lan Jian to ask when she was going back to the dorm. After a moment of silence on the other end of the line, Lan Jian said, "I'm packing."
Okay, let's go.
Pack up? Zhuang Huiting vaguely sensed something was amiss, but Lan Jian seemed to have regained her energy on the way back and started joking around with her, so she was fooled.
That night, Lan Jian didn't go home with Chongming. Chongming tossed and turned on the cold, hard bed, feeling that something was very wrong with Meng Lan Jian that night. He finally made it to the next morning and drove to the school to pick her up, only to find that Meng Lan Jian looked perfectly normal. She even spoke to him with a faint smile, showing no signs of having any worries.
On the first day of the holiday, Chongming's plan was to take Lanjian to visit Shenhua Village.
The house is mostly finished with renovations, and half of the furniture has been arranged by a professional designer. The Chongming holiday plan is to take Lan Jian to finish the remaining half. Lan Jian is very satisfied with the interior decoration of Shenhuali, but what pleases her even more is the front garden, which has been planted with various hollyhocks, double-petaled hibiscus, roses, hydrangeas, and other flowers. When she was a child, she visited a relative who lived in a small town in Italy, and what impressed her most was their garden. It was so large that it took a while to drive in from the gate, and the view of the flowers blooming outside the car window as she drove in filled her with joy.
“I heard from my seventh aunt last time that there is a kind of rose called ‘Juice Balcony’ that is not easy to grow, but its bright yellow color is like a glass of orange juice that has been accidentally spilled on the balcony. It’s very pleasing to the eye.” Meng Lanjian did not have any particular opinion on the neatly arranged rooms. However, she was already full of ideas about what flowers to plant in the garden in which season. “There is still a lot of space here. I want to put a set of tables and chairs here for sketching… but I always sit on the ground when sketching, so it seems unnecessary to prepare tables and chairs.”
Chongming stroked his chin and suddenly realized that asking the designer to leave him half the space to decorate was a long and arduous task.
The couple lingered in Shenhua Village for a long time, and by the time they arrived at their parents' house in Chongming, it was past lunchtime. The house was being thoroughly cleaned, so the couple simply sat down in the clean kitchen area to share their meal.
"I was so busy yesterday that my legs could barely stand. Thank goodness Lao Guan was so capable, otherwise our lab would have been in complete chaos if I were in charge," Lan Jian said casually. "How are things on your end?"
"It was tiring too," Chongming said, grimacing as he recalled yesterday. He rarely complained about being tired. "Everything else was alright, but communicating with people was the most tiring."
Lan Jian knew he wasn't sociable, which was why he spent all his time holed up in the lab. She thought for a moment, then decided to speak her mind, "What about Ye Ni? Does she make you feel tired, or do you admire her?"
Although Chongming was a very straightforward man, he wasn't so oblivious as to not notice that his wife had been inexplicably jealous since last night. He had been looking for an opportunity to explain to her, but he didn't know how to start. Lan Jian asked first, and he breathed a sigh of relief, "It's more than just exhaustion. I felt like I was working at a duck farm yesterday. Ye Ni alone was worth five hundred ducks."
Lan Jian had taken a deep breath, but upon hearing his answer and the description of "five hundred ducks," she burst out laughing, unable to catch her breath. Chongming reached out and patted her back to help her catch her breath. "Did you have some kind of grudge against her?"
"Yes, she once treated me as a rival in love and betrayed me." Lan Jian didn't intend to hide it from Chongming and briefly explained the past. "But you comforted me back then, which made me feel much better."
In Chongming's view, what he said back then wasn't exactly comforting, just some facts, yet it made Lanjian feel grateful to him, which he felt unworthy of. Over the course of their time together, he seemed to have vaguely discerned the clues that Lanjian had developed feelings for him, all stemming from very insignificant details.
But she's always been rather careless and easygoing, hardly the type to be easily moved by trivial matters and suffer from a lack of love. If there really is a reason, then…
Chongming considered his words carefully, and seeing that Lanjian had put down her chopsticks and finished her meal, he slowly asked her, "Lanjian, why didn't you spend the Lunar New Year with your father and mother last year?"
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