You don't have a crush on me, do you?
"You don't... have a crush on me, do you?"
9.
Even when Xue Xiang is not there, the lab still holds group meetings every Wednesday.
Even if it's just for the free dinner every Wednesday, everyone is happy to get together.
Xue Xiang, Chong Ming, and Lan Jian were all away for a while, and the lab switched to online meetings, so Ma Yuehe didn't get any lab funding. Today, Chong Ming said that they had accumulated funding for a period of time, so they could order a big meal. Ma Yuehe ordered fried chicken and pizza, but it wasn't enough. He also insisted on trying the abalone hot pot from a popular restaurant.
He ordered a lavish dinner and naturally volunteered to pick it up.
At 6 p.m., it was Meng Lanjian's turn to report on the journal at the group meeting. In the afternoon, she hid in the storage room where experimental instruments and papers were kept to practice her report. After practicing once, she took a break and browsed her phone. She saw a popular keyword in the community and clicked on it to see an interview.
The text reads: "A political marriage between the descendant of a deceased high-ranking official in the North and the son of a general in the South has ended the war between North and South."
In the video, a woman wearing a pearl-colored long dress sits opposite a well-known host from both the North and South who supports peaceful coexistence. The woman is wearing a mask, revealing only her bright eyes, and is roughly estimated to be between 23 and 26 years old. Her gestures are composed and graceful, and her voice is gentle and unhurried.
“My uncle has no children. He has always treated me like his own daughter since I was a child. He often tells me about his experiences studying and working in Nanlu. If he were still alive, he would be very happy that I married into Nanlu.”
"Your union is a turning point for us ordinary people who support peaceful coexistence. After all, the border war is almost on the verge of breaking out. At this critical juncture, the Southern Army general's agreement to a marriage alliance means that, in a sense, the moment we have been waiting for is finally approaching!"
"Regarding this part of the conflict, all I can say is that the leaders on both sides have their own considerations. As ordinary people, what we can do is to work together to create a harmonious and friendly social environment, and for residents of both places to be more tolerant of each other. That's what I wanted to say!"
Meng Lanjian forced himself to endure the tingling discomfort on his scalp and finished reading this nonsensical conversation.
She admitted that the stand-in Lu Jie found was quite pretty. Although she was sitting, she looked taller than Meng Lanjian herself. She was thin and slender, but as a northerner learning a southern accent, she did a decent job of getting the intonation right.
However, this was not Meng Lanjian at all.
Meng Lanjian was born with a rebellious streak. No matter how upright her posture was, the angle of her toes would still reveal her unruly nature. She didn't deliberately speak with a southern accent; she spoke clearly and distinctly. When she spoke quickly, she sounded like a woman from the northern Luan region, and when she spoke slowly, she sounded like someone from the southern mountains. This was an innate advantage brought about by her family environment—many elders in Meng Lanjian's family came from the southern mountains.
But that pretentious stand-in was far removed from her own style. The more Lan Jian thought about it, the more absurd it seemed, but she couldn't possibly appear in front of the public and spout those whitewashing platitudes. She had fulfilled her duty for peace between the two places, and the price was nothing more than a marriage.
Compared to what Lu Jie claimed about her "forcing her own uncle to death," this is nothing at all.
...
"I think nuclear peace would be a better solution!"
When Lan Jian came out of the storage room, Chong Ming was not at his seat. All the young ones from the lab had arrived. Lan Jian watched them eating with their mouths full of oil, and discussing the ridiculous "marriage alliance theory" in the news. She was both amused and exasperated, so she went back to the storage room to get some tissues.
She took out a red and a blue box of cartoon cat tissues from the box, placed the red one on the conference table, walked around the long table, and placed the blue tissue box between her and Chongming's seats.
The Chu River and Han border are clearly separated by the Wei and Jing rivers.
A small box of tissues connected her with Chongming Island.
The space was divided up, a tacit understanding that Lan Jian and Lan Jian had when Lan Jian first entered the laboratory.
The lab's regular staff are all straight men. Xue Xiang always refuses to use red tissues, and Chongming always picks blue ones. Ma Yuehe follows suit, often leaving only red tissues in the box. Xue Xiang is a teacher, and Lan Jian can't disobey him. But with Chongming, she doesn't indulge his little quirk. When tissues run out, she gets them herself, using whatever color she gets.
It's just a matter of color on the outside; isn't it still essentially a tissue?
Once, Lan Jian placed a red box on the table. Chong Ming looked at the empty table and the conspicuous red box, then suddenly leaned close to Lan Jian and asked, "Shall we talk about something?"
Lan Jian thought something serious had happened and immediately sat up straight. "Go on," she said.
"Can we take turns taking them, and each time we'll get a different color?"
Lan Jian almost rolled his eyes so hard they reached the back of his head.
After spending so much time together, even the mundane routines become memorable because of the slight changes.
The premise is that Chongming did not use the tissue box as an example when discussing "married life" with Lanjian.
“How about we try sleeping in the same bed for one week and living separately for another week?” Before going upstairs tonight, Chongming had a serious discussion with Lanjian about married life in the garage. “We’re going back to my parents’ place on Friday. It’s fine right after we get married, but I’m afraid they’ll notice something is up after a while.”
Can I ask you a question first?
"Speaking."
"How come you seemed to have already assumed I would agree to marry you as your father suggested?" Lan Jian still found it unbelievable. "You wouldn't... have a crush on me, would you?"
"Do you think it's believable when you say it yourself?"
"..."
“Otherwise, we can follow the color of the tissue boxes on our tables, blue one week and red the next. Blue means we sleep separately, red means we sleep together, how about that?” Chongming paused for a moment when he said “sleep together.” It wasn’t that he was lusting after Meng Lanjian’s body and was making this seemingly respectable request, but rather that his father had warned him before he and Lanjian got married—
"Don't you dare try to pull that marriage of convenience thing on me. If I find out you two are sleeping separately, I'll break your legs and still make sure you're both in the same bed!"
Chongming had witnessed his father's "tyranny" since childhood and completely believed that his father had the ability to find out whether he and Lanjian had slept together through various means. Rather than having a falling out with his father and making everyone unhappy, he thought it would be better to cultivate a relationship with Lanjian first and try to experience a sexually-based married life.
Judging from Lan Jian's current attitude, he doesn't seem to be opposed to it.
Lan Jian carefully recalled how often the two of them used tissues. "What if we don't finish the tissues in a week, or we run out in less than a week?"
Chongming pinched the veins bulging on his forehead and decided to skip the topic. "Sleeping apart every other week is just to give each other an adjustment period. After all, our lives have changed in terms of status compared to before. How about the adjustment period until the end of the year? The house in Shenhuali will be renovated after the Spring Festival, and we'll move there."
"You've changed!" Lan Jian accused softly, not getting a direct answer. "You never used to ignore a single word I said!"
There's another line that's too sentimental, but Lan Jian didn't say it aloud—Give me back my gentle Chongming senior!
"You used to be my junior."
"Isn't that the case now?"
Chongming used the same trick again, pretending not to hear: "I suddenly remembered that it seems that all the blue tissues were hidden in Brother Xiang's office. I'll go check tomorrow to see if only the red ones are left."
As Lan Jian took the last box of blue tissues in the evening, she suddenly wanted to contact Brother Xiang to ask for his office door password.
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