Chapter 1 You Are Not Wearing Shoes
Early October
The dusk after the rain presents an amber halo, and the twilight is like spilled orange soda.
*
In a small fenced courtyard outside Rongchuan, climbing roses are in full bloom on the arc-shaped climbing trellis.
Chen Zan wore an emerald jade bracelet on her slender white wrist and wore an ice silk and emerald green fragrant pine cheongsam that her grandmother had kept as a treasure. She sat on a straw mat under the flower stand in the yard, leisurely flipping through a comic book and chewing a bright red watermelon.
During the 19 years of her long and strict education, Ms. Xu Jing only wanted her to be a well-educated and well-behaved girl, and receive all the good education of a lady.
She can only listen to classical orthodox music and read only classic literary works. In Xu Jing's eyes, things like premature love, skipping classes, comics, and online novels are all poisons that destroy her spiritual world.
Chen Zan cherishes these moments of indulgence at his grandmother's house.
A black Audi sedan silently drove over the water marks on the asphalt road and stopped in front of the yard at a steady and even speed.
Soon someone came down. Secretary Zhang Qing ran straight to the courtyard and rang the doorbell twice. After waiting for a minute, he returned and knocked on the back seat glass.
The car window slowly lowered a crack, and the cold air from the air conditioner slowly seeped out.
Zhou Jingyu raised his head from the computer in front of him, his thin double eyelids wrinkled, and the evening light outside penetrated through the narrow gap and reflected on his straight brow bones.
Zhang Qing shook his head and said, "No one is home."
"Wait a little longer." Zhou Jingyu said and closed his eyes to read the email.
Zhang Qing rang the doorbell a few more times in disbelief, and took out various luxury supplements that had been mailed from the old house from the trunk.
Said: "This is the address the old lady gave me, but it is National Day now, and I don't know if the old lady is traveling."
Zhou Jingyu finished his work and closed his computer. Zhang Qing held onto the top frame of the car door as the man got out in front of the isolated, isolated courtyard.
In a firm tone, "The old lady spoke to Grandma Xu on the phone earlier, and she is at home."
The high temperature in Rongchuan has persisted for a long time. In the evening, after a heavy rain, the air became even more humid and stuffy. Zhou Jingyu unbuttoned two buttons on his collar and walked forward.
Zhou Jingyu is tall, a serious 1.9 meters. He stood outside the courtyard gate and looked inside. The courtyard was full of various blooming flowers and plants, all of which were well-maintained and more exquisite than those in private custom flower shops.
Grandma Xu and old lady Zhou became friends in the family ancestral hall decades ago, just like the intimate relationship between women in the movie "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan".
The old lady of the Zhou family was originally from the Zhengbai Banner, one of the upper three banners of the Eight Banners of Manchuria, so she never suffered any hardship even when she was the poorest.
Unfortunately, she had been weak since childhood, so the fortune teller came up with an idea and asked the family to find a girl from a poor family with a strong destiny to live with the old lady. So they found Grandma Xu from the slums on the outskirts of Beijing. They lived and ate with her for fifteen years. It was not an exaggeration to say that she was half a lady.
Later, after the old lady got married, she went abroad for two years and arranged a good marriage for Grandma Xu. The man's family was also an official, but he later chose the wrong side, failed in the struggle, and moved away, and then something happened. Grandma Xu learned the skill of growing flowers from the old lady.
This time, knowing that Zhou Jingyu was coming to Rongchuan to take up his post, he specially sent someone to deliver a lot of supplements and asked him to look after Grandma Xu on his behalf.
Originally, Zhou Jingyu had been thinking of waiting for the National Day holiday to end and choosing a weekend to come over. Coincidentally, Zhou Jingyu had to attend a meeting in the bonded area today, so he brought it over after the meeting.
Seeing the door closed, Zhou Jingyu began to wonder if he'd come at the wrong time. But as he looked away, he caught a glimpse of a faint green shadow beneath the delicate rose stand.
It was not until the shadow swayed slightly that Zhou Jingyu realized it was a person.
Zhang Qing followed his gaze and also noticed it.
He exclaimed: "There is someone here, and it's a little girl."
Then he opened his voice and shouted, "Little girl, little girl, is your adult at home?"
Chen Zan was still immersed in the plot where the protagonist finally pointed out the murderer who dismembered the body in public after a lot of reasoning. The heavy metal rock music in her headphones had just finished a song and automatically switched to the next song when she suddenly heard someone calling her.
Grandma's place was always deserted, and she had no relatives in Rongchuan. She looked back in confusion. Suddenly, she saw two men standing at the door. She was startled and subconsciously wanted to hide the comic book, but then she remembered that it wasn't Ms. Xu who came, so why was she so scared?
She quickly took off her headphones and climbed up from the straw mat. She heard that the other party was indeed calling her and walked over: "Who are you looking for?"
Zhou Jingyu only lowered his head to check the time on his watch when the girl sitting under the flower stand came to him. Her long hair was casually tied up with an old wooden hairpin, and a few strands of hair fell slowly.
She had an oval face, eyebrows like distant mountains, and skin as delicate as white porcelain, as if washed by rain. The loose and ill-fitting waist-cinching green bamboo cheongsam and the jade bracelet on her wrist made her icy figure stand out even more.
Zhou Jingyu swept his gaze from her clear and cold eyes, like the mist in a cold pond, to the half-eaten watermelon she was holding, her white and smooth fingertips stained with watermelon juice.
Zhou Jingyu suddenly pursed her lips slightly. Zhang Qing was inwardly amazed that he couldn't recognize the girl from her back just now. Now that he got closer, he realized that she really had a beautiful appearance given by God.
Zhou Jingyu asked in a deep voice, "Excuse me, is Ms. Xu home?"
It's not a local Rongchuan accent, it sounds like it's from the north.
Their eyes met for several seconds.
Chen Zhan looked at the man in front of him, whose face was sharp and elegant, and whose temperament was calm and extraordinary. He asked with doubt in his heart, "What do you want to see my grandmother for?"
Her voice was pleasant, like the sound of jade colliding, clear and cold.
As Zhou Jingyu's deep eyes swept across her plump red lips, Zhang Qing began to explain the reason.
In his early years, Chen Zan heard Ms. Xu occasionally talk about some old stories about her grandmother. He didn't expect that the person in front of him was from the capital, and seeing some gift boxes piled up at the door, he felt embarrassed to open the fence gate.
Her voice softened. "I'm sorry, Mr. Zhou. My grandmother went to Aunt Qing's house this afternoon to get some flower seeds. She must have been delayed by a rainstorm. Please come in and sit down."
Chen Zan invited the person in, walked across the bluestone path in the middle, pushed open the door, and the cold air from the air conditioner that had been sealed for a long time hit him in the face.
Zhang Qing put the things in the living room and began to look around. It was not as exquisite as the garden outside, but it was very clean and tidy. There were no luxurious decorations, but old yellow wood furniture that had gone through vicissitudes of life. It had both a simple texture and traces of life.
Not knowing when grandma would come back, in order to avoid embarrassment, Chen Zan simply invited everyone to the tea room and set up a carved wooden window so that they could enjoy the scenery and notice grandma when she came back as soon as possible.
Chen Zan was young but very polite: "Please sit down."
Zhou Jingyu looked around the tea room. The furnishings were very exquisite. There were two ink paintings hanging on the wall. Judging from the paper, they should be authentic. An ancient guzheng was propped up in the slanted corner of the carved wooden window. Next to the purple bookcase was a desk with some used pens, ink, paper and inkstone on it.
The family that Grandma Xu married into before was surnamed Xu, and they were considered a family of scholars. After so many years, they still kept their previous habits while living in the suburbs.
Chen Zhan added incense to the incense burner, then remembered and asked the noble-looking man, "Mr. Zhou, are you used to the smell?"
Grandma, these are the Dongge Zangchunxiang that girls love to smell.
Zhou Jingyu nodded slightly, "No problem."
Chen Zan felt relieved and went to get some tea from the shelf next to him. Zhou Jingyu looked at the scenery outside the window absent-mindedly, and still unconsciously turned his head to look at the busy girl next to him.
Chen Zan could feel the vague gaze of Mr. Zhou behind him falling on him until she brought the tea leaves over.
The man lowered his eyes just right and looked at Chen Zan's delicate pink and white feet under her cheongsam. The smoky pink nail polish on them looked like new flower buds emerging from the emerald branches.
Zhou Jingyu has never been a person who is obsessed with lust and beauty. When he lowered his eyes and saw this scene, he felt an unknown fire burning all the way to his chest and spreading to his throat.
It's hot and humid outside the window.
He suppressed his inexplicable restlessness and reminded her in a measured and deep voice, "You...are not wearing shoes."
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