A cowardly deserter
Today's full moon celebration is a grand affair. Not only are there four tables set up in the courtyard, but there are also two large round tables inside the house. The person sitting in the main seat at the head table is none other than Jiang Yilin, with her gentle eyes and brows.
While everyone else was bundled up in thick cotton-padded coats in the dead of winter, he seemed oblivious to the cold, wearing only a thin gray fleece cardigan and neatly combing his hair back to reveal his handsome face.
The host brought out the full-month-old baby wrapped in a soft red blanket for Jiang Yilin to see. People around him laughed and joked, and the laughter made the red even more vibrant. He put down the porcelain cup containing hot water, lowered his head, and his gaze softened like spring water.
Jiang Yilin used his still-warm index finger to crush some red glutinous rice from the small porcelain plate and tapped it on the baby's head. A grain of red rice was imprinted on the baby's forehead, and the people around cheered and laughed again.
"Good! Good! Good! Thank you, clan chief."
After the ceremony, Jiang Yilin withdrew her finger and said, "Take him away. It's too cold around me; the child can't stay there for too long."
Since Jiang Yilin took over as clan chief, a saying has circulated that a baby who is a month old receives the clan chief's blessing and will not have to leave their hometown when they grow up, but will have a smooth and peaceful life.
Strange, she had never heard of this custom before, and what was even more unbelievable to her was that Song Yanan said it was actually Jiang Yilin who brought it up.
"You've never seen this side of Jiang Yilin before, have you?"
Jin Xilu was so engrossed in looking at Jiang Yilin that she didn't notice Ni Canyang, whom she had called an idiot just a few minutes ago, had squatted down next to her at some point.
The eye bag has turned into a bomb.
"Oh! You scared me!"
Ni Canyang, a pale-faced man with a wide grin, suddenly appeared in front of her. Jin Xilu, holding noodles, was stuck against the railing with nowhere to retreat. Afraid of attracting the attention of the people inside the house, she panicked and threw the large bag of noodles to him without thinking before jumping onto her electric scooter and fleeing in a panic.
Completely unaware, Jiang Yilin had been watching her for a very long time.
"How pathetic, how utterly pathetic, Kim Hee-ro, Kim Hee-ro, please have some guts, okay?" Sitting on the electric scooter, Kim Hee-ro inwardly berated herself, staring at the narrow alley in front of her. The wheels rolled over the stones, and the scooter jolted. Only then did she gradually realize what was happening.
Not to mention others, after a few years, she herself became less courageous than before.
She was practically a deserter. She bought incense, paper money, and candles, and carrying these things alone, she hurriedly tried to recall the location of her grandmother's grave before making her way up the mountain in a disheveled state.
The wild grass on the mountain wasn't thick in winter, so Jin Xilu climbed up without much effort. The path was also very clean, with small stones along the way to step on, showing that someone was taking care to maintain it.
When Jin Xilu left, she planted a camellia in front of her grandmother's grave. Now, under the setting sun, several small red dots appeared in front of her eyes, flashing in the golden light, like a laggy movie, sometimes blurry, sometimes clear, until the setting sun swallowed up Jin Xilu's small body.
The red camellias are well-cultivated, with large, vibrant flowers cascading over the stems, beautiful and striking, yet tinged with a touch of melancholy.
"Why are the flowers red?" As soon as she finished speaking, Jin Xilu walked to her grandmother's grave. The smooth granite with its clean lines was spotless. The kind old woman in the small black and white photo was smiling happily. She squatted down to put the things down and looked down.
She saw the overturned red candle and the embers of unburnt yellow paper. Someone had arrived before her and seemed not to want to be seen. Who could it be?
This time, she not only brought incense, paper money, and candles with her, but she also hid a bottle of medicated oil in her basket.
Her original plan was to come to her grandmother's grave, burn paper money in peace, say what was on her mind, and then, without any burdens, have a good cry, crying until her tears and snot were indistinguishable.
Ideally, she should cry so loudly that it attracts the attention of people nearby. Then, she should vividly recount, through tears, how Jin Fang is trying to seize the house and kick her out. By using public pressure, she doesn't necessarily want Jin Fang to give up on selling the house, but at least she can delay the sale for a few days.
But now the plan is not working. She can't cry anymore. She always feels like she is being watched, and a chill runs down her spine to her feet.
Sparks occasionally flickered as the coins burned in the brazier at her feet. The yellow paper of the coins had all burned away, and Jin Xilu's face darkened.
"Grandma, I'm back. I missed you so much, so much." She lowered her head like a child who had done something wrong, confused and helpless, and could only mutter to herself.
She didn't know how long she talked or how much nonsense she uttered. The setting sun behind her had long since disappeared, the temperature was starting to drop, and the red candlelight flickered intermittently.
That's about it. After silently apologizing to her grandmother's grave in her heart, Kim Hee-ro boldly pretended to climb up the mound behind the tombstone.
The candlelight flickered in the darkness. In the desolate wilderness, withered leaves fell at her feet. Then a figure flashed by. Even if she were brave, her heart would race. She only breathed a sigh of relief when she saw a familiar hem of clothing.
"Come out, I see you."
The rustling sound of the earth turning over brought a squatting man to his feet. His wrists, white and conspicuous, rested on the tombstone, like bones supporting the monument, a sight that was both eerie and somewhat comical.
Just as she suspected, there was someone hiding there—Jiang Yilin.
He seemed to have grown out of the ground, blending perfectly into the tomb. If he hadn't been coughing uncontrollably from the smell of burning incense and yellow paper, Jin Xilu wouldn't have noticed him.
Night falls, the place is deserted and quiet, far from the crowds. A man and a woman are alone, with a grave that cannot be ignored between them.
When Kim Hee-ro saw that the person acting suspiciously was him, her eyes blinked frantically, unsure whether to back up or move forward, and she was truly speechless.
Jiang Yilin, as expected of a clan leader, remained calm and composed even when blocked by Jin Xilu at the grave, saying, "Make way."
Kim Hee-ro woke up as if from a dream, backing away until her thighs touched the camellia leaves before she stammered, "How did you end up here?"
Before Jiang Yilin could answer, fearing he might not know, Jin Xilu quickly added, "This is my grandmother's grave."
Jiang Yilin stepped down from the mound, the wind blowing the hair on his forehead. He first bowed to his grandmother's tombstone to apologize for his earlier offense.
When he straightened up and looked at Kim Hee-ro again, his amber eyes gleamed with a sinister light in the twilight. Underneath his gray cardigan was a blue striped shirt. He stood there ramrod straight, one hand in his pocket, looking sharp and mysterious. His pale red lips were slightly parted. After listening to Kim Hee-ro's words, he frowned, a hint of impatience rising in his eyes, and uttered a single sentence.
"I was just passing by and stopped by to see Grandma Liu." After saying that, Jiang Yilin nodded as if she was in a hurry to do something and was about to leave immediately.
Jin Xilu looked at the incense and paper ash on the ground, pinched herself, and realized that all of this was real. She hadn't gone up the mountain and encountered a ghost, or developed hysteria. Jiang Yilin was definitely not just passing by. She looked up and quickly called out his name.
Unlike their previous meeting, where she addressed him as the unfamiliar clan chief, this was the first time she had looked him directly in the eye and called out his name since their reunion.
"Jiang Yilin".
"Hmm?" A lazy, hoarse hum came from his body.
He hadn't gone far; he merely glanced back at her casually before slowing down and continuing forward. Hearing his indifferent response, Kim Hee-ro suddenly felt uncertain, and her damned pride stubbornly flared up at that moment.
Watching his receding figure grow ever more distant, Kim Hee-ro's feet felt as if they were firmly planted in the ground by a thousand pounds of cement. She didn't chase after him, just as she had done countless times before.
Just when Jin Xilu was losing hope, Jiang Yilin stopped again at the intersection.
He turned around, raised his chin, and after seeing Kim Hee-ro's helpless expression, the smile in his eyes was no longer faint. Instead, he grinned like a scoundrel, raised his hand, pointed his index finger at Kim Hee-ro, stuck out his tongue, and then quickly disappeared: "Aren't you short of money? I can lend you some."
"I'm very rich. Just beg me. That will do more good than anything else."
The fox ears are showing; finally, the cat act is over.
Seeing that Jin Xilu did not react, Jiang Yilin returned step by step along the same path, stopped a meter away from Jin Xilu, lowered his head and stroked the blood-red petals of the camellia with his fingers, and repeated: "I know you are short of money, I can lend you some, of course I don't want to lose money, but you have to promise me one thing."
“Okay, what’s the price?” Jin Xilu agreed immediately. Anyway, her purpose in coming back was to get close to Jiang Yilin, and she was willing to do anything.
Kim Hee-ro is very clear about herself. They haven't seen each other for several years, and their relationship is no longer what it used to be. He also said that if she dares to leave, he will never forgive himself.
"Ha, I'll lend you 100,000, and you can come work for me for three months."
"Why me?"
Jiang Yilin released his hand from the flower, the juice from the broken petals sticking to his fingers. The red color was intoxicating yet bold, mixed with the faint fragrance of camellias, everything as faint as fragments.
He shifted his position to face Kim Hee-ro, his hands returning to their pockets, his arrogance undiminished. He chuckled again, his bright phoenix eyes now sparkling with a mischievous glint, like golden-green cat's-eye gemstones. "Because of someone like you..."
He paused for a moment, and just when Kim Hee-ro thought he was hesitating and would eventually say something heartfelt, Jiang Yilin smiled, casually picked a beautiful camellia leaf and threw it on the ground, then took a step toward where Kim Hee-ro was.
"Because you're cheap." He stepped on the leaves he had just left, his smile still lingering. "And you're a college student that's hard to find in town, easy to fool."
Jin Xilu knew that he must have seen Jin Fang come to find her, and she could also tell that he was mocking her.
Before he could say anything more, Kim Hee-ro kept pressing for an answer: "Why?"
Looking at him, she finally saw the shadow of their past relationship on his face, and she could finally breathe a sigh of relief.
"What you say, you must do; there's no going back on your word."
Jiang Yilin was unwilling to explain too much. He waved and left for the second time, his voice drifting over on the cold winter wind, low and unrestrained: "These are the words you said to your grandmother yourself."
That's right. He had been hiding behind the grave the whole time, listening to what I and my grandmother were saying. His memory has always been better than mine, so it seems he heard all my regrets and self-deprecating words.
"Okay, I won't be a deserter."
This time, Kim Hee-ro caught up with him. She ran much faster than him and blocked his way. Her excited voice rose and fell as she asked, "But that's not what I'm asking. What I've always wanted to ask is, why did you appear at my grandmother's grave?"
Jiang Yilin quickened his pace, still answering, "Just passing by."
Jin Xilu's boldness was due to his spoiling. She could always tell at a glance whether he was angry or not. This time, she could also tell that Jiang Yilin was avoiding her, so she chased after him a few steps. Regardless of whether he wanted to leave or not, she directly opened her arms and blocked his way.
She was too anxious, so much so that she overlooked many things. Troubled by the doubts in her heart, she felt somewhat depressed and foolish.
"Jiang Yilin, what are you pretending for?"
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
