Xuanshan Villa
On January 22, Jinnan’s birthday and the first rain and snow in Lido arrived as expected.
The wind was blowing coldly outside the window, and Jinnan stayed in bed until one o'clock in the morning. However, before seven o'clock in the morning, he was kidnapped by two "criminals" who broke into his house and took him and his car on a one-day trip to skip work.
Sitting in the back seat, he was still unconscious and didn't even know who brushed his teeth. Li Hongfang drove his car and Lin Jiaze held the map. The two of them chattered and discussed with gestures, as if they had forgotten to explain to the birthday boy.
"Excuse me, both of you," Jin Nan said, "Tell me where you're going so I can ask for leave."
Lin Jiaze turned around and asked, "Who are you asking for leave from? Your Daddy's spirit in heaven?"
Li Hongfang slapped him on the arm and said, "You know shit! He has a Yama King at home, and he's not as free as you."
"Oh! Xu Zhiyuan, right? I've met him before, he's very kind."
"These guys are beasts in disguise. They act like decent people to the outside world, but their true colors show when they get home."
"Then wouldn't we, Nan Nan, be like sheep walking into a tiger's mouth?"
"Let's pull the teeth out of the tiger's mouth." Li Hongfang gestured.
"Tooth extraction...how do I connect with a tooth extraction?"
"Hello." Jinnan said, "I can hear you."
The two changed the subject.
Jinnan leaned back in the car seat, feeling sleepy. He turned on his phone, but he hadn't even woken up to see the morning news, let alone the messages. Lin Jiaze and Li Hongfang weren't the type to see the morning sun. Normally, if they opened their eyes around 11 or 12, they'd be praised as early risers.
Jinnan has done a great job by making them so energetic early in the morning.
"Originally, Hongfang said they were going to hold a birthday party for you." Lin Jiaze leaned over the backrest of the car seat. "I said drinking again would be too boring. Since we didn't win the fight, we decided to each have half a day and do our own thing."
"It was him this morning," Li Hongfang interrupted. "He was originally going to drive, and I was afraid we'd meet in heaven."
"My driving skills are pretty good, okay?" Lin Jiaze was unconvinced.
"You're like a mad dog, Master. Do you want to see the rain and snow outside?"
"Then don't you know where to go?" Jinnan asked Li Hongfang.
"I don't know." Li Hongfang said, "Master Lin, show me the way."
"Turn right at the intersection, no, turn left."
The wheels pressed the solid line, turning left from the right turn lane, and were hit by a chaotic shove from the car behind. Jinnan's eyes went dark.
When the car arrived at the destination, Li Hongfang's face turned dark, just like Jinnan's.
"Master, it's raining and snowing." Jin Nan was too tired to complain.
"Take us to the open-air amusement park." Li Hongfang rolled his eyes.
Lin Jiaze was quite satisfied: "You don't understand. Usually there are too many people and we die. Today, we booked the whole place for 400 yuan per person. Who can be as frugal as me?"
Li Hongfang: "Drive out your 40 million yuan sports car before you say that."
"That's impossible."
Jinnan huddled in the back seat, not wanting to open the door at all. A grain of snow drifted against the window. He glanced at the deserted entrance and asked, "Didn't you call anyone else?"
"It's not fun to play with too many strangers." Lin Jiaze said.
"Let's go then." Jin Nan closed his eyes. "You could find a bathhouse that's more decent than this."
In the end, Li Hongfang took the steering wheel, stepped on the accelerator and drove the two away, leaving Lin Jiaze looking at the amusement park with a sigh.
"So where are we going?" Lin Jiaze asked, "Bath center?"
"Let's go to the mall," Li Hongfang said. "I'll pay for the small purchase today."
"Didn't your family just open a shop? Why don't you go and stand on the platform?" Jinnan asked Lin Jiaze.
"Don't mention it." Lin Jiaze was depressed. "My brother has been competing with Maode for a project recently. They were reported for fire safety violations and are still in the process of rectifying them."
"They're already making changes right after opening." Li Hongfang laughed. "It wasn't you who did this, was it?"
Lin Jiaze shrank back: "It really is me."
"Tsk tsk tsk, black sheep."
A cold wind blew in through the car window. Jinnan searched for the blanket in the car for a long time but couldn't find it. He remembered that he had left it at the old house when he sent it for cleaning last time. He glanced at Xu Zhiyuan's movements. It was ten minutes after eight, and Xu Zhiyuan was still eating breakfast, getting ready to go to work.
"Hirokata, what have you prepared for this afternoon?" asked Jinnan.
"Wouldn't it be boring if I said it out loud?" Li Hongfang said.
"I already know everything, so what if you tell me?" Lin Jiaze was unhappy. "What if you have some bad idea too?"
"You think I'm you." Li Hongfang sneered, "I'll take you to the opera."
Jinnan flatly said, "Not much better."
"Hongfang, we are all wild boars. How could you bring up such fine bran? We can't eat it."
Jin Nan watched them playfully, feeling sleepy and amused at the same time. Ever since he met the two young masters in high school and college, they had always been playing and fighting like this. No matter how they celebrated his birthday, they would never let Jin Nan be alone.
I remember one year, Li Hongfang was overseas and couldn't come back, so he remotely instructed Lin Jiaze to deliver a gift for him, even though there was an eight-hour time difference. Jinnan was deeply moved that time.
Actually, Jinnan didn’t care where he went. It was nice to just sit in the car and listen to them playing and fighting.
I just feel a little sleepy.
When he felt cold, he wanted to be lazy. After thinking about it, he remembered something of Xu Zhiyuan.
"There's a hot spring villa over at Xuanshan," Jinnan said. "It should have been cleaned over the past two years. Let's go back to Yunting first."
Lin Jiaze turned around and Li Hongfang looked at him through the rearview mirror. Both of them had the same expression in their eyes.
"What's wrong?" Jinnan was confused.
"Jinnan!" Lin Jiaze feigned anger, "You're not a good friend if you don't tell me about this great place!"
"A villa in Xuanshan District." Li Hongfang touched his chin. "It's hard to buy these days. Is it an ancestral inheritance?"
Jin Licheng started from scratch, so where did Jin Nan get his ancestral property? This was bought by Xu Zhiyuan when he was in college, when Xuanshan had just been developed.
He remembered that Xu Zhiyuan had borrowed some money from Jin Licheng for the house. Unlike Jin Nan, the freeloader, Xu Zhiyuan had earned his own money since he was in college.
Xu Zhiyuan bought it alone, so the key is naturally in Xu Zhiyuan's hands.
But Jinnan knows where it is.
"Let's go back to Yunting first and get the key out and then tell you." Jinnan said with a smile.
*
When the car arrived at Yunting, only the housekeeper and the housekeeper were in the old villa. Xu Zhiyuan had already left for work. Li Hongfang and Lin Jiaze sat downstairs drinking tea. Jinnan went upstairs to look for his keys. After many days, he returned to his long-awaited home.
Xu Zhiyuan's room was two rooms away from his, and it was the smallest and most remote on the second floor. According to Jin Licheng, Xu Zhiyuan chose it himself when he came.
Jinnan didn't often come here, and he and Xu Zhiyuan were not close enough to share a quilt and whisper to each other.
The door was unlocked, and Jinnan had seen the furnishings inside for months, familiar to him from the surveillance cameras. Xu Zhiyuan lived there day in and day out, and there was a book on the bedside table. Jinnan remembered that he had asked the bodyguard to take it away before he had the chance to read it.
Xu Zhiyuan always liked to keep his keys in a cowhide bag deep in the closet.
Unfortunately, Xu Zhiyuan put his things deep down, and Jinnan was not familiar with the place, so he had to bury himself in the pile to look for them. He was almost lost in the scent of Xu Zhiyuan's clothes.
There were so many keys, for the house, car, safe, and office, Jin Nan was tired of searching and simply sat on the floor to look. Amid the jingling of keys, he didn't notice that the door of the room opened quietly, and a man walked in and stood in front of him.
Jinnan looked up when he saw the shadow, and the person standing in front of him was Xu Zhiyuan who was going to work.
He was so frightened that he froze and subconsciously explained: "I, I'm not stealing anything. I want to get the key to Xuanshan's room."
"It's okay, you take it." Xu Zhiyuan squatted down and quickly found the correct one from a pile of keys and handed it to Jinnan.
He glanced at the wardrobe next to him. All the cabinets in the cloakroom were opened by Jinnan, but he did not rummage through them. This "thief" was quite polite.
Jinnan held the keys in both hands for a long time before saying, "Let's just have a small gathering today, no one else."
"So you worked overtime the past two days and freed up all your time?" Xu Zhiyuan smiled and combed his hair with his fingertips. "Go ahead, relax."
How did Xu Zhiyuan know about overtime?
"Come back early at night. The road conditions are bad and Xuanshan is far away." Xu Zhiyuan said.
"good."
Xu Zhiyuan took his things and left immediately, leaving Jinnan no time to react. Jinnan held Xu Zhiyuan's key bag, feeling a strange emotion swirling in his heart.
He used to come to Xu Zhiyuan's room often to get things like paper, pens, calligraphy and paintings. Xu Zhiyuan was more generous to him than to anyone else.
But this time it’s a little different, what’s different?
Xu Zhiyuan touched his hair. Perhaps it was because he had gotten up too early and looked bad, or perhaps it was just a random thought.
Xu Zhiyuan is different.
He went downstairs holding the key, and Lin Jiaze and Li Hongfang looked at him as if they had seen a ghost.
"Xu Zhiyuan's house? You're taking us there?" Lin Jiaze shook his head repeatedly. "My brother is going to kill me."
"I'm just going there for a day," Jinnan said. "When he bought it, he told me I could pick up the key anytime I wanted to move in."
"And then you really went to get it." Li Hongfang sighed, "Forget it, let's go."
Lin Jiaze: "Tsk tsk, Ge Baonan."
There is no speech in the south now.
*
The three of them watched movies and played games in Xuanshan for an entire afternoon. The hot spring pool in the backyard was very popular. Jinnan soaked in it and watched the snow fall. Xuanshan was one or two degrees colder than the city center of Lidu, and the snow was no longer mixed with rain and was gradually forming.
He took a photo with his mobile phone, thought about it, and sent it to Xu Zhiyuan.
After a long time, the other side replied with two words: Beautiful.
Perfunctory.
Jinnan put down his phone and joined the breakup kitchen battle.
In the evening, Li Hongfang called a few friends over. The four of them drove three cars. One of the largest SUVs was loaded with Duhaf's cake boxes, and it took three people to move it.
The birthday boy cutting the cake was splashed with wine, and Lin Jiaze's bathrobe was soaked when he fell into the pool. Inside the well-heated room, people were having a cream war, and outside the window, snow was falling, another winter.
Jinnan was eating so much that he couldn't eat anymore. Someone put his arm around his shoulders and sang loudly. Li Hongfang, who lost the game, wanted to eat Pockey with him, but Lin Jiaze screamed and bit him to snatch the food from him.
"You guys are called "eating together", you know? Eating together! I won't allow it!"
There were loud laughter and singing. Someone was pouring wine for Jinnan, someone was rubbing cream on his face, someone's laughter and words fell into his ears. All the loneliness and solitude were so far away from him.
Life before the age of fifteen seems as distant as another world.
But Jinnan inevitably thought of his first birthday in Lido. Xu Zhiyuan bought him a cake on the day of his ID card, and later that day became his birthday.
Before that, Jinnan's concept of "birthday" only appeared when filling out forms. He didn't know that it was a holiday that needed to be celebrated.
He drank a lot of wine, including champagne, beer, and whiskey. Li Hongfang opened a bottle of Romanee-Conti from his collection for him. After drinking so much, Jin Nan couldn't even light a cigarette.
"Master, let me order for you."
Three or four lighters were handed over to him. Jinnan's eyes were blurry with drunkenness and he laughed heartily.
"What the hell, the beautiful legend of Lido?"
Amidst the warm atmosphere, Jinnan picked up his phone to check the time. The moment he unlocked the screen, he saw a message.
"Jinnan, have you forgotten that there is me at home?"
Thirty minutes ago, Xu Zhiyuan from 8:30.
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