Chapter 192 Boring and Interesting March
Chu Jiating only showed surprise when she first noticed her breaking in. Once she regained consciousness, the panic on her face vanished, replaced by indifference. She stood up, crushed the remaining cigarette against the wall of the wash basin, tossed the remains into the trash, and ran the tap to rinse the ash off the basin wall and her fingertips.
Zhu Yingning stood at the door and watched quietly the whole process.
After Chu Jiating finished washing her hands and was about to go out, Zhu Yingning turned on the exhaust fan to ventilate, pulled the hand towel off the hook, and washed it with hand washing detergent.
This action made Chu Jiating very embarrassed and a little unhappy, so much so that the first thing she said after coming here was: "What's the big deal? It's tasteless."
Zhu Yingning lifted up one of the corners that hadn't been filled with detergent yet: "Smell it."
When I put the towel close to my nose, I could smell a pungent smell of snuff.
"The restroom is too small and poorly ventilated, so thirdhand smoke easily lingers on the fabrics," she said. "I'm not the only one using the hand towels; my older brothers and sisters also use them. I'll try not to do that next time."
Chu Jiating didn't respond. Her cheeks burned, and embarrassment pinned her feet to the ground. She expected Zhu Yingning to use this as an excuse to lecture her, saying things like, "How can a child smoke? I'm going to tell your guardian," but after saying, "Don't do that next time," she said nothing more. She washed and hung the hand towel, then turned back to her, calmly saying, "I'm going to town this afternoon to discuss a job with a theater troupe. Would you like to come with me, or stay home with your brothers and sisters?"
She was silent for a long time, then uttered two words in a flat voice: "Whatever."
"Then come with me." Zhu Yingning made the decision immediately. "You take a rest. We'll set off in half an hour."
During this half hour, she sent a message to Wang Shengju, asking him to help her find a house in the village before dark: "It's for about four or five nights, short-term, the price is negotiable, and it just needs to have water and electricity directly after moving in."
While she was busy looking for a house, Chu Jiating sat on the sofa in the living room. She neither talked to Wen Wenxu and the others nor studied or read. She just listened to music with headphones on, her eyes blank, as if she was daydreaming.
At the appointed time, Yan Zi came over on a bicycle. Seeing Chu Jiating in Zhu Yingning's room, she was stunned for a moment: "Who is this girl..."
"My relatives." Zhu Yingning said.
"Come over to play with you?"
"right."
"Want to go to town together?"
"Let's go together."
"Then my bicycle can't carry two people."
"It's okay, I'll borrow one from my neighbor and I'll just give her a ride."
My neighbor had an eight or nine-year-old child who usually rode a bicycle to and from school. Since it was the weekend and he didn't have school, his bicycle was empty. She went to borrow the bicycle, and the child said playfully, "I'll lend it to you if you buy me a bag of spicy noodles."
His grandmother tapped him on the forehead and said, "How do you talk to a comrade like that? You're so stingy." Then she added, "Xiao Zhu, feel free to use it."
Zhu Yingning smiled and thanked the old man first. Then he leaned forward slightly, supported his knees with his hands, and said to the child sitting on the bench, "I'm going to ride away first. I'll buy you some spicy noodles on the way back."
She dragged her bicycle to call Chu Jiating. Chu Jiating walked out of the house and stood on the threshold. She looked at the flimsy bicycle, then at Zhu Yingning, with a complicated expression on her face: "Are you sure you can give me a ride?"
There was one more thing she didn't say - don't let the car overturn.
Zhu Yingning knew what she was thinking as soon as he saw her expression. He patted the back seat and motioned for her to sit in. "Don't look at me because I'm short. I'm very strong. Get in."
After much hesitation, Chu Jiating finally got on, keeping her foot lightly pressed against the ground to prevent the bike from tipping over. Fortunately, Zhu Yingning hadn't lied; her riding skills were excellent, and the handlebars didn't even sway. After the initial start, she steadily caught up with the speed of Yan Zi ahead of her.
They rode out of the village and onto the main road. Lush green wheat fields lined the road on either side. The leaves caught the sunlight, and the wind blew through the leaves, creating a sea of light and shadow like melted gold foil. The fields were quiet in the afternoon, and the bicycle wheels made a subtle rustling sound as they rolled along the asphalt.
The town wasn't far from the village, and the troupe rented a white, self-built building. Arriving at their destination, Zhu Yingning and Yan Zi parked their bikes under a tree in front of the building, locked them, and headed for the stairs. Chu Jiating lazily followed them, five or six meters behind.
Each floor of this building is rented to a different business. The second floor is a billiard hall, the third floor is a martial arts hall, and the fourth floor is the theater troupe they are looking for.
As soon as I entered, I was greeted by the clear, childish singing voice. A girl with a plain face stood tall and recited in a clear, melodious voice, "I am a disciple of the immortal family, with unparalleled skills in both civil and military affairs. I have mastered the Interlocking Golden Lock Formation, which is even better than the Eight Diagrams Formation back then."
"Wrong." The teacher in front of her tapped her lower abdomen with a ruler, signaling her to stop, and then demonstrated it himself, "Practicing the Chained Golden Lock Formation is even better than the Eight Diagrams Formation back then—do it again."
Zhu Yingning and Yan Zi went in to talk to the person in charge of the troupe. Chu Jiating had nothing to do, so she saw a bench in the practice room and simply sat down on it, crossed her legs, and stared at the still ceiling fan in boredom.
There was heavy metal music in the headphones, which blocked out most of the outside sounds, but from time to time, one or two sounds of the master and apprentice practicing could still be heard.
"Say this to all the soldiers, listen carefully: today, follow me down the mountain, and when we return to the camp, we must reward the troops."
She shifted her gaze and saw that the girl was practicing this verse over and over again. Her teacher kept correcting her and asking her to repeat it. She had been repeating this sentence over and over again countless times.
More than half an hour later, Zhu Yingning came out of the inner office. His eyes followed hers and fell on the master and apprentice. He asked with interest, "Do you know what role this person plays among the male, female, clown, and ugly characters?"
Chu Jiating didn't say anything, her face showing disinterest.
Zhu Yingning continued to herself, "It's a Daomadan, a type of Wudan, played by women, usually female generals. They wear a large robe, helmet and armor, ride horses and wield swords, hence the name Daomadan. You've been listening for a while, do you find it interesting?"
Chu Jiating said: "Boring."
Zhu Yingning shrugged and smiled: "Okay... Sister Yanzi wants to stay here and reminisce with old friends. Let's go back first. I'm almost done with my work."
Chu Jiating stood up and walked out first.
Zhu Yingning got on his bike again, but instead of going back to the village immediately, he went to a small shop in the town and asked the owner for a few bags of spicy strips.
She asked Chu Jiating, "Do you want to eat?" After asking, she didn't get any answer, so she simply stuffed a bag into Chu Jiating's hand, put the rest into a plastic bag, and threw it into the basket.
On the way back to the village along the same route, she smelled the faint aroma of spicy strips coming from the back seat.
Chu Jiating chewed the spicy strips and asked her vaguely, "Why did you buy the spicy strips?"
"I promised my neighbor's kid I would buy it for him," she said.
Chu Jiating tutted, but no one knew what she was saying.
A lot of time was wasted going back and forth, and Wang Shengju was very efficient. After returning to the dormitory and returning the spicy strips and bicycle to their original owners, Zhu Yingning took out her cell phone and saw that Wang Shengju claimed that he had found a house for her. When she called him and asked, he said it was the third house from the left of the dormitory where she was currently living.
"The rent is 150 yuan a night. Is that okay with you? I'd like to negotiate a lower price for you, but you know it's hard to get a good deal on a short-term rental. Besides, there are a lot of vacant houses in the village, but I only have spare keys for two or three. So I don't have a lot of options."
Zhu Yingning didn't want to go through too much trouble, so he readily agreed and transferred the money to Wang Shengju. Not long after, he asked his daughter to deliver the key.
"You will stay in the room over there with me tonight." Zhu Yingning simply packed her clothes and daily necessities, and asked Chu Jiating to go with her.
Chu Jiating packed all her luggage into her deflated schoolbag. She threw the shoulder strap of the schoolbag over her left shoulder, put her hands in her trouser pockets and followed. Her face still looked listless, as if she had no energy at all.
Needless to say, Zhu Yingning cooked dinner, a simple meal of two dishes and a soup. After dinner, when the house was almost dark, she asked Chu Jiating to go to the living room to turn on the lights and watch TV, or find something else to entertain herself, while she went to the kitchen to wash the pots and clean up the mess.
After finishing her work, she came out and saw that Chu Jiating hadn't even turned on the lights, let alone watched TV. She was lying on the sofa, turning the key chain in her hand, with a blank look in her eyes.
She walked over and saw that her headphones were still stuck in her ears like 502 glue, so she asked, "What song are you listening to?"
“Bad song,” she said.
“…”
This answer made Zhu Yingning unsure how to respond. After a pause, he continued to ask, "Does it sound interesting?"
Chu Jiating shook her head: "Boring."
She smiled and said, "Isn't 'boring' your motto?" After thinking for a moment, she suggested, "How about this, I'll take you to do something interesting tomorrow."
Chu Jiating turned over and faced away from her. Zhu Yingning didn't mind and went back to her room excitedly to get ready.
**
Although she prepared on her own, it was impossible to say that she didn't find it difficult at all. After pondering to no avail, Zhu Yingning simply sent a message to Xu Sirui, humbly asking for advice: "Xu Sirui, were you bored when you came to our village to participate in the variety show?"
He did reply immediately, but his response was so honest it deserved a beating: "Extremely boring."
“…”
"Isn't there anything that you find even remotely interesting?"
"Why are you asking that?"
"To be honest, I've come across a child who's just as troublesome as you, and I'll have to take care of her for a few days."
"."
"Give me some advice, is there really nothing you find amusing?"
"That's true..." Xu Sirui replied a little slower this time, "It's okay to go to the Internet cafe with you."
"Is there any healthy and active entertainment?"
This question must have stumped him. He thought for a long time before replying, "Let's go set off firecrackers."
This seemed possible, and Zhu Yingning perked up a bit, remembering that she had heard from the villagers that there was a firecracker shop nearby. She planned to buy some tomorrow morning. She thanked Xu Sirui and turned to do her own thing. It wasn't until she lay down in bed that night and turned her phone to do not disturb that she suddenly realized that everything Xu Sirui said was prefixed with "and you".
**
The next day, she woke up very early and saw Chu Jiating was still sleeping, so she went out alone to buy some red firecrackers and bought some breakfast on the way back.
Perhaps because they were still growing up, she felt that Chu Jiating had a big appetite after spending time with her yesterday, so she bought seven fist-sized meat buns and two cups of soy milk for breakfast. She ate two buns and a cup of soy milk herself and left the rest for Chu Jiating.
Sure enough, after just going to the toilet, when she came out, she found that all five buns were in her stomach.
Despite having eaten and drunk her fill, Chu Jiating still looked half asleep, her eyes barely open, and her stubborn earphones still stuck in her ears. If she hadn't seen her take them off last night, Zhu Yingning would have suspected they were sewn into her ears.
Zhu Yingning hung firecrackers on the handlebars and rode her to a less crowded area in the back of the mountain, to avoid the noise and dust from setting off firecrackers in the village. To clean up the remaining firecrackers, she even took the trouble to bring a bamboo basket, a large garbage bag inside the basket, and a shovel inside the garbage bag.
The bamboo basket couldn't be placed on the bicycle, so Zhu Yingning asked Chu Jiating to hold it. Chu Jiating obeyed and sat on the back seat with her back facing her, her legs hanging naturally on the side of the bike, holding a large bamboo basket in her arms, her head tilted down a little bit as the road bumped along.
When they rode to the back of the mountain, Zhu Yingning looked back and saw that the child had fallen asleep with his head buried in the bamboo basket.
Although she was asleep, after she slowed down the car a little, Chu Jiating quickly woke up from her sleep, looked around, and yawned loudly.
Zhu Yingning parked the car by the roadside, walked into the forest, and picked a loquat fruit from a wild loquat tree not far away.
"Would you like to try it?" She handed her the loquat and said with a friendly smile, "It's refreshing."
Chu Jiating took it hesitantly, wiped it on her clothes, tore the skin with her index finger and thumb, put it in her mouth and took a big bite.
"Fuck!" The bite nearly broke her teeth. The sourness was like a needle, piercing every cell in her mouth. She shuddered like a frightened cat, leaping up from the back of the bicycle, hopping a few times on the mountain road, and then vigorously "Pooh" twice at the bushes by the roadside, spitting out the loquat flesh and seeds in her mouth. Her cheeks turned red from the stimulation of the sour taste, "So sour?!"
Zhu Yingning laughed heartily, showing no guilt at all for having done something wrong: "I told you it's refreshing, so it must be sour."
“…”
It must be said that this sour loquat has an amazing effect in refreshing the mind. Chu Jiating was no longer sleepy at all. She sat back on the back seat of Zhu Yingning's bicycle, and her spirit became inexplicably highly excited.
After being driven for a while, she became a little impatient when she saw that she showed no sign of stopping. She pointed to an empty lot and said, "Isn't there a ready-made piece of land over there? Why not put it there?"
"Are you serious?" Zhu Yingning looked at the land and asked in surprise, "That's someone else's cemetery. Are you planning to wake up their ancestors?"
“…”
She blushed a little, turned her face away, and muttered, "I didn't know it was a cemetery."
After thinking for a while, he said, "Then why don't we go down and say hello to them? Even if we set off firecrackers in the mountains, they should be able to hear them even if we are far away."
"Ah." Zhu Yingning thought her idea was quite amusing. He laughed a few more times and stopped his bike. "Okay, then let's go down and explain it to them."
Every time they came across a cemetery, they would nervously stop the car, walk to the graves, put their hands together and say, "Senior, we're going to set off firecrackers later, so it's a bit noisy. Please forgive me if it disturbs your sleep."
She originally thought that Chu Jiating was a child who had no interest in anything, but unexpectedly, when doing these things, she seemed very interested and pious.
After stopping and starting along the way, she arrived at the pavilion she had chosen halfway up the mountain. She took down the red earth hanging on both sides of the handlebars and placed it on the ground in the pavilion. Then she went to search for the lighter in her pocket. She searched every pocket of her clothes, every pocket of her pants, and even turned the large garbage bag in the bamboo basket upside down. Unfortunately...
"Did you forget to bring your lighter?" Chu Jiating watched for a long time and even if she was not very smart, she could tell something was wrong and said in a dumbfounded voice.
Zhu Yingning chuckled dryly, feeling weak. Afraid she would be disappointed, she quickly added righteously, "There are always more solutions than problems."
"What do you think we can do?" Chu Jiating looked speechless.
She muttered mysteriously, "There's an ancient method for dealing with this kind of situation."
"...You don't mean to make fire by rubbing two sticks together, do you?"
"How do you know what I'm going to say? You're so smart."
“…”
It was originally a method she casually suggested, and she didn't expect it to convince the other party. Unexpectedly, after Chu Jiating was speechless, she actually asked her seriously: "What kind of wood is suitable for drilling wood to make fire?"
Zhu Yingning herself had never tried this trick since she was a child. It was so ancient that even the veteran hunters in her village didn't know how to make fire by drilling wood together. But since she was asked, she still answered with a brave face, "I'll use drier wood. I remember digging a hole in the wood and stuffing some dry leaves in it to help it burn. That way, I'll have a better chance of success when drilling with a small stick."
She spoke as if it were true, and Chu Jiating believed it without a doubt. She looked around twice, jumped out of the pavilion into the woods outside the pavilion, and bent down to look for the so-called dry wood on the ground.
Surprisingly, she found a suitable wooden stake. Holding the stake in her left hand and a small pointed stick in her right, she stuffed a handful of fallen leaves into the front pocket of her sweatshirt without a care in the world. As nimbly as a monkey, she hopped back into the pavilion, dropped all the tools she had found onto the ground, and asked Zhu Yingning, "Do you think these are correct?"
"That's right." She nodded seriously.
So Chu Jiating squatted on the ground and started fiddling with the tools.
After five minutes, she said, "I feel like this requires some patience."
Ten minutes later, she said, "Why isn't it lit yet?"
Twenty minutes later, she put down the stick, frowned, bit her lip, and wondered, "Is there something wrong with my technique?"
Zhu Yingning watched her busying around for a long time. Not only was her eyes busy, but she also didn't doubt for a moment that there was something wrong with the method she had told her. Her honesty was so unbearable that, driven by her conscience, she had to say weakly, "How about...we try another method? Do you have glasses? We could try focusing the light with a convex lens."
Chu Jiating had learned about the concept of focusing light with a convex lens in science class, but at the time, she had no interest in it. However, the teacher's rote instruction and her own practical application of this knowledge were two completely different experiences. When Zhu Yingning brought this up, she instantly became interested, but soon became disappointed due to practical limitations: "I don't have it."
I looked at Zhu Yingning again and found that she didn't have glasses either, which made me feel even more bored.
Zhu Yingning pointed at her wrist and said, "How about trying this?"
She looked down and found that Zhu Yingning was pointing at her watch.
The surface of the mechanical watch she wore was covered by a layer of slightly convex glass. If this piece of glass could be removed, it would undoubtedly be a perfect plano-convex lens.
Chu Jiating's eyes lit up: "I'll try."
While she was fiddling with her watch, Zhu Yingning breathed a sigh of relief, stepped aside, and wiped the non-existent cold sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand.
The phone in her hand vibrated. Zhu Yingning swiped the screen and saw a message from Xu Sirui, asking her, "How are you, taking care of the kids?"
She glanced at Chu Jiating, who was squatting on the ground fiddling with her watch with great interest. Although some mistakes had occurred during the process, Chu Jiating's mood seemed not only unaffected, but even more cheerful. Children can sometimes be difficult to deal with, and sometimes they are very simple.
She lowered her head and typed a reply: "Initially showing results."
Thinking of Chu Jiating always wearing headphones, she couldn't help but ask Xu Sirui, who was also deeply addicted to headphones: "Hey, let me ask you a question. She has been wearing headphones since yesterday. Is there any deeper meaning behind this behavior?"
"Yes, I have."
"What is it?"
"It proves that she really loves listening to music."
“…”
Zhu Yingning walked to the corner of the pavilion, turned on the voice chat, and gnashed her teeth as she called out his name: "Xu, Si, Rui! Can you please speak like a human being?"
As soon as you let go, the voice message is sent.
Xu Sirui then sent a human message: "It's also possible that she doesn't want to communicate with others. Wearing headphones is a simple and effective way to isolate herself. The signal presented is "I'm listening to music, I can't hear you, don't bother me."
She looked at this explanation and felt that perhaps this was the answer closest to the truth, and couldn't help but sigh softly.
As if he could read my mind, he sent several more messages:
"But didn't you say it's starting to work? Wearing headphones isn't necessarily directed at you; maybe she does this to everyone."
"Just go at your own pace. She'll open up to you."
She couldn't help but laugh, feeling comforted by him, but she couldn't help but say, "You don't know her, how do you know she will open her heart to me?"
"I don't understand her," Xu Sirui said, "but I understand you. I know you can do it, that's all."
Hey, this person...
She quickly changed the subject: "Okay, go ahead and do your thing."
As soon as he put down his phone, Chu Jiating outside the pavilion screamed, "It worked! It worked! Come and see!"
While she was chatting on her mobile phone, Chu Jiating had successfully removed the convex lens. She also learned from her experience and tore off a piece of the red paper on the front of the Earth Infrared Head. She spread it on the road outside the pavilion, and tried to find various angles and focal lengths to concentrate the light. Finally, she successfully ignited the paper.
Outside the pavilion, the sun was shining brightly and the breeze was blowing gently. She stood up and pointed at the burning paper on the ground. She was as excited as Columbus who discovered the New World. Her originally dull cheeks suddenly lit up with a bright light.
In the spring of March.
The light is gentle, and the wind is gentle.
-----------------------
The author has something to say: Two in one.
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