Chapter 27
In the tea room, Bai He tore open the lid of the instant noodles and stared blankly in despair.
Turning his head to look towards the carriage, he saw Qi Lang's long leg stretched out sideways, across the aisle of the carriage as if there was no place for it.
Bai He pinched the skin on the back of his hand hard, unable to believe what had just happened, thinking it was a dream.
It really felt like a dream. Qi Lang appeared inexplicably and what he said was also inexplicable... It was just like the Midsummer Dream she had had in countless drowsy afternoons.
The back of her hand had been pinched with several crescent-shaped nail marks. She squeezed her eyes shut tightly and muttered, "Wake up, wake up, wake up."
After repeating it silently three times, he opened his eyes and met Yan Yi's eyes which were as dark as a cold pond.
He glanced at the crescent-shaped nail marks on the back of her hand, said nothing, took the instant noodle box from her hand, skillfully tore open the sachet and squeezed the ingredients into the box, poured in boiling water, and sealed the box.
"You said you wanted to forget him." Yan Yi handed her the instant noodle box, his tone very calm, "Be careful, it's hot."
"I will," Bai He said gloomily. "Even if he applied to Kitasato University, I wouldn't be too upset."
"Really?" Yan Yi questioned her words. "Aren't you happy?"
She licked her dry lower lip and whispered, "I'm happy... a little bit, but only because I'll have another friend in the same school. It's just like hearing that Su Xiaojing was accepted."
Yan Yi looked at her and said, "You can lie to me, but don't lie to yourself. If you like someone, then you like them. There's no need to pretend you don't like them when you clearly do."
“…”
He was the person who knew her best in the world, even better than she knew herself.
"I will try to control my heart and be friends with him." Bai He said to him, "This is what I am best at."
They have been friends for more than ten years.
Bai He walked back with the hot and fragrant instant noodles, and Qi Lang reached out to take it: "Thanks."
"If you want to eat, get it yourself." Bai He rudely slapped his hand away, "This bowl is mine."
Qi Lang was too lazy to move and just said, "I can't get used to this kind of junk food."
“…”
The most annoying thing about my body is my mouth.
After a while, Yan Yi also came back with a box of instant noodles, sat next to Bai He, and stirred his noodles with a plastic fork.
Bai He looked over curiously: "Did you buy the dry turkey noodles?"
"Um."
"It smells so good."
Yan Yi picked up the hot noodles from his bowl and put them into hers. Qi Lang squinted at them and couldn't help but say, "Isn't that disgusting?"
"You're such a hypocrite," Yan Yi retorted mercilessly, "Don't you feel disgusted when you give away the beans you don't want to eat?"
Yan Yi has always spoken harshly, especially to Qi Lang. He is used to it. He glanced at Bai He and saw that the little girl was eating noodles silently with her head down, and she didn't even help him.
He curled his lips, feeling bored all of a sudden. He stood up and said, "I'm going to go see if anyone has ordered anything over at the dining car. Want to join us?"
These words were said to two people. Bai He looked at Yan Yi, but Yan Yi didn't say anything and just lowered his head to eat noodles.
Bai He thought about his limited financial resources and said, "You go ahead. I've been spending a lot of money lately, and the food in the dining car on the train is so expensive."
"It's my treat, idiot."
When he's around, friends don't need to touch their wallets, but Bai He doesn't want to be the kind of "friend" who takes advantage of him.
"I've already made instant noodles. It would be a waste not to eat them. Go ahead."
Qi Lang didn't insist anymore and went to the dining car alone.
After walking around the bright and clean dining car with elegant environment, I felt bored and had no appetite even after looking at the menu.
He was used to acting with three people. When the two of them were gone and he was left alone, everything felt wrong.
This trip abroad lasted nearly two months. Traveling with a few Hong Kong friends, we hopped from city to city, saw many magnificent sights, walked through many unfamiliar streets, and met many foreign faces...
None of these things could fill the emptiness in his heart. Only when he landed in Nanxiang City and saw the two of them walking into the residential complex from afar, did Qi Lang feel as if the boat had returned home.
The two of them occupied most of his childhood and adolescence, and almost constituted all of his memories. Without them, Qi Lang felt like a body without a soul.
At that moment, he knew that his choice of major was correct.
Qi Lang came back with a bowl of instant noodles and sat down unhappily. Bai He asked curiously, "Why don't you go to the dining car?"
"No appetite."
She looked at the instant noodle box in front of him: "Don't you say this is junk food?"
“Occasionally making some challenging attempts is also a new experience in life.”
She showed disdain on her face: "Eating instant noodles is like the God Qi Lang is about to descend to the mortal world to overcome the tribulation."
Qi Lang opened the lid and stirred the noodles with a plastic fork. A fragrant aroma filled the air. Bai He leaned over curiously and asked, "What flavor?"
"Pickle."
"I like."
"You like everything."
Qi Lang didn't start eating. Instead, he handed the instant noodles to her and asked her to take the first bite: "My dear, let me try the poison."
Bai He made a "tsk" sound, took the instant noodles, took a small bite, and drank some soup.
"It's not poisonous. Your Majesty can eat without worry."
He handed the bowl to Yan Yi again and said, "Let me have a taste of your turkey noodles."
"Isn't it disgusting?"
"I'm glad I didn't find you disgusting."
Although Yan Yi said this, he still picked some turkey noodles for him.
"Do you want to try mine?" Qi Lang asked.
"No." Yan Yi refused decisively.
The three of them seemed to have returned to their childhood, exchanging snacks with each other, close and intimate, with no more gaps between them.
After dinner, Bai He held Qi Lang's mobile phone and looked at the many landscape photos he had taken casually in the album.
"Why didn't you use your camera? These views would have been spectacular if captured with a DSLR."
"It's too heavy." Qi Lang is a person who dislikes trouble and doesn't like taking pictures.
But Bai He has a strong interest in cameras and lenses, so he signed up for the journalism major this time in order to learn shooting techniques and become proficient in using SLR cameras.
It’s a pity that people who have money to play with SLRs have no interest in this, while people who don’t have money are just enthusiasts who tinker with digital products.
She scanned the photos one by one, and suddenly saw an interesting one. A few goats were landing like birds on a big tree that looked a bit like a baobab tree.
She asked Qi Lang curiously, "Qi Lang, are these photos photoshopped?"
"No." Qi Lang came over and explained, "This is an even-toed goat. It was taken in Morocco. They can climb trees."
"How strange." Bai He handed the phone to Yan Yi, "Look, goats can even climb trees."
Yan Yi said calmly, "This tree is called the Argan tree. It's endemic to southwestern Morocco. The reason goats climb trees has to do with the local climate. It's too hot and there's a lack of water. To eat the fruit, goats have evolved tree-climbing skills, even climbing trees that are 8 to 10 meters tall."
Bai He stared at him in amazement: "You know all this."
"I glanced at the geography magazine in class."
"You're a science student, and you're actually reading a geography magazine in class."
"I wanted to choose liberal arts, but you insisted that I study science." Yan Yi still feels a little sad when talking about it now, and is still brooding over the division of liberal arts and science back then.
She and Qi Lang both went to the liberal arts class, but she left him alone to go to the science class.
"Because you want to become Dr. Yan." Bai He touched his hair and smoothed it.
Qi Lang frowned slightly and looked at Yan Yi.
He has always been the best in studying, but now someone suddenly appears and not only surpasses him in scores, but also seems to have surpassed him in some unimportant extracurricular knowledge.
Qi Lang began to have some sense of crisis.
"Do you know what the scientific name of the Forrest Gump tree is?" he suddenly asked.
Yan Yi: "I didn't pay much attention."
"Argania spinosa." He twirled a precise, yet quite flavorful, English phrase through his thin lips. "The locals say the nuts of this tree can be used to extract oil, but the shells are hard and difficult to crack by hand. So goats climb the tree to eat the fruit, and when they defecate, they excrete the indigestible kernels. The locals clean them, crack them open with stones, and remove the kernels to extract the oil. Do geography magazines tell you this?"
Words translate into silence.
He could see that there was a hint of competition in Qi Lang's eyes.
From childhood to adulthood, no matter it was a competition or an exam, Qi Lang always strived to be the first. He would never be willing to fall behind and take second place.
Yan Yi taunted, "I don't have the opportunity to travel to as many countries as you do to broaden my horizons. You're showing off this in front of me. Is that funny?"
This sentence was extremely sharp and pierced Qi Lang's heart. He looked at him coldly: "Only people with low self-esteem would regard any normal discussion as showing off. Yan Yi, do you feel low in front of me?"
Yan Yi said, "You are a rich second-generation rich kid, and I am an orphan without parents? If I were to feel inferior about something like that, I wouldn't be sitting on the train to Beili today with a higher score than you."
Bai He listened to the two people stabbing each other back and forth, swallowed his saliva, and tried to ease the tense atmosphere.
"Um... I suddenly feel like you two have a good CP feeling."
Translation: . . . . .
Qi Lang: …
Qi Lang smacked her on the top of the head with a slap: "You can knock anything, right?"
Bai He quickly covered her head and hid beside Yan Yi. This time, Yan Yi didn't help her. Instead, he pulled her cheek and said, "Empty the evil thoughts in your head, or I will be angry."
"Okay, okay, okay, okay!"
These two are absolutely straight men, and they can't stand any "dirty words" from any man. Bai He usually doesn't dare to say anything about them. If they team up to attack her, they will really kill her and will not show any mercy to her.
Fortunately, this matter is over.
A goat climbing up a tree can cause them to quarrel. Where have the close and loving brothers they were when they were young gone?
Bai He used to raise two little parrots. When they were young, they were very close and would groom each other's feathers. When they grew up, they would peck and fight at each other every day, and their feathers were pecked off. They could not be kept in the same cage at all.
Later, I asked the neighbor who raised parrots and found out that these two were male parrots, very aggressive and could not live in harmony.
Bai He's long-cherished wish of having them lay eggs and hatch chicks was also shattered.
She continued to look through the photos when suddenly her phone vibrated and a WeChat pop-up window popped up at the top.
Jenny: "Baby, when will you arrive in Beili? I'll pick you up at the airport."
Bai He's heart was like a pendulum swinging in the air, hitting his chest hard.
The pop-up window had been closed, and her mind was blank.
Do you have a new girlfriend so soon?
New girlfriend...still in Kitasato City.
There is always a lot of fun around him, and Qi Lang never lets himself be lonely.
She calls him baby, so their relationship must be very close.
Bai He's fingertips trembled.
Although she really wanted to check his WeChat, Bai He controlled this devilish impulse.
They are just friends, and friends cannot cross the line.
Bai He returned the phone to Qi Lang: "You have a text message."
Qi Lang reached out to take the phone, clicked into WeChat to take a look, and quickly replied to the text message with a normal expression. He didn't feel embarrassed at all about her seeing the text message calling him baby.
Yes, they were already so familiar with each other that even their intimate text messages could be seen by her without any hesitation. He never thought that these things would hurt her feelings.
Every time the flowers bloom and fall silently, it is her inner drama.
He was completely unconscious.
Qi Lang replied to a few text messages, then put away his phone and asked Bai He, "Do you still want to see the photos?"
"I don't want to watch it anymore. My eyes are sore." Bai He leaned listlessly on Yan Yi's shoulder and closed his eyes.
Yan Yi moved his shoulders so that she could lean more comfortably.
"School hasn't started yet. Once we get to Beili City, we probably won't be able to go to school. What are your plans?" Qi Lang asked.
But when this question was asked, no one responded. Bai He pretended to sleep, and Ye Yi... had no desire to speak at all.
After more than ten seconds, she still didn't want to embarrass him, so she said calmly: "We are planning to travel to the nearby islands. We have been working part-time throughout the holiday and want to relax."
"Together."
"Didn't you just come back from abroad? Aren't you tired?"
"What misunderstanding do you have about my physical ability?"
"Are you going alone... or do you want to bring someone with you?" Bai He asked carefully, and Yan Yi glanced at her sideways.
Seems to understand something.
Qi Lang stretched, his muscles creaking. “I’ll ask her later, but she’s a homebody, so she probably won’t go.”
“…”
Bai He no longer had the desire to speak and leaned against Yan Yi's neck again.
Yan Yi took her hand, took out a nail clipper, and cut her nails neatly.
Forty minutes later, the train arrived at Beili High-Speed Railway Station. Before the train stopped, the passengers stood up and picked up their luggage to leave. Yan Yi took the luggage down and hung two backpacks, one black and one yellow, on his strong shoulders. Bai He followed behind him and walked forward along the crowded crowd.
"Don't push," the conductor shouted from the front row over the loudspeaker. "The train hasn't stabilized yet, so please be patient."
Before he could finish his words, the brakes on the car caused many passengers to lose their balance and fall forward unsteadily. Bai He was also bumped by someone and almost fell.
Yan Yi quickly supported her.
At this moment, Qi Lang behind her promptly put his arm around her waist, pulled her into his arms, and whispered in her ear, "Watch closely."
"Hmm..." The little girl's cheeks turned red instantly.
Because at the same moment, two men held her hands at the same time, one each, tightly clasping them in their equally large and equally hot palms.
…
Leaving the bustling platform and following the flow of people towards the exit, Bai He broke away from Qi Lang's hand.
Bai He was walking out hand in hand with two men. Along the way, she could feel the strange looks from people around her. For her, this was undoubtedly a social hell.
What's more, Qi Lang's girlfriend was waiting for him at the exit.
On second thought, this guy actually held another girl's hand behind his girlfriend's back, even... even if they were good friends of many years.
This behavior is really too despicable.
So when Bai He shook off his hand, she even threw it away with a bit of anger.
Quicken your pace and get ahead of him.
Qi Lang followed behind her, rubbing his index finger and thumb.
It seemed like the place where I had just touched her was wet and cool, with a lingering and wonderful feeling...
"Let's go together later." Qi Lang said, "It's hard to get a taxi with so many people."
"No thanks." Bai He refused bluntly. She didn't want to meet his new girlfriend. "There are plenty of online taxis at the train station."
"Where are you staying tonight?"
"Hotel."
"Come to my place." Qi Lang said, "I have a place to stay."
“…”
He's also taking them to her girlfriend's house?!
Bai He was extremely speechless.
"No, I won't bother you."
When they arrived at the exit, Bai He saw a particularly tall and beautiful girl with long black hair in the crowd. She kept waving in their direction with a bright smile on her face.
"Xiao Qi!"
The girl was wearing a black dress with thin straps that hooked around her round shoulders. Her collarbones were very sexy, and there was a black Gothic-style letter tattoo under her collarbones.
Her height... Bai He estimated that she was at least 175cm tall, tall and thin, with a graceful figure.
That was a mature and sexy woman that Bai He could not have and had never seen on the high school campus.
Qi Lang...changed his taste?
"Xiao Qi." She seemed to be calling Qi Lang. Seeing him come out, she rushed over and jumped on him to hug him. "I missed you so much, little brat!!!"
Qi Lang moved quickly and hid beside Yan Yi, decisively avoiding the girl's hug. He frowned and said, "My friend is here, please restrain yourself."
Jian Ni looked at Yan Yi with her eyes wide open: "Damn, your friend is so handsome!"
Qi Lang put one hand in his pocket: "Are you as handsome as me?"
"I think it's on par with yours."
As she spoke, Jian Ni's gaze drifted towards Bai He who was standing beside Yan Yi, and an excited smile instantly appeared on her face: "This must be Xiao Qi's girlfriend!"
After saying that, she reached out and cupped Bai He's face, "Such a small one, can you eat our Xiao Qi? Hahaha."
Before he finished speaking, Qi Lang frowned and pulled Bai He behind him, keeping her away from Jian Ni: "Be more restrained. She just graduated. Don't make such jokes."
Bai He asked in a surprised voice: "Qi Lang, she is..."
"My cousin." Qi Lang said with a bit of disgust, "She's a crazy woman, you don't have to pay attention to her."
"Can you please be a little more polite? The Qi family has such strict family values, how could they give birth to a disrespectful and rebellious child like you!"
Jian Ni didn't bother to greet him. Her charming eyes only stayed on Yan Yi: "This handsome guy doesn't have a girlfriend, right? Does he mind if it's a relationship between an older woman and a younger man?"
Bai He followed Qi Lang out of the train station, and kept looking back at Jian Ni and Yan Yi, with an uncontrollable smile on his lips.
After Bai He left, Yan Yi said calmly, "I don't mind an older-younger-brother relationship."
"Wow! That's a coincidence!"
"Unfortunately, I have a sister."
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