Chapter 17
When they arrived near the square, it was almost five o'clock. The traffic gradually gathered. When Li Ye and Zhou Yuan walked into the food street from the parking lot with the crowd, most of the shops were open for business.
Li Ye, who had quickly changed into his usual winter clothes, dragged Zhou Yuan, who wasn't particularly excited, straight to their familiar stall. Even in his everyday winter clothes, Zhou Yuan's palms were still warm.
"Let's make it clear first, you'll be paying for everything tonight."
Li Ye carried only a small bag, just big enough to hold his wallet, keys, tissues, and phone. Zhou Yuan carried his black backpack, which was practically empty except for a whole pack of tissues and wet wipes, making it convenient for the two of them to put things in when they went shopping together.
Knowing he was ruining part of their date plan, Zhou Yuan nodded in agreement. Before he could fully recover, he noticed that Li Ye had already taken his hand and squeezed him into a seat behind the mobile stall.
"Is there anything you don't eat?" Zhou Yuan shook his head.
"Then I'll go buy a plate of stir-fried beef noodles and wolf-tooth potatoes, and ask the owner for an extra set of bowls and chopsticks to share," Zhou Yuan nodded.
"Would you like a drink? Is this just one cup? Would you like an extra straw?" Zhou Yuan nodded enthusiastically.
The two temporarily exchanged phones. Li Ye took Zhou Yuan's phone, which was temporarily enabled for password-free payment, to buy snacks to fill their stomachs. Zhou Yuan took Li Ye's phone, put it in his backpack, and then took out a tissue to wipe the temporary table.
The owners of this place are quick, and the potatoes were already on hand. Li Ye didn't even wait ten minutes before the packaged stir-fried beef noodles and potatoes were already in his hands. Since he couldn't find anything he wanted to drink, he went straight back to find Zhou Yuan.
"Let's eat something to fill our stomachs first. We haven't found anything we want to drink yet, but we'll look for something else later."
The two switched phones back. Li Ye put the phone into his bag, opened the fresh fried noodles and put them into the empty bowl he had asked for. He put the bowl away after dividing it into half and returned to his side.
This restaurant's cooking is pretty good. The rice noodles aren't greasy, maybe because the oil is all in the other half of the bowl. The beef is very tender. I made it at home once, and it wasn't this tender. Did they use technology? No, I shouldn't think about these things when I'm out eating.
Go see what the potatoes taste like. Two pairs of chopsticks reaching for the potato strips collided in mid-air. Li Ye, who was engrossed in eating, looked up at Zhou Yuan, who also looked bewildered. After exchanging a smile, the two pairs of chopsticks lowered their height and reached for the end closer to them again.
We could tell from our eyes that we were both hungry.
After finishing their meal, Li Ye noticed the smell of barbecue spices lingered in their breath, so he suggested they buy some drinks to cleanse their palates. Using this as an excuse, the two officially began exploring the night market.
"The plaza activities start at 7:00, the first round of performances starts at 7:00 and ends at 7:30, and the last performance starts at 9:00 and ends at 9:30."
Having carefully reviewed all the local Lantern Festival activities this year, Zhou Yuan is very familiar with the events and schedules, but he is unsure if any of them are of interest to Li Ye.
"It's not even six o'clock yet. It won't take an hour to walk around here, so we can go ahead."
Li Ye's focus was on the event itself. The performance was all about the atmosphere; the content of the performance was not important. Too far away and you couldn't see clearly, too close and it was too crowded. Not to mention Zhou Yuan, she herself didn't really like it.
"Did you mention what activities there will be? Besides guessing lantern riddles, which is a traditional activity for the Lantern Festival."
As Li Ye stood in front of the takoyaki stall, Zhou Yuan had already taken out his phone to pay without her even needing to poke the takoyaki.
"You've invited someone to perform sugar painting? You've set up a stall for it? I'd like to go check it out."
One person took a skewer from the cardboard box and put it in their hand. Li Ye tried to eat the octopus tentacles with a distinct texture from the dumplings, but unfortunately there were only octopus tentacles cut into small pieces.
"Li doesn't want a lantern?" Zhou Yuan was more concerned about Li Ye's reluctance to solve the lantern riddle.
After swallowing the last dumpling in his hand, taking a break from eating, Li Ye replied, "Of course I want one. We've come out to play on the night of the Lantern Festival, how could we not bring a lantern back?"
"I just don't want to guess riddles. I've been going through the motions all this time. If I see one I like, I'll just buy it. If you want to play, I can confiscate your phone and you'll really have to guess it yourself."
Zhou Yuan seemed to remember something: "Last year's Lantern Festival, the shopping app's lantern riddle guessing promotion?"
"After all that effort, I didn't get any discounts, and the things I wanted to grab were sold out. Let whoever wants to guess these riddles guess them; I'm not touching them again."
Li Ye felt angry just thinking about it. He picked up the last skewer of takoyaki and chewed it with his teeth making a squeaking sound. Zhou Yuan stopped him, and a wild ice cream cone truck appeared in front of them.
Each person bought a plain ice cream cone as a cleanse, and also threw away the trash they had been carrying along the way.
The further in they went, the more homogenized the food became. Li Ye only bought two grilled sausages, while Zhou Yuan stopped at a stall after seeing its name and bought a small handful of grilled meat. Li Ye also ordered a bowl of stinky tofu.
"It's so spicy! The last broth is really spicy. You should try a piece too."
Li Ye, a person who can handle spice moderately, shared a story about Zhou Yuan, a person who can handle spice moderately, eating a piece of extremely spicy stinky tofu. The two of them were so spicy that they stuck out their tongues, hoping that the cold air would bring down the temperature.
"Luckily they're all young people, otherwise their stomachs would rebel."
Finally, Li Ye finished the most tofu pieces, and Zhou Yuan handed over the grilled pork belly skewers, hoping they could reduce the spiciness.
The two people who arrived at the square early each had a glass of lemonade in their hands, but it seems that it didn't have much effect.
Holding hands through the crowd, they walked to the spacious square, where everything was already set up. The event organizers' staff also arrived one after another. Li Ye sipped his lemonade and went to find the legendary sugar painting stall that had invited people over.
"Is it not open yet?"
Li Ye pointed to a pile of lanterns that had already been hung up, with riddles hanging from them, presumably for use when the event started later, but he hadn't seen any other stalls yet.
"Let's go look at the lanterns first." Zhou Yuan pulled Li Ye towards the pile of lanterns.
By this time, it was completely dark. The stalls with riddle lanterns lit up their lanterns one by one, and the surroundings were suddenly illuminated. The bright center immediately attracted many people.
Li Ye, who was well protected by Zhou Yuan behind him, was able to reach the lantern stall smoothly. After looking around, he chose a traditional rabbit lantern.
While paying, Zhou Yuan struck up a conversation with the stall owner, wanting to ask where the sugar painting stall was.
The stall owner pointed, gesturing for Zhou Yuan to turn around and look, "It's right across the street, Master Ren just arrived."
Zhou Yuan turned around and saw that Li Ye was already standing in front of the sugar painting stall with a rabbit lantern. He wasn't in line and seemed to be waiting for Zhou Yuan to come over. After they met eyes, Li Ye waved to indicate his position.
The lights on this side could illuminate the opposite side, but the lights at the sugar painting stall weren't very bright. Zhou Yuan could only see Li Ye's figure clearly. Suddenly, he didn't regret coming to the play that afternoon so much. Otherwise, Li Ye's appearance would be more suitable for this situation.
This would also make him unable to resist accelerating the process of getting Li Ye back to his new identity as Zhou Yuan, which would be too easy to scare people away.
After thanking the stall owner, Zhou Yuan left the lantern stall. As he approached Li Ye, the square lights gradually came on. In his vision, Li Ye seemed to be illuminated by layers of flashlights, making him look so bright and shiny.
Seeing Zhou Yuan stroll over slowly, Li Ye quickly pulled people to join the queue.
"The stall owner said that he had a limited supply of syrup for today, and once it's sold out, that's it. I've been watching for a while now. The stall owner is a skilled craftsman; everything he makes looks very realistic. I'm glad I came today."
"Have you decided what pattern you want?" Li Ye wasn't sure what he wanted yet, so he chose to ask Zhou Yuan for his answer.
Zhou Yuan answered unpredictably, saying he had no intention of buying, "Li buys, I don't buy."
Without any reference, Li Ye quickly got to the front of the line. In the end, he decided to leave it to fate and let the wheel spin randomly. He left the stall holding a lifelike carp.
Li Ye bit off the carp's tail in one bite. "The candy you use to look at tastes different from the candy you use to eat."
“We didn’t have this kind of fun before. It was a small place with nothing special. Times have changed and it has become the same everywhere. It still doesn’t have anything special.”
Zhou Yuan remained silent. The crowd grew larger, and his watch indicated that the performance was approaching. "Want to go see the show?"
"Go ahead and grab a front-row seat." Li Ye had never stood in the front row to watch a performance before.
They secured a good spot in advance so Li Ye could watch the entire performance. To be honest, the lion and dragon dances were quite captivating, though not very friendly to people with sensitive ears. Taking advantage of the second half of the performance being a square parade, Zhou Yuan escorted her through the crowd to the adjacent shopping mall lobby.
"That was too thrilling. In every sense, you were also in danger just now, crossing the crowd directly. What if a stampede had occurred?"
When Li Ye came to his senses, he was terrified by Zhou Yuan's actions and broke out in a cold sweat. This was the second time he had been angry at Zhou Yuan's behavior today. This time the situation was more serious and Zhou Yuan had to write a letter of repentance before it would be over.
"You must give this to me before you leave, do you hear me?"
Zhou Yuan was happy to be scolded, but he couldn't show it. He looked like he had been severely scolded by Li Ye, and kept his head down.
Li Ye didn't continue, saying, "There are too many people in the square, let's wander around in the mall."
After wandering around the mall lobby without buying anything, Li Ye exited through another door. Zhou Yuan followed him automatically. They were still within the plaza area, but there were far fewer people. Looking at the stalls, they saw that they were selling small trinkets.
Li Ye picked out a pair of headbands with small flowers on top, which Zhou Yuan paid for. After buying them, each of them wore a small red flower on their head.
After taking the last bite of the candy, Li Ye took Zhou Yuan's hand and walked towards the center of the square, saying, "Let's go buy some more things."
The two carried rabbit lanterns to clear the way, passing by a lion dance performance during a parade. Zhou Yuan reached out and covered Li Ye's ears to keep the noise down.
The final destination was the sugar painting stall that had started earlier. It was still quite early, but when it was Li Ye's turn, there was only enough syrup for one serving. After Zhou Yuan was driven away from the vicinity of the stall, Li Ye told the stall owner what he wanted to paint.
Zhou Yuan, who was standing not far away, saw Li Ye walking over with a package of sugar paintings. He thought to himself that he hadn't paid for them yet, until Li Ye held up the newly made sugar paintings in front of him.
"Is this Li?" Zhou Yuan asked Li Ye with a puzzled expression.
Li Ye was a little surprised, "You can recognize me so quickly? Am I that easy to recognize?"
Smiling, Li Ye presented the sugar painting to Zhou Yuan, still speaking in a matter-of-fact tone: "Here, it's for you. It's the only thing I spent money on tonight."
Li Ye led Zhou Yuan to a better-lit spot, took out his phone and took a picture of the two of them together. "After you take the picture, remember to eat it. I don't want anything with my image on it to go bad or stick to weird places."
"Why don't you eat it right now in front of me?"
Zhou Yuan rejected the suggestion and earnestly promised, "I'll eat it when I get home and take pictures."
The two of them didn't play anymore. They put the little flower on their heads, went to the parking lot, drove home, and ended their Lantern Festival date early.
After returning home, Li Ye immediately washed off all the smells that had accumulated on her body. She turned off the lights, lay down on the bed, and prepared to get some sleep early for the night.
Goodnight, roses.
Goodnight, Liye.
Have sweet dreams tonight.
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