Accident
Grass grows tall and birds fly, willows turn green and flowers bloom red, the sun shines on the earth, melting the snow and bringing life to the world.
"The sky is clear and the breeze is gentle; this kind of weather is perfect for a picnic." The junior brother lay on the newly sprouted grass and sighed as he looked up at the sky.
The other fellow disciples nodded in agreement and lay down in a row under the old tree, leisurely closing their eyes and enjoying the breeze.
Yue Lang wholeheartedly agreed, and after responding, he paused for a long time before saying abruptly, "I have a friend."
The junior disciples, who had been lying neatly and breathing steadily, suddenly stood up and sat in a circle around him, craning their necks to hear something new.
Yue Lang: "?"
He scanned their faces from near to far, then circled back halfway, and saw an undisguised thirst for knowledge mixed with other emotions.
"Just an ordinary friend."
He thought for a moment and then changed his words, saying, "We're not that ordinary, we're pretty good friends."
Before long, he changed his tune again: "We've shared joys and sorrows, we've been through thick and thin together. I can read her mind with just a glance, and I can guess her next move with a flick of my finger."
"Oh!" "Wow!" "Eek!"
Yue Lang: "??" He was starting to dislike these little brats.
"Don't just shout, give your senior brother some pointers and show him the right path."
The junior brother felt wronged: "Senior brother, you didn't even ask anything, and then you suddenly said all this. What do you expect us to answer?"
"Ah! Didn't I ask?" Yue Lang sat up abruptly, patted his shoulders, cleared his throat, calmed himself down, and thoughtfully began to speak: "I've realized that between us, or rather, my feelings for her, might be a bit... you know what I mean?"
"Should we...understand?"
Yue Lang gasped twice, his lips trembling, his teeth almost biting them raw. Finally, he heard someone among these idiots who wasn't so dense, and he said, "Something's not right?"
"Yes." Yue Lang looked at him with renewed confidence.
He rested his chin on his hand in deep thought, then said with a heavy heart, "Then you're not being a gentleman, senior brother."
"I admit it." Yue Lang was speechless, waiting for his mentor in this area to continue analyzing for him.
"How can good brothers suspect each other? You don't even want your brother to do well, are you just waiting to see him fall into the mud and then laugh at him?!"
"No, I..."
"You're certainly not behaving like a gentleman, senior brother. You're showing signs of being a petty person."
"No, I..."
"But we are your good junior brothers and will still support your decision. However, we will never aid and abet evil, and we will not discuss anything that is immoral or immoral. Tell me, what do you need us to help you with?"
"You'd be a fool to help." Yue Lang waved away the false rumors and said with difficulty, "I feel that I'm not quite sure about my feelings for her. It's like there's something attached to my friendship, like this willow branch falling into my palm, tickling me a little."
Just moments ago, the junior disciples were chattering and each had their own opinion, but in an instant, they seemed to have become Meng Yan's personal disciples, imitating her quietness so perfectly that it was hard to tell the difference between the real and the fake.
"Well, well..." The junior brother hesitated for a long time before finally managing to stammer out the rest of his sentence under the gazes of his senior brothers: "So what kind of person is on the other side?"
Their gazes all turned to Yue Lang, making him rub his arms uncomfortably.
He rarely comments on a matter or a person, believing it to be disrespectful and fearing that his biased views might influence others' opinions. But right now, it seems to be a question he has to answer.
After a moment, he said briefly, "She is a very, very good girl."
Everyone: "..."
"Unsure, huh?" the junior brother countered. After receiving a firm nod from Yue Lang, he uttered the golden words: "Then go for it, senior brother!"
That's why we're from the same school; our thinking is exactly the same.
"With the right timing, location, and people, senior brother, why don't you invite someone out for a walk, give yourself an answer, and also give the girl an explanation?"
Listen to what you have to say!
Yue Lang chewed on his pen, scratching his head and wishing he had known this letter would be so difficult to write. He should have brought those boys along to help. Even if each of them wrote a sentence, they could have put together a readable piece. It would have been better than him and the blank paper looking at each other with mutual disgust.
Is it because I haven't written a letter in so long that I find it so difficult to put pen to paper?
No, it hasn't been a month since his last letter to Meng Yan. He can still recite the contents of the letter by heart. Yan Yan, please open this letter and I wish you a happy new year...
In his dejection, he caught sight of an embroidered handkerchief hanging on the pen holder. The corner of the handkerchief swayed gently in an arc before settling back down. Inspired, he picked up his brush and began to write.
.
Bathed in the warm sun, with snacks beside her, a gentle breeze blew her hair across her face, which her owner brushed away and put a piece of rice cake in her mouth.
Meng Yan lay on the rocking chair, her hands filled with her plans for the year, such as the design of the new facility and the arrangement of selling goods in distant places. This troublesome matter should have been carefully considered while she was at the table, but the weather was so nice that she couldn't bear to waste the spring sunshine, so she moved the rocking chair outside to listen to the birds singing and smell the flowers, which made her feel much more cheerful.
"Click, click."
The mechanical sparrow arrived gracefully in the spring, carrying a letter in its beak. Lately, Meng Yan had become so familiar with it that he could tell the sender of the letter at a glance just by looking at the color of the paper.
She used the fruit plate to weigh down the mostly-written scrap paper in her hand, opened her arms to take the little sparrow, took the scroll of letter with little practical content from its beak, placed the sparrow on the table to bask in the sun, lay back in her chair, changed to a more comfortable position, and began to read it.
It's just returning a handkerchief; such a small matter could easily be handled by the government office. Why write such a convoluted explanation?
Meng Yan pressed the letter under the sparrow's claws, closed his eyes for a short rest, and soon opened them again to look at the sky, watching the clouds race by, his thoughts also flying around.
Was Yue Lang trying to return the handkerchief, or was he inviting her out? The word "handkerchief" appears repeatedly in his writing, yet he becomes unusually serious when it comes to "going out together"—it's truly...
They could have just said it directly, but they chose to beat around the bush.
She rushed into the house to get a piece of paper. Meng Yan agreed and set the time for half a month later. She handed it to the little sparrow, but when she saw that it hadn't moved for a long time, she suddenly realized that the mechanical sparrow was one-way. If she wanted to send the letter, she would have to summon Yue Lang's mechanical sparrow.
I've noted that down; I'll see if I can improve on this later.
.
Spring arrives and everyone is busy. Amidst the prosperity, people are crying out for manpower. Meng Yan spends his days running around in the valley, helping as much as he can. At night, he makes plans while yawning, collapsing on his inkstone several times. He goes out to wash his face under the stars.
As the appointed day approached, she had successfully handled all the matters, big and small. Satisfied, she closed the book and skipped off to the kitchen. The air was filled with the warmth of the sunlight, which felt like she was embracing the sun.
"Senior Sister Yan!"
The junior brother had just returned from outside the valley and was flying towards the Bird-Stopping Platform in his mechanical kite when he saw Meng Yan. His expression instantly turned serious.
"What's wrong?"
Meng Yan's smile froze. There was no wind around, but her body shivered involuntarily. She forced herself to endure the discomfort and looked up to meet her junior brother's gaze. The strange discomfort became even more pronounced.
.
"What? Where is Junior Sister Yan? Where is she now?"
When the news reached the courtyard of the government office, everyone dropped what they were holding. These were people who had been through decades of rain, yet they were as helpless as children at this moment.
The people who come together in Peace Valley are either abandoned and taken in by their master, or they voluntarily leave home to learn a trade. The former have no worries, the valley is their home, and the others in the valley are their brothers and sisters; the latter write a letter on important days to express their longing, thinking of their relatives outside the valley, and are inseparable from the people in the valley.
Meng Yan was in a situation that combined two things: she was kicked out of the house by her father, and she also missed her mother dearly. Everyone knew that she had an excellent relationship with her mother, so when the news reached them, they were stunned for a long time.
The junior brother who came to deliver the message said breathlessly, "They should have already left the valley. Senior Sister Yan thanked me and then turned and headed to the top of the mountain."
"What should we do? Should we go to Junior Sister Yan's house and keep watch over her? I'm afraid she might do something rash." Senior Brother Hao was so anxious that he broke a piece of wood into pieces.
"No need, this is Junior Sister Yan's family matter," the senior sister said calmly, pulling the anxious and imaginative people in the courtyard back to their senses. "Besides, I trust Junior Sister Yan. She is resilient and composed; she would never act impulsively..."
"Alright, come with me to find my master."
The senior sister left half a sentence and hurriedly pushed open the door and left. The other brothers immediately followed her. Even those who had difficulty moving around supported each other and stumbled towards the residence of the cripple Li. No one chose to stand silently in place.
.
Amidst the lush bamboo grove, Yue Lang was humming a tune as he strolled through when he suddenly heard a mechanism whirring. He stopped singing, took off his straw hat, and looked up in the dense greenery, searching for something.
He was suddenly struck on the back of his neck. He knew something was wrong, so he bent over and spun around, ready to catch his opponent off guard.
However, when he turned to block and then made another move, the talisman missed its target. There was no one in front of him, only a silly-looking wooden bird flapping its wings.
He couldn't think of anyone but Meng Yan who would send a letter at this time. Despite the inopportune timing, he still put down his straw hat, opened the letter, and leaned against a tree to read it carefully. But he suddenly stopped when he actually unfolded the pages.
The paper was covered in wrinkles, suggesting it was a piece of scrap paper grabbed in a moment of panic. The handwriting was also chaotic and illegible, written not with ordinary ink, but with the green sap of a broken blade of grass from the roadside, which had seeped onto the paper. A few large characters could be vaguely discerned in the middle of the paper, and there were only these few characters on the entire sheet.
"I'm unable to keep my appointment due to other commitments. Please understand."
If he hadn't already memorized Meng Yan's every stroke of the pen, he probably would have thought the bird had mistakenly carried away someone's mischievous act.
But what's more serious than the absurdity is that the paper was indeed made by Meng Yan.
Something urgent must have happened for her to hastily write a letter through the grass and trees, without specifying the reason or mentioning the current situation.
Yue Lang immediately took out the yellow paper and cinnabar he always carried with him. This was a habit he had developed when he first learned that Meng Yan could not speak. He didn't expect it to be useful at this critical moment. He would rather carry this thing as a burden.
After reassuring him first, he immediately got to the point, asking Meng Yan what he could do. He wrote the shortest letter they had ever exchanged, ending with just three lines, then folded it and went to call the mechanical sparrow.
He had the wooden bead in his hand, and just before he tapped it against the tree trunk, he felt a slight pain in his chest. He glanced at the sky in a daze and happened to see a painted mechanical kite.
"Yan Yan!" he called out.
Unfortunately, they were too far away and the mechanical kite was too fast; the call ultimately failed to stop the fleeting wooden bird.
The sky was clear and cloudless, yet the light could not penetrate the forest.
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