72 Chapter Seventy-One
◎The gentlest people are often the most cold-hearted.
To be precise, Yu Jinyang was in quarantine for forty days, and even his cell phone was confiscated by the production team. All that remained was the huge poster on the Xiaohuacheng Wharf, fluttering in the river wind and occasionally getting on their nerves.
The grandmothers' support remains unwavering, but their slogans are becoming increasingly outrageous—
"Little Yang, Little Yang! Break out of paradise!"
"Little Yang, Little Yang! The light of Huacheng!"
"Yu flies in the sky, and Grandma chases on the ground!"
Unable to bear the ear-piercing noise, Gao Dian decided to join in directly, passionately directing from the grandmothers' group with a megaphone: "Come on, that's right! Second part, start—oh dear, Zihao's grandma, don't take your dentures out yet, wait until the finals on TV to take them off, let's give our first appearance to the whole country, okay!"
Later, Wu Juan joined in: "Yu is swimming in the water, and Grandma Yang is voting!"
Pan Xiaoliang said he didn't know where the smell of mutton stew came from.
Li Yingqiao couldn't stop laughing.
She sat on the bluestone steps leading to the dock, peeling and eating an orange. As she popped a segment into her mouth, she recalled the salty, fishy dock of two months ago, a night when only half a cicada's song remained.
Yu Jinyang leaned his elbow against the step behind him, looking up and listening quietly as she spoke about their past, occasionally chewing on the sweet cake he had initially refused to eat.
He actually had a cold expression at one point, probably because he guessed that she might reject him again, so no matter how she called him, he just turned his head to look at her indifferently: "What? Say it, I'm listening."
That look seemed to say, "If only you could bear to say it."
In the same spot, facing the fishy river wind, she didn't feel the fishiness then. At that time, Li Yingqiao only smelled the pleasant scent on Yu Jinyang, unlike the branded masculine scent on Zhang Zongxie that was soaked in perfume.
I don't know if it's because Brother Siyi has been in the wood business since he was a child, but Yu Jinyang's scent is very similar to the clean and refreshing smell of wood shavings when he was young, when he was sharpening pencils. Now it's even more refreshing and reassuringly clean.
They talked until dawn. Without much confession, the two naturally and inevitably met in Haikou, like two rivers that could not be stopped.
What can be done? There's only one Yu Jinyang who's been this adorable since childhood: she'd give her her New Year's money for tuition, she couldn't help but ask if anything had happened to her, she knew what Li Boqing was up to, but she still accompanied her to that damn dinner party where she'd be humiliated, she knew she'd be kissed, but she still obediently went upstairs with her, Yu Jinyang who always surrendered to her unconditionally, there are so many Yu Jinyangs like that.
If you asked eighteen-year-old Li Yingqiao what she liked about him, she probably wouldn't be able to answer. It was the lingering emotions of adolescence, an overflowing possessiveness, and a youthful spirit that wouldn't tolerate betrayal, a desire to rightfully possess him.
Now, however, she can answer clearly, having passed the age of speaking without restraint.
Actually, they talked a lot on and off that day, from Liang Mei to their ideals, until the sky gradually turned a pale white.
It's as if these exhausted little fish have finally swum to the end of the world, only to find nothing there. The end of the sea is just more sea, and the end of the mountains is still just towering peaks. Humans cannot escape the cage of fate.
From the moment Liang Mei selected a few of them, to Li Yingqiao's later efforts to get into a prestigious university.
She never thought about making a name for herself or achieving great success; she was simply too stupid to want to change this messed-up world.
These unrealistic ideas, or rather, thoughts, never actually lingered in her mind for a single second.
She only wanted to repay Liang Mei for helping her mother get her wages back, and because of this, Liang Mei lost her job. If it were just a grudge between Qian Dongchang and Liang Mei, it wouldn't have come to this. But Liang Mei, who seems cold on the outside but is kind on the inside, even sued the school. In fact, perhaps even Liang Mei herself didn't expect that this matter would have such a big impact on her.
She told Li Shuli about it, but she didn't expect Li Shuli's reaction to be so indifferent.
Because of this, Li Yingqiao once felt that her mother was a bit cold, somewhat indifferent to everyone except her. She asked why, saying that Teacher Liang was trying to help them. Li Shuli replied, "We didn't ask her for anything; it was her own choice. Why should she morally blackmail you?" Li Yingqiao retorted, "No, Teacher Liang never used this to blackmail me. We should just be grateful."
Li Shuli disagreed and insisted that studying was for oneself, not for anyone else. She said, "I have never asked you to study for me, and Liang Mei has no right to do so."
So when Liang Mei first came to her, Li Yingqiao was reluctant, but he was still a young boy, and he begged Liang Mei, "Please, just don't let me study, I'll do anything."
However, Liang Mei's persistent efforts to persuade students to study were ineffective. She started to generate gold coins and even came up with a fish fry plan, which hooked her already restless heart.
But she failed her high school entrance exam, and Liang Mei didn't call her for two months. Li Yingqiao knew that Tan Xiuyun had passed away and that she was no longer of any use to Liang Mei, so she assumed that Liang Mei had also given up on the fish fry project.
Until the start of the second year of high school, Zhu Xiaoliang called Yu Jinyang and asked them to meet at their usual spot. Throughout that year, Yu Jinyang insisted on studying in a group of four, and he was particularly certain that Liang Mei would definitely come back.
Li Yingqiao was seething with anger at the time. She was determined to get into a prestigious university and make Liang Mei regret her decision.
She was forced into this situation by others all along. She's just that kind of lazy and unambitious person. Liang Mei always scolds her for being irresponsible and lazy, like a clay figure that just lies there and does nothing, unlike Yu Jinyang.
Thinking about it, it's true. When I was little, I watched TV dramas, and when Little Swallow found her brother, I was completely smitten and wanted a ready-made brother. Later, when the TV in the corner store started changing channels, and we saw the White Snake repaying a debt of gratitude, I wanted to go up the mountain in the middle of the night to catch a snake to repay her.
Li Shuli had finally run out of patience with her. It was wonderful; this little painting town had gone completely mad, something she hadn't even dared to imagine. She slowly peeled an orange, thinking to herself, to be honest, she was quite curious about Liang Mei's expression when she saw her composed and restrained star pupil battling someone on TV, rolling around on the floor.
Just thinking about it makes me want to laugh out loud. Someone sat down next to Yu Guangli. Li Yingqiao had just put the last segment of orange into her mouth when, before she could even turn her head to glance over, a familiar brand of men's cologne wafted into her nostrils.
Zhang Zongxie straightened his suit jacket buttons, sat down on the stone steps next to her, and looked straight ahead at the dock not far away, saying, "So happy? You haven't seen your boyfriend for more than a month, and you're still so happy. What's going on between you two?"
“Of course, it’s a method you’d never guess.” Li Yingqiao glanced at him, continued peeling the orange, and said casually, “Is the matter settled?”
Zhang Zongxie coldly replied, "You treat me like your subordinate?"
“…” Li Yingqiao rolled her eyes and chuckled, “Alright, alright, Mr. Zhang.”
Zhang Zongxie inexplicably felt that her tone sounded a bit like her boyfriend's, and unconsciously emphasized, "His name is Michael."
Li Yingqiao rolled her eyes again: "...Are you going to tell me or not? If not, fine, I'll go back and ask Sister Xiang."
The recording studio for the show was located in a former wooden toy factory in Crazy Harbor that had had its sign removed. After nearly a month of hammering and tinkering, it was finally completed amidst much anticipation. The land was actually quite small, and Yu Renjie hadn't taken a liking to it at the time. Otherwise, the factory would have ended up being his. Back then, he had factories everywhere, and no one could have imagined things would turn out like this.
Even now, one can still hear the boisterous cheers coming from inside, like a flock of startled birds flapping their wings in the wilderness, echoing through the quiet afternoon of the small painting town.
You Xiaofan put a lot of effort into soundproofing. Apart from that, you can rarely hear the voices of the hosts and judges, and even the music is very soft. However, it is impossible to suppress the occasional noise that threatens to lift the roof off.
This was followed by another burst of enthusiastic cheers that ignited the entire audience. A group of people could be faintly heard chanting in unison, "3, 2, 1! 3, 2, 1!"
"The countdown has begun," Zhang Zongxie said, as if explaining to her as he looked towards the inside of the shed.
"Country bumpkin," that's Yu Jinyang's name.
Li Yingqiao asked him, "What exactly did Li Boqing say?"
Zhang Zongxie then got back to the main point, "He said he could withdraw, but he demanded that we revitalize the wooden toys in Fengtan. Otherwise, no one could force him to withdraw his original shares in Xiaohuacheng. To be honest, the old man still has some feelings for this land. He has no feelings for Xiaohuacheng and can abandon it easily, but he still wants to hold on to the wooden toys even if it kills him. So when he heard that the cultural tourism department wanted General Manager Yu to take the lead in doing a joint brand of wooden toys, he immediately put down his chopsticks."
Li Yingqiao: "No, I just don't understand why Li Boqing keeps targeting Brother Siyi like this."
Zhang Zongxie was somewhat surprised, and glanced at her indifferently: "You didn't know?"
She shook her head.
He said, "Aren't you and Yu Jinyang childhood sweethearts? Didn't he tell you? You should know about his kidnapping back then, right?"
Of course, it was still the code that she and Zhu Xiaoliang cracked.
She remembered that string of numbers for the rest of her life. Later, in the dead of night, she often dreamt that she had missed her chance to save him, and Yu Jinyang stood before her, covered in blood, loudly demanding why she couldn't solve it: "Don't you know the Fibonacci sequence? Did you marry Fibonacci? Why didn't you come to save him for so long? He's back from his honeymoon, time to collect his body! Hurry up, a human has 206 bones, count them carefully, don't leave any missing."
For a while afterward, she often had such dreams. In the dreams, Yu Jinyang's tone was almost lifelike, and his manner of speaking and expression were just like what he would say.
Even now that they're together, Li Yingqiao still has this dream once or twice when she's under a lot of pressure. She wakes up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, touches his face, and then touches his hands and feet to make sure they're all there before she can fall asleep peacefully.
Yu Jinyang probably didn't know what she was dreaming about, but he vaguely sensed that she wasn't sleeping well. Actually, this period was the time when she slept the best.
Zhang Zongxie, unaware of the intricacies of the situation, lit a cigarette. He listened as Yu Renjie recounted his grudges with Li Boqing, Li Wusheng, and others before the recent trial: "In the kidnapping case, there were two people involved. One was Li Boqing's youngest son, and the other was Yu Renjie's brother, Yu Jinyang's uncle. They were in cahoots. But Yu Renjie didn't send his brother to jail; I heard he was punished by the old man according to family rules. However, he did send Li Boqing's youngest son to jail. So why do you think he has a grudge against President Yu?"
Li Yingqiao was taken aback. "Does Yu Jinyang know about this?"
“How could we not know?” Zhang Zongxie gestured. “Such long and such narrow bamboo strips. They even brought out the family law, whipping the child in the ancestral hall with a crackling sound, and blood splattering three feet high. But Mr. Yu said that they initially intended to keep it a secret, but later Yu Jinyang accidentally overheard an elder in the family let it slip, and only then did he find out that the person who kidnapped him was his uncle.”
Li Yingqiao suddenly remembered that during their senior year of high school, the two of them often argued over the slightest disagreement. Yu Jinyang, who had always been a gentle and well-behaved boy, became very irritable and didn't get along with Fourth Brother. At that time, she was tutoring at Liang Mei's house and often heard the father and son arguing on the phone. Fourth Brother was so angry that he would fly into a rage and ask the question most often: "Do you still want me as your father?"
He didn't speak. Once, Brother Si was so angry with him that he cried, crying so heartbreakingly and painfully. Yu Jinyang was unmoved. The other three were helpless and deeply understood that any tearful attack had almost no effect on Yu Jinyang.
In fact, the gentlest people are the most cold-hearted.
Li Yingqiao looked up at the sky one last time, stretched her stiff neck, and asked, "So, what does Li Boqing want?"
Zhang Zongxie silently finished a cigarette and repeated Li Boqing's outrageous remarks at the dinner party yesterday: "He said that Xiaohua City can be returned to you, and you can do whatever you want with it, but Yu Renjie will never be allowed to take the lead in the wood toy business, unless he doesn't want his other leg either."
Li Yingqiao's eyebrows twitched slightly, but she still laughed. She turned her head to look at him and said, "Zhang Zongxie, even if I agree to this, you can't agree to it, right?"
Zhang Zongxie chuckled, flicked out his cigarette, and looked at her: "Why not? I'm a businessman. I can easily find an excuse to get rid of Yu Renjie than to get rid of Li Boqing. I've already helped him a lot, haven't I? Besides, Yu Jinyang isn't here. If something happens to his father, are you going to cover for him? If that's the case, I really don't think he's suitable for you."
Li Yingqiao stood up from the ground, looked down at him and said, "Zhang Zongxie, have you ever had a friend? Not necessarily someone you'd risk your life for. You probably don't understand. We grew up together. My relationship with him started as friendship, and then it became love. Just like I found out yesterday that my mother broke her leg, and Yu Jinyang brought her bone broth for half a month straight. When her gua sha clinic opened, it was Yu Jinyang and Gao Dian who came back to help."
"Our parents have already occupied a part of our lives. It's not a family relationship that was forced to be established because of our love. Rather, this kind of affection is something that grows in our soil and is rooted in our genes. If someone tries to destroy it, each of us will do our best to stop it. If you put Gao Dian and Miao Jia in this situation, the answer would be the same: between Yu Jinyang and me, there is more than just love."
***
Yu Renjie was currently scratching his head inside the house, registering his social media account: "Xiangxiang, what do you think of this name: Yu Renjie, the Timber King of Fengtan!"
He added, "How about calling bboyD321 'Dad' and riding on his son's popularity? Hehe."
[Author's Note]
See you tomorrow, hehe.
Update time: Between 9:30 and 10:30.
The author is scratching his head while cooking, hehe.
This one also has a red envelope.
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