Translator: Dj22031
Editor: Dj22031
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Shu Mian carefully considered her words before replying: [Not yet, is there something you need?]
The other end replied instantly.
Tan Xuzhe: [Can’t I message you if I don’t need anything?]
It was such an ordinary sentence, but Shu Mian’s heart skipped a beat.
She quickly replied: [That’s not what I meant dT-Tb]
While she was thinking to herself, I wish you would message me every day.
Tan Xuzhe: [There is something I do need. Could you send me a copy of your class schedule?]
Class schedule?
Shu Mian’s eyelashes trembled. What did he want her class schedule for?
Before she could even ask, another message came through: “I have a friend who’s very interested in your major’s courses and would like to audit some classes sometime.”
Okay, so it wasn’t him who wanted it after all.
Shu Mian found her electronic timetable and sent it to him.
When facing Tan Xuzhe, she always struggled to find interesting topics to talk about, even when they were separated by an internet connection.
If she doesn’t say anything more, will the chat end?
Unexpectedly, Tan Xuzhe sent another message, this time with a picture.
In an open palm, there was a star-shaped fruit candy.
Tan Xuzhe: [Of the ones you gave me last time, there’s only one left. I can’t bear to eat it.]
Shu Mian recalled that it was on the day of the opening ceremony that she happened to receive his dog-walking order. He rode his motorcycle to take her back to school, and she gave it to him at the school gate.
Reluctant to eat it?
She blinked, biting her lip, wondering if he was reluctant to part with the one given by her, or simply because there was only one left.
She dared not ask.
After thinking for a moment, she typed and sent the message, only to find that his message had arrived at almost the same time.
Tan Xuzhe: [Quite sweet.]
Su Su: [Eat it whenever you want, I’ll give you more next time (⁎⁍̴̛ᴗ⁍̴̛⁎)]
It’s quite sweet?
Shu Mian couldn’t help but smile; she also felt quite sweet inside.
Tan Xuzhe: [Okay, if you forget next time we meet…]
Tan Xuzhe: [I’ll use you to pay off my debt.]
Shu Mian paused, her fingers moving slightly. “Use… use her to pay off the debt?” She blushed and said she was going to sleep.
They said goodnight to each other, and she was about to put down her phone.
A new message suddenly appeared in the chat box.
Tan Xuzhe: [Your smile was quite sweet today too.]
Shu Mian stared at the message for a long time, then hid under the covers, covering her face with her hands, unable to bring herself to smile.
Her mood was like a flower branch being caressed by a spring breeze, swaying and scattering joy all over the ground.
Actually, the first time she ate these star-shaped fruit candies was when Tan Xuzhe gave them to her.
Thinking of this, she changed his nickname to the number “9”.
….
Eight years old was a watershed year for Shu Mian. Before that, she was a happy child with simple and pure worries: Why is there so much homework today? Why do I have piano and painting lessons on Saturday? Why won’t Mom let me eat spicy snacks?
Such occurrences were like fleeting dark clouds, passing by in an instant.
The change seemed to begin with the gradual disappearance of conversations between her parents.
The adult world was always busy and tiring. Shu Mian thought they were just too tired from work. So she clenched her little fists and secretly vowed to grow up quickly so that she could earn money to support her parents.
What she didn’t expect was that the next step after less and less dialogue was increasingly frequent arguments.
At first, they would close the door to avoid her, and lower their voices such that it was hard to tell if they were arguing.
But the sounds of arguing leaking through the crack in the door grew sharper with each passing moment, as if they were about to stab the other person in their most vulnerable spot.
Later, they would argue anytime, anywhere; at the dinner table, in the study, the noise of their arguments became the background noise in their home.
Shu Mian cried and begged them to stop arguing. Their attitude slowly changed from apologetic soothing to impatient shouts, “What do you know, you’re just a kid. Go back to your room and do your homework.”
The little girl gradually became numb, hiding in her room waiting for the storm to end.
This tense and oppressive state lasted for a year before the parents finally stopped arguing.
They just got divorced.
It was hard to say whether she felt more sadness or relief.
Her parents agreed to take turns raising her, and she could live with whomever she wanted.
Apart from the three of them no longer living together, nothing seemed to have changed; her parents still loved her very much.
But after her mother Wen Min remarried, Shu Mian gained a stepbrother who was two years older than her. Later, her mother gave birth to a younger sister, and Shu Mian seemed to become the superfluous one, and her mother’s love no longer belonged to her alone.
From then on, she preferred to live with her father, but not long after, her father, Shu Ren, also got a new wife.
Shu Ren’s new wife was named Xu Ya. She seemed very gentle, and although her relationship with Shu Mian was not particularly close, it was quite amicable.
Little did she know that some adults were very good at pretending.
Shu Mian raised an orange cat, a stray kitten she picked up when she was eleven. The vet said it was a weak kitten and might not live long, but she was still a child herself, so she raised it to adulthood and called it Zaizai.
One day after school, she discovered that her pet, whom she had raised for more than two years, had suddenly disappeared. She posted missing person notices everywhere and even asked her father to contact a pet search team, but there was still no news.
Perhaps Zaizai still preferred to be a free cat; it took her a long time to convince herself to move on from the grief of losing Zaizai.
It wasn’t until the summer after the high school entrance exam, almost two years after Zaizai had gone missing, that Shu Mian accidentally heard the truth.
She had a bit of a cold that day, and after taking medicine, she slept like a log.
When she woke up, she went to the living room to get a drink of water and saw Xu Ya, who was heavily pregnant, leaning on the sofa and making a phone call. “Hehe, she still doesn’t know that the cat she was raising was thrown out by me.”
“That cat only liked her and kept hissing at me, so I drove a long way to a place and threw it into the water from a bridge…”
Shu Mian felt ice-cold all over and rushed over like a madwoman, grabbing her clothes and demanding to know how she could be so heartless.
Just then, her father, Shu Ren, returned from the company and pulled her away. “Mian Mian, what are you doing? It was Zaizai who ran out by himself while the door was open. How can you wrong Aunt Xu like this?”
“Ren-ge, don’t talk like that to Mian Mian anymore.” Xu Ya rubbed her belly. “She’s just a child. Maybe she feels that her little brother will take away her love, so she doesn’t like me. I can understand.”
Shu Ren immediately became even angrier, “You really disappoint your father. Your Aunt Xu is pregnant, can’t you even consider her feelings?”
Am I not disappointed in you?
Shu Mian knew that arguing was useless. She didn’t even let herself cry. Biting her lip, she said, “Have you adults ever considered my feelings?”
She went back to her room, packed her things, and sat on the bed to call her mother.
Wen Min lived far away, so Shu Mian asked if she could drive over and pick her up, as she didn’t want to stay with her father anymore.
“Have your dad drive you over. Mom is very busy right now and can’t come.”
Shu Mian pulled her suitcase, took a taxi, and went to Wen Min’s house.
It was already dark when she arrived. Standing at the door, she heard laughter and cheerful voices coming from inside, with someone saying “Happy Birthday.”
Coincidentally, her stepbrother and sister shared the same birthday.
The family was celebrating a birthday.
She remembered her birthday in May; her mother only remembered it a few days later.
For a moment, she felt like she had been abandoned by everyone.
Her parents probably still loved her, but their love was like a glass of diluted sugar water, the sweetness had faded.
She only had one father and one mother, but they both had new children, and she was no longer their first priority.
Shu Mian sat on a bench in the community for a while and then opened the ticket purchase app.
The high-speed rail tickets for that day were sold out, so she bought a hard sleeper train ticket to Yanjing.
For the first time in her fifteen years of life, she was so bold as to buy a ticket and go to her grandmother’s house, thousands of miles away, without telling her parents or even her grandmother in advance.
After a journey of more than ten hours, she arrived in Yanjing on the morning of the second day.
During the summer, Yanjing was in its peak tourist season, and the subway was packed with people.
Shu Mian pulled her suitcase and squeezed onto the Line 9 subway heading to her grandmother’s house. There were no empty seats, so she held onto the handrail in the aisle and struggled to stay upright.
She immediately noticed a boy of similar age sitting opposite her.
Wearing a simple black t-shirt and black casual pants, his well-defined hands rested casually on his knees, and his long legs were bent somewhat aggrievedly.
He was wearing a black baseball cap with the brim pulled down slightly, covering half of his eyebrows and eyes, revealing a well-defined jawline. His skin was very fair, and he looked like he was taking a nap with his eyes closed.
His facial features weren’t fully revealed, yet he exuded a cool and languid aura.
Shu Mian quickly noticed that the man behind her was rubbing against her calf.
She initially thought it was an accident, since it was crowded and she had shifted her body a little bit.
But the man became even bolder, his hand lightly brushing against her thigh through her clothes.
This was the first time Shu Mian had experienced something like this, and she was so frightened that she moved away from him again.
The boy sitting opposite her had woken up at some point, now casually adjusting the brim of his hat, he looked up at her.
A pair of beautiful, sparkling eyes, with upturned corners and deep, dark pupils met hers.
Shu Mian met his gaze, and her heart skipped a beat.
Among her peers, he was the most handsome boy she had ever seen.
The boy stood up, his deep, casual voice pleasant to hear, “Please sit down.”
“Thanks.”
Thinking he was almost at his stop, Shu Mian didn’t refuse. She was still pulling her suitcase, and clearly did not to stand any longer so as to avoid the man behind her.
After she sat down, the boy walked to where she had been standing, lazily glanced at the disheveled man, and raised his chin with a slightly roguish air, “Are you a pervert?”
His voice wasn’t quiet, and the other passengers in the carriage looked over. The man’s face immediately turned red. “Who are you calling a pervert!”
“I’m calling you.” The boy narrowed his eyes, looking at him with a half-smile. “You rubbed against me, what else could you be but a pervert?”
The man immediately retorted, “Who rubbed against you? I was clearly rubbing against…”
The boy tilted his head, a mocking glint in his eyes, preventing him from saying what he was going to say next: “So you admit you were rubbing against someone?”
Someone in the carriage couldn’t help but curse out loud. But just then, the train arrived at a station, and the man slunk off the subway.
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