After the school bell rang, everyone went out in groups for food. Although it was a large class, not long after, nearly everyone had left and only a few people were remained in the classroom.
Despite the fact that the school year has just started, both residential and day students have quickly formed small groups during the two weeks of military training. At noon and after school, Lin Xian usually walked with Chen Zhi and Tang Mo in a group and at noon during the military training Shi Man was also with them. But she had informed them earlier that after the official start of school, she would not be with them and her sister would come to find her.
Lin Xian and Tang Mo leaned against the table in boredom, waiting for Chen Zhi to slowly pack her school bag, when they suddenly noticed that Chen Zhi’s action of organizing her textbooks stopped and her eyes were staring straight out of the window.
Tang Mo became impatient and dissatisfied, stretched out her hand and waved it in front of Chen Zhi’s eyes, reminding her, “What are you thinking about?
Chen Zhi turned back, slightly raised her chin mysteriously to the window corridor, lowered her voice and explained, “I suddenly saw a big beauty, look…”
Lin Xian and Chen Zhi heard the words, then turned around in unison and looked towards the outside.
As expected, in the corridor is standing a long ink hair jade girl, her face was delicate and cold and her eyebrows were calm and cold. At this time the girl was quietly looking at the classroom.
“Student Council Head….” Tang Mo recognized.
At the same time, Xia Zhijin… Lin Xian sighed in her heart.
Her eyes cast over to the first few tables, landing on the still sitting motionless Shi Man, and could not help but sigh. Shi Man crying had stopped by the time class started, but for the whole class, she looked depressed and distracted. Lin Xian could feel it.
Until Chen Zhi packed up for the three of them to leave, the classroom was left with just Shi Man in her seat sitting still. As Lin Xian passed by Shi Man, she greeted her, “Man Man, we’re leaving, see you tomorrow.” After walking two steps, she turned her head to look at Xia Zhijin who was standing calmly outside, remembering her kindness of sending medicine, but still added a sentence in her heart, “Sister is waiting for you outside…”
Shi Man didn’t even look at them and indifferently answered back to her. From the tone of her voice it was difficult to distinguish her mood, “I know, en, see you tomorrow.”
Lin Xian could not say anything more, so she had to go with Chen Zhi and the others, and when she passed by Xia Zhijin, she said politely, “Sister, I’ll go first.”
Xia Zhijin’s face was calm, she looked down at Lin Xian and nodded gently, “Goodbye.” The voice was clear and cold, unhurried…
When she was about to go downstairs, Lin Xian looked back, and Xia Zhijin was still quietly standing in the same place waiting…
When she returned home, Xiao Yuqing had already returned from work and was frying vegetables in the kitchen.
When Lin Xian came home and pushed open the door, she heard the crackling sound of stir-fry in the kitchen and inexplicably felt a surge of joy in her heart. She changed her shoes, threw her school bag on the sofa, and ran joyfully to the kitchen to look for Xiao Yuqing, “Aunt Xiao, I’m back.”
As she spoke, the slender and beautiful figure appeared in her line of sight.
Xiao Yuqing turned off the fire, turned around and found Lin Xian, there was a shallow curve on her lips, she was a bit helpless, “Have you forgotten the lesson in the morning? What if you slip again running so fast?”
Lin Xian walked to Xiao Yuqing’s side, naturally took over the pot and spatula, and helped Xiao Yuqing serve the dishes. She turned her face sideways to look at Xiao Yuqing, her eyebrows arched, “I won’t, I have Aunt Xiao here.”
Xiao Yuwing could not help her, “You….” She took the empty pot and placed it on top of the basin, saying warmly, “Wash your hands and get ready to eat, are you hungry?”
Lin Xian then obediently reached out and turned on the tap to wash her hands. She quietly looked sideways at Xiao Yuqing and watched her calm look as she slightly bowed her head and focused on washing the pot, and her mind wandered slightly.
Obviously, this kind of life has just started not long ago, but why did she feel that this kind of life seemed to have already passed for a long, long time, so long that she was so familiar and dependent on Xiao Yuqing. Scientists say that twenty-one days can form a habit, but Lin Xian felt that before she made it to twenty-one days, she had already gotten used to the days with Xiao Yuqing. She hoped that it could always be like this–when she turned her head, she could see that gentle smiling face.
During the meal, Lin Xian shared today’s story with Xiao Yuqing as usual, and naturally, she talked about the quarrel between Shi Man and Xia Zhijin that she had seen today.
Retelling the story again was equivalent to sorting things out again. Lin Xian took a sip of soup, licked her lips, and lamented as an afterthought, “This pair of sisters, they don’t seem to feel the same as normal sisters.”
Xiao Yuqing’s expression was the usual calm, but her watery eyes flickered slightly as she stared at Lin Xian, hesitating for a moment before responding to Lin Xian, “Didn’t Shi Man say that Xia Zhijin is not her sister….”
Lin Xian lightly raised her tone, “Ai”, and asked Xiao Yuqing in surprise for confirmation, “Isn’t that angry words? Just like…. like the day you said ‘Lin Xian, I’ll never be with you again’….” finishing, she seemed to think of the scene at that time, and could not help but laugh again. The joy was unbearable.
Xiao Yuqing was filling the soup for Lin Xian and immediately there was scarlet on her fair and warm cheeks. She finished serving the soup and gently placed it in front of Lin Xian, asking her lightly, “Are you ticklish?”
Lin Xian gathered a little smile, raised her eyes to look at Xiao Yuqing, and nodded her head.
Xiao Yuqing’s eyebrows were soft, the corners of her lips were lightly raised, and her watery eyes were tinged with a little cunning smile as she looked at Lin Xian, “Then do you want to try it too. A very happy, enjoyable, wanting to laugh feeling?” After saying that, she slightly leaned forward, as if she was about to get up and pounce on Lin Xian.
Lin Xian, from her tone, could detect a strong sense of danger and was greatly alarmed. Immediately she crossed her arms to cover her waist, dropping before the battle, and repeatedly begged for mercy in a dainty voice, “I don’t want to. I was wrong, Aunt Xiao…. let me go…”
Xiao Yuqing looked at her panic-stricken cute look, there was a long-lost cheerful joy from the bottom of her heart flooding. She sat back down again, and the laughter in her voice was obvious, “I won’t tease you anymore. Quickly eat. After eating and bathing, I will show you the menu for tomorrow night. You can see if there is anything you want to eat. “
Lin Xian escaped and breathed a sigh of relief, “I’m all good. I love to eat everything you make, Aunt Xiao. You don’t have to go to such great lengths.”
Xiao Yuqing, however, smiled with a shallow pear swirl and said with a serious expression, “Yes, I do.” She added, “Although you don’t like to eat it, I still bought a box of moon cakes. Without moon cakes in the Mid Autumn Festival, I will always feel that something is missing. You will see if there is something you want to eat, I purposely bought a more unique taste. This is the first holiday that you came to live here, and it’s the Mid Autumn Festival, so it’s worth celebrating. This is the first, later, there will be a second, a third…” She did not tell Lin Xian that this was the first holiday she had carefully prepared for after her parents left.
Her voice was warm, her tone contained a little expectation and a little longing, like a pair of delicate hands, gently caressing Lin Xian’s heart. Lin Xian caught a glimpse of Xiao Yuqing’s eyes and seemed to see a sparkling starlight in them. She unconsciously also softened her eyes and responded to her saying, “Okay, let’s do it together….”
However, when Lin Xian came out of the shower, in the dimly lit living room, she once again met Xiao Yuqing’s eyes looking at her. She didn’t know if it was her illusion, but the starry scene she saw in Xiao Yuqing’s eyes just now seemed to have dimmed…..
Xiao Yuqing smiled faintly towards her, as if nothing had happened, pointed to the moon cake gift box that had been opened on the table, and greeted her over, “Come and try the taste of the moon cake.” As she spoke, she began to unwrap the mooncakes one by one.
Lin Xian rubbed her hair and sat down on the sofa next to Xiao Yuqing with some doubts, “Are you going to eat them now? What about tomorrow?”
Xiao Yuqing’s hands kept moving and smiled lightly as she explained, “Just now, when you were taking a bath, your mother called. She said that tomorrow your grandparents are coming to your house for the Mid Autumn Festival and that she will pick you up directly after school tomorrow.” She moved gently and cut a small piece of moon cake, used a fork to pass it to Lin Xian’s mouth, and briskly said, “Try the taste and guess what kind of filling it is.”
Lin Xian, however, could not feel any happiness at all. She stared at Xiao Yuqing, mechanically opened her mouth, took a bite of the mooncake Xiao Yuqing handed to her mouth, and felt a stifling pain in her heart. She looked at Xiao Yuqing’s usual smile, her heart seemed to be faintly aching dully, not very sharp, not very painful, but it was the kind of dull discomfort that could not be said and could not be said where.
She clearly remembered the glow in Xiao Yuqing’s eyes when she was talking about spending the holidays together tomorrow. She was clearly looking forward to it.
After her mother and father passed away, had she been alone and lonely for these cruel festivals when everyone was reunited with their families?
She quickly swallowed the mooncake whole, not giving the time to taste what kind of filling it was, and hastily confessed, “I’m not going back, I’ll stay with you for the festival.” She promised her, it was clear that she had given her the expectation.
Xiao Yuqing faintly froze, and then, a gentle smile flooded at the bottom of her eyes. She reached out and gently scratched Lin Xian’s nose, scolding her, “What silly words are you saying.”
“You’ve been away from home for so long for the first time, they should miss you. Uncle Lin and Aunt Lin, they also came to see you on purpose, right? Haven’t you seen them in a long time?”
Lin Xian’s grandparents were teaching in a college far away from Lin Xian’s parents in their early years, so the two generations lived in two separate places all the time. Later, after they retired, they got used to the leisure life of living as a couple, so they did not purposely move in together, but on weekends or holidays, Lin Zhan would take his wife and children and drive over to see the two old people.
Hearing Xiao Yuqing mention “Uncle Lin and Aunt Lin”, Lin Xian was in a trance for a moment.
These days, although she has been calling Xiao Yuqing ‘Aunt Xiao’, but in her heart, in the end, she actually did not treat Xiao Yuqing as a real elder, as someone from her mother’s generation.
It turns out that there is still a generation difference between them…. Lin Xian didn’t know why, but she was getting more and more lost and her heart was feeling even heavier.
She raised her eyes and looked fixedly at Xiao Yuqing, with hope and vaguely proposed, “Aunt Xiao, you also go to my house, we’ll spend the holidays together, okay?”
But Xiao Yuqing only smiled lightly and shook her head jokingly, “No, look, we bought so many dishes yesterday, if I don’t eat it tomorrow, it will go bad.”
Lin Xian bit her lip, she wanted to say, there was a refrigerator, it will not break down so easily. However, the words went around the tip of her tongue a few times, but finally she did not say anything to force Xiao Yuqing.
She should know, Xiao Yuqing was not willing to go back to that sad place in the northern district. Over the years, Zhou Qin was always trying to invite Xiao Yuqing to her home for the New Year holidays, but without exception, she was politely rejected by her.
She thought that maybe, in addition to not wanting to get involved in that sad place, perhaps Xiao Yuqing was not willing to taste her loneliness more deeply as an outsider in such a lively atmosphere of family cheer.
In the end, Lin Xian could only hang her head low, staring closely at the moon cake that had been cut open and missing a corner. Like looking at her own broken heart, and murmured sadly, “I’m sorry…”
Xiao Yuqing closed her eyes, her lips were smiling bitterly, she reached out and gently rubbed the girl’s hair, and sighed gently, “Fool, what’s wrong with you….”
She was the one who was wrong.
Why was it so easy to forget, why did she still have the luxury of expectation?
Expectations are not given to her by Lin Xian, it was her own expectations. So, now that she was disappointed and sad, what is wrong with Lin Xian?
What is wrong is that she easily believed and greedily held expectations.
Thank you K for supporting this novel! 8/10, two more updates left!
Oof she’s gonna be lonely 🙁 Maybe Lin Xian can get back in the evening or something?
I hope there’s a way for Xiao Yuqing to not have to be alone 🙁
Thank you for the chapter!
Man that’s so sad …. Thx for deciding on what Lin Xian will do without her input mom.
I already know I’m gonna despise the mom, yeah yeah, she’s the mother had her best thoughts in mind, how bout you such the filthiest part of my scrotum? She can have her opinions but she’s not Lin Xian and I fucking hate overly pushy parents like that.
Not just because you think you have good intentions they turn into goodwill, those are her own thoughts and everyone needs to live out their own life, their own happiness.
What you think is right is only for you, people just don’t understand that.