48
After ending the phone call, Meng Shuyu sat on the floor of the study in a daze, not coming back to his senses for a long time.
Flipping through the pages of the poetry collection that had been sealed for years, she suddenly recalled many random, fragmentary things that she had not taken seriously at the time.
On the first day when she took Zhou Jun's car back to Nanhuai, Ren Xu bought her a bag of snacks, which included a bucket of Star Cups.
She asked Ren Xu, "How do you know I like to eat this?"
Ren Xu said, I don’t know.
Ren Xu didn't know, because the person who knew that she loved to eat Planet Cup was not him, but Zhou Jun.
Also that weekend, Zhou Jun's grandfather was unexpectedly admitted to the emergency room. She had never seen Zhou Jun with such a frown on his face and walking so hurriedly, nor had she ever seen him speak so gently to anyone.
But she just sighed silently in her heart that this Zhou Jun was very different from the Zhou Jun she knew.
However, he didn't know that compared to his so-called parents, this old couple who had no blood relationship with Zhou Jun were his real relatives and the only two people who truly loved him in his dark childhood.
When she joked to Zhou Jun and asked if your family had also done charity work at the welfare home, I understood. Both my family and your family had done good deeds in the past, so now you met me.
She didn't know why her relaxed tone made Zhou Jun silent.
When she was walking and chatting with Zhou Jun, she asked him where he found the time to know so much, and said, "Weren't you rich second-generations forced to learn this and that when you were young? Then you are quite happy."
She also didn't know how harsh the word "happiness" was to Zhou Jun.
When Zhao Rongxun started cursing, he said to Zhou Jun, "You are a dog that has lost its home."
She still didn't know what he was laughing at.
When Zhou Jun said to Wei Mingzhi that people who have a fortune to protect must do things to save face, I don't have that, so my bottom line will only be lower than Mr. Wei's.
She still didn't know that while he killed a thousand enemies, he also lost hundreds of his own.
All these moments that she didn't know about were the moments when she should have hugged him.
During the days when she liked Zhou Jun, she always saw how strong he was, so she was always thinking about how to conquer him and how to gain the upper hand between them. She didn't want to be the loser.
But in her opinion, Zhou Jun had already given up.
When he saw other men approaching her again and again, when he used the luck he had accumulated for twenty-eight years to make his first birthday wish in life, he was probably not jealous. He was thinking that she, who had picked him up and thrown him away, was now going to throw him away again.
He had clearly told her that.
On the day when she had an argument with him and asked him why he was so inconsistent with her, he clearly told her - I thought this was why you would always like me.
But she didn't believe him at the time.
Not only did she not believe him, she also said to him - It's strange, how can you be so calm even when you like someone? I think this is a bit scary.
How could she say such cruel words...
She thought that her anger, coldness and taunting towards Zhou Jun in recent days were all ways for her to get back at him.
But it turned out that she had already said the most hurtful words during their first quarrel.
She didn't know what he had been through, so how could she judge from a high position what kind of person he should be
He also didn't want to be so "calm" and so "scary".
But he was an unloved person, a person who was abandoned first by his biological parents, then by his adoptive parents, and then by her.
His love is the most precious thing in this world.
She had devalued it to nothing.
Meng Shuyu didn't know what was wrong with him.
She should have been very happy to hear Zhou Jun talk about how much he liked her, but now she couldn't stop feeling sad.
I was so sad that my hands and feet were cold and I felt like I was frozen.
She didn't seem to want to win at all.
If her victory flag flutters over the haze of his life, she would rather like her more.
Meng Shuyu lowered her eyes, tears falling drop by drop on the yellowed pages of the book. She went from crying quietly to crying out loud. Somehow, the more she cried, the sadder she became, and the louder she cried, the louder she cried.
The door behind them was suddenly pushed open, and Fang Manzhen and Meng Zhouping were startled: "Xiaoyu, what's wrong?"
Meng Shuyu turned around and didn't realize that there were still people at home. He stared at the two of them for a long time.
Fang Manzhen hurried over wearing her coat, which she hadn't had time to put on, and pulled her up from the cold floor. "What's going on in the middle of the night? What happened?"
Meng Shuyu stood up holding the poetry collection. Her tears stopped for a while. She looked at Meng Zhouping standing by the door and asked hesitantly, "Dad, when I was a kid, I went to the orphanage with you... Did I do something bad?"
"What nonsense are you talking about?" Meng Zhouping frowned. "Aren't you coming with me to do good deeds? And you brought your snacks, such as the Planet Cup, to share with other children. When have you ever done something bad?"
Meng Shuyu's tears started to fall again, and she shook her head and cried, "I didn't... I didn't share with others..."
Ten o'clock the next morning.
Meng Shuyu opened his eyes with great effort in bed, saw everything blurry, and blinked hard.
This blink suddenly felt unusual.
Why do my eyes seem to have become smaller
The last memory of last night flashed back into her mind - she was dragged out of the study by her parents and sent back to her room, lying straight on the bed like a mummy, her mother wiping her snot and tears with a wet towel, and she was talking nonsense.
Meng Shuyu climbed up from the bed, touched the area around his eyes, and ran to the full-length mirror.
"Ah!" Meng Shuyu held his face and screamed.
"What's wrong? What's wrong? What's going on?" Fang Manzhen opened her door and rushed in.
Meng Shuyu blinked his swollen eyes blankly and pulled his hair: "Mom, I'm disfigured..."
Fang Manzhen sighed: "If you don't get disfigured after crying like that, who will?"
Meng Shuyu curled her lips and suddenly thought of something: "Mom, what time is it now?"
"It's ten o'clock, and the pigs are up to bask in the sun." Meng Zhouping passed by the door and answered indifferently.
Meng Shuyu didn't have time to reply, and quickly ran back to the bed to look for his phone: "Mom, where is my phone? Where is my phone?"
"Here it is!" Fang Manzhen picked up the phone on the TV cabinet and handed it to her.
Meng Shuyu took the phone and immediately unlocked it to check the WeChat message—
Zhou Jun: [Picture] When you wake up, tell me your future girlfriend’s house number.
News from more than 20 minutes ago.
The photo shows the street scene in front of her community.
A kind of ironing that finally smoothed out the twists and wrinkles of the night, and Meng Shuyu smiled at the phone screen as if he had breathed a sigh of relief.
Meng Zhouping and Fang Manzhen had never seen such a neurotic child.
First, she cried her eyes out last night and wouldn't tell me what happened when asked.
This morning, I woke up and looked in the mirror, startled, my eyes were swollen, as if the world was coming to an end.
Then I received some message and started grinning foolishly at the phone.
After laughing foolishly, he rushed into the bathroom, making a lot of noise and washing himself up as if it was New Year's Day.
After changing my clothes, I suddenly looked in the mirror and found myself back at the end of the world. I found a bunch of eye masks and steam eye masks, but they were not enough. I ran to the kitchen to ask if there were any cucumbers or potatoes.
Finally, she took a look at her eyes, walked to the mirror, shook her head with despair, put on a pair of sunglasses, and said she was going out for a while.
The door slammed shut. Meng Zhouping and Fang Manzhen stood in the porch, looking at the closed door with their brows furrowed.
Meng Zhouping: "Do you think I'm saying that your daughter is going to be cheated again?"
"No, I have to see who it is." Fang Manzhen wiped her hands on her apron and walked to the north window to look downstairs.
But at this glance, there was no car or person to be seen, only Meng Shuyu walking out happily on a spring outing.
Meng Shuyu walked around and came to the side door of the community that was never opened all year round.
Just now when she was busy at home, she found that her parents were acting suspiciously. She thought that if she and Zhou Jun met downstairs at home, they would be followed by two spectators the whole time.
She would never let anyone ruin this date.
Even my biological parents can’t do it.
Just as he was thinking this, Meng Shuyu turned from the main road into the side road and saw a black car at the end of the road.
Zhou Jun leaned against the car door, not looking at his watch or his cell phone, but just quietly looking at the evergreen camphor tree in front of him.
It seemed as if he had enough patience to wait for her till the end of time.
As if he was homesick, Meng Shuyu suddenly slowed down his pace.
The excitement after waking up early in the morning was once again replaced by a contradictory emotion. My heart felt sore, but when I squeezed it, sweet juice came out.
Meng Shuyu took off his sunglasses, stood at the intersection, and looked straight at Zhou Jun.
Zhou Jun turned his head as if he had noticed something.
Separated by a distance of dozens of meters, through the damp and cold winter air, this eye contact seemed to have crossed mountains, crossed seas, and passed through many unknown years.
Zhou Jun stood up straight from leaning against the car door, turned around to face her, and opened his arms to her with a smile.
His heart was surging with emotions, and Meng Shuyu ran away without caring about his image.
I have never run so fast or so hard.
When she finally threw herself into Zhou Jun's arms, she even had the inertia to knock him down.
Zhou Jun caught her firmly and raised his hand to touch the back of her head: "You run really fast."
"Rabbits run very fast..." Meng Shuyu took a deep breath, closed her eyes and hugged his waist tightly.
Zhou Jun then closed his eyes and lowered his head to hug her tighter.
A minute passed in silence.
Zhou Jun touched her cold ears: "Are you cold? Get in the car."
"No." Meng Shuyu shook her head and continued to bury her face in his arms.
"We can hug you in the car."
"How can I hold her in the car?" Meng Shuyu raised his head.
Zhou Jun lowered his eyes to see her red and swollen eyes, and frowned: "Meng Shuyu, you are determined to be a rabbit."
Meng Shuyu avoided his gaze, turned her head away, and lifted the sunglasses in her hand to show him: "I was wearing sunglasses at first, but I took them off just to see you more clearly. You can't complain about my disfigurement. I will look good again tomorrow..."
Zhou Jun raised his thumb and gently stroked the corner of her eye: "If you hadn't disrupted my plan last night, I should have told you in person."
“Then I’ll cry too…”
"If you were in front of me, would I give you time to cry?" Zhou Jun let go of Meng Shuyu, opened the passenger door and adjusted the seat.
Meng Shuyu stood aside, put his hands behind his back, and tilted his head to look at him: "What? What are you going to do with my time?"
"Well, you'll know in a moment."
Meng Shuyu's heart tightened, she felt like she was getting into a stolen car. Before she had time to think, she saw Zhou Jun close the passenger door, lean over to the back seat, and reach out to pull her.
"How can this be..."
Before he finished saying "sit", Meng Shuyu had already sat on Zhou Jun's legs.
The poor front passenger seat has been sacrificed to leave almost no space in order to allow the two people in the back row to "hug each other in the car".
Zhou Jun closed the back door with one hand and held Meng Shuyu on his lap with the other hand: "Why can't you sit?"
Meng Shuyu held his shoulders and said, "You are really smart. Where did you learn this from?"
"Meng Shuyu, I guess—" Zhou Jun frowned, "You will keep asking me this question from today on, so I will answer it all at once in advance."
"Um?"
"Men can learn many things without any guidance, especially if they are well prepared."
Meng Shuyu cleared his throat: "Are you...well prepared?"
"To put it simply, I just thought about it many times in my mind."
Meng Shuyu coughed twice again.
Zhou Jun took a bottle of water from the cup holder beside him: "Drink some water?"
“… I don’t want to drink.” Meng Shuyu pushed his hand away.
I'm already nervous enough, and drinking water makes me want to go to the toilet. How embarrassing...
Meng Shuyu relaxed a little, fiddling with the buttons of his suit jacket with his fingers: "You're moving too fast, I still have a lot of questions to ask."
Zhou Jun sighed softly: "Then don't follow my process first, follow yours."
"Hmm..." Meng Shuyu didn't know where to start, so he just said whatever came to his mind, "According to what you said, you always remembered me, so does your coming to Sendai have anything to do with me?"
"The reason I returned to China was that my grandfather's health had been poor in the past two years, and I was worried about being too far away. Another reason was that I had reached the ceiling in my previous company, and Chinese people there would not be able to get further development."
Meng Shuyu nodded.
"I have received many offers from domestic companies since I plan to come back. Moriyo was ranked high in my mind, probably the third choice."
"That… "
"Because I found out there was a little girl at the group's headquarters, so I became the first one."
"So I'm your assistant..."
"Your resume happened to be one of the three candidates Mr. Cai sent me."
"You are so lucky," Meng Shuyu wrinkled his nose, "but what if you are not so lucky? If I am at the headquarters and you are in Sendai, you will not come to see me?"
"Meng Shuyu, I didn't have the chance to look for you the first time, and I felt it was unnecessary and shouldn't have looked for you the second time. And you bumped into me the third time. You come around me every ten years, and you still want me to let you go?"
Meng Shuyu wanted to make a joke, but the more he heard him downplay it, the less he could joke.
She lowered her body and hugged Zhou Jun's neck: "Zhou Jun, I was wrong, I really can't remember, I racked my brains last night but couldn't remember what you said, otherwise I would know why I ignored you at that time... I think it's definitely not your fault..."
"That's not your fault," Zhou Jun raised his index finger to smooth down her frowning brows, "You were so young at that time, what did you know?"
"But I still feel sorry for you..." Meng Shuyu said as he suddenly thought of something and stood up, "Zhou Jun, let's go to the supermarket."
Zhou Jun laughed: "You turned around so quickly, what are you going to buy?"
"How about I buy all the planet cups in the supermarket and give them to you?" Meng Shuyu looked at him seriously.
Zhou Jun lowered his head and laughed so hard that his shoulders shook.
"Don't laugh, I'm serious!" Meng Shuyu pushed his shoulder.
Zhou Jun stopped laughing and looked up at her: "Meng Shuyu, when I was nine years old, I wanted to eat a planet cup from you. Now I'm almost twenty-nine years old, and you're still using this to get rid of me?"
"What do you want?"
"You've been sitting on my lap for so long and you still can't tell what I want?" Zhou Jun smiled and sighed, "I want to kiss you, are you willing?"
The author has something to say: When I was nine, I wanted to eat your planet cup. Now when I’m twenty-nine, I want to eat you!