Zhan Xi avoided the evening rush hour and took the subway home, and finally got a seat.
WeChat, which was quite quiet during the day, suddenly became lively at this time, probably because the office workers had all gotten off work.
Contestant number one is Lin Yan.
Lin Yan: You're on sick leave? Is it serious
Egg pudding: It’s just a cold and fever, nothing serious.
Lin Yan: How many days
Egg Pudding: I’ll take another day off tomorrow and go back to work the day after tomorrow.
Lin Yan: Okay, then you should have a good rest and remember to take your medicine.
Egg Pudding: Well, thank you.
Contestant number two is Wang He.
Wang He: Why don’t you reply to my message
Egg Pudding: Sorry, I have been sick these two days and have been sleeping all the time.
Wang He: Are you feeling better
Egg Pudding: I feel much better now, and I don’t have a fever anymore.
Wang He: How about this weekend? Are you free? I'll treat you to a meal.
Egg Pudding: Not this weekend. I’m moving and renting a house next to my company. How about next weekend
Wang He: You rented a house? Aren’t you living at your brother’s house
Egg Pudding: My brother’s house is too far from my company.
Wang He: Your company is in Qingquemen, which is a bit far. Okay, let’s meet next weekend. We’ll decide the specific date next week.
Egg Pudding: OK. [Smile]
Contestant number three is a group of four fairies.
Yao Ying: Ahhh, I think I will have to work overtime until the early hours tonight! ! #My boss is an idiot#
Luo Xinran: Movie Tickets & Popcorn.jpg
Yao Ying: Bah!
Egg Pudding: Classmates! I have rented a house! [Smirk]
Yao Ying: Damn! You're so quick? Are you renting alone or with a roommate
Egg Pudding: Single rental, right next to the company, only ten minutes walk away. [Victory]
Yao Ying: Poor Yingying sheds tears of envy... crying.jpg
Egg Pudding: Luo Xinran, Zhao Qingqing, come over to my place when you have time! We can have hotpot! [grin]
Yao Ying: Where is your moral integrity? [Angry]
Luo Xinran: [ok]
Zhao Qingqing: Poor Qingqing is doing her homework, looking at you with a numb face. Crying.jpg
Zhan Xi chatted for a while and unknowingly opened the WeChat message of "What a Big Fish".
He didn't close his Moments to her. Zhan Xi looked through his posts and found not a single portrait. He only posted a dozen or so posts in the whole year, most of which were hot stamping works, as well as some exhibitions and activities related to hot stamping.
Thinking of his promise to send flowers on Friday, Zhan Xi's mood improved. He thought, he may have grammatical errors in typing, but there should be no problem with speaking, right? Then he could invite him to have a cup of coffee at the coffee shop on the first floor of the building and chat with him.
I wonder what he looks like. With such beautiful hands, is he also fair-skinned? Judging from his wrists, he should not be fat. A boy who is good at handicrafts must be pretty. He also likes to make flowers, so he must not be sloppy... Ah! He doesn't wear makeup, does he
Zhan Xi was startled by this sudden thought, but he also felt that it was not impossible. Loving flowers means he loves beauty, and if he loves beauty, he must take good care of himself, right
Nowadays, there are many boys wearing makeup, and some even go for cosmetic surgery!
Sitting on the subway, Zhan Xi found it more and more funny. She was not nervous at all about meeting "a big fish", but was looking forward to it. A funny little boy, no matter what he looked like, she already regarded him as a friend.
—
On Tuesday, Luo Jingyu started working on the Strelitzia ovata, also known as the bird of paradise.
The three crane orchids in the picture have very different postures. One is very ordinary, one is with its head lowered as if drinking water, and the other, the tallest one, has its head raised and its mouth open as if singing.
If you go to the flower market to buy three-branched crane orchids like this, you have to choose carefully. But it is different when making embossed flowers, you can make them into any shape you want.
It is not difficult to make a crane orchid. The bird's belly is filled with cotton. Luo Jingyu worked on it for one day and finished all three branches. She sent the photos to "Egg Pudding" for review and received a series of praises.
Luo Jingyu told her her plan.
What a big fish: Tomorrow, I will do the great deeds of the broadleaf fish.
Zhan Xi didn't understand and thought he had made another typo.
Egg pudding: What? What's the credit
What a big fish: Broad-leaved Euonymus is the name of a plant. Good Luck Comes the tallest one with many leaves. Look at the picture.
Egg pudding:…
Egg Pudding: Why is there such a strange name? [wipes sweat]
What a big fish: I didn't name him! So I'll call him Kuoye. [Laughing]
When they chatted, the atmosphere was still relaxed and pleasant. However, Luo Jingyu didn't know what "egg pudding" felt like. For him, as time went on, he began to feel nervous and anxious.
It was an indescribable emotion. Luo Jingyu even regretted agreeing to send the flowers on impulse.
He was very comfortable chatting with "Egg Pudding" on WeChat, but what should he do when they meet in person
Imagine the embarrassing scene. He can't hear, can't speak, can only use sign language, and although he can read lips, he can't understand every sentence.
How should he greet her? Type something on his phone for her to see? Tell her that he is actually deaf-mute
Can she accept it? Can she accept being friends with a deaf-mute person
Since childhood, Luo Jingyu has inevitably suffered bullying and discrimination because of her deafness.
When I was a child, my parents worked in a welfare factory. Most of the workers were mildly disabled and everyone lived in the dormitory area of the welfare factory. The children of the employees were almost all healthy children. They would play together, but they didn't like to bring Luo Jingyu with them because they disliked him because he couldn't hear.
Some people called him "little deaf boy" and some called him "little mute". This situation did not improve until Luo Jingyu entered a primary school for the blind and deaf and met many classmates with the same hearing impairment as him.
However, when he was a teenager, he encountered some excessive things when he went out to eat on the street with his classmates.
At that time, they were still young and did not know how to control their vocal cords, especially some students who wore hearing aids, who would speak while signing. They thought they spoke well, but to healthy people, it might sound like a joke, with unclear speech, loud voices, and very noisy, so people would always look at them with strange eyes.
Luo Jingyu didn't take it seriously at first. He found the word "noise" difficult to understand.
Until one day, a drunk adult man from the next table rushed to their table and slapped one of Luo Jingyu's male classmates so hard that his hearing aid fell out. Luo Jingyu looked at the man's ferocious face and his opening and closing lips and realized that they were hated.
The scene of the fifteen-year-old boy squatting on the ground, covering his ears and crying secretly has been imprinted in Luo Jingyu's mind.
He didn't remember much about what happened afterwards. Did they fight? Did anyone call the police? Did anyone call an ambulance for them? Did anyone make sarcastic remarks
He didn't remember anything. He only remembered the crazy, painful feeling of wanting to become invisible as he stood in panic at the door of the small restaurant.
Since then, they rarely went out for dinner together, and even if they did, they all tried not to make any noise. Occasionally, when someone's vocal cords vibrated, they would look around in panic, wondering if they had made a strange sound and whether they would be beaten for it.
There is a wall between the hearing-impaired and the hearing-impaired.
The difference in communication methods made it difficult for them to be friends. There were very few hearing people like Gao Yuan who were fluent in sign language and could marry Luo Xiaomei. At least in Luo Jingyu's opinion, "Egg Pudding" was very likely to be afraid of his disability and distance herself from him.
He didn't want to scare her, nor did he want to feel alienated.
He just can't chat with her face to face, but he can chat with her through WeChat!
Although he was terrible at chatting, she never disliked him and was even willing to teach him grammar. Wouldn't it be better to maintain this way of communication
Luo Jingyu had no one to confide her troubles to, so she could only devote all her energy to making flowers.
It is very difficult to make the broad-leaved Euonymus look realistic.
A branch that is much thicker than the flower stem, with a large broad leaf on it. In order to show the texture of the branch and the irregular veins of the leaves, the dyeing needs to be rich in layers.
Use the three colors of grass, lemon yellow and coffee to mix green of varying shades, and smudge the leaves in small clusters. Each leaf has a different color, and only when combined together will the green leaves look fresh and vigorous.
Luo Jingyu is very patient. Handcrafting can make him immerse himself in a peaceful world and stop having random thoughts.
He wrapped iron wire in a rubber tube to make the main branch, pasted dyed new satin poplin on the outside of the tube, and then assembled pieces of ironed broad leaves on it.
Slow work produces fine results. It took him a whole day to finish both types of green leaves, broadleaf and cypress.
Fang Xu contacted him on Thursday afternoon.
Fang Xu: Yu, have you finished your flower arrangement
What a big fish: Okay, I have adjusted it and will put it in the tank soon.
Fang Xu: Then you can send it tomorrow. I will send you the address and contact person.
Fang Xu: I tell you, what a coincidence! It’s very close to your house! Just walk over there.
Fang Xu sent the address and phone number of Zhanxi Company to Luo Jingyu.
Luo Jingyu saw that the contact person was Miss Zhan and had her cell phone number, and thought, “Egg Pudding”’s last name is Zhan
What is the pinyin for “占”
Zhan, right
Luo Jingyu raised her right hand and typed the three letters zh-an in sign language using three gestures.
It's her last name.
He thought that if he greeted her like this, she would not understand.
Luo Jingyu's anxiety reached its peak that night and he actually suffered from insomnia.
He felt discouraged and even a little scared. He didn't fall asleep until four in the morning. He simply got up, put on his coat, and went to the balcony to get some fresh air.
When Luo Jingyu walked to the balcony, she found that it had started raining without her noticing.
He couldn't hear the sound of rain, he could only watch the rain falling through the glass window.
It was still dark, and the street scene outside the window was shrouded in rain. The vague shadow of the office building a few hundred meters away could be seen.
It turned out that "Egg Pudding" worked here, so close to him.
The pot of "Good Luck" has been transformed from a picture into a real thing, quietly placed on the workbench in the living room. It has been sprayed with setting liquid and brushed with special glue. The flowers and green leaves are perfectly combined in the gray ceramic jar. It is exquisite and beautiful, and it is Luo Jingyu's consistent and stable presentation.
But he did not feel relieved because he had completed the work. Instead, he became more nervous. He had not even been so nervous before his blind date with Chang Ting!
Luo Jingyu didn't know what was wrong with her. She looked out the window, wishing that the day would never come. But time would not stop for her. Soon, the day would come.
—
On Friday morning, there was a drizzle of winter rain and the temperature dropped a little.
After getting up, Zhan Xi thought about what to wear to work.
This is an ordinary working day, yet not so ordinary. On this day, she will receive the pot of hot flowers for a Japanese customer, and will also meet the "Big Fish" himself.
Zhan Xi originally planned to wear a beautiful dress, but then she thought it might be too exaggerated. It was raining and so cold, and she had just recovered from a cold and fever. If she dressed up so elaborately, she would probably be laughed at by her colleagues.
In the end, Zhan Xi went out to work wearing a sweater, down jacket and thick woolen pants as usual.
She and "Big Fish" didn't make a specific appointment for a time, as long as he could come before getting off work.
So that day, Zhan Xi was a little absent-minded while working, and he would check his phone from time to time to see if there was any WeChat message from that fish.
Unfortunately, there has never been one.
At around 2 p.m., she was helping Wenqin sort out a form when her cell phone rang. Zhan Xi picked it up excitedly and found that it was a call from Chi Guilan.
She answered the call, but before she could say anything, she heard Chi Guilan's roar: "What's wrong with you? Who asked you to move out? You're so bold now! You didn't even tell me that you rented a house! Tell me the truth! Was it Qin Fei who did this?!"
Zhan Xi felt his head buzzing, and he quickly left his workstation to answer the phone in an empty place: "Mom, please keep your voice down, I'm at work."
"I don't care whether you go to work or not!" Chi Guilan was really angry. "Your job is just a temporary one! You will resign as soon as you pass the civil service exam! Why do I find you such an easy job? I want you to study hard for the exam! And you still take it seriously?"
"Mom!" Zhan Xi shouted and then lowered his voice, "Listen to me first, my brother's house is far away from my company. It takes me more than three hours to commute to get off work every day, so I rented a house next to the company, and my brother agreed! Did he tell you that? I wanted to tell you myself when I came back on New Year's Day."
"Don't worry about who told me that!" Chi Guilan was like firing a machine gun, "boom boom boom" exploding in Zhan Xi's ears, "Do you have a brain? You won't be working in this unit for long! You rent a house next door for a year! What will you do when you get into a good unit? You have too much money but nowhere to spend it? You have a place to live but you don't want to live there? You don't have a brain and your brother doesn't have a brain either! Tell me! Did Qin Fei bully you? Tell mom the truth!"
"It's none of my sister-in-law's business! It's not my brother's business either!" Zhan Xi didn't understand why his mother kept pestering Qin Fei. "My sister-in-law is very good to me! She has never treated me badly! Mom, can you let me decide some things on my own? You keep asking me to take exams, but I told you I don't want to be a civil servant!"
"You have to take the exam!" Chi Guilan refused. "Huanhuan, let me tell you, you are going to marry a boy from the system. Boys from the system are very picky, do you know that? You are not from the system, so they won't even look down on you!"
Zhan Xi felt suffocated: "Why do I have to marry a boy in the system? Even if I want to marry him, why does it mean that just because he is in the system, I must also be in the system? What kind of logic is this?"
"Aren't you afraid of being looked down upon by your in-laws?" Chi Guilan wondered why her daughter was so slow to realize her potential. "Huanhuan, why have you changed? You used to be very obedient! Aren't your parents working so hard just for you? They introduced you to a job and a boy. Xiao Wang is so outstanding! You must seize the moment..."
Zhan Xi suddenly understood: "Did Wang He tell you?"
"..." Chi Guilan paused, "I'm telling you, don't worry about who told me this, it's wrong for you to rent a house anyway!"
"Mom, I won't talk to you for now. I have to go to a meeting now. I'll explain to you when I get back on New Year's Day." Zhan Xi was so angry that he had nowhere to vent his anger. He tried hard to suppress it. "Also, go and tell Wang He directly that there's no hope for me and him."
After hanging up the phone, Zhan returned to his workstation in high spirits and immediately deleted Wang He’s WeChat.
She was so angry that a man was so talkative! Not to mention that he was nothing now, even if he was her boyfriend, he couldn't report the content of their chat to her parents without her permission! It was so low!
Chi Guilan called twice more, but Zhan Xi didn't answer and hung up directly.
When the cell phone rang for the third time, Zhan Xi was about to hang up, but found out it was an unfamiliar number from Qiantang.
She picked up the phone quickly: "Hello? Hello!"
"Is this Miss Zhan?" A strange male voice came from the phone.
Zhan Xi's heart was pounding: "I am."
"Hello, Miss Zhan. I'm from the flower embossing studio. I brought your flowers to you. They are downstairs in your company now. Could you please come down and pick them up?"
So polite
Is it "What a big fish"? He shouldn't talk like that.
Zhan Xi put aside his doubts, picked up a prepared paper bag, and hurried downstairs.
In the lobby on the first floor of the office building, a man was sitting on the sofa in the reception area. There was a pot of flowers on the coffee table - it was the "Good Luck" flower that Zhan Xi was quite familiar with.
I could see its progress every day, seeing the sunflower lily being made, the crane orchid being made, the broadleaf and cypress being made, and finally seeing them all being firmly fixed in the ceramic jar.
Every day I can hear that person talking about the difficulties in making flowers, especially when making broad leaves, as there are so many leaves. He complained that he was about to fall asleep while dyeing.
Now, Zhan Xi finally saw the real thing, it was so beautiful! It was a million times more beautiful than the photo, and it was made by that person bit by bit, from scratch, with his own hands.
She looked at the man beside the sofa. He had stood up. He was about thirty years old, with a well-proportioned figure. He was wearing a grass green windbreaker, jeans and black leather boots. He had an angular face and regular features. When he looked at Zhan Xi, there was a meaningful smile on his lips.
Zhan Xi couldn't smile, so he walked up to him and said, "Hello."
"Hello." The man smiled more clearly.
Zhan Xi was in no mood to exchange pleasantries with him, so he got straight to the point and asked, "Such a big fish, why didn't you come?"