I received a call from Luo Xiangdong at around eight o'clock the next morning. He said that he had just gotten off the plane. I asked in a daze: "How long have you been sitting there?"
Luo Xiangdong said: "Twelve hours."
I said, "You must be exhausted. Let's get some sleep as soon as we get off the plane."
Luo Xiangdong said: "I fell asleep on the plane. I will attend the contract signing ceremony at twelve o'clock, and there will probably be a banquet in the evening. After it is over, I will take the earliest flight to Winter City."
The flight lasted more than ten hours, and I felt really distressed, so I whispered: "No need to be in such a hurry, I called Xu Yifan last night. My mother also wanted to keep me in Liangcheng for a few more days. I Take a few days off."
Luo Xiangdong breathed a sigh of relief and said, "I'm afraid I won't be able to pick you up in time, and I'm worried that my uncle and aunt will be unhappy."
I said, "How can that be possible? My parents are not like that."
Luo Xiangdong said: "Then you have a good sleep. I will pick you up after I finish my work."
"Ok, bye."
After hanging up the phone, I lay there for a long time, but for some reason I didn't fall asleep again. I got up and went to the toilet. My mother heard the sound and came out in her pajamas. She squinted her eyes and said, "Are you up so early?"
"Yeah. I was just woken up by Xiangdong's call. He just got off the plane."
My mother said: "It's really hard. You still have to fly so far to negotiate a contract."
I'm afraid that my family will think Luo Xiangdong is a playboy. So I took advantage of the situation to put money on his face and said: "He just cut down on many company activities just to accompany me. Otherwise, he is usually very busy and often has to fly back and forth."
My mother nodded and said, "If Xiangdong is serious about you, my mother will agree to your being together. In fact, our family has nothing to say, we are just afraid of his family."
I said, "Xiangdong said that he would take me to meet his parents during the Chinese New Year this year to talk about getting married."
My mother said: "Then prepare in advance and see what his family likes. We don't have to rush to fawn over him, but we don't want to show off his petty attitude and make others find fault."
I responded: "I know, I've been thinking about it."
Everyone was already awake. My mother asked me to go to my nurse’s house to check on her. After I finished cleaning up, I went out. It was only around nine in the morning. My house is not far from the park downstairs, and there are many snack vendors near the park. I passed by and bought cut cakes, preserved fruits and persimmon cakes, and then walked back along the street with the bags.
"Zijin?" I was walking without looking at anyone, and suddenly I heard someone calling my name. I stopped and looked around.
Diagonally behind is a breakfast shop with a shed set up outside. There are several tables of people sitting inside, wearing uniforms and looking like they belong to an engineering team.
One of them stood up, and I looked closely. I was really stunned for a few seconds, and then I said in surprise: "Brother Danqing."
Zhang Danqing was wearing a dark green engineering uniform, and his hair was much shorter than I expected. I could even see a long scar from his forehead to the top of his head.
He walked up to me, raised the corners of his lips, and said with a bit of surprise in his smile: "When did you come back?"
I also laughed and said back to him: "Why don't Siyu get married? Just call me and I'll be back."
Zhang Danqing said: "I heard that it is good to marry an official in the family. I met her once on the street and thought she would tell me, but she didn't tell me, so I didn't go."
I think back when Zhang Xinwei and I were getting along, all the sisters in the circle knew Zhang Danqing, and we all dined and sang together. I remember that during the second year of high school, Pan Siyu had a crush on Zhang Danqing, but Zhang Danqing was not interested in her, so the matter dropped.
I don't know what happened to them afterwards, so I had to interrupt with a smile: "Brother Danqing, are you doing engineering now?"
Zhang Danqing smiled and said: "What kind of project? I just help with some labor on the construction site."
Zhang Danqing started working outside to earn money to support his family when he was a teenager. I admired him very much, so I smiled and said, "It's pretty good. How about uncle and aunt?"
Zhang Danqing said: "My dad is still like that, and my mom has the same problem all the time, good and bad."
I said, "I haven't seen my uncle and aunt for a long time. I'll go there when I have time."
Zhang Danqing said: "How about tonight? Come to my house for dinner tonight."
I said, "Maybe not tonight, I have something to do." In fact, it was Pan Siyu and the others who invited me out for dinner and singing, but I didn't elaborate.
"Oh, let's see another day, when you are free." Zhang Danqing had a smile on his face. We haven’t seen each other for a few years, and it feels familiar yet strange. Only this smile reminds me of my high school days. Because he is a big brother who can mess around, we are not afraid of getting into trouble when we walk. Anyway, someone will help us in the fight.
Nowadays, if people say "another day", it means they will meet again in the future. I was afraid that Zhang Danqing thought I was just talking casually, so I immediately asked: "Brother Danqing, are you free tomorrow? How about I visit my uncle and aunt tomorrow morning?"
Zhang Danqing quickly agreed: "I'm free tomorrow and will work late at the construction site."
"Okay, then I'll call you when I get up tomorrow." Speaking of the phone, I remembered something again, so I looked up at him and said, "I lost my phone before, and my mother happened to say that I met you on the street. I didn’t give you my phone number.”
Zhang Danqing took out his mobile phone and replied with a faint smile: "It's okay. Anyway, if I want to find you, I can also go through Pan Siyu and Chen Chen."
We left each other's phone numbers, and because the group was still eating, I didn't say much, just said hello and left.
We had lunch at my grandma’s house. My mother told them before that Luo Xiangdong might come over soon, so my grandma’s house prepared a lot of food. Freshly stuffed sausages, smoked ribs, pickled sauerkraut, my uncle even went to a friend who raised dairy cows in the countryside to get fresh milk and boiled cheese when he came back.
Looking at the things in the kitchen and balcony, I feel like the Chinese New Year has never been so big.
Liang Zixun said to me secretly: "Sister, you are now old enough and it's time to get married."
I looked at him with horrified eyes and said, "I'm only twenty-four, who is the boss and not the young one?"
He was four years younger than me. He was sitting on the sofa with his legs crossed. He was playing on his mobile phone and said, "My dad told my grandma that after graduation, you changed your partners several times and still didn't talk about getting married. Okay?" It’s easy to hear that this is more reliable, so I can settle it as soon as possible.”
Seeing the mature look on his face when he spoke, I felt a bit dumbfounded.
I was originally in a good relationship with Luo Xiangdong, but for some reason, everyone around me was planning to get married. This made me really stressed.
In the afternoon, when I had nothing to do, I was chatting with the elderly at my grandmother's house and watching TV. My mother called me, and I mentioned to her about seeing Zhang Danqing in the morning.
My mother's first reaction was: "He didn't tell you about Zhang Xinwei?"
I said, "No."
My mother said: "Then he is still the same as before when he sees you? Isn't there anything unhappy or dissatisfied?"
I said: "Brother Danqing is not such a person."
My mother said: "Anyway, you don't have a bad person in your heart. You are always stupid. He was just released from prison not long ago. You haven't seen him in the past few years, and you don't know that he is different from before. You just try your best." Don't do too much, it won't do you any good."
I didn't want to hear this, so I hung up a little upset.
My grandma has been listening from the sidelines, and the old man was very trustworthy, so he intervened: "Jin Jin, it's not that grandma has a lot of things to do. Your mother is right. Those who have squatted in a small cell are different from us normal people. , Besides, you haven’t contacted each other for several years, and there is a deep separation between our hearts..."
I originally wanted to make an appointment with Zhang Danqing to go to his house tomorrow, but the whole family had the same attitude, so I didn't dare to say anything.
Pan Siyu and the others made an appointment to have dinner at 7:30 in the evening. It was 7:00 sharp when I left my house. On the way to the hotel by taxi, I thought that Luo Xiangdong had not contacted me all afternoon, so I couldn't help but give him a call.
Ringed many times, no answer.
I was a little confused, because every time I called him, he usually answered the phone in a few to five times.
But I didn’t take it too seriously, I was probably working. I sent him a text message saying I missed him.
When eating in the evening, there was a large group of people as usual, but this time there were many strangers, friends of Chang Hong. There were a group of people sitting around in the private room. On my left was Chen Chen, on my right was Li Runzhu. Pan Siyu and Chang Hong were sitting opposite me.
During the dinner, a strange man took the initiative to greet me. Because he was not from Liangcheng, he did not recognize me.
Chang Hong smiled and said: "Don't worry about this, famous flowers have owners."
The man said: "Who cares? Let's make friends."
Chang Hong said: "I don't know you yet? What kind of pure friendship is there between men and women?"
I smiled and said, "That's not what you said. What about me and you?"
Chang Hong didn't expect me to be here waiting to block him, and he didn't say anything for a while.
Pan Siyu added: "Zi Jin's boyfriend is Luo Xiangdong. I even had a video call with him the night before my wedding. I'm going, I'm handsome now!"
This sentence pushed me to the forefront of the limelight again. Chang Hong's friends all looked at me, as if they had seen something new.
Before they could gossip, I quickly said: "Don't ask me, you won't talk about me today."
Pan Siyu got up and asked me to call Luo Xiangdong, saying that it would be nice to just listen to the sound. I said: "He is in Canada. He just called but didn't answer. He has work."
Chang Hong clicked his tongue twice, and then said: "Look at them, the most we can do is go to Winter City Waterfront. When we go on business, we are all in Canada. It's really incomparable."
After saying that, he looked up at me again, smiled and joked: "Zijin, your wife has traveled such a long distance, aren't you worried about him?"
I didn't answer but asked, "What are you worried about him for?"
Chang Hong smiled and said: "I'm worried that if he goes there this time, he won't have a female secretary by his side."
Everyone on the table smiled and looked at me. I didn’t like this joke very much, but I had to bite the bullet and try to smile and said back to him: “I know all the female secretaries around him, don’t worry.”
Chang Hong said: "Beware of fire, theft, and girlfriends. The more familiar people are, the more careful they must be."
Is Pan Siyu's emotional intelligence high, or maybe she is more instinctively attracted to me. Seeing that the joke was inappropriate, he quickly changed the subject.