"Hey, Yuanyuan, you're home today?" Dad's voice sounded especially cheerful on the other end of the phone. "Our whole family drove to H Lake for a vacation! We just finished having live fish dumplings and a whole fish feast. Oh, the fish roe and fish maw were so plump and tender today, you love those, right? *burp*"
From Su Laosi's full and round burp, I could completely smell the aroma of the whole fish feast.
I feel like I'm going to vomit blood.
How could they do this? I'm being treated like a slave at school, getting bullied to death, while they go out to eat, drink, and have fun! Tears are streaming down my face...
"Fourth Uncle, are you still on the phone? Auntie lost at cards, come over and play a couple of rounds for her!" came the voice of brother-in-law He Yuncong from the other end of the line. He and Su Zhenzhen actually went too! They must have brought Little Rouyuan with them!
"Yuanyuan, we won't be back until the day after tomorrow. Why don't you pack your things and go stay at your third uncle's house today? Your third aunt is home!"
"Okay, I got it! Bye!" I hung up the phone dejectedly and walked to the wall with my head down. Duoduo was still leaning on the railing, tilting her head to look at me.
"Duoduo, take good care of the house, and also keep an eye on my side! I'll treat you to sausages next time I come back!" She reached out and stroked Duoduo's fluffy head, feeling an indescribable loneliness in her heart.
***
Third Aunt was indeed at home, and was stewing a pot of yam and beef bone soup.
"Yuanyuan's here! Your mom just called me. Here, have a bowl of soup first." Third Aunt said, ladling a bowl of soup for me in a small ceramic bowl.
I don't want to drink it.
"What's wrong?" Auntie put down the soup bowl, puzzled, and reached out to touch my forehead. "You don't have a fever! Why are you so listless?"
"I'm on a diet! Drinking soup at night will make me gain weight." I shook my head and said, "I'm just too tired lately, there's too much going on at school."
“Yes,” Auntie nodded, “Your third uncle never comes home before midnight. He’s lost a lot of weight recently, and his belly has shrunk a lot.”
"Has Uncle San not come back yet?" I peeked into the inner room. Su Tiantian is a graduate student in Y City, and usually only Uncle San and Aunt San live in the huge house.
"They said there wouldn't be a meeting tonight, just a dinner party, and they'd probably be back in a little while," Third Aunt said, placing the beef bone soup in the insulated basket and silently glancing at the clock.
It was eleven o'clock, the second hand was ticking away, I walked behind my third aunt and gently massaged her shoulders.
"Yuanyuan," Third Aunt said with a smile, as if she had suddenly remembered something, and grabbed my hand, "Your grandma asked your mom and me a question the other day!"
"Huh? What's the problem?"
"Grandma asked, 'Yuanyuan is a 23-year-old young woman now, does she have a boyfriend?' Your mother and I had no idea, so we could only answer that we didn't know." Third Aunt turned to me with a smile and said, "Yuanyuan, does she have one or not? She hasn't had a single relationship in four years of college?"
"Uh—" A bead of cold sweat trickled down my forehead. "What...what do you mean by dating! I...I'm still young!"
"You're not young anymore. Girls over twenty-five are hard to find." Third Aunt pulled me in front of her and said seriously, "Yuanyuan, your mother has actually talked to me several times in private. She's very anxious and says you're not perceptive and still have the mentality of a child."
"Hehe... this... this isn't urgent, is it..."
"To tell you the truth, my good friend's son works at the State Taxation Administration. He's two years older than you and graduated from M University. I've met him; he's very handsome. Your mother met him once and liked him a lot. Yuanyuan, when are you free to meet up?"
"..." Half of my face twitched severely, and I couldn't speak for a long time.
And with the ever-growing era of blind dates upon us, it seems that I, Su Yuanyuan, am also destined to face this fate.
***
When my third uncle came back, I had already fallen asleep on the kitchen table. I vaguely heard people talking outside; besides my third aunt and third uncle, there was also the voice of a young man.
In a daze, he stood up and peered through the crack in the door. He saw his third uncle and Qu Ling sitting side by side on the sofa in the living room, and his third aunt serving them steaming beef bone soup.
"Qu Ling, thank you so much for bringing Lao Su back. Look at him, his stomach is hurting so much but he's still trying to hold it in!" Auntie San said with heartache as she wiped Uncle San's face with a hot towel.
"Dr. Wang, you're too kind. It's my pleasure," Qu Ling said calmly.
"You've all worked hard! You probably didn't enjoy the meal at that dinner party. Have some soup, don't upset your stomachs!"
"Thank you," Qu Ling said with a smile as she took the soup bowl. "I'm not feeling well, and I was just thinking of having a bowl of this soup."
Qu Ling's expression and tone were gentle yet not intimate, polite yet not overly formal, her sense of proportion was flawless. This Qu Ling was completely different from the Qu Ling I knew.
"Qu Ling, tonight's dinner was no ordinary meal!" Uncle San said in a muffled voice, covering his eyes with a hot towel.
"When Secretary Ding's brother-in-law hosts a dinner, it's never going to be a simple affair."
Uncle San still covered his eyes and remained silent.
“Uncle Su,” Qu Ling put down the bowl she was holding and moved closer to her third uncle, saying, “This is not the academy, so I should still call you uncle. You have been in this academy for decades, while I have only been here for a few months. You know more about many things than I do. But even if it has only been a few months, I understand some things. Whether it is a government agency or a school, these things are the same.”
My third aunt had quietly left sometime earlier. I was eavesdropping with my eyes half-closed when she pushed the door open into the kitchen. Suddenly, the door hit me on the forehead, and I saw stars. I fell to the floor with a thud.
"Yuanyuan! What are you doing!" Third Aunt scolded me in a low voice, "Hurry up and go back to your room through the back corridor to sleep! Children are not allowed to eavesdrop on adults' conversations!"
"Oh..." I rubbed my head, which had a large bruise, pouted, and obediently went to Su Tiantian's room to sleep through the back corridor.
Fortunately, I can rest for half a day tomorrow morning, I'm going to sleep in!
Sleep is the best. It lets me forget the painful diet, the annoying work, and Dean Qu, who is sometimes approachable and sometimes a stranger.
It's both windy and sunny.
The morning sun is always bright and beautiful. Bathed in such sunlight, one's mood will slowly unfold like flower petals.
Riding my little electric scooter, traversing streets and cities, past the years left along the canal, I feel an inexplicable surge of confidence heading towards the future. Even though endless work and worries await me at that destination, my heart is still filled with strength as I race towards them.
Thank you, Mr. Sun. No matter how down I feel, as long as I see his dazzling and warm light, I believe that this world is still beautiful and joyful. As long as we can bask in the sunlight, shouldn't we be happy?
I have a strong feeling that something different might happen today.
My premonitions are always very accurate.
Because I was riding my bike with my head tilted back, I bumped into someone at the turn near the school gate. (Su Yuanyuan probably thought she was Rukawa Kaede! = =!)
Director Zhou was standing in front of the pancake stall, bending down to pick up a coin that had fallen to the ground. Before I knew it, the front wheel of my car kissed his butt.
I said, sir, it's just a penny, is it really necessary for you to risk lower back strain by bending over to pick it up? Look, you've caused trouble now! Your back hasn't even had a chance to strain, but your buttocks have already done so.
"Su Yuanyuan!" Director Zhou jumped three feet high, clutching his bottom. "Don't you have eyes?!"
"Oh, Director! Are you alright?" I jumped out of the car and ran to his side with concern, apologetically picking up the jianbing guozi (Chinese crepe) and the troublesome one-cent coin that had fallen on the ground.
"Director, I'm so sorry! I... a bug flew into my eye just now, and I couldn't see the road because I was squinting!" I deliberately rubbed my innocent eyes, pretending to be pitiful and still unable to see clearly.
"You...you!!" Director Zhou didn't want to take this small matter seriously, so he angrily took the jianbing guozi and said, "Forget it, hurry up and get to work in the office! There are new tasks assigned from above this week."
"Yes!" I pushed the electric scooter over, looking completely obedient.
Although I didn't bump into Director Zhou on purpose, I still feel a little bit of satisfaction.
Finally, we've dealt with this class enemy.
***
I paid the price for my unintentional disruption. The workload increased, and I was so exhausted that I could barely straighten my back.
Alone in the office at night, the stark fluorescent light illuminated a pile of historical documents just unearthed from the warehouse, and cobwebs gleamed with a ghostly, malevolent light between the pages.
I grabbed a random mat and threw it on the floor. I sat on the hard mat and slowly sorted through the documents.
"Ten years have passed, and we are separated by life and death. I try not to think of you, but I cannot forget you. Your lonely grave is a thousand miles away, and I have no one to share my sorrow with."
Even if we were to meet again, you would not recognize me, for my face is covered in dust, and my temples are like frost.
I don't know why I started reciting Su Shi's "Jiang Cheng Zi," but the words were already on my lips, and I had no choice but to recite them.
"In a dream last night, I suddenly returned to my hometown. By the small window, she was dressing her hair. We looked at each other speechlessly, only tears streaming down our faces."
I know that every year, on a moonlit night, I will grieve at the same place, by the short pine-covered hill.
Given my age and life experience, I should theoretically find it difficult to appreciate the artistic conception in the poem, but I just happen to like it.
Although I haven't experienced those life lessons yet, I understand.
You don't have to experience everything firsthand to understand its meaning; you can gain insights just as easily as you try to feel it with your heart.
In the empty office, only the sound of my recitation echoed softly against the bare walls.
What a beautiful moonlit night! There's nowhere to express my sorrow.
Suddenly, I felt a surge of anger rising between my liver and gallbladder, stuck in my chest with nowhere to go. So I opened my mouth and recited another poem, "Ding Feng Bo".
Do not heed the sound of rain pattering through the trees; why not chant and stroll leisurely? A bamboo staff and straw sandals are lighter than a horse; who's afraid? Let the rain and mist of life take their course.
A chilly spring breeze awakens me from my drunken stupor; a slight cold, yet the slanting sunlight on the mountaintop welcomes me. Looking back at the desolate place I came from, I return, where there is neither wind nor rain, neither sunshine nor gloom.
As I read the last sentence, I threw the document in my hand to the other end of the office with great passion.
What does it matter if Director Zhou makes things difficult for me? What does fatty liver matter? It's just a trivial matter. With my magnanimity and broad-mindedness, I, Su Yuanyuan, am ready to laugh at the world and say to all living beings with a carefree attitude: "Neither wind nor rain, neither sunshine nor gloom!"
I raised my head, my blood boiling, only to hear a serious cough coming from outside the office door.
Good heavens! Who's hiding at the door eavesdropping in the middle of the night instead of going home?!
"Great words." Qu Ling walked in from outside, clapping his hands. He was all smiles, and his eyes held a brilliance I had never seen before.
Following Qu Ling in was her third uncle, whose face was as black as the bottom of a pot.
Clearly, that cough just now came from his throat.
I sat there dumbfounded on the small cushion, completely petrified.
"Yuanyuan, why aren't you back in your dorm to rest so late? What are you yelling about here?" Uncle San asked me with a dark expression.
"Sigh... well..." My mind raced. If I was forced to work overtime, it would only make my uncle's already difficult leadership job harder. So I said, "I can't sleep. I remembered that some documents from the daytime seem wrong, so I came back to look for them!"
"Oh?" My third uncle gave me a glare. "I didn't expect you to have this sense of responsibility!"
"Hehe, I... I've always been very responsible." I touched my slightly flushed face and said shyly. "Dean Su, Dean Qu, you haven't left work yet?"
"I was just about to leave work when your melodious recitation drew me here." My third uncle reached out and pulled me up from the ground. "Go back to your dorm and get some sleep. If you ruin your health, your grandma will be furious!"
"It's nothing! I'm perfectly healthy!"
"You dare to praise fatty liver?" My third uncle mercilessly exposed my past to Qu Shuai Ge.
My face instantly turned into a volcano, with tiny flames blazing up and down.
"Yuanyuan, how could you get fatty liver at such a young age?" Qu Ling walked up to me and asked in surprise, her expression as horrified as if she had seen a hippo walking on two legs.
"How could that not be? She just looks plump, but actually she's small-boned and all fat!" My third uncle grabbed my arm and said to Qu Ling, "Look, this is all the result of overeating!!"
"Dean Su~~" I looked at my third uncle with teary eyes, begging him to spare my life in front of Qu Ling.
"No wonder Yuanyuan told me the other day that she wanted to lose weight!" Qu Ling said with a smile. "Yuanyuan, I was wrong. I shouldn't have tempted you to eat meat buns. From now on, you should eat steamed buns for breakfast!"
I want to die! I want to die! I really want to die this time!