The close proximity made Chai Qianning take a deep breath.
The other person patted her shoulder and back gently, as if to comfort her: "Just kidding, there are no ghosts in this world."
Chai Qianning's fingers rubbed against her sleeve, close to her body, without moving away.
Sticking together like this would be very hot in the summer, but Chai Qianning didn't feel it, probably because the road was very cool.
Later, Chai Qianning found an excuse to be lazy and pointed to the cable car, saying, "Teacher Sheng, would you like to ride that?"
Finally, he added, "If you want to slowly appreciate the scenery along the way up the mountain, I can accompany you."
Sheng Muxi glanced at the cable car in the distance, then at Chai Qianning's expression. She really didn't want to leave, so she nodded and said, "Let's take that one."
Because they took the cable car up the mountain, Chai Qianning and Sheng Muxi arrived at the summit very early, before the sun had even set.
So the two of them found a place to rest up there.
Like many scenic spots, one essential place is where you hang wishing plaques and love locks.
The place to hang wishing plaques is located in a pavilion, which is filled with plaques. Some people hope to find a partner, some hope for peace, and there are all kinds of wishes.
And quite fittingly, next to the wishing pavilion, there was an old fortune teller.
Sheng Muxi squinted at that spot for a moment, then turned and nudged Chai Qianning, who was playing on her phone: "Chai Banxian, you're coming along."
Upon hearing this, Chai Qianning raised her head with a question mark on her face, looked around blankly, and finally fixed her gaze on the fortune teller in the direction indicated by Sheng Muxi's eyes.
She chuckled. "That's not what I do."
Just then, Shi Manwen replied to Sheng Muxi's message on WeChat with a voice message, her tone full of surprise: "We've arrived?! You've reached the top of the mountain already? That's incredibly fast!!"
The voice was played aloud, and Chai Qianning heard it. As if remembering something, she slapped her thigh and said, "Oh dear, I forgot to tell them that there's a cable car that can take you up the mountain. Should I tell them now?"
"I'll reply to the past." Sheng Muxi typed with her eyes lowered.
A short while later, Sheng Muxi looked up again: "They said they couldn't find a cable car anywhere."
She then sent a video showing the surrounding environment, asking which direction the cable car would be in.
Sheng Muxi didn't understand, so she held her phone out to Chai Qianning and asked her to look at it for her.
Chai Qianning stared at the video in silence for a few seconds, then lifted her eyelids from the phone screen: "Look at this spot, they should be arriving soon."
"Oh." Sheng Muxi didn't put her phone away and replied to Shi Manwen in front of her.
The moment she exited the chat window, Chai Qianning saw the nickname Sheng Muxi had given her: Chai the Half-Immortal.
She read it aloud, then turned to look at Sheng Muxi, almost bursting out laughing: "You really did save me with this nickname?"
She thought that Sheng Muxi only called her name occasionally, just like that.
Sheng Muxi's brow twitched slightly: "You don't like this nickname?"
Chai Qianning glanced casually at the scenery not far away, then turned her gaze back and stared intently: "Does this nickname make me seem a bit frivolous?"
"Indecent?" Sheng Muxi laughed so hard her eyelashes trembled. "Hearing you say those three words, people who don't know the situation would think I've saved you in my contacts with some particularly intimate and cheesy name."
“I’ve given you a very proper nickname,” Chai Qianning said.
"You saved my contact with my full name?"
"No." Chai Qianning flipped her phone with one hand, turned on the screen, and opened WeChat.
Sheng Muxi leaned closer to look and saw the note: "Teacher Sheng".
"They're all pretty much the same."
"?"
"They're not all just surnames plus occupations."
".."
Chai Qianning pursed her lips: "How about you change my contact name?"
"Why? You don't like this nickname that much?" Sheng Muxi glanced at the screen, raised an eyebrow, and looked at her: "It's so mysterious."
Chai Qianning: "..."
She tucked a stray lock of hair that had been blown in front of her by the wind.
As sunset approached, the sunlight softened and became less glaring.
Sheng Muxi rested her chin on her hand, leisurely staring at the sun preparing to close at the top of a mountain, her fingers lightly tapping her cheek.
Something came to mind, and she lowered her eyes. The warm hue of her eyelashes, tinged by the setting sun, cast a soft shadow. Her fingers nimbly typed on the screen, changing Chai Qianning's WeChat nickname to "Little Glutton".
She looked at it again and again and found that this note was very fitting for Chai Qianning.
Because Chai Qianning's WeChat profile picture is a cat lying on the windowsill, looking drowsy.
Sheng Muxi lifted her eyes and looked in Chai Qianning's direction.
At this moment, Chai Qianning sat sideways, half-leaning on the railing of the pavilion, idly gazing at the distant mountain peaks and clouds.
She recalled the scene from early this morning when Chai Qianning wanted both chicken cutlet and milk tea, and how Chai often did the same thing, like to lie or lean against a support. Both her appearance and her gluttonous nature made her undeniably a little glutton.
Chai Qianning herself was completely unaware that Sheng Muxi was comparing her to her WeChat profile picture. Upon hearing Qiu Jie's voice, she turned her head at the opportune moment and straightened up.
Qiu Jie held a twig she had picked up from somewhere and used it as a walking stick. She immediately found a place to sit in the pavilion and kept fanning her face with her hand: "I'm so tired, I'm so tired. This is equivalent to more than half a year's worth of exercise."
Chai Qianning looked at the two of them and said, "I forgot to tell you about the cable car. Otherwise, you could have taken the cable car up here."
Shi Manwen waved her hand: "It's okay, it's okay. Even if you had told us in advance, Qiu Jie probably still wouldn't have taken the ride. She's afraid of heights."
"So, will you still have to walk down later?" Sheng Muxi asked.
"Let's talk about it later. I just got here, so let's not bring up the matter of going downstairs yet." Qiu Jie pointed to the wishing pavilion over there: "Want to hang one?"
You need to buy the sign for the wishing pavilion from the store first, and then write some wishes on it yourself.
Since this wasn't Chai Qianning's first time here, she had already put up a sign on it.
Everyone else was writing things on the signs, but she wandered among the densely packed signs, searching for something.
After Sheng Muxi finished writing and hung it up, he saw Chai Qianning's figure, walked over and asked her, "What are you looking for?"
“I’ve hung up several here before. Let me see if I can still find them.”
Based on her hazy memory from that time, she actually found one.
His tone held a hint of surprise: "It really is still there."
She turned the sign over, and Sheng Muxi leaned closer to look. The sign was already quite old, and the writing had become blurred and illegible from the wind and sun.
However, one can vaguely make out some words of blessing for the college entrance examination written on it. Clearly, it was hung up before the exam.
In addition, after her patient search, she found another one that she had hung up when she was in college.
"I'll find love this year." Sheng Muxi read it aloud, looking at the slightly blurry handwriting.
"I think I posted this when I was a sophomore, but it didn't come true."
As Chai Qianning spoke, she reached out and pulled up an adjacent sign, then looked at several other adjacent signs.
When she was in college, she and three other girls from her dorm came here together. They each hung one up, and they were all hanging next to each other, so the signs are still there.
She raised her phone camera, took photos of the signs, and sent them to the group chat.
Su Ye was the first to chime in the group: 【What's this?】
Chai Qianning: [You failed it in college, don't you remember?]
Su Ye: [I hang up one of these wishing plaques every time I visit a tourist attraction. I've hung so many that I don't remember them all.]
Achu: [I saw above my profile that it says "find a partner," right? I'm still single, sob sob.]
Jelly: [Luckily, the wish I wrote was more realistic: peace, health, and happiness. (Thumbs up)]
Su Ye: [Tag Achu, calm down, calm down. I've failed a ton, and none of them came true.]
Chai Qianning: [Ait Su Ye, didn't you date someone before?]
Su Ye: [We broke up, so it doesn't count.]
Jelly: [Is this Fish Cauldron Mountain? If I remember correctly, A-Ning, you said you'd never have to walk here again.]
Chai Qianning: [So I took the cable car up. (Great!)]
Su Ye: [What! There's a cable car there now!]
Achu: [Hey Aning, what are you doing there again? Who did you go with this time?]
Jelly: [Hey Achu, you forgot, A Ning's hometown is there.]
After chatting with people in the group for a while, Chai Qianning took out a new sign and continued to write down her unfulfilled wish: to find a partner this year.
She put down her pen, looked up at Sheng Muxi, and asked, "Where did you hang yours?"
"You want to hang it next to me?" Sheng Muxi flicked the sign above, the wooden sign swaying in the air like the tune played by a wooden fish in a temple.
Chai Qianning found her sign and then hung her own sign next to hers. She also noticed the words written on Sheng Muxi's sign, which were simple and ordinary blessings such as health and peace.
Sheng Muxi also saw her, and turned her gaze away: "Didn't you hang one like this before?"
“Yes.” Chai Qianning tied the rope. “But since my first one didn’t work out, I’ll hang another one.” Chai Qianning smiled at her.
As the sun dipped low in the west, the sky seemed to have burst open, pouring out vast expanses of warm-colored paint. The horizon, mountains, and lake surface were all dyed orange-red.
The mountains and trees complement each other, and the sky and water extend to unseen places, seemingly merging into one, creating a truly magnificent scene.
Many people took photos and videos of this scene with their phones and cameras. Shi Manwen was video chatting with her girlfriend, sharing this beautiful moment.
Chai Qianning squatted to the side, plucked a blade of grass from the ground, and twirled it between her fingertips.
There is a saying on Yuding Mountain that if you stand on the mountaintop at dusk and hear the third chime of the bell opposite, and remain silent for a moment, your wishes will come true.
In previous years, tourists came from far and wide to pray for the health of their family members in the hospital, but many more came to pray for a smooth career and a happy marriage.
Shi Manwen leaned closer to Qiu Jie and said, "Wait a minute, after the third ring, make a wish in your heart and see if you can meet your true love this year."
"Forget it, I have no desires or wants." Qiu Jie shrugged.
"Come on, you're saying you have no desires or wants? If you have no desires or wants, what are you doing here? Are you working out your muscles?"
Qiu Jie raised her eyebrows: "Is that not allowed?"
Shi Manwen scoffed, then said to Sheng Muxi, "Teacher Sheng, have you decided what you want to wish for later?"