Author's Note:
Happy reading!
Chapter 42 A Beautiful Misunderstanding
At noon, several female college students from the neighborhood came to the flower shop. They were in groups of three or five, young and beautiful, chatting and laughing. One picked a rose, another picked a lily, giving people a feeling that campus life is always poetic.
The flower shop was in a good location and the flowers were of excellent quality. However, Xu Xingyan was lazy and didn't like to promote the business. She also didn't like doing online business and always acted like she was retired, which is why the shop was often deserted.
A while ago, a local floral blogger bought a few bouquets here and posted them on her account, praising the flower shop's exquisite arrangement and the beauty of the staff. The video went viral on a small scale, and in the past few days, many female students and enthusiasts from the surrounding area have come to check it out.
This surge in popularity came out of nowhere. Xu Xingyan usually prefers quiet, and seeing people coming to take photos and pose for pictures at the shop every day inevitably made her feel irritable. On the other hand, Xiao Tang is more outgoing and gets along well with the female students.
After seeing off the last group of customers, Xiao Tang turned around, got a glass of water, sat down at the counter, and said enthusiastically:
"Sister Yan, Sister Yan, did you hear what they were saying just now? It was that girl in the red dress who said that a teacher at their school had an affair with a student, and his wife came to their door and chased him with a kitchen knife..."
Young Tang's eyes lit up, her heart filled with the excitement of hearing gossip.
As she leisurely sorted through the accounts, Xu Xingyan's eyes remained unmoved. She simply said, "Even things seen with one's own eyes may not be true. How can one completely believe what is said behind one's back?"
Xiao Tang was filled with respect and deeply reflected on his bad habit of believing everything he heard.
Then……
She saw her boss and his girlfriend connect on video. Because the speaker was on, Xiao Tang could hear clearly that Lin Shengmiao was excitedly telling them that she was going with a group of colleagues to accompany a female colleague to a hotel to catch her cheating, and she also told a lot of gossip that she had pieced together and whose truth was unknown.
Xiao Tang silently turned to look at her boss, waiting for her to give this person a righteous and awe-inspiring warning, just as she had just warned her.
But this world is uneven.
A gentle smile appeared on Xu Xingyan's lips as she said with particular interest, "Really? That's so exciting! But I've heard people say before that catching someone in the act of adultery is only effective if the police are present..."
"Is that so?" Lin Shengmiao looked surprised and quickly said, "...Then I'll go tell Sister Zhang first, and I'll report the situation to you later."
Xu Xingyan rested her chin on her hand, smiled sweetly, and said softly, "Okay, I'll be waiting for you."
Turning her head, she saw Xiao Tang looking at her with a complicated expression, her eyes filled with accusation, yet she seemed hesitant to speak.
"What's wrong?" Xu Xingyan asked.
"It's nothing," Little Anlingrong Tang said with a cold smile, as if she had seen through the world's illusions. "It was just that I was unworthy."
Xu Xingyan frowned. "You stayed up late watching 'Empresses in the Palace' again? How many times have I told you, stop staying up so late!"
Xiao Tang yawned in response, "I couldn't help it, it's almost the finale, I couldn't stop myself. I thought I could finish watching it last night, but I fell asleep while watching it."
"Where are we?" Xu Xingyan asked casually.
"That year, when the apricot blossoms were in the light rain, you said you were a civet cat, ah, pshaw, Prince Guo."
Once Xiao Tang started yawning, he couldn't stop, tears welling up in his eyes, looking somewhat disoriented.
Xu Xingyan: "...Then it's really close to the end."
...
In the afternoon, after Lin Shengmiao finished texting his girlfriend, he was carrying coffee back to his office when he happened to run into two new interns huddled together, whispering about which female celebrity in the photo was prettier, muttering things like "stunning beauty" and "peerless beauty".
She didn't pay much attention, but the two were so engrossed that they were blocking the passageway to the office without even realizing it, so Lin Shengmiao had to give a light, feigned cough.
The two girls turned around, quickly made way for each other, and said shyly, "Hello, Sister Lin."
Lin Shengmiao smiled and nodded, and was about to walk over when she glanced at their phones and saw the photos still lit up on their screens. Her eyebrows twitched almost imperceptibly.
I felt a pang of sympathy when I looked at the two girls, but upon closer inspection, I could tell they were just being smug.
—Sigh, young people are inexperienced and don't know what a great beauty is, like her husband.
Suddenly, a sense of superiority, as if her aesthetic sense had been elevated, welled up within her.
So much so that when she looked at the poorly formatted email sent by the intern two hours later, she wasn't too angry. She simply calmly circled the mistakes, sent it back, and even pointed out a grammatical error in a good mood.
That evening, intern Xiao Liu returned home. When her boyfriend asked her about her day at work, she ate crayfish and exclaimed, "Sister Lin seems a bit aloof, but I didn't expect her to be so easy to get along with."
I must say... this is truly a beautiful misunderstanding.
...
Every spring, the grass near Jiugan Village grows lushly, and the fruit has a very special fragrance that Xu Xingyan has always loved. Every year at this time, she would carry a small basket and bring rhubarb to pick fruit for several days in a row.
My aunt is an expert at making Qingming cakes and knows a variety of ways to eat them. She doesn't like eating them herself, but she enjoys watching Xu Xingyan eat them.
With her hair in braids, wearing an old smock, and carrying a small basket full of Qingming grass, with her dog following behind to protect her, Xu Xingyan strolled leisurely on the ridge of the field. She even picked a handful of wild chrysanthemums, plucked a small flower, and tucked it behind Da Huang's ear, only to have the dog shake it off in disgust.
"Don't you think this makes sense?"
As soon as I entered the courtyard, before I even had a chance to change my shoes, I heard the old lady's strong voice coming from inside the house.
"...Look at me, I now have a monthly pension of four or five thousand. I have real money in my hands, and I don't rely on my children for a single penny. Go out and ask around, which filial children would be willing to give their old mother four or five thousand a month?"
Xu Xingyan tiptoed past the main hall and peeked inside. It seemed to be some distant relative from the next village, perhaps an aunt or cousin?
"Listen to your aunt, finding a job that pays insurance is better than anything else. Don't listen to your mother-in-law about changing jobs. You've been paying into this insurance for over ten years, and now it's been cut off. You might not feel sorry for me, but I will. Besides, I've never heard of a daughter-in-law having her mother-in-law hold onto her salary card. What kind of nonsense is that!"
The old lady looked furious, her mouth pounding like a machine gun, and she slammed her fist on the table.
The woman sitting opposite me, I couldn't tell if she was my aunt or cousin, was petite and had a rather nice appearance, but she seemed a little timid.
She hesitated for a moment, then smiled bitterly and said, "When my daughter was born, she was always sick. My mother-in-law didn't have any money, so I thought I'd give her my card so that she could take her to the hospital whenever she felt unwell."
"Later, when my daughter started school, I was busy with work and didn't have time to pick her up or drop her off. I also thought that other parents would buy her snacks when picking her up or dropping her off, and I couldn't just let my daughter watch. So I left the card with my mother-in-law. My husband said it was okay, that the money could stay with my parents and we could ask them for it if needed."
"Who would have thought..." the woman gritted her teeth and said, "The other day, my sister-in-law brought two cans of milk powder back to her parents' home. My mother-in-law praised her to everyone she met, saying that her daughter is so thoughtful and knows how to care for her own mother. Auntie, I was really angry when I heard that. What have I done wrong to her? Her daughter only bought some milk powder. How much milk powder could I buy with my monthly salary of more than three thousand?"
The aunt's younger sister said something fair: "You can't say that. Daughters and daughters-in-law are different. If you keep comparing yourself to someone else's daughter, you'll be angry to death sooner or later."
After thinking for a moment, the old lady continued, "But I don't like what your husband said. It's perfectly reasonable for elderly people to ask their children and grandchildren for money. They raised you when you were young, and you're taking care of them in their old age. That's reasonable no matter where you are. But when a daughter-in-law asks an elderly person for money, regardless of whether it's her own money or not, if your mother-in-law goes out and says, 'My daughter-in-law is so young, yet she's asking us old folks for money,' does that sound good? She won't get any credit, whether it's openly or secretly!"
The woman slapped her thigh: "Who says it isn't true!"
Hearing this, Xu Xingyan roughly understood what was going on. It was nothing more than family gossip, and she had heard even more exciting things when she was a child.
Back then, adults thought children couldn't understand, so they would talk about many things without any restraint. At this time, the children in their arms would pretend not to care but prick up their ears, getting a taste of the excitement of the adult world in advance.
Xu Xingyan tiptoed into the kitchen, quickly washed the Qingming grass she had picked, then looked down and met the eyes of her dog, Da Huang, who was staring at her expectantly. Feeling guilty, she opened the locked snack cabinet, picked out a small package with a dog's head printed on it, squeezed it out of a dog bowl, and fed it to Da Huang.
Then she stared blankly at the other snacks in the cabinet. Actually, this was her great-aunt's snack box, but Da Huang always stole some, so the old lady locked all of Da Huang's dog snacks inside to hide them. But the problem is, this way, it's not just Da Huang who's being kept away.
Because... Xu Xingyan can't tell which food is for humans and which is for dogs.
Once, Xu Xingyan almost mistook a strangely packaged can of dog food for luncheon meat, only to be caught off guard by her aunt in time...
Ugh... I'm going to throw up.
...
Almost an hour later, my great-aunt slowly walked in with her hands behind her back. She glanced at the Qingming grass drying in the basket, nodded, took out a piece of cured meat from the large freezer, and took out some other ingredients. She then began to stir-fry the filling.
Xu Xingyan was there to help her.
"By the way, I found the DVD of that old show you asked me to find last time, but the delivery was slow, so I probably won't receive it until next week."
My aunt smiled and said, "That's great! I've been thinking about it for so long, but I just couldn't find it. I went to some shops to ask, and they all said it was discontinued. Where did you buy it?"
Xu Xingyan smiled and said, "Oh, that family used to sell these things. Although they stopped selling them later, they've kept a collection..."
"That must be quite expensive, right?" the old lady asked.
Xu Xingyan said casually, "It's not expensive, just a few dozen yuan, but the shipping cost is quite expensive."
In fact, Xu Xingyan spent nearly a thousand yuan in total. You should know that the other party initially asked for a five-figure price!
They're just ripping off unsuspecting customers by charging exorbitant prices. Most people who ask about those rare, out-of-print films are either obsessed with them or have a sentimental attachment to them. If you happen to run into someone who's either sensible or doesn't care about the money, they might just hand over the cash.
But Xu Xingyan was different. She wasn't short of money, but she didn't want to be ripped off. She spent most of the day haggling, bringing the price down from five figures to three figures. If she hadn't been so tired that day and didn't want to go through all that trouble, she might have cut the price in half again.
However, when it comes to pricing for older people, Xu Xingyan's experience generally suggests following three methods—
Report a fraction, subtract a zero, cut in half.
The specific method you use depends entirely on what you're buying. If you underreport the price of some items, the old lady might suspect you bought cheap counterfeit goods.
This is truly a technical skill.
Sure enough, upon hearing this, the aunt didn't doubt it at all, which shows that in her mind, rare films really were worth that much!
"Alright, this kitchen is smoky and noisy, so don't stay here any longer. Take Big Yellow with you."
The old lady was especially happy as she made Qingming cakes for her beloved grandniece.
--------------------
Author's Note:
Happy reading!
Chapter 43 The Lin Family Funeral
Luyang County is located in a remote area, surrounded by mountains and forests. In the years before the road was built, it was a poor county known far and wide. In particular, the villages at the foot of the mountains and in the valleys were in a difficult situation. To go to the county town to buy things, they had to walk for three hours along the mountain road. The ambitious young people in the village competed to leave home to work, which made the village more and more desolate.
But as the saying goes, one man's meat is another man's poison. As the economy gradually improved, tourism and resorts in Luyang County flourished. This untouched land quickly became popular due to its abundant forest resources and peaceful, livable environment, attracting a large number of tourists and investors.
Today, the people who once suffered hardship due to being trapped by endless mountains and forests are becoming increasingly wealthy thanks to the gifts of nature and the mountains and forests.
As Xu Xingyan followed Lin Shengmiao out of the car, she smelled the clear fragrance of grass and trees in the mountains and saw a lush and verdant landscape. She secretly praised the place for living up to its reputation.
In comparison, Lin Shengmiao's feelings were much more complicated. She didn't actually have many fond memories of this birthplace, or so-called hometown, but seeing it getting better and better made her happy.
"Miss Xu, Miss Lin, the village entrance is just ahead. However, since this is our first visit, we're not familiar with the area. Brother Jin and the others will go ask for directions first. Please wait a moment..."
The man who spoke was surnamed Jiang, thirty-five years old, and was one of the bodyguards arranged by President Xu. This time, when they went to Luyang County, President Xu specially sent two experienced bodyguards to accompany them. Fang Yuan originally wanted to add two more people, but Xu Xingyan felt that it would be too conspicuous, so she declined. After all, they were there to attend a funeral, not to cause trouble.
That's right, they came specifically to attend the funeral—the funeral of Lin Shengmiao's grandmother.
Xu Xingyan nodded gently and hummed in agreement.
Lin Shengmiao sighed and said, "I haven't come back much since high school. When I first saw the village entrance, I almost didn't recognize it. If it weren't for the fact that the outline of the green mountains is still there, I would definitely think I had gone to the wrong place."
And to put it bluntly, she really didn't even know where her own front door was. She hadn't been in contact with her father and stepmother for many years. Looking at the changes in the village, it was completely different from what she remembered. It was hard to find any familiar scenery anymore. If it weren't for her aunt calling her this time and telling her that she must come back for the funeral, she probably would never have set foot here again in her life.