"Hey." Sheng Muxi grabbed her arm: "What dream made you blush like that?"
A few seconds later, Sheng Muxi seemed to understand something, her pupils gradually dilating: "So I just kissed you, and you dreamed about that kind of thing?"
She'd just been sick with a cold and slept it off, but who knew she'd have that kind of dream? Chai Qianning felt quite embarrassed. She turned her head away and changed the subject: "I'm hungry."
"Finish talking before you eat."
I'm very hungry.
"Just a little while."
I'm starving.
Sheng Muxi chuckled softly a few times.
Chai Qianning turned her gaze back and tickled her: "Still laughing, still laughing."
"Go ahead and say it." Sheng Muxi used the same words she had said before on herself: "We're an old wife now, what's there to be embarrassed about?"
Chai Qianning gave a perfunctory reply: "It's very simple. I dreamed about you, and then, we did this and that, and that was it."
A while ago, Sheng Muxi caught a cold, and before that, she was busy with school matters. Now it's her turn to catch a cold, and it seems like it's been a long time since she's done "that kind of thing." Chai Qianning thought to herself, finding an excuse for having that kind of dream.
After finishing her meal, Chai Qianning took a shower.
She recovered from her cold quickly. After waking up from a nap in the afternoon, her runny nose had stopped, and she felt refreshed from the inside out.
The TV was on, playing a variety show.
Chai Qianning's mind wasn't on the study at all; she kept glancing at it every now and then.
The study door was open. Sheng Muxi answered a phone call, chatted for a while, hung up, and pulled out a chair to sit down again. Her lowered gaze lifted after sensing something, meeting Chai Qianning's gaze. Chai Qianning smiled at her, winking.
Sheng Muxi pursed her lips, lowered her long eyelashes, and an uncontrollable smile still crept onto her lips. The pen in her hand accidentally drew a few black marks on the blank notebook, and she hesitated to put pen to paper, having already forgotten what she was originally going to write.
Chai Qianning tossed aside the remote control, stretched her foot out from under the blanket, reached out onto the floor, and found her slippers. Unfortunately, her phone on the table rang.
She glanced at the caller ID, hesitated for a few seconds, and then answered.
"Let me go there now? It's so late."
"How about tomorrow? Hmm, I'll deal with it tomorrow."
"I have a cold."
"It's serious. My vision is blurry, and my legs are weak. How could it not be serious? You're asking me to go out at this hour? Do you want me to experience the joy of being an ice sculpture or the joy of being a frozen dumpling?"
"How is that an exaggeration? Even though it doesn't snow here, it's still very cold, okay?"
"Okay, I'm hanging up."
She tossed her phone onto the table, put on her slippers, and tiptoed to the study door.
This room, which was originally a secondary bedroom, was converted into a study. After Chai Qianning moved in, a bookshelf was added and placed opposite the entrance.
The bookshelf had everything: books, pen holders, and several small boxes containing a stapler and tape.
The items were numerous and varied, but Sheng Muxi had arranged them neatly, giving them a somewhat elegant charm.
Sheng Muxi didn't look up, but pressed down on her pen and said softly, "What's that person with black eyes and weak legs doing standing at the door?"
Chai Qianning went in: "I'm observing you. Do you need any help?"
Sheng Muxi twirled her pen in her hand, a faint smile flickering across her eyes: "Have you noticed anything?"
“You’re distracted.” Chai Qianning’s smiling lips lowered, stopping a few centimeters from Sheng Muxi’s face: “Eavesdropping on my phone call.”
Sheng Muxi licked her lips: "You're the one who's so loud."
The pen slipped from Sheng Muxi's hand and fell to the ground in an instant, rolling a distance before stopping at the doorway of the study.
Chai Qianning straddled the other woman's back, lowered her head, and cupped her face in her hands: "Do you need my help to build happiness?"
Sheng Muxi had to tilt her fair neck back, the line from her chin to her cheek forming a graceful and smooth curve. She reached out and embraced the other's breast, gradually moving downwards.
"Are you feeling better from your cold?" she asked softly, her chest rising and falling, and the skin pressed against Chai Qianning's body began to feel hot and burning.
Chai Qianning's fingertips slid from the other person's cheek to their earlobe, her voice carrying a hint of allure: "It couldn't be better."
"Didn't you want to know exactly what I dreamed about this afternoon?"
"Um?"
"I'll tell you in detail right now."
The living room TV was still playing a variety show. A pen that had fallen by the study door was kicked and slid directly to the front of the TV cabinet.
The pitch-black night was mixed with the cool moonlight, and the burning body enveloped the burning heart.
.
After they finished their work, Chai Qianning and Sheng Muxi took a weekend to visit Ni Chujing.
The pear tree by the back gate has blossomed, its tiny white stamens blooming on the branches, reflected against the distant green mountains and blue sky.
When they arrived at Tongwan Alley, they saw Ni Chujing sitting in Feng Jianting's clinic.
"Teacher Ni." The two went over and then called out "Dr. Feng."
"Are you feeling unwell?" Sheng Muxi asked.
Ni Chujing straightened her clothes and said in her usual friendly manner, "It's just a minor cold, nothing serious."
Feng Jianting packed the medicine into a plastic bag and handed it to Ni Chujing: "Remember to take your medicine on time."
"Okay, thank you, Dr. Feng."
Chai Qianning and Sheng Muxi accompanied Ni Chujing back, chatting and laughing all the way.
Across from Ni Chujing lived an elderly man whose children did not live nearby. The man and Ni Chujing often visited each other to chat.
On this very day, Sheng Muxi learned from Grandma Liu about things that Ni Chujing had never told them before.
Ni Chujing grew up in the countryside of C city, where the preference for sons over daughters was extremely severe in many rural areas during that era.
At that time, there was no concept of family planning. Ni Chujing had more than a dozen siblings. The idea that girls' education was useless was vividly reflected in the schools at that time.
Tuition fees are only a few yuan, and all of Ni Chujing's older and younger brothers can go to school. But the sisters are the only ones who cannot go to school. They are illiterate and have to get up early every day to help with chores and earn money to buy clothes and stationery for their brothers.
Once, on my way back from cutting pig feed at the foot of the mountain, I passed by a primary school.
The school was very rudimentary, with a dilapidated building serving as the classroom, and outside on the yellow earth, there was only a tree and a red flag.
A large gong hangs on the tree, and someone will strike it every time class starts or ends.
That day, accompanied by the sound of a gong and drum, the dilapidated wooden door of the classroom was opened, and a group of mischievous boys poured out.
There were very few girls, or rather, almost none.
So the scene of Xu Limeng, who was eavesdropping outside the classroom window that day, running away in a panic after hearing the bell ring, left a particularly deep impression on Ni Chujing.
The girl with braids accidentally bumped into Ni Chujing due to excessive nervousness. Ni Chujing noticed that the girl was holding a folded newspaper with several large characters scrawled crookedly on it.
Ni Chujing asked curiously, "Were you eavesdropping on their class?"
Xu Limeng pointed to the large characters above and told her very seriously, "Yes, I learned several characters today."
She squatted down and wrote it for her, stroke by stroke, with her finger, as if she had received some precious treasure, and was overjoyed.
Perhaps it was because the sunset that evening was so red that it made the girl's cheeks flush, and Ni Chujing was infected by her emotions and became happy as well.
Later, every day when Ni Chujing went to cut pig feed, she and Xu Limeng would eavesdrop outside the classroom window, just as they had arranged. At a certain time, they would share the large characters they knew on the muddy ground under the tree.
At that time, Ni Chujing just thought it was interesting and didn't think too much about it.
Xu Limeng was much more enlightened than her. She said she wanted to study, so she sold pig feed for several months and saved up four yuan for tuition.
However, she still couldn't go to school, and Xu Limeng's parents confiscated her money after finding out. She ran to Ni Chujing and cried, but Ni Chujing was deeply influenced by the local ideology and couldn't quite understand why she was so determined to study.
Xu Limeng wiped away her tears: "None of the girls around here get to go to school, but do you know Lin?"
As if sharing a secret, the girl took out a tattered book hidden in a tree hollow and secretly read it with her behind the big tree.
“Last time, a teacher from outside came to our place, but he left after only a few days. He left this book behind, and I found it.”
Xu Limeng carefully touched it. She didn't recognize many of the characters inside, but she did recognize the character "Lin" and the character "Nu".
“I overheard a bit of that teacher’s class. He introduced her as Lin, a girl, just like us. Look, she can write so many characters that I don’t recognize, more than all the boys in the school. She’s incredibly talented.”
—That was a collection of poems by Lin Huiyin.
When Ni Chujing was nine years old, she went to ask her parents, who only told her that girls only need to learn to work and that their future mission is to get married and have children.
Do you want to go out and see the world?
This offer is very tempting.
She and Xu Limeng cut pig feed together to sell, secretly saving up for tuition fees, and made a promise to each other.
In those impoverished mountain villages, most girls did not have control over their own destiny. If she had not met Xu Limeng, her life might have been like that of many other girls at the time: getting married and having children at a young age, and living a humble, mundane, and numb life. After meeting Xu Limeng, she began to yearn for the illustrations and words in her textbooks and the life on the other side of the mountains.
Later, with the help of volunteer teachers and people doing charity work, she and Xu Limeng were able to fulfill their dream of going to school, but they had a falling out with their family.
They don't acknowledge this daughter and even threatened to sever ties, saying it's shameful.
Ni Chujing and Xu Limeng came to City A when they were in their thirties. Before that, they did not disappoint their sponsors and successfully became teachers, often going to the mountains to teach in rural areas when they were young.
After turning thirty, Xu Limeng's health deteriorated significantly, and a tumor was discovered in her body.
The medical conditions in the countryside were not good enough, so they had no choice but to move to the city.
They lived in Tongwan Alley for several years.
One day, Xu Limeng joked with her, "Why aren't you married yet? You're getting on in years and you'll soon be unable to get married."
Ni Chujing said, "If I can't get married, I won't get married."
Under the pear tree that spring, Xu Limeng laughed as passionately as the pear blossoms on the branches: "Then I won't get married either, Jingzi, how about we just make do?"
Another spring has come, and Xu Limeng's condition has worsened. The doctor didn't say anything, but she knew in her heart that her days were numbered.
She asked Ni Chujing to take her home once. Ni Chujing suppressed her inner pain and stayed with her, sitting by the back door for a long, long time.
Before she passed away, Xu Limeng said her last words to her: "You are the most important person in my life...the love of my life."
All I remember is that the pear blossoms that year were as white as the bed sheets in the hospital ward.
.