A bank run?
Mr. Jin ordered the car to be driven away. The army was in complete disarray. Where could they escape this trouble?
The car slowly and deliberately dragged along the road, giving him a moment to catch his breath. Fear began to engulf him. In all his tumultuous life, he had never felt such inexplicable terror; his heart seemed to have fallen into the car seat, irretrievably lost in the darkness.
Jin Xiaofeng returned to Dandan's room. Upstairs and downstairs, all was quiet. His heavy steps were soft as he entered, like treading on someone's dream, carelessly shattering her fragile and powerless dream. The wind and waves were fierce; it was winter, and the trees along the road were nothing but withered bones, a scene of utter desolation.
Life has no miracles. He poured out all his energy and time to achieve his current success, like brewing medicine—it takes four bowls of water and half a day to make one bowl of medicine. Time is long, and yes, even if you lose everything, you might make a comeback—but suddenly you're old.
He refused to even turn on the lights, unwilling to face the brilliance of people and things, those traces. He only wished to bury himself deep in a warm little room to while away the long night. The long night was dark, like a funeral, the whole earth dressed in mourning clothes, mourning the fall of a short-lived hero.
No, no, no, he shook himself up.
Things might not be that bad. There are still a bunch of friends in the underworld. Money comes and goes, and you can turn things around in a whirlwind. It won't be over until tonight.
He collapsed wearily onto the sofa, remaining there for a very, very long time. He couldn't forget that moment when he collapsed; perhaps because of the deathly silence, he heard his bones creaking. If not for flesh and blood, his skeleton would have fallen apart, wouldn't it?
"Sigh!" He sighed silently.
He looked around the woman's room. In front of the sofa was a small round table with a porcelain vase on it, filled with half-rotten roses, because the owner was not in the mood for them.
Following the rose, I saw a small tree standing quietly by the windowsill—a Christmas tree, surrounded by dim lights. Christmas? A young girl had left her hometown for a strange place, spending a foreign holiday with a stranger in her life. She had certainly picked up the Shanghai fashion.
He looked up and saw Dandan glaring at him fiercely.
"He hasn't come in five days!"
He smiled and said, "Something's up."
Dandan hadn't slept well and was a bit irritable. She went over and swept the Christmas tree over, knocking it down. The wires were still tangled around the tree's trunk, and she pulled them off forcefully, acting both angry and willful.
"Don't come here again! Your grandpa just ignores me when he's unhappy, he doesn't give me any notices about filming, and he doesn't talk to me. Does he think I'm a prostitute?"
Jin Xiaofeng roused himself again.
He pulled Dandan over, but she threw him away. He said, "Do you think being a prostitute is easy? Do you even have the ability? What makes you think you can win a man's heart by playing games and making a fool of yourself?" As he spoke, he tore off the strands of cotton stuck to her head and face.
The cotton wool is like the fake snow on the Christmas tree; everything is a disguise.
Then he calmly told her:
"It's because I like you that you don't need to please me. Yes, I'm asking you, do you like me too, even just a little? A little, perhaps?"
"I never said that." Dandan blushed. She must have been thinking, was it because he was her first man? She said, "You made that up for me."
Not even a tiny bit?
“No—” she looked at him.
"Yes?" Jin Xiaofeng's heart skipped a beat. His eyes were the budding seeds of love, his heart the seed of desire. She shouldn't have looked at him like that. Although he was old, his head covered in tangled white hair, half a lifetime had passed, yet in this moment of having no way forward and pursuers behind, all he could see was the gaze of an unrelated woman.
He felt he was not wronged.
A chance encounter, yet destiny intervened. Her arrival brought him to the brink of despair; she must be his destined star. Wasn't it said that bad luck was ruined by romantic entanglements? —Perhaps none of his past romantic encounters were his true destiny. A sense of foreboding washed over him; it was her, and everything he had, had gone astray.
Because of his greed for this fleeting moment, even if he paid for it his whole life, he couldn't escape it. He found it strange; it was true. Like a seasoned silkworm, he was ultimately bound and entangled by the very silk he had spun, unable to escape.
He was not to reveal a word of it.
"We'll release more announcements in a few days. There's a problem with the set design." He reassured her, "Don't panic."
"You're coming to see? You're sure?"
"Yes, definitely. I want to eat a bowl of noodles now."
"What kind of filling? I'll go make it."
"No filling."
"Okay, that's Yangchun noodles. It sounds nice, but there's nothing there, just a good name."
Dandan watched Jin Xiaofeng eat noodles with great interest. "Yangchun," it sounded really nice. She smiled.
"They said that day that the weasel was up to no good when it offered birthday wishes to the chicken. Now, it's the chicken that's offering birthday wishes to the weasel."
"What does that mean?" Mr. Jin asked, slurping up the steaming hot, home-style noodles with filling, "It's been delivered to your door."
"No, I delivered myself to your door."
"No, no, no, I delivered myself to your door." Dan Dan paused, almost spitting out her drink, and then ordered him, "Nuan, why did you eat so heartily tonight? Don't rush, there's always food. You'll stuff yourself to death!"
She thought, "It's just a bowl of noodles."
He thought, a bowl of noodles. Right, once the country falls, ordinary people won't have fine clothes and sumptuous meals. It'll just be a bed, two meals, and another life. He gave a self-deprecating smile. If he were truly an ordinary person, how could he have won her over? Would she be with him? What a joke.
She was captivated by his grandeur, not by any emotional return. With her ingrained pride, why would she seek refuge with him?
She just stared wide-eyed as he ate the noodles she had made. Naive Xiao Dan, causing endless trouble, remained completely oblivious. He told her to fetch some wine. She asked, "What wine?"
"Take whatever you have, for life offers few chances to be drunk." No matter the wine, reach out, grab it, tilt your head back, and gulp it down. Oblivious to the world around you. Tomorrow's worries and anxieties still linger. You only wish to drown in this blissful intoxication.
Duan Pingting also prepared fine wine, but it was for celebration.
She understood. She read the ambiguity in Huaiyu's face. Why force a lover into the mundane life of a husband with a false promise of marriage? If the marriage wasn't proposed by him, he would be shamed for life. She wasn't disregarding her dignity. She raised her glass:
"Tang, we are celebrating two happy events."
Huaiyu removed the mask from her face, revealing a blank expression. It was a typical Christmas ball mask, with a red nose, a black beard, and framed glasses. Christmas was just around the corner, and she said she wanted to start celebrating early, buying a table full of French pastries—Walnut Magnum, Butter Crepes, and a huge cream cake decorated with flowers. She laughed, "First, don't worry, there are no children. Second, I'm overjoyed, speechless with happiness, I've never been this happy before—"