Shoutout to Alinaza for the commission!
“Wangchuan” had an event on Christmas Eve, inviting a local folk-music troupe to perform.
Jiang Ye rarely had two days off, and rushed back from Jiangcheng early in the morning, saying he wanted to let Jiang Se experience the liveliness along the Fuchun River.
After the two finished dinner, they had just passed Liyuan Street and were about to turn into Fuchun Street when the phone in Jiang Se’s coat rang.
As soon as the call connected, the other side got straight to the point: “Jinxiu Alley Number Thirty-Nine, you want it?”
They had not seen each other for more than half a month, and when the man’s voice came through the line, it felt a little unfamiliar for a moment.
Hearing Jinxiu Alley Number Thirty-Nine, Jiang Se paused for an instant and then knew this property dispute had already reached Assistant Li.
She had long expected that sooner or later Lu Huaiyan would know about this, and did not feel flustered.
Ahead, kids were having a snowball fight, noisy and rowdy.
Perhaps hearing the noise on her side, before Jiang Se spoke, he asked again: “Where are you?”
Jiang Se glanced at the youth beside her who kept sneaking looks at her, and said calmly: “On the way to ‘Wangchuan’.”
“‘Wangchuan’?” The other side paused a second, remembered something, let out an “ah” and said with a laugh, “your parents’ bar.”
After he said that, he lowered his voice to tell the driver something.
In no time, Jiang Se heard him say: “Send me your location, I’ll come find you.”
Tonight the Fuchun River was especially lively.
Light boats floated on the river surface, the riverbank was hung with lanterns and colored decorations, the shimmering waves kneaded a pool of dim yellow light.
Jiang Se looked at the red lanterns hanging under the trees, stopped walking, and said unhurriedly: “it’s too noisy here, not convenient to talk. How about I come find you?”
Beside her, ever since Jiang Se had picked up the phone, Jiang Ye had pricked up his ears like a rabbit.
Hearing this, he quickly turned his face toward her.
She didn’t know what the person on the other end said, but Jiang Se’s expression paused slightly. She said “okay” and hung up.
Jiang Ye pouted: “You’re not going to ‘Wangchuan’?”
“Mm, let Mom and Dad know, I’m going to meet a friend.”
Just now when Jiang Se answered the call, Jiang Ye had unintentionally glimpsed the caller ID on the screen, and recognized it was that man who didn’t get along well with Jiang Se.
Though he’d only seen him once, he still remembered the pressure that man gave him.
The youth kicked a snowball some kid had rolled and said, “Where are you meeting him? I’ll send you over. After you finish chatting with your friend, I’ll pick you up.”
“No need, he’s coming from the airport, I’ll meet him right here.” As Jiang Se spoke, she glanced at him, her words turning direction as she said, “Huang Xu said Chen Liyin and ‘Keaiduo’ will both come to ‘Wangchuan’ tonight.”
Being looked at by her made Jiang Ye feel uncomfortable all over, and in a fog he said, “Why are you bringing that up? It’s not like it’s their first time coming to the bar, Dad and Mom know them.”
Jiang Se put her phone back into her coat pocket and said unhurriedly: “Little Ye, every girl’s feelings are very precious. So you need to figure out your own feelings early, don’t delay others.”
Hearing this, Jiang Ye froze for a moment, then after reacting, cast her a sideways glance: “Don’t listen to Huang Xu’s nonsense, it’s not like I’m unclear about my feelings.”
“Then go make it clear, don’t dodge. Whoever you like, whoever you don’t like, go make it clear.” Jiang Se’s voice was still very light, “Don’t think you have to protect everyone. Others aren’t as fragile as you think, and you’re not as strong as you think.”
Jiang Ye was silent, looking down at the scattered snow pile he had kicked apart. After a while, he lifted his head and said to Jiang Se: “Got it, I’ll make it clear to her tonight.”
Jiang Se nodded lightly: “Go on, don’t worry about me here. I don’t have any conflict with that person. I didn’t before. As for now—”
Thinking of what that man said on the phone just now, she tugged at the corner of her lips, “Now even less.”
—
When Lu Huaiyan called Jiang Se, the car had just left the airport.
Li Rui was sitting at his side, hearing him say to the girl: “From the airport to yours is much faster than you coming to Junyue, just wait where you are.”
The man’s voice was as always, low and strong, the tone unhurried, but such a sentence said out loud always gave a kind of illusion of “I want to see you as soon as possible.”
And somehow felt a bit flirtatious?
It must be an illusion, right?
Little Chairman Lu hurrying to find Miss Jiang Se, it must be to ask clearly about Jinxiu Alley Number Thirty-Nine.
Thinking of it this way for a moment, it even made him feel Lu Huaiyan was quite cold-hearted.
It was Christmas Eve, and instead of doing something romantic, he insisted on talking business. What a killjoy.
Just as he was thinking this, the man beside him suddenly asked: “You’re saying she wouldn’t agree to settle privately with them?”
Li Rui jolted in spirit, nodded and said: “Yes, Miss Jiang Se’s attitude was very firm. When those people went to the qipao shop to make trouble, she called the police directly, and also hired a lawyer. There happened to be an oil painting of Miss Jiang at the qipao shop, that painting was smashed that day as well, and Miss Jiang is in the middle of legal proceedings, wanting them to compensate, making those people all muddled.”
He took a sip of water. Seeing Lu Huaiyan not speak, he continued: “But those people are quite shameless too, insisting that when that old lady signed the contract back then, her husband didn’t know, so they wanted to throw back two hundred thousand and take the shop back. When the original owner refused to return it, they opened their mouths for two million. Later seeing Miss Jiang’s attitude was firm and not easy to fool, they changed it again to one million.”
“One million?” Lu Huaiyan looked at the fast-flying shadows of trees outside the window, let out a soft laugh, “they’re afraid they won’t get even a cent.”
People who bully the soft and fear the hard can be seen everywhere. Li Rui was not surprised and responded at once: “They’re unlucky too. I heard Lawyer Chen say, if the original owner hadn’t been short of money, she would’ve taken two million earlier to settle it.”
Lu Huaiyan withdrew his gaze from the window, turned his head slightly toward Li Rui, “Who was the original owner?”
Li Rui thought a bit, said: “That lady’s name is Zhang Yue, she’s a somewhat well-known qipao tailor in Tongcheng.”
Zhang Yue?
Lu Huaiyan had no impression of this name, fell into thoughtful silence, and who knows how long passed before he suddenly heard Li Rui call: “Little Chairman Lu, that’s Miss Jiang, right?”
Lu Huaiyan followed his gaze.
At the crowded street corner, he saw Jiang Se at a glance.
She was holding an oil-paper umbrella, very characteristic of Tongcheng. The thick-ink dark green umbrella surface was dotted full with mottled snow, and when the umbrella edge lifted slightly, snowflakes pattered down.
People around kept glancing toward her, but she was completely unaware, standing cold and aloof in the snow.
Lu Huaiyan stared at the half of her face exposed under the umbrella edge, and instructed in a low voice: “Stop the car.”
When the black sedan slowly pulled to the side, a young man appearing from who-knows-where walked over to ask Jiang Se for her WeChat.
He didn’t rush to ruin the moment, lowered the window, propped his elbow on the edge, just watching without warmth or coldness.
The man asking Jiang Se for her WeChat was likely doing this for the first time, his sentence was stammered out.
Jiang Se listened patiently, and replied mildly: “Sorry, I don’t add strangers on WeChat.” Her tone was still polite enough.
The young man was holding in his hand a candy apple shaped like a rose. He looked at Jiang Se, eyes full of obvious unwillingness.
“I don’t have bad intentions, I just, don’t want to miss it. You may not believe in love at first sight, but—”
“I really don’t believe it. And,” Jiang Se gently cut him off, lifting the candy apple in her hand that matched his, “someone already gave me a peace-apple tonight.”
Said to this point, anyone with a bit of sense would give up. But this man was clearly stubborn, still lingering and refusing to leave.
Jiang Se’s brows knitted, irritation rising.
Just then, from behind suddenly came a very light laugh.
The sound was low and deep, skimming past in the street’s bustle, almost heard by no one.
But Jiang Se heard it precisely. She turned around, following the sound.
Meeting her gaze, Lu Huaiyan simply pushed the door open and got out of the car, striding toward her, then took the umbrella from her hand and said: “Wait long?”
He was dressed all in black: black cashmere coat, black shirt, black trousers, even the belt buckle at his waist was matte black all the way through.
Walking in the snow, he had the elegance of stepping out from an ink painting.
The man beside them seemed to realize something, looked him up and down from head to foot, his gaze lingering a moment on Lu Huaiyan’s profile then shifting to his car. He quickly looked away and left sensibly.
Lu Huaiyan held the umbrella over Jiang Se’s head. His gaze lowered slightly, swept over the candy apple in her hand, and asked with a smile: “This apple was really given by someone else?”
Jiang Se responded with a ‘en’.
The candy apple wasn’t made very delicately. Thin apple slices stacked into a rough rose, covered with a layer of red syrup. At a glance, it had a bit of the sense of a red rose.
These kinds of apples were for young couples for the holiday, and tonight almost every couple walking on Fuchun Street had one.
The one in Jiang Se’s hand was something Jiang Ye bought casually. The youth had bought four in one go, giving the other three to Jiang Chuan, Yu Shiying, and the girl he planned to confess to tonight.
When he handed one to Jiang Se, he had even said meaningfully: “Use it later to ward off rotten peach blossoms.”
At this moment, Lu Huaiyan also said something similar: “Doesn’t look very good, but it’s quite suitable for warding off peach blossoms.”
“……”
Jiang Se lifted her eyes and looked at him.
Catching her gaze, Lu Huaiyan smiled: “What are you looking at me for? Would you even eat this candy apple?”
The candy apple was placed in a kraft-paper box, the box tied with dark green twine twisting into a heart-shaped handle of thin wire.
Jiang Se’s slender fingers hooked that heart, she didn’t say whether she’d eat it or not, only said: “I ordered two milk teas, they should be picked up now, let’s go to my place to talk.”
Fuchun Street, with people coming and going, was not a place to talk.
The oil-paper umbrella was only half an arm wide. Lu Huaiyan’s hand in black lambskin gloves held the handle, shading her head. His jaw lifted forward slightly: “Lead the way, I’ll go with you to pick them up.”
With the corner of his eye catching the phone in her hand, he suddenly asked: “To you, I shouldn’t count as a stranger.”
Jiang Se was originally looking ahead at the flow of people. Hearing this, she turned her face toward him, but didn’t answer.
Lu Huaiyan glanced sideways at her, curved his lips and said: “So, can I add your WeChat now?”
Come to think of it, it was quite a strange thing, the two of them actually had never added each other on WeChat.
Lu Huaiyan had two phone numbers, one for external use, one for internal. But no matter which number, neither had Jiang Se’s WeChat.
Snow fell without a sound, landing on the surface of the umbrella amid the noise of the whole street and slowly sliding onto the man’s shoulder, and with a light blow of the wind, drifting into the Christmas Eve wind.
Jiang Se met Lu Huaiyan’s gaze, curved her lips and smiled a little, and with almost no hesitation answered: “Okay.”
The small path was crowded: people riding e-bikes, playing with skateboards, and shoulders brushing, streams of people endlessly coming and going.
Jiang Se walked on the innermost side of the road, trees on one side, him on the other.
Lu Huaiyan protected her very well, not letting the chaotic crowd on the road bump into her. They each had only one free hand, but the movement of adding each other on WeChat counted as tacit; in less than half a minute they were already friends.
Lu Huaiyan was using his private account, the avatar an ink stick of ancient style, the name just a simple single character “yan”.
Jiang Se’s avatar was similarly simple, just a tree blooming in the night sky.
Lu Huaiyan had seen that tree before, it was that paulownia tree in the backyard of “Wangchuan.”
Seeing this tree, he thought again of that night.
She walked from the swing, her slender white fingers lightly and slowly pinching at the cigarette tip.
The cigarette went out.
But something else burned up.
On the white, snowy night, the two of them walked with almost identical unhurried steps down the lively street.
Neither of them hurried to bring up No.39, Jinxiu Alley.
They both had abundant patience.
The milk tea shop Jiang Se chose wasn’t on Fuchun Street; after turning through a few winding alleys, only then did Lu Huaiyan see, beneath a big banyan tree, a plain wooden signboard with three simple characters on it: Half Day Idle.
Inside the courtyard were a few huge oil-paper umbrellas, under them a wooden table that could seat four or five, and on it a red-mud charcoal stove, with a small pot of goat milk bubbling and boiling.
You could tell it was a very popular place; beneath each oil-paper umbrella every seat was filled.
Jiang Se went in to pick up the milk tea and return the oil-paper umbrella.
The boss of the milk tea shop clearly knew her, grabbed a handful of roasted longan and put them into the takeaway box, and also casually glanced at Lu Huaiyan standing under the banyan tree waiting.
Afterward, the boss whispered something; Jiang Se smiled and shook her head, saying “No.”
The cold snowy color of the whole courtyard gained a bit of vividness because of her smile.
Lu Huaiyan stared at the dimple at her lips, and also smiled faintly.
His hearing was excellent; he had heard clearly what the boss asked.
The boss had asked her: “Is that your boyfriend?”
She said “No.”
At that time, Lu Huaiyan thought, no matter whether the milk tea in that girl’s hand tasted good or not, he would still have to come here with her once more.
As her man.
—
The boss of “Half-day Idle” was Jiang Chuan’s long-time friend, and his family had a small ranch in the northwest.
The milk tea here had a unique flavor; with one taste, Lu Huaiyan knew it was the kind Jiang Se would like.
This girl was used to putting sugar and salt in black tea; it was similar in its way to this slightly sweet-bottomed salty milk tea.
This milk tea wasn’t hard for Lu Huaiyan to drink, but definitely couldn’t be called something he liked.
After one sip he didn’t drink more.
They didn’t linger at “Half-day Idle.” After taking the milk tea, Jiang Se led Lu Huaiyan to Liyuan Street.
The young people in this area had all run off to Fuchun Riverside to play tonight; walking along, they didn’t see a single person, everything quiet all around. Only when they were almost at the end of the alley did they hear a few children’s playful voices.
A few kids around eight or nine were lighting sparklers on an open patch of ground; when the two passed by, somehow one child lit something, and a burst of white firelight with a “szz szz” sound shot straight toward Jiang Se’s face.
Jiang Se’s reaction wasn’t slow, but Lu Huaiyan’s reaction was faster. He grabbed her elbow, pulled her into his arms, gave a light turn, and was already shielding her in front.
At the instant the milk tea fell to the ground, that firework shot at his right shoulder, scorching a black point in the wool coat.
Half of Jiang Se’s face pressed against his chest, the tip of her nose brushing lightly past the button on his shirt.
Her whole person was surrounded by a warm, rich, agarwood scent.
This familiar feeling made her mind go blank for an instant; and in this instant, the man’s callused hand had already lifted her face, his gaze fixed deeply on her.
“Hurt?”
Old memories squeezed in through the cracks; Jiang Se looked at Lu Huaiyan, not speaking.
Not hearing her respond, Lu Huaiyan instinctively looked into her eyes.
Her pupils overlapped with the lamplight above her head, her eyelashes long to an unbelievable degree.
His gaze dimmed, his thumb lifted slightly, touched her eyelashes, and said: “Already scared?”
Jiang Se blinked, as if finally returning to herself, stepped back a bit, and said in a flat tone: “I’m fine.”
As she spoke, her cold gaze had already passed beyond Lu Huaiyan, landing behind him.
Lu Huaiyan followed her sight, it was those kids playing with fireworks. They had nearly blown someone up just now, and had already been scared half to death; without even saying a “sorry,” they lifted their legs and ran home.
Knowing what Jiang Se was looking at, the man’s eyes filled with a smile, and he seriously reported house numbers to her: “Liyuan Street No.33, No.26, No.21, and one that turned into another alley, don’t know the house number.”
After reporting, he turned back to look at Jiang Se, leisurely saying: “When are you going to go over and complain door-to-door?”
“……” Jiang Se looked at his shoulder, “I’ll make them pay your coat’s repair fee.”
“Of course they should.” Lu Huaiyan picked up the spilled empty milk tea cup and tossed it in the trash, then took off the sheepskin gloves stained with milk tea and threw them in as well, and looked at her unhurriedly, “Don’t forget to have them pay for another cup of milk tea; that was the first cup of milk tea you treated me to, at least double compensation.”
