WSL Chapter 7

Chen Xi thought for a moment and said, “In Zhushan City, there are many high schools: Zhushan No. 1 High School, Zhushan No. 5 High School, Zhushan No. 12 High School… and there’s also Zhushan Foreign Language School, Xihe High School, and so on.”

He hesitated and touched the back of his head sheepishly, “Among them, the best ones are the Foreign Language School and Xihe High School. The admission scores are very high, but I didn’t make it.”

Gu Jianian silently noted down the names he mentioned and smiled, comforting him, “Being able to go from Yunmo to Zhushan for school is already great.”

Chen Suo, on the other hand, wasn’t very interested in these topics. He was only in the first year of junior high school this year, so high school seemed distant to him.

At least in Yunmo it felt that way.

It was a different story in Beilin.

Since Gu Jianian was in the second grade, her parents had been worrying about which high school she should attend. They looked at various high school rankings and lists, and even went as far as to buy an expensive but dilapidated house in a desirable school district.

As a result, the school district allocation system was later abolished, and the value of the house halved.

Chen Suo asked her, “Cousin, what do you usually do in Beilin?”

Gu Jianian thought for a moment, “I go to school most of the time.”

“Besides school?”

Gu Jianian struggled to recall.

Her childhood was short-lived and divided by time—her memories of Yunmo before the age of seven were very faint; after turning seven, it seemed like there was only studying, homework, and tutoring.

And in those narrow gaps of time, she would read books.

Thinking of books, Gu Jianian’s tone brightened considerably, “I just finished reading Khaled Hosseini’s ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ these past few days. Do you want me to tell you about it?”

The two cousins eagerly agreed, “Sure.”

Gu Jianian cleared her throat and began to recount the story from the book to her two cousins.

Unexpectedly, half an hour passed in the blink of an eye.

Chen Xi listened attentively throughout, while Chen Suo, who had been absent-minded at first, began to ask questions one after another as the story progressed.

“What? How did that happen, and then what?”

“What happened to Mariam later?”

Gu Jianian recounted the story, depicting the brutality of war, the complexity and purity of human nature, as well as the unfortunate experiences of the two female protagonists and their mutual redemption.

After finishing the story, both cousins fell silent.

Chen Suo awkwardly turned his head away, coughing a few times to disguise his emotional reaction.

Gu Jianian chuckled inwardly—these two pretentious little rascals.

After a moment, Chen Xi snapped out of the mesmerizing story and gave Gu Jianian a thumbs up, “Cousin, you’re really good at storytelling, so vividly. You’re the best storyteller I’ve ever seen.”

Gu Jianian quickly waved her hand, laughing embarrassedly, “Oh, this isn’t my story, I’m just retelling it.”

“Nonsense, you’re really talented,” Chen Xi emphasized, “Even if it’s a retelling, it’s not easy to do it like this. Our Chinese teacher always tells us stories from books during class, but none of them have been as vivid as yours. I almost… *cough cough*.”

Gu Jianian was half-skeptical, “Really?”

Both cousins firmly agreed.

Gu Jianian could tell they weren’t just flattering her.

She felt surprised.

She had never heard such praise before, after all, no one had the time or inclination to sit down and listen to her tell stories.

Gu Jianian felt a subtle excitement rising in her heart, unable to articulate what exactly she was excited about.

She just felt that Yunmo was truly her paradise. Just a few days ago, she felt like she might have a knack for cooking, and today she was told she was good at storytelling.

It was as if all the potential buried in her for the past seventeen years had been unearthed in just a few days.

If she were born in ancient times, could she open a teahouse, make some snacks herself, occasionally act as a storyteller, and live a plain yet interesting life?

*

After lunch, Gu Jianian packed her bag, carried a small basket of crabs she caught herself, and a pot of lotus root tea as her “book resources” for the day, and headed towards the ivy-covered villa.

The aroma of ripe rice filled the afternoon breeze.

Looking back from the winding mountain road, several acres of neatly arranged rice fields lay in the valley, with the fields intersected by crisscrossing ridges, like a giant net.

The rice paddies were lush green, neatly lined up in rows.

The villages of Yunmo formed irregular winding lines, nestled between the mountains and fields, along a meandering river.

Each point along this line represented a farmhouse, with tables mostly set up in the yards.

Adults and children sat separately, eating, playing cards, and playing drinking games, spending this small festival together.

The people of Yunmo were busy with farming and hard work, yet they also had a leisurely attitude, willing to spend time enjoying every small occasion.

Different festivals required different foods, like plum soup during Mangzhong, lotus root tea during Dashu, sticky rice dumplings during Dragon Boat Festival, and mooncakes and rice cakes during Mid-Autumn Festival.

These rituals passed down through generations seemed to have been lost in Beilin.

The people in the city were accustomed to a fast-paced life, focusing more on “important matters,” claiming to strive for a “good life,” but ultimately forgetting how to truly live well.

Entering the desolate courtyard, Gu Jianian lightly swung the bamboo basket in one hand, causing the small crabs inside to dizzyingly tumble around;

With the other hand, she took out the keys and opened the door.

This was her first time coming to Chi Yan’s house at this time, and the house was eerily quiet, engulfed in darkness.

Had Chi Yan not gotten up yet?

She glanced at her watch; it was already past one in the afternoon.

Without thinking much, Gu Jianian walked to the familiar sofa and sat down, placing the basket of crabs beside her.

Then she turned on the floor lamp next to her, intending to start reading.

Suddenly, she caught a strong, pungent smell of alcohol.

Stronger than usual.

She raised her eyes in confusion, looking around for a while, until she spotted a black figure behind the desk, motionless.

Gu Jianian’s heart skipped a beat, quietly raising her hand to adjust the reading lamp one notch brighter.

She followed the light.

The black figure was a person.

It was Chi Yan.

He leaned against the cold black fireplace behind the desk, sitting barefoot on the floor, eyes closed as if asleep.

There were several crooked empty bottles of alcohol piled up by his feet.

His face was hidden in the shadow of the desk, appearing calm as if devoid of any emotion.

For a moment, Gu Jianian couldn’t even see the rise and fall of his chest.

Her heart suddenly tightened, she stood up, and approached him cautiously, bending down to look at him.

The air conditioner vent was just above the fireplace, and a cold wind blew in from the back of her neck, making her shiver.

But the person on the ground was only wearing very thin pyjamas.

Gu Jianian touched the floor; it was unusually cold.

After hesitating for a moment, she reached out and gently poked his arm, calling out to him softly, “…Chi Yan?”

He lay quietly, unresponsive, even the shadows cast by his eyelashes on his face remained still.

Gu Jianian felt uneasy and cautiously pushed him a few more times.

After a long time, Chi Yan’s brows finally furrowed slightly, seemingly unhappy at being disturbed from his sleep.

Gu Jianian inexplicably breathed a sigh of relief, slowly crouching down and getting closer to him.

He looked terrible.

His hair was dishevelled, his lips dry and devoid of colour, his face unusually cold and pale.

But Gu Jianian couldn’t help but admit that Chi Yan looked much better than the class flower recognized by everyone in high school.

Deep-set eyes, high brows, fair skin with texture, especially his well-defined nose and chin, without an ounce of extra bone or flesh, both facial features and bone structure were just right.

It’s just that his brows were lightly furrowed, giving off a sense of boundless pressure even with his eyes closed.

She watched him like this until Chi Yan’s eyelids finally twitched.

After a moment, he slowly opened his eyes, gradually focusing from a dazed state to Gu Jianian’s face.

The two were very close, at least for half a minute, his gaze stayed on her face.

A warm flush crept up on Gu Jianian’s face, and she pretended to casually stand up, taking a small step back to maintain a safe distance from him.

Chi Yan finally closed his eyes again, his voice hoarse as he asked, “… What date is it?”

Gu Jianian opened her mouth.

He didn’t even know the date; had he slept the whole day here?

She hesitated, wanting to ask him how he got so drunk, but in the end, she just replied shortly, “… It’s the afternoon of the 25th.”

“Afternoon already?”

Chi Yan muttered emotionlessly, using his hand to prop himself up from the floor, standing up.

He glanced at Gu Jianian, furrowing his brows as he bent down to throw the scattered bottles into the trash can beside the desk.

Then he walked towards the stairs.

As they passed by each other, Gu Jianian couldn’t help but whisper softly, “The floor is very cold; next time, you should try to…”

He didn’t pause or say anything, just walked straight up the stairs, leaving her with his back.

Gu Jianian realized her concern might have gone a bit too far, so she swallowed the rest of her sentence.

She perked her ears, hearing him go upstairs and enter a room, closing the door.

Gu Jianian stood still for a moment, silently returning to the sofa and sitting down, opening the book, but her mind couldn’t fully engage in the story.

After a long time, footsteps sounded again from the stairs.

Gu Jianian turned her head slightly, seeing Chi Yan had changed his clothes, with water stains on his face and hair.

He didn’t look at her, showing an aloof demeanour, as if completely ignoring the presence of another person in the house.

He sat down behind the desk, slowly crumpling some documents on the table and throwing them into the trash can, then turned on the computer.

The cold-toned screen light fell on his face.

Still expressionless, but Gu Jianian could sensitively perceive that he was in a very bad mood today.

Unprecedentedly bad, even though it wasn’t particularly good before.

Had something happened?

Gu Jianian hesitated whether to ask him a few questions.

Just then, the phone on the desk suddenly beeped with a message notification. Chi Yan frowned, glanced at it, then disgustingly pressed the power button to turn it off with a “clack,” placing the phone face down on the desk.

Then he started typing on the keyboard.

“Tap, tap, tap.”

The low pressure whirled through the entire room like a tornado.

Gu Jianian involuntarily swallowed the words she was about to say, shrinking into the sofa, trying to minimize her presence.

The book lay on her lap, but she only read a few paragraphs repeatedly, the captivating phrases that used to attract her now seemed scrambled, unable to enter her brain.

Was work not going well?

Or… did he encounter a relationship problem?

Why was his mood so bad?

Shouldn’t she be more sensible and leave first?

Chi Yan never liked being disturbed, and he could barely tolerate her reading at home on a regular day.

He seemed to be in a bad mood today, perhaps he didn’t want to see her at all, but was just being polite and didn’t say anything.

Gu Jia Nian speculated randomly, wanting to pack up her backpack and leave, when suddenly she felt a sharp pain in her right toe.

She instinctively pulled back her foot and looked down— a large green crab had crawled out of the bamboo basket beside the sofa at some point, its claws stretched out and clamped onto her toe.

Gu Jia Nian’s pupils dilated in an instant, she panicked and curled her toes, shaking her foot from side to side, trying to shake it off.

But the crab seemed to be stuck on her foot, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t shake it off.

Perhaps startled, the hard crab claws clamped down tighter.

With every tug, the pain grew more intense, tears uncontrollably streaming down her cheeks.

The room was quiet, her breathing audible. Gu Jia Nian gritted her teeth, enduring the pain and fear without making a sound.

Holding her breath, she forced herself to slowly reach out her hand, trembling as she grabbed the wet shell of the crab, trying to pull it off.

But to her surprise, the crab claws only clamped down deeper with her movements, stubbornly holding onto her, not budging an inch.

The pain in the wound was becoming numb, Gu Jia Nian watched helplessly as strands of red blood flowed from the wound, soaking her shoe and trickling down along the sole.

It was about to dirty the pristine wool carpet.

Her heart sank, and she raised her head, meeting the gaze of Chi Yan with tear-blurred eyes.

“…”

Gu Jia Nian desperately endured the pain, awkwardly and absurdly lifting one foot, a crab hanging from the sole of her shoe that she had painstakingly caught this morning.

Through the tears, she saw a fleeting look of astonishment on Chi Yan’s low-pressure face.

Gu Jia Nian’s brain was momentarily emptied, the pain seemed to drift away from her in that instant. Her face flushed, she explained incoherently.

“I didn’t mean to…”

She pointed to the crab on her foot. “…It moved first.”

The author has something to say: I testify for Tingting, it really was the crab that moved first, hhhh.

Fun fact: When caught by a crab, never pull forcefully or twist, it will only clamp tighter!