After finishing the wontons, Chi Yan went to pay.
When Gu Jia Nian heard the string of numbers the landlady quoted, she was startled to realise that her small amount of savings actually had very strong purchasing power in Yunmo.
After leaving the breakfast shop, Grandma took them to a fabric store, planning to buy a few lengths of cloth to make dresses for Gu Jia Nian.
Gu Jia Nian had never been inside a fabric store before. Nowadays, in the city, hardly anyone made their own clothes anymore; most people bought ready-made ones.
As soon as they entered, the glass cabinets were neatly packed with countless fabric remnants, each in a different colour and pattern.
Grandma took several bolts and held them against her, measuring by eye: rose-red plaid, dark green florals… and royal-blue water-ripple patterns.
Unable to decide, she asked Gu Jia Nian which one she liked.
Gu Jia Nian looked at the fabrics but could not imagine what they would look like made into dresses. She shook her head. “They all seem fine. I don’t really know.”
So Grandma asked the other two for their opinions.
He Ji Tong clearly had no interest in girls’ dresses. He casually made a few comments, then stood at the door looking around, trying to find the old-fashioned arcade Gu Jia Nian had mentioned.
Chi Yan, on the other hand, seriously helped Grandma consider the options.
A moment later, he pointed at the dark green floral fabric. “Her skin is fair. Dark green should look good on her.”
Hearing this, Grandma picked out the dark green bolt and tried it against Gu Jia Nian. After a long while, she nodded in approval. “It really does. Little Chi has good taste.”
She looked at Gu Jia Nian, reached out to stroke her hair, and murmured in praise, “Our Tingting is so pretty.”
Gu Jia Nian blushed and could not help turning slightly to look at herself in the shop mirror.
In the mirror, the girl stood among the crowded, colourful fabrics, wearing a neat, proper beige knee-length dress.
The skin revealed at her collar and cuffs was fair and translucent, still carrying a faint cool-white tone under the warm indoor lights.
She really did seem very fair.
Among all the compliments she had received growing up, aside from her name sounding pretty, the most common one was that her skin was fair.
Gu Jia Nian had never taken it seriously. She had never paid much attention to it, feeling that everyone was more or less the same.
But hearing it from his mouth at this moment felt different.
Unconsciously, the corners of her lips curved up.
Seeing the smile on Gu Jia Nian’s face, Grandma thought she also agreed with Chi Yan, so she decided on the dark green fabric.
She then picked a few buttons in matching colours but different materials, along with fabric for the dress trim, and asked the landlady to help measure Gu Jia Nian’s size.
Gu Jia Nian instantly grew nervous.
She had just been forced to eat one and a half bowls of wontons, and now her entire stomach was round and stuffed. Fortunately, while her measurements were being taken, Chi Yan went to the doorway to talk to He Ji Tong and did not look at her.
After buying the fabric, the group accompanied Grandma to buy the seedlings, seeds, dried fish for Gulu, flour for making pastries, sweet potato starch, and other items listed on her shopping list.
By the time they finished, they had only walked through less than half of the street, let alone the two other, livelier streets.
Seeing the tiredness already showing in Grandma’s eyes, Gu Jia Nian suggested that she accompany Grandma back to the car first and let Chi Yan and He Ji Tong wander around by themselves.
But Grandma refused to let her accompany her, her attitude rather firm.
She walked into the rice shop from earlier and sat down, then called Chi Yan and He Ji Tong over. In a low voice, she entrusted Gu Jia Nian to them. “Little Chi, you two take Tingting around for a while. She’s been feeling a bit down these past two days. Spend some time with her and help her relax, alright?”
As she spoke, she met Chi Yan’s concerned gaze and smiled again. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll sit here and catch up with the owner. We haven’t seen each other in a long time.”
Chi Yan hesitated, then nodded.
And so four people became three, and very quickly became two—because He Ji Tong finally spotted an arcade. His eyes lit up as he joined a King of Fighters queue whose average age was, at most, ten, throwing Gu Jia Nian to Chi Yan. “You take little sister Jianian around the street for a bit. I’m going to play for a while. Bring me back something tasty if you find any!”
Chi Yan looked at He Ji Tong in amusement. “Why should I?”
“Two people accompanying her and one person accompanying her are basically the same,” He Ji Tong said. He had already started a round, and with difficulty, he turned his head back from within the crowd. Pretending to hand the joystick to him, he shouted, “Then how about we switch? You take over my game, and I’ll go shopping with her.”
As for why he had to shout—
His game machine was surrounded by a crowd of little kids, all chattering noisily, cheering for the characters they had chosen in the game. Seven or eight fearless little throats combined were practically enough to burst one’s eardrums.
Gu Jia Nian felt that, in that instant, Chi Yan’s breathing seemed to pause for a moment. He took a step back, his gaze dark as it swept between those children and her. In the end, he asked her irritably, “Where to?”
Gu Jia Nian had not expected things to develop this way either, turning into the two of them wandering around the market alone.
She stammered, “Then… we can just walk around? If you don’t want to, we can also find somewhere to sit for a while and go back after some time. I can explain it to Grandma.”
“…”
Chi Yan glanced at her.
Why did this kid always look so afraid of him? No wonder she had endured her injury last time without daring to say anything, even worrying about dirtying his carpet.
Although he really did not feel like shopping, it was not as if he would stoop to deceiving the old and bullying the young, right?
For the first time, Chi Yan seriously reflected on his own words and actions.
He tried to pull his lips into a friendly smile. “Let’s go. Wherever you want is fine.”
Then he led Gu Jia Nian into the crowd.
Most of the pedestrians on the street were in groups of two or three: parents with children, elderly couples supporting each other, and middle school students walking together.
Chi Yan walked in front, and Gu Jia Nian followed closely behind him, stopping and moving along with the crowd.
At a congested corner, she failed to stop in time, and the bridge of her nose instantly bumped into Chi Yan’s firm back. Before the sore sting of pain came, the tip of her nose caught a faint fragrance.
She did not know what laundry detergent he used, but the scent was very fresh.
That smell reminded her of the mist-covered forest in his WeChat profile picture: quiet, yet surrounding her everywhere.
Today, at least, he had not drunk alcohol, nor had he smoked.
Gu Jia Nian’s thoughts were drifting when her arm was suddenly tugged.
Chi Yan turned back and pulled her to his side, so they were walking shoulder to shoulder.
“Watch where you’re going.”
Aside from shops selling snacks and toys, the most common stalls on the street were probably those selling hair clips, jewellery, stationery, and school supplies, attracting many primary and secondary school students from the town.
Every time Gu Jia Nian passed a stationery stall, she could not tear her eyes away.
The notebooks and pens on these stalls were unexpectedly delicate and pretty, far nicer than the stationery sold in the small shop in Yunmo Village.
Gu Jia Nian picked out a box of gel pen refills, a cloud-shaped eraser, a Snoopy click-top coloured ballpoint pen… and seven or eight notebooks.
She had liked buying stationery since she was little. Whether she ended up using it or not, these delicate notebooks and pens always made her feel happy.
Chi Yan also bought a few notebooks, but he did not choose carefully at all. He simply picked up the most ordinary black soft-cover notebooks.
Gu Jia Nian wanted to remind him that Yunmo’s little shop also sold this kind of notebook, and at a cheaper price too, but when the words reached her lips, she still did not say them.
When it was time to pay, Chi Yan looked at the colourful pile of things in her arms and reached out his hand.
But Gu Jia Nian insisted on paying for them herself.
Chi Yan glanced at her in amusement and did not force it.
After spending so many days together, even if he had not paid much attention, he had more or less figured out Gu Jia Nian’s personality.
A well-behaved, introverted, restrained and uneasy child, even a little self-deprecating, who occasionally had a strange stubbornness and tendency to put on a brave front.
Most of the time, she was very quiet. Only when she was reading or buying stationery she liked would her eyes light up.
From the very first day, he had seen that Gu Jia Nian loved reading very much. When people were doing something they truly loved, the light in their eyes could not deceive anyone.
And yet… she was not annoying.
These days, because of the final words his grandfather had left before passing away, and because of the care he had received in Yunmo when he was young, Chi Yan had no choice but to be very tolerant of Gu Jia Nian.
He allowed her to read books at home, helped her organise the bookshelf, went out of his way to accompany her to the hospital for the first time in ages, and now he even had to be forced into shopping with her.
His unchanging life had inevitably been disrupted, but strangely, he was not as irritated as he had expected.
Instead, he felt that basking in the long-lost morning sun at six or seven o’clock, wandering aimlessly with a quiet, measured child by his side, did not seem so bad after all.
After walking through two streets, Gu Jia Nian felt her calves starting to ache.
So the two of them found an ice cream shop and sat down.
Worried that Chi Yan would think she was troublesome, Gu Jia Nian used the large mirror at a clothing stall to glance at him, only to find that the frown he had worn since leaving the house had relaxed at some point.
It was as if he had slowly grown used to the sunlight.
He sat on a simple white plastic chair with his eyes closed, one hand propping up his chin, seemingly resting with his eyes shut.
The orange-yellow light of the newly risen sun fell harmlessly over his fair face, dyeing him with a warmth different from his usual air.
The large floor mirror faced them directly, reflecting a simple folding table.
At the table, the two of them sat opposite each other. Before them were two servings of “Häagen-Dazs” ice cream missing one letter from the name, chocolate hazelnut flavour.
Under the table, the morning breeze puffed up the hem of her skirt, silently winding it around the cuff of his trousers.
Gu Jia Nian felt that the entire small town should be able to hear her heartbeat and breathing.
They were actually sitting across from each other in a small town at half past six in the morning, eating ice cream together.
It was almost like a couple’s first date.
She held her breath and looked for a long time. While his eyes were still closed, she quietly took out her phone and snapped a selfie in the mirror.
Just as she put her phone away, she heard Chi Yan say lazily, “Kid, you’re pretty vain.”
Gu Jia Nian turned her face sideways and pointed at the older girls by the jewellery stalls, who were frantically admiring themselves in the mirror. “Big kids are vain too.”
Chi Yan stretched lazily, narrowed his eyes, and praised her in a half-true, half-teasing tone. “Mm. You’re right.”
Gu Jia Nian asked him again, “Are you very sleepy?”
“What do you think?”
Chi Yan lifted his eyelids and yawned, then closed his eyes again. “The last time I saw the sky at five in the morning might’ve been in my previous life.”
Gu Jia Nian carefully studied him and slowly said, “I thought… you wouldn’t come.”
As soon as she finished speaking, Chi Yan opened his eyes again and looked toward the arcade with a half-smile. “You didn’t want me to come?”
**Author’s note:**
Chi Yan: Our Tingting might be blind.
Tingting: Falling for someone with such rotten comprehension skills as you—yep, I really must be blind.
I really want chocolate ice cream!
Leave a Reply