The Little Duck 42

Chapter 42

—Are we going to live with this regret forever?

Yan Lu had never thought she would hear such a sentence.

Jian Xin seemed to be the same as before, but how could anyone stay a teenager forever?

Her voice was so small, with a slight tremor, every word trying its best to be cautious.

The Jian Xin of the past would never have spoken in such a tone.

Yan Lu couldn’t help but think, if it had been her past self, hearing Jian Xin say such words, she would probably have already had red-rimmed eyes and let herself snuggle into her arms, right?

But she had also changed long ago, no longer the self who longed for someone to save her.

Regret was that many of the things they had once agreed upon and promised had quietly faded away—actually, no one had forgotten, but there was no longer any need to fulfill them.

They were both doing well now, and they would definitely be even better in the future.

Two people on different paths had separated at the most appropriate time. Perhaps there would be some regrets, but regrets were always better than mutual torment.

Yan Lu lowered her eyelashes, the corners of her lips lifting in a slightly cool arc, as if in self-mockery, and replied softly, “Jian Xin, we’re not young anymore. We were young and ignorant before, and we easily promised many things. Let’s just treat it as childish talk. There’s no need to really take it as a responsibility.”

“…”

“You’ve already been very good to me, and your aunt and uncle have also been very good to me. I’ve never resented you for anything. You don’t need to blame yourself.”

“…”

“As for regrets… there are many regrets in this world. They will just stay quietly in the heart and won’t affect anyone’s life,” Yan Lu said, turning to gaze at Jian Xin, her eyes gentle yet stubborn. “I’ve seen the sea by myself. I had a lot of longing before I went, but when I really saw it, I didn’t feel anything special—I suddenly couldn’t understand why I had to write a plot where the two main characters agree to see the sea together.”

“…”

“To wait for so many years for such a promise is not romantic at all.”

At this point, Yan Lu sighed softly, trying hard to hold back the sourness in her nose. “We’re not on the same path. It’s just that I happened to get a ride in your car. I’m very grateful that you brought me to a very good world. If you need any help, as long as I can do it, you can come to me at any time.”

“But… don’t mention the past anymore,” she said seriously. “I think you’ve crossed a line, and it’s making things difficult for me.”

Jian Xin’s mouth was slightly open, her reddened eyes as if brimming with tears, whether from the movie just now or from the very serious rejection of the person in front of her at this moment.

After a brief silence, she took a deep breath and forced a strained smile. “Oh!”

“I’m sorry, you know me, I just don’t think before I speak… It’s all that movie’s fault, it made me think of some inexplicable things… Suddenly talking nonsense, maybe it’s also related to my lack of sleep lately…”

Jian Xin said incoherently, and as if she really couldn’t think of any other explanation, she simply pressed her lips together tightly and said with a smile, “I feel a little hungry. Let’s get something to eat, shall we? Is there anything you want to eat, or should we just walk and see, and if we see something we want to eat…”

“No need. I’ve thought about it carefully. Our relationship is still not suitable for us to be too close.”

“…”

Yan Lu left, leaving only a “not suitable,” and left Jian Xin alone.

Jian Xin stood at the entrance of the movie theater, a little dazed. The fried chicken strips in her hand were cold, and the initial aroma was gone. She was still mulling over Yan Lu’s words just now.

—What did she mean?

Her reading comprehension had never been good since she was a child, and she really didn’t understand these words very well.

A little aggrieved…

She felt like she had been bullied by Yan Lu.

She was so hungry. From the time she woke up until now, besides the chicken strips and bubble tea, she hadn’t eaten anything.

Jian Xin gritted her teeth, leaned on her crutches, and found an all-you-can-eat barbecue restaurant nearby, and started to eat by herself.

As she grilled, she took pictures. The moment she finished eating, she posted the pictures on her Moments.

Who did she want to see them?

To be honest, she wasn’t sure if that person would see them.

Today was supposed to be a happy day, but she had ruined it with one sentence.

She seemed to always mess things up. It was like this yesterday, and it was like this today.

Yan Lu was angry, and her words had become much harsher.

What was that saying?

Slow work yields fine results, haste makes waste, good things come to those who wait, you can’t get fat with one bite.

You can’t eat hot tofu in a hurry, and you’ll pull a muscle if you take too big a step…

Haste makes waste, and too much is as bad as not enough?

Forget it, she was just a musician. She really didn’t have much literary talent. In short, this step was definitely too hasty and had backfired.

Jian Xin looked at her Moments, which had several likes the moment she posted it, but was missing a Corgi profile picture, and sighed.

—My right leg is starting to hurt again. I should go home and rest.

When Jian Xin got home, she took off her makeup, undid her complicated hairstyle, and lay on her bed like a dead fish, motionless.

The sky outside darkened. She felt inexplicably tired, but she just tossed and turned and couldn’t fall asleep.

After much thought, she still felt that she hadn’t performed well in the afternoon.

No, no, to be precise, not only had she not performed well this afternoon, but she hadn’t even had a chance to perform at all!

Thinking back, she used to be so eloquent that even the head teacher couldn’t do anything about her!

How did she regress so much? She was not even as good as her past self!

Jian Xin held her phone and struggled for a long time. She scrolled through Weibo for a while, then Douyin, and finally, she even went to Xiaohongshu to get some gossip from the entertainment industry.

In the end, she still couldn’t resist and opened her private chat window with Yan Lu.

Picked Up a Heart: I can’t win an argument with you.

Picked Up a Heart: But I don’t think you’re right.

Picked Up a Heart: Even if we’re just ordinary friends, you shouldn’t have left me there alone.

Picked Up a Heart: I’m still a patient!

After sending this message, Jian Xin felt a little better.

But on second thought, she felt that this was not enough, so she huffily added another sentence.

Picked Up a Heart: Since you think this distance is not appropriate, then you don’t have to remind me to do my rehabilitation every day, and you don’t have to find someone to come to my house to make me nutritious meals.

After a few minutes of silence, Yan Lu’s reply came, just one short word—Okay.

Jian Xin suddenly really wanted to slap herself, but the hand she raised only ended up slapping the bed hard.

—Stubborn, just stubborn!

Some people say such resolute words, but in private, who knows what they’re saying to Xin Xin and Cauliflower in their hearts!

Jian Xin clenched her phone tightly, so aggrieved that she frowned and pouted, and couldn’t help but kick the leg that was working.

She felt that she needed some evidence, evidence that would make Yan Lu unable to be stubborn anymore!

She refused to believe that if she just kept at it like this, she wouldn’t be able to find evidence of a certain person’s stubbornness.

The next time she went over there, she would see where Yan Lu had hidden the evidence.

She had better not find it, otherwise she would really find a chance to go over and expose her!

With this thought, Jian Xin closed her eyes forcefully, wishing she could fall asleep quickly and go to a certain person’s house to investigate carefully.

But she just couldn’t fall asleep. The more she thought, the more awake she became!

When she opened her eyes—childish talk, no need to be responsible.

When she closed her eyes—you’ve crossed a line, it’s making things difficult for me.

She tried hard to shake her head and throw these two broken words out of her mind, but her ears would start to hear a dual-channel echo—I’ve seen the sea by myself.

How could this person be like this?

She was just puzzled. Can a normal human’s mouth say such cold words?!

So what if she’s seen it?

She’s seen it, so what? Why did she have to tell her?

What’s wrong, can’t she see it again just because she’s already seen it!

—She hasn’t seen it yet…

Jian Xin didn’t remember how long she had been aggrieved, nor did she know what time she had fallen asleep.

That night, she did not go to Yan Lu’s side as she had wished. Perhaps because she had gone to bed too early, she also woke up very early the next day.

A little after six in the morning, the night had not yet dissipated.

Jian Xin limped to the window in the living room, her hands on the windowsill, and stared blankly at the distance until the dark sky gradually turned a pale white, and she finally had a sense of reality that she had woken up from a dream.

She gently patted her cheeks, and after washing up, she sat down at her computer and continued to work on the unfinished job.

At eleven-thirty in the morning, Yan Lu did not call her with a voice call, so she simply forgot the time and worked until after three in the afternoon without eating.

After finishing an instrumental arrangement, Jian Xin sent the demo file to Chen Yuan, and then slumped against the back of her chair, listlessly waiting for feedback.

This time, the client was easier to talk to than the last. A few minutes after receiving the demo, they were satisfied and paid the final payment. Jian Xin quickly exported the individual tracks and lossless audio, attached the main melody and harmony reference, and sent them all to the person.

With three thousand six hundred in hand, Jian Xin lay back on her bed, closing her eyes without much energy.

From the time she woke up until now, besides drinking some hot water, she hadn’t eaten anything. Her stomach seemed to have been hungry, but it also seemed to have passed the point of hunger, and now she didn’t feel anything.

She still wanted to go over there and see what Yan Lu was up to now.

I’ll just take another nap, Jian Xin thought—maybe I can go over after another nap.

But this nap still couldn’t get her out of this empty house.

When she woke up for the second time, the sky outside was already very dark.

Jian Xin suddenly felt extremely hungry. She took out her phone and ordered a takeout, but when the takeout arrived, she smelled the very familiar smell, but unexpectedly felt a wave of inexplicable nausea—she didn’t eat a single bite and just lay back on her bed.

This time, her sleep was not peaceful, accompanied by occasional heart palpitations and bouts of difficulty breathing.

She also seemed to have had many dreams, the images fragmented and impossible to piece together.

On the third day when she woke up, Jian Xin forced herself to drink a bowl of pumpkin porridge.

She had clearly ordered a sweet porridge, but she always felt that she couldn’t taste anything, and she didn’t know if the shop had forgotten to add sugar.

Things had been going badly these past two days, which made her in a very bad mood.

To adjust her mood, Jian Xin went to Chen Yuan and asked for two more jobs—a three-hundred-yuan pop arrangement and a five-hundred-yuan ancient-style arrangement. The melodies for both were just hummed by the client, and it was clear that they hadn’t studied music theory. The melodic progression was quite strange, and even a little out of tune.

This kind of job was not only very cheap, but the final work would also not be good. It would be embarrassing not to use a pseudonym when releasing the song. It was usually given to the newcomers in the studio to practice, or to people who were really short on money.

Usually, when Chen Yuan received this kind of job, he wouldn’t even ask Jian Xin, because he knew that she would definitely look down on it.

Today, she had taken the initiative to ask for it, which really startled him.

Chen Yuan: Are you very short on money lately?

Picked Up a Heart: No.

Chen Yuan: Then why do you want this kind of job?

Picked Up a Heart: I’m bored, just sitting at home with nothing to do.

Chen Yuan: Are you in a good mood?

Picked Up a Heart: I’m fine.

Chen Yuan: [Suspicious]

Picked Up a Heart: [No need to be suspicious]

Picked Up a Heart: I’ll get it to you within this week [Confident]

Chen Yuan: You don’t have to do it too well for this price.

Picked Up a Heart: Limited by my skill level, I can’t do it too badly either. I’ll just give you a thousand-yuan precision.

Picked Up a Heart: Just treat it as an advertisement for the studio.

Chen Yuan: Thank you, Sister Xin.

Jian Xin closed the dialog box, opened the client’s requirement document, and once again plunged into her work.

When she was tired, she would eat a couple of bites, feel nauseous, and sleep. When she woke up, she would continue to arrange.

For as many days as Yan Lu had not contacted her, Jian Xin had been in a daze, as if in a fit of pique, neither of them willing to take the first step.

But Jian Xin knew that it wasn’t that she was unwilling to take this step, but that her step was meaningless.

The one who couldn’t get over the hurdle in her heart was not her, but Yan Lu.

She really wanted to ask her mom what she should do in this situation. She really didn’t know how to pull a person who was hiding in a shell out.

Faced with Yan Lu, she always seemed to have no way.

When Yan Lu had disappeared back then, she had tried every method but couldn’t get in touch with her again.

Now that Yan Lu was unwilling to give her a chance to start over, what could she do?

Even the Great Duck Spirit hadn’t appeared again…

—She still wanted to look for evidence.

Jian Xin would always overthink like this whenever she was idle, and once she started to overthink, she would feel uncomfortable all over.

After finishing the two jobs, she asked again, “Are there any new ones? I can still do ten more!”

Chen Yuan was clearly taken aback for a moment. He told her that there were none for the time being, and also asked about her mental state, but in the end, all he got was a “I’m fine.”

And then there was nothing more.

Without any jobs, Jian Xin lay in bed for a long time and felt more and more uncomfortable.

She knew that she should eat well, but she really couldn’t eat at all.

Her stomach was hurting, her body was weak, she would have heart palpitations when she slept, and she would sometimes have difficulty breathing—everything was like it was back in her junior year of university, when she had suddenly lost the person she didn’t want to lose the most in her life.

On the twelfth day after watching the movie, it was a case of one misfortune following another. Her period, which was already over a month late, came at a time like this, as if the long-accumulated pain was more intense than ever before. She would even feel nauseous just from drinking a sip of water.

The soreness in her limbs pulled at her unhealed injury from the car accident, and it ached faintly.

All the discomfort finally converged at this moment, completely crushing the person who had been pretending to be fine.

Jian Xin curled up in bed, feeling her inexplicably accelerated heartbeat. She didn’t know how much courage it took for her to type a seemingly calm message on her phone with wet eyes.

—Yan Lu, I want to see you. Even if we want to draw a clear line, we should at least make things completely clear.

After sending this message, her breathing became more and more difficult. Finally, with her brow tightly furrowed, her consciousness gradually blurred in the pain that came from either hunger or her period.

…

In a daze, the pain in her body gradually dissipated, and a familiar piano melody faintly sounded in her ears.

Her closed eyes could feel a bright light.

She couldn’t help but be moved, and she slowly opened her eyes.

—The familiar duck nest, the familiar study, and Xin Xin was not beside her.

The computer was on, and Yan Lu was not there.

The deep blue forest, the fireflies and the thin mist, the full moon and the white deer, was a very familiar screensaver.

Jian Xin stood up, pattered a few steps, and stretched her neck to look at the balcony and the living room. She only saw a Xin Xin that was chewing on a slipper in the living room.

She hesitated for a moment, flapped her wings, and first flew onto the computer chair, then flew onto the computer desk—she stretched out her foot and kicked the mouse, then buried her head and pecked at the space bar a couple of times, successfully closing the screensaver.

The moment the computer screen lit up, she saw the message she had sent.

Such a large chat box, just like that, was blatantly covering the outline with black background and white text.

Yan Lu had seen it, but she hadn’t replied…

—Then where was she now?

Jian Xin was silent. After a long time, she looked down and jumped back to the floor, and walked out of the study with big steps.

Xin Xin was still at home, so Yan Lu had not gone out to walk the dog.

There was no reply to the message, so it was even less likely that Yan Lu had gone out to find her.

Jian Xin needed to confirm if Yan Lu was at home at this moment.

She was already very familiar with this home. She even knew where the sofa in the living room had been chewed bald by Xin Xin. At this moment, she was not lost at all and ran into Yan Lu’s bedroom with her wings behind her back.

She was too small and couldn’t see the situation on the bed from under it, so she simply took a bold step, flapped her wings, and flew onto the bed.

Yan Lu was still at home.

She was curled up, sleeping on the bed, half of the quilt crumpled in her arms, looking so quiet, yet so lonely.

The little duck tiptoed and quietly jumped in front of her, and saw a small patch of tear-stained pillowcase.

—What’s the point?

How much more evidence do I have to find for you to admit that the past is not over?

Jian Xin squatted by Yan Lu’s pillow for a while.

Silently, without making a sound, just quietly looking at her sleeping face.

So many years had passed, but Yan Lu’s sleeping posture was still very similar to before, curled up and motionless, so quiet that it was as if she was afraid of disturbing something.

Such a Yan Lu, she had loved and cherished.

She wanted to stay with her forever, even if she wouldn’t be noticed.

But she had only been squatting for a short while when she suddenly felt that she couldn’t hold her poop, so she scurried back to the floor and went elsewhere.

Jian Xin had seen that in the second drawer on the lower left of the computer desk in the study, there was the first watch she had given to Yan Lu.

Then what about the other things?

Where had Yan Lu hidden them?

She felt like a very excessive thief, swaggering and jumping around in every corner of someone else’s home.

She didn’t find anything in the living room, so she returned to the study under Xin Xin’s bewildered gaze. She was too weak to open the drawers, so she jumped onto the open bookshelf and stretched her neck to look around.

Xin Xin tilted its head, half-squatting on the floor, looking at her with a bewildered expression, clearly unable to understand what kind of duck madness this duck was having.

Actually, Jian Xin didn’t know what she should be looking for. She clearly didn’t even have a direction, but she felt that there might be the evidence she wanted hidden somewhere.

She was willing to believe that Yan Lu had actually been doing very well these past few years, and she could be very well without her.

She was also very clear that she didn’t have to be with Yan Lu for her life to go on.

A lifetime is long, and a lifetime is also short.

More than seven years had passed in the blink of an eye, and they had both gotten used to living without each other.

But if she could, she still hoped to spend the rest of her life with her.

Because a long, long time ago, she had fantasized about a very distant future—in that future, her figure was in every corner.

But she had accidentally lost a key, and she could no longer open a certain small door that had once been open for her.

—Where is the key?

She wished she could grow hands and turn everything before her upside down to see how deep Yan Lu had hidden it!

Suddenly, Jian Xin saw a strange yet familiar light green, tucked among a pile of unfamiliar tool books.

She crossed a vertical bar, jumped onto that section of the bookshelf, and stretched out her claw to try and get it out from a pile of books, but this duck claw couldn’t exert any strength. She was so anxious that she tilted her head and used her wings and beak in the only foothold she had.

It had to be said that the structure of different creatures was completely different. Humans were stronger in their legs, while ducks were stronger in their beaks and wings.

After a lot of effort, this thin, light green thing, wrapped in tape, was finally pulled out a little from a pile of books.

She tried to hold a part of it in her mouth and flew back with all her might, flapping her wings.

Perhaps because the way she was exerting force was not very scientific, with a series of bangs and clatters, she pulled out several books around it, as well as a few small boxes that were placed horizontally on these books, and they all fell out of the bookshelf.

Xin Xin was startled and suddenly barked loudly.

Jian Xin, as if she had committed a heinous crime, was so scared that she couldn’t hold on to the small notebook in her mouth, and she also couldn’t maintain her balance. The entire duck fell back to the floor, its eyes seeing stars.

When she got up and looked at the mess on the floor, her heart skipped a beat, and her whole duck brain crashed.

Such a loud noise!

She hadn’t even thought of a solution when she heard Yan Lu’s voice walking into the study.

“Cauliflower? What are you doing!”

Yan Lu’s brow was tightly furrowed, her eyes full of surprise.

She took two steps forward, crouched down, and started to pick up the books on the floor.

The light green small notebook, wrapped in clear tape, was picked up from the floor by her, and a yellowed page fell out from inside, landing by the little duck’s feet.

Jian Xin instinctively flipped it over with her foot.

On the paper, there were two ugly, crooked, large heads.

One was laughing, the other was crying.

The color of the pencil was so faint that it was almost invisible, but the hand that wanted to pick her up froze in mid-air.

—Is that enough?

Such an ugly thing, kept for thirteen years…

Isn’t that enough to prove that you have me in your heart?