Chapter 62 p1
August 27th was Jian Xin’s birthday.
In the past, on her birthday, she would always like to drag her friends from the band group out to eat and drink, but this time, she stayed at home peacefully—of course, that was because she had already celebrated her birthday with her friends the day before.
As for why she had to celebrate in advance, her friends didn’t ask. After all, those who understood, understood—the good days are always reserved for the most important people.
This kind of thing, once you see through it, you don’t point it out.
A little after two in the afternoon, everyone gathered in a coffee shop and chatted for a while, and ate a cake with smiles and laughter.
This cake was green, with a layer of matcha powder sprinkled on it, and the filling had some very fragrant crushed nuts. It was not big, very small—if you had to ask, it was because she was on a diet, and a few bites were enough. To make it too big would be a waste.
The birthday candles were the numbers 2 and 9. Jian Xin started to sigh when she saw this age, saying how time could pass so quickly. She always felt that she had just graduated not long ago, and in a blink of an eye, she was 29.
Hearing this, everyone started to sigh.
What with time not sparing anyone, what with time being a butcher’s knife, in the past, she would call everyone sister or brother on the street, and now, she was being called auntie by little girls on the street.
She clearly felt that she was still quite young, at least from a mental point of view, but when she really met a very energetic young person, she found that she really couldn’t blend in.
As she was talking, Jian Xin made a decision.
She said that on her birthday next year, she would throw away the 0 and just put a 3.
Zheng Xinyue laughed out loud. “Three years old?”
“Three years old is good. Wasn’t there a popular novel genre a couple of years ago, something about a three-and-a-half-year-old—” Jian Xin said, spreading her hands. “No matter what the identity is, three and a half is all it takes. Who can’t be a baby?”
Jiang Lan: “That makes sense!”
Zheng Xinyue propped her face in her hands and said jokingly, “If it’s three and a half, you have to find a 5, and then see what you can use to make a decimal point in the middle.”
Jian Xin: “That’s too much trouble. Just a little is enough.”
Zheng Xinyue: “If you want to be a baby, there’s no time like the present. Why don’t you just get rid of the 9 this year?”
Jian Xin: “Two years old is too young!”
Chen Yuan suggested, “Then get rid of the 2.”
Jiang Lan: “That makes sense!”
They said, and Jian Xin also felt that it made a lot of sense, so she simply took the 2 off the cake and lit the 9 candle.
Her friends started to sing “Happy Birthday,” and the familiar and tacit three-part harmony made many people look over.
Jian Xin clasped her hands together and made a wish in her heart.
I hope Yan Lu’s new novel has good data, and the new drama is a big hit, and my OST can also get some of the glory!
I hope that during the program recording in September, the Great Duck Spirit will be merciful and will not screw me over!
And also, the most important thing.
I hope that this New Year, I can go home with Yan Lu and tell my parents that we are together.
Jian Xin couldn’t help but think that she was really a very greedy person, making three wishes at once, and one of them was a three-in-one style.
But it didn’t matter. A wish is something that has to be realized through hard work.
Whether the first wish can be realized has not much to do with her.
The second wish is purely metaphysics, and she can’t control it very well.
Then for the rest of this year, she would work hard to realize the third wish!
With this thought, she opened her eyes and blew out the birthday candles, and a burst of cheers from her friends came from her ears.
After dinner that day, to prevent Jian Xin from drinking and messing things up, everyone gave up the bar and went to a KTV, and the moment they entered the private room, they had the waiter take away all the alcohol on the table.
“Isn’t that a bit much?”
“It’s very much,” Zheng Xinyue said, standing in front of the standing microphone and loudly flogging a dead horse. “Who was it on this day last year? Got drunk and was hit by a car and ended up in the hospital!”
“It was me, it was me, stop scolding…” Jian Xin lowered her head and buried it in her hands.
Jiang Lan, who was on the side, was not afraid of making things worse. She specially passed the microphone to her mouth, as if she wanted to hear her excuses or thoughts.
Jian Xin was silent for a few seconds, then said with an inexplicably strict tone, “Let me correct one thing, it was tomorrow last year.”
“Close enough,” Zheng Xinyue said with a laugh. “Anyway, we’re not letting you drink, so that you don’t go crazy in front of your soon-to-be-reunited ex and then your relationship breaks again.”
So that night, everyone really accompanied her without a single drop of alcohol.
At midnight, the Haidilao birthday song sounded in the private room, and the blessings that had been said once during the day were once again formally sounded in her ear at this time.
Jian Xin subconsciously took out her phone and looked at it. In a large pile of birthday wishes, she found the message that Yan Lu had sent her.
What is “greatness in simplicity”—it was clearly just four words, “Happy Birthday,” but because it was sent right on time, it made Jian Xin’s heart warm.
Picked Up a Heart: [Happy dog]
Picked Up a Heart: [So happy, duck]
After replying to Yan Lu’s message, she started to reply to the blessings in various group chats and private chats.
After replying to QQ, she opened WeChat.
Her parents, as in previous years, had transferred her 1888 and 1666 yuan respectively.
To send, to be smooth, the meaning is very good!
Jian Xin happily accepted it and sent a message in the group, “Dad, Mom, I love you to death!”
At one in the morning, the small gathering of friends dispersed.
Jian Xin, as the birthday girl, was the first to be sent into a car by everyone.
On the way home, she thought carefully and found that the last time she had had a drink was actually on May Day.
At that time, she had seen that Yan Lu had drunk a lot, and she was worried that it would be unsafe if they both got drunk, so she hadn’t dared to drink much herself.
Now that so much time had passed, she even had the feeling that she had almost quit drinking.
Her phone suddenly vibrated. She looked down.
Perched by the Roadside: When are you coming back?
Picked Up a Heart: I’m on my way!
Perched by the Roadside: Okay.
Picked Up a Heart: I didn’t drink today! Not a single drop!
Perched by the Roadside: How rare.
Picked Up a Heart: [Hehehehehehe]
She had only replied with a few messages when Jian Xin started to feel carsick. She quickly looked up at the window and let the wind in through a crack.
A little after two-thirty, she returned home.
The lights in the living room were on, as if they had been left on for her.
Jian Xin tiptoed to the study door and glanced inside.
Xin Xin and Cauliflower were both asleep, the two little ones still so fond of squeezing into one duck nest.
Yan Lu sat at her computer, still with her typing document open.
In the past, Yan Lu would also sit at her computer and face her document until very late at night, but although it was also very late, there was a difference between the past and the present.
Back then, Yan Lu had pushed herself so hard for her update tasks that she barely had time to breathe.
But now, Yan Lu was just simply unable to sleep, and she would write a little when she felt like it. She didn’t have to write so diligently, and she was much more relaxed.
Yan Lu heard Jian Xin’s return and turned to look at Jian Xin outside the door.
“Happy Birthday,” she said, and stood up. “Did you have a late-night snack?”
“No, I was thinking of finding a place to eat skewers, but Jiang Lan stayed up late last night to rush a job and wasn’t sleeping well. We saw that she was too tired, so we just dispersed,” Jian Xin said, rubbing her stomach and laughing. “I only had one meal this afternoon, so I’m a little hungry.”
“Then I’ll cook you a bowl of noodles,” Yan Lu said, and as she brushed past her, she walked into the kitchen.
This was a modified version of longevity noodles. In the past, when she celebrated her birthday at home, Huang He would love to make it like this.
Hot and sour soup with beef slices, served with tomatoes, oyster mushrooms, and baby cabbage, and then a runny egg on top—so fragrant!
The noodles were handmade noodles bought from a nearby noodle shop, and they were very chewy.
Jian Xin sat at the dining table and ate, while Yan Lu sat on the side and played on her phone, occasionally glancing at her out of the corner of her eye.
When she finished her noodles, Jian Xin rushed to wash the bowl and pot.
Just as she was washing her hands, she heard Yan Lu say, “Come to my room after you’re done.”
Jian Xin was taken aback for a moment, and something clicked in her mind. She couldn’t help but let her thoughts wander.
What does she mean by “come to my room after you’re done”?
After what? After washing the dishes, or after taking a shower?
And what are we going to do in the room?
Usually, Yan Lu wouldn’t let her into her bedroom. In fact, ever since she had moved in, the door to that bedroom had been closed most of the time, and it was only opened occasionally to let the two rooms air out.
On her birthday, was Yan Lu going to “reward” her?
That’s not right, is it? They haven’t gotten back together yet!
The more Jian Xin thought, the more confused she became. After washing the dishes and bowls, and washing her hands with soap, she tiptoed to the door of Yan Lu’s bedroom.
The bedroom door was open, and she poked her head in to take a look.
—She still remembered the three-point agreement, so she didn’t dare to go in casually.
“I’m done, is there anything you need?” Jian Xin asked with some anticipation, and she didn’t know what she was so blindly looking forward to.
“Come in,” Yan Lu said, sitting on her bed and tidying her long hair. “Get your present.”
—Go in to get a present?
Damn it, I’m thinking too much. Calm down, calm down, it’s probably not that…
Jian Xin took a deep breath and walked in boldly.
The moment she entered the room, she found that there was a large bulge in the summer quilt. From the door, it was just blocked by Yan Lu.
So this is the present.
Although she had expected it, and the present was not likely to be what she had been thinking, she was still a little disappointed when she really saw it.
It was like a cold joke she had seen before.
Probably a person, who was taken into a room by someone they liked, and pulled into bed. They had shyly prepared everything, but the other person suddenly took out a luminous watch. “Look, my watch glows!”
Disappointed as she was, it did not affect Jian Xin’s curiosity about what the present was.
After all, she also knew that Yan Lu had long since used up all her romance for the next life in her novels, and had not left a single bit for reality, so she had not had much expectation in the first place, and her disappointment was naturally only a little.
Jian Xin walked to the side of the bed with a heart full of curiosity, reached out and lifted the thin summer quilt—inside was a very, very large, lying on its stomach, at least one and a half meters long, fluffy goose!
“Why did you give me this?”
Jian Xin was a little surprised, but her hand had already unconsciously touched the goose’s down, which was very soft and nice to touch. She couldn’t help but rub and press it.
“I was originally going to buy a duck, but after searching around, I found that there were no good-looking ducks, so I bought this,” Yan Lu said. “They’re both white, with yellow feet and a flat beak, so they look about the same.”
“Are they really about the same?” Jian Xin couldn’t help but laugh. “This reason is too abstract.”
The difference between a goose and a duck is huge.
Geese are super fierce, with long necks and large bodies. Most people can’t afford to offend them.
If she had turned into a goose, she wouldn’t have been so easily bullied by Xin Xin!
“Has anyone ever told you that your laugh sounds a lot like a goose?”
“…” I can’t tell if that’s a compliment or an insult.
“When I saw it, I thought of you,” Yan Lu said faintly, not forgetting to add a very rigorous sentence, “although now your laugh sounds like a duck.”
“…Understand, I’ve been a duck for a long time, so it’s inevitable that I’ve been assimilated a little.”
“I understand,” Yan Lu said. “Anyway, they’re about the same noise.”
Jian Xin gritted her teeth, hugged the large goose tightly, and pinched its neck with both hands. “Yan Lu, you’re really not very nice when you talk now.”
Yan Lu couldn’t help but laugh. “I’ve always been this kind of person, it’s just that I was too good at pretending in the past, and no one knew.”
“I know now,” Jian Xin said, letting go of the large goose in her hand and using her hand to control the large goose’s head to nuzzle Yan Lu’s arm. With her eyes curving, she said happily, “For the sake of this large goose being so cute, I’ll just pretend I didn’t hear it!”
She said, then hugged the large goose and got up, and hopped happily to her own room.
After hopping a couple of times, she felt a faint pain in her right leg, so she obediently switched back to walking.
A whole year had passed, and this leg of hers still couldn’t exert too much force, but fortunately, she was no longer so lame now. As long as she didn’t walk too much, she looked relatively normal.
Jian Xin threw the large goose onto her own bed and turned to go into the bathroom to take a hot shower.
After washing up, she went back to the foot of the bed, kicked off her slippers, and with her arms spread, she fell forward and pressed on the soft and fluffy large goose.
The air conditioning in the bedroom was on. 27 degrees was too cold, and 28 degrees was about right, but at this temperature, pressing on such a fluffy large goose, it was inevitable to feel a little hot.
She turned her body to the side and lay beside the large goose.
The large goose’s wings were limp, and she fiddled with them up and down.
After playing all day, her slightly empty mind slowly started to turn.
Actually, she wasn’t thinking about anything very complicated. She was just simply thinking—her leg injury was gradually recovering, and her relationship with Yan Lu also seemed to be gradually repairing.
Unconsciously, the two noisy little ones at home were as close to her as if they were her own.
The thought that she would be going to record a program in a short while, and she didn’t know how many times she could come back in a week, made her a little reluctant.
When she earns money, she’ll buy them all some new toys.
With this thought, Jian Xin slowly closed her eyes.
She dreamed that she had turned into a duck and was flying around the recording studio, quacking.
The staff was chasing after her, and she stubbornly flew onto the microphone stand and stood there, stretching her neck and singing with all her might.
The sound of her quacking stunned the entire audience, and even the goddess she had loved since she was a child couldn’t help but stand up and applaud for her.
The host said that this was a new century of art, the first step of a duck becoming a spirit, and also a great moment to prove that music not only has no borders, but can also have no species!
She was so praised that her little face was burning. She quacked her thanks, and with a misstep, she fell from the microphone stand.
There was a very, very deep hole under the microphone stand for some reason. She subconsciously flapped her wings, but found that she couldn’t fly at all.
That moment of weightlessness startled her. When she came back to her senses, it was Yan Lu who had caught her below.
Holding the small her, she chased a sika deer and ran towards a mountain field where spring was warm and flowers were blooming.
