The Little Duck 27p1

Chapter 27 p1

By the end of October, the weather in Jincheng was gradually cooling down.

After countless rounds of polishing, Jian Xin finished writing the character song commissioned by the Moon Between the Clouds production team.

She recorded a demo on her computer and sent it over, quickly receiving high praise from the drama’s music director. All that was left was to find some time to go to the studio for the official recording, and then she could get paid.

This was undoubtedly a big deal. Jian Xin cherished this opportunity immensely. She practiced the song at home countless times every day, mulling over the emotional details of each line again and again, and recorded six or seven versions to send to the small band group chat.

Zheng Xinyue even started begging her, “Sister, you’ve already practiced it to perfection. You can come to the studio to record now, really!”

Hearing this, Jian Xin immediately got into her electric wheelchair, took a taxi to the studio’s dedicated recording booth, and, striving for excellence, dragged Chen Yuan, who was helping with the recording, to accompany her for an entire afternoon.

Finally, she happily treated everyone to dinner.

It had been a long time since she had had a meal with her friends. Jian Xin had originally wanted to drink, but before her finger could even press the order button, her hand was slapped hard by Zheng Xinyue, causing her to yelp in pain.

“What are you drinking? Are you fully recovered? Who’s going to drink with you?”

Zheng Xinyue stood with her hands on her hips, firing off a series of three questions.

“Can’t I just look?” Jian Xin said stubbornly, pursing her lips, and reluctantly ordered a fruit tea.

During the meal, she once again brought up the matter of wanting to go to a temple to pray.

She said that during her check-up the day before yesterday, the doctor had said that the cast on her leg could be removed at her next check-up. By then, walking would be much more convenient, and she wanted to go to a temple to pray.

Jiang Lan blinked and asked curiously, “You weren’t superstitious before. Why the sudden urge to go to a temple?”

Zheng Xinyue: “You forgot? Ever since the car accident, she’s been wanting to go to a temple.”

Jiang Lan: “Really?”

Zheng Xinyue: “Yeah, search the group chat.”

Just as Jiang Lan was about to search, Chen Yuan, who was beside her, had already copied the chat history from that time into the group.

Jiang Lan: “Oh, that was in September. My memory has been bad lately…”

Zheng Xinyue: “I told you not to stay up late, but you wouldn’t listen, right? Now your brain isn’t working well, and you’ve become even more dazed.”

Jiang Lan looked up at Zheng Xinyue and corrected her seriously, “It’s not a problem of staying up late. I get enough sleep every day. My bad memory is because of brain fog, the brain fog after I got COVID during the pandemic!”

“Alright, alright, brain fog, brain fog,” Zheng Xinyue said with a laugh. “No crime in staying up late, long live staying up late!”

“So?” Jian Xin interjected. “After the cast is removed, who’s coming with me to the temple?”

“I’ll go with you!” Zheng Xinyue said, then casually asked, “What, you want to pray for a relationship?”

Jian Xin choked on her food, covered her mouth, and coughed a few times.

“Oh~~” Jiang Lan’s eyes suddenly widened, her face clearly showing the four words “sudden realization.”

“What ‘oh’?” Jian Xin turned her head, wiped away the tears she had just choked out, and explained seriously with a hoarse voice, “What would I pray for a relationship for? Do I need to pray for that kind of thing?”

Chen Yuan: “It seems like you do.”

Jiang Lan and Zheng Xinyue nodded in agreement on the side.

Jian Xin frowned and slapped the table. “I’ll say it again, I’m not being stubborn!”

“Yan Lu and I broke up a long time ago! They say a rabbit doesn’t eat the grass around its own burrow, and a good horse doesn’t go back to the same pasture!” She sat up straight, her words righteous and stern. “I wasn’t a good rabbit back then, so I should at least be a good horse now, right?”

Zheng Xinyue: “What’s with all this good horse, bad horse, beast of burden? As a person, you shouldn’t just define yourself with labels.”

“Yan Lu and I are just not on the same path. Otherwise, why would we have broken up back then?”

Zheng Xinyue: “She’s getting flustered again.”

Jiang Lan: “So flustered! So flustered!”

Chen Yuan: “Her voice is even cracking.”

Jian Xin: “…”

After a brief silence, Jian Xin shook her head and continued, “In short, I want to go to the temple, and it has nothing to do with… relationships. It’s entirely because things have been going badly for me lately, and I feel like I’ve been entangled by something strange. I want to ward off evil spirits!”

Zheng Xinyue: “Things have been going badly for you lately?”

Chen Yuan: “The job for Moon Between the Clouds, how very badly that’s going.”

Jiang Lan: “Enjoying novels and dramas every day, and having a top-tier drama buddy to feed you content, how very, very badly that’s going.”

Zheng Xinyue: “Having your ex pick you up and drop you off at the hospital every time, and even getting to have a romantic dinner with your ex, how very, very, very badly that’s going!”

Jiang Lan: “I wish things would go that badly for me too.”

Zheng Xinyue: “Who doesn’t?”

Chen Yuan: “We’re just not that lucky.”

Jian Xin opened her mouth, choked for a long time, and finally squeezed out a sentence, “Getting hit by a car, being in a wheelchair every day, you want this kind of luck?”

“No more work, no more chores, no missing limbs, meeting the person you’ve been longing for, and even getting a huge job. If you can really latch onto a certain someone’s thigh from now on, your future will be limitless. This is a fortune from the heavens!” Zheng Xinyue analyzed, then couldn’t help but ask back, “Why wouldn’t I want it? If I were you, I would have already kissed her, okay!”

Jiang Lan nodded. “Exactly, exactly!”

Jian Xin: “Then, then what about having nightmares every day after the car accident, not being able to sleep well? You’d want that too?!”

Chen Yuan: “What kind of nightmares?”

Jian Xin’s brow furrowed, her face serious. “I dreamed that I became the duck Yan Lu raises…”

Zheng Xinyue’s expression changed. She subconsciously leaned back tactically, and Jiang Lan and Chen Yuan were also at a loss for words for a moment.

“No, no, no, not that kind of duck! I mean, I became her Call duck, a pet duck, understand?” Jian Xin explained, then couldn’t help but start gesturing wildly as she described it to her friends. “Yan Lu has a Call duck at home, and a Corgi—this big!”

“I often dream that I’ve become that duck, and then that Corgi bullies me for no reason. I’m small, pitiful, and helpless, and the duck feed isn’t even good…”

“Pfft—” Zheng Xinyue covered her mouth, waved her hand, and tried hard to suppress her laughter. “It’s fine, you continue.”

Jian Xin pouted and continued, “I’ve been having these dreams ever since the car accident. In the dream, I’m just a duck, and I’m often bullied by that bad dog. But Yan Lu takes very good care of me. She calls herself ‘Mommy’ and calls me ‘Cauliflower’. She doesn’t even avoid me when she changes clothes at home…”

Zheng Xinyue couldn’t help but let out a “wow.” “That’s not a nightmare, that’s a wet dream, isn’t it?”

Jiang Lan: “Tsk, tsk, tsk—”

Chen Yuan: “You’re having these dreams, does your ex know?”

Jian Xin suddenly choked, her gaze dazed for a long time, before she suddenly realized why this scene felt so familiar.

—It’s so similar, so very similar.

She was just like the main character in Stephen Chow’s famous scene from The Mermaid, anxiously trying to report to the police, constantly saying absurd lines that were clearly true but would only make people laugh.

The only difference was probably that she had been a little more careful and hadn’t said it was real, just used a dream as a substitute, so for now, no one would think she had lost her mind.

Jian Xin sighed softly and shook her head. “Forget it, I won’t talk about it anymore. Yue Zi can just come with me to pray later. Nothing else is important.”

Zheng Xinyue: “No problem, let’s eat, let’s eat!”

Jian Xin: “Let’s eat, let’s eat!”

No matter what’s going on, let’s just eat first!

After this meal, Jian Xin spent another half a month lazing around at home, doing nothing.

She discovered that as long as there was no income anxiety, the curtains weren’t drawn so tightly, and she remembered to open the window for ventilation every day, then the days of recovery could be very easy and happy.

She would read novels and watch dramas every day, catch up on the variety shows she hadn’t finished at Yan Lu’s place, eat when she was hungry, sleep when she was tired, and if she had any inspiration, she would open her computer and jot it down. If she felt lonely, she could always find someone who would reply to her messages in seconds to chat with.

Please, this is life!

If it weren’t for the damn thing of turning into a duck every few days, she couldn’t even imagine how happy a girl she would be!

But perhaps because it had happened so many times, Jian Xin had gradually become numb to the matter of waking up as a duck.

Whether she was a duck or a person, she still had to eat and sleep, right?

Besides, she could also listen to music and watch variety shows at Yan Lu’s place—and even, from a certain perspective, her legs were more flexible when she was a duck than when she was a person!

The days passed, and in the blink of an eye, it was already mid-November.

After four follow-up check-ups, Jian Xin’s cast on her right leg was finally removed.

The joints of her right leg, which had just had the cast removed, were inevitably stiff and required a certain amount of rehabilitation training to slowly regain their weight-bearing capacity.

Yan Lu remembered the doctor’s instructions and set three alarms on her phone, reminding Jian Xin every day to do at least three ten-minute flexion and extension exercises.

Not only that, but to avoid nutritional deficiencies caused by eating randomly or too little during her recovery, Jian Xin’s three daily meals had changed from her own casually ordered takeout to nutritious meals prepared by a private chef Yan Lu had hired.

Meat, eggs, milk, soy products, peeled and cut fruits, and even calcium tablets that she hadn’t had since elementary school, all suddenly came into her world.

To be treated so attentively by an ex, Jian Xin was somewhat flattered.

But flattered as she was, the pain was not lessened in the slightest.

It didn’t hurt much when she was in a cast, but now that the cast was off and the fixation was gone, she had to try to move her joints every day—this thing, it hurt every time she moved. Even though the weather had already cooled down, it would always make her break out in a cold sweat from the pain.

One time, when the pain was particularly bad, Jian Xin started to regret it like crazy while lying in bed.

Why did I have to go and drink so much on my birthday?

And if I was going to drink, fine, but to be smiling after getting hit, thinking I was some legendary crash-proof king, being sent flying and still being discharged in half a month…

Now, the cast was off, and she couldn’t smile anymore.

She had said she would go to a temple to pray after this thing was removed, but in her current state, how could she have the mind to go to a temple?

If only I hadn’t drunk back then—

But, if I really hadn’t drunk back then, would I have met Yan Lu?

Jincheng is so big, and they live so far apart. What is the probability of meeting again in the vast sea of people?

Jian Xin couldn’t figure out the answer to this question, so she no longer resented herself for having to drink that night.

Time always passes quickly. In what seemed like the blink of an eye, the New Year’s Eve bell had already rung.

Jian Xin held her phone, opened her private chat with Yan Lu, and started to compose a blessing message.

—Happy New Year, Yan Lu! Thank you so much for your care over the past few months. My body has pretty much recovered, and the job you helped me get has also been a great help. I don’t know how to repay you. In the new year, if there’s anything you need, please don’t be polite. I’ll be on standby at any time!

Jian Xin: “…”

This isn’t good, it looks very bad.

—Happy New Year, Teacher Yan Lu! Thanks to your care over the past few months, my body has been able to recover so smoothly! Our reunion is fate. In the new year, let’s continue to be good friends!

Ugh, this is even worse.

—Happy New Year, Yan Lu! In the new year, I wish you success in all your endeavors, endless inspiration, and that all your new books will be bestsellers! If you don’t mind, I’d also like to write a few songs for your novels!

Jian Xin looked at the message in the input box, hesitated, and finally chose to delete it.

How should I say it…

As she was struggling, her phone suddenly vibrated. It was Yan Lu who had sent her a message first.

Perched by the Roadside: Happy New Year.

Jian Xin couldn’t help but tilt her head.

So concise, not even a name. Is this—a group message?

Jian Xin thought for a few seconds, then suddenly shook her head and patted her head.

Aiya, why am I overthinking this?

Even if it is a group message, I’m still on the great author’s group message list!

That’s an honor, okay?!

Picked Up a Heart: You too!

Picked Up a Heart: Happy Year of the Dragon, may all your wishes come true!

Picked Up a Heart: [Happy dog]

After replying, Jian Xin pursed her lips, exited the private chat interface, casually copied a text, and sent it to everyone she was still in contact with from QQ to WeChat.

Finally, she clicked into her “family” WeChat group and silently snatched the two large red envelopes that her parents had sent.

Huang He: See, I told you, she won’t even show up if you just say Happy New Year. You have to send a red envelope.

Jian Changjiang: It’s true.

This Person is Dead: No way! I was just busy replying to messages, okay!

This Person is Dead: Happy New Year, Mom and Dad!!

This Person is Dead: [Big kiss]

Huang He: When are you coming back this year?

Huang He: You didn’t come back for the National Day holiday. You’ll come back early for the New Year, right?

Huang He: Don’t work too hard either. It doesn’t matter if you get a promotion or a raise. Your health is the most important thing. You can’t earn money but not have the life to spend it.