The Little Duck 56

Chapter 56

When Yan Lu woke up, her head was a little dizzy.

The little duck was curled up quietly by her pillow, its eyes closed.

A few napkins were tucked under the duck’s butt, as if it was afraid of pooping on the bed in the middle of the night.

Looking at the crumpled napkins, Yan Lu couldn’t help but laugh.

The next second, she came back to her senses and quickly suppressed her smile.

Fortunately, it was just a barely audible chuckle, and it didn’t wake up the little one in front of her.

Yan Lu turned her face to the side and quietly looked at the little duck by her pillow.

So, who are you now?

Is it Jian Xin? Or Cauliflower?

No matter who it was now, Jian Xin had been here last night.

She had been with her all night…

Yan Lu remembered that she had had a few drinks last night and had said some things she probably shouldn’t have.

But she knew very clearly that she had been keeping these words in her heart and had wanted to tell Jian Xin for a long, long time.

She had once written a passage in her novel, through the mouth of the main character.

If one day, I show you my old scars, it means that they no longer hurt.

No matter how long or deep, how ugly they are.

I am willing to let you see them, which means I am willing to believe again that you will not despise their existence.

But, she had a little selfish thought.

In her third year of high school, she was the one who had confessed first.

This time, she wanted to hear Jian Xin say it herself…

—Drunk times don’t count.

Yan Lu couldn’t help but reach out and pat the little duck’s head.

The little duck was sleeping soundly and didn’t wake up when it was patted, just shrank its neck.

Yan Lu got up and washed up, then went back to the bed and opened her phone to take a look—just now, Jian Xin had sent her a message.

Picked Up a Heart: Morning!

Perched by the Roadside: Morning.

After replying, Yan Lu looked down at the duck on the bed.

After a brief silence, she carried it all the way from the bed to the sleeping Xin Xin by the window.

Finally, she looked down at her phone again.

Picked Up a Heart: Do you have any plans today?

Perched by the Roadside: No.

Picked Up a Heart: What a coincidence! Me neither!

Picked Up a Heart: Want to go for a walk?

Perched by the Roadside: When Xin Xin wakes up, I have to take it downstairs for a walk first.

Picked Up a Heart: Let’s go together? I’ll go to your place.

Perched by the Roadside: Okay.

Picked Up a Heart: [Have a safe trip, duck]

Yan Lu put down her phone, pursed her lips, crouched down, and hugged her knees, quietly looking at the two little ones in front of her.

Cauliflower had been carried all the way from the bed, and it was actually a little awake now, its eyes opening and closing, but its consciousness seemed to be hazy, and its neck was still shrunk.

Xin Xin was sleeping unusually straight, like a piece of toast with legs and a tail.

She gently patted its fluffy little head, and its pointy ears twitched slightly.

Xin Xin squinted its eyes open, and seeing that it was its owner’s hand, it tilted its head up and licked it a few times.

But its attention was soon drawn to the duck beside it.

The little dog had just sat up from the floor, and the first thing it did was to slap the back of the duck’s head.

The expression at that moment seemed to say—I’m awake, why are you still sleeping?

Cauliflower was slapped so hard that its eyes flew open, and its originally somewhat cloudy gaze became much clearer.

The next second, the two little ones started to play-fight in front of Yan Lu again.

Yan Lu smiled and sat down on the sofa on the side, and started to take pictures of them with her phone.

Their movements were very fast, and there were many blurs in the snapshots. Yan Lu took many pictures in a row, and finally chose three that were passable and sent them to Jian Xin.

Picked Up a Heart: Xin Xin is bullying Cauliflower again!

Picked Up a Heart: Well done!

A hint of a smile appeared on Yan Lu’s face.

Well done? So now that the duck being chased and bullied by Xin Xin is not her, she can say whatever she wants without feeling any pain.

Jian Xin arrived half an hour later.

Xin Xin and Cauliflower had already finished their food and were just in time to go downstairs for a walk.

The community where this homestay was located was not large, so they took Xin Xin and Cauliflower outside the community and walked along a tree-lined sidewalk, their pace sometimes fast and sometimes slow.

From time to time, pedestrians would turn their heads to look at them.

It wasn’t that they were looking at the people, but mainly at the duck.

After all, it was an unfamiliar place. No matter how well-behaved Cauliflower usually was, she was afraid that if something happened and it flew away, she wouldn’t be able to find it, so Yan Lu had also put a leash on Cauliflower.

People had seen many people walking dogs, but it was rare to see someone walking a duck.

A little duck on a leash was walking on the ground with an “I-don’t-recognize-my-own-kin” gait, swaying from side to side, and from time to time, it would even play with the Corgi on the side. Many people found it strange and couldn’t help but take a few more glances.

A child saw it, tugged on his mom’s clothes, pointed at Cauliflower, and shouted in a childish voice, “A duck! Mom, those two sisters are walking a duck!”

Jian Xin: “Cauliflower’s head-turning rate is really not low.”

Yan Lu: “A lot of people in the community also looked at first, but they got used to it after seeing it more often.”

Jian Xin: “Then why did you start raising a duck in the first place?”

Yan Lu: “I saw someone raising one online and thought it was interesting. Later, I came across a Weibo post from the same city, saying that they had bought a breeding duck, and it had laid a lot of eggs. There were a few too many ducklings, and they really couldn’t raise them all, so they hoped to find some people who really liked Call ducks to adopt them.”

Jian Xin was a little curious after hearing this. “Why did they buy a breeding duck?”

“They all say that Call ducks have to be raised from a young age to be close to people, but most of the ducks that can be delivered online after a bumpy ride are not small, so many people choose to buy eggs to hatch themselves and start raising them from the moment they hatch.”

“But it’s very easy to buy fake eggs online. Those fake eggs are either unfertilized or just not Call duck eggs,” Yan Lu said, and couldn’t help but laugh. “The girl who gave me the duck was obsessed and only wanted to raise them from hatching, but she was scammed three times in a row when she bought eggs, so in a fit of anger, she bought two breeding ducks, and as a result, she had too many, and later she started to give away ducks and eggs everywhere.”

“She doesn’t sell them?”

“No, she’s always been giving them away. If someone wants to raise one but doesn’t know how to hatch it, she’ll even help to hatch it,” Yan Lu said. “I still have her contact information. I don’t know if she’s still giving them away.”

“If she’s still giving them away, do you want one?” Jian Xin asked with a laugh.

Yan Lu shook her head, looked at the little duck running in front of her, and said with a laugh, “Even if I want to find a companion for Cauliflower, I have to find one of a similar age, right?”

“A blind date, right?” Jian Xin didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “I know that people can’t escape blind dates, but this is the first time I’ve known that ducks can also go on blind dates—you duck moms are really playing with flowers!”

Yan Lu: “I don’t dare to take Cauliflower on a blind date now. Who knows if the one I’m taking on a blind date is a person or a duck?”

Jian Xin: “…”

Yan Lu: “The small group for the blind date is still asking me why I haven’t been going lately.”

Jian Xin: “…”

Yan Lu: “Those two little ducks both really like your Cauliflower.”

Jian Xin shook her head and waved her hands repeatedly. “No, no, Tieban and Babao, right? They kept chasing and pecking at me. I was really scared… Anyway, I don’t understand how they ducks interact with each other.”

Yan Lu couldn’t help but be curious. “When you turn into a duck, can you understand what ducks are saying?”

“Not at all!” At the mention of this, Jian Xin took a deep breath and sighed heavily. “I was listening to those two ducks quacking in my ear, and my mind was full of ‘oh no, I don’t understand at all!’ I didn’t know if I should quack or not, because I don’t know the duck’s grammar either. What if I say something wrong and cause a misunderstanding?”

“But they were all quacking, and if I didn’t make a sound, wouldn’t that make me seem very unsociable?” Jian Xin said helplessly. “So I just quacked along with them, and then they started to chase and peck at me! I don’t even know what happened, and I don’t even understand what I said!”

Yan Lu couldn’t help but laugh out loud after hearing this.

“You’re still laughing at me!”

“I saw you quacking so loudly usually, and I thought you had already mastered a new language.”

“Isn’t that when I’m quacking at you, and at the dog?” Jian Xin said righteously. “Anyway, you and Xin Xin can’t possibly understand, so I can quack however I want. As long as the emotion is there, isn’t that enough?”

She said that this kind of thing was like writing a Japanese-style passionate song for a client. She hadn’t learned Japanese, and humming the melody with “la-la-la” and “ah-ah-ah” didn’t have the right feel, and it was easy to be rejected by the client.

So later she learned a trick from Zheng Xinyue. Anyway, she was just a songwriter. After writing the melody, she would just randomly combine some Romanized sounds and sing it, and then throw it over. Even if the content was nonsense, as long as the client heard the right feel, they would happily pay the final payment.

“That works?”

“Of course, music has no borders, and it can also have no language!” Jian Xin said with a grin. The Xin Xin in her hand suddenly saw a dog coming towards them, and it instantly wagged its tail and rushed forward, pulling her, the lame one, so hard that she was almost flying.

Yan Lu was startled, and she quickly went forward to swap the leashes with her. She held Xin Xin, and gave Cauliflower to Jian Xin.

It was an hour later when the two of them returned to the homestay.

Xin Xin had had enough running outside and found a sunny spot in the room to lie down.

Cauliflower leaned against Xin Xin, its head tilted, and it didn’t know what it was looking at.

Jian Xin sat on the sofa, rubbing her right leg. Yan Lu ordered a two-person set of spicy hot pot, sat down beside Jian Xin, and looked down at her hand, which was rubbing her leg.

“Does it still hurt a lot?” Yan Lu couldn’t help but ask.

“It does, but it’s alright. I’m used to it,” Jian Xin said, rubbing her leg and telling Yan Lu with a smile, “At the last check-up, the doctor said that my recovery is good, and I can slowly try to use my crutches less and let my leg get used to the feeling of bearing weight normally—actually, even before the doctor said that, I could already walk without crutches, but I just couldn’t walk for too long.”

“That’s good.”

“The doctor said that as long as I do my rehabilitation well, I won’t be lame, but there will be some after-effects.”

“What after-effects?”

“Mmm… it might hurt a little when it’s cold, or when it’s raining,” Jian Xin said with a nonchalant smile and even made a joke about herself. “It’s a small problem. Experiencing old cold legs in advance, how is that not a kind of life?”

Yan Lu lowered her eyelashes, her voice soft. “You can always think on the bright side of everything.”

Hearing this, Jian Xin pouted, looked up at Yan Lu, and tilted her head to ask, “Aren’t you also thinking on the bright side of many things?”

Yan Lu looked into her eyes, a faint smile in her eyes. “That’s different. I’ve never been hit by a car, and I wouldn’t be grinning on a hospital bed.”

Jian Xin did not refute, just smiled and asked her, “Should we go for a walk after we finish eating?”

“Where to?”

“Let’s go and have a look at the old park. We haven’t been there in a long time, and there’s a lot of food there… I suddenly have a craving for fermented black bean hot pot.”

“Okay,” Yan Lu replied, and couldn’t help but ask, “With your leg like this, can you still play with those things?”

“I can’t even if I want to,” Jian Xin said, looking at Yan Lu and saying softly, “The amusement park over there has been demolished, and only a park is left. You don’t even need a ticket to go in now, it’s just a place for a walk.”

Yan Lu was silent for a moment, then tilted her head and asked, “Then you’re still going?”

“Uh-huh—isn’t there a lot of food there?” Jian Xin said quickly. “If you don’t want to go, we can also go somewhere else.”

“Let’s just go to the old park,” Yan Lu said, looking down at Xin Xin and Cauliflower by the window, and murmured, “I also want to go and have a look…”

After lunch, they left food for the two little ones, first took a taxi to the restaurant where they had had dinner last night, got their car from the parking lot, and then followed the navigation to the direction of the old park.

Yan Lu had not been back to Nanjiang for seven years, and every place here was strange to her. It wasn’t until the navigation led her to the small road that was slightly familiar in her memory that she recalled a little something.

Further in, there was no convenient place to park.

She parked the car in a parking spot on the side of the road, and together with Jian Xin, she walked towards the once-lively long street.

Not counting this time, Yan Lu had been here a total of two times.

The first time she came, her impression of this street was—very narrow, very crowded, and very lively.

The second time she came, she felt that the street was a little wider.

The street vendors were all gone, only the shops on both sides, with restaurants and snack shops. The tables and chairs that couldn’t fit in the shops would be placed on the street, so the street was still narrow and not convenient for cars.

And this time, there were fewer shops on both sides, and the shops were all deserted. Naturally, there was no need to put tables and chairs outside the shops, so the street suddenly looked much wider.

They walked slowly from the outside in, buying some snacks along the way, such as grilled tofu, fried potatoes, and fried tofu balls—the taste was still the same as in her memory.

The park that once required a ticket to enter now didn’t even have a main gate.

As long as you kept walking down the long street, when you reached the end of the street and there were no more shops on either side, and the greenery increased, that was the park now.

There were no more amusement facilities here, so there were naturally fewer children and more elderly people.

—Playing chess, walking, walking dogs, and fishing by the river.

Jian Xin said that later in the evening, there would also be square dancing.

Although after the amusement park was demolished, it was not as lively as before, but after all, it was still the city center, and the environment was also very good, so it would not be deserted.

Yan Lu looked at the flowers and plants along the way and asked softly, “When was it demolished?”

“I don’t know. I came to take a look one year after the pandemic, and it was already like this,” Jian Xin said, her eyes curving slightly. “But look, many of the trees have lights on them. When it gets dark, it’s still very beautiful here.”

She said that the last time she had been here was at night.

To be precise, it was at dusk, not long after dinner, when the sky had not yet darkened. She had parted ways with the friend she had had dinner with and had taken a slow walk by herself, and had unknowingly walked to this side.

Actually, she was just a little full and wanted to digest her food before going home, but she had unknowingly walked from dusk to night.

The old park was no longer the old park with only one entrance. She had come from the other side, and at first, she hadn’t even realized that she had already walked into the old park. It wasn’t until she walked out of a familiar intersection that she found that this place had changed so much.

Yan Lu: “It’s really been many years…”

Jian Xin: “Yeah.”

It really has been many years.

What was she thinking in her heart when she had come back here at that time?

Jian Xin thought seriously for a moment, but she really couldn’t remember her mood at that time, so she just let it go.

Anyway, no matter what she was thinking at that time, it was all related to a person who had been gone for a long time.

At that time, she might have also fantasized that one day, she could bring that person back to take a look—to see the silent time, and also to see the them of the past.

How wonderful, she had actually brought her back.

“Yan Lu.”

“Mmm?”

“…” A cool wind blew by, bringing a hint of coolness, and blew away the words that were on the tip of her tongue but were somewhat inappropriate.

Jian Xin pursed her lips, lifted a smile, and tilted her head to ask Yan Lu, “There’s a tea pavilion ahead. Should we go and sit?”

Yan Lu: “Okay.”

This tea pavilion had also been there before, but at that time, it sold sweet drinks that children liked, as well as some grilled sausages, grilled skewers, and grilled small tofu.

Now this was a real tea pavilion, and it sold nothing but tea, but it was quite popular with the elderly.

Jian Xin had just sat down when she started to joke, saying that the two of them were drinking tea here now, didn’t it have a bit of a “middle-aged, gradually becoming calm” vibe?

Yan Lu looked around and said faintly, “It’s not like there are no young people.”

“I used to think that drinking was very high-class, not the kind of beer and white wine at the dinner table, but the kind of mixed drinks in a bar, very stylish!” Jian Xin said with a laugh. “But now I feel that it’s also very stylish to sit and drink tea like this, looking at this pavilion, at these tables and chairs, at the flowers, plants, and trees all around…”

At this point, her words paused for a few seconds, as if she were seriously brewing her words, but in the end, all she said was, “Mmm, very stylish!”

“Tea has its good points, and wine has its good points,” Yan Lu said faintly.

“Yeah!”

Whether it’s tea or wine, there’s nothing wrong with liking what you like, and there’s no conflict in liking both.

Those who, after so many years, finally understand these things have also, after all the twists and turns, returned to a familiar place.

They sat in the tea pavilion, talking about everything under the sun. In these past few years, their worlds had grown much larger, and their topics were finally no longer limited to their own hobbies, nor was it just one person constantly talking to themselves.

As they chatted, it was unknowingly dusk.

They got up and walked out of the tea pavilion, and along the trees and the river, they walked under a sunset that was half dim blue and half orange-red.

Nanjiang in early May was not hot at all, and there was even a hint of coolness in the wind.

They walked from dusk to night, and seeing the lights on the surrounding trees suddenly light up, and hearing the sound of square dancing in the distance, and after walking out of the park, they also saw the people on the street, some leisurely and some in a hurry, brushing past them.

That night, they ate at an old, well-known fermented black bean hot pot restaurant.

Jian Xin said that this shop was almost as old as she was. When she was a child and her grandparents were still around, the whole family would often come here for a meal.

After so many years, it was still open, and the taste hadn’t changed much.

In these years in Jincheng, she had missed this taste for a long time.

Although she came back every year, her parents didn’t seem to be interested in this kind of heavy-flavored hot pot anymore, and she couldn’t find anyone to eat it with, so it had been a long, long time since she had eaten it.

She said, then couldn’t help but look up at Yan Lu. “Are you used to it?”

“Mmm,” Yan Lu replied softly.

“I always feel that you’re not a picky eater at all…” Jian Xin said, putting half a plate of pork belly into the hot pot, and sighed with some helplessness. “I don’t even know what you like to eat.”

“What preferences can I have? I ate whatever was available when I was a child,” Yan Lu said, then thought for a moment and said with a smile, “If I have to say, I have a Chinese stomach. I can’t eat those too-high-end foreign dishes.”

“Uh-huh—I found that out last year.”

“Auntie’s sweet and sour fish and shiitake mushroom with pork are both very delicious,” Yan Lu said, picking up a slice of lotus root and saying softly, “I miss it sometimes. Although she taught me how to make it, I just can’t replicate the taste she makes.”

“Then… when will you go to my house to eat it again?”

“If there’s a chance.”

If there’s a chance again…

Jian Xin nodded and didn’t ask any more.

She knew that Yan Lu was in Nanjiang now, and if she really wanted to go, she could go at any time.

But Yan Lu only said—”if there’s a chance.”

In the end, it meant that there was no chance.

But it didn’t matter. As long as she wasn’t directly rejected, there would always be a chance.

Taking a huge step back, even if she was directly rejected, it didn’t mean that she wouldn’t change her mind, right?

With this thought, Jian Xin put a piece of cooked fried gluten into Yan Lu’s plate. “You try this, this is delicious—it really soaks up the juice!”

Yan Lu: “Your cauliflower is ready.”

Jian Xin: “Oh!”

Her cauliflower was indeed ready. It was cooked soft and was very flavorful, her favorite degree of doneness.

Jian Xin usually put cauliflower in her bowl, and with a smile in her eyes, she would complain, “Ever since I was hit by your cousin, every time I eat cauliflower, I feel like I can hear a duck’s quack in my head!”

“That’s very noisy.”

“Isn’t it!” Jian Xin sighed, not forgetting to also give Yan Lu some, and with a tone that was suspiciously like Empress Shiji’s, she muttered some jokes that were a little hellish for a duck. “Aiya~~ little cauliflower, why are you so limp, duck~~ little cauliflower can’t possibly have any rights, oh~~ little cauliflower is born to be eaten!”

Yan Lu, who was listening on the side, couldn’t help but laugh. “Are you really not afraid of being kidnapped by Cauliflower for three days and three nights?”

“It’s not here!” Jian Xin’s tone was full of arrogance. “Besides, Cauliflower is silly every day. How can it look like it understands human language? If it could understand, wouldn’t we really have an immortal in our house?”

“Our house?” Yan Lu raised her eyebrows slightly.

Jian Xin was a little embarrassed and opened her mouth, and quickly changed the subject. “Hey, speaking of which, why did you give the duck this name?”

Yan Lu was silent for a moment, then looked up at Jian Xin.

Jian Xin: “What are you looking at me for?”

Yan Lu said faintly, “Don’t you like to eat cauliflower?”

Jian Xin: “Huh? Me?”

Yan Lu: “Aren’t you?”

Jian Xin blinked, and it took her a long time to say, “Yes, that’s true… but I like to eat a lot of things, and this is just one of them.”

She said, then started to count on her fingers. “I also like lettuce, potatoes, eggplant, corn, tomatoes, baby cabbage, kelp, loofah, bean sprouts, green beans, and houttuynia…”

Yan Lu frowned. “What are you counting?”

Jian Xin: “What I like!”

Yan Lu: “No one asked you.”

Jian Xin pouted and continued to eat with her head down.

As she ate, she couldn’t help but lift the corners of her mouth.

—Cauliflower?

So, by Yan Lu’s side, the names that were related to her were not only Xin Xin, but also Cauliflower.

It was her fault that she liked too many things. It had been over half a year, and she hadn’t even thought in that direction.

But this was not a very important matter. Maybe she had just thought of it when she was naming it, and so she had just called it that.

But Yan Lu, her mouth was not as hard as in her memory these past two days.

She thought, maybe soon.

She would soon be able to hold her hand again.