The Little Duck 67

Chapter 67

The April wind carried a late spring chill.

Like a heart that could not be warmed, it quietly grew more and more distant.

Chen Yuan had selected some of the highlights from the concert, made them into a compilation video, and sent it to the group for everyone to discuss and revise.

What a lively group, what lively people.

But for the first time, Jian Xin felt that she couldn’t quite fit in.

She sat on her bed, hugging her knees, and stared at the laptop on the small table in a daze.

It was as if she were thinking about something, but she also felt that her mind was actually empty.

She and Yan Lu were carrying on their daily check-in-like communication, as if nothing had happened, but something had quietly changed.

She suddenly felt bored.

The other party’s perfunctory but instant replies were very boring.

Her behavior of sharing everything with the other party was also very boring.

Jian Xin couldn’t help but think that Yan Lu had probably changed.

But on second thought, she would feel that Yan Lu didn’t seem to have changed.

Yan Lu seemed to have always been like this, indifferent to many things, and her words and actions were very boring.

—Like a piece of ice that could not be melted.

She had seen some flowers and grass through the ice, and thought that there was a whole spring hidden inside. She had been full of anticipation, waiting for the spring to come and the flowers to bloom, but in the end, she was almost frozen, and she still hadn’t seen anything.

Where was the spring?

There was clearly nothing inside.

It was her wishful thinking, her insistence on imagining a perfect lover, and then pre-setting a beautiful ending for them.

But reality was not like that.

She had worked so hard to get closer to the direction she had hoped for, but all she got was suppression and fatigue.

In the end, the suppression and fatigue had all turned into a kind of boredom.

So boring. It turned out that the once-fiery thoughts had long since quietly turned into a handful of ashes. It was just a gust of wind blowing by, and they were scattered, and they couldn’t be gathered again.

But she felt that life could still go on like this.

So she was quiet, and she and Yan Lu pretended that nothing had happened.

On the sixth day after the concert, Jian Xin received a message from Yan Lu.

Yan Lu asked, “Can I come and see you on May Day?”

As if that wasn’t enough, she added with a hint of ingratiation, “I don’t have a serial at the moment, and I’m idle anyway. I want to come and keep you company. If you’re busy, you can just do your thing. It’s fine if you come back at night. I can find something to do by myself during the day.”

Yan Lu rarely said such things. In Jian Xin’s impression, besides talking about her own novels, Yan Lu’s replies were often very concise, as if saying a few more words would kill her.

Jian Xin smiled at the message on her phone.

Her eyes were cold, without a trace of a smile.

She replied to her, “Okay.”

Two faint words, also not a reply she would have made.

Yan Lu was probably choked by these two words. It took her a long time to send back a [hug] sticker—this was also something Yan Lu would not have sent before.

Looking at the other party’s intentional ingratiation, as if the poles had reversed, Jian Xin couldn’t help but feel a sense of revenge.

But this feeling only lasted for a brief moment, and what followed was a wave of boredom.

Yan Lu was coming for May Day. Jian Xin had chosen a homestay in advance, casually packed her things, and left the school with her suitcase, checking in early.

In her suitcase, she had packed the pair of little ducks she had bought.

Jian Xin thought, no matter what, she had already bought this thing, and she should still give it to Yan Lu. Otherwise, it would be meaningless to keep it for herself—so she had brought them along.

Yan Lu arrived at seven in the evening on April 30th.

This was the first time that Jian Xin had not come to pick her up. She had just sent her a homestay address and the password for the electronic door lock.

Jian Xin and her bandmates had arranged to go to a bar to drink at night, so she didn’t have time to pick her up.

Yan Lu knew that Jian Xin was still angry, and she didn’t dare to say much for a moment. She just checked the subway lines by herself, dragged her suitcase, and followed the navigation to the homestay.

After entering the room, Yan Lu turned on the lights.

Jian Xin had clearly been here. The bedsheets and quilt in the bedroom were a little messy, and the suitcase on the floor was also open.

Yan Lu saw the two fluffy little things in the suitcase at a glance.

She walked forward and crouched down to take a look. They were two small, white little duck pendants.

They were squeezed flat by the luggage around them, and their fur looked very messy, but their magnetic little wings were still tightly hugged together.

Could this be a gift from Jian Xin to her?

She didn’t know.

Yan Lu subconsciously reached out and touched them, then retracted her hand, packed her own luggage, took out her daily necessities and change of clothes, and placed them in order with Jian Xin’s.

After packing, she took out her laptop and sat at the desk to write her outline.

A few hours passed, and she hadn’t written anything of substance.

Her heart was in a mess, and her thoughts were no longer smooth.

She thought, Jian Xin was so angry. Perhaps she should explain to her the reason why she hadn’t been able to make it to the concert.

Yan Lu closed her laptop and sat on the sofa in the living room to wait.

It was another long wait.

From eleven at night to three in the morning, she finally waited for Jian Xin.

Jian Xin had a strong smell of alcohol on her. After she entered the room, she greeted her, washed up in the bathroom, and then went straight to the bed and fell asleep.

Yan Lu opened her mouth, the words of explanation stuck in her throat. It took her a long time to sigh, wash up by herself, turn off the lights, and sleep beside Jian Xin.

The moment she got into bed, she could clearly feel Jian Xin turn over and deliberately turn her back to her.

The hand that was trying to hug her lost the courage to move.

On the first day of the May Day holiday, Jian Xin said that she had teamed up with her friends to get a discount on the recording studio.

It seemed to be some kind of holiday special, five sessions for only one thousand five hundred, two hours per session, which was a lot cheaper, and it also included mixing services, but it had to be used within a month.

The band just happened to have a new original song, and they wanted to work on it, so they were going to try it today.

So Jian Xin just simply had breakfast and was ready to leave by herself.

Yan Lu: “Can I come with you?”

Jian Xin: “No need, you don’t like these things. Won’t you be bored if you go?”

Two simple sentences were their parting words after breakfast.

If it had been in the past, if Yan Lu had said she wanted to go with her, Jian Xin would have been overjoyed, and would have started chattering on the way, feeling extremely happy that Yan Lu was trying to be a part of her world.

But this time, Jian Xin just said “no need,” and just left Yan Lu alone in the homestay.

Yan Lu waited from morning to afternoon, and couldn’t help but send a message to ask her, “Are you coming back for dinner today?”

The reply was—no, I have a date with my friends to eat out.

Yan Lu thought for a moment and asked again, “Then when are you coming back?”

Jian Xin replied, “I don’t know.”

With this “I don’t know,” Yan Lu once again waited alone in the homestay until the early morning.

It was like last night, but the smell of alcohol was a little lighter, and she still looked quite sober.

Jian Xin drew the curtains, took off her coat, and walked towards the bathroom with her pajamas and bath towel.

Yan Lu wanted to follow her in, but Jian Xin had closed the door before she could.

It was half an hour later when Jian Xin came out of the shower.

Yan Lu saw her come out with her hair wet, and the water droplets flowed down her collarbone and into her half-wrapped pajamas. She subconsciously swallowed and went forward to say something.

The sound of the hairdryer once again blocked the words in her heart.

On the second night of her arrival in the Capital, Jian Xin still went to bed after finishing her own things without a word.

It was as if she were avoiding something, or rejecting something. On the surface, it was calm, but in reality, she was rejecting any communication with Yan Lu.

On May 2nd, Jian Xin found another excuse to go out.

This time it was even more perfunctory than yesterday. It seemed that she didn’t even want to pretend anymore and just left with a “I have a dinner date with my friends.”

Yan Lu obediently stopped her steps of wanting to follow, and as well-behaved as ever, she stayed in this strange homestay.

Tomorrow, she would be leaving.

She had come all this way, and she hadn’t even said a few words.

Were they going to be like this from now on?

Yan Lu looked at the traffic outside the window and suddenly felt a sense of loneliness and emptiness, as if the hustle and bustle of this world had nothing to do with her.

Actually, it wasn’t sudden. She had had this feeling for a long time.

The last time, she had gone up to the roof alone, looking at a city covered in silver-white snow, at the bright lights that were on day and night, and at the cars coming and going on the road, and she had already had this feeling.

But this time it was even stronger.

That night, Jian Xin was still back in the early morning.

Yan Lu had been sitting on the sofa, scrolling through her phone, bored.

The phone’s battery had been full and then empty, and empty and then charged. She had finally waited for the person who was unwilling to come back.

The moment Jian Xin entered the door, Yan Lu stood up. Before the other person could even give a polite greeting as usual, she spoke first.

“Perhaps we should talk.”

“Hmm?” Jian Xin pretended not to understand.

Actually, her acting was very bad, because the resistance in her eyes was not hidden.

But Yan Lu did not let her go, just went forward to block her way, and for the second time, she said that sentence with great determination, “We should talk.”

“Talk about what?”

“Are you still angry?”

“No.”

“You’re still angry,” Yan Lu’s tone became certain.

She looked at Jian Xin, and with her patience that had been worn down by waiting, she quietly gazed at the eyes that were trying to avoid her, as if waiting for Jian Xin’s answer.

She thought, Jian Xin must still be angry.

Since she was angry, then she should vent it, even if it was to blame her, or even to scold her.

But Jian Xin’s gaze also suddenly stopped dodging, and she just quietly returned her gaze and said faintly, “No.”

Her tone was faint, with no love, and no hatred.

It was as if there had once been a fire in her heart, and then a heavy rain had fallen, and it had been extinguished.

After the fire was extinguished, the ashes were left in place, and then blown away by the wind.

So natural, so calm, it did not stir up a single ripple in a person’s heart.

All of this was beyond Yan Lu’s expectations. She suddenly didn’t know how to face it.

Jian Xin passed her obstruction and walked into the bedroom as if nothing had happened, changing into her light pajamas.

Yan Lu was taken aback for a moment, then followed her into the room and asked again, “Then why are you avoiding me?”

“Is this considered avoiding?”

“Isn’t it?”

“I’m just doing what I think is interesting,” Jian Xin said, turning to look at Yan Lu, her eyes filled with a hint of confusion, and also a hint of sarcasm. “Do you think it’s interesting for us to be cooped up in a homestay like this?”

“I can go out with you.”

“You’re not happy, you don’t like it,” Jian Xin said with a smile, and nonchalantly, “It’s fine, I know. I’m not trying to force you into my little circle. We can just do our own things, and no one will spoil anyone’s fun.”

“…”

Yan Lu was speechless.

In this plain tone, there was a hint of resentment.

She wanted to grab them, to prove that she could change, that she could find the problem, and that she could do better next time.

But she suddenly felt that her breathing had become so difficult.

It was an inexplicable grievance that had drowned her the moment she heard these words.

She felt that she should have a lot to say to Jian Xin.

She knew that her broken promise had greatly disappointed Jian Xin, and to make Jian Xin a little happier, she had taken the initiative to come to the Capital to accompany her this holiday.

But her feelings, her knowledge, had all become a big joke in the face of a light and breezy “not interesting.”

So she couldn’t help but ask, “Do you have to be like this?”

With a thin layer of mist in front of her eyes, with the last taut string in her heart, and with the last bit of reason, she once again asked softly, “Do you have to talk to me with this kind of attitude?”

“Then what kind of attitude?” Jian Xin asked back. “Like before, a big fight?”

“…”

“Do you like that hysterical me? The hysterical me, in front of the calm you, does it look particularly like a defeated person who has lost their composure?”

“…”

“Yan Lu, do you know, I suddenly started to understand you very well. In the past, I really didn’t understand why you could be so calm in every argument,” Jian Xin said, and couldn’t help but laugh. “Now I understand. It turns out that when you’re calm enough, it’s because your heart is also cold.”

Yan Lu didn’t quite understand what Jian Xin was saying. Why did every word hit her heart, so light in tone, yet so heavy in words, pressing on her so much that she could barely breathe.

“What do you want to talk to me about?” Jian Xin sat on the edge of the bed and looked at her nonchalantly. “Is there anything left for us to talk about?”

“My dad died, he fell into a river after getting drunk, I…”

“Mmm-hmm,” Jian Xin nodded. “Your dad is more important than me.”

“…It’s not.”

“It is, you’ve proven it with your actions,” Jian Xin said faintly. “He gave birth to you, he raised you, he’s your biological dad. So he scolds you, he hits you, and he even trades you for a dowry. When he dies, you still have to send him off.”

“…” It’s not like that.

“Yan Lu, let me say something harsh. If it weren’t for my family paying the money your dad wanted, you would have been dragged back to marry someone you didn’t know and have children a long time ago,” Jian Xin said, tilting her head, and with two fingers, she gently shook them as if it had nothing to do with her, her words full of indifference. “Two hundred thousand, that year, my family bought you. You probably don’t know, do you?”

Yan Lu was at a loss for words for a moment, just looking at Jian Xin in shock.

For a moment, she suddenly felt that Jian Xin had become so strange, so strange that she was no longer the person she was once familiar with.

And a thought came to her heart, that the reason Jian Xin had become so strange at this moment was that she, this detestable person, was the biggest “contributor.”

But what should she say, and what could she do?

Yan Lu didn’t know, she had lost the ability to think.

She only knew that Jian Xin was sitting in front of her, and with a blank expression, she continued to speak.

“Are you curious why I’m saying this? Because I suddenly woke up. I’m like a fool who has fallen into a fairytale dream, fantasizing about an unrealistic love, and then once I’ve fallen so deep that even though it hurts, I try to ignore the reality that is trying to call me back.”

“I’ve really read too many trashy romance novels, and they’ve all ruined me…”

“I used to think that we were like the main characters in a novel who were destined to be together. I should be the little sun, responsible for healing you, for saving you.”

“I even once thought that I was your angel, that I would warm you, and that you would love me to the point of being inseparable… we would go through hardships, and become better versions of ourselves together, and in the end, we would be happy and blissful.”

“But I was wrong,” Jian Xin said, and at this point, there was a hint of helplessness and a choke in her voice. “I’m nothing. I was so confident to the point of being arrogant. I can’t even control my own joys, angers, sorrows, and happiness, and yet I still deluded myself into thinking I could save someone else.”

“How can there be so many novel protagonists?” she said with a self-deprecating laugh, her eyes brimming with tears. “Most people in this world live a mediocre life—I’m not as amazing as I had imagined. I can’t be the little sun in a story that heals others. I’m not anyone’s angel, I’m just an ordinary person…”

So, Jian Xin seemed to have admitted defeat.

“I admit defeat, Yan Lu,” she said, looking at Yan Lu, and through a thin layer of mist, she also looked at the pair of tearful eyes. “I have to admit that you don’t need my salvation. You don’t even need me. You can live very well by yourself.”

“And I, I’m not on the same path as you at all,” she said. “It’s just a brief journey together that has created an illusion that shouldn’t have been between us.”

Did they love each other? Perhaps they did.

The things that had happened, the happiness they had felt together, had to count for something.

But those were all in the past.

Their relationship was twisted, so as time went on, she gradually began to feel more and more pain in this relationship.

So she had thought it through, and suddenly, she had thought it through.

Because of a broken promise, she suddenly felt that all her persistence had become meaningless.

Perhaps this is what people often call being heartbroken.

She had also experienced it.

But she was inexplicably unwilling to accept this result, so she simply tore off her face and no longer wanted to maintain even basic politeness.

She just wanted Yan Lu to be in pain, to let Yan Lu feel the feeling she had already experienced many times.

This calmness that was almost emotionless, this was the way you looked at me in the past, and now you’ve felt it yourself—how does it feel? Does it hurt a lot?

Jian Xin didn’t know what Yan Lu was thinking in her heart at this moment, but the tears in her eyes were very satisfying.

At that moment, she knew that she had finally won once.

So after she had said these things, she went to wash up as if nothing had happened.

Yan Lu was very quiet, and she had been very quiet ever since Jian Xin had finished speaking.

She sat on the bed in a daze, and seeing that Jian Xin had come out of the shower, she also went to take a shower.

The two calm people climbed into bed in silence.

The night was dark, and it was so quiet that you could almost hear each other’s breathing and heartbeat.

Jian Xin was still with her back to Yan Lu, just like the past two days.

Yan Lu didn’t know how much time it took for her to muster the last bit of courage, but she reached out and gently hugged her.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly, as if in a plea. “Can you punish me?”

She buried her face in her neck and nuzzled her earlobe ingratiatingly.

But Jian Xin just gently pushed her away.

“Let’s break up.”

“…”

A light sentence, as if it had the weight of a thousand pounds.

It pulled at her heart, and it sank into the deep sea.

Yan Lu was silent for a long time, and then asked in a muffled voice, “Do you really have to be like this?”

Jian Xin told her, “I’ve thought about it for a long time, and I’ve thought it through. I can’t see a future between you and me.”

Can’t see a future?

Yan Lu did not respond, just bit by bit, she gently curled up.

The night was so long.

Jian Xin had fallen asleep, and Yan Lu sat up, and lightly and gently packed her luggage.

Everything before her was dark, and she also quickly adapted to this darkness.

Before she left the homestay, she took one last look at the two little ducks that Jian Xin had thrown in the corner of her suitcase, and crouched down to gently separate them.

Finally, she walked out of this homestay without looking back.

The sky gradually brightened.

Yan Lu stood in this strange city, feeling the cool morning breeze, and felt that every bit of noise or silence was telling her that this world had already abandoned her.

Jian Xin didn’t want her anymore, and she no longer had a home.

Where should she go?

She didn’t know.

She only knew that she couldn’t go back.

The sky was clear, but the rain in her heart was falling harder and harder, as if it would never stop.

She didn’t want to drown in this endless rain.

So, she left everything behind, packed her bags, and ran to a distant place alone.

—The sky is wide and the earth is vast, wandering freely.

*

Jian Xin had never thought that Yan Lu would really leave.

Yan Lu was always behind her, like a quiet shadow, following her every step, never separating.

So she had so boldly said such harsh words.

She was doing it on purpose, with a heart full of revenge, like a naughty child’s prank.

She was so vicious, so dark, and so unwilling to lose.

She wanted to win once, to have the upper hand in her and Yan Lu’s arguments, even just once.

She was really too tired, and she didn’t want to be the one to always be so warm to a cold butt.

But perhaps without some means, this current situation could not be changed at all.

So she had brought up the breakup.

Although she had been drinking, she was sure that she was sober enough, and when she woke up the next day, she hadn’t forgotten anything, and she didn’t have a single bit of regret.

She had said what was hidden in her heart.

And then Yan Lu was gone, and she was in a panic.

In the long days that followed, Jian Xin always felt that all of this should have been just a nightmare.

Yan Lu had never left. As long as she woke up from the dream, Yan Lu would still be lying by her pillow.

But when the dream really woke up, there was nothing by her side.

In Jian Xin’s increasingly blurry memory, there had been a very chaotic period.

She couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, and at night, she would grab her friends to go out and drink with her, and she would always have to be drunk to fall asleep.

In the brief moments of sobriety, she had tried various ways to find Yan Lu, but there was no response.

At Yan Lu’s school, they said that she had taken a leave of absence, and she was no longer at school.

At her home in Nanjiang, there was also no news about Yan Lu.

This person seemed to have just disappeared from the face of the earth. If it weren’t for the traces of her existence, it would make people feel that her appearance might also have been just a dream.

Jian Xin finally regretted it.

She seemed to have cried many times, in her mom’s arms, and in front of her friends.

But she had someone to cry with, what about Yan Lu?

Where had Yan Lu gone, who had she met, and what was she doing?

She didn’t know, she didn’t know anything.

She even felt that she had never truly known Yan Lu.

The girl who looked quiet and obedient, as if she would never refuse anyone, actually had the backbone to leave her.

She had thought that if Yan Lu left her, it would be like a fish leaving water.

But Yan Lu was not a fish after all, and she was not water after all.

So she had lost her, and she had also lost the pride in her heart.

The girl she had brought home with a full heart in high school…

Would never belong to her again.