The Little Duck 72

Chapter 72

On the morning of the first day of the Lunar New Year, Jian Xin posted a Weibo.

—After this year, I’m going to see the sea with the person I like!

I don’t know if I can bring small animals along.

A short while later, enthusiastic netizens began to share their travel experiences and suggestions in the comment section.

—Some beaches allow animals, but they must be on a leash.

—I remember there are pet-friendly hotels. You can search online before you go!

—It will be a little cold to go to the sea at this time of year. Even if you go to Haicheng, you should bring a long-sleeved shirt and pay attention to keeping warm.

—Be careful of pitfalls when traveling on your own. You can check out this post for details [Share link]

There were netizens who shared their experiences, and naturally, there were also netizens who were more concerned about emotional issues.

These netizens saw the four words “the person I like” at a glance, and they were either gossiping or sending their blessings.

—The person you like? Congratulations!

—I always thought you were single!

—Why are you showing off your love on New Year’s Day?

…

Jian Xin hadn’t looked at Weibo for a while, and when she opened it again, one of the comments had already been liked to the top.

—I wish Sister Xin and brother-in-law a long and happy life together!

She looked at this comment and thought for a while, then silently replied, “Call her sister-in-law.”

This reply made the fans explode!

Call her sister-in-law?

Does this mean she’s coming out?

Soon, a topic rushed to the hot search.

It wasn’t a high-ranking hot search, but it was indeed seen by more people.

#Jian Xin kicked the closet door down#

When she clicked in to take a look, the people who were speaking, whether they knew Jian Xin or not, were all amazed that this new star in the music industry had kicked the closet door down without any hesitation.

Some said that her courage was commendable, and some said that they couldn’t understand.

Someone said, “For a public figure to speak like this is setting a bad example for her fans.”

And someone else retorted, “Love is free, what’s it to you?”

Besides this, there were also many CP fans from Musical Encounter, who were already getting excited at this moment.

—Sister-in-law! Jian Xin said sister-in-law!! Could it be that Xin Man Yi Zu is real!!!

—It’s Man Bu Jing Xin!

—Family, I think I’ve shipped a real couple!! I’m not sure, I’ll take another look!!!

—Now, immediately, right away! Can anyone tell me that they’re real and that they’re going to make an official announcement soon!!!

The CP fans were shipping them to death, and another topic was pushed to the hot search.

#Could the CP I’m shipping be real#

This hot search was full of CP fans, which scared Jian Xin so much that she quickly opened WeChat and sent a message of apology to Feng Man.

Jian Xin: Sister! I’m sorry!

Jian Xin: [I’ll kowtow to you first]

Jian Xin: (:з」∠) I just posted a Weibo, and I accidentally dragged you into it.

Feng Man: I’ll take a look.

Jian Xin: [Dares not to speak]

A few minutes later, Feng Man sent another message.

Feng Man: So you have a girlfriend.

Jian Xin: I just got her before the New Year [Grin]

Feng Man: Then congratulations.

Feng Man: It’s nothing on my end, I’m just afraid that your little girl will mind.

Jian Xin: She doesn’t seem to mind, right? She’s even scrolled through CP edits before.

Feng Man: What a big heart.

Feng Man: I’ll handle it.

Jian Xin: [I’ll kowtow to you first]

Jian Xin wasn’t sure if Feng Man was planning to clarify this matter.

If Feng Man were to clarify it directly, it wouldn’t look very good in the eyes of outsiders. It would feel like she, this junior, was trying to ride on her senior’s coattails, and her senior was disgusted and had drawn a clear line.

But Jian Xin was overthinking it.

A senior is a senior, and she is more thorough in her work.

That day, Feng Man didn’t say anything, and she didn’t do anything. She just, through some channels, had someone “dig up” her already-scheduled itinerary for after the New Year.

Everyone took a look, and this itinerary didn’t match up with seeing the sea.

The CP fans were thus quietly shattered, and they quietly went back to their own little bit of sweetness, and sent out sighs like “I knew it couldn’t be real, but I still think it’s so good to ship.”

In these few days of the New Year, Jian Xin’s home had a lot of new things.

Duck nests, dog beds, and some small toys for the ducks and dogs.

Even the bathtub at home, which had not been used for years, had been cleaned out and was being used for the little duck to swim and play in.

Jian Xin said to Huang He, “Mom, Mom, Mom! We’re not at home for much time, there’s no need to buy so much!”

Huang He said, “We’ll use them, don’t worry, we’ll use them—you’re both freelancers, you don’t have to go to work, so you can come back often when you’re free!”

Finally, she didn’t forget to add, “Besides, we can’t wrong Xin Xin and Cauliflower just because you’re not back often.”

Jian Xin was at a loss for words for a moment and could only watch her mom continue to buy, buy, buy for the two furry children.

As she watched, she also ordered some things.

After all, she was going to see the sea after the New Year, and it was not a short distance from Nanjiang to Haicheng.

Xin Xin and Cauliflower rarely left Yan Lu, and there had been many pet shipping accidents online before, which made her a little worried, so in the end, they still decided to drive.

Because the journey was long, and for convenience, Jian Xin had bought a large pet travel carrier for the two little ones.

This way, on such a long journey, they would be able to sleep more peacefully, or if they had to poop or pee, it would be easier to clean up.

The most basic preparations were done, and the next step was to look at the guides for independent travel.

The netizens in the Weibo comment section had posted a lot of guides, and each one had a different opinion, which gave Jian Xin a bit of a headache.

Just as she was sitting at her computer, studying and taking notes, Yan Lu suddenly came up behind her with a few oranges and gently touched her arm with her elbow.

Just as Jian Xin looked up, two segments of an orange were fed into her mouth.

This orange was as if it were not ripe, and it was so sour that she instantly frowned and grimaced. “This is too sour, you shouldn’t eat it…”

“I feel like it’s alright,” Yan Lu said, finishing the rest, and said faintly on the side, “You don’t have to do any guides.”

“Just go with the flow?” Jian Xin looked at Yan Lu, a little hesitant. “This is our first time traveling together. What if the experience is not good…”

“Someone has already arranged everything for us,” Yan Lu said, and handed her phone to Jian Xin.

This was a chat history. Jian Xin scrolled up and down and took a look, and she quickly understood the situation.

The person who was chatting with Yan Lu had already arranged everything and had told them to just drive over. When they arrived, there would naturally be a local driver who was familiar with the area, and every subsequent trip would be specially picked up and dropped off.

What places were fun, and what places were delicious, that person knew.

And they would only pick up and drop off, and would not participate in the fun, guaranteeing that they would have a happy honeymoon.

Although the other party had misunderstood, and this probably wasn’t a honeymoon, having a local to lead the way did make Jian Xin breathe a sigh of relief.

But she had not expected that this person, who had arranged everything, was actually her great benefactor, Lin Xiyu.

“How does she even know this?” Jian Xin couldn’t help but ask. “You even told her this?”

Her words were more or less a little sour.

Yan Lu leaned against the side of the desk, took back her phone, and lowered her head, looking at Jian Xin with a “your brain seems a little new” look.

Jian Xin was so looked at that she shrank her neck—perhaps it was some after-effect of turning into a duck. When she was scared, she would want to shrink her neck into her duck chest.

Yan Lu: “You’re already on the hot search. Do I still need to tell anyone?”

Jian Xin: “Oh, right!”

Yan Lu smiled faintly and peeled another orange. “Aren’t you afraid of sour? How can you even be jealous of this?”

Jian Xin denied it without a second thought. “How is that possible? Who’s jealous!”

But after a brief silence, she also felt that she was a little bit… not much, just a little bit of care.

Lin Xiyu seemed to have always called Yan Lu “honey,” and not only would she have a voice chat with Yan Lu from time to time, but she would also invest her own money to adapt Yan Lu’s novels into film and television. She was also very attentive when Yan Lu needed help.

This relationship is not simple at all.

With this thought, Jian Xin changed her sitting posture, faced Yan Lu, and cleared her throat slightly. “I’m just a little curious. Did you meet through The Fallen Jade Branch?”

Yan Lu blinked, walked to the side of the bed and sat down, and replied with a smile, “No.”

Jian Xin: “There’s a story?”

Yan Lu: “I guess so.”

Jian Xin: “Then our dear Great Author Qi, is it convenient for you to tell this little reader this story?”

Yan Lu: “What if I say it’s not convenient?”

Jian Xin took a deep breath, and huffily turned her chair to face the computer, reached out and took the mouse, and aimlessly pretended to refresh the webpage.

Yan Lu laughed, clearly just teasing her.

Jian Xin finally heard the story.

It was a very special story that had happened during Yan Lu’s long journey.

One year, Yan Lu had, on a whim, gone to the far, far north.

She had taken a bus to a scenic spot and had bought a ticket to enter a scenic spot by herself.

There were horses in the scenic spot, and you could ride them if you paid.

Yan Lu had never ridden a horse before, and out of curiosity, she had paid.

Someone had led her horse up the mountain for a circle, and then had led it all the way back down.

This journey had made her butt, waist, and legs ache all over. When she had just gotten off the horse, she couldn’t even walk steadily, and the horse master was still laughing on the side, saying that it was like this for the first time, and that many tourists were very happy when they got on the horse, but they were half-dead when they got off.

“Then why didn’t you say so earlier?”

“It’s not good for business if I say so.”

The master was too honest, and she was at a loss for words for a moment.

Come to think of it, it was just an experience.

The scenery of that place was very good. It was a small, not-so-high mountain forest, with a shallow stream that flowed downstream.

At this moment, although her waist and legs were both aching, when Yan Lu thought of how hard it was to earn money usually, and since she had bought a ticket, she naturally had to play for a while longer.

So she had walked downstream along the stream.

She had walked forward aimlessly, and at the same time, she was looking for some round and beautiful small stones.

As she was walking, Yan Lu saw a girl with a shoulder bag, hugging her knees and crying by the stream.

This was still within the scenic spot, but most of the tour guides didn’t like to walk this way, and the people in the tour group wouldn’t run around on their own, so it was relatively remote.

The girl was squatting here, crying so sadly that it was not an exaggeration to describe it as wailing.

At first listen, it was as if she had been abandoned by the whole world.

Yan Lu hesitated for a moment, but in the end, she still went forward and asked, “What’s wrong with you?”

Just this short sentence of concern made the little girl cry even louder.

The little girl was a freshman in college. She had asked her family for money during the summer vacation and had arranged to go on a trip with a netizen.

But on the third day of their trip, she had had a fight with the netizen.

The netizen felt that they couldn’t get along, so she had simply bought a return ticket for the same day and had left her alone here.

She was not willing to give up. She thought that since she was already here and had done so much research, how could she not have a good time?

So she had not chosen to go home, but had continued to travel on her own according to her guide.

But one misfortune followed another. She had run into a pickpocket in this scenic spot.

Her bag had been cut open, and by the time she had reacted, her wallet and phone had already been stolen—and her ID card had also been lost along with her wallet.

She had immediately asked the scenic spot staff for help, but this scenic spot was a natural one, with almost no surveillance equipment, and she had waited for a long time but had not gotten a solution.

She didn’t dare to leave here, afraid that if she left, she would really not be able to get anything back, but it didn’t seem to be a solution to just keep waiting like this. She really didn’t know what to do, so she could only squat here and cry.

Yan Lu knew that she shouldn’t meddle in some things—the other party could be a scammer.

But that day, she just couldn’t help but meddle in this.

After all, if it was true, and she didn’t help, this little girl with no money and no phone would not know where to go tonight.

She thought, if Jian Xin had run into such a thing, she would definitely have chosen to help too.

There are always some fools in this world who have not been hurt much, and who have a kindness towards the helpless that does not care about gains or losses.

It was really strange. She suddenly had a little desire to try the feeling of being a good person.

Even if it was possible that, like some people, she would end up as a hurt fool, she still wanted to try.

So she had accompanied the little girl until sunset, and seeing that the scenic spot still had no news of the lost items, she had taken the person back to her hotel.

That night, Yan Lu had listened to the little girl say a lot of things.

From complaining about her netizen, to complaining about the pickpocket, and later, she couldn’t help but talk about some of the places she had originally wanted to go to but couldn’t now.

She couldn’t help but think at that time, this sister’s heart is really big. She dared to travel with a netizen she hadn’t talked to much, and she also dared to go back to a hotel with a stranger she had just met.

Besides being very big-hearted, she also talked a lot, so much that she was a little like Jian Xin—she didn’t care if people liked to listen or not, and she would just chatter on.

But if Jian Xin had run into trouble, she probably wouldn’t have squatted and cried alone. She would have just had a loud argument with someone in a huff, and after the argument, she would have found a way to solve the problem for herself.

At this thought, Yan Lu couldn’t help but wonder, if it had been Jian Xin, how would she have handled this situation?

But in the end, she had not come to a conclusion, perhaps because in these past few years, Jian Xin had gradually become not so omnipotent in her heart.

The next day, Yan Lu had taken the little girl to report her ID card as lost and had gone through the application process for a temporary ID card.

They had clearly chatted all night, but it wasn’t until she was helping her report her ID card as lost that she found out that this little girl was named Lin Xiyu, and she was from the Capital.

The temporary ID card was issued, and Yan Lu had originally wanted to buy a high-speed train ticket for Lin Xiyu and send her home directly.

But seeing the disappointment in Lin Xiyu’s eyes, she couldn’t help but ask, “I’m still going to be playing here for a while. Do you want to come along?”

Lin Xiyu’s eyes lit up, and she quickly nodded vigorously.

After returning to the hotel, Lin Xiyu had used her laptop to log in to QQ, and had sent a message to her family, explaining in detail what had happened to her.

Her family, hearing that she still wanted to continue to play even after all this, had no way to deal with her. They could only first transfer a sum of money to the dazed Yan Lu and let her go and buy a phone to use for the time being.

And so, they had become each other’s travel buddies for this journey—temporary ones.

Later, they had traveled through a vast desert and a vast grassland, had seen the magical Five-Colored Beach and the Devil’s City, had ridden a camel that was called “Snow White” by the person who was leading it, and had also eaten a lot of delicious food.

To be honest, if it weren’t for the fact that Lin Xiyu’s family was really rich, many of the things they had eaten and played with on the way were definitely things that Yan Lu would have been reluctant to experience.

She had also never thought that she had just been a good person on the way, and she had actually run into such a generous travel buddy.

In the end, the two of them had had a very good time and had chosen to say goodbye at the end of this journey.

After that, Lin Xiyu had often contacted her.

Lin Xiyu would read Yan Lu’s novels and would also very enthusiastically chat with Yan Lu about the plot of the novels.

She also knew that Yan Lu liked to travel around, so sometimes when she also wanted to travel, she would just ask Yan Lu where she was, and then buy a plane ticket and go directly to meet up with Yan Lu and start a new and unknown journey.

But later, Lin Xiyu had become famous, and they had never traveled together again.

Yan Lu said that at that time, she had also never thought that the little girl she had helped on the road would, a few years later, become such a famous female celebrity.

Jian Xin was jealous.

—She had never had such a journey with Yan Lu.

“She sounds like a little fairy. You weren’t moved at all?”

“Do you want me to be moved?”

“…You’re really using a lot of rhetorical questions now,” Jian Xin said, pouting, and said honestly, “Of course I don’t.”

Yan Lu smiled, lowered her eyes, and said softly and seriously, “She’s not you.”

There are thousands of similar people in this world, and she would always see a certain person’s shadow in those people.

But they are not that person after all.

Not the one who has long been engraved in her heart, and no matter how far she goes, she can never forget.

“A lifetime is quite long, and sometimes I also want to find someone to be with…” Yan Lu said. “But after thinking about it, I always feel that if that person is not you, there is no meaning at all.”

Jian Xin heard this, and couldn’t help but lean back in her chair, and with a blank expression, she used her toes to control the chair under her butt and spin it back and forth.

Yan Lu quietly gazed at her, as if waiting for something.

After a few seconds of silence, the person who was secretly happy while spinning in her chair finally couldn’t hold it in and, uncontrollably, lifted the corners of her worthless mouth.

With a soft laugh from her ear, Jian Xin covered her face with a duck cry.

Damn it, Yan Lu is not simple now!

—I always feel like I’m being manipulated!