Chapter 74

Living room.

Song Yu, who came to the side of the coffee table, first wiped the water droplets on her hands with a dry handkerchief, and only then sat down and took the red receiver.

"Hello, who is this?"

"Song Yu, it's me."

Just as she guessed, it was indeed Zijin's call. Song Yu asked with concern:

"You're a week later than usual this month. Are you okay?"

"It's okay. I was quite busy a few days ago and didn't have much free time. Moreover, my mother seems to have sensed some situation and has been watching me much more closely than before. I couldn't find a chance for a while. Today, I even had to bribe my little sister with money to help me cover, and only then did I find the opportunity," Chen Zijin said on the other end of the phone, not forgetting to look back behind her.

Seeing her sister looking over, Chen Zitong, who was squatting in the corner outside to keep watch, was eating a banana with her left hand while raising her right hand high, gesturing that there was no problem.

Song Yu pondered for a moment and asked: "Does your aunt really not think highly of Li Heng?"

This was Chen Zijin's most sensitive question, directly touching her soul.

After a long silence, she confided with great disappointment: "Now, let alone thinking highly of him, people in the family don't even dare to mention anything related to him in front of her, and even, even my uncle and aunt have been treated the same way."

The uncle and aunt in Chen Zijin's mouth naturally referred to Li Jianguo and Tian Run'e.

Song Yu asked: "Then what will you do? Just drag it on like this?"

Chen Zijin didn't make a sound at first. After a long while, she answered desolately: "I know dragging it on like this is not a solution, but I don't have a good way."

Song Yu thought for a moment and said: "I am his deskmate now."

Chen Zijin was stunned and blurted out: "He took the initiative to find you, right?"

Song Yu calmed her breath for a few seconds and then honestly gave a "hmm".

Chen Zijin grabbed a piece of paper with her right hand, and as she grabbed it, she irritably crumpled it into a ball. After a long while, she said: "It seems Man Ning and Mai Sui are still more inclined toward you."

This seemingly plain sentence exhausted the relationship between the two, and also exhausted Li Heng's thoughts.

Song Yu was quiet and didn't make a sound, listening silently to the breathing on the other end of the phone.

As if she could see Song Yu's state through the phone line, Chen Zijin suddenly smiled miserably and said:

"Actually, I knew it long ago. My little aunt went to the No. 1 Middle School a while ago, and when she came back, she told me that you and he are deskmates."

Hearing this, Song Yu wasn't surprised at all, but asked: "Do you know who your little aunt was looking for when she came to the No. 1 Middle School?"

Chen Zijin was worried: "She was looking for Li Heng?"

Song Yu said: "It should be. I saw them appear at the school gate together."

She really wanted to tell her about Li Heng's successful novel submission, but remembering Li Heng's instruction for secrecy, she swallowed the words that were on the tip of her tongue.

Chen Zijin asked hurriedly: "Did my little aunt make things difficult for him? Is his study in a good state lately?"

Song Yu said: "I don't know what happened when they met, but Li Heng has made great progress in his studies lately. He won the special scholarship this time."

Chen Zijin's tone rose a bit, appearing somewhat happy: "Really?"

"Yes."

"Who did he replace among you?"

"Mai Sui was short by 0.1 points."

Chen Zijin asked with longing: "Do you think he will take the exam to Jingcheng? Can he get into Qingbei?"

Song Yu couldn't answer this question because she had no way of knowing Li Heng's concrete thoughts.

Next, the two girls chatted about many trivial matters of life as usual, including studies, exams, and big and small things happening around them.

While chatting, Chen Zijin suddenly asked: "After I came to Jingcheng, has he been interacting with Xiao Han?"

She had never mentioned Xiao Han in front of her high school friends before.

First, she didn't want to mention her.

Second, she wasn't afraid of Xiao Han.

But today...

When Song Yu finally confessed to her about being deskmates with Li Heng, Chen Zijin let go of the prejudice in her heart and took the initiative to mention that best friend who was both a friend and a rival.

Xiao Han?

This name instinctively made Song Yu think of the incident a few days ago at the cafeteria entrance where Xiao Han walked over and bumped into her right arm.

At that time, she didn't feel anything, but with Zijin's reminder, and associating it with Li Heng's reaction at the time, her heart was startled, and she realized it a bit late.

Zijin was so honest, so Song Yu, putting herself in her shoes, didn't hide anything: "Not before, but there seems to be contact this semester."

"I knew it! I knew it!" Hearing her best friend's reply, Chen Zijin bit her lower lip tightly and said it twice in a slightly heavy tone.

The two consecutive repeated sentences further confirmed Song Yu's conjecture.

Chen Zijin asked: "Who contacted whom? It was Xiao Han who took the initiative, right?"

Song Yu shook her head: "I didn't pay much attention."

Hearing this, Chen Zijin looked up at the ceiling for a while, and finally asked: "Has he asked about me?"

Song Yu said quietly: "Yes. In the morning, he asked me for your return address and phone number, but I haven't given them yet."

At this point, the conversation between the two tacitly pressed the pause button, and for a time, it was quiet.

After a long, long time, Chen Zijin, who had weighed the pros and cons, suppressed the restlessness in her heart:

"Don't give it to him for now. Wait a bit longer. When the time is right, I will take the initiative to contact him. Don't misunderstand, this is for his own good."

"Okay." Song Yu responded.

Chen Zijin didn't say the specific reason for not giving it.

Song Yu didn't ask either.

Before hanging up, Song Yu hinted with some unbearable heart: "If Li Heng becomes a person above others in the future, what about you two?"

Chen Zijin smiled bitterly: "Don't you know my mother's foul temper? It's harder than the stone in a latrine. Ordinary 'people above others' are useless.

She was once so angry that she swore in front of the Chen family's ancestral tablets that even if I were killed, I wouldn't marry Li Heng. And..."

Song Yu didn't make a sound to disturb her, waiting silently for the rest.

Chen Zijin paused for a moment and continued: "And the whole family stands on my mother's side. On weekdays, they often fan the flames in front of her, saying all kinds of bad things about Li Heng. I... sigh!"

Song Yu was silent. It is said that every family has its own difficult scriptures to read. As an outsider, she had no way, and no qualification, to evaluate a family like the Chen family.

Just at this moment, Chen Zitong, who was keeping watch outside, suddenly widened her eyes. She didn't expect that just by slipping away for a moment, her own mother would kill her way to her side. She was so scared that she hurriedly shrank back and turned to run.

While running, she didn't forget to notify her financier sister: "Grandpa! Grandpa! Mom is going to hit me, woo woo, come and help me!"

Hearing the heart-rending screams outside, Chen Zijin turned her head and saw a face covered in frost. "Song Yu, I'm hanging up."

"Wait." Song Yu shouted quickly.

Chen Zijin paused and put the receiver she had taken away back to her ear.

Song Yu knew time was pressing, so she said it all in one breath: "When you have time, take a look at 'Harvest' magazine and look for a writer with the pen name 'December'..."

At the final emergency moment, for the sake of her own peace of mind, she still violated Li Heng's instruction for secrecy and told the other party the pen name "December".

Actually, Li Heng hadn't said that she must keep it secret from Chen Zijin; he just gave a general instruction not to tell anyone.

Since he told me about the writer, shouldn't Zijin be in this scope of being informed?

Song Yu thought as such.

Ending the call, she put the receiver back, then sat quietly on the sofa for a while, sorted out the conversation between the two just now, and then got up to go to the courtyard outside to continue helping her mother pluck duck feathers.

"Who was that calling just now?" Jiang Yue asked.

Song Yu rolled up her sleeves, preparing to get busy: "Chen Zijin."

Jiang Yue asked: "She is studying in Jingcheng, how are her grades? I heard it's easier to get into Tsinghua or Peking University there."

Song Yu opened her mouth: "It should be okay. She didn't say the specifics, and I didn't ask."

While the mother and daughter were chatting, Jiang Yue suddenly said to her daughter: "Go pour a cup of tea for your dad. I've seen him touch his empty cup several times.

I don't know what article he is reading, he is so engrossed that he doesn't even want to move."

Song Yu got up to go into the room and brought out a thermos, filling the empty cup while glancing at the 'Harvest' magazine in her father's hand.

When she saw that her father was reading 'To Live', she couldn't help but ask: "Dad, is the author of this novel 'December'?"

Song Shi stared at the book page without blinking and answered perfunctorily: "Seems like it."

Seeing her own father like this, Song Yu didn't disturb him anymore and quietly retreated to help.

Around 5:00 PM.

Jiang Yue finished stir-frying the duck and also made three other dishes. When she put the three dishes and one soup on the table, she shouted toward the door from a distance:

"Old Song, time to eat."

There was no reaction at all from outside the door, not even the previous perfunctory sound.

Jiang Yue shouted again: "Daughter has to go to school later, eat first and then read."

"Oh, okay." This time Song Shi did spit out two words, but he still didn't lift his head, let alone move his butt.

Jiang Yue raised her eyebrows and said to her daughter beside her: "Go, pull your father in, I'll serve the rice."

Song Yu didn't want to do this, but since she could remember, their family of three always ate together. If anyone had something to do, they would wait.

"Dad, let's eat first, read later, otherwise the food will get cold." Song Yu came to his side and said softly.

"Eh!" Song Shi sighed with unfinished interest.

If it were his wife's words, he could still muddle through, but his daughter, he obeyed like a child.

"Old Song, what article are you reading that's so good? I saw you haven't moved all afternoon. This isn't good for your health." Jiang Yue handed him a pair of chopsticks.

Song Shi pointed to 'To Live' in the magazine and said in a very admiring tone: "Of course it's good. After reading this novel, I finally understood why I was always rejected by those big literary journals.

It's really because the gap is too big. I can only look up to it in this life; I can't write it in my whole life."

They had been together for decades, and this was the first time she had seen her husband so convinced by something.

Jiang Yue, whose curiosity was aroused, was in no hurry to eat either. She took the magazine and flipped through it, joking: "What's so good about it? You are a school leader and a professor, is it worth your such praise?"

What's so good about it?

This is a question worth deep thought.

Song Shi, who hadn't fully woken up from the world in the book, pondered for a while and said: "With my literary attainments, I don't want to say how great this book is.

But it's good because its content is ordinary enough, ordinary to the point that every sentence and every fragment shocked me, as if it happened right beside me and I felt the same way.

This author has great talent, and this book is definitely a classic that is hard to see in a hundred years. It can enter the top five among the books I've read over these years. You should read it when you have time."

Song Yu knew her father's personality best. On weekdays, he might love to mingle with everyone and be easygoing.

But when it came to things he loved and were extremely serious like literature, he would absolutely not shoot without a target, and he would not belittle himself because of just any article, unless...

There was only one answer: unless this work was really good enough!

Thinking this way, Song Yu turned her head and confirmed once again that the author of 'To Live' was 'December'.

Staring fixedly at the three characters "December", she was a bit dazed, and Li Heng's figure couldn't help but jump into her mind. She thought to herself: Is the work my father admires so much really written by him?

Before she could come back to her senses, Jiang Yue had already exclaimed: "Ah! And it was recommended by Old Man Ba?"

"It certainly is. Old Man Ba is a gold-lettered signboard; the works recommended by him are truly extraordinary." Song Shi had used his pen.

He had used his pen countless times with ambition, and the more he failed, the more he could understand the power of 'To Live'. He said this completely sincerely.

"Okay, I won't read it first. I'll read it after eating. I'm afraid that if I read it, I won't even want to eat like you." After saying that, Jiang Yue, who was also a high-level intellectual, put the book beside her very naturally.

This operation directly stunned Song Shi.

Song Yu, who took all this into her eyes, smiled quietly: "Dad, I'll go buy you another copy after dinner."

On the other side, Jingcheng.

Just after the phone hung up, Zhong Lan had already crossed the door and walked in.

She came to her eldest daughter's side.

Their eyes met, and Zhong Lan asked from a high position: "Who did you just call?"

Chen Zijin knew that lying was useless, and her own mother would have plenty of ways to interrogate her little sister later, so she simply said bluntly: "Song Yu."

Zhong Lan squinted her eyes, "And you also asked about Li Heng by the way?"

Chen Zijin wanted to deny it, but before she could open her mouth, she saw Zhong Lan grab the landline on the table with great force and throw it out.

"Bang bang bang!"

The white landline rolled several times on the ground and finally stopped at the door, also shattering into several pieces.

Just like that, the atmosphere in the room instantly dropped to freezing point!

Chen Zijin bit her lower lip tightly, watching all this without making a sound, but tears kept spinning in her eye sockets.

She endured forcefully, enduring not to let the tears overflow, not wanting to show weakness in front of her own mother.

Outside the door, Chen Zitong lost her previous liveliness and playfulness. She stood foolishly in the courtyard, looking at her sister and mother confronting each other in the room, full of worry, but she didn't dare to go up to persuade them to stop fighting.

"Zitong, why are you in the courtyard? It's raining outside, why haven't you gone into the room yet?"

It was the time to get off work, and Chen Xiaomi held a black umbrella in her left hand and a bag in her right. As soon as she entered the courtyard, she asked like this.

"Shh!"

Hearing the sound, Chen Zitong hurriedly turned around and sealed her mouth with her index finger. After a small "shh", she said: "Little Aunt, Mom and Sister are fighting again."

Chen Xiaomi frowned, "Fighting big?"

"Big, the phone was smashed." Chen Zitong pointed to the landline phone that was shattered into several large pieces at the door.

Chen Xiaomi looked in the direction of her finger and immediately didn't ask why they were arguing anymore, speeding up and rushing into the room.

PS: Don't say March isn't working hard, hum hum, another chapter coming!

Asking for monthly tickets! Asking for subscriptions!

(End of chapter)