Chapter 279: 90: A Family by the Spring Chapter 279: Writing a Door Plaque, A Family by the Spring

·

·

·

Protagonist:

Lin Xiyu

"Kneel down and kowtow."

Guben teased him: "Grandpa Six, for your sister's sake, might even give you a siheyuan."

"A siheyuan in Old Beijing?"

Chen Xiaoyi had a thick face and immediately wanted to kneel down.

"Jinan City..."

Guben joked: "A siheyuan in Dajin Village."

"Ugh."

Chen Xiaoyi was embarrassed, his knees staying in a half-kneeling state, looking quite comical.

"Pfft."

"Hahahahaha..."

Ruirui couldn't help it, laughing until she bent forward and backward.

—

With the little koi, the babies were even happier, watching the little fish swim back and forth in the water, sitting by the fish pond for an entire afternoon.

In the gaps of Lin Xiyu's cutting, she watched the babies play freely through the window, listening to their cheerful, childish little voices, and all her fatigue vanished in an instant.

Chen Xiaoyi, under the pretense of asking his brother-in-law for advice on game production, came to the old house to hang out every single day.

"Sister, Grandma's birthday is coming soon......."

That day, he came over from Grandma's house again, not going to the study, but first sneaking into his sister's room: "Lalei Jie asked, do we have any plans? How are we going to celebrate Grandma's birthday?"

"By custom, isn't it at Grandma's house?"

Lin Xiyu put down the scissors in her hand somewhat surprised: "The family gathers together, buys a birthday cake, and has a meal—isn't that enough? What other tricks does she want to play?"

"Lalei Jie said, this year your family has many people, just the little babies are four..."

Chen Xiaoyi chuckled, repeating his female cousin's exact words without missing a single one: "Grandma's living room is too small, can't fit so many people..."

"Then we can only go to a restaurant."

Lin Xiyu thought for a moment, then said: "Or we can come to the old house, set up a few tables in the yard, sitting under the tree shade is cooler."

"The relatives on Grandma's side, don't let them come to your house."

Chen Xiaoyi sincerely considered his sister: "Always disturbing you isn't good either; serving a whole family a meal, even if your family has a nanny, you'd still be exhausted."

"If we don't go to the old house, I have no choice..."

Lin Xiyu rubbed her sore shoulders and smiled sheepishly: "All my energy is taken up by paper-cutting now, my head is muddled, I can't move around."

"You're only thinking about applying to be the Inheritor."

Chen Xiaoyi understood: "Other things, he doesn't take to heart."

"You and your female cousin discuss it."

Lin Xiyu smiled apologetically: "I don't care, anything is fine. Eating at a restaurant, my family can also chip in, splitting it half and half with your female cousin, then you don't have to spend money."

"Fine, I'll tell your female cousin when I go back."

Chen Xiaoyi, hearing he didn't have to spend his own money, smiled happily.

"When do you plan to go to Shanghai?"

Lin Xiyu couldn't stand his unambitious look and disdainfully looked away.

Chen Xiaoyi gave an awkward laugh: "After Grandma's birthday."

"Does Mom agree?"

Lin Xiyu hit the key point in one sentence.

"She doesn't have time to care about me now, she's busy making money."

Chen Xiaoyi felt a little resentful: "The moment I'm not home, someone takes over my nest."

"You mean Zhang Juan?"

Lin Xiyu understood: "She is Nana's female cousin, a pitiful child, born into the wrong family. If it weren't for your brother-in-law and Lalei Jie bringing her back, following those parents, who knows how much suffering she would endure in the future."

"I heard Lalei Jie say so."

Chen Xiaoyi laughed helplessly: "I didn't say she was meddlesome, just that suddenly having an extra person at home is a bit unaccustomed."

"So you went to live at Grandma's house?"

Lin Xiyu teased him while laughing: "Adding trouble to Grandma."

"I didn't want to..."

Chen Xiaoyi gave an awkward laugh: "You don't know, when the vacation just started, I took the train home in the middle of the night and saw a tomboy wandering around the house without the lights on. I was so scared my hair stood on end."

"Tomboy?"

Lin Xiyu heard him describe Zhang Juan like that and couldn't help but laugh out loud.

Chen Xiaoyi complained endlessly: "Her hair is cut shorter than mine; if she's not a tomboy, what is she?"

"Don't complain anymore."

Lin Xiyu said while holding back her laughter: "She starts junior high in September. Lalei Jie said to let her board at school; once she boards, she won't take up your room."

"Let her do whatever she wants."

Chen Xiaoyi didn't care: "Anyway, I'm going to Shanghai too. There's nothing much at home, and I won't be coming back often."

"So fast, in the blink of an eye you're off to Shanghai too."

Lin Xiyu sighed leisurely: "I still remember what I was like the first time I went to Shanghai, back then I was just like you now, full of beautiful yearnings for the future."

"But the gap between reality and imagination is too great, I couldn't make it there, and came back full of regret."

"Sister came back, and now you're leaving, just like the ebb and flow of tides, the reincarnation of one generation after another......"

——

"Don't you still have a house in Shanghai?"

Chen Xiaoyi tentatively persuaded: "It's not like you've completely left that circle, if you want to go back you can go back anytime."

"Right, speaking of the house."

Reminded by him, Lin Xiyu finally got to the most important matter: "When you go to Shanghai, do you want to stay at Sister's place? That riverside apartment is empty, you can go stay there."

"No."

Chen Xiaoyi refused very bluntly: "Your apartment is too big, living alone feels a bit empty and unsettling, I'll just stay at Xingyao Building, there are plenty of duty rest rooms anyway, I can just make do for a night."

"Staying one night is fine, but staying there all the time won't do, right?"

Lin Xiyu glared at him in annoyance: "Don't you shower and change clothes? Don't make yourself all stubbly and sloppy, making people dislike you."

"So what if I do?"

Chen Xiaoyi didn't care: "Brother Hao and them aren't all like that? Compared to them, I count as paying pretty good attention to my image."

"That won't do for you."

Lin Xiyu was a bit worried, very concerned about his future image: "Li Hao those guys, over thirty and still bachelors, you mustn't learn from them, Mom is still hoping you'll marry a wife soon and hold a big fat grandson."

"I'm only 21......"

Chen Xiaoyi didn't care: "Marrying a wife isn't urgent, talking about having kids now is too early."

"Didn't you date a girlfriend in university?"

Lin Xiyu, relying on being his real sister, blatantly pried for gossip.

"No."

Chen Xiaoyi was embarrassed: "The ones I liked didn't like me, the ones who liked me I felt our personalities didn't match, so I've just been single, single for three years."

"You're quite picky."

Lin Xiyu laughed and teased him: "A girl likes you and you're not happy about it?"

"Sister, actually I feel I'm quite traditional at heart......"

Chen Xiaoyi didn't want to be misunderstood by his sister, felt it necessary to explain a few sentences for himself: "I like quiet and elegant girls, don't like the loud and flashy type, with hair dyed eye-catching colors, simply put it's the virtuous wife and good mother type, doesn't need to be extremely pretty, just good temper, understanding, able to tolerate some of my small flaws."

"Put that way......"

Lin Xiyu understood and smiled: "The girl who likes you is the second type?"

"Uh."

Chen Xiaoyi was a bit awkward, hemmed and hawed for a good while before squeezing out three words: "Count as it."

"What do you mean 'count as it'?"

Lin Xiyu was dissatisfied: "Hiding it from your own sister too, so disloyal, I won't care about you anymore."

"Hey hey, Sister, I didn't want to hide it from you......"

Chen Xiaoyi got anxious, stuttered magnificently: "Actually, it's just, me and her, really nothing much, nothing to explain."

"Alright, Sister won't ask anymore."

Lin Xiyu held back laughter: "I'll let you off for now, lest you really turn into a stutterer, then Mom would blame me."

"Phew."

Chen Xiaoyi escaped a disaster, secretly let out a breath of relief.

——

For the sake of her younger brother's image, Lin Xiyu strongly urged him to go stay at her place, and required him to hire a housekeeping service to clean the room at least once a week.

Chen Xiaoyi didn't want to go at first, just showed a hint of rebelliousness, and was suppressed by Brother-in-law with one sentence.

Guben heard the siblings' deadlock from the yard, merely said one sentence through the window, "If you don't listen to Sister, you're not allowed to go intern," and the room instantly went silent.

——

"No wonder they say one thing subdues another."

Afterwards, when Lin Xiyu and Guben chatted about this, just thinking of her younger brother's expression at the time made her want to laugh: "Xiaoyi that bear of a kid, still needs you to handle him, I say a hundred sentences, not as effective as one sentence from you."

"That's because you didn't pinch the right spot."

Guben joked and laughed: "Hit a snake at seven inches, you grab his neck, he has no way out."

"So that means I'm still too soft-hearted."

Lin Xiyu heard this and laughed, pretended to look fierce and waved her fist: "If this brat dares not listen in the future, I'll beat him."

"Achoo."

A certain Uncle teasing his little nephew in the yard suddenly felt a chill down his back, covered his mouth and sneezed.

——

The old house dug up a spring eye, Female Cousin was extraordinarily delighted, the day she heard the news she specially pushed a dinner engagement, came to the house to stroll around.

"Tsk tsk......."

She entered the door and went straight to the fish pond, peered her head in to look, couldn't help but click her tongue in wonder: "It really is a spring eye, just like Pearl Spring, strings of bubbles rising up, your family will be famous this time, later hang a plaque at the front gate too, find a calligraphy master, write a few big characters — Spring Water Family.

"Hang what plaque."

Lin Xiyu covered her mouth and laughed: "You're afraid others won't know, aren't you? We still want to enjoy a few more days of peace and quiet, can't withstand such big publicity......"

"Xiyu, don't you feel this matter is a bit mysterious?"

Female Cousin withdrew her gaze from the water bottom, smiled meaningfully.

"What are you muttering about now?"

Lin Xiyu rubbed her arms a few times and said with a smiling reproach, "All mysterious, smiling in a way that makes people nervous."

"Think about it..."

Female Cousin paid no mind to her little gesture, still immersed in her own thoughts: "In '93, on the day of your college entrance exam, didn't you save a person? Because of that, you took part in the filming of the Quan Shui Family Documentary, and from then on you formed a bond with Quancheng Water, married Guben, lived in the Old Four Courtyard, and now you've even dug up a spring eye — isn't this exactly Heaven's will arranging everything in the dark? You just have to walk the steps he arranged; even a slight deviation, and he'll bend you back onto the path."

"Stop talking..."

Lin Xiyu was speechless at her fortune-teller-like remarks: "It was originally a perfectly happy thing, but with your explanation, even the fine hairs on my body stood up."

"Let me finish."

Female Cousin chuckled and continued: "I really think this way. Look at you — you spent so much energy developing in Shanghai, only to end up disheartened and leave that heartbreak place. It's as if an invisible thread has been pulling you all along; no matter how far you go, it can pull you back."

"My time in Shanghai wasn't all bad."

Lin Xiyu didn't know whether to laugh or cry: "Just the other day the Principal even called me, wanting me to go back and teach. If it weren't for applying for Intangible Cultural Heritage Inheritor, I'd be a university teacher right now."

"That's exactly what I want to say..."

Female Cousin reacted lightning-fast, smoothly picking up: "Didn't you hesitate before? Weren't you unsure if your decision was correct?"

"Now I'm telling you — two hundred percent correct. Believe your sister. Your sister dares put her words right here: Jinan is your blessed land. Only staying here to develop is the most correct choice for you."

——

"You and your hindsight..."

Lin Xiyu looked full of dislike: "This happened so long ago, and you're only saying it now — what use is that?"

"Hey, hey..."

Female Cousin gave an awkward laugh, then turned around and complained about her: "I don't want to be a Monday-morning quarterback either. It's because you're not loyal enough — such a big thing and you didn't tell me. It took this long before I heard it from Maternal Grandmother."

"Is Maternal Grandmother still blaming me?"

Lin Xiyu heard Maternal Grandmother mentioned and immediately wilted, losing her previous momentum.

Female Cousin was puzzled: "Why would Maternal Grandmother blame you?"

Lin Xiyu's eyes showed guilt: "She's always hoped I could go back to teaching, have a stable job."

Female Cousin understood: "The older generation all think that way."

"Has the venue for Maternal Grandmother's Birthday Banquet been decided?"

Lin Xiyu wanted to cheer Maternal Grandmother up: "How about still at the Old House? I'll personally cook a few dishes Maternal Grandmother likes, to apologize to the old lady."

"That works too."

Female Cousin hesitated for merely one second, and agreed so smoothly it couldn't be smoother: "Your place is great, and now there's Quancheng Water too. Once Maternal Grandmother knows, she'll definitely be willing to come."

"Then it's settled."

Lin Xiyu's eyes revealed delight: "Tomorrow I'll have Guben go to the seafood market and buy some fresh seafood. Maternal Grandmother likes yellow croaker; I'll make her a braised yellow croaker in brown sauce."

"Also buy some mantis shrimp, swimming crabs, oysters, clams, scallops..."

Female Cousin wasn't polite at all, rattling off several kinds of seafood she herself liked in one breath, and at the end still righteously added: "To apologize to Maternal Grandmother, the sincerity must be genuine."

Lin Xiyu: "..."

Just say you like this stuff yourself.

No need to beat around the bush like this.

——

Having Quancheng Water in the yard was a great joy; Maternal Grandmother heard and was indeed very happy. On her birthday, she arrived at the Old House early, accompanied by filial sons and virtuous grandsons.

"Yiya, ya..."

The babies sat by the fish pond playing. Seeing a whole crowd of people surge in through the Door, they were more or less startled.

"Peace and happiness. Do you still remember Maternal Uncle-Grandfather?"

Maternal Uncle had prepared early to coax the little babies. Upon entering, he first took out a handful of milk candy to entice the little cutie.

"Hee hee."

With the milk candy, the babies weren't afraid anymore, clutching the candy and giggling happily.

"Xiyu, you really know how to raise children!"

"These four children are raised so well — fair and chubby, just looking at them makes people happy."

Aunt Da and Maternal Aunt also liked them immensely, vying to hold the children.