Chapter 313

Chapter 313: 306: Extra: if route grand reunion 1 Chapter 313: 306: Extra: if route grand reunion 1 Dark clouds enveloped, a heavy rain was imminent, the branches were bent by the strong wind, and the youth ran past the door against the direction of the wind.

There stood a red house halfway up the mountain, operating as a guesthouse.

Xie Qingze emerged from the red house and called out to the youth, “Ah Na, it’s about to rain. Where are you going?”

“My sister hasn’t come back yet, I’m going to look for her.”

The young boy replied hastily, put on a raincoat, and ran further and further away. Thunderstorms in the mountains were very dangerous, and Xie Qingze, concerned, went back inside to notify someone. He had a guest today, his elder brother Xie Liangjiang had come.

“You go back to the imperial capital first.”

After saying his piece, Xie Qingze grabbed an umbrella and hurried out the door, but paused suddenly after stepping down the stairs.

“Brother, I ask a favor of you.”

Xie Qingze was the youngest son and most favored by the old man. Despite his clear disinterest in being a lawyer, the old man was still set on handing over the law firm to him, a bias that was excessive. In Xie Liangjiang’s mind, it was always easy for Xie Qingze to get what he wanted; he never had to ask anyone for anything.

He said, “Help me steal our household registration book. I want to marry Ah Yuan.”

Xie Liangjiang was taken aback. What was so special about a woman from the mountains that she could captivate Xie Qingze, who was as free as the wind?

Not long after Xie Qingze left the guesthouse, Xie Liangjiang also departed. The former was searching for someone in the mountains, while the latter, not familiar with the paths, wandered aimlessly.

The rain poured heavily, landslides occurred on the mountain roads, and not far away, Xie Liangjiang witnessed Xie Qingze slip and fall. His first reaction was to hold his breath. Before coming to Fragrant City, his father had asked him to be a mediator, to persuade Xie Qingze to return to the imperial capital to take over the law firm. How could someone so devoid of material desires and ambition possibly expand the family’s territory? Xie Qingze was simply not cut out for it.

If there was no Xie Qingze...

If there was no Xie Qingze, the thought came to Xie Liangjiang unexpectedly, like a curse. He walked over, each step as heavy as a thousand pounds, slowly drawing nearer.

Xie Qingze was calling out to him for help.

[Help me steal our household registration book. I want to marry Ah Yuan.]

All of a sudden, Xie Liangjiang remembered this request. He hesitated for a moment, then reached out and pulled Xie Qingze, who was about to fall off a cliff due to a breaking tree trunk, back to safety.

Then, the story took a different turn.

*****

Xie Qingze proposed eleven times, and Wen Yuan cried and refused ten times; on the last occasion, she didn’t cry: “Alright, I’ll marry you.”

They got married on an ordinary day, with no officiant, a few guests, several new quilts, and a pair of plain rings.

When Xie Jingxian in the imperial capital learned of it, he flew into a rage and publicly claimed he had no son named Xie Qingze.

After his anger subsided, Xie Jingxian fell seriously ill, and the KE law firm was handed over to his eldest son, Xie Liangjiang.

After registering the marriage with Wen Yuan, Xie Qingze returned to the imperial capital once more, not entering the Xie family home. Xie Jingxian was inside, shouting for him to leave, and only Xie Shang came out to meet him.

Xie Shang, nineteen years old, was between youth and young adulthood, his face a perfect inheritance of his mother’s good genes. Among the younger members of the Xie family, his eyes were most like those of Xie Jingxian, with a slight mixed-race appearance in their color.

“Are you not coming back in the future?”

Xie Qingze said, “If Grandfather forgives me in the future, I’ll bring her to meet you all, and Changling and Ah Na as well. They are all very nice; you’ll definitely like them as much as I do.”

Xie Shang had heard these two names, Changling and Ah Na, more than once already.

“What if Grandfather never forgives you?”

Xie Qingze fell silent.

Silence was a choice. He had chosen that family of three. To Xie Shang at that time, this was betrayal. Xie Qingze had betrayed the Xie family, betrayed him.

“Is that woman really that good?”

Xie Qingze corrected, “Xingxing, you should call her Auntie.”

Although Xie Shang had dyed his hair gold at the time, it didn’t look out of place. His demeanor and bearing were greatly influenced by his grandfather, dignified and composed, never revealing his emotions: “Even if you had to be with her, there were more compromising ways. There was no need to cut all ties with the family.”

Xie Shang understood his grandfather, who was hard on the outside but soft on the inside, and there was still room for reconciliation with a little coaxing.

“I don’t want to waste time maneuvering, don’t want to wait.” Xie Qingze accepted the current outcome calmly, “You’ll understand eventually.”

“I don’t understand.”

Xie Shang didn’t want to understand; he only knew that the uncle who had raised and taught him was about to leave the Xie Family because of a woman.

Xie Qingze just left like that, taking nothing with him, casually relinquishing all the benefits his family name had brought him.

*****

On the first day of summer vacation, Gu Yihuan came to visit Xie Shang in high spirits. Xie Shang was copying scriptures again, and Gu Yihuan feared he might become a monk if he copied any more.

“My dad bought a yacht for his mistress, and my mom got it for me. Fourth brother, shall we ride the waves?”

Gu Yihuan was always easygoing; he even turned his father’s amorous affairs into jokes to tell others.

The room was filled with the fragrance of burning incense. Xie Shang wrote without looking up, “I’m not going.”

“Come on, come on, my brother is going too.”

“I’m busy.”

Xie Shang went alone to Wind Town in Fragrant City. Waiting outside the bus station for Xie Qingze, he noticed a girl on the distant Sky Bridge chatting with a homeless man.

He didn’t know what they were talking about, but she was laughing happily. There was a family bucket on the ground, and she sat crouched next to the railing, sharing fried chicken with the homeless man seated on a plastic cardboard sheet. At that moment, Xie Shang had only one thought: wasn’t she grossed out by the dirt? Even from afar, he could see the man was disheveled and filthy.

He didn’t understand what compelled him, but he found himself walking over, standing at a distance that was neither close nor far, watching them finish an entire bucket of chicken, watching the girl wave goodbye to the homeless man, watching her go into a convenience store to buy something, then cross the road to enter a street lined with parasol trees, and finally stop to observe a snail’s antennas at the roadside.

By the time he remembered that Xie Qingze might be waiting for him, he had already followed her all the way, even though his upbringing and knowledge didn’t permit such rude behavior.

Suddenly, it began to rain. The girl gave her umbrella to the snail—a red umbrella that stood out conspicuously on the grass. She had no umbrella for herself now and used her backpack to cover her head, running for shelter under a eaves.

She was strange.

Xie Shang walked to the other end of the shelter, planning to contact Xie Qingze to pick him up, but he found his phone had turned off. He had no choice but to wait. The air in Fragrant City was fresh, the sky had been a clear blue before the rain, and now that the downpour had kicked up mist, the whole world seemed hazy, blurring boundaries. Birds and people became silent, with only the heavy rain causing a ruckus. Perhaps with nothing else to do, Xie Shang couldn’t help but watch her.

She took a book out of her bag, tore the first page off the cover, unwrapped a piece of candy, and began folding the paper with her head down.

She didn’t have anyone to pick her up either. So there they were, without exchanging a single word or even a glance, each standing at one end, waiting for the sudden rain to cease. When the ripples in the puddles began to diminish, she reached out to catch some raindrops, sensing the rain lessening, clutching her backpack, she ran out to the snail to retrieve her umbrella and then left. Instinctively, Xie Shang took a step forward but stepped on a loose tile, splashing muddy water onto his ankle, the chill snapping him back to reality.

Why follow her?

He retracted his foot, watching the crossroads.

While waiting for Xie Qingze, he idly went to see the snail. The page the girl had torn off was the cover of a foreign book that seemed to be about the universe, folded by the girl into the shape of an umbrella, propped up with the plastic stick from the candy. The snail was smart enough not to move, knowing to shelter under the “umbrella” from the rain.

When Xie Qingze found Xie Shang, it was an hour later. He declined Xie Qingze’s invitation to go to White Peach Village. Firstly, he held a grudge against the Wen family’s girl; his grandfather always said she might cast a spell, wicked stuff. Xie Shang also felt it was her fault that Xie Qingze left everything behind, wasting his time in this Godforsaken place. Secondly, he wasn’t in the mood, constantly thinking about the girl he’d seen earlier, wanting to know what she could possibly talk about with a homeless man, wondering why she could stare at a snail for so long.

He took the snail’s “umbrella,” unfolded the paper, and saw writing on the back of the cover: Ling.

Which Ling?

He was curious, although he was certainly not a particularly curious person.

Suddenly, Xie Qingze asked, “What are you looking at so intently?”

“Nothing.”

Xie Shang folded the paper neatly and put it in his pocket. He booked a room at the town’s hotel where the doorknob was rusted.

With his sensitive sense of smell, he detected the musty dampness as soon as he entered.

Xie Qingze knew he might not be accustomed to it, but there was no better hotel in the small town: “Conditions here aren’t great, just bear with it for one night.”

“Do you regret it?”

That was the purpose of Xie Shang’s visit, to confirm this.

Xie Qingze smiled, “Tomorrow morning I’ll take you to eat a delicious rice noodle dish that’s only available here; you can’t find it in the capital.”

Xie Qingze had darkened, dressed casually, carrying a bag sewn from burlap with a few carefree dandelions embroidered on it without a pattern—so free and easy. Even his scent had changed, from the preference of agarwood sandalwood to a more primitive forest wood.

The next day, Xie Shang went back to the bus station.

The homeless man was still there, but the girl was not. He bought the homeless man a family bucket, retracing the path he had walked the day before.

He stayed in Wind Town for three days and never encountered the strange girl again.