V3 Chapter 2: What Hundred-Year Event Could Happen?
Time rewinds back to half a month ago, to Lu Li’s birthday. Lu Li clicked on Chen Jianing’s profile picture and typed “Are you crazy?” in the chat box. After pondering for a long time, he deleted the message and sighed. Why bother arguing with Chen Jianing? This was just how she was, annoying as hell. Wasn’t he used to it already?
He would be leaving for Mulan City at the beginning of next month, and he would personally visit her to “thank” her then. Originally, Lu Li planned to bring her a gift, but now he was in no mood. Not sending her a box cutter was already considered kind. He spent over an hour deleting the violating comments and turning on automatic filtering, finally getting his game page back online.
Unexpectedly, before Lu Li could go find Chen Jianing, she took the initiative to contact him.
“So? Are you convinced or not?” He could sense her smugness even through the screen. How could this girl be so shameless? Not only did she do whatever she wanted, but she also did things that only harmed others without benefiting herself.
“Aren’t you afraid I’ll dox you?” Lu Li was a bit angry now, and his words weren’t polite.
“If you dare to dox me, I’ll call the police. Who’s afraid of who?”
“Fine, just you wait.” Lu Li replied, a mischievous thought suddenly coming to mind. “I’ll go see you in person next month.”
“Haha.” As expected, Chen Jianing didn’t believe him at all. “If you dare to come, I’ll beat you up so bad you won’t even recognize yourself! I’m 1.9 meters tall, weigh 200 kilograms, and I love lifting weights. My muscles are bigger than your head!”
Really? Lu Li chuckled, closed the chat window, and ignored the girl’s bluster. Didn’t she say the same thing in his past life? The two of them had a heated argument online and decided to settle it offline, but when they actually met, the girl was scared to death. According to her later account, she had stuffed sponge pads under her clothes, hidden metal rods in her sleeves, and called the police in advance, reporting a potential brawl at a certain location in a certain square.
Lu Li took a shower and was about to go to bed when he saw the gift Silly Goose had given him in his backpack. For some reason, he picked up the notebook and opened the cover, finding a line of delicate handwriting: “To my good friend, Lu Li.” There was also a cute smiley face drawn next to it. It was just an ordinary sentence, but Lu Li’s eyes inexplicably felt a little sore, and a wave of emotion surged in his heart. Simple, plain, sincere. Unpretentious words always had a way of touching people’s hearts.
He continued to flip through the pages. On the back of the second page, two stick figures were drawn. On the margin of each subsequent page, there were two more stick figures. Flipping through the pages quickly, he could see an animation of the stick figures making a pinky promise. There were 130 pages in total, not one more, not one less.
Lu Li opened his phone and found the girl with the golden retriever profile picture on WeChat.
[Lu Li: I really like the gift, thank you for your thoughtfulness.]
There was no reply. She must be troubled by what he said this evening. This girl probably couldn’t even eat peacefully now. Lu Li was about to turn off his phone when he suddenly received a reply from Silly Goose.
It was a heart emoji.
Lu Li was stunned, momentarily at a loss. Chu Jingyi wasn’t the type of girl who liked to use emojis, let alone send such an ambiguous emoji. Ordinary girls might send a heart emoji simply to express joy or excitement, but Chu Jingyi was definitely not one of them. She was a particularly serious, even old-fashioned and traditional girl.
For a moment, he had the illusion of time flowing backwards, as if he was back in his most innocent and ignorant age, restless because of an emoji sent by his crush.
He waited for a while with his phone in hand, but there was no further message from Chu Jingyi. The red heart on the chat interface was particularly conspicuous.
How embarrassing, to be flustered by a little girl. Lu Li laughed self-deprecatingly and decided to put this matter aside for now. He lay in bed for a while, and then his sister pushed the door open and entered. Sister Yameng had been acting more and more suspiciously lately, often barging in without even greeting him. Fortunately, he didn’t have the habit of rewarding himself, otherwise it would be embarrassing if he was caught.
Zou Yameng glanced at Lu Li and couldn’t help but pout, muttering something that Lu Li didn’t catch.
“What? Sis, what did you say?”
“I said a new person moved in next door, did you know? Seems like a girl about your age.” No, that’s definitely not what she muttered just now.
“I know, she’s my classmate.” Lu Li said frankly. “Her father lost custody for some reason, so she’s temporarily living in the low-rent district.”
“Your classmate? Why would she move to this kind of place?” Zou Yameng was suspicious. “Are you close to her?” Her frowning expression was like an old farmer worried about the neighbor stealing melons from his field.
“We’re pretty close.”
Upon hearing this, Zou Yameng suddenly became serious and stared at him intently until he felt increasingly uncomfortable. “Little Li, how come I don’t remember you having any close friends?”
“Of course I do, the one last time…”
“Isn’t the one last time the same as this one?”
“Uh…” He paused. “No.”
Zou Yameng felt a sense of crisis. She sat on the edge of the bed and nudged Lu Li with her long, white leg. “Do you remember what you promised me? No puppy love.” Lu Li had indeed promised his sister that he wouldn’t fall in love prematurely. But at that time, he had just been reborn and was only thinking about getting rid of An Baili and focusing on his career. He never thought that he would get more and more entangled with Chu Jingyi and An Baili.
Speaking of which, how did things get out of control? Was it when he ran into the Class Monitor at the bookstore? Was this the butterfly effect of rebirth? The two of them, who had no connection in his past life, had become extremely ambiguous friends.
“Is she pretty?”
“What?”
“This classmate of yours next door, is she pretty?”
An Baili was certainly pretty. In terms of looks alone, she was top-notch. But her temperament was lacking. In Chen Jianing’s words, “She looks like a village girl.” That was quite rude, and Lu Li had flicked Chen Jianing on the forehead when he heard that.
“She’s okay, average.”
Zou Yameng secretly breathed a sigh of relief and unceremoniously squeezed onto the bed. “Move over, I’m sleeping on the outside tonight. Otherwise, you’ll keep pushing me against the wall.”
“When did I do that? It’s clearly you who keeps pushing me.”
“Oh, my little brother has grown up and learned to talk back.”
“Don’t lift the blanket, don’t lift the blanket, I just took a shower and I’m not wearing any underwear.”
“It’s not like I haven’t seen it before.”
The night passed without incident.
***
Time flew by, and in the blink of an eye, it was November, the day Lu Li was leaving for Mulan City. There wasn’t anything particularly noteworthy to mention during this time. The trio of Chu Jingyi, An Baili, and Lu Li went back to normal, attending classes, eating, and playing together just like before. Lu Li and Chu Jingyi tacitly avoided mentioning what happened on his birthday, and everything seemed to have returned to the starting point.
Sister Yameng was helping him pack his luggage, stuffing clothes into the suitcase one after another. Winter jackets were bulky, and the small suitcase was packed to the brim. Even so, Zou Yameng was still worried that Lu Li wouldn’t have enough clothes. Seeing her start looking for sweaters again, Lu Li quickly stopped his sister. “Sister Yameng, that’s enough. It’s not even time to wear down jackets yet. Besides, I’m only going for a little over a week, I’ll be back soon.”
“You’re afraid of the cold, and you get chilblains in the winter. If you don’t bring enough clothes, what if you get sick?” Sister Yameng gave him a reproachful look. “And you’re so careless when you wash clothes. Bringing more clothes means you’ll have to wash less.”
She suddenly took out her phone. “By the way, Little Li, I saw on the news that there’s an infectious pneumonia in Mulan City. Why don’t you just not go?”
“Didn’t the officials already deny it?” Lu Li didn’t pay much attention to the news. “They said it was a rumor, and the rumor mongers have already written a letter of guarantee. Besides, what era is this? How could there be a large-scale infectious disease outbreak in a big city?” He racked his brain, but he couldn’t recall any pneumonia or flu outbreaks in his past life, so this matter was even less worth mentioning.
Seeing his sister’s worried expression, Lu Li smiled. “Don’t worry, Sister Yameng, even if there really is a flu, I can take care of myself.”
“You, you have to be careful.” Finally, she nervously grabbed his hand. “How about I go with you? I can put my training on hold for now.”
Lu Li held his sister’s warm hand, lifted it to his cheek, and felt her body temperature with his face. He didn’t need to say anything, just a calm look was enough to reassure Sister Yameng. Lu Li picked up his suitcase and left, waving goodbye. He still remembered the last time he sent his sister to participate in the Six Provinces Tournament, when the two siblings argued for a long time over a small amount of money.
After turning the corner, Sister Yameng finally disappeared from sight. Lu Li saw a slender girl waiting for him by the roadside.
An Baili naturally took his hand, their fingers intertwined. “Aren’t you going to kiss me goodbye? You won’t be able to taste my sweet lips for a whole week.”
Lu Li kissed An Baili, not passionately, but gently. Unlike the usual lust-driven kisses, this kiss was tender, warm, and affectionate.
“Come back soon.” The reluctance in An Baili’s eyes was almost overflowing.
Why are they all like this? Lu Li smiled wryly. He wasn’t going to his execution. Mulan City wasn’t some dangerous place. It was just a short trip for a little over a week. Could he really encounter some once-in-a-century event?
Leave a Reply to Akirei Cancel reply