YV | Chapter 9

Not long ago, Su Miaomiao’s workplace set up a "precision assistance task force for impoverished people," and she became an ox, working herself to death for quotas and evaluations. A fish salted dry in the system, who had originally been steady, suddenly flipped over and plunged into the rush. Su Miaomiao complained to Zhang Xu all day, "As soon as work gets tied to evaluations, it changes! It becomes miserable! My completion rate for this quarter is still an egg, there’s no chance of getting an outstanding employee award at the end of the year, and there’s no bonus either!"

Zhang Xu looked at the indicator that matched Su Miaomiao’s avatar, and at the first moment sent it to his cousin.

"What’s your name?"

"Li Daguang!"

"Mm," Zhang Xu said lightly, "your good fortune is behind you."

Li Daguang: "......"

Zhang Xu handed Li Daguang over to the security guard. "People from the district charity federation are coming over, please wait for a bit." He smiled, very polite, and reminded them, don’t let him run off, I still have something to do, I need to leave first, sorry for the trouble.

The security guards kept saying yes, he definitely won’t run off!

Li Daguang clenched his teeth until they hurt, feeling that Zhang Xu looked refined, but was actually sinister!

Zhang Xu arrived on time, and Huang Zong had already been waiting for a long time. After the matter was handled, he insisted on dragging him to drink tea. Zhang Xu found it hard to refuse, and while drinking he listened to Huang Zong boast about how he made his fortune. In the end, he praised him once, the tea was good. Huang Zong was generous, and gave him a cake of top-grade Dahongpao.

Time cost and gain were proportional, this afternoon was not a waste of time. Zhang Xu walked out of the hotel, the sky had darkened, birds circled in the air, chirping nonstop, and he should be going home too, but Zhang Xu turned and went somewhere else.

"Can it be repaired?"

"Big brother, I run a phone repair shop. I repair phones. What do you mean by bringing me a plastic shard?"

Zhang Xu’s expression did not change. "Repair it. This phone shard is right in your area of expertise."

"I’ll turn you into shards!"

Zhang Xu smiled and asked, "Can it be repaired?"

"Repair my ass!" The two friends spoke straight to the point. "If you at least brought the motherboard over, I could still make something up and fool you a little. With a broken shell, how am I supposed to say anything? Can you give birth by yourself?"

The motherboard, along with the screen, had actually been crushed by a car. Zhang Xu picked it up, and Sheng Xiaoyang snatched it away. It was as if that was something very important to him.

Zhang Xu asked the key point, "If I bring the motherboard over, can you repair it?"

"Hard to say. This model is from the last era, parts aren’t easy to match. It’s used by people who are all seventy or eighty years old, aside from raising their voice to make phone calls, it has no extra functions. I usually talk them out of coming in to repair it. At most, I’d replace the speaker for them. Tsk, the repair fee is more expensive than buying a new one. You get it?"

Zhang Xu nodded and said he got it.

The boss was very annoying, and with an arm slung around his shoulder he raised an eyebrow and asked, "You got extorted by some old man?"

Zhang Xu did not pay him any mind. He was a little depressed today, and after coming in he drank a lot of water first.

After he was silent for a long while, he asked, "If the motherboard is broken, can the data still be recovered?"

Seeing that Zhang Xu was being serious, the boss stopped joking around too, and said, "I can’t guarantee it, let me take a look first."

They were all honest businesspeople.

Sheng Xiaoyang had been in a bad mood, keeping his head down all day, like a wilted flower. Half a month had passed since that matter, and Da Yan had kept his boundaries, not bringing up Zhang Xu.

"We haven’t had any business for several days, we need to find some work, otherwise we’ll starve to death." This topic was even sadder than talking about Zhang Xu. Da Yan was full of worry, and sighed, "Yesterday I washed dishes at a restaurant, broke three bowls, and the老板 saw how pitiful I was, so he didn’t make me pay."

Sheng Xiaoyang frowned a little.

Da Yan was conflicted, hesitating to speak.

Sheng Xiaoyang asked, "What do you want to say?"

Da Yan pressed her lips together and said, "I went to another scenic spot to scout it out. Although the flow of people there can’t compare to Jiangping Road, management is lax, so we can get by there for a while."

Sheng Xiaoyang was deaf, and when he looked at other people speaking, he was focused, with tiny ripples lifting in the valley streams and wind under his peach-blossom eyes.

Da Yan could not help blushing.

"Xiaoyang," she asked, "do you still want to keep picking up trash?"

In modern society, as long as you do not pursue quality of life, people will not starve to death.

But Sheng Xiaoyang did not want to anymore. He had originally planned that if he stayed in Su City and waited until he saved enough money, he would buy a used electric scooter and deliver takeout. Now various platforms were quite friendly toward people with disabilities, and he could make a living.

But money was so hard to save.

Sheng Xiaoyang’s savings had been used to buy a phone, it was broken, and everything had to start over.

As for where to live, the underground bike shed in summer could not be lived in, he would be roasted to death.

All of this had to be considered.

Sheng Xiaoyang gently shook his head and got up to leave.

Da Yan asked, "Where are you going?"

Sheng Xiaoyang had a hair tie wrapped around his wrist. He was very clean today, not working.

- To buy lunch, what do you want to eat?

Da Yan said, "The vegetable buns on Jiangping Road."

Big portions, filling, cheap.

Jiangping Road was in peak season every day. Sheng Xiaoyang walked through it, drifting with the crowd, aimless. The security guards were wary of him and followed him for a long time. After Sheng Xiaoyang ignored the eighth empty bottle, the two security guards left in disappointment and confusion.

Sheng Xiaoyang walked and stopped, using great willpower to avoid "Yijian Liushui."

He did not know whether Zhang Xu was there.

Sheng Xiaoyang missed him very much, but did not dare to see him. The bloody, miserable accident was still vivid before his eyes, and the crease between Zhang Xu’s brows, furrowed like an endless mountain, made Sheng Xiaoyang unable to catch his breath.

He was very discouraged.

He did not know how long he walked before there was a shop blocking the way in front of him, with many tourists gathered there. They were all looking up in unison, intoxicated. The road was narrow to begin with, and Sheng Xiaoyang could not squeeze through. He stood there for a while, and saw someone moving their mouth and saying, "Nice."

Sheng Xiaoyang was dazed, and also looked up.

Written in regular script on the shop sign were the words "Pingtan Hall." There was an open-air platform on the second floor, where a man and a woman in qipao and changshan sat elegantly. The man held a sanxian, the woman cradled a pipa.

The tune of Wu dialect flowed on and on, but Sheng Xiaoyang could not hear it.

What a pity, he thought.

In a noisy world, silence was not the same as loneliness. Applause rose around him, the crowd’s faces were full of smiles, so Sheng Xiaoyang also smiled, and clapped together with them.

Silently joining in, the first thing Sheng Xiaoyang learned after stepping into society was to shake hands and make peace with life, self-amusement on another level.

The door of the Pingtan Hall opened, a group of spectators came out, another group went in, pushing and crowding, all enthusiasm, not exactly orderly. A gap appeared in the bluestone road, and Sheng Xiaoyang walked past the entrance. His peripheral vision drifted aimlessly, and in a daze he caught sight of a familiar figure inside.

In the crowd, Zhang Xu was calm in a way that was especially distinctive. If others bumped into him, he gave way. When there was nowhere to give, others could not bump him anymore. In short, it all depended on whether Zhang Xu was willing.

Before, when Sheng Xiaoyang had spied on Zhang Xu, it had been premeditated and planned, his movements and trajectory all within Sheng Xiaoyang’s psychological range. This sudden flash of him was hard for Sheng Xiaoyang to adapt to, and he subconsciously lowered his head and hunched his back, curling himself into a quail, and hurriedly slipped away.

There were five or six people between them, noisy pushing, shoving, and laughing. Sheng Xiaoyang’s mind was in chaos, and his body was too. The Jiangping Road war god was pushed by outside force and staggered two steps, almost stepping on Zhang Xu’s shoe.

Mm, Sheng Xiaoyang blinked and thought, he’s wearing leather shoes today, they don’t match his clothes, but he still looks good.

Zhang Xu was tall, with a wide field of vision, and seemed not to notice Sheng Xiaoyang.

Sheng Xiaoyang pressed his lips into a line, clenched both fists, and gripped the hem of his clothes, irritably pushing through the crowd. He blocked out the illusory noise and shifting dark shadows, and his sharp senses caught a wisp of a unique wooden scent, similar to the wooden carving flower by his pillow.

Sheng Xiaoyang’s mind swayed, but he remained alert at all times, not allowing himself any wild thoughts. Just as he was brainwashing himself, his shoulder was touched by someone, he did not know by whom. So his soul floated out from the top of his head, and his body stood dumbly in place.

A key was tied to a thread half an inch long, and hanging from it was a small yellow dog wooden carving. It fell from Zhang Xu’s pants pocket onto the bluestone slab, clinking and rolling to Sheng Xiaoyang’s feet.

It was as if Sheng Xiaoyang could hear the sound.

His heart pounded, his breathing caught in his chest, and he could not move. His eyes stared fixedly at that little dog, with a bit of black on top of its tail.

Sheng Xiaoyang bent down and reached his hand forward. His movement was so slow, he hesitated, and could not help thinking, after picking it up, then what, give it back to him?

No, too deliberate.

At the same time he looked forward to it, could I say something to him?

Hello, or excuse me.

Then the crowd dispersed, the surroundings suddenly opened up, and Sheng Xiaoyang’s index finger barely touched the little dog’s tail, his fingertip suddenly twitching, like he had been electrocuted.

When his soul returned to his body, the key had vanished into thin air.

Sheng Xiaoyang exploded, and abruptly looked up.

The key spun in midair twice, and landed in a man’s hand. That man gave a very frivolous whistle, and shot Zhang Xu a look, "Handsome guy, you dropped something."

It was all naked implication.

Zhang Xu had no expression. He looked at it lightly, took it, and said thank you.

That man smelled the scent of a kindred spirit, and asked directly, "Are you free tonight? I’ll buy you a drink."

Zhang Xu looked around, and could no longer find Sheng Xiaoyang.

The sense of estrangement hidden in his soul only leaked out a little, like the snow-capped mountains in the coldest part of a Jiangnan winter, indifferent to all things.

That man leaned in even closer, "Handsome guy?"

Zhang Xu did not look at him, and walked sideways past him. "Excuse me."

Sheng Xiaoyang spent three minutes apologizing for his impulsiveness. His open-minded crush, at some moment, had shaken its foundation, making him want Zhang Xu to know him. If this emotion kept deepening and magnifying, Sheng Xiaoyang could foresee the pain in the future.

Under the ending where he would never get it in the end, illusory greed was the most terrifying.

Sheng Xiaoyang had to leave Jiangping Road quickly, it was bustling here, and he was not calm. Before that, he had to buy buns, Da Yan was waiting for lunch, and was probably about to starve to death.

The bun shop did not have a proper name, it was just called Bun Shop, and it was in the front alley, even more crowded. After lining up for more than half an hour, the sun was poisonous, and Sheng Xiaoyang’s face was sunburned red, his head full of sweat.

Amid the steam, at last it was his turn, and Sheng Xiaoyang held out two fingers.

The boss waved away the steam, not understanding, "Ah?"

Sheng Xiaoyang poked those two fingers under the boss’s eyes and shook them, two vegetable buns.

Oh, oh, the boss seemed to understand, lowered his head to look at the steamer baskets, and slapped his forehead hard with his hand. Oh no, the last two ones, they can’t be sold, someone already reserved them and took them away!

Sheng Xiaoyang understood the meaning from his lips, reacting half a beat slow.

At this moment the boss waved his arm to beckon, overjoyed, and shouted from very far away, "A Xu! Your two buns, hurry up and take them away, I’ve got something to do this afternoon, I’m closing!"

Sheng Xiaoyang turned around in a daze, and then saw Zhang Xu again.

【📢Author’s note】
Xiaoyang: Cheer myself on!