"I’m so looking forward to that day coming quickly, haha!"
After paying, the five of them left the milk tea shop and the sudden blast of hot air outside made everyone’s chest feel stuffy.
Fortunately, Zhang Chunxue’s car was already waiting at the door. Once they all hurriedly got in, it felt like fishes returning to the stream after a brief absence from water, and they all caught their breath.
After everyone was settled, Zhang Chunxue restarted the car and, not seeing Xu Qingfan, curiously asked, "Why didn’t Xiao Fan co along?"
[No wonder he had ti to call , it’s because he didn’t need to accompany a few girls.] Her index finger tapped on the steering wheel as she recalled the phone call from that morning and couldn’t help but smile again.
"The 29th is Brother Qing Fan’s birthday, and we were out discussing his birthday today," said Lin Wanning, who was most familiar with Zhang Chunxue among the five, so she was the one answering.
Zhang Chunxue was startled and couldn’t help but recall the ti Xu Qingfan had taken the five girls to skip classes to celebrate her birthday at the company.
Despite being nearly forty, the cake still had eighteen candles in it, claiming that auntie/sister is forever eighteen years old.
Rembering Xu Qingfan’s antics, Zhang Chunxue started to laugh, her eyes becoming moist. Shaking her head, she asked, "So that’s it, eh? What good ideas do you all have? Can you share them with auntie in advance?"
"Of course, we can, yeah!"
The five girls imdiately began sharing, each taking turns to talk about the birthday plan they had devised that morning, quite confident in their strategy.
"We’re going to make Brother Fan cry with emotion!"
"I don’t know if your Brother Fan will cry, but auntie is almost moved to tears here. Xiao Fan, having you all as... friends is really nice!" Zhang Chunxue said with her eyes squinted into slits.
"That’s because Brother Qing Fan is super, super, super nice. He’s always like this with us!" Lin Wanning said proudly.
"Brother is super nice indeed!"
"As Brother Fan himself would say, he deserves it!"
"Yep!"
Though Wu Lingyu and Xia Xiaoxiao didn’t speak, both were recalling all the things Xu Qingfan had done for them over the years.
[No matter what I do for Brother Fan, I am willing!] Wu Lingyu thought in her heart.
Xia Xiaoxiao rembered the family crisis that happened in her ho when she was in the first grade. Would she have had the courage to support her mother’s divorce without the sense of security that Xu Qingfan gave her?
[If it weren’t for him, I probably would have been really scared at that ti...]
Zhang Chunxue was touched by the pure friendship between the six of them and said with a smile, "Hehe~ Xiao Fan isn’t here right now, so save those words and tell him in person on his birthday."
"Hehe~"
The conversation about Xu Qingfan created a great atmosphere in the car, and including Zhang Chunxue, the six of them never ran out of things to discuss about him.
Unfortunately, the journey was short and before everyone could enjoy the talk to the fullest, the car arrived at Lianhua Courtyard.
"Goodbye, auntie, goodbye Wanning, Yiyi, Ruan Wen!"
"Goodbye, everyone!"
"Oh, when are you guys going on the trip?" Just as Xia Xiaoxiao was about to open the door to get out, Zhang Chunxue suddenly asked.
"Is mom coming too?" Zhang Yiyi’s eyes sparkled as she looked at her own mother.
"Mom has to work. I was just asking when you were going on the trip, I’ll be traveling for business during that period." Zhang Chunxue usually worked in Hong Kong and only stayed in Li City when her daughter was on holiday to spend so ti with Yiyi.
"OK~ Brother hasn’t said yet." Zhang Yiyi’s face imdiately fell.
"Auntie, I’ll ask Brother Qing Fan for you later!"
"Mm, thank you, Wanning." Zhang Chunxue reached out to ruffle her daughter’s head to comfort her.
After a brief interlude, Xia Xiaoxiao and Wu Lingyu got out of the car and walked ho hand in hand.
Xu Qingfan was cooking in the kitchen. Hearing so noise in the living room, he dried his hands and ca out to see who it was. Seeing that the two had returned, he asked, "Where did you go? You’ve been gone all morning and didn’t even help with the groceries."
"Brother Fan!"
"Us girls were discussing private matters that you shouldn’t pry into. Did you see my mom?" Xia Xiaoxiao bent down to pick up the little brother rubbing against her feet, stroking the cat’s head as she replied.
"Mao Mao was taken away by my mom." Xu Qingfan shrugged and returned to the kitchen to continue cooking, with Wu Lingyu quickly following him in.
Watching Xu Qingfan’s retreating back, Xia Xiaoxiao’s eyes showed a hint of a triumphant expression.
She lifted her hand to sll herself, and although she had sweated, there was no odor.
After confirming there was no sll of sweat, she sneaked into Xu Qingfan’s bedroom and lazily lay down on the bed after turning on the air conditioner.
Xia Xiaoxiao stared at the ceiling and zoned out, recalling the various scenes that had taken place in this bedroom when they were kids.
There were tis she pinned Xu Qingfan down to spank him and tis when the stinky dog pinned her down for the sa treatnt...
Rembering how she later dominated him in gas like Warcraft and Bubble Bobble, then drew pig faces on his cheeks and arms, Xia Xiaoxiao couldn’t help but giggle.
She was pretty bad at the beginning, okay? If she hadn’t secretly searched for strategies and cheats at night to practice relentlessly, how could she have possibly beco the "gaming genius" according to this stinky pig?
As a child, her thoughts were simple; she just wanted to see the disbelieving look in this stinky pig’s eyes when he lost a ga. For that, Xia Xiaoxiao was motivated to practice a map ten tis, a hundred tis.
The thoughts of the grown girl were still simple, it’s a pity that aside from gaming, many other things had entered their lives, and the stinky pig could no longer spend the whole day with her playing gas like in the old days.
Xia Xiaoxiao turned to look at the photo of the two of them from kindergarten on the computer desk and suddenly felt nostalgic for those childhood days.
[If only I could spend just one day like when I was little...]
.....
"Are you saying you both spent the entire morning at the library reading books?" In the kitchen, Wu Lingyu bashfully found herself pinned by Xu Qingfan against the double-door refrigerator as he asked her.
"Um... right... Brother Fan, we really did go to read books." Wu Lingyu’s gaze shifted, avoiding his eyes.
"What’s that sll?" He suddenly sniffed the air.
"The... the vegetables are burning!" The girl hurriedly ducked out, turning down the stove’s fla.
"It’s fine... the slightly burnt part can just be fed to my dad." Xu Qingfan habitually was about to say to feed it to the dog downstairs when he rembered that Big Yellow had been gone for a long ti, so he corrected himself.
"Just tear off the burnt parts." Wu Lingyu, not wanting Uncle Xu to eat burnt food but not daring to contradict Xu Qingfan, could only suggest that.
"Hmm, Yu, do you still rember when we were little?" Xu Qingfan nodded, cleaned the pot, and continued to fry the next dish.
"What?" The girl blinked and looked up at him.
"The ti when I tutored you and you helped with my winter break howork." He recalled the first ti he had pinned Wu Lingyu against sothing; from a little girl to a young lady, her expression had never changed.
Wu Lingyu was montarily startled, clearly recalling the ti Brother Fan pinned her and those strange words: ’Yu, you don’t want to be at the bottom of the mathematics contest, do you?’
"I rember." Her face flushed with the unique shyness of a young girl as she spoke.
"I’ve realized that you really haven’t changed at all from when you were young to now." Xu Qingfan said.
The two fell into a quiet mont, with only the sound of sizzling oil in the pot echoing in the kitchen.
After a while, Wu Lingyu finally spoke: "Brother Fan hasn’t changed either."
"Ha~ really?"
"Yes!" Wu Lingyu nodded seriously.
"That’s good."
"Yeah!"
The two exchanged a smile and, with a tacit understanding, continued cooking together.
At half past twelve noon, the three adults returned ho one after another, and Xu Qingfan and Wu Lingyu had just placed the last dish on the dining table.
As soon as Yao Jiping got ho, she headed for the bathroom. She always felt sothing was off but couldn’t quite put her finger on it until she bent down to wash her hands and realized why.
"You little rascal, why’s the bathroom sink changed?"
[Here we go!]
Xu Qingfan held his breath, pretending to be nonchalant, and said: "Oh~ you an the bathroom? Little Brother Mao Mao accompanied to the toilet this morning, jumped on it, and broke the washstand. It nearly hit , but I’ve already scolded it."
"ow~" Little Brother Mao Mao, who was gobbling up his food, looked up with a face of utter shock that one could only see on a cat once in a hundred years.
"Dare to bla Little Brother Mao Mao, why don’t you say it was a mosquito that did it!"
"You figured it out, Mom, you truly have an eye for detail. Ah... Mom... what are you... let’s talk it out, Mom, Auntie save !"
"Hahaha..."
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