Restart life

Chapter 55 0054 [One person, one kitten]

This year, the Gregorian and Lunar calendars are close together, with Lunar New Year's Eve falling on January 21st.

New Year's Day has passed, and the end of the semester is just around the corner.

The night before the exam, it suddenly started to rain and snow.

If you reach out to catch it, you can still vaguely see snowflakes, which melt into water within a second or two.

The students were incredibly excited. In the dormitories and apartments, countless students shouted, "It's snowing!" People cheered and ran outside, jumping around in the light rain. The scene would make any northerner laugh.

They were still talking about the snow that night, even until the exam the next day.

After four exams, Chen Guiliang felt that he had made significant progress.

Especially in math, even if the questions are more difficult than the monthly exam, he is confident that he can score above 80 points.

After the last humanities exam, everyone rushed home by car, not even having time for a farewell dinner.

The first semester of my senior year of high school ended quietly like that.

Chen Guiliang stayed in the dormitory for another night; he was going to buy a cat with Bian Guanyue the next day.

……

Ten years later, the county's flower and bird market was still a street lined with KTVs.

It is commonly known as "Banming Street".

Banming, meaning to struggle and wail before death.

In 2004, there didn't seem to be any places in Phuse Prefecture that specialized in selling flowers, birds, and pets.

Chen Guiliang packed his luggage and took a car to West Lake.

The so-called West Lake is actually just a stinking pond. It's especially beautiful in summer when the lotus flowers are in full bloom, but in winter it's full of muddy sewage, withered branches and leaves, and household garbage.

It wasn't particularly dirty this year because we cleaned it up during the dry season last year and even mobilized students from No. 2 Middle School to volunteer.

There is a mountain next to West Lake, and on the mountain is the tomb of Liu Guangdi, one of the Six Gentlemen of the Hundred Days' Reform.

The area around West Lake at the foot of the mountain is filled with all kinds of shops and stalls.

Bian Guanyue's maternal grandparents' house is less than a kilometer from West Lake, and she strolled there.

The two agreed to meet in front of a music and video store.

When Chen Guiliang arrived, Bian Guanyue was idly selecting cassette tapes.

"Whose song did you buy?" Chen Guiliang asked as he walked into the store.

Bian Guanyue said, "Xiao Xiao and Chen Lin."

Chen Guiliang wasn't familiar with either of them: "I know Chen Lin, from 'Happy Old Home.' Who's Xiao Xiao?"

Bian Guanyue reminded her, "Chen Ming sang 'Happy Old Home'..."

"Haha, we both have the surname Chen, so we're from the same clan." Chen Guiliang laughed heartily, showing no embarrassment whatsoever.

He picked up the cassette tape to check the song titles and found that he had actually heard two of them before.

One song is Chen Lin's "I Don't Want to Lie to Myself," and the other is Xiao Xiao's "Love Should Be Honest."

He paid monthly installments to buy the cassette tape.

Chen Guiliang asked, "Don't you listen to music on an MP3 player?"

Bian Guanyue said, "I also have a tape recorder, which I usually use to listen to English and occasionally to listen to music. The sound quality of MP3s is actually not as good as that of tape recorders."

“I’m not that particular; it doesn’t matter what I hear,” Chen Guiliang said.

Bian Guanyue agreed with him, saying, "The difference isn't that big."

"Then lend me your MP3 player, I can listen to music to pass the time on the train." Chen Guiliang didn't treat himself like an outsider.

Bian Guanyue immediately took out an MP3 player and handed it to Chen Guiliang, saying, "Use a No. 7 battery. You'd better buy a spare battery before you get on the train."

They're so primitive, they can't even be charged.

Chen Guiliang stuffed the MP3 player into his pocket: "West Lake is very close to your home, do you come here often?"

Bian Guanyue recalled her childhood memories: "Every summer vacation when I was a child, I would go back to Fushi County, and my grandparents would bring me here to play. I remember there was an amusement park on the mountain."

“The amusement park has closed down,” Chen Guiliang said, spoiling the mood. “Only the martyrs’ cemetery and Liu Guangdi’s tomb are still visited by people.”

Bian Guanyue fell silent instantly; another piece of her childhood had been ripped out.

Passing by a ring toss stall, Bian Guanyue recalled that when she was a child, her grandparents often brought her there to play ring toss.

Seeing that she slowed down, Chen Guiliang immediately took out his money and said, "Boss, give me twenty laps!"

The stall owner, who was squatting on a small stool, flipping through cheap pirated magazines, stood up happily to collect the money upon hearing this.

Bian Guanyue hesitated.

She thought ring toss was too childish; only little girls liked it.

Chen Guiliang handed over the rings: "Ten for each person, let's see who can ring the most."

“Okay.” Bian Guanyue took the ring.

A few minutes later, someone started acting childish...

"Oh dear, so close!"

"Are you even capable? You've thrown all my rings."

"I can do it, I can do it, don't bother me."

"Not enough circles."

"Buy twenty more."

"..."

The stall owner smiled broadly, looking at the two suckers with a relieved expression.

"I got it! I hit the target! Haha."

He was so happy to find a keychain in the Border Moon Set that he pumped his fist in celebration.

Where is the slightest bit of modesty now?

The stall owner said, "The ground is covered with samples; you can choose new ones."

Bian Guanyue spent a long time choosing before finally selecting a keychain with a small plastic pig on it. This was her prize.

Then she pretended nothing had happened, changed back into her mature high school student appearance, and waited for Chen Guiliang to finish throwing the rest of the rings.

Walking around the lake, there are several stalls selling cats and dogs along the way.

Chen Guiliang mainly looked at the fur and condition of the kittens, stopping at one stall: "How old are your kittens?"

The stall owner said, "They're almost three months old. They're from my own cat, not those kittens that only come in small quantities. 3 yuan each, 5 yuan for two, or 10 yuan for all five."

"You choose first," Chen Guiliang said to Bian Guanyue.

Bian Guanyue crouched down to examine it carefully and quickly spotted a calico cherub.

Chen Guiliang took out five yuan and said, "Black and white and three-flower."

The stall owner used an old shopping bag to put the two kittens inside; he doesn't sell cat cages or cat food here.

Chen Guiliang asked, "Where is a pet clinic?"

The stall owner said, "Never heard of it. What is a pet clinic? Just walk along this road, there's a pet shop at the very end of West Lake."

Bian Guanyue took the initiative to carry the bag, and occasionally stroked the cat's ears.

When we arrived at the pet store, the owner, upon hearing that it was a newly purchased kitten, suggested that we come back in a few days for a bath and deworming.

I'm afraid the cat will get stressed.

We did sell them cages, litter boxes, and cat food.

As they passed a noodle shop, Chen Guiliang asked, "Have you had breakfast yet?"

"No." Bian Guanyue had actually already eaten.

The two carried the kitten inside, and Chen Guiliang said, "I'd like a bowl of beef noodles. What would you like?"

Bian Guanyue glanced at the menu on the wall: "A bowl of chicken head soup."

Before the noodles were even served, Bian Guanyue squatted down to tease the kitten.

Chen Guiliang cautioned, "Don't scare them. Take them home and play with them again in a few days."

"Oh."

Bian Guanyue sat back down on the stool, her eyes constantly glancing at the cat cage.

"The busybody's here!"

Bian Guanyue picked up her chopsticks and asked Chen Guiliang, "Why is it called 'Chicken Head'? In Chengdu, it's called 'Puga Mian' (meaning 'makeshift noodles')."

Chen Guiliang served half a bowl of free soup, then dipped his finger in the soup and wrote rare characters on the table: 齑馎饦.

“These three characters are pronounced ‘Kiboto,’ doesn’t it sound a lot like ‘chicken head’?” Chen Guiliang said with a smile.

Bian Guanyue suddenly realized: "I found it strange when I was a child, but no one could explain it to me. Now I finally understand."

“This kind of noodle dish is very old,” Chen Guiliang explained. “Lu You wrote a poem, in which there are two lines: ‘A cup of minced meat noodles, and my belly is swollen.’ Lu You said that eating a bowl of minced meat noodles made his belly bulge.”

"You're lying again." Bian Guanyue didn't believe her.

Chen Guiliang said, "It's true, Lu You was demoted to Rongzhou and served as an official there."

Seeing his serious expression, Bian Guanyue couldn't quite tell if he was being genuine.

Chen Guiliang often remarked that Longdu has been developing into a tourist city, and its cuisine is one of its highlights.

But their cultural and creative products are terrible. They even claim the origin of "chicken head" is because the noodles resemble a woman's headscarf, and in ancient times, women were called "chicken headscarves." They don't even know how to use Lu You's existing poems, and they don't even try to capitalize on Lu You's great fame.

Like Lu You, Bian Guan Yue also had her belly swollen by the hen-like woman.

She ate breakfast, then pretended not to, and forced down a whole bowl of food.

After leaving the noodle shop, Chen Guiliang carried the cat cage and cat litter and took a walk around West Lake with Bian Guanyue to digest their food.

After wandering around for more than half an hour, Bian Guanyue finally said, "I'll take the cat back first, see you next semester."

“Okay, I’ll take you home,” Chen Guiliang said.

The two walked side by side and soon came to a narrow alley. The bluestone pavement had been worn out by countless footsteps and looked rustic, cozy, and impoverished.

Further ahead was a construction site.

Bian Guanyue said, "The back street is being transformed into a tourist attraction."

“It gets quite noisy on weekends,” Chen Guiliang said.

Bian Guanyue said, "It's alright, it's just two alleys away."

We walked through the two alleys quickly.

"See you next semester!" Bian Guanyue said with a hint of reluctance.

"Goodbye."

Chen Guiliang took his cat out of its cage and put it into a shopping bag.

He didn't buy a cat cage, cat litter, or cat food; cats in the countryside don't need these things.

"Meow meow~~~"

The two kittens, brother and sister, were separated and immediately cried even louder.

Bian Guanyue carried various things upstairs and stopped at the corner on the third floor. Through the hollowed-out wall tiles, she watched Chen Guiliang walk further and further away.

She stood there for a long time before continuing to climb the stairs. Once home, she called out, "Grandpa, Grandma, look what I bought!"

There's no need to look; the kitten is meowing incessantly because it's frightened.

Grandma laughed and said, "Oh my, where did this little kitten come from? It's so pretty and cute."

Bian Guanyue said proudly, "You like it, right? I picked it out myself."

Grandpa also came to help, and the three of them busied themselves making a home for the kitten, pouring cat litter into the litter box, and temporarily keeping it in a corner so as not to disturb it.

The pet shop owner said that the newly purchased cat was timid.

Bian Guanyue washed her hands twice, not daring to get too close, and stood a few meters away watching. The cat was meowing fiercely, it must be very scared, and Bian Guanyue's heart broke.

She nestled on the sofa, playing with the keychain she'd gotten from the West Lake, occasionally turning her head to look at the still-meowing cat.

I couldn't help but want to laugh.

(End of this chapter)