Quick Wear: Cousin, Come to the Bowl Quickly

"The doctor gave my brother some advice," Zhou Peishan continued, "telling him not to rush into reasoning with my sister-in-law, nor to confront her."

"You need to spend more time with her and listen to her complaints patiently, even if they are unreasonable. More importantly, you need to help her have a realistic vision of a stable life in the future."

"My brother really put in a lot of effort back then, using all sorts of methods to coax and appease my sister-in-law, and slowly he finally untied the knot in her heart. Look at them now, aren't they getting along very well?"

After Zhou Peishan finished speaking, she looked at Lin Xi with a soothing and understanding look in her eyes. "Xixi, you're so irritable, isn't that also a reflection of this? After all... that's the engagement party, and then we have to prepare for the wedding and officially get married."

"Thinking about this makes me anxious. Naturally, I don't like anything about Xu Yucheng. Even thinking about him makes me annoyed, right?"

Lin Xi listened silently, stirring the shapeless cake unconsciously with the silver fork in her hand. Zhou Peishan's analysis sounded reasonable, and her sister-in-law's example was vivid.

Could it be that she really just had this so-called "bride's disease"? A trace of hesitation passed through Lin Xi's eyes, but her tightly knitted brows did not relax at all because of this slight hesitation.

Zhou Peishan said so much in one breath, but when she looked at Lin Xi, she found that she was still frowning. She was immediately discouraged. "I said so much, did you listen to me?"

"I'm listening." Lin Xi looked up, met her gaze, nodded, but then shook her head.

"Pei Shan," Lin Xi's voice was a little dry, with a hint of confusion in her tone, "What you said... is a bit like that. Now he doesn't care about me at all. If I really marry into his family, thinking about what might happen in the future, my heart does feel heavy."

She paused, her eyes flickering, but without the shyness or panic of a newlywed bride, only a cold blankness, "But not entirely."

She gently put down the silver fork. The cake, which had been completely crushed and had no shape, lay in a mess on the white bone china plate, looking particularly glaring.

"Your sister-in-law suffers from 'bride syndrome' because she loves your brother so much that she can't bear to be separated from him, yet she's also anxious and angry, which is why she takes it out on him. Ultimately, she just wants him to pay more attention to her and coax her."

At this point, Lin Xi's lips curled up in a very faint self-deprecating arc, "But now I don't seem to have that kind of expectation for him at all."

Lin Xi's eyes were confused for a moment, but soon cleared up again, "Pei Shan, Yun Feng, I don't feel any reluctance at all."

Her gaze looked vacant as she looked across the window of the cafe. Her voice was a little tired and self-deprecating: "To put it bluntly, it's just boring."

She paused, her fingertips unconsciously sliding along the edge of the tablecloth.

"Before, when I thought of him, I felt a little bit of sweet hope in my heart. Now? I just feel very annoyed. It's not that I'm angry at him for being too excessive this time. After all, he has been so unreasonable many times in the past."

Lin Xi suddenly sighed deeply, "I suddenly felt... this person, this matter, is so boring."

She looked up at her two friends, her eyes filled with a cold clarity. "That letter? It just made me see this clearly, just like..."

"Well, it's like when you think you've hidden a treasure in a box, thinking about it every day and wanting to keep it in your arms all the time. But one day you open it and find it's empty. It's like that. Suddenly you feel empty inside and it's really annoying."

As soon as Lin Xi finished speaking, Li Yunfeng and Zhou Peishan looked at each other, and saw shock in each other's eyes. Lin Xi's words were much more serious than the "bride's disease" Zhou Peishan had speculated. This didn't sound like a little awkwardness before marriage, but more like... a broken heart.

"But...how come it suddenly became so serious?" Even Zhou Peishan, who was always eloquent, was left speechless by her calm look. She couldn't help but pick up the fan beside her and fan herself. Then she spoke again as if she had made up her mind.

"Although they say it's better to demolish ten temples than to ruin a marriage, as your friend, I should be trying to persuade you to reconsider Xu Yucheng's merits. But to be frustrating, I'm more concerned with something else than trying to persuade you to change your mind."

"What?" Lin Xi pursed her lips and met her somewhat annoyed eyes.

Zhou Peishan retracted her gaze, turned around and exchanged glances with Li Yunfeng beside her, then spoke carefully, "What exactly do you like about Xu Yucheng?"

"Family background? There's no need to mention that. The difference between your two families is not even a little bit."

"Looks? Xu Yucheng is certainly good-looking, but he's far from stunningly beautiful, right?"

"Or is it his personality? Uh..." Zhou Peishan couldn't help but curl her lips fiercely, saying with some disdain, "Look at the way he attracts women. To put it nicely, it's called playboy, to put it bluntly, it's called vulgar. He hangs out with women all day long. I think if it weren't for Uncle Lin, the future father-in-law, who's shaking him up, I'm afraid Xu Yucheng's children would form a cavalry company by now."

"Pfft!" Li Yunfeng couldn't help laughing when she heard this, and then got a roll of the eyes from Zhou Peishan. She quickly picked up the cup in front of her and buried her face in it as if trying to cover up her ears and steal the bell.

"He's definitely not a good match for you, but you've been chasing him for so many years, as if you were under a spell. So instead of trying to stop your wild thoughts, I'm more curious about what you like about him."

"What do you like about him..." Lin Xi murmured and repeated Zhou Peishan's question, but her eyes passed through her and fell into distant memories.

She was about eight or nine years old that year.

Compared to the ignorance she had felt when Lin Min's belongings were sent back, Lin Xi had already gradually understood the meaning of death. Therefore, after learning that her elder brother would never come back, the originally cheerful and lively Lin Xi became depressed for a while.

It was the third anniversary of Lin Min's death. It was a rainy day, and she went with her parents to visit her eldest brother's grave.

The wind was mixed with the damp smell of earth and the lingering smell of paper money smoke. Her parents placed the offerings with sad expressions. She stared at her eldest brother's name on the tombstone and felt empty in her heart.

The big brother's hearty laughter, the look on his face when he secretly stuffed candy into her hand, still childish, but as if his shoulders could hold up the entire sky for her... These vivid memories seemed to be still vivid in her mind, but how long had it been? Her parents took Shen Jingyuan home.

He had a face similar to his eldest brother, wore the same clothes his mother had chosen for him, and even imitated his words and actions...

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My water supply has been cut off recently. Can you guys help me wash something? What do you want me to wash? Do you like me? (???????)?