TMISIU- Chapter 9

Jiang Cheng was waiting at the school gate with his schoolbag on his back.

The Lan family driver who came to pick him up with Lan Zhan had been there for a while, but Lan Zhan hadn’t come out yet.

After waiting for about two or three minutes, Jiang Cheng finally saw Lan Zhan coming.

“Zhan ge, what did you do when you went back to the classroom? The group leader went to find you to continue playing the piano.” Jiang Cheng followed Lan Zhan and walked towards the parking lot.

“Left something in the classroom.” Lan Zhan said.

“What is it so important?” Jiang Cheng asked subconsciously. He glanced to see Lan Zhan’s expression and knew that Lan Zhan didn’t want to answer him.

After all, they grew up together and knew each other too well.

Although he and Lan Zhan had a good relationship, he could never ask what Lan Zhan didn’t want to say.

The two drove back to Gu’s mansion.

A tall woman in a long black dress was waiting at the door. She had a black shoulder-length hair and a faint smile appeared on her face when they got out of the car.

“Mother Gu!” Jiang Cheng rushed over and hugged Gu Yihan, his voice was sweet.

Gu Yihan was Lan Zhan’s mother, a well-known pianist in Gusu City.

She called out “A-Cheng” first, smiled and hugged Jiang Cheng, then looked at her son and asked, “Zhan, why school ended late today?”

“Something was delayed.” Lan Zhan carried his and Jiang Cheng’s schoolbags. He changed his shoes and walked into the house.

Gu Yihan sighed slightly.

Aside from being good at playing piano like her, her son was more like his father. He was indifferent to most people. Even when facing his relatives, he was never warm.

She didn’t ask anymore and said: “Let’s eat first, okay.”

The food on the table was very rich. Naturally, it was made by the nanny at home, Gu Yihan had always loved her hands.

After the three of them were seated, Jiang Cheng talked with Gu Yihan about the school happily while eating.

Gu Yihan responded with a smile while Lan Zhan could hardly speak during the meal.

In fact, in the Lan family, they really couldn’t talk when eating. Lan Zhan’s grandfather, Lan Qiren, was the CM of the Gusu. The old man had a rigid personality.

The eldest son Lan Fengyu was the current Secretary-General of the Provincial Party Committee. The younger son Lan Xichen founded the Lanxi Group, mainly engaged in real estate.

Lan Xichen was Gu Yihan’s husband, but Lan Xichen generally worked out of town and rarely came home.

“A-Cheng, you are now transferred to Class 1, are you sitting next to Zhan?” Gu Yihan asked.

Jiang Cheng was in the same class as Lan Zhan from kindergarten to middle school, but after Gusu High School sorted their students according to the results, the two were not in the same class.

In the past year, Jiang Cheng studied hard, Lan Zhan also tutored him a lot, and finally he became a classmate in the second year of high school.

After the final grades came out, Jiang Cheng kept talking about being Lan Zhan’s deskmate after school started.

Jiang Cheng lowered his mouth, glanced at Lan Zhan on the side and said to Gu Yihan with a bit of complaint and coquetry.

“Mother Gu, Zhan ge has another deskmate.”

Gu Yihan was a little surprised.

She knew that Lan Zhan didn’t have deskmate because he did not like being too close to people and having physical contact. Even if she was his mother, the two had never been as intimate as she and Jiang Cheng.

“Is it a former classmate?” Gu Yihan couldn’t think of anyone besides Jiang Cheng that could sit next to Lan Zhan.

Jiang Cheng continued: “No, didn’t you and Uncle Lan sponsor the remote live broadcast class in Yanping County? Now the first in Yanping County has come to our class and the homeroom teacher asked the new classmate to sit next to Zhan ge. “

Gu Yihan was stunned.

In addition to the linking with government for the remote live classrooms in Yanping County, they did have funding from the Lan family, but she did not understand the specific funding details.

Knowing that Jiang Cheng wanted to sit next to Lan Zhan, she said, “Aren’t you free to choose deskmate in your class? Next time you change seats. A-Cheng, you and that new classmate will just change.”

Lan Zhan, who had not spoken all the time, suddenly said, “No need.”

Gu Yihan and Jiang Cheng were taken aback at the same time.

Jiang Cheng was a little angry and muffled: “Don’t you think that Wei Ying hates me a little? I kind of don’t want you to be friends with him.”

He could clearly feel Wei Ying’s hostility towards him. Although he didn’t know why, he had neither disliked him, nor liked him. He even hated him a little bit more to balance his heart and he subconsciously had inexplicable guard against Wei Ying.

Lan Zhan was his best friend. If he became friends with Wei Ying, he would feel betrayed.

Gu Yihan guessed that Wei Ying was Lan Zhan’s deskmate, but it was not easy for her to talk about the contradiction between the children, so she didn’t speak.

Lan Zhan put down his chopsticks and said in a cold voice: “Cheng, not everyone will follow what you want.”

The atmosphere of the dining room was stagnant for a moment.

Gu Yihan seldom heard Lan Zhan say such serious words to Jiang Cheng. She always loved Jiang Cheng as her child, and in the subtle way, Lan Zhan loved Jiang Cheng as much as she did.

She had to relax the atmosphere and said: “Don’t talk about it. A-Cheng, I bought the new game you mentioned last time. It has been installed in the game console. Go play with Zhan later.”

There was a special entertainment room at home, where they could watch movies and play games. Last year, she bought a whole set of VR game equipment for Jiang Cheng’s birthday, although Jiang Cheng got bored after playing a few times.

“I don’t really want to play, Mother Gu, I’m going to take a nap.” Jiang Cheng put down his chopsticks and left the dining room, obviously still sulking.

But Gu Yihan wasn’t too worried. The child’s temper was quick to come and go – just say a few sentences to him.

Lan Zhan also stood up, but was stopped by Gu Yihan: “Zhan, let’s talk with mom, okay.”

Gu Yihan seldom called herself ‘mom’ in front of Lan Zhan. If she said so, it usually meant a little pleading.

Lan Zhan looked down at his mother and did not refuse: “Okay.”

The mother and son went to a studio on the second floor.

This studio was very large but did not have any painting tools. There were just a lot of paintings hanging on the wall, most of which were obviously by the same person.

Holding a cup of coffee, Gu Yihan walked to a painting.

After looking at it for a while, she smiled: “Today I heard A-Cheng talked about Yanping County and suddenly I remembered this painting. I don’t know if the real scene there will be as beautiful as in the painting.”

It was an oil painting. In the painting, a clear stream was winding in a mountain col. The peach blossoms along the stream were like clouds and brocades, and the peach blossoms on the stream drifted away.

A black-tiled and white-walled farmhouse halfway up the mountain was filled with smoke.

The painting was quiet and peaceful, with a small “Se” written in the lower right corner of the painting.

“You can go and take a look.” Lan Zhan said indifferently. He also looked at the painting, but he seemed to look at something else through the painting.

Gu Yihan sighed lightly, his expression was a little gloomy. She walked a few steps away to look at the other paintings and talked about the matter.

“A-Cheng’s father has recently come back, so A-Cheng is not in a very good mood. He is still a child and is far less mature than you. Don’t get angry with him.”

Lan Zhan was silent for a while before he asked, “How many days has Uncle Jiang been back?”

Gu Yihan frowned, as if she didn’t want to mention this person.

She said coldly: “It’s been two or three days, so I asked you to bring A-Cheng back. The father and son will be quarrelling when they meet, and they will also make Uncle Sanren’s house uneasy.”

Jiang Cheng grew up in both Baoshan Sanren’s house and Gu Yihan’s house.

His father, Jiang Fengmian, was engaged in the medical business. He was busy with his career during his early years and hardly cared about Jiang Cheng.

In recent years, he suddenly wanted to have a good relationship with his son. He went to Jiang Cheng grandpa’s house every other time.

“You don’t know, last time Jiang Fengmian brought a new lover back. She looks like… Well, she was seen by A-Cheng anyway and he was annoyed for a long time.”

Gu Yihan rolled her eyes with disgust, bowed her head and took a sip of coffee.

Lan Zhan knew that his mother had not gotten over it.

After Cangse Sanren died, Jiang Fengmian was decadent and muddled for two years and only started his career after being scolded by Baoshan Sanren.

Although he had not been married for so many years, but in recent years there had been many lovers and each one had the shadow of Cangse Sanren.

After all, it was a matter of the previous generation, Lan Zhan couldn’t say anything.   Gu Yihan did not continue this topic.

She walked to a child’s painting, and after seeing it for a while, she smiled and said, “You and A-Cheng both learned to paint when you were young, but unfortunately you are always impatient. A-Cheng wanted to learn but always couldn’t paint well. In the end, he gave up. This is really not like his mother.”

At the end of the talk, Gu Yihan’s tone became a little darker and her eyes widened.

Lan Zhan looked at the painting that Jiang Cheng drew when he was eight years old.

The picture showed a child holding the hands of his parents. The mother had long black hair and a paintbrush in her hand. All three of them had happy faces.

He walked up to the painting with peach blossoms and flowing water, looked at the painting as he said, “Not everyone has to have her shadow, not me, nor is Cheng.”

Just like this mansion, if he hadn’t been allergic to pollen, the garden would have been full of white roses that the woman liked the most.

Gu Yihan was stunned and did not speak for a long time.

—

Wei Ying left the school in the afternoon.

He entered a bookstore near the school and was going to buy English listening tapes because Lan Zhan said him to go back to practicing English listening.

Wei Ying had a cassette player that he bought in the first grade. The buttons were a bit hard to press, but it still barely worked.

However, after searching in the bookstore for a while, he still did not find a listening book with a tape, until the owner of the bookstore asked him.

“Student, what are you looking for?”

“I want to buy tapes for high school English listening practice.” Wei Ying said.

The bookstore owner was an uncle in his early forties, wearing a pair of plastic slippers. He looked surprised: “Who still uses tape to listen to English?”

Wei Ying was taken aback, what would he use without tapes?

The boss glanced at the school uniform that Wei Ying was wearing and said, “Doesn’t your Gusu High School have electronic devices? They all use mobile phones or tablets. They can listen to them at any time. The tapes are so inconvenient.”

He said while pulling out an English listening book from the bookshelf and pointed it to Wei Ying: “When you buy the book, it will give you a download URL and QR code of the audio file. You can download it by scanning it with your mobile phone. “

Wei Ying remembered the wireless earphones Lan Zhan often wore and said in a bewilderment: “Okay, I’ll look at other teaching materials first.”

He was about to turn around and walk when he was pulled again by the boss.

“Hey, wait. I’ll go to the warehouse and maybe I might be able to look through the backlog of tapes before.”

The boss searched for a while and finally found the audiotapes and books that were not sold years ago. He patted the dust on them with his hands and said with a smile.

“Actually, I think the tapes are better. Students can’t help but play games and chat when using their mobile phones. Who knows if they are listening to English or listening to music?”

Wei Ying nodded. Just as he was about to pay for it, the boss waved his hand and said.

“I gave it to you. It was meant to be thrown away.”

Wei Ying didn’t want to take it for nothing.

The two pushed a few times, and in the end, Wei Ying bought some other learning materials from the bookstore before accepting the free listening book and tape.

He returned to the empty bedroom and took out the old-fashioned cassette player.

At that time, he saved a lot of breakfast money to buy the player. After buying it, he carefully affixed a sticker and wrote his name on it, for fear of being taken away.

This was his only electronic device besides the electronic watch.

After pressing the power button several times, the cassette player started to work slowly.

He put the newly bought tape in, plugged in a broken earphone, and heaved a sigh of relief when the sound came out.

After an hour of doing English listening, Wei Ying worked on the more difficult topics in the newly bought supplementary books according to the key points of each subject that Lan Zhan had planned in the morning.

If he didn’t understand, he circled the question number, then fold up the pages of the book, and wait for tomorrow’s lunch break to ask Lan Zhan.

Thinking of Lan Zhan’s helping him at noon the next day, Wei Ying couldn’t help but lie on the table and laugh in a low voice.

There was no one in the bedroom, but he seemed afraid of being heard.

Just like when he was a child, Yu Ziyuan would occasionally bring a lollipop to Wei Yanli when she came back from town.

He would sometimes get a lollipop, but he would never eat it like Wei Yanli did. He always kept it in his bag for a long time.

From time to time, for fear of being seen by Wei Yanli, he quietly took out to take a look and smell it and waited until the candy paper was sticky and couldn’t be torn off before eating it.

Except for going out at night to dinner, Wei Ying only studied in the dormitory throughout the afternoon and evening, and before going to bed at night, he wore one earphone and listen to nine pounds and fifteen pence.

He thought he would have no dreams after studying for a whole day, but he had a dream that night.

He dreamed that he was sitting in the classroom during the day and watching Lan Zhan who was next to him helping him marking the paper.

Suddenly Lan Zhan’s cell phone vibrated. After he answered the phone for a while, he said, “Okay, I will take Wei Ying home later.”

Then they took the bus home together but it took a long time to arrive. Wei Ying was wondering why they hadn’t arrived yet.

The bus finally stopped. He and Lan Zhan got out of the bus and took a look.

It turned out that it was not Lan Zhan’s home but Yanping river in Lotus Pillar.

There were peach blossoms on the mountain col and on the stream, and there were orioles on the branches.

He invited Lan Zhan to sit at his home halfway up the mountain, but Lan Zhan frowned and said, “I don’t like it here.” Then he turned and left.

Wei Ying chased after him vigorously, shouting how about I cut the peach blossom tree, but he couldn’t catch up like a ghost hitting a wall.

After waking up, Wei Ying felt like he had run two hundred miles, and drank several sips of water.

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