Home/ The Selfish Gene/ Chapter 34
As long as Yan Shanhua doesn’t need to go to the clinic for a follow up or take medicine, Ji Chenfeng will basically be with me during the day. In order not to worry Yan Shanhua, he did not tell the other party that he had resigned from the pet hospital. In Yan Shanhua’s eyes, he just started a stable job of ten to six after passing the internship period.
Usually, Ji Chenfeng would come to the hotel around ten in the morning, feed the turtle, and then wake me up.
If I go to bed early the night before, waking up will be easier. But if I sleep around four or five o’clock the night before, or even just fall asleep in the morning, getting out of bed would become a big ordeal for me.
Ji Chenfeng never shouts loudly, nor does he come to harass me every ten minutes like Tang Bian who used to keep buzzing in my ear like an annoying big fly to wake me up. Ji Chenfeng would constantly kiss my hair, caress my ear with his soft lips, and softly call my name over and over again. If this trick doesn’t work, then he would continue kissing my neck, chest, lower abdomen… or even a place that appears exceptionally energetic in the morning.
The first few things can be tolerated for a while, but the last one is so unbearable that even a deity won’t be able to stand it. Even if I was obviously sleepy and tired, I would still passively get excited and sweat all over. What’s even worse is that sometimes he gets too excited and fires his own gun, dragging me to climb the snowy mountain early in the morning.
Several times I felt as if my heart was about to collapse, and I had the illusion that it would reach a critical point anytime and anywhere, exploding in my chest. Even though I survived unharmed every time, the thrill of a close call to death still left me with lingering fear.
It’s not that I haven’t talked to Ji Chenfeng before, asking him not to deliberately wake me up, but he refused on the grounds of my health.
My body and health? He really has the audacity to talk about my health. If you really care about my body, why do you force me to climb the snowy mountain over and over? If my heart continues to beat this fast, wouldn’t my life be cut short?
Big trees can donate nutrients to dodders in order for them to survive, which is the obligation of the parasitized host. But how could there be any dodders who greedily absorb the nutrients of the big trees and squeeze them dry?
In order to intimidate him and let him know who has the final say, I locked the bedroom door at night and put on earplugs. The next day, I slept until the afternoon and thought Ji Chenfeng would be obediently waiting for me outside the door. However, when I opened the bedroom door, I only saw the cold food on the table, and Ji Chenfeng was nowhere to be found.
After Yan Shanhua fell ill, Ji Chenfeng became the cook at home. My meals were all prepared by him at home in the morning and brought over in the insulation box. When you take it out at noon, the temperature will be just right, but it will become dry and hard in the late afternoon.
After waiting for half an hour with the three dishes on the table, Ji Chenfeng still didn’t return, and I didn’t receive any text messages from him either. In the past, I would’ve thought that this was a sign of “breaking up”, and I would never call or persuade people to stay. If it didn’t work, I would just switch to the next one.
However…there is no substitute for Ji Chenfeng at all. He is unique and the only one. I have no choice but to continue spending my time on him.
Reluctantly, I dialed Ji Chenfeng’s phone number, already thinking of the words to question him. In my mind, I even threw the cold meal at his feet to let him see if it looked ridiculous.
After all, it’s a monthly salary of 20,000 yuan, how can you just leave your employer behind?
After a few rings, Ji Chenfeng quickly answered the phone.
“Have you woken up yet? “Accompanied by his voice, came the noisy sound of rain.
“Where are you?” I got up and went to the window, only to find that it was raining outside, and the rain was not light. The sky was dark and the black clouds appeared very low.
“In a nearby office building.” He seemed to have changed his position, and the sound of the rain subsided. “The milk in the refrigerator just ran out. While you were sleeping, I went to the supermarket to buy some. Unexpectedly, it suddenly started raining heavily on my way back. I didn’t bring an umbrella, so I could only take shelter from the rain in the office building for the time being. I will have to wait here until the rain stops. Did you see the food on the table? You can eat it by heating it in the microwave for two minutes. If it’s not enough, there’s something else in the refrigerator.”
Looking outside, it looked as if it’s going to rain for a long time. If it doesn’t stop for two hours, will you foolishly wait there for two hours? It’s raining heavily and you can ask me to pick you up, but instead you feel embarrassed to speak up? Sometimes it seems like I can understand his thoughts, but sometimes it seems like I can’t understand what he really wants to do.
“Send me your exact location and I’ll pick you up.” I said.
Ji Chenfeng was silent on the other end and didn’t agree immediately.
“It’s raining heavily, you should eat something first…”
“Send it over immediately.”
You have to accept the decision I make, and there is no room for you to argue.
After asking him to wait where he was, I quickly changed my clothes, asked the front desk for two umbrellas, and hurried to the location.
The rain was really pouring down heavily, and walking on the road with an umbrella was like being in a water curtain cave. There was no time to drain the manhole, and there was a lot of water on the road. My pants and the leather shoes were all wet. It was so cold that I really wanted to curse.
After finally arriving at the office building where Ji Chenfeng took shelter from the rain, there were only a few dry areas left on my body. In just two to three hundred meters, I felt the exhaustion of a marathon. Shaking off the water droplets on my umbrella, I stood under the ventilated rain eaves. By this time, I was already regretting being too talkative.
If he wants to wait, just let him wait. Why do I have to pretend to be considerate?
Trying to touch the wind and snow outside through the huge tempered glass of skyscrapers is inherently impossible. Similarly, without sincere love, why bother whether you can feel the other person’s heart or not?
Stay in your own safe space and let the other people stay in the violent storm outside. No matter how much it roars and dances, as long as it can’t shake me, it has nothing to do with me. Why should I care about the formation of wind or the melting of snow?
Shaking off the water drops on the umbrella irritably, I saw no sign of Ji Chenfeng at the door. Just as I was about to take out my cell phone to call him, the glass door in front opened, and Ji Chenfeng strode out of the supermarket with a shopping bag in his hand.
“Sorry, you have to come here to pick me up in the rain.”
I wiped away the rain that had fallen on my forehead. Because of the cold, I couldn’t control myself for a moment and shivered slightly.
Ji Chenfeng’s eyebrows suddenly twisted, and as he approached me, deep wrinkles had already formed on his forehead.
“Your clothes are all wet…” He murmured and quickly took off his scarf, wrapping it around my neck without hesitation.
The scarf carried his body temperature, instantly warming my almost frozen body. After giving me the scarf, he put down the shopping bag and neatly took off his coat, wanting to put it on me.
“What are you doing?” I quickly stopped him.
He was wearing a black turtleneck sweater. If he gave me both the coat and the scarf, wouldn’t he just have to rely on a thin sweater, then it wouldn’t even matter whether he held an umbrella or not. What’s the difference between this and walking directly in the wind and rain?
We are already at this point, so why bother in the last two hundred meters?
“You wear it yourself.”
“But you look very cold…” He grabbed his coat and hesitated.
Pulling the scarf around my neck, I said, “This is enough.”
Ji Chenfeng was still a little hesitant: “Then let’s change our coats?”
I threw the folding umbrella in my pocket to him and walked into the rain first.
“Sang Nian!” He called out to me from behind.
I looked back at him and stopped briefly.
“You can’t wear mine.” After saying that, I left without looking back.
This “considerate act” of mine resulted in a long cold.
Even though I took a hot shower as soon as I got back to the room, wrapped myself in a quilt, and ate the hot food Ji Chenfeng brought, I still caught a cold the next day.
My throat was hoarse, my nose was blocked, and my head faintly ached, which was very uncomfortable. Fortunately, I didn’t have a fever. It wasn’t until a week later that my cold was completely gone.
Everything started with me locking the door, and I didn’t want to cause any more trouble for myself. After that, I let Ji Chenfeng wake me up in his own way every day and never stopped him again.
The rainy Sunday was Ji Chenfeng’s rest day, and it was also the day I have to go to the cemetery to pay respect to Mrs. Sang.
At eight o’clock in the morning, Xu Xi drove Monica to the hotel to pick me up. As soon as I got in the car, Monica turned back from the front seat and looked at me inquiringly, making me feel uncomfortable all over.
“What are you looking at?”
Like Xu Xi, she was wearing a black dress and held a bouquet of delicate flowers in her arms. She smiled when she heard my words: “Are you in love? Otherwise, why would you come to stay in a hotel if you could live in a nice apartment? Are you afraid that we will disturb you?”
Women are really scary, she almost got it right.
“Because someone always comes uninvited and insists on dragging me to bask in the sun, so I had to hide in the hotel to avoid the harassment.” I put the blame on Xu Xi.
“I do it for your own good. Why are you so ignorant?” Xu Xi waved the blame.
“When did you start this ‘for your own good’ theory?” I smiled coldly.
“It started when you became a bastard and broke your aunt’s heart.”
“Lisa, I don’t allow you to say that.” Monica chimed in with a pretentious tone, “Your heart can only be broken for me.”
Xu Xi was silent for a moment and said: “…Who did you learn such a slick tone from?”
“Is it too cheesy? I thought it sounded very pleasant.”
“Don’t say it next time…”
“You are so cold!”
With this interruption, the matter of my hotel stay was left behind, and neither Monica nor Xu Xi mentioned it again along the way.
When we arrived at the cemetery, Sang Zhengbai had already arrived. In front of the tombstone was Xu Wanyi’s favorite fruit cake, with incense candles on both sides and a bouquet of bright red roses. Every year on her death anniversary, these things are all personally prepared by Sang Zhengbai.
Xu Xi is very similar to Xu Wanyi, with round eyes and an oval face. She has a bright and charming smile, a heroic spirit between her eyebrows, and a sparkling confidence.
Perhaps it’s because of the fear of seeing things and missing people, but whether it’s the Sang family or the Xu family, photos of Xu Wanyi and the things she used during her lifetime have all been shelved. The only thing that had her trace is the small villa that Sang Zhengbai currently lives in, which has preserved the appearance she personally designed for decades. This was also the reason that no matter how wealthy Sang Zhengbai became, he has never changed his residence.
The sky was gloomy, and the weather was cold and wet, as if it would rain at any time.
Monica handed the bouquet in her arms to Xu Xi, who then placed it in front of the tombstone. Then Xu Xi lit three incense sticks and bowed three times to the tombstone.
“Sister, we are here to see you.”
The cemetery seems to have a special magic power that can take away all people’s happy emotions and turn everyone into a depressed puppet— doing the same thing with the same expression every year.
When I was a child, I particularly hated Mrs. Sang’s death anniversary. On this day, everyone will become sad, and my presence will appear particularly awkward.
Mrs. Sang’s death anniversary, the last day of her life, was actually my first day into this world.
“My poor child, my good girl…if I knew it earlier, if I knew it earlier…”
‘If I knew it earlier’ is a sentence that old Mrs. Xu would say every year when she cries in front of the tombstone, but wouldn’t finish it completely.
What is it that you knew earlier? I didn’t understand it when I was young, but I naturally understood it when I grew up.
If she had known earlier, she wouldn’t have allowed you to have children, which took your life. It’s not worth it, it’s not worth it at all!
This is probably what everyone felt in their hearts.
I have also experienced resentment, grievance, and even pain, but when I learned that I was not the child of Sang Zhengbai and Xu Wanyi, all of those feelings were taken away from me.
No one died because of me. I’m just a bystander who accidentally stumbled here. Once I assume the role of a “spectator”, all the resentment, grievances, and pain lose their stance. Looking back now, I will find something even more ridiculous— I once firmly believed that everyone’s misfortune was caused by myself.
But it’s Ji Chenfeng, it’s him. He was the one who killed his mother, and he was the one who shouldn’t have been born. He is the one who should bear the guilt, and he is the one who should be covered in cigarette scars. I just… suffered all of this on his behalf.
Therefore, he should repay me with everything he has.
After Xu Xi stepped back, it was my turn to come forward and worship. Skillfully lighting the incense sticks, I bowed three times to the woman on the tombstone who smiled as brightly as the morning sun.
“Mom, please bless me.” I said, while putting the incense into the incense burner.
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