Oneshot Part 4

It was dark on the day of Folk Singing, with clouds almost covering the mountains.

Second Cousin Sister was wearing a red wedding dress with fringes made of crystal beads on the dress, swaying as she walked. Chunjun was also dressed up by Grandma. Grandma weaved two braids on her head, and the ends of the braids were tied with red ropes. Chunjun looked like a schoolgirl in the 70s and 80s.

The two walked along the mountain road to the forest with one walking in front and one lagging behind. When they passed the terraced fields, Cousin Sister waved at the villagers working in the fields. She also distributed some wedding candies from her bamboo basket to the children who were playing in the fields. them. While Chunjun’s only task was to sing a folk song to the fox.

The lyrics were straightforward and passionate. She sang with a flushed face, and the her voice fluttered at the end of each line

Ah Lang~ Ah Lang~ I am singing the song softly~ I have a favor to ask~

Ah Lang~ Ah Lang~ I am wearing a wedding dress~ Show me the wonderful world~

Ah Lang~ Ah Lang~ Please come out and meet me~ Take a look at the beautiful bride~

Ah Lang~ Ah Lang~ May I be happy, and my family be healthy~ May the mountains be wide, rivers and clouds be long~

Her singing echoed in the mountains. The sky above was dark, the clouds in front of her were white, and the two of them walked slowly in the green woods.

Cousin Sister was very familiar with this mountain. Chunjun only focused on singing the song and blindly followed her. Towards the end she started to be in a daze. Her mouth didn’t stop, but her thoughts began to drift away.

When she sang the song, she was thinking of her deskmate. She and her deskmate had been in the same class since junior high school. He was a X City native, and he spoke an authentic X City dialect with cynicism in his temperament. But she didn’t know how to speak the dialect. She had always been introverted, and she rarely spoke in junior high school, because her accent was different from that of her classmates when she spoke. When everyone talked in X City dialect, she would keep quiet. She was afraid that people would notice the accent of her mother’s hometown when she spoke, and her deskmate would look down upon her.

When her deskmate talked to her after class, she lowered her head and pretended to do her homework, not saying a single word as her face became flushed red. At that time, her deskmate had said, “Chunjun’s voice is so nice, but she don’t talk much.” She gradually widened her eyes and stopped writing. When her deskmate stopped talking, she sneaked a glance at him, but she didn’t expect that he was silently staring at her intently. Their eyes met, and she even saw the reflection of her silly expression in his eyes.

What was he doing at this moment?

In the evening, she looked through her phone in bed. Her deskmate hadn’t sent her any messages for the whole day today since last night when she told him that she was going to sing a love song to the fox today because her cousin had a sore throat. At that time, he replied:

‘What should I do? I’m not very happy.’

Then he quickly unsent the message. He thought she didn’t see it, and he sent another message:

‘I hope your cousin recovers early tomorrow.’

After this message, he didn’t send anything to her all day today. When Chunjun thought about this, she was a little angry, because she felt that her deskmate’s temper was inexplicable. She decided that if he ignored her, she would ignore him as well.

At 00:01, a message from her deskmate came in: ‘Good night.’

He didn’t ask anything, didn’t say anything, but he chose to send her a message at that exact time, as if he did it in a fit of pique. Chunjun stared at the full stop in his message, feeling like she could even sense the anger in it.

So she also replied to him: ‘Good night.’

After she finished sending it, she saw the status ‘The other party is typing…’ at the bottom of the chat.

‘Did you see the fox yesterday?’

‘No.’

‘Are you unhappy?’

‘No.’

‘Then I am relieved.’

Chunjun looked at the sentence ‘Then I am relieved’, not knowing if he was relieved because she wasn’t unhappy, or because of something else. In the end, her deskmate sent her three photos: ‘This is my breakfast, lunch, and dinner yesterday.’

Before falling asleep, Chunjun was still thinking, the use of the word ‘yesterday’ in that message was so intriguing.

*

On the day of her cousin’s wedding, it was like a festival in the entire village. Wedding banquets in the countryside were very lively. The groom’s family drove five Mercedes-Benz S class cars 1 from the town to pick up the bride. The sound of firecrackers went off from the entrance to the end of the village. When the cars drove out, the children in the village followed the cars and shouted, “The bride is beautiful! The bride is beautiful!”

In the morning, when Chunjun waited at her cousin’s house, she had nothing much to help with except pouring drinks for the villagers who came to congratulate.

There was a small hiccup before the groom arrived to fetch the bride. The red veil was nowhere to be found. Chunjun and Second Aunt had run up and down her cousin’s three-storey house five or six times, rummaging in every room, tired and sweaty.

The groom’s car was just outside the front door. The door games had been played, and red envelopes had been stuffed. It would look bad if the bride still hadn’t come out yet.

Second Cousin Sister’s throat had just recently healed, so she spoke in a low voice, “Xiao Chun, I have a spare one on the bed in my room.”

Chunjun ran to her cousin’s room. The bed was in a mess, with red envelopes and wedding candies piled up in packets. She pulled out the spare red veil that her cousin was referring to and ran downstairs. In the end, Cousin Sister managed to leave the house before the auspicious time had passed.

Footnotes

Oddly specific lol but 大奔 “Big Benz” specifically refers to that