Chapter 7
Chapter 7
Compared to other seasons, the streets were always a little quieter in winter.
Still, the shops along the road were all open.
Liang Xi had never been particularly curious about anything-until he spotted a stall selling wintersweet.
He stopped and bent down to look at the potted plants.
Tiny yellow flowers hovered lightly on the branches, and if you leaned closer, you could catch their cool, penetrating fragrance.
I didn’t remember Liang Xi liking wintersweet, so I asked curiously, “Do you like wintersweet now?”
He said, “I do. But mainly, I just think the courtyard is a little empty. I wanted to buy some flowers to add a bit of color.”
“I see.”
At that moment, my desire to make it up to him reached its peak, and I suggested, “If you like wintersweet, why don’t I take you to admire the plum blossoms tomorrow?”
He asked, “Where?”
“At Mei Mountain. It’s not far.”
“All right.”
After buying the wintersweet, he ducked into a pastry shop.
Before I could ask, he explained on his own, “The tonics I’ve been drinking are too bitter. I wanted to buy some silver-thread candy.”
Then he leaned close to my ear and whispered, “I’m a grown man… Would it be strange for me to buy candy?”
He was so close that his warm breath brushed against my ear, making it itch.
I shifted away a little unnaturally, resisting the urge to rub my ear, and declared in a ringing voice, “How could it be? What’s strange about it? It’s not strange at all! Silver-thread candy is made for people to eat. Anyone can eat it!”
Seeing that he was still hesitating, as if too embarrassed to go through with it, I decisively pulled out my coin purse.
“We’re buying it! Silver-thread candy is exactly what we’re buying!”
By the time the sun set, Liang Xi went home with his arms full of things.
I stood at the entrance of the bookshop and rubbed my face in blank helplessness.
…Was this right?
Why was the person who said he’d come to apologize arriving empty-handed and leaving with a full load?
And why was I, the one being apologized to, the one with a flattened coin purse?
A day later, Liang Xi came to the bookshop again.
This time, I was reading with Qiaoqiao.
She was a girl who stuttered a little, so I read along with her, correcting her bit by bit.
Liang Xi had already stepped into the bookshop, but after hearing Qiaoqiao recite two lines of poetry, he quietly withdrew again.
Only after Qiaoqiao left did he come back in, his ears red from the cold and his hands icy.
I poured him a cup of hot tea and handed it over. “Why are you here again?”
Holding the tea, he said, “I don’t know. Last night, I had a dream. In the dream, it seemed like someone said they were going to take me to admire the plum blossoms.”
Me: “…”
Only then did I remember. “Oh, right, right. That was me!”
Sorry. I got busy and forgot.