Chapter 35 The Catcher in the Rye

Chapter 35 The Catcher in the Rye

Chapter 35 The Catcher in the Rye

Ning Bingru looked at the note again, this time putting on his reading glasses.

"This was written in half a minute? When did Mei Rucheng acquire such a solid foundation in ancient poetry? Did he write it in front of you?"

Ning Chunyan put his hands behind his back and said, "When did I say that this was written by Director Mei?"

"It wasn't written by Mei Rucheng? It was written by a young man in their research room? When did their government office become so literary? Could this be the driving force behind it?"

Shen Jianqiu was the name of the big boss. Ning Bingru usually didn't say so many words in one breath. He looked at the note again and again and was surprised.

Ning Chunyan put away the note and said, "Dad, stop guessing. Just tell me what you think."

"Very good." Ning Bingru said concisely.

Ning Chunyan touched his back, stretched out her delicate hands, and rubbed his shoulders:

"I am so happy to have you, a professor of Chinese Department of Nanjing University, former vice-director of the Department of Humanities, leader of the Chinese textbook editing team, and president of the Li Bai Research Society..."

"Enough, enough, enough. Stop naming dishes. Our house can't accommodate so many people." Ning Bingru stretched out his hand to stop his daughter from flattering him.

Hearing the words "name of dishes", Ning Chunyan had an idea: "He will be ecstatic to get your 'good' evaluation. But unfortunately, I will never tell him."

Ning Bingru stared at her daughter: "Who is it?"

Ning Chunyan didn't answer. She went back to her room, slammed the door, and started changing her clothes.

Ning Bingru shook his head. When Ning Chunyan came out, she was already wearing pajamas, blue striped pajamas with a collar and embroidered with a little bear, which had two round black eyes.

Ning Chunyan took off her long dress and tied up her hair, just like the Madonna in the Renaissance, shedding her divine halo and returning to the human world. It was a different kind of beauty.

Ning Bingru asked, "How many days will you stay in Xihe? What are your plans for the future?"

"Stay for another week. I don't have any plans, except for a symposium tomorrow. I finally got home, and the literary association here will definitely hold on to me and won't let go. It's really annoying. By the way, where's mom?"

Ning Bingru said: "Your mother went to play mahjong."

He picked up the book on the desk and said, "It would be good to come back and participate in some activities of the Federation of Literary and Art Circles, so as to make some contributions to the literature of my hometown. Although Xihe has a strong literary style, the young people nowadays are more impetuous than the previous generation."

Ning Chunyan did not answer. She had no obligation to save literature, whether it was the literature of her hometown or anywhere else. She even had a lot of troubles of her own.

Ning Bingru said, "By the way, if you have time, why don't you save it for tomorrow night and let's go out for dinner?"

Speaking of being troubled, Ning Chunyan's face changed and he said, "It's not another blind date, is it?"

Ning Bingru looked a little embarrassed: "I'm just introducing a new friend to you. He's the son of your mother's friend, about your age, a returned postdoctoral fellow, and a very good person. You two must have something in common..."

"what!--"

Ning Chunyan ran away holding her head and closed the door of her room. She was too lazy to listen to her father chanting.

Ning Bingru stood outside the door and said, "You can escape from marriage, but you can't escape from marriage forever. As long as you are human, there will always be such a day."

Ning Chunyan did not answer in the room, and remained very quiet, using silence to express her resistance.

Ning Bingru shook his head and left.

Ning Chunyan was lying on the bed, playing with her mobile phone, with her legs raised and dangling in the air. Her trouser legs fell down, revealing her white and well-proportioned calves.

Her literary style is very avant-garde, cold and penetrating, as if she sees through everything about life. However, when it comes to major decisions in her life, she cannot be as purely rational as her writing.

Moreover, the calmer she was, the more she felt that the union of two people contained great terror.

If she had to choose marriage, she would rather the other person was someone who would run into her like a wild boar. At least that would make her heart fluctuate. But all the people she had met so far were too conventional, and they were all ordinary people who lived according to the laws of the real world. They ate, slept, made money, pleased others, and longed to be pleased.

There is nothing wrong with being vulgar. She is also vulgar. But she longs for romance. She has a premonition that once she is tied to another vulgar person, she will fall into an endless vulgar life. That is not romantic at all. The Renaissance has been over for many years, but humans will always be romantic animals.

She had no choice and no escape.

There is such a fable: Two restless young men found Socrates and asked him how to have a happy marriage. Socrates took him to a wheat field and asked him to walk along the ridge to pick the largest and fullest grain of wheat.

However, once you find that grain of wheat, you can no longer change it, even if you see a bigger, fuller grain of wheat later. And you can only walk this path once.

The young men set out. The first one hesitated and refused to start, thinking that there would be bigger grains of wheat later, but he missed a lot of good grains of wheat, and finally he could only grab one grain in a hurry before the end; the other one almost picked his wheat as soon as he started.

Finally, the two men came back to Socrates. The wheat in their hands was almost the same size, but one was very upset while the other looked calm.

This is a fable about marriage, and wheat is the most suitable partner. Ning Chunyan read this fable when she was very young. She understood the author's intention almost instantly, but sneered. She felt that she would not have such a desire for gain and loss.

As she got older, she became more and more like the first young man in the fable. Even though she never wanted to step into the wheat field, she just wanted to stand by the road and watch quietly. But she later discovered that everyone was already in the wheat field.

Humans have no choice. Some people suffer because they don't have a uterus, while others suffer because they have a uterus. Whether or not you have a uterus is determined by nature. Humans have no choice.

She could not have any urge to get married during a blind date. It was a carefully constructed occasion, with both parties carefully examining each other with an evaluation or waiting-for-price mentality, just like looking at a house.

She didn't want to be a house, even if it was the best house in the area. So whenever her father talked about marriage, she felt overwhelmed.

Thinking of this, she became angrier and angrier. She opened the WeChat friend she had just added and sent him a message that had no beginning or end:
【It’s great to be married! 】

After a while, a small punctuation mark came over: "?"

Imagining the other person's confused expression, Ning Chunyan felt a little better.

She turned on her mobile phone and skillfully opened the "Wenmai" app.

……

When Lin Feng called Wang Zixu, he had just woken up from a nap and was feeling bored.

On the other end of the phone, Lin Feng seemed a little embarrassed, and had some of the lisp that is typical of a hangover.

He invited Wang Zixu to meet him in the evening to talk about many things. "This time it's not just literature," he said.

Wang Zixu readily agreed. Lin Feng left a good impression on him. It's not that he doesn't like socializing, but he doesn't like socializing that reduces his energy.

They agreed to meet at Xihe Park. When Lin Feng saw Wang Zixu, he smiled sheepishly and said, "I drank too much yesterday."

Wang Zixu nodded: "It's okay, I poured it in."

Lin Feng said: "You haven't heard any bad rumors, right?"

Wang Zixu said: "I have heard some rumors, but I can't say whether they are bad or not."

Lin Feng sighed and said, "I'm sorry to trouble you."

Wang Zixu said: "I am the one who caused you trouble."

Lin Feng raised his head in surprise: "What kind of rumor did you hear?"

Wang Zixu said: "I am also curious about what rumors you have heard."

The two were walking in the park, and when pedestrians passed by them, some people secretly pointed and talked, as if they had discovered a shameful duo. They didn't know that they had become the hottest topic in Xihe recently.

(End of this chapter)