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Lin Youxi raised her head, looked at Lin Guochuan who was standing there and looking back, and gently said:
"Ride slowly at night. It's cold and the roads are slippery. Don't fall."
This was a signal from his daughter that she was showing goodwill to him, and Lin Guochuan's tense brows finally relaxed a little.
He smiled at his daughter and said, "Yeah, Dad knows."
……
I don’t know if this can be considered a reconciliation between father and daughter!
However, after seeing this scene, Mei Fang and his parents all seemed to feel much more relieved.
That night.
Mei Fang huddled on the sofa covered with a thick quilt. The huge living room was like an ice cave. He wrapped himself tightly and held the pig-shaped hot pack that Xia Yuan bought for him in his arms. His teeth were chattering from the cold.
This living room is too cold in winter!
Why doesn't Baimei County install floor heating or heating like in the north? It's so irritating...
Mei Fang opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. The shadows of trees cast by the street lights outside the community were reflected from the ceiling. The passing vehicles covered and blocked the light and shadows over and over again.
I'm not tired at all today...
Just when Mei Fang was bored, the sound of a door opening came from the inner room.
From afar, he caught a glimpse of Lin Youxi, who was walking towards him quietly.
"Can't you sleep?"
Mei Fang spoke to her, she was stunned for a moment, and then nodded.
Mottled light and shadow fell on Lin Youxi's beautiful face, and Mei Fang just stared at her.
"Are you cold here? Why don't we sleep somewhere else?"
"No, I was just joking when I said it was cold. But you... if you don't cover yourself with the quilt properly, what will you do if you catch a cold?"
Lin Youxi didn't answer, but came to Mei Fang's sofa, and as if in a teasing mood, she put her hand into the quilt.
"Hey, hey! Don't you know how cold your hands are? Don't poke me..."
Mei Fang lowered her voice for fear of waking up her parents, so that Lin Youxi would continue to reach inside unscrupulously. After freezing Mei Fang a few times, Lin Youxi pulled open a corner of the quilt and crawled in with her clothes on.
"Well...it's still warm." Lin Youxi smiled at Mei Fang, which made Mei Fang feel very embarrassed.
"You've let the heating out by doing this, okay?"
Mei Fang was actually very confused because he had no idea what had suddenly happened to Lin Youxi.
"I have an electric blanket in my room. Xiaoya and I are sleeping on it, but you don't want to sleep on it. Why are you coming to squeeze in with me..."
Lin Youxi didn't answer. She just lay on her side, resting her head on her arm, and stared at Mei Fang quietly.
"Afang..."
Lin Youxi gently called Mei Fang's nickname.
She placed one hand against her cheek, as if whispering.
"Thank you for what you did today..."
Wow... did you come all the way here to tell me this?
"What's the big deal? We are friends, it's only natural that we should—"
Before Mei Fang could finish her words, Lin Youxi covered her mouth with her hand.
She made a shushing gesture, then shook her head in annoyance to emphasize:
"We are not friends."
"It's childhood sweetheart."
"We grew up together and are childhood sweethearts who have always been connected to each other."
She placed her hand on Mei Fang's chest, quietly feeling his steady heartbeat, and then slowly closed her eyes.
"Hey... Youxi, please don't fall asleep here, okay? Otherwise I won't be able to explain it to my parents."
"Yeah...I'll be leaving in a moment."
Lin Youxi's hand was still on Mei Fang's chest, with an expression of being immersed in it, and Mei Fang didn't have the heart to disturb her.
It dragged on until she actually fell asleep on the sofa.
In the end, Mei Fang had no choice but to carry Lin Youxi to his own room.
Mei Fang's deepest feeling about this incident is:
It is much more difficult for a princess to carry a sleeping person in her arms than to carry her on her back.
Chapter 085 Yuanyuan's Birthday Gift
After experiencing a series of events, Lin Youxi was finally willing to have a good talk with her father about remarrying. Although Youxi still could not accept calling Aunt Liang "Mom", she still supported her father and Aunt Liang being together.
After getting their daughter's consent, Lin's father and Aunt Liang got their marriage certificate in the spring of 09. They set up a sumptuous banquet at home and invited Mei Fang and Xia Yuan's families to have dinner together. Even Xia Xun and Teacher Yu, who usually did not communicate much with Lin's father, came to participate.
This was the first complete meeting of the three families. Six adults and four children sat around a table to eat. As the host, Lin Youxi was very busy that day, serving tea and water and setting the table. Her house had always been deserted since she could remember. Even she always went to Mei Fang's house for dinner. This was the first time it was so lively.
It was a rare sight for Mei Fang to see Yuanyuan's father Xia Xun interacting with ordinary people. He seemed very approachable and praised Aunt Liang's cooking skills.
"Sister Liang, your cooking skills are really good. They are almost as good as the chef of the hotel I used to run."
"Thank you for the compliment, Yuanyuan's father. It's not just my achievement. Youxi also helped me cook a few dishes... like this braised eggplant, which was actually made by her."
"Youxi, are you so amazing? It turns out that you are not only an excellent student, but also a great cook."
Lin Youxi seemed very embarrassed by Xia Xun's praise, "Actually, I learned the craft from Aunt Mei, and Aunt Liang also taught me later..."
Lin Youxi's gaze finally fell on Xia Yuan, who was looking at her with her chin in her hand. "Actually, Yuanyuan is also very good at cooking!"
"Youxi, please stop insulting me!"
Xia Yuan shook his head helplessly, "The most I can do is better than Ah Fang and my mom's cooking... there's nothing else to it."
Teacher Yu likes to cook some fancy dishes, but they never taste very good. Now she is outdone by the two mothers and scolded by her daughter, and she feels a little embarrassed.
"How can you say that about your mother?"
"That's right, Yuanyuan, you weren't like this before. You always said that you liked the food your mother cooked the best, didn't you?"
"That's only limited to a few types of cola chicken wings! And Dad, you used to run a hotel, so you know best whether Mom's cooking is delicious or not, right? Only Dad would say something like this if he doted on Mom."
"Hahaha……"
The adults burst into laughter because of Xia Yuan's speech. Mei Lijun laughed the most exaggerated and silly, and then he was pinched hard by his wife Xiang Xiaoxia.
Mei Fang listened to the adults chatting and eating melons while eating his meal in silence, allowing his sister Mei Ya to take the fried chicken leg from his bowl and scoop the vegetables and tofu he didn't want to eat into her bowl.
Through the fragmentary conversation information of the adults and some situations told by Youxi, Mei Fang learned that this aunt named Liang Meijuan had an unhappy marriage. Because of the infertility caused by miscarriage, she suffered bullying in her ex-husband's home. Later, because her husband had an affair, she finally couldn't bear it and chose to leave the house.
Although she has experienced hardships in life, she still faces life with a smile. Aunt Liang gives people a very gentle and considerate feeling.
She doesn't talk much normally, but she is always caring and concerned about Lin Youxi.
However, according to Youxi, she would also maintain a subtle distance from Lin Youxi.
For example, she would never enter Lin Youxi's room or touch her things without her permission. The early family photo of Youxi and her parents is still hanging in the middle of the living room. She would never easily move things related to Youxi's mother, and she was very careful even when cleaning them.
It was in this process of maintaining distance but respecting each other that Lin Youxi and Liang Meijuan gradually began to chat and became familiar with each other.
After becoming a family with Lin Youxi, she also started riding the electric bike that Lin Youxi had given to her father before. Because she worked in the logistics store of Baimei No. 1 Middle School, and Baimei No. 1 Middle School and Experimental Middle School were not far apart, she would ride her bike to take Lin Youxi to school in the morning and then go to work.
Such warm and ordinary days continued like this.
The ice and snow have melted, and spring has arrived. Small central cities like Baimei County have barely had time to enjoy the warm days before the sound of cicadas has begun to echo with the gradually rising temperature.
This is a season when the song "I Caught a Cold in That Corner" is sung. Female students consider owning a Bubugao I6 blue and white porcelain music phone as the happiest thing, which shows that they are at the forefront of fashion trends and have outstanding taste.
The classmates around Mei Fang started to have their own mobile phones one after another. Of course, most of them used their older brothers and sisters' or their parents' retired and unused mobile phones. Even so, they were very happy about it.
The boys used their mobile phones to download the last series of games developed by Java on Symbian keypad phones. At the intersection of the 2G and 3G eras, mobile games of this generation relied on data traffic fees and SMS payments to make profits, and the mainstream games on the market were independent stand-alone works with very little content.
Girls are keen on taking photos, recording videos, listening to music, watching dramas, and reading comics. Mobile Penguin allows them to save on text messaging costs and call their sisters to go shopping together anytime and anywhere.
However, the three protagonists of our story seem to be out of touch with this fast-changing and evolving world. They are still accustomed to meeting each other by visiting each other.
What Mei Fang is worried about these days is Xia Yuan's birthday gift.
He promised Xia Yuan that he would give her a special birthday gift this year.
Xia Yuan's family has very strict tutoring. She and her mother agreed that she could not touch the phone until she was in high school, so Mei Fang had no choice but to give up the idea of giving Xia Yuan blue and white porcelain.
As for electronic products such as MP3, MP4 and digital cameras, Yuanyuan, who is rich, has everything she needs, so she may not necessarily accept them.
But if it was accessories, dolls, mugs or other things that girls liked, Mei Fang and Lin Youxi would have given them over and over again in the past few years.
"So, Ah Fang, you haven't decided what gift to give to Yuanyuan yet?"
"If it were that simple, do you think I would have such an expression?" Mei Fang held his chin with his hand and looked helplessly at Lin Youxi who was stretching. "So, Youxi, what is the gift you gave me?"
Lin Youxi smiled slightly, took off the cuffs of her sleeves, and showed her bracelet to Mei Fang.
"Look, it's this."
Lin Youxi showed Mei Fang a shiny bracelet.
"A bracelet again? You must have given each other many bracelets, right? But why are you wearing the gift you gave to Yuanyuan?"
"Humph."
Lin Youxi smiled slightly, "I gave you a pair of bracelets."
"A pair?"
Lin Youxi showed Mei Fang the word "缘" engraved on the silver heart-shaped ornament on the bracelet, and Mei Fang suddenly realized:
"Does Yuanyuan have a bracelet with your name engraved on it?"
"Correct." Lin Youxi nodded.
"Girls are so nice, Yuan Xi is by my side... This birthday gift you gave me is really meaningful."
Mei Fang nodded. "Did you ask the owner of a boutique to customize this bracelet? Which store is it? It's so awesome."