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Some things, it was fine when it wasn’t remembered, but when it’s remembered, they’d always feel very apologetic for not doing a little something.
The attendant smiled politely and said, “Hello, the total is 106. Would it be bank card or cash?”
“Wait.” Ye Zhou pointed to the cake the woman had just taken away and said, “Is there still that kind of cake?”
“Sorry, for each cake model, we only make one for display. The lady just bought our window display product and we don’t hold inventory on hand. How about you look at the other models?”
The remaining three cakes were a tiramisu, a Matcha mousse, and a cartoon cake for children. Except for the two strawberries on the cartoon cake, there were no strawberries on the other two cakes.
“Can you help make me another strawberry cake like the one just now?”
The cashier said with difficulty, “Our cakes are booked in advance.”
“I can add more money.” Ye Zhou placed his hands together and begged, “Can you help make a request for me?”
Unable to resist the handsome guy’s attack, the cashier blushed and let her colleague ask the manager.
The manager agreed, but he had to wait until 11:30 before he could start working on it.
Ye Zhou looked at the time and said, “Okay, when it’s finished, give me a call. I’ll be around the neighborhood.” Ye Zhou paid the money, put his receipt in his pocket, and put together the sweets he’d chosen in the shop.
The cake was only for eating, so Ye Zhou didn’t count as a birthday present at all.
In the following period, Ye Zhou strolled to a nearby shopping mall and wondered what gift he should choose to give to Shang Jin. Shang Jin seemed like someone who didn’t lack for anything. Gifting things to use or toys, he felt that Shang Jin would throw them in the corner to collect dust. It was a pity that he didn’t play games, otherwise, he could directly buy equipment in game and send it to him. How good would that be, and it’d also be something he’d usually use.
Unconsciously, he walked into an alley. Ye Zhou saw an old woman pushing a small cart with a lot of plants in black plastic pots.
Spring had arrived, and many people began to grow balcony vegetables.
Ye Zhou took a cursory glance and only recognized the pepper seedlings.
Maybe Ye Zhou had been staring at the things on the cart all along, so the old lady asked, “What little seedlings would you like to look at?”
Ye Zhou crouched down. He was no stranger to plants. Whether it was from books, videos, or in person, he’d seen them everywhere. But to really look at a young seedling grow up, sprout leaves, flower and bear fruit at the end, he’d never had this kind of experience before.
Plants weren’t like animals that would call when happy and howl when unwell, and one must also put in a lot of effort, needing even more care than animals. When sick, animals can be sent to the pet hospital and handed over to the doctor. When a plant had any problem, it relied on the owner to check the cause of the disease and care for its growth.
Looking at these seedlings, Ye Zhou decided on the gift he would give to Shang Jin.
And Shang Jin, who knew nothing about this, got up in the morning and saw three missed calls from Liang Jingmin.
On Saturday morning, starting from seven o’clock, it was a call every hour, really idle enough.
Not yet out of bed, Shang Jin’s cell phone rang again with a call from Liang Jingmin.
Shang Jin tsked and picked it up.
“Son, happy birthday. Mom will come to school today to celebrate your birthday.”
“No need.”
“How is it not needed? My son’s birthday is a big deal.” Liang Jingmin asked again, “What about your dad? Has he called you today? Nevermind, needless to say, he must have forgotten. His current thoughts are all on his own little wife. How would he divide his attention to care about you. Having a stepmother is having a stepfather. You have to remember that only the relationship between mother and you is the closest. I only have you as my son, but your dad isn’t necessarily so.”
“But it’s just a birthday. Why does it matter whether he asked or not?”
“This shows that he’s inattentive to you. When that little girl had her third birthday, your dad specially invited a planner to set up a birthday party in a seaside villa. At that timeー”
Listening to Liang Jingmin raise the same old topic again, Shang Jin directly interrupted her, “I appreciate your good intentions. I’m already an adult and should have the right to decide how to celebrate my own birthday. That’s it, bye.”
Hanging up the phone, Shang Jin scrolled through the contacts and saw Ye Zhou’s name. Suddenly, he didn’t want to spend his birthday alone.
Waiting until lunchtime, Shang Jin hesitantly sent Ye Zhou a text message.
One hand carrying the cake and one hand carrying the blossom he’d bought that morning as his gift, Ye Zhou returned back to school.
On the way back to the dorm, he was a little embarrassed. The cake and the gift were all a surprise for Shang Jin. At this time, Shang Jin definitely was in the dorm. Carrying these back, he’d definitely be exposed. Besides, when Shang Jin saw that he was giving him a present, he’d definitely have the idea to invite him to lunch. But he wanted to go meet Tang Dongdong at noon. Refusing a birthday person’s invitation on his birthday was a bit too pathetic.
After thinking about it, Ye Zhou went to the dorm and didn’t go upstairs. Instead, he put everything in the back compartment of the pedicab.
If Shang Jin wanted to use the little pedicab, he’d directly ride it and go, and wouldn’t look in the back compartment.
The weather was good during this time and no one would look for them to borrow the car.
It was really a convenient and secret hiding place.
Ye Zhou had no choice but to sigh. The use of the pedicab was really plentiful. Spending so much money to buy it was worth it.
Who knew that Ye Zhou’s imagination was so beautiful, but reality still forced him to make a choice.
At 12:30, Ye Zhou was sitting in the canteen, and Su Yin and Tang Dongdong were on the third floor of the canteen. The two people had already agreed in advance: when Su Yin sent a message, Ye Zhou should get ready to carry the dessert and pretend to have a chance encounter.
Unexpectedly, in these two short minutes, he received a message from Shang Jin and Su Yin one after the other.
Shang Jin: Have you eaten?
Su Yin: You can come up.
Ye Zhou was caught in a dilemma.
Shang Jin, why are you playing your cards out of sequence?
He’d clearly planned that after his meeting with Tang Dongdong at noon, he’d gather that group of guys in the dorm building in the afternoon, and then in the evening, he’d bring out the cake and the bunch of people would grandly go to the canteen and help to celebrate Shang Jin’s birthday. After they came back from dinner, he’d give his gift to the other party.
But now…
If he hadn’t remembered this morning that today was Shang Jin’s birthday, then it would have been fine. This way, he could refuse Shang Jin without any burden…
In this tangle, a few minutes passed by.
Su Yin sent a message, urging: If you don’t come, the meal would be finished!
Ye Zhou hesitated for two seconds, glanced at the dessert in his hand, and replied to Su Yin: I have something in a moment. I’ll give you the doughnuts I bought and go.
After sending this, he hurriedly gave Shang Jin a reply.
Ye Zhou: I’m in the second canteen now. What about you?
When he sent it this time, there was no reply from Shang Jin on that side.
There weren’t many people in the canteen on Saturday. Once Ye Zhou came to the third floor, he saw Su Yin and Tang Dongdong sitting at a table in the middle.
He tidied up his clothes, made a detour to the side of the third floor to buy a cup of milk tea, and pretended to pass by Su Yin’s table, waiting for Su Yin to call him.
One second, two seconds, three seconds…
“Isn’t this Ye Zhou?” Su Yin put on a surprised look with her clumsy acting, “Long time no see. You also came to the third floor to eat?”
“Su Yin?” Ye Zhou didn’t stand by politeness and sat across from the two of them. His eyes fell on Tang Dongdong’s face. Tang Dongdong was also like he’d remembered: round face and big eyes, like a puppy, making people couldn’t help but want to touch his head. “This is?”
“This is my friend, Tang Dongdong.” Su Yin took the opportunity to introduce the two people, “Dongdong, this is my friend, Ye Zhou.”
Tang Dongdong, neither hot nor cold, nodded to Ye Zhou.
Ye Zhou was puzzled. How could the personality be different from his memory…
When he first met Tang Dongdong, Tang Dongdong was enthusiastically feeding the stray cats with a healing smile on his face, hitting Ye Zhou’s heart and making him firmly believe that this must be the legendary love at first sight. After learning that Tang Dongdong and Su Yin knew each other, he also had the idea to try and get Tang Dongdong’s information from Su Yin’s mouth. For this reason, he didn’t hesitate to take sneak shots of Shang Jin to exchange.
Not waiting for Ye Zhou to think thoroughly to understand this situation, Su Yin looked at the third floor stair entrance and cried out in surprise. Ye Zhou followed her line of sight and immediately couldn’t think of anything at all.
At the third floor stair entrance, Shang Jin was holding a little girl and behind him was a beautiful woman. Although the beauty was beautiful, it could be seen in a glance that she was older than Shang Jin.
At this time, compared with why Tang Dongdong was different from his memory, Ye Zhou wanted to know more who the person beside Shang Jin was.
Shang Jin had never mentioned his family, so Ye Zhou took for granted that Shang Jin was just like him and didn’t have a good relationship with his family. Because of fellow sufferers empathizing with each other, Ye Zhou had thought about how to help Shang Jin celebrate his birthday…didn’t expect, the other didn’t need it at all.
That little girl hugged Shang Jin’s neck and looked around, and there was no trace of impatience on Shang Jin’s face.
Su Yin pulled Ye Zhou’s sleeve and asked, “Who’s that?”
“How would I know.”
Tang Dongdong also looked in Shang Jin’s direction. After seeing clearly Shang Jin who’d been obstructed by the little girl, he lamented, “The boys in your school are really handsome, each one better than the last.”
Ye Zhou was even more depressed after hearing this.
Shang Jin, holding Shang Youyou, came to the second canteen. Qin Fei and Shang Youyou’s arrival was unexpected. However, due to the Lunar New Year when Shang Jin took the initiative to be friendly with Shang Youyou, Shang Youyou completely climbed along the pole and wrapped herself around Shang Jin in her free time. On Shang Jin’s birthday, she asked Qin Fei to bring her over at all cost to give a cake to Shang Jin.
On the stairs, Shang Jin saw Ye Zhou at a glance.
Ye Zhou had taken his matters to explain to him, and Shang Jin also didn’t mind letting Ye Zhou touch his life. About to hold Shang Youyou and go toward Ye Zhou, he saw the person sitting across from Ye Zhou and his feet faltered on the way to Ye Zhou. He simply nodded his head and left without even a word of greeting. Ye Zhou opened his mouth, and finally, said nothing.
After Su Yin and Tang Dongdong finished eating, Ye Zhou said nothing, handed the purchased dessert to Su Yin and returned to the dorm without any spirit.
Having woken up too early in the morning, Ye Zhou looked at his books for an hour, then lay down on his bed and closed his eyes to rest. Unwittingly, he fell asleep. When he woke up, it was already dark outside the window. Shang Jin was sitting at the table reading.
Ye Zhou pretended to carelessly ask, “At noon…who was that?”
Shang Jin turned a page and said, “Auntie and sister.”
“Aunt…” Ye Zhou felt the stifled anger in his heart loosen and he generously praised, “Looks really young, so beautiful.”
Shang Jin put down the book and looked at him in a complicated way. “Don’t you like men? Didn’t expect all your attention was on women.”
“This isn’t related to liking or not. When you see a beauty, who would be unwilling to look a bit more.”
“Superficial.”
Ye Zhou didn’t mind. His gloomy mood cleared up, he looked at the clock on the table and said, “I’m going downstairs to get something. Help me to set up the bed desk.”
“Eh…” Shang Jin said in dissatisfaction, “Why so rushed.” Saying that, Shang Jin still put the bed desk in the middle of the dormitory.
Ten minutes later, Ye Zhou ran up, wheezing for breath, with one hand behind his back and the other hand carrying a green bag, Ye Zhou set the bag aside, closed the door, walked to Shang Jin and put forward the box with the cake, saying, “Happy Birthday!”
Shang Jin was flabbergasted. “How did you…”
Not waiting for Shang Jin to finish his question, Ye Zhou proudly replied, “Who am I? Could there be something in the world that I don’t know?” He put the cake box on the table, opened the ribbon, lifted off the lid, and a six-inch1strawberry cake came into view.
“I remember that you didn’t seem to have made a wish at noon.” At noon, he’d seen in his peripheral vision that the cake Shang Jin’s aunt had sent was cut the moment it was opened. Ye Zhou took a slender candle and inserted it in the middle of the cake. He took a lighter from Liu Yutian’s table and ‘pop’, a flame emerged. Ye Zhou lighted the candle and went to the door to turn off the light.
In an instant, the room plunged into darkness, and only the cake glowed with a warm, yellow candlelight.
Ye Zhou half-squatted to one side, an arm lightly resting on the small desk, and expectantly looked at Shang Jin. “Make a wish.”
The candlelight flickered in Ye Zhou’s eyes, but it seemed to be scorching Shang Jin’s heart.
Shang Jin stared at Ye Zhou for a long time and suddenly smiled.
Not the sarcastic sneer, but a genuine smile from his heart.
This smile directly made Ye Zhou foolish. Obviously, the two were in the dorm, but Ye Zhou felt like he seemed to hear the sound of melting icebergs.
“Thank you, I’m…really happy.” Shang Jin closed his eyes and began to make a wish to the cake.
Ye Zhou’s heart ‘thump thump‘ jumped a few times quicker. While Shang Jin hadn’t yet opened his eyes, he buried his face in his arms and giggled out of control. Fortunately, he’d remembered Shang Jin’s birthday.
Really fortunate.
Chinese inch (寸 cun), around 3.3cm.