/
Ch217 - Weibo Extras (iv)
Birthday 2023
Surprisingly, Yan Suizhi and Gu Yan weren’t spending late January this year buried in voluminous case files or shuttling around various planets.
They evaded the upscale dinner parties on De Carma and went to Wine City instead.
It wasn’t because there was anything charming about Wine City at this time of the year. Rather, the old director of Cloud Herb Welfare Home had invited them over multiple times, and it would be ungracious to decline.
The director hoped to show them the newly constructed special school at Cloud Herb. As Cloud Herb’s biggest donors, they should have the right to know where their every dollar was going.
Other than that, however, the old director also had a small selfish motive.
He was getting old, and in a few years, the welfare institution would likely probably be transferred to someone else to manage. But before that, he wanted to see more of the friends he had the fortune of making as a result of the welfare institution.
The director wheedled the guests into a series of activities packed across four days, and everyone had a good time.
Yan Suizhi and Gu Yan were scheduled to return to De Carma on the fourth night. When taking into account the flight duration and the interplanetary time difference, it would be exactly the 24th when they landed at the port.
The distinguished Lawyer Gu had made restaurant reservations and ticket bookings long in advance for a modernised opera that Yan Suizhi was rather interested in. After touching down on De Carma, there would be just enough time to head to lunch with not a wasted second. It was the perfect plan.
However, there was a minor hiccup to this perfect plan on the day they intended to depart from Wine City.
Wine City had always been renowned for the diversity of its marketplace; some trinkets that had become obsolete on other planets would still be in high demand here. For example…
Old-fashioned fireworks, the sort that people had to go up close to set off.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Ktlr lafw tjv vlrjqqfjgfv ogbw batfg qijcfar sfjgr jub, sfa rajii joafg rajii mjggslcu remt qgbvemar ilcfv atf gbjv ab atf qbga.
Ccv atf fraffwfv Gfjc Tjc pera tjv ab qjerf yglfois jr atfs qjrrfv ys, rtbklcu j tlca bo lcafgfra.
“Gb sbe ilxf atfw?” Rbalmlcu atja, Xe Tjc jrxfv.
It wasn’t an arbitrary question. After all, with the lamp pines as precedent, he had a long-standing impression that Yan Suizhi held a natural fascination for things that twinkled in the dark.
Yan Suizhi browsed through several types with considerable interest, smiling. “Not exactly. It’s just that I vaguely recall seeing fireworks being set off before.”
“Before?”
“Mm,” Yan Suizhi nodded, “many years ago. I was probably only…”
He gestured with his hand around Gu Yan’s waist. “This tall. When I was five or six years old.”
“Five or six? Then you were probably a little shorter.” Gu Yan darted a look at his hand and moved it several centimetres down.
Yan Suizhi clicked his tongue, saying huffily, “Must you get on my nerves over something like this?”
“No.” Gu Yan went, “You were only five or six. And then?”
“I think it was also on my birthday. My mother had returned from a trip and collected many novelty items. She took a box out to play with.”
When reminiscing about the past, his eyes would often curve into shallow crescents, carrying a touch of mirth. “She probably intended to trick me into playing with them, but she ended up getting more interested in them herself, setting them off the whole afternoon. At the end of the day, she insisted that I had to pick out a favourite. I randomly pointed to one, which happened to be old-fashioned fireworks like these.”
Actually, Yan Suizhi couldn’t quite remember what colours and shapes the fireworks had formed. He only vaguely remembered that near the end, the scintillating lights and the starry sky practically melded together in a gorgeous display.
“It’s just a pity that we didn’t record it,” Yan Suizhi said.
In the decades after, he never saw such old-fashioned fireworks bursting in the starry sky again.
“You’ve never purchased any to set off on your own?” Gu Yan asked.
Yan Suizhi, “There isn’t much free time for me to think of that in the first place. Besides, doesn’t it look a bit silly to buy them and set them off alone? Also that Gao Lin would be driven to anger if the sparks fall onto the garden and kill off the newly planted trees.”
Gu Yan, “Hasn’t Gao Lin long been inured to you killing off the trees?”
Yan Suizhi, “…”
Yan Suizhi, “Touche. So, primarily because it looks silly.”
Gu Yan nodded and didn’t speak, pensively browsing the boxes of fireworks in front of them. A moment later, he turned his head and asked Yan Suizhi, “Do you still want to see it?”
Yan Suizhi gave a start.
Gu Yan carried on, “You don’t have to light it. If you just watch from the side, you won’t look silly, right?”
Yan Suizhi, “Who will light it, then?”
Who else could it be?
Only the person wearing matching rings with him would be willing to look so silly on his behalf.
And so…
Decades later, Yan Suizhi saw another brilliant spread of stars in the sky.
On the edge of a lake in the remote suburbs, about two kilometres from the port, on a night when the lights of Wine City were sparse.
This time he finally remembered to take a recording, but the camera was directed not at the night sky, but at his lover under the fireworks.
Despite this unforeseen interlude, they still ultimately managed to make it in time for the lunch reservation and opera performance on De Carma.
Everything was perfect.
Except for Lawyer Gu’s expensive coat, which sported countless dark specks after sparks showered down on him when he stood too close to set off the fireworks.
Sometime later, when he sent the coat to be maintained at a shop, the staff gaped at the tiny dark specks, questioning, “How did it get to this state?”
The distinguished Lawyer Gu thought, Beats me.
If he were to explain, then it’d probably be that something had charmed away his capacity for clear thought.