Late at night, sitting in his bedroom chair, Liu Chen couldn't help but smile every time he saw the two identical crystal balls on his desk.
It was impressive to be able to buy such a unique gift, and have them be identical.
"Weng weng weng..." kuAiδugg
The phone on the desk began to vibrate. Looking up, he saw Ren Yu's name on the caller ID.
Pushing the keyboard aside to answer, he picked up the phone and held it to his ear. He walked to the bed, kicked off his slippers, and sat by the window, looking out at the neighborhood greenery and the dim streetlights. Liu Chen said with a good mood:
"Brother Ren Yu?"
"I'm telling you, Penguin is preparing to launch 'Penguin Farm' tonight at midnight. Starting next month, Penguin will transfer last month's revenue share to our account on the fifteenth of every month."
Listening to the voice on the other end of the phone, Liu Chen remembered how popular farm games were in his previous life and suddenly felt like he was about to get rich.
"Thank you, Brother Ren Yu." Liu Chen's voice was filled with overt joy and a hint of excitement.
"Huh?" Liu Chen suddenly sat up straight in bed, leaning all the way over the window and looking at the streetlights outside.
"What's wrong?"
Having learned from the last time he opened the window to let in the wind, Liu Chen obediently kept his eyes wide open indoors, watching the light snowflakes drift down. Fortunately, she remembered to hold her phone and explained to the person on the other end:
"It's snowing in City C, real snow, not sleet."
"Rare."
Even Ren Yu had to comment on the rarity of snow in City C, as the lowest winter temperature there was only zero degrees Celsius.
And as everyone knows, it doesn't snow at zero degrees; at best, you get some sleet that melts as soon as it hits the ground.
"It's snowing in Beijing too."
"Heavily."
Hearing Ren Yu's seemingly casual words in his ear, Liu Chen's ears suddenly felt hot.
After thinking for a long time, she didn't know how to reply. In the end, she could only softly say: "Mhm."
The snowflakes outside the streetlights, at some point, began to fall harder, and at a much faster pace than before.
"It's snowing heavily here! Maybe you can even hear the sound of the snow!" As she said the last part, Liu Chen hunched her shoulders and held her phone between them, using her hands to pull open the glass window.
She opened the window by about a fist's width. The cold evening breeze from outside seemed to have found a vent and poured into the small bedroom with its air conditioning heating.
"Hiss..."
Liu Chen, hit directly by the cold air, couldn't help but grunt, then decisively wrapped herself tightly in the quilt with both hands, determined not to make the same mistake as at the hot spring hotel last time.
"What's wrong?"
Ren Yu's inquiry came quickly from the other end of the phone. Feeling Ren Yu's concern, or perhaps seeing her own smiling face reflected in the glass window:
"Pfft~ I'll put my phone outside, okay? I'll let you hear the sound of the snow."
Unconsciously, Liu Chen's voice softened. She was afraid that such an unreasonable and strange request would be rejected.
Ren Yu on the other end of the phone naturally sensed the caution hidden in her words. Uncharacteristically, this time he didn't just grunt but said:
"Okay."
Hearing this, Liu Chen quickly extended her phone out the window. It was probably because in 2008, overtime wasn't popular yet, and there were no various short video apps on mobile phones. The late-night TV shows were reruns, and only a sparse two or three windows in the neighborhood were lit.
Large snowflakes fell onto the canopy of the security window. Liu Chen held her breath, afraid that her own breathing would drown out the sound of the falling snow.
—
Ren Yu leaned back in his office chair, listening to the faint breathing and the barely audible rustling of snowflakes hitting the ground from the phone.
He looked up at the heavy snowfall outside his office, a tenderness blooming in his eyes. His lips parted slightly, and the words he had wanted to say for a long time rolled out from his throat:
"Liu Chen, Merry Christmas."
At this moment, both of them, gazing at the snow outside the window, smiled.
—
After hanging up the phone, Liu Chen still felt a sense of lingering wistfulness. She had never been in a relationship, so she didn't know how couples interacted, and she had only watched a few idol dramas about romance.
She felt that there was a hint of ambiguity between them, but upon reflection, there wasn't much evidence to support that.
Finally, she silently opened the ultra-thin Apple laptop her aunt had given her, logged into QQ, opened her QQ Space, scrolled down, and clicked on QQ Farm in the bottom left corner.
The page loaded, and she entered the cartoonish QQ Farm she had seen before. The cartoonish QQ Farm animation played, with "Xinghai Technology" written in small characters below.
After the loading was complete, a tutorial prompt popped up. Following Penguin's instructions, she clicked step by step, unlocked farmland, planted seeds, watered them, accelerated their growth, sold the crops, and then went to the store to buy more seeds.
The tutorial was very simple. On the right side, there was a QQ friend level ranking and the remaining maturity time for crops.
After completing each step, Liu Chen closed the laptop. Sleep was very important for a high school senior!
After Christmas, New Year's Day would arrive in a few days.
The students in Class Six of the third year were planning how to spend their three-day holiday when Teacher Lai brought an unwelcome piece of news.
"Our third-year grade will have one day off on New Year's Day, and you are all expected to return to school the day after."
"Ah? Why?"
"Wuwu, only one day off, should I sleep or go out to play?"
"Me too, I wanted to go to a hot spring. With just one day off, I'm afraid I'll fall asleep in the hot spring pool."
Lai Jielun nodded: "Exactly! And January 1st is a Sunday. We already have half a day off on Sundays, so this actually only adds five morning classes and one early morning self-study session. And we'll definitely be given a lot of practice papers."
After hearing Lai Jielun's words, the students who were still hesitating between playing for a day or sleeping for a day fell silent instantly...
Liu Chen, however, was a little excited about the holiday because she could finally go and see their new house, which was undergoing renovations. Although it had only been under construction for a little over a month, her mother said that because Uncle Mi's renovation team was large and well-organized.
The renovation on their floor was almost complete, with only cabinet installation left. Once the cabinets were done, they would turn on the underfloor heating for a month to dry, and then ventilate for another month. They could move in next summer.
Moreover, because the renovation was fast and the materials looked good, Mi Zhuzhu said that many neighbors in the complex were lining up for her father's renovation company to do their houses. And due to a lack of accurate calculation, her father had also learned from TV advertisements and started offering fixed-price renovations.
Because business was good, and he didn't have to pay project costs upfront or chase company payments, her father had decided to fully transition into the renovation business.
The house Liu Chen had participated in designing had become a model house for Mi Dad in the complex. When potential clients came, they would be shown around, and nine out of ten clients would sign contracts on the spot. Knowing this, Liu Chen had been eager to see her design materialized.