Chapter 04

“Really?” Lou Jia avoided Jiang Siwei’s gaze with a yawn. “Then why didn’t you contact us for so long?”

“The situation was complicated at the time,” Jiang Siwei said in silence.

Seeing that he was deliberately hiding something, Lou Jia didn’t ask any more. She originally wanted to wait until he finished taking his medicine before going back, but Fang Jin, who lived in this dormitory in the middle, came back for his afternoon nap.

The heavy rain fell like a string of beads on the mud in the courtyard. For several days, Jiang Siwei woke up from his sleep to this sound.

One morning, he was surprised to hear no sound. He suddenly opened his eyes and realized that the sky was clear and he felt much better.

There was no one in the room. Jiang Siwei got up and walked out. Lou Jia, who was standing on the other side of the corridor, saw him and came over to ask, “How do you feel today?”

“Much better,” Jiang Siwei said, rubbing his hair. ‘I feel like I could eat a cow right now.’

Lou Jia smiled and said, ‘Then hurry up and get ready. I’ll take you to the cafeteria. The rain stopped today, so we have a lot of work to do.’

Jiang Siwei nodded, ‘Okay.’

The rain in Wutong Village had completely stopped.

Several classrooms on the second floor of the school had serious water damage, and the unpaved playground had also been soaked, but fortunately, the heavy rain did not cause flash floods, and there was still room for remedy.

The aftermath of the rain was complicated. In the morning, Jiang Siwei only spoke to Lou Jia for a few words at noon when she ate. In the afternoon, she didn’t even see him.

When she went back in the evening, Jiang Siwei saw that Lou Jia had not returned to the dormitory, and there was no response when she sent a message. She couldn’t help but ask Fang Jin.

“You’re right, I forgot. Teacher Lou went to the town with the principal to pick someone up this afternoon. She’s not expected back until tomorrow.“ Fang Jin remembered when he was asked. ‘Before she left, she asked me to tell you, and she also asked me to remind you to take your medicine. She was really busy.’

”Picking someone up? Who else is coming?” Jiang Siwei poured a cup of hot water and prepared to take his medicine when it cooled down.

“I’m not sure, but it seems that the donated supplies that Ms. Lou had contacted the school about have arrived.“ Fang Jin said, ‘She left in a hurry, and I didn’t ask her about it. Forget about that. Have you taken your medicine? I have to take a picture and send it to Ms. Lou.’

”I’ll take it right away,” Jiang Siwei smiled, ”Brother, you go wash up first. I’ll take a picture of it myself after I finish eating.”

“Okay.”

Jiang Siwei liked the feeling of being cared for at all times, and took photos of everything, from the pills to the water she poured, and even the empty pillbox after she finished taking the pills.

Lou Jia quickly replied: ‘That’s good.’

She also sent a sticker of a kitten purring.

Jiang Siwei remembered that she used to like to do this to herself, and she wished she could dress up like the kitten on the screen.

She typed: ”Is there a reward?”

Luo Jia: Jiang Siwei, how old are you? You want a reward for taking your medicine?

Jiang Siwei sent a picture of a puppy crying.

Luo Jia couldn’t help but laugh when she received the message. Zhang Lin, who was sitting next to her, asked, “What’s wrong?”

She shook her head and put away her phone. “Nothing.”

Zhang Lin was one of the donors who donated supplies to the school. He was also Luo Jia’s first boyfriend in college. When they graduated in their senior year, they chose to break up because of their different plans for the future.

They haven’t seen each other for three years.

When Lou Jia first came to Wutong Village, she posted a message on WeChat Moments, and Zhang Lin happened to see it. He volunteered to donate some supplies with his friends who were living in the United States.

As the main person in charge, Zhang Lin not only did everything himself, but also flew back from the United States.

Lou Jia didn’t understand what he was thinking, and she didn’t want to have anything to do with him, but his kindness was a real good thing for Wutong Village.

She couldn’t ignore it.

Along the way, Lou Jia could only try to avoid contact with Zhang Lin alone, and the communication was also businesslike. Zhang Lin also tactfully said nothing.

The car that entered the village drove directly to the school gate.

Jiang Siwei looked at Lou Jia getting out of the car and just smiled. When he saw the person getting out of the other side of the car door, he suddenly froze in place.

Everyone else greeted him with a smile, but he just stood there.

Lau Jia left the welcoming job to the others at the school and walked up to Jiang Siwei. Seeing that he was still in a daze, she snapped her fingers and said, “What are you thinking about?”

Jiang Siwei had the illusion that he was back on that winter night, his heart breaking into pieces. “Did you go to pick him up yesterday?”

Lau Jia nodded and handed him something. “Reach out.”

Jiang Siwei subconsciously reached out and found a green dog made of straw in his palm. “What is this?”

“Isn’t this supposed to be a reward?“ Lou Jia looked at him.

”Oh.“ After just one night, Jiang Siwei was no longer happy at all.

”What’s wrong with you?“ Lou Jia noticed his strange behavior and raised his hand to check his forehead temperature. ‘You don’t have a fever, so why do you look so bad?’

”It’s nothing, I might, might be…” What was it? Jiang Siwei couldn’t say it. He had seen them in love before.

It was the nightmare that haunted him in the middle of the night.

But he couldn’t talk about it.

Zhang Lin, surrounded by the crowd, looked at Lou Jia from beginning to end, and also noticed her interaction with Jiang Siwei, but he didn’t recognize that it was Jiang Siwei.

When the crowd dispersed, he walked up to the two of them: “Lou Jia, who is this?”

“This is Siwei,” Lou Jia reminded him, “you used to play ball together.”

Zhang Lin looked at Jiang Siwei again, his eyes full of surprise. He obviously remembered the name Jiang Siwei, but he didn’t expect the boy to have changed so much.

“Hello, Siwei, do you remember me?”

Jiang Siwei unconsciously clenched his hands, but he touched the straw dog in his palm. He forced a smile and said, “Of course I remember.”

“You’re not the same as you used to be.” Zhang Lin’s eyes were a bit scrutinizing.

“Really? I don’t feel that way.“ Jiang Siwei seemed to resist looking at him, and instead looked at Lou Jia: ‘I still have some work to finish, I’ll go first.’

”Siwei…” Lou Jia looked at him in a daze and wanted to ask a few more questions, but Jiang Siwei walked quickly, and from the back, it even had the illusion of fleeing in a panic.

“Strange,“ she muttered.

Zhang Lin also looked at Jiang Siwei’s back, his expression thoughtful. After a few seconds, he looked at Lou Jia again: ‘Can you show me around? I want to take some pictures.’

Lou Jia looked at him.

He shook the camera hanging around his neck: ‘I need it for the report back.’

”Okay.”

The school was not big, and it didn’t take long to look around, but Zhang Lin kept taking pictures as he walked, and it was more than an hour later before he finished.

Lau Jia was worried about Jiang Siwei, so when Zhang Lin was done, she made an excuse to leave.

But Jiang Siwei had disappeared again. She asked several people if they had seen him, but they hadn’t. It wasn’t until dinner time that night that Jiang Siwei came in through the door, squeezing into the corner of the children’s table.

Lou Jia didn’t see him at first, but when she did, she sent him a message to come over. Jiang Siwei also found an excuse not to move.

In the end, Principal Luo stepped in and pulled the person over to sit in the empty seat diagonally opposite Lou Jia.

She couldn’t ask him what was wrong with him today from a distance, so she just stopped Fang Jin when he was pouring him a drink, “Fang Jin, Siwei is still taking medicine, he can’t drink.”

Fang Jin was about to put down the wine pot when Jiang Siwei said, “It’s okay, I haven’t eaten today, so I can drink a little.”

“Jiang Siwei…” There were a lot of people, so Lou Jia didn’t say anything, and in the end, she just said, “You should be careful with the amount, don’t drink too much.”

Jiang Siwei looked at her and received her warning gaze, and inexplicably, he didn’t feel so bad. “I know.”

The wine was brewed by Principal Luo himself. Although the alcohol content was not high, it still had a strong aftertaste.

Jiang Siwei’s ears and face turned red as he drank, and he felt a bit dizzy. He got up to go to the bathroom halfway through, and didn’t come back for a long time.

Lou Jia was worried that he had fallen into the toilet, so he called Fang Jin to go look for him.

“I’ll go see him,” Lou Jia told Fang Jin to go back first, and walked over slowly. “What are you looking at?”

Jiang Siwei said without moving his head: “The moon.”

Lau Ka also looked up at the sky.

The moon after the rain was obviously not as bright and clear as on a sunny day. It was neither curved nor round, and there didn’t seem to be anything special about it.

She didn’t know what was so interesting about the moon that Jiang Siwei had been staring at it for so long. “Are you interested in astronomy?”

Jiang Siwei shook his head and smiled lightly. “I just like to look at the moon.”

“Why?”

He suddenly turned his head and looked over, his cheeks red and his eyes brighter than the moon in the sky. “Because you can see it too.”

The moon itself is nothing special.

It’s just that when I think that you might be looking at the same moon as me, that’s enough.