Chapter 259 – A Perfect New World (XXIII)

　　Lou Ying and Chi Xiaochi rode their bicycles to a neighbouring town and bought tickets to see a film.

With an hour to go, they went into a sweet shop to rest their feet.

Lou Ying picks up the list on the counter and carefully selects it.

The young shop assistant couldn’t take her eyes off Lou Ying and enthusiastically recommended, “Young handsome, our most famous dish is mango ice, would you like one?”

Lou Ying didn’t look up, and said in a gentle voice, “No, he doesn’t eat mangoes, so I’ll have a small coconut double cream. I’ll have a grape mint ice.”

The shop assistant’s enthusiasm remained unabated: “You really don’t need it? If you buy two cups of mango ice, you get a free medium popcorn voucher for the cinema next door.”

Lou Ying politely declined: “Thank you, no. We’ll buy what we want to drink.”

Yet the little shopkeeper still had no intention of giving up.

Chi Xiaochi, who had been noticing the way the young shop assistant was looking at Lou Ying, raised an eyebrow and got out from behind her, smiling and pouting, “Aren’t I handsome, sister?”

When she saw Chi Xiaochi’s face, the young shopkeeper drew in a small breath, unable to speak.

Lou Ying tried to push him back: “Go and take a seat.”

Chi Xiaochi refused to listen, resting her chin on Lou Ying’s shoulder, glancing quickly at the list and looking up again, her smiling eyes shining brightly, “Sister, what my brother and I ordered is equal to the price of two mango sevens, can we get a popcorn voucher?”

With that, he put his hands together in a serious cross, “Please.”

Lou Ying caught the little peacocks that were opening everywhere and sat them down by the window.

Chi Xiaochi sits across from him, holding a complimentary popcorn coupon in front of him.

Lou Ying had no choice but to cross the table, rub his hair and confiscate his tools for showing off his charms.

Chi Xiaochi looks at Lou Ying on her arm: “Brother, how do you know I don’t like mangoes?”

Lou Ying looked at him and counted, “Variety, Country Trip, Season 1, Issue 3, the time you were a special guest, 52 minutes in, you went mango picking with a resident. You said that eating mangoes makes your throat uncomfortable.”

As they spoke, the drinks they had ordered were brought up.

Chi Xiaochi pulled the double-skinned milk to her heels and said unevenly, “I don’t know anything about you.”

Lou Ying pushed the grape-mint ice in front of her forward and turned the spoon towards Chi Xiaochi again, saying gently, “Here, does this count as a chance?”

Chi Xiaochi opened her mouth, “Ah.”

Lou Ying laughs helplessly, “Someone.”

Chi Xiaochi : “Ah.”

He was just teasing, but to his surprise Lou Ying scooped up a spoonful of ice, ate a small portion of it herself and brought the other half to Chi Xiaochi’s lips.

Chi Xiaochi froze for a moment, went around to the side of the spoon where Lou Ying hadn’t touched it, took a small squirming sip and immediately retreated to scoop up her own double-skinned milk and stuffed it with a large mouthful.

Lou Ying looks at Chi Xiaochi with a spoon in her hand, amused and annoyed.

He feels that the authorities should introduce a Chi Xiaochi Act to punish this kind of titillation and irresponsible behaviour.

Chi Xiaochi quietly finished a double-skinned milk and went to the cinema with Lou Ying.

When taking the coupons for the popcorn, the lady at the counter apologetically pointed to the machine and said, “There are too many people coming to redeem the coupons, no, the machine just made a few minutes to redeem, and now can only give small portions. If you still want a medium portion, you’ll have to wait for about ten minutes.”

Lou Ying looks up at his wrist and sees that the film starts in five minutes.

He asked Chi Xiaochi’s opinion, “Want one?”

Chi Xiaochi: “I’ll have the small one.”

As soon as they entered the cinema, a strong cold wind blew overhead, causing Chi Xiaochi to shiver.

The air conditioning in this cinema had obviously just been refilled and was overly cold.

The popcorn they held in their hands became, in turn, the only real source of heat.

Once seated, Lou Ying took clothes from the system store and placed one over Chi Xiaochi’s legs and one over his body, carefully regulating his body temperature.

The two had a pretty good viewing experience among the shivering little couples freezing around them.

It’s a Hong Kong police procedural with a very old formula. One look at the beginning and you know the final boss is the police boss, but the car chase and the fight design are very good, so it’s a good way to pass the time.

Chi Xiaochi It has been many years since I sat in a cinema and watched a movie just for the sake of it, and the experience was inevitably new, except that the popcorn used for the giveaway didn’t taste very good, the saccharin taste was so strong that I lost my appetite after a few of them.

He simply buried his right hand in the hot popcorn to keep it warm.

At some point, Lou Ying’s hand was also placed in.

While the hero and heroine are talking about love and life, Chi Xiaochi and Lou Ying are bored and start holding hands and playing a game of thumb-pressing with popcorn.

Chi Xiaochi’s hand work was always a weakness, and it wasn’t long before Lou Ying had her thumb pinned down and couldn’t move.

Chi Xiaochi lost the game and resentfully tried to pull her hand back, but Lou Ying held her fingers in place.

He whispered, “Brother?”

”You can’t hold it outside.” Lou Ying whispered back to him, “Can we sneak in a little now.”

Chi Xiaochi didn’t say anything, just returned his grip and shook his hand a little tighter.

By the time the film broke up, both hands were covered in a rich, creamy smell.

It’s summer vacation and there are a lot of students coming to see the film, so when they leave the cinema, Bo Bo students are rushing to go to dinner, and there are many pairs of them, and if two boys are holding hands in a flirtatious way, it’s too much of an attraction.

But squeeze hard and the two will inevitably get separated.

Lou Ying nods at her backpack strap and Chi Xiaochi reaches out to pull it in.

Neither of the two asked why they didn’t wait until everyone had dispersed before coming out.

One man walked ahead, one man followed dutifully with his schoolbag straps, and together with the flow of people, they made their way outside to the street.

It was getting late and the heat had cleared, so Lou Ying bought Chi Xiaochi an egg drop to munch on and drove him slowly on his way back.

He said, “Let’s go skating tomorrow.”

Chi Xiaochi picked up, “Going to play billiards this afternoon.”

Lou Ying smiled, “Okay, remember.”

The sun was setting inch by inch towards the west, stretching out the shadows of the two teenagers.

……

The other side.

Zhu Shoucheng was really sick and was hospitalised.

The dream affected him so much that soon after he returned to his room he was vomiting and having diarrhoea, which was so alarming that he made a trip to the toilet and scared the neighbours into calling an ambulance.

After diagnosis, it was a stress gastroenteritis.

Chi’s mother didn’t expect Zhu Shoucheng to be excused, but to be really ill. Remembering what she and her neighbours had said, she was a bit shy and bought some fruit and took Chi Xiaochi to the hospital to visit her.

Chi Xiaochi not only went to the hospital, but also said “Mr. Zhu” sweetly at his bedside, hoping that he would recover quickly.

Later that night, Zhu Shoucheng had another nightmare, not related to Chi Xiaochi, but when he woke up screaming, his newly improved mood disorder returned and he was left in a state of darkness.

When Chi’s mother saw a haggard Zhu Shoucheng, she finally gave up the idea of asking him to tutor Chi Xiaochi.

After glancing around, she took another look at Lou Ying.

After Lou Ying’s public outburst, no one in the building dared to talk about Lou Ying’s theft, but only gossiped about Auntie Chu’s public embarrassment. The matter was then lightly dismissed.

Chi’s mother invited Lou Ying over for dinner, with the same good food and the same set of flattering compliments about his good studies, in order to ask Lou Ying to continue to tutor Chi Xiaochi for free.

Lou Ying nodded politely to Chi’s mother without changing her face, not eager to say yes, but turned to Chi Xiaochi and asked, “Would you still like to.”

Chi Xiaochi said with a straight face, “I’ll think about it.”

She was relieved to see Lou Ying had let up, but she didn’t expect her son to take advantage of the situation. He’s happy to let you teach him, and usually says nice things about you in front of me ……”

Lou Ying looked at Chi Xiaochi and smiled gently, “Really?”

Chi Xiaochi with his head down, picking at his rice.

Chi’s mother laughed, “The boy is still shy.”

Out of sight, Chi Xiaochi’s slippers are placed squarely in front of the stool at her feet, and her naked feet are treading on Lou Ying’s feet, treading around like water, trying to observe Lou Ying’s change of demeanour.

To my surprise, Lou Ying’s back was straight and his face was as calm as could be.

Chi Xiaochi was disappointed when he pulled his foot back, but his right foot was caught by Lou Ying with a pair of feet and stuck firmly in place.

Chi Xiaochi blushed slightly and struggled back several times, but Lou Ying didn’t let go. It was only when Chi’s mother got up to clear the table after the meal was over that Chi Xiaochi put on his slippers in a bit of a panic and glared at him, but when he smiled gently at him, he suddenly went to clean up his things like a quail.

A summer of playing and playing went by in a hurry.

Zhu Shoucheng returned home after half a week in hospital. He was ill all the time, suffering from nightmares and gastroenteritis, and his illness was intermittent.

In just one summer, he had lost weight rapidly, and his formerly tall and strong body felt like it had been drained of its essence, his face was blue and yellow, and his cheekbones were protruding.

Luckily, Zhu Shoucheng is well liked and has single, middle-aged female colleagues who bring him good yams to replenish his body.

Zhu Shoucheng reluctantly smiled and approached the Headmaster to be reassigned to Year 1 to lead the students.

He needs to see new prey to distract from the impact Chi Xiaochi is having on him.

For Chi Xiaochi, he was half-excited.

Zhu Shoucheng has no intention of exploring the source of the strange dream, he just wants to leave the bogeyman and find a new love that will wash away this inexplicable shadow.

After the official opening of the school year, his students wailed when they learned that Zhu Shoucheng was being transferred, and a few young girls ran to the office in tears, begging Zhu not to leave.

After Zhu Shoucheng gently coaxed them away, the teachers in the same office said enviously, “Teacher Zhu, your students are so well liked.”

Zhu Shoucheng looked down to correct his homework and joked, “Children are a treasure given to us by God, and if we don’t treasure them, we will be punished by God.”

Zhu Shoucheng was familiar with the roster early on and it only took him one session to get the new arrivals into the right place.

None of these children were as good as Chi Xiaochi, which Zhu Shoucheng regrets, but is also grateful for.

It seems that he is not destined to eat Chi Xiaochi, so it would not be a bad idea to have a light meal to tame his stomach.

Soon it is time for Zhu Shoucheng’s favourite eye exercise.

During eye exercises, all the children close their eyes and he, as the class teacher, has to patrol and supervise, which gives him enough time to take stock and compare the looks of each child’s features.

And each one of these little lambs, with their eyes tightly shut, will not even notice.

Zhu Shoucheng loves this feeling of choosing a princess.

The children, all of whom had been promoted from primary school, were not sure of the temperament of their new class teacher, so they were more than docile and obedient as they followed the rhythm of the announcement, pressing and rubbing their eye points one by one.

Zhu Shoucheng has just turned his attention to the face of a boy with extremely long eyelashes when the soundtrack of the eye exercise, which is announced on the radio as one, two, three, four, two, three, four, suddenly changes its tune.

The soft sound of music is replaced by an unusually familiar human voice of Zhu Shoucheng.

”Xiaochi, you have very white legs.”

”You behave and be good.”

”Don’t tell your parents, they won’t believe a word of it.”

”Mr Zhu will treat you well and will love you.”

”That’s good, what an obedient boy. Come to the bed and spread your legs so the teacher can touch them ……”

On top of that, there were the pitiful sounding whimpers of a helpless teenager within.

Zhu Shoucheng was horrified as soon as he heard the first words.

This is clearly what he said to Chi Xiaochi in the first dream ……!

But, but what was said in the dream, how could ……

When the children in the class heard the music stop, they couldn’t help but put their hands down and whisper.

Zhu Shoucheng had no desire to maintain discipline, his mind was so confused that he could not distinguish between dream and reality, but in a few moments he woke up as if from a dream and dashed outside.

Several teachers are already standing in the corridor, uniformly giving Zhu Shoucheng’s class an odd look.

We are colleagues who spend a lot of time together, so how could we not hear Zhu Shoucheng’s voice when we don’t see each other?

…… In fact, they have heard Zhu Shoucheng coax students with such a voice more than once.

Zhu Shoucheng felt as if he had been stripped naked and shown to the public in broad daylight, and the illusion of being watched by millions of people made him sweat coldly, almost as if he had run away, stumbling down the stairs.

He ran up to the school’s broadcasting office and raised his hand to slam the door: “Where’s Mr. Lee from the broadcasting room? What’s that nonsense playing? Stop it now!”

Mr. Lee, with his back to him, stood in front of the console where the channel lights were flashing chaotically, and was also a bit at a loss: “I don’t know, I can’t control it, it just suddenly ……”

With that, she turned around and her eyes slowly changed when she saw who the visitor was.

She stared at Zhu Shoucheng’s pale, sweat-covered face, her expression filled with suspicion: “…… Teacher Zhu, in here, it’s your voice, isn’t it?”