Chapter 158 Chen Yuan starts thinking about the future
In the end, Chen Yuan still didn't tell Jiang Ruxue what she had done.

He didn't know how to tell Jiang Ning. Should he tell her that he met Jiang Ruxue by chance at night, and then she got drunk and insisted on giving him a gift that was difficult to talk about?
What does it mean to give this gift?
I'm afraid that within five minutes after he finished speaking, Jiang Ning would call her mother and start arguing with her.

No one can accept such an outrageous and absurd thing. Before meeting Jiang Ruxue, Chen Yuan could never imagine that his mother-in-law was such a person.

Would a normal person of her age show interest in a boy 20 years younger than her?!

This mother-in-law is really excellent...

When Chen Yuan walked back to the hotel, he was in a daze. He couldn't figure out what was going on no matter how hard he tried. His stomach was filled with sourness and he wanted to grab the trash can beside him and vomit.

He felt insulted.

And I have to endure this grievance.

Up to this point, the two sisters only knew the first half of Chen Yuan's meeting Jiang Ruxue. As for the second half, Chen Yuan forced himself to forget it.

……

After returning to Qishui County from Lanjing, life has been peaceful and smooth.

For Chen Yuan, this is a long winter vacation. He never thought there was anything wrong with taking a vacation. Vacation is the freest time for him. When he is bored, he can play games at home until he feels dizzy. When he gets tired of playing games, he can make an appointment with his childhood friends to go fishing in an ice hole. If he really can't stand it, he can take off his down jacket and play a few rounds on the court.

In the blink of an eye, the vacation ends in a daze.

But this winter vacation is very different.

He almost counted the days.

When playing games, Jiang Yao is there to accompany me.

When I go out to play with my childhood friend, when we get to a place, I always want to take out my phone to take a picture and share it with her.

Go play ball, walk around the court a few times and then pick up your phone to reply to her messages.

Actually, it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t reply, but I’m thinking about you all the time.

Chen Yuan was not a love-sick person, he just felt that something was suddenly missing around him. He didn't feel it when he first left Lanjing, but as time went by, this feeling of emptiness became more and more obvious.

When he was doing something, he always thought about turning his head so that he could see Jiang Ning at a glance.

In my memory.

She stood in the room with her long hair casually tied up. When she met his gaze, she handed him the fruit plate in her hand and said, "It's sweet. Have a bite."

The scene is still vivid in my mind.

Every time Chen Yuan recalled it, the corners of his mouth would curl up.

But now these images have disappeared. When Chen Yuan turned his head, he could only see empty, bare walls.

But would it be childish to tell Jiang Ning that he missed her? She wouldn't think that she was in love, right? After all, Jiang Ning was old and had a lot of things to do every day, as if she could never finish them. In contrast, Chen Yuan lived a relaxed and carefree life. Even when it was time to eat, he would just sit down on a chair in the living room and ask, "Mom, what are we having for dinner today?" and then wait for the food to be served in the kitchen.

Wouldn't that make her realize the age gap again? It's like this when a sister and a brother fall in love, one is already familiar with the cruelty of the world, but the other is still as green as a fledgling. Chen Yuan felt that he was not that green, and he really didn't want Jiang Ning to think so, whether it was because of the boy's self-esteem or something else.

Is this a different place? No, it shouldn’t be.

Chen Yuan thought about these things when he was in a daze every day. When his thoughts were interrupted by the people around him, he would do other things, but his thoughts would resume when it was late at night and everyone was asleep.

He had to admit that he was completely in love.

Inextricable.

He even began to worry about the "age issue" which he had never thought about before.

Love is always like this. When you don’t like someone that much, you don’t care what she thinks of you. When you realize that you have feelings for someone else, you will subconsciously adjust your state. When you are truly in love, the desire for each other in your heart will be like wildly growing grass, spreading from the blood vessels to every part of the body. When you look at someone, branches and leaves will crawl out from the corners of your eyes.

Love is so scary.

It subtly fills up a person's everything.

For the first time, Chen Yuan began to look forward to her future.

……

someday.

On the old, cold court, water splashed by someone had frozen into ice. When playing, Chen Yuan and his friends would deliberately avoid the puddle, otherwise they would fall on their backs and get a big bump on their heads if they stepped on it.

Several older boys were panting, with hot, white mist coming out of their mouths and noses.

But the feet continued to move.

"This way, this way!"

The basketball was passed between several people, and the sound of thumping the ball echoed in the empty playground.

Chen Yuan was wearing only a single layer of clothing, with white smoke coming out of his head. He took the ball from his friend, and the people behind him were chasing him like mad dogs. Chen Yuan dribbled the ball between his legs, approached the basket, and with a beautiful fake move, he passed the person in front of him, stepped out with his right foot, and at the same time, pushed off the ground with a small part of his left foot to jump up, and made a hook layup!
“Good shot~”

It was winter, and these people were addicted to playing ball. They forced Chen Yuan to come out. He refused to go out with them yesterday, so he went straight to his doorstep this morning.

Anyway, we came to the school to play ball, and the staff quarters were only separated from the playground by two walls.

There were six people in total, one fat and one thin, and the others were not much different in size from Chen Yuan, and they were considered his closest playmates in the small town.

"Take a break."

After playing basketball for an hour, Chen Yuan was soaked all over. He found a place to sit under the basketball rack and drank mineral water in big gulps.

"You can't do it so soon. It seems you haven't practiced much since you came to college." Li Genan, whose hair was curled like Zhuangzhuang's mother's, came over and sat down with them.

"I don't have time. I'm not on the university team."

Chen Yuan screwed the bottle cap on, the basket above his head shook, and he clapped his hands to cheer for the goal.

"Even if you don't join the school team, you can still play more often. Just now, I saw that you were not good at dribbling the ball. "

"It's not as exaggerated as you say..." Chen Yuan glanced at his best high school buddy, "But it's true that we didn't play much."

Come to think of it, since he entered university, he had time to play League of Legends with Wei Zhen and others in the early days. But after falling in love, he almost lost the desire to play League of Legends. The happiness and sweetness of being in love with Teacher Jiang has become the main theme of his life.

"Are you in love?" Li Genan grinned.

"How do you know?" Chen Yuan shuddered.

"Just now I saw you holding your phone and replying to messages. It turns out you never act like this when you're playing basketball. Tsk tsk tsk."

"We did talk," Chen Yuan suppressed his smile and drank water to cover it up, "It's been more than half a year."

"You haven't told your brothers for such a long time. You are such a person..."

"I'm afraid you'll be jealous if I tell you this, but my girlfriend is so pretty."

"Is this true? Do you have any photos? I want to see what my sister-in-law looks like."

"Call me daddy and show me."

"? You want to be beaten, right?"

Two young boys were fighting each other. Chen Yuan tried to strangle the other's neck, but Li Genan was extremely insidious. Once his neck was locked, he immediately reached back to grab his crotch!

Chen Yuan had to dodge in a hurry.

After playing around for so long, they even kicked over a bottle of mineral water.

This is how the frozen water stains on the playground came about.

"My pants are all dirty." Being with his best friend, Chen Yuan didn't have many scruples and said a swear word casually. He pointed at his trouser legs and said, "Come here and lick it clean for me."

"Okay, I'll lick it."

Li Gennan winked and was about to lift his leg.

"You are really invincible." Chen Yuan quickly pushed away.

"Ha ha ha ha……"

After a long while, the court finally became quiet, and several people sat on the podium that the school used for speeches in high school.

Li Genan took out a lighter and lit a cigarette, took a deep puff, and poked the cigarette box towards Chen Yuan. "What are you doing? I don't smoke."

"I know you don't smoke."

"I'm choking. Stay away from me."

"It's good enough that I don't ask you to pay for the second-hand smoke, and you still complain about it."

Chen Yuan ignored Li Genan's nonsense. He took out his cell phone from his pocket and opened the chat box with Jiang Ning.

Ningning just replied, she said she was so busy that she didn't even have time to drink water.

She was going to be a bridesmaid today, and she was very busy. She had already gotten up at six in the morning to help the bride pack her things.

"Remember to eat well at noon"

Chen Yuan typed these words and sent them over, feeling worried again. It turned out that the age difference caused many differences between him and Jiang Ning's lives.

The friends around me are all college students.

However, during the time Jiang Ning returned to Mingzhu City, she attended two weddings.

Chen Yuan recalled the time when he went to pick up the drunk Ningning. The friends around her were also mature and probably had families.

By the time he graduated from college, Ningning was already 29 and a half years old.

"What are you daydreaming about? Are you chatting with your girlfriend?"

An unexpected sound woke Chen Yuan from his daze. He put the phone in his arms. Li Genan was looking at him with ill intention.

"Why, you don't seem very happy today, you keep daydreaming."

"Is there?" Chen Yuan replied.

"Honestly, it's so obvious that I couldn't help noticing it."

"Well...actually, I was wondering what life should be like for two people after marriage."

"You really have fallen in love, Xiaoyuan. You're even thinking about getting married. Actually, there's nothing good about getting married. It's just two people living together, with the daily necessities of life."

"How is that different from living together?"

Chen Yuan thought about it. He and Jiang Yao were living together and they also had the daily necessities of life. It seemed that there was nothing special about them.

"There is a difference. Getting married means taking on the responsibilities of a husband, or having the ability to support a family."

I have to say that Li Genan really hit the nail on the head.

He puffed on a cigarette while patting Chen Yuan's shoulder. "Hey, aren't there many couples getting divorced within a year of marriage? Both men and women are not ready to take responsibility and still use the same thinking as when they are in love, so they get divorced so quickly."

"You understand so much?"

"I didn't even tell you, my brother got married last year and divorced this year. He was a lazy person and his wife complained about him being immature and irresponsible every day."

"So... growing up is a necessary prerequisite for marriage?"

"Almost. But it's not that easy. It may take many years for someone like me to become a mature man after entering the society."

hiss……

Chen Yuan pondered over what his good brother said. Although the other party was usually not serious, his words today really made him fall into deep thought.

He really wanted to have a future with Jiang Ning.

Teacher Jiang is 26 years old now. He said that they would talk about marriage after he graduates, but he will be in his thirties by then.

Although she didn't mention it, Chen Yuan knew that his girlfriend also had concerns in her heart.

The longer the relationship drags on, the more unfair it is to Teacher Jiang. Because Chen Yuan is young, he has a lot of time to waste. Even if the relationship ends after graduating from college, Chen Yuan will not have any burden and he will not have any pressure to find any kind of girlfriend.

But Teacher Jiang, who was already 30 years old, had lost the best years of his youth and gave everything to him.

In the end, all that is left is a painful memory and an aging self.

In other words, Jiang Ning was in a relationship with some pressure.

……

"despair--"

"I ate your horse!" Father Chen proudly picked up the wooden chess piece and threw it aside, while holding the brewed hot tea in his other hand.

Chen Yuan was stunned for a moment.

He felt that this was a bit like cursing, but it came from his father's mouth...

Chen Yuan shook his head and focused his attention back on the chessboard.

"Flying elephant."

"Arch the pawn."

"..."

Father Chen stretched out his hand, indicating that he needed to think about it. He crossed his arms across his chest and rubbed the hard stubble on his chin with a finger.

Chen Yuan held two chess pieces in his hands and was squeezing them hard. He looked at his father who was in deep thought.

Time passed by, but my dad didn't move the chess piece.

That afternoon, it was a rare free time. Since Mother Chen had gone out to buy clothes with her older girlfriends, Father Chen did not go out and stayed at home.

He was really bored, so he grabbed Chen Yuan, who was playing games in the room, and played chess with him.

It is like a beautiful picture of a loving father and a filial son.

"dad?"

"Wait, I'm thinking."

"Okay..." Chen Yuan continued to hold his chin and waited. After a while, he couldn't help it anymore, "Dad, what do you think...how can a man be considered mature?"

"Good question!" Father Chen finally reached out and moved the chess piece, his eyes fixed on the chessboard, and answered casually: "When you start thinking about this question, it means you are not far from maturity."

"what?"

"Because immature people often think they are very mature, they don't have such doubts."

"So Dad, when did you know whether you count or not?"

"It should be when your mother praised you for finally looking like a man," Father Chen scratched his head. "She didn't even say that a few years before I married your mother."

"What did you do to deserve such affirmation from her?"

"In fact, she said it several times. Let me think about it... The first time she said it was when I seized the opportunity to come to the county town from the countryside to coach. My salary more than doubled. She said it on the day I got paid. Then when I was accompanying her in the hospital during the operation, she also said it when I was taking care of her. The most memorable time was when you were a child and I took you on a trip. When we were visiting West Lake in Hangzhou, there were a lot of people in the restaurant. Someone cut in line and I scolded him. I did my best to grab the last few meals."

"Are the conditions so harsh?!"

After hearing what his father said, Chen Yuan frowned.

Among these mature conditions, he couldn't complete any of the three.

Not to mention the last two, which are warmth when someone is sick and traveling with kids, the first one is quite difficult to achieve.

Is a salary a necessary condition for maturity? No, it should be the ability to earn money.

This also corresponds to what Li Genan said this morning, that the prerequisite for marriage is not to be careless, and having basic economic ability is the first prerequisite.

But I am a student...

Chen Yuan thought.

Indeed, if he wants to get married right after graduation, how can he support a warm family without any income?

(End of this chapter)