Chapter 33 The Thorn Birds

In Zhang Yunqi's impression, the girl Chujian was very popular among classmates. She had a unique aura, and was slender, fair, and quiet, which very much fit the characteristics of a campus goddess in the 90s. She was the object of the boys' dreams. However, he had no interaction with Chujian, and he didn't know her well. They were just ordinary classmates who greeted each other when they met.

Zhang Yunqi asked her: "What book are you reading?"

Chu Jian shook the book in his hand and said "The Thorn Birds".

Zhang Yunqi smiled and said, "Do you like reading this type of book?"

Chu Jian hummed, pursed his lips and said, "When I'm tired from studying, I can relax by reading this kind of book, and it can also broaden my horizons."

Zhang Yunqi said it was good and asked him to continue reading.

Chu Jian nodded and said yes.

Zhang Yunqi turned around and looked through the bookshelf. He found his favorite book, Walden. He read it for about half an hour. He felt that it was getting late, so he said to Chu Jian, "It's almost seven o'clock. I have to go to evening self-study."

Chu Jian was standing under the bookshelf, reading "The Thorn Birds" intently, and did not hear what Zhang Yunqi said.

Zhang Yunqi reached out and pulled Chu Jian's arm. Chu Jian turned her head and looked at Zhang Yunqi in confusion. Zhang Yunqi pointed at the clock on the wall. Then she realized what was going on and said with a red face, "I'm sorry, I forgot the time."

"It's okay." Zhang Yunqi closed "Walden" and was about to ask Chu Jian to go to the counter to pay for the book, but he saw Chu Jian put the "The Thorn Birds" in his hand back into the bookcase, and seemed to have no intention of buying it.

Zhang Yunqi thought of something and glanced at the shoes he had just seen. They were just a pair of cheap white cloth shoes. The glue on the upper had come off and there were patches on it. There was a jasmine flower embroidered on the patch. It was pretty, simple and clean.

Zhang Yunqi calmly put the book Walden in his hand into the bookcase and said to Chu Jian: "Let's go back to the evening study."

We agreed upon this upon first meeting.

The two of them went out together.

After walking on the street for a while, Chu Jian suddenly said that he had not had dinner yet and wanted to buy something to eat.

Zhang Yunqi nodded and said, "I'll wait for you here."

She was a little embarrassed when she first met him, perhaps because she felt that going to class with a boy would have a bad influence, so she whispered, "Why don't you go back first, I'll buy some food and go to class right away."

Zhang Yunqi nodded, turned and left.

Looking at Zhang Yunqi's back, Chu Jian pursed her lips, turned around and walked to a nearby bun shop and asked the boss if he had any sugar buns left.

The boss said, "They are all sold out. We only have steamed buns, meat dumplings and tea eggs."

Chu Jian asked, "How much is a meat bun?"

The boss said, "50 cents."

After hesitating for a moment, Chu Jian took out two cents from his schoolbag, handed it to the boss and said he wanted to buy a steamed bun.

The steamed buns at that time were big and cheap, and Chu Jian couldn't finish one. After buying them, she turned around and went to school for evening self-study. However, when she reached the school gate, she stopped again and looked at Zhang Yunqi with a little surprise.

Zhang Yunqi was at the school gate, leaning on the window of the security room and chatting with the security guard Xiao Zhao.

There is a saying that goes "It's easier to deal with the King of Hell than with the little devils." There are many benefits to having a good relationship with the school security guard. For example, it is no problem to close the school gate and go back to the dormitory in the middle of the night. So when Zhang Yunqi passed by the school gate, he would give cigarettes to the security guard to keep in touch with him.

Zhang Yunqi saw Chu Jian coming over, and threw another cigarette to the security guard Xiao Zhao, then turned and walked to Chu Jian. He glanced at the hot steamed bun in her hand, smiled and said, "Let's have steamed buns tonight."

Chu Jian said "hmm", blushing and said: "Do you want to eat? I'll give you half." "No, no, this is your dinner."

"The steamed buns are big, I can't finish them."

Chu Jian broke the steamed bun into two halves and handed the larger half to Zhang Yunqi. In fact, Zhang Yunqi had already eaten dinner and had no appetite, but he still took it, put it in his mouth, took a bite, and said it tasted good.

Chu Jian smiled with his lips pursed.

This was the first time Zhang Yunqi saw this girl smile. She looked very pretty and her smile was especially clear.

The two of them went back to school together, and Chu Jian suddenly asked him, "Do you smoke?"

"I rarely smoke."

"Then why did you give cigarettes to the security guards?"

"I always have a pack of cigarettes with me. If I don't smoke, I give them to others."

"I've only seen this kind of behavior in adults."

"What's wrong with that?"

"It's hard to describe the feeling, but..."

"But what?"

"It's nothing, actually."

"Just say whatever you want to say. I'm not that petty."

"In fact, when the girls in the class discuss the boys in the class, they sometimes mention you. They think you are a bit snobbish. Don't hold a grudge against me for saying this. This is just the opinion of others. After all, we have only known each other for a short time and don't know each other well."

"That's a fair assessment. I love money more than I love studying." Zhang Yunqi smiled. He knew that apart from the joke of extorting a handheld game console from Zhou Qing during military training, he had nothing worth mentioning in class. In the eyes of many classmates, he was not a student, but a mercenary, unenthusiastic peddler with no ambition to make progress. He spent all day doing small business, and it seemed that going to school was dispensable to him.

I was a little surprised when I first met you. I looked at him sideways and said, "How can you say that about yourself? Everyone has different values. As long as it's good, you can do whatever you want. Of course, I also think you seem to be more mature and feel isolated from your classmates."

Zhang Yunqi turned his head and glanced at Chu Jian. He suddenly felt that this girl was very considerate. He smiled and said, "By the way, Chu Jian, I saw you reading The Thorn Birds in the bookstore. Do you like this book very much?"

Chu Jian nodded: "I've read it twice and I like it very much."

Zhang Yunqi asked again: "Which line in The Thorn Birds do you like best?"

Chu Jian thought for a moment and said, "We all have something in our hearts that we are unwilling to give up, even if it makes us suffer to death. We are just like the thorn birds in the ancient Celtic legend, crying and weeping, vomiting bloody hearts and dying. We created our own thorns and never calculated the cost. All we do is endure the pain and tell ourselves that it is worth it."

Zhang Yunqi smiled and said, "Don't mind me. I don't think this is a good thing."

When he first saw her, he turned his head and looked at Zhang Yunqi.

Zhang Yunqi said: "This sentence is too intense and too emotional, like Colleen McCullough's contradictory work. It is undeniable that life has many difficulties and pains, but we don't have to magnify and indulge in them. After all, survival is a thing, and life is a poem. Looking through Colleen McCullough's book "The Thorn Birds", my personal favorite sentence is: Satisfaction is happiness, dissatisfaction is expectation, and proper satisfaction can provide the possibility of happiness."

Zhang Yunqi shook the half steamed bun in his hand. Chu Jian looked at him and said with a smile, "Just like now, I'm hungry and you gave me half a steamed bun. I got the right amount of satisfaction. So at this moment, I feel a kind of happiness."

Standing on the roadside, Chu Jian was a little dazed by what he heard.

The street lights were yellow and swaying in the breeze. In the street corner with mottled shades of trees in the old days, she stared at his profile in a daze, feeling a little dazed and particularly unreal. Was this something a freshman in high school could say?
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(End of this chapter)