DF Chapter 130

Chapter 130: Our Destined Love, Let’s Walk Together.

Chapter 130 Our destined love, let’s walk together.

Sheng Jia and the others rented a hotel in Amboseli for a whole month for their business trip, leaving early and returning late every day, just to find the most suitable material to shoot.

They were preparing to shoot a documentary, which was not necessarily a profitable project. In fact, the formal cooperation between the three families had already begun in China, and dozens of large and small film and television projects had been established, mainly to find a group that could be followed and filmed for a long time. Of course, directors and editors could do this work, but this project contained a bit of Meng Yeran’s and Valma’s selfishness, so the four of them simply came together in person.

The arrival of Song Ji’an and Dong Zhen ended their animal-seeking trip early today, and the five of them returned to the accommodation area from the park’s grassland area before getting off the bus to meet again.

Meng Yeran had just been sitting in the car, and only when she got out of the car at this moment did she realize that her face was covered with several streaks of oil paint. When she smiled at people, she could only see her sallow face and snow-white teeth.

“It’s better to come at the right time than early, just in time for lunch.” She searched for makeup remover in the car. The ultraviolet rays on the plains east of the Great Rift Valley in East Africa were strong, and ordinary sunscreen couldn’t withstand it at all. A local native girl introduced her to this special sunscreen mud, which was also easy to camouflage. At first, she found it difficult to accept, but after using it once, she was amazed and started using it every day, and even wanted to bring Sheng Jia, Valma, and Hilda to use it together, but was miserably rejected.

Sheng Jia was not surprised by Song Ji’an’s arrival, but Meng Yeran was very curious. Although she knew that the relationship between Song Ji’an and Sheng Jia was improving, it was still somewhat unexpected that it was so good that she had come all the way to Africa.

However, Song Ji’an and Sheng Jia did not give her a chance to pry. After lunch, Song Ji’an went back to her room to rest. After all, a flight of more than ten hours was not a comfortable thing, even if they were all sitting in first class, this kind of bumpy hardship could easily make people feel tired.

By the time Song Ji’an woke up again, it was the next morning, and she had slept for a full sixteen hours.

What came into view was an endless wilderness, with a few acacia trees standing sparsely, and the snow-capped mountains in the distance towering into the clouds, as if reaching the sky.

She stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window and saw a few people in the stone courtyard downstairs eating breakfast at the table.

Probably because her action of opening the curtains was too obvious, Hilda was the first to notice her and waved to her. Her action quickly attracted the attention of others at the table, who smiled at her.

“Come down for breakfast, Song Ji’an,” Meng Yeran’s lazy voice came, she raised the toast in her hand and complained, “But this morning there’s only bread with jam, it’s really disgusting white people’s food.”

“Are you scolding us?” Valma frowned and said, “What’s so disgusting about this? Bread with strawberry jam is always delicious.”

“Please don’t mention this, I’ve been eating it for almost half a month, if you mention it now, I’ll throw up on you later.” Meng Yeran retorted, “So we’ve been eating this for so long, wouldn’t it be you and the chef who specially requested it?”

Valma raised her chin, as proud as ever, “Yes, so what.”

Meng Yeran turned her head to look at Hilda, “Are you indulging her too?”

“If this hotel was invested in by me, I would definitely ban this breakfast, but unfortunately, its owner is not me,” Hilda looked a little regretful, obviously not wanting to get caught up in the dispute between Meng Yeran and Valma.

Song Ji’an opened the window, and the sound of their conversation came faintly, but there was no sign of Sheng Jia. After washing up, she went downstairs. From afar, Sheng Jia came from not far away, holding two plates in her hand, with toasted bread sandwiches and eggs on them.

These two plates of steaming breakfast were placed in front of Song Ji’an.

“Try this,” Sheng Jia sat down beside her, “We’re going out for a game drive later, we need to conserve our energy.”

“When did you find it?” Meng Yeran’s eyes widened instantly, “Why don’t we have it? These past few days, I’ve talked to the chef left and right, but she firmly said that there’s only toast and jam for breakfast, which made me have to eat steak at noon every day to replenish my energy.”

Sheng Jia glanced at her and spat out the cruel truth, “I went in and took it directly, the chef was very friendly, and generously gave me the freshly baked bread and eggs, and told me to take more if there was not enough.”

Song Ji’an saw the expression on Meng Yeran’s face as if the sky was about to fall, and immediately understood what had happened. She took a piece of sandwich from the plate, the fresh ham with egg cake and salad dressing was extremely delicious. Compared with the bland breakfast in Meng Yeran’s bowl, she couldn’t help but laugh.

“This is really delicious,” she commented, “The chef’s craftsmanship is very skillful.”

Meng Yeran glanced at Valma, who was a little guilty, and said sarcastically, “I was wondering why I’ve been eating this white people’s breakfast for the past half a month, it turns out that someone deliberately told the chef to do this, and treated us differently. She gave me and Hilda these things, but Sheng Jia and Song Ji’an can eat good things.”

Valma pretended not to hear what she was saying, picked up the oatmeal in her cup and drank it in one gulp, “Is everyone finished eating? Let’s set off early today?”

“Dong Zhen hasn’t come down yet, what are we setting off for?” Meng Yeran said.

“Dong Zhen is not going,” Song Ji’an said, “Dong Zhen is just here for a vacation, she doesn’t come to most of our activities. The projects of your families are still counting on her script to come out sooner, she didn’t plan to leave the hotel much this time.”

The others had no objection to this. Of course, if possible, the capitalists would prefer to lock Dong Zhen in the hotel and write for seven days and seven nights, but unfortunately they couldn’t do it.

Sheng Jia wiped her hands clean with a wet wipe. Song Ji’an ate breakfast quickly. They rested in the courtyard for another five minutes before preparing to set off.

With the experience of the first half of the month, Sheng Jia and the others actually had a tracking target, which was a clan of spotted hyenas. Their queen was tall and mighty, moved flexibly, and had extremely strong leadership skills. She was the newest spotted hyena force in Amboseli Park. The queen was the daughter who had defected from the largest spotted hyena family in the park. Her mother was once one of the most powerful rulers on the grassland. The family was extremely large, but she seemed to have her own goals and ideas by nature. After she became an adult, she did not compete with her sisters for the throne, but left the family on her own, joined another hyena family that had no blood relationship with her on the grassland, and became the new queen from the bottom of the team in just one year.

She had been extremely active in the park this year and had almost become a legend.

However, because the documentaries filmed by various countries already had their own protagonists, it was difficult to replace them temporarily. So far, no special team had followed the spotted hyena queen to film her.

After Sheng Jia and her party arrived here, they quickly locked onto her – this spotted hyena called “Enkoyote Enkititi” by the local Maasai guide – which meant “Brave Queen”.

Sheng Jia explained these things to Song Ji’an in a low voice when Song Ji’an got into the jeep for the game drive. Because this long string of names was too difficult to remember, they directly called her Queen when they met her in private.

Song Ji’an couldn’t imagine what the Queen looked like when she heard Sheng Jia describe the Queen’s demeanor in the car, until she slowly led her clan past their car, and she completely understood why Sheng Jia and the others were fascinated by her.

The Queen was a whole circle larger than ordinary spotted hyenas, and her back was almost as high as their doorknobs. Her tail and head were held high, and it was visible to the naked eye how proud and bold she was.

There was a scar covering her right eye on her face, which did not affect the opening of her right eye, but it could also be seen that this was a shocking trace left by a war, but when this trace remained on her face, it only reminded people of one word – medal.

This was her medal.

The animals living in Amboseli were too familiar with the steel behemoths of humans, and they had all learned to treat them as non-existent air. They would even rub the lice on their bodies against the SUVs when they passed by.

The Queen’s raised head brushed past Song Ji’an’s eyes, Spotted hyenas were nocturnal hunters, so she looked lazy in the early daylight, but every inch of her muscles was showing her unique explosive power, which was a rough and violent beauty.

Song Ji’an held her breath until the group of spotted hyenas strolled away from the front of the car.

Sheng Jia leaned on her side and said softly: “Very charming, right? No one can reject her attraction.”

“Yes, very charming,” Song Ji’an nodded, almost at this glance, she understood what Sheng Jia and the others’ motivation for going out early and returning late every day came from.

“When I saw the Queen at that time, I thought you would also like her very much.” Sheng Jia said: “I’m very glad that I didn’t guess wrong.”

Whether it was her or Song Ji’an, they had probably described each other as spotted hyenas in their hearts.

When they felt resentment towards each other, when they were entangled with each other and unwilling to bow their heads, when they pierced each other with sharp words, they were like spotted hyenas showing their fangs, almost wanting to bite each other through.

They had calm or indifferent surfaces, and the occasional madness in their hearts was always vented only to each other.

Just like at this moment, only they knew in their hearts how fascinated they were when they saw the Queen.

The game drive lasted from morning to afternoon, a full six hours. In addition to seeing the Queen’s family, they also saw her mother’s family, but it was visible to the naked eye that the Queen was definitely the most robust and tallest spotted hyena they had seen that day. It was almost possible to imagine what kind of brilliance she would create in the future.

It was said that they had just hunted an African buffalo yesterday, which was enough for them to have a full meal for two days, so there were no hunting scenes of the Queen and her subordinates today.

When Song Ji’an and Sheng Jia returned by car, the sun had already turned red, emitting dazzling light in front of the horizon. The sparse clouds did not form any sunset clouds, it was just bare, and the entire sky could only be reflected into orange-red.

Below the wildlife area, there was a long stretch of grassland for hotel guests to walk on. The people who had been sitting in the car all day got out of the car early to stretch their bodies.

This road was not very long. When they finally walked back to the hotel, Dong Zhen was lying on the balcony on the second floor. Seeing that they were back, she raised her hand and waved, looking particularly comfortable. The scenery of the grassland obviously satisfied her too.

It was not yet late at night, but it was evening, and Amboseli had already quieted down. A wild roar came from the distance, probably a group of behemoths were fighting.

After Song Ji’an washed up in the room, she looked at herself in the mirror.

Rosy, with a very good complexion, and the decadence that used to be often contained in her eyes had disappeared without a trace after this whole day.

The African savannah was definitely a place that could make people feel extremely happy physically and mentally.

After a busy day, she finally found the time to do what she wanted to do.

She had said long ago that she would give Sheng Jia an answer.

Now was the time to give this answer.

Sheng Jia’s room was next to hers. Song Ji’an knocked on the door.

Footsteps came from inside, and Sheng Jia soon appeared in front of her.

As if she had expected it, Sheng Jia didn’t show any surprise when she saw her. She didn’t even ask her why she had come. She just tilted her body, “Do you want to come in and talk?”

“No,” Song Ji’an shook her head, looked at Sheng Jia, “Can we go for a walk outside?”

Sheng Jia nodded, agreeing to the suggestion, “Sure.”

They walked side by side from the hotel to the empty wilderness. The starry sky above their heads was so close, and the cool night breeze blew on their faces, bringing a dry breath unique to the grassland.

Song Ji’an looked into the distance and suddenly asked, “I’m very curious, if I hadn’t come here to find you this time, what would you have done?”

“Do you want to hear the truth or a lie?” Sheng Jia raised her eyebrows.

“Of course it’s the truth, if it’s a lie, I’ll see through it right away.” Song Ji’an replied, her eyes flashing with confident light. Perhaps Sheng Jia’s thinking was very broad, and her brain could always think of various tortuous ideas, but Song Ji’an could also confidently say at this moment that she could see through the essence of Sheng Jia’s words, whether they were true or false.

They were completely transparent in front of each other.

Sheng Jia laughed, and she slowly followed Song Ji’an’s steps forward, her eyes flashing with complex emotions, and said frankly, “I would be like now, always following behind you, until you make a choice like this, and stop escaping.”

“If you continue to resist, I won’t give up, I’ll just try new methods.”

This was the decision she had already made.

“That’s something you would do,” Song Ji’an nodded in agreement, “But why? Why are you so persistent in doing these things.”

She stopped and looked directly at Sheng Jia, her eyes were unstoppable, as if Sheng Jia had once again seen the girl who had questioned her in the snow, she was also so step-by-step and justified, asking her for an answer.

That time, Song Ji’an discovered that her feelings were not one-sided, Sheng Jia was a coward, she obviously liked her but didn’t dare to admit it.

She smiled and said that liking you was my business, it had nothing to do with you.

Her smile was bright, like an arrow piercing through the clouds and imprinted in people’s hearts. Even after nearly six years, it could immediately remind people of her every move at that time.

Sheng Jia was slightly stunned, she thought for a moment before answering very seriously: “Probably because I suddenly realized a long time ago that you seem to have become a part of my soul.”

This was an extremely solemn answer, the weight was heavy. Sheng Jia rarely revealed her heart and emotions, she always liked to treat others with a cold and hard side, as if she had no flaws, and was an impregnable fortress.

But she was also a living and thinking person.

Even because of her experiences since she was a child, she was thinking every moment, jumping back and forth between repeatedly doubting herself and affirming herself.

She doubted whether she could get Sheng Huaiying’s maternal love, she doubted whether she could recognize her biological mother, she doubted whether she was cold and hard enough to purely use Song Ji’an.

Every day she knew Song Ji’an, she was worried, afraid, and doubtful.

But later, these were gone.

She was afraid of losing more, but in fact, she gained much more than she lost.

She and Sheng Huaiying untied their knots, she recognized Song Ningqiu, and she couldn’t purely use Song Ji’an as she had imagined.

Sometimes she also wondered, why were her relationship with Sheng Huaiying so lukewarm for the first seventeen years, maintaining concern but not daring to get close to each other, and in the last year, she and Sheng Huaiying could have a new life.

She thought about many, many variables, and finally found that the biggest variable was only Song Ji’an.

The person who truly reshaped her was not herself, but Song Ji’an.

Every day she knew Song Ji’an, she was changing. Her appreciation for Song Ji’an grew day by day, but she didn’t dare and couldn’t admit it, hiding everything in her heart and forcing herself to move forward according to the set path.

Until she couldn’t move anymore, her heart was torn and painful, and she lost the other half of her soul.

Stubborn people cannot easily overturn everything they once knew, and only turn back when they hit the south wall.

She just liked Song Ji’an, very, very much.

Before she became another Sheng Jia, Song Ji’an had already been imprinted on her soul.

Just as Sheng Jia had already been imprinted on Song Ji’an’s soul, it could not be erased.

There would never be such a compatible existence as them in this world.

It seemed that they were destined to be entangled to the death.

Whether it was pain or happiness, they accepted it all and brewed it into glass candy that only they knew.

If Sheng Jia showed disgust and hatred when she saw Song Ji’an again, Sheng Jia would definitely obey her wishes and no longer appear in front of her, and would only silently pay attention from now on.

But no, Song Ji’an didn’t have any of that. She only had pain and guilt, so painful that Sheng Jia felt empathy, so painful that Sheng Jia wanted to hug her tightly and let her stab the glass shards on her body into her own flesh, stabbing until she was covered in blood. She just wanted to share the pain with Song Ji’an.

She could hear the suppressed shouts in every inch of Song Ji’an’s veins, and she could feel the cry for help that Song Ji’an herself was unwilling to admit.

She had said long ago that their tacit understanding was unique.

There was no longer any barrier, no longer any self-deception.

Sheng Jia just wanted to hold Song Ji’an’s hand and drag her out, no matter what method she used, no matter how much effort it took.

And at this moment, she looked at Song Ji’an’s bright, star-like eyes, and only felt a burst of luck.

Her own pain seemed to have dissipated with the dissipation of Song Ji’an’s pain.

Song Ji’an blinked and listened to Sheng Jia’s sincere and long explanation. She didn’t know why, but her eyes were a little sore.

“But, even if you don’t do these things, I will still leave. Just like you said, your eighteen years of pain have nothing to do with me, and you have never blamed me. The pain and emotions I feel after choosing to leave on my own have nothing to do with you either. It’s not your fault.”

According to Song Ji’an’s personality, even if Sheng Jia didn’t do anything, at the moment she knew her own background, she would only choose to leave without anything. She would still be overwhelmed by guilt and pain, and would just exile herself like this.

From the moment they were switched, it was probably already destined that Song Ji’an would have to go through all of this.

This was not Sheng Jia’s fault.

Even if they quarreled again and again after they reunited, stabbing each other’s hearts with the most ear-piercing words, they had never blamed each other for their pain from the bottom of their hearts, and it had nothing to do with each other.

“You told me that I was not wrong, but in reality, you always felt that you caused my pain, so you tried your best to make up for it, and desperately wanted to pull me out of the pain,” Song Ji’an smiled with tears in her eyes, the heart-wrenching pain she felt when she heard Sheng Jia’s background seemed to sweep over her once again, “Sheng Jia, why are you always so transparent to others, but so strict with yourself?”

The one who had suffered the most pain from beginning to end was Sheng Jia herself.

Sheng Jia blinked. After being told this by Song Ji’an, she only felt like she wanted to laugh. It was the kind of feeling that her body and mind seemed to be soaked in a pool of warm water.

Her heart was sore for Song Ji’an’s tolerance and happy for her reproach filled with pity.

It was as if a certain part of her soul was completely replenished at this moment.

She opened her mouth, but found that her voice was hoarse, and her little finger seemed to be trembling uncontrollably.

“Song Ji’an, do you think you are happy now?”

She asked softly, a little nervously.

Song Ji’an took a step forward, stared into her eyes, and said slowly, “What you actually want to ask is, am I satisfied with myself now? Right?”

Sheng Jia looked at her and saw Song Ji’an’s calm and gentle eyes. Those tensions suddenly dissipated a lot, and she nodded, “Yes.”

“Satisfied, I am very satisfied with myself now.”

Song Ji’an smiled.

People will make countless choices in their lives, and they can only personally taste the results of the choices they make with their own hands.

Perhaps Song Ji’an once missed the high-spirited self of the past, which was why she accepted the cooperation with Sheng Jia.

But now, she had become a more mature version of herself.

After being tempered by her own heart, she had gained more and had a harder core.

The Song Ji’an of five years ago was very good, but the Song Ji’an of five years ago would also choose to escape when she was at a loss. The Song Ji’an of five years later had finally learned to face her own heart.

She could still be high-spirited, and she could be flamboyant and enthusiastic, but more importantly, she could go and face her past friends and relatives properly.

Sheng Jia said that Song Ji’an had reshaped her.

But she had also reshaped a brand new Song Ji’an.

A brave Song Ji’an who could finally follow her own heart and move forward with peace of mind again.

Song Ji’an and Sheng Jia both got the answers they wanted.

Sheng Jia did what she had wanted to do since she saw Song Ji’an in Amboseli. She hugged her tightly, buried her head on her shoulder, and said softly on her shoulder, “Song Ji’an, meeting you is the luckiest thing in my life.”

“I’m twenty-five years old this year, and I may have seventy-five years to live. Please walk with me.”

Song Ji’an’s tears dripped on the side of Sheng Jia’s face, but she couldn’t help but laugh when she heard Sheng Jia’s invitation, “Are you sure you can live to be a hundred years old?”

“It doesn’t matter how old I am, as long as I’m with you,” Sheng Jia also laughed, “But if I can live to be a hundred years old, then I will feel that you and I still have a very, very long future, just thinking about it makes me very happy.”

A howling wind swept across the grassland, and the roar of the lions spread in the night, alarming countless animals to flee in panic, but before long, the earth returned to silence, so silent that the people hugging each other could hear each other’s heartbeats.

One beat after another, without tension or anxiety.

Because Song Ji’an’s answer was already clear to them.

“Okay.”

Song Ji’an hugged Sheng Jia even tighter and repeated loudly: “Okay.”

Our destined lovers, let’s walk together.

Towards the future that we should have rushed to together long ago.

(End of main text)