EAY Chapter 21

Rare Personality

Rare Personality

21

Shi Ran really couldn’t understand Qi Ye.

Maybe he was just stupid, and he had devoted all his time with Qi Ye to studying, so he hadn’t really gotten to know him.

Shi Ran went home and slept for a long time, waking up with a foul expression.

“Why are you still so unhappy after the exam?” Grandpa Shi stewed a pot of Shi Ran’s favorite ribs, beckoning him to come eat, “What’s wrong, do you feel like you didn’t do well on the exam?”

Shi Ran sat down with a pout: “It’s not about the exam, it’s Qi Ye, he broke up with me.”

Grandpa Shi was surprised: “How could such a good-tempered child break up with you? What did you do to him?”

“It’s not like that, I didn’t do anything at all, I—” Shi Ran retorted subconsciously, but then he thought about it, his temper was indeed very bad, he was always blunt and spoke very loudly, while Qi Ye had always been well-behaved, maybe he had offended him without realizing it.

“Did I really do something?” Shi Ran covered his head, recalling carefully, “I can’t remember, he never acted as coldly as he did yesterday.”

Grandpa Shi turned to get the side dishes: “You’re just too careless, you can’t even tell when your friend is unhappy.”

After getting the side dishes, Grandpa Shi remembered something else, “Hey, you didn’t borrow money from him and forget to pay it back, and more than once, did you?”

Shi Ran exclaimed: “How is that possible? I never borrowed money from him. He’s a very strange person, he always insists on buying me things. When I insist on treating him back, he gets upset, saying I’m treating him like an outsider.”

Grandpa Shi said: “The things you treated him to were too cheap, haha.”

“Grandpa! I’m not that stingy, okay!” Shi Ran grabbed his hair in frustration, “I was originally thinking of making it up to him after the exam, he helped me so much and then broke up with me, that’s too, too much!”

“I’ve seen a lot of people who kick the ladder away after crossing the river, but your friend is really rare, fixing the bridge once isn’t enough, and then turning around and leaving.” Grandpa Shi served Shi Ran ribs, “Alright, it’s no use for you to worry about it here, eat first. Find some time to talk to him face to face, if it’s really your fault, just correct it.”

Shi Ran felt that Grandpa Shi was right, he had to ask Qi Ye once.

There was no rice in the bowl, but the ribs were piled high. Shi Ran smiled wryly: “Are you trying to make me sick of ribs all at once?”

“You never get tired of them, you always complain that I buy too few ribs,” Grandpa Shi said, “Finish these and I’ll make you beef tonight.”

Shi Ran’s eyes lit up: “Is it New Year’s? Eating so well.”

“Silly boy.” Grandpa Shi shook his head helplessly.

The ribs were stewed until they were soft and tender, and the meat fell off with a gentle suck. Shi Ran ate happily, one bite after another: “These ribs you bought this time are really good.”

“Your dad bought them, the beef too,” Grandpa Shi said, “Your mom bought a bag of snacks, I haven’t taken them out yet, I’m afraid you’ll eat those and not eat your meals.”

Shi Ran stopped sucking on the ribs. “They, when did they come home?”

“When you were sleeping, they came one after the other. I was afraid of waking you up, so I told them to leave the things and go,” Grandpa Shi said with a smile, “What, you wouldn’t be so silly as to hear that they bought them and get so angry that you don’t want to eat them, would you?”

Shi Ran bit into the meat fiercely: “Of course not, Grandpa worked so hard to make them, why wouldn’t I eat them?”

“That’s right, being angry is one thing, but you can’t really be a fool.” Grandpa Shi sighed, “You can’t count on your parents for big things, so just take what little good they do, it’s better than nothing.”

Shi Ran nodded, “I know, I don’t count on them.”

–

Qi Ye’s cold lingered for a few more days. By the time he had almost fully recovered, the results of the college entrance exam were out.

Qi Ye did very well this time, scoring forty or fifty points higher than his mock exams. Although he couldn’t get into a top university, he was sure to get into a first-tier university, and his whole family was very happy.

Qi Ye vaguely wondered how Shi Ran had done.

Shi Ran had called him many times, but Qi Ye resisted the urge to answer.

He felt that once he relaxed that cautious string, he would immediately fall back into the hopeless dream of Shi Ran. He would definitely lower his bottom line again and again, and he could be indifferent even if Shi Ran had someone by his side.

At that time, he would become very pathetic.

Qi Ye went to school to fill out his college application, and received his admission notice in about a week. Then, after packing his luggage, he went to his grandparents’ home in the countryside with his parents. Qi Xue didn’t go with them because she had to prepare for her internship.

Having not seen their eldest grandson for a long time, Qi Ye’s grandparents surrounded him, showering him with concern. Especially when they saw the bright red admission notice, the old people were even more excited, looking at their grandson with pride.

Qi Ye’s parents were completely ignored, and they exchanged helpless smiles.

Because they still had work, Qi Ye’s parents only stayed for two days before leaving. Qi Ye planned to spend the summer vacation at his grandparents’ home.

The summer vacation wasn’t the busy farming season, but Qi Ye’s grandparents were people who couldn’t sit still. In addition to rice and tea, they also planted a large vegetable garden and a large orchard, so every season was busy for them.

Qi Ye needed this kind of busyness at this time, so he followed his grandparents’ schedule, watering and weeding in the vegetable garden, picking fruits and removing pests in the orchard. Mosquitoes and insects drilled into his clothes like crazy, biting his delicate skin. His grandmother felt so sorry for him that she insisted he not go down to the fields when she applied ointment to him, and his grandfather also told him not to go.

Exposed to the sun and working hard, Qi Ye’s skin became darker and he lost weight, but he didn’t look bad. On the contrary, he was more handsome than before, his features were more defined, and his eyes were brighter. Once he built up some muscle strength, he would have even more strength.

Now he smiled, revealing neat white teeth, looking simple and innocent: “It’s okay, the mosquitoes here bully strangers. I’ll get to know them better.”

“You child, I sprayed mosquito repellent on you again and again before you left, why doesn’t it work?” Grandma looked helplessly at the red spots on his arms and legs.

“That stuff is just perfume to the poisonous mosquitoes in the orchard, it’s useless.” Grandpa took a puff of his pipe on the porch, and then said to Qi Ye inside the house, “There’s a net in the house, don’t you young people like to go online and play games? Why aren’t you playing?”

“His phone is broken, and there’s no computer in the house either.” Grandma patted Qi Ye’s hand, “Tomorrow, have your grandfather take you to get your phone fixed, you can’t do without a phone these days.”

Qi Ye’s phone broke on the first day he arrived here. He bent over to wash his hands under the faucet in the yard, and the phone silently slipped out of his pocket and fell into the cement pool with a thud. He picked it up and saw that it was wet and the screen was cracked.

Qi Ye felt that it must be fate, perfectly blocking the temptation for him.

“It’s okay, anyway, the university thing is settled, I can contact my parents using your phones, and I don’t have anyone else to contact,” Qi Ye said with a smile.

Grandma asked: “What about your friends? Don’t you chat with your friends?”

Qi Ye couldn’t tell his grandma that he didn’t have many friends, so he told a little lie: “They all went traveling, and they don’t have time to chat.”

Grandma sighed and said, “Other people’s children are going everywhere to play, but you’re here helping us with farm work.”

“I like it here, there will be plenty of time to play in the future.” Qi Ye said to Grandma with a smile, “And we’re going to have military training as soon as we get to university, which will last for more than ten days. I want to exercise now, otherwise I won’t be able to handle it.”

“Is that so? Is military training very tiring?”

Grandma curiously asked about some things about university, and Qi Ye patiently answered her one by one. There were some things he wasn’t very clear about himself, so Qi Ye said that he would video chat with them when he got to school.

The nights in the countryside were very quiet. Qi Ye relied on the physical labor of the day to make his body tired enough so that he could fall asleep peacefully without thinking about anything.