Chapter 256: The Festival (7) (1/2)

I inexplicably sighed, suddenly realizing that only at this very moment had I returned to clarity from the dazed state.

The words spoken by that catgirl fortune-teller seeped little by little into my subconscious along with my mind. Although I was not thinking of anything, my body was already taking action for actual ambitions and desires.

Truly a rare sight—me being so willful.

Following my own desires and tossing aside the classmates I had already arranged to meet, selfishly running out. If it were the former me, I would absolutely be unable to understand what I was doing now, right?

After all, that me who under Mother’s teachings understood advance and retreat and etiquette would, in this kind of social occasion, always consider everyone’s face and feelings. Even if my heart was anxious to do something, I would not truly abandon everyone.

It seemed that after reuniting and reconciling with Zhi Nian, I had become less and less like my former self, becoming impulsive and emotional. Was this correct?

I opened my right hand and lightly pressed it against the window by my side.

Usually I always liked sitting in this kind of window seat. To be precise, it was a habit cultivated by the me who had just become acquainted with Zhi Nian in elementary school.

At that time Zhi Nian was still by my side. The two of us squeezed into the second-to-last row.

Outside the window the plane trees retreated one by one. The still-unrenovated cement road was full of potholes, and the bus swayed as it drove.

Little Zhi Nian easily got carsick. Every time she would lean against my shoulder with closed eyes. She said, “With Gu Fan here I don’t get dizzy.”

In the fragmentary memory fragments, when she spoke this sentence, her long and dense eyelashes trembled slightly, like a fragile little butterfly forcefully flapping its wings.

Thus, half of my childhood memories were occupied by such a scene—sunlight swaying back and forth on the girl’s face through the leaves, bringing along the fine strands of hair at her forehead to brush past my arm. The girl was like a little cat dozing on the windowsill, nestling securely by my side.

The bus steadily drove past the intersection. The street scenery outside the window slowly changed from the commercial district in the central area to the old urban area on the periphery.

The large nameless green trees by the roadside grew lushly. The tree crowns blocked out the sky and sun, completely shutting the sunlight outside. Only a very few warriors could break through from the dense defense, striking the car window again and again, like some ancient and rhythmic metronome.

Seeing the central hospital flashing past by the roadside, my heart suddenly trembled in realization.

It seemed… on the day I reunited with Zhi Nian again, I had boarded the bus here.

At that time I had just come out of the hospital after finishing the examination. My schoolbag held complicated medical records and examination sheets. My whole person was muddled.

There were not many people in the carriage at the time. I habitually walked toward the second-to-last row. Just as I was about to sit, I discovered that the window seat was already occupied by a person—someone I was extremely familiar with.

The drunk catgirl leaned against the window, deeply asleep. Her hair was messy as it draped over her shoulders, just like the scene from many years ago. The only difference was perhaps that the little catgirl curled into a ball had become an enlarged big catgirl.

I still remembered that at the time my subconscious reaction was wanting to turn my head to find another seat to sit and avoid Zhi Nian. But when I turned around I discovered the seats were already full. The only remaining empty seat was the one beside Zhi Nian.

I had no choice. Perhaps my heart was also looking forward to the reunion. I sat down.

While sleeping, Zhi Nian suddenly tilted her head toward my side and leaned over, just like before leaning against the shoulder, and even comfortably meowed once.

My whole body suddenly stiffened. I uncomfortably slowed my breathing, yet at the same time a familiar feeling surged up in my heart—that was the tacit understanding once reached with Zhi Nian.

What was I thinking at that time? I could no longer remember clearly.

I only remembered that space seemed to solidify. Everything around slowed down a lot. I could completely no longer hear outside sounds.

It was as if the long river of time was pouring backward into this not-large carriage of the bus, irrigating this area into eternal amber and sealing it up.

I did not know how much time had passed when I heard the catgirl by my side hum once and slowly wake up.

Those eyes as gorgeous as rubies lit up once in the somewhat dim carriage, like a candle wick suddenly lit by someone.

Du~

The sound of the bus door releasing air came, followed closely by the broadcast notifying that the terminal station had been reached, telling the passengers to pack their luggage and items and prepare to get off.

Looking around, the other passengers had long gotten off at the previous few stops. The uncle driver had specially kindly driven a bit farther forward.

Friendly nodding toward the uncle driver, I got off the bus and walked toward home.

When my feet just stepped on the ground the legs were a bit soft. Perhaps from sitting too long on the bus, or perhaps not, because I felt my heartbeat accelerating. Was I nervous?

This bus route was actually not that close to my home. I had more boarded this bus carrying a mindset of urgently wanting to do something.

Now coming back to my senses, the words the fortune-teller had spoken only emerged from the depths of the subconscious, turning around and around in my mind.

“She was afraid of making things difficult for you, and also afraid of being rejected herself, so she has always been waiting for you to speak first.”

I closed my eyes once. Floating up in my mind were those scenes in the crystal ball—the young girl at the end of the corridor clenching a paper ball, the home door under the sunset that was never knocked for a long time, and the back that at the last moment pretended to only be passing by.

To be honest, the former me did not believe that things beyond technological understanding existed in this world.

But ever since that incurable terminal illness on my body healed without any warning and left no aftereffects, I began to doubt.

And a few days earlier talking with the mysterious fortune-telling old woman in the bamboo grove further made me realize that the existence of catgirls itself did not conform to common sense.

Why had no one realized this point? It was as if catgirls were an existence that should be taken for granted.

Meow~

A fat big orange cat like a great stroke of luck darted out from the corner.

I habitually scanned the ears on top of its head. After confirming it was a sterilized stray cat with clipped ears, I reached out to stroke it.

My home was in an old residential complex. Here many stray cats gathered with no one managing them.

I could only do my best with pocket money to catch some familiar cats for sterilization, preventing the excessive breeding of stray cats.

How to put it… I found it hard to motivate myself to do or think of some grand things, for example thoroughly rectifying this chaos of stray cats.

From a young age I knew I was an ordinary person, only able to do small things within my power to change the surrounding environment. Living by going with the flow was fine. There was no need to strain against the entire social environment and trends.

Perhaps using an idiom to describe it, this was the life attitude of muddling through?

Walking into the building where my home was, my home was on the sixth floor with no elevator.

Two of the voice-activated lights in the stairwell were broken. Plus right now was the transition period of evening. The stairwell was at its gloomiest time.

Thinking of things with a depressed mood, I felt along the wall walking upward.

At the fourth floor I suddenly stopped, looking at the wall at the corner.

This patch of wall plaster had been freshly painted over with paint. The touch was very smooth, and even the color tone formed a difference from the surrounding yellow-spotted wall plaster.

My brain spontaneously also began to trace back memories.

I recalled that this was the last time Zhi Nian came to my home to play and accidentally bumped it off.

That day… seemed to be going to play at a nearby temple? Seemed to be called Huang Daxian Temple.

At that time Zhi Nian had stuffed a big pile of things into her schoolbag—food and drinks and everything—saying she wanted to treat it like an outing.

This also made her small schoolbag of not-large capacity hard-forced to bulge full, making her walk a bit unsteadily.

That day she seemed to have gotten up very early. Just as I woke up she bounced over to find me. Receiving the call I hurriedly went downstairs to welcome her.

Walking to this position on the fourth floor, her eyes suddenly lit up, as if special effects had been applied. I could clearly feel her transmitting happy emotions toward me.

She pa ta pa ta ran toward me, but also because she was too anxious, one corner of the schoolbag knocked against the wall. White plaster fell down.

Zhi Nian was so scared she hurriedly squatted down to pick it up, still saying “Sorry sorry, I didn’t mean to.”