Chapter Thirty: Busy as a Whirligig

  The Lantern Festival was set up in the central square along Zhongshan Road, and they arrived at 10 o'clock. There were still many people walking among the colored lanterns. Upon closer inspection, it can be seen that most of the families with children and elderly who came to play had left, leaving behind mostly couples or groups of three to five young people.

  It's been many years since I've seen such a festive night, excitedly walking among the colorful lights, old-fashioned palace lanterns, carousel lanterns, animal-shaped lanterns, and even more fashionable new-style flower lanterns.

  Jia Kai saw that many girls in the crowd were carrying lanterns, and he pulled Xing Ye excitedly in front of a small stall selling lanterns. "Want to buy one?"

  "Is there that kind of lantern with a candle in it?" This plastic lantern with a light bulb, holding it feels strange, and can't find the feeling of childhood.

  She carefully protected her lantern from being bumped into by others, this kind of lantern was also made for her by her father when she was a child, the small candle lit inside could easily ignite the paper outside, remembering the Lantern Festival in her childhood, all the children in the town would take these lanterns out to play together, every time no matter how careful she was, her lantern would always catch fire, and then she would cry, at that time Hui Ye would give his lantern to herself, but in the end even Hui Ye's lantern would also catch fire.

  Stargazing at night, her heart was all on the lanterns, Jia Kai had to closely follow beside her, stretching out his arm to prevent anyone from bumping into her in the crowded and dark streets.

  "There's a large Christmas tree in front of the square, let's go take a look." Jia Kai pulled Xing Ye to the central square.

  Passing through the arches made up of tens of thousands of small lanterns, large lanterns enter one's line of sight.

  Staring at the phoenix-shaped lanterns in front of me, a giant five-colored phoenix lantern, over six meters long, is decorated with colorful lights all over its body.

  "What a true beauty!" exclaimed Xing Ye, unable to help himself.

  "Someone is setting off Kongming lanterns over there!" someone shouted, and people all surged to one side.

  She was bumped by the person next to her and almost fell over, luckily Jia Kai beside her held her steady.

  "Alas", the paper lanterns have been lit up, and Xing Ye's face is full of regret, "Still couldn't keep it."

  "You like it, we'll go buy another one." Jia Kai said, although he didn't know why she attached so much importance to this lantern.

  "If you have one now, would you give it to me?" Xing Ye looked at Jia Kai, and he couldn't explain why he asked that.

  "Needless to say, of course I'll give it to you." Jia Kai replied without hesitation.

  Xīng yè xiào le, yuán lái tā hé huī yè gē gē yí yàng.

  Translation:

  The starry night laughed, it turns out he is the same as Hui Ye Gege.

  "Come on, I'll treat you to a midnight snack." Xing Ye pulled Jia Kai along.

  The square is surrounded by specialty food streets and many small stalls have emerged due to the Lantern Festival, which is a good time to sell midnight snacks.

  Neither of them was very hungry, they just each bought a cup of hot milk tea and held it in their hands, warming up without even drinking.

  Xīng Yè was delighted to talk with Jiā Kǎi about how she spent Lantern Festival when she was a kid, talking about the lanterns her stepfather made, talking about how she cried loudly because the lantern burned, and saying that Huì Yè would definitely give his only one to herself.

  Jia Kai understood why she was so concerned about the lantern just now, and why she asked herself that strange question. He patted Xing Ye's head, "Xing Ye, I'm also your brother."

  A simple sentence, both of them understood what it meant, and they looked at each other with a smile.

  The Lantern Festival is over, and Xiaoluo has already started school. Xiaokai also went to school two days later. Xingye quickly adapted to this daily routine, getting up early to go to the park with his grandparents for morning exercise. Although the two elderly people went together and returned together, they didn't have the same way of exercising. Grandfather would practice Tai Chi along the way, then take a walk or play a game of chess. Grandmother would go dancing or sometimes sing in the singing area when she was in the mood. At 7 o'clock, the two would return home on time to eat breakfast together.

  At night, she started following her grandmother to dance, and with a burst of energy, she jumped onto the stage and danced for almost four hours. As soon as she finished, she was surrounded by a group of elderly women, all praising her for dancing well, having good rhythm, and looking beautiful. But the more they talked, the more exaggerated it became. Her grandmother listened to this with pride, repeatedly telling people, "This is my granddaughter."

  Xīng yè heard that and was tongue-tied, this dancing is purely for work needs, have you seen an accompanying dance miss who can't dance? Xīng yè doesn't just do simple waltz or tango, Cha Cha is also very good, after all, later she became a certain leader's mistress, idle and having nothing to do, even reported Latin dance class for fitness, according to her coach, she really has dancing talent.

  Luckily, grandma was too excited and forgot to ask her who she learned it from, otherwise she would have had a hard time explaining.

  The next day, Xing Ye didn't dare to go with her grandmother, but instead followed her grandfather to practice Tai Chi. This was something she had never learned before. At first, she followed the people in front of her, lifting her arms and forgetting about her legs, kicking her legs and forgetting about her arms. Fortunately, Tai Chi is slow-paced and has a fixed set of 24 moves, so after practicing for two days, she basically remembered all the moves. However, her posture was not standard, so Xing Ye observed an old man with a beautiful posture and paid attention to how he moved his hands and legs, how high he lifted them, and when he turned around to change moves. After three days of practice, she had a good sense of it and didn't need to look at others' postures anymore. She started treating Tai Chi as a dance, doing whatever looked good to her, and at least outsiders would say she was doing okay.

  It was that fat old man who walked away and looked at her, also saying "not bad", Xīnyè zhānzhān zìxǐ, it seems I'm still quite clever.

  In the morning, my grandfather would be in the study either reading or practicing calligraphy. My grandmother sometimes accompanied him to paint on the side. Occasionally, she would go with Aunt Mei to the market to buy vegetables. Nowadays, she prefers to chat with Xing Ye at night.

  At midnight, she allocated two hours of study time for herself and took out the practice questions from her school to do. Then, she followed Mei's aunt to learn cooking. Mei's aunt's craftsmanship is really good. Xing Ye learned very seriously. At first, Mei's aunt thought that Xing Ye was just talking about it, but now few girls are willing to cook, even her own daughter doesn't want to inherit her father's skills. However, after two days, she saw that Xing Ye really wanted to learn and could make basic dishes, so she was happy to teach her everything she knew.

  After lunch, the two old men would take a nap. Xing Ye had never been in the habit of sleeping during the day and would use this time to read books. One day, while reading in her grandfather's study, she picked up the Four Treasures of the Study on the table and played with them, writing a few words casually. It just so happened that her grandfather saw her. She thought he was angry because someone had messed with his things, but instead, he gave her a copybook and a set of brushes, stipulating that she practice calligraphy for no less than two hours every day.

  This decision was quite unexpected for Xing Ye, but practicing calligraphy wasn't a bad thing. So every day he took the newspaper and copied characters from the model book, and his grandfather would also take some time to guide him. However, for someone who had never practiced calligraphy before like Xing Ye, two hours of suspending his wrist while writing was not very comfortable, and after two days his arm ached. Before Xing Ye could say anything, his grandmother took pity on him and quarreled with her husband, so the two hours became one hour, but the remaining hour was spent learning to paint from her instead.

  One evening, her grandfather was playing chess alone, and Xing Ye was reading a book beside him. She casually suggested a move, which made her grandfather look at her with new eyes. She had only learned a little bit from her grandfather when she was very young, and hadn't played since his passing.

  Her grandfather invited her to play a game of chess, and surprisingly praised her highly, saying that she was calm and steady, and that her moves were well-planned and methodical, definitely the result of training by an expert. Xīng Yè didn't respond to this, thinking that even her all-knowing grandfather was also a mediocre player, or else why would he think that someone who had hardly ever played chess before could play so well? However, from then on, her grandfather often asked her to play chess with him. Xīng Yè thought that this was good too, as it meant that her grandfather wouldn't go and lose to other people, which must be unpleasant for an old man.

  My maternal grandfather would often drag me to play chess at night, which made my grandmother very dissatisfied. She felt that this was depriving her of the time she could spend chatting with her granddaughter. One evening, while I was washing vegetables and humming a tune, my grandmother overheard me and was delighted. She asked me to sing another song, so I chose one that I was good at and sang it again. This made my grandmother even happier, and she said that my voice was similar to hers. She wanted me to learn opera from her. However, I knew that my grandmother hadn't taken on any new students in many years, and that learning opera required starting from a young age. I had already passed the optimal time for becoming a professional opera performer. But my grandmother wouldn't listen to these excuses and insisted that I practice vocalization with her for an hour every day.

  These days are like a small spinning top, busy every day.

  After a while, it dawned on me that I was just a big toy, and my grandparents were like two little kids fighting over the toy.