I'm Going to Make It Big!

Little He Qing bought two bunches of bananas and carried them to Lin Zhengran's house.

After four years, she had finally come back to this familiar place with a nervous heart. She knocked on Lin Zhengran's front door. His home was not much different from four years ago.

At a glance, though some appliances and small details in the layout had changed slightly, everything still felt so familiar.

Lin Yingjun and Lin Xiaoli were sitting on the sofa watching TV. When they saw a female classmate come over, at first they thought their son had brought some other girl home again, but after recognizing her, they were so surprised they could not speak.

"Hello, Uncle, Auntie," He Qing greeted them shyly.

After hearing her voice, Lin Xiaoli in particular looked at the tiny little thing from back then, who had been shy every day and had not even reached her thigh, now grown into a pretty, sweet girl of one meter fifty. She could not help calling out, "Is this... is this Qing Qing?! Little Qing Qing, we haven't seen you in so many years. How did you grow up so pretty?!"

Lin Yingjun also gave a sound of surprise, straightening up as he exclaimed, "It's Qing Qing?! We haven't seen you in a few years, and Little Qing Qing has grown this tall!"

Little He Qing pressed her lips together in embarrassment and handed the bananas in her hands to Uncle and Auntie. "Uncle, Auntie, it's been so many years. This is something I bought for you. It isn't expensive, but it's a small token from me. Thank you for taking care of me when I was little."

Lin Xiaoli laughed twice and walked over to Little He Qing. "Oh, Little Qing Qing, why would you need to buy gifts when you come to our house? Look at you, being so formal with Uncle and Auntie now. Didn't Auntie tell you when you were little that you could just treat this place as your own home?"

Little He Qing nodded with an embarrassed smile. "I remember..."

Lin Xiaoli looked over her sweet appearance and clicked her tongue with emotion. "Qing Qing really has grown so pretty. Are you with Ranran every day now?"

Little He Qing slowly shook her head. "No, Auntie. Because we're not in the same class, we're usually not together, but we eat together and go home from school together and stuff."

Lin Xiaoli nodded. "I see. That's the same, then. Ever since you left, Ranran missed you every day, always looking forward to you coming back." She raised her head and looked at her son. "Right, Ranran?"

Little He Qing turned back to look at Lin Zhengran in surprise, curious whether that was true or not.

In the end, Lin Zhengran looked utterly lost. After entering the house, he had started changing his shoes and going to the restroom to wash his face, and he had not heard what they were talking about at all. "Huh? Mom, what did you say?"

Lin Xiaoli did not repeat herself. Instead, she lowered her voice and said directly to Little He Qing, "See? He just said 'huh.' 'Huh' means he nodded."

Little He Qing was too shy to speak.

She was not sure whether Lin Zhengran had missed her or not, but she really had missed Lin Zhengran. All these years, she had looked forward every day to being able to see him.

Lin Zhengran washed his face and went to his bedroom, just as he usually did when he came home.

Lin Xiaoli gestured for Little He Qing to follow him. Little He Qing gave a small mm and followed behind Lin Zhengran.

Lin Xiaoli hurriedly called after them, "I'll call you two when lunch is ready."

After the two of them entered the room and closed the door, Lin Xiaoli and her husband Lin Yingjun exchanged a look before she smiled and sighed. "Qing Qing is actually this pretty now. I really didn't expect the two of them to be together again after four years."

Lin Yingjun said, "Girls really change as they grow up. She and Ranran have quite the fate between them."

In the bedroom, Lin Zhengran lay down on the bed without any courtesy. Little He Qing stood by the bed. "Are you going to rest? How about I massage you? It's very comfortable."

Lin Zhengran closed his eyes. "Thanks."

Hearing his reply, Little He Qing looked extremely happy. She shook her head like a rattle drum. "It's no trouble, no trouble. I'll massage you right now. I often massaged my maternal grandmother at home before. I'm very good at it."

She bit her lip and quickly walked over to sit beside Lin Zhengran, her small hands kneading his shoulders.

He Qing's arrival today made Lin Zhengran's parents especially happy. At noon, they even prepared a whole table of dishes. During the meal, the family chatted and laughed for quite a while.

Little He Qing still did the same as when she was a child: when eating shrimp, she secretly put the body of the first shrimp onto Lin Zhengran's plate, while she herself sucked the bit of shrimp meat left in the shrimp head.

But Lin Zhengran also complained just as he had when they were children. "Are you being picky? If you're not eating it, why give it to me?"

Little He Qing was so frightened she did not dare speak loudly. "I'm not being picky. I'm letting you eat first..." After Uncle Lin and Aunt Lin discovered the two of them whispering, they burst out laughing. "It's exactly like when Ranran and Qing Qing were in kindergarten. They were always secretly chatting."

After lunch in the afternoon, Lin Zhengran said he was going out to buy something, so Little He Qing followed him.

She was curious what Lin Zhengran wanted to buy that he even had to go all the way to the mall.

Lin Zhengran answered casually, "I'm going to buy a birthday present for Certain Person. She gave me one last year too, so I can't exactly not return the favor. While I'm at it, Mom also told me to buy you some snacks."

That Saturday, Little He Qing stayed with Lin Zhengran for the entire day before waving goodbye. On the way back, Little He Qing was very happy.

Only, a smile was not something everyone always wore on their face.

For example, in another residential complex only one street away.

A girl in casual shorts sat cross-legged on her bedroom bed, her thighs exposed, holding a guitar and playing it. Her long Double Ponytail fell in front of her chest on either side, sometimes swaying gently along with the movement of her fingers.

The pink decorations in the room usually seemed dreamy, but today the girl really could not bring herself to appreciate them.

"Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder..." Jiang Xueli's fingers plucked the strings, her pleasant voice slow. "...what you are."

She gazed out the window. Outside the glass, she could actually only see other apartment buildings, but it was as if she saw a certain idiot chatting and laughing with a certain girl in a bedroom.

The bedroom door was knocked on. It was Jiang Xueli's mother's voice. "Xueli, are you busy?"

Jiang Xueli responded, "Mom, what is it?"

Her mother smiled as she asked through the bedroom door, "Tomorrow is your birthday. When the time comes, are you planning to go out and have fun, or should your dad and I stay home with you in the evening to celebrate?"

Jiang Xueli paused. "I'll think about it. Anyway, birthdays are celebrated tomorrow night, so there's no rush."

Her mother did not think too much of it. "All right. Mom has nothing to do in the afternoon, and the company is off. It won't be too late for you to decide then."

"Okay. Thanks, Mom."

Hearing her mother's footsteps leave, Jiang Xueli plucked a guitar string again.

Then suddenly, her whole body lay stiffly askew on the bed, and even her Double Ponytail seemed to have lost its usual vitality, quietly overlapping and crossing together.

"Big Dummy, what were you doing with He Qing today? You probably have no idea how much fun you were having, do you? And a massage too?" she said indignantly. "What decent guy asks a girl to massage him? Couldn't you just sleep a little longer in bed by yourself?!"

She laid the guitar flat, her watery eyes gazing into the distance.

Jiang Xueli barely slept that Saturday night. She lay in bed with her legs bent, holding those two movie tickets in one hand and her phone in the other.

She wavered and wavered, lying down, then sitting up, tossing and turning several times, wanting to call Lin Zhengran and tell him tomorrow was her birthday.

She wanted to invite him to watch a movie with her.

But every time her finger hovered over the call button, she didn't dare press it.

She even thought about sending a message, and had typed it out character by character.

Big Dummy, do you know tomorrow is my birthday? It's not like I absolutely need you to be with me, but somehow I just happen to have two extra movie tickets here, so do you want to go together? It'd be a waste otherwise...

So embarrassed, she squeezed her eyes shut and hurriedly deleted it. She couldn't send it at all. "Doesn't this look just like a confession?! Anyone who saw it would misunderstand!"

She buried her head under the pillow and pulled the blanket over herself, escaping reality. "How am I supposed to tell him?! Why haven't humans invented some kind of dream-message technology yet? If I could send him a dream, I'd tell him in there."

Before long, Jiang Xueli came back to her senses and quietly roasted herself. "Forget it. Even in a dream, I don't think I'd have the nerve to say it."

Early the next morning, birds chirped on the rooftop of the apartment complex. With dark circles under her eyes, she was still staring blankly at her phone and those two movie tickets.

It wasn't until her mother called from the living room, "Xueli, your dad and I are going to work. If you go out, remember to take your keys,"

that she sat up and looked out at the bright window, finally realizing, "It's already morning?! What was I doing all night?!"

She gritted her teeth and stared at her phone. "No. I'm sending the message! I'm sending it! Otherwise I really will lose!"