Woodpecker (Revised)
After fiddling with his phone for a while, Liu Chang'an thought for a moment and downloaded the entire novel. It cost him about two hundred yuan for over six million words, which was a rather extravagant expense for Liu Chang'an recently. However, considering the length of the novel, it was still worthwhile. After all, many authors would be writing such a long novel in ages.
You can't catch a wolf without risking your cub; I've already bought the phone, so I don't mind spending a little more money.
After touring Liu Chang'an's empty house, Zhu Juntang came to his side and remarked, "My bathroom is bigger than yours."
Zhu Juntang's bathroom even has a bathtub where you can lie down and watch seafood in the aquarium, which even Zhou Dongdong envies.
"It's truly shocking and makes me feel inferior," Liu Chang'an, readily indulging in others' sense of superiority. "However, in ancient Europe, bathhouses and public toilets were both social settings. The significance of a bathhouse lay in bathing together. A private bathhouse, even if your tub was large enough to row a boat in, or filled with the dripping steam of a rainforest, was just so-so."
"The point of a bathroom is to shower with other people?" Zhu Juntang couldn't understand at all. "I don't want to."
Liu Chang'an had no interest in discussing the classical styles and modern humanistic significance of bathing with her. Many wars in human history were related to bathing. For example, there was a case in the History of the Borobensa War. Three hundred soldiers, exhausted from their winter march, were engaged in the final battle to defend the empire. Ahead lay a large city with an enemy force of five thousand men. However, having heard that another large city nearby was famous for its hot springs, they decided to rest and take a good bath there first. Their hooves crossed the city walls and trampled countless rooftops. The empire's third-largest cavalry army successfully captured the city. After a comfortable bath and rest, they were ambushed and annihilated. This battle was later made into an epic film, full of bloodshed, humanity, war, glory, and so on.
Liu Chang'an put away his phone and picked up a book called "God and Gold" to read.
"How boring." Zhu Juntang had no stool to sit on, so she stood next to Liu Chang'an, looking around aimlessly.
Liu Chang'an nodded, agreeing that she was indeed being silly.
He wasn't bored. Whenever he could feel the air moving, hear the rhythm of the wind, smell the leaves and the earth, and gradually hear the chirping of insects and the clamor of distant sounds, the light slanting and casting shadows, pulling out different dappled patterns of light and shadow—how could he be bored? It's just that compared to experiencing the world, humans prefer to satisfy their own desires, because that kind of satisfaction is more intense.
However, everything in this world is more likely to be calm and peaceful over time; the more intense and climax-like the state, the more fleeting it is.
"You'll be living in this building from now on, right? Do you need me to help you move?"
"Need not."
Liu Chang'an could understand perfectly well that Zhu Juntang's help with the move was probably just a matter of making a phone call to ask someone to come and do the job. As for her? How could a fairy do physical labor, running up and down stairs? Was she a fairy? Fairies couldn't even break a sweat.
Zhu Juntang was even more bored, so she stepped over Liu Chang'an's calf, went to the balcony, and reached out to pluck some sycamore leaves.
Liu Chang'an didn't tie the branches and leaves very tightly. When Zhu Juntang pulled, a sycamore leaf swept over. Zhu Juntang screamed, tilted her body, and fell off the balcony.
Liu Chang'an smashed down the railing on the balcony. Although the second floor isn't high, unlucky people always have all sorts of ways to die. What if he landed headfirst?
Liu Chang'an glanced at her, then reached out and grabbed Zhu Juntang's foot, lifting her up.
Zhu Juntang is the kind of person who would fall from the second floor headfirst, probably because his head is relatively empty, which makes his center of gravity different from that of ordinary people.
In that instant, Liu Chang'an realized that if she appeared to be landing on her bottom, he wouldn't care. After all, it was only that high up; the old building was already low-rise, not to mention the low storage room below.
It looked like she was going to hit her head, so Liu Chang'an intervened. After all, her head couldn't be injured; what if it caused a flood?
Liu Chang'an put Zhu Juntang aside and continued reading his book.
After a brief moment of stunned silence, Zhu Juntang screamed in alarm, her pupils dilating. Apart from the car accident in her childhood that left behind fragmented memories due to intense emotional turmoil, this was probably the most dangerous moment of Zhu Juntang's life.
After calling out for a while, Zhu Juntang finally calmed down, overcome with fear, and stammered to Liu Chang'an, "Thank you... thank you."
After saying that, Zhu Juntang touched her head. She had been pulled up up by Liu Chang'an, and it was easy to imagine that if Liu Chang'an hadn't been quick enough, she would have landed on her head.
"You're welcome."
"What do you think would have happened if I had actually fallen?" Zhu Juntang asked, still touching her head.
"The chances of death are relatively small, but the chances of concussion and cervical spine injury are higher. After all, when you fell, you were flailing your arms and legs, which helped to absorb a large part of the impact on your head," Liu Chang'an said, glancing at the height.
"I wish I had a woodpecker's head. I heard that Wood-Chasing Bird don't get concussions," Zhu Juntang said with some envy.
"One of the reasons why Wood-Chasing Bird are less prone to concussions is their skull structure and tongue. Wood-Chasing Bird's tongue passes through the upper jawbone, then comes out from the right nostril, then passes between the two eyes, splits into two branches, and continues around the entire brain, coming back through both sides of the neck, and then extending out through the lower jawbone for more than ten centimeters... Are you sure you want a Wood-Chasing Bird's head?" Liu Chang'an imagined Zhu Juntang with a Wood-Chasing Bird's head on her head and felt that it was indeed more aesthetically pleasing.
"How is that possible? That's too bizarre," Zhu Juntang said incredulously.
"You can try searching on Baidu." When dealing with people like Zhu Juntang, the phrase "try searching on Baidu" carries an air of authority. They generally believe that if Baidu can find the answer, it must be accurate.
Of course, this is indeed the case with Wood-Chasing Bird.
Zhu Juntang didn't search for answers because her habit was to ask others for help when she had questions. It was their job to provide the correct answers; otherwise, why would she pay them? If she needed to search for and solve problems herself, she wouldn't need so many people working for her, and those people would lose their jobs. From this perspective, Zhu Juntang was also trying to provide employment opportunities and demonstrate the capitalists' conscience, which is why she was too lazy to use her hands and brain.
She didn't invite Liu Chang'an, but habits are hard to change.
"Okay, you saved my life..."
"Need not."
I haven't finished speaking!
"If you want to thank me, shutting up is the best way to repay me."
Zhu Juntang pursed her lips, lifted her skirt, and made a kicking motion with her back to him. Only then did she realize that because she was wearing a rather long skirt today, she wasn't wearing safety shorts, just a pair of panties with a large, openwork peach pattern on the buttocks. She had just fallen down like that...
Didn't Liu Chang'an see everything? Zhu Juntang blushed imperceptibly as she observed Liu Chang'an's expression. He showed neither any restlessness nor any forced composure after being provoked...
Is that all he's going to do? Zhu Juntang felt a bit taken advantage of; Liu Chang'an acted as if he hadn't taken anything from her at all. But he had saved her, so if Zhu Juntang were to hold a grudge, wouldn't that be unreasonable?
Feeling shy and embarrassed, Zhu Juntang kicked Liu Chang'an and ran away.
Liu Chang'an ignored her, only smelling the wind she stirred up as she ran, carrying a girlish scent, seemingly pink, and beneath her fluttering skirt lay the paradise that Lieutenant Colonel Frank had described.
Zhu Juntang finally left. Liu Chang'an jumped down from the second floor with his phone in his hand, went into the carriage, and took out the Vivo/Oppo phone.
"The pinnacle of five thousand years of human civilization... this cell phone. I could only afford one of these even if I exchanged your coffin for it. You should know how precious it is."