The news keeps saying there will be a supermoon tonight.
Bi Shenghua on the rooftop adjusting the newly installed telescope. She didn't know much about it and it took her several days to get it working, following the instructions. Unfortunately, it had been raining non-stop these past few days, and she hadn't even seen half a star.
The telescope was bought specifically for the children.
Before the Lunar New Year, Hu Xing brought Xia Tian and Xia Chujue to Ruhua Bar, saying that the two children missed Qingmu and Crow.
At that time, Ruhua Bar had already closed for the holidays. Actually, the bar's business was not bad during the Spring Festival, but Bi Shenghua still gave her employees a holiday, as she was used to celebrating the New Year in a traditional way.
The children weren't having enough fun at her place and kept asking when Qingmu would be back.
Bi Shenghua had no idea when Qingmu would return. Counting the days, Qingmu had been gone for over a month with Crow. They had agreed he would be gone for a week or two, but he hadn't even made a phone call. Thinking of the beautiful professor who had accompanied him, Bi Shenghua felt unhappy and secretly worried about their safety.
She didn't know how to answer the children's questions, so she just said, "Soon, soon, I'll be back in a while." But the children wouldn't let it go, pressing her to ask exactly when. Bi Shenghua finally said, "After the New Year, around the Lantern Festival, I'll be back."
The children agreed to come back and play again on the Lantern Festival, and they would also invite Yu Meiren to come along. Yu Meiren and Xia Tian went to the same school, and although Xia Chujue was younger than them, they often played together, and they were all quite familiar with each other.
Bi Shenghua was worried that Qingmu wouldn't come back and the children would be disappointed when they came to play, so she came up with many ideas. She delayed the opening of the bar, originally scheduled for the eighth day of the first lunar month, but postponed it to the sixteenth day. This way, the children wouldn't find it noisy when they came to play, and they could sing in the bar.
When she saw the news that a supermoon would appear during this year's Lantern Festival, she thought of buying a telescope. To that end, she even had a glass sunroom built on the rooftop.
Although she knew that the so-called supermoon was just a name for the moon's closest approach to Earth, and that the moon orbits the Earth more than ten times a year, passing through perigee each time, which is why a supermoon occurs once a year, it was still quite rare for a supermoon to coincide with the China traditional festival of Lantern Festival.
Bi Shenghua adjusted the telescope, trying to look up at the sky, imagining a huge, golden moon hanging there. She knew that in Qingmu, far away in the Southern Hemisphere, they could also see such a bright moon tonight.
She recalled Zhang Jiuling's poem, "The bright moon rises over the sea, we share this moment though far apart. Lovers lament the long night, their longing rising with the evening..."
Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate; all we could see through the eyepiece was a hazy gray.
Looking at the gloomy sky and the incessant drizzle, Bi Shenghua knew that she wouldn't be able to see the moon on this year's Lantern Festival.
She went upstairs, opened Qingmu's room, and began cleaning.
She went into the inner room first, wiped the edge of the bed and the lamp with her hand, and found that they were very clean, without a speck of dust. But she still gently dusted them with a feather duster, then left the room and quietly closed the door.
She picked up the books and magazines from the floor of the outer room, started sweeping, wiped the table, bookshelves, and bird stand clean with a rag, and then put the books and magazines back on the floor, arranging them as they were before, as if Qingmu were still there.
She does this almost every day; if she doesn't, it feels like something is missing.
After finishing these tasks, she went downstairs and exited through the back door. On the bluestone steps by the door was a potted Beauty, with the key to the back door underneath.
Bi Shenghua, holding an umbrella, came to the old willow tree in Liuying Lane and looked at it. The willow branches were already turning green in the continuous spring rain, and the branch she had cut off had also sprouted new buds. She just wondered if the broken branch that had traveled across the ocean had been nourished by spring rain in a foreign land, or if it had withered and died.
In the afternoon, Yao Jingjing and Hou Biao from the library came over. Their security company has recently achieved remarkable results, having trained a large number of qualified security personnel. In addition to the established protection of Mei Yiqiu Laboratory and Liuying Lane, they have also started to take on regular business, and business is gradually picking up.
They always had people stationed in Liuying Lane to protect Ruhua Bar. Especially when Qingmu and Crow were not around, Yao Jingjing specially assigned more people, Hou Biao would sometimes come over to check on things.
Knowing that several children were coming today, Yao Jingjing specially invited Hou Biao to come and see them together, partly for safety reasons, and partly because she also missed Yu Meiren a little.
Xiao Qi and Mo Yu also came over. The bar was originally scheduled to open on the eighth day of the Lunar New Year, but they returned early after the holiday. With their help, Bi Shenghua didn't have to worry about the evening's entertainment.
In the evening, Hu Xing drove Xia Tian Meimei to pick up Yu Meiren. Shi Dazhuang happened to be free, so he came along with them.
After living at Elder Xia's manor for a while, Xia Tian finally went back to live with his father. His stepmother died in a car accident, and his father was no longer as indifferent as before, but began to care for him like a real father. However, the estrangement between him and his father could never be eliminated. Every time he was with his father, he felt suffocated, and the air became as heavy as mercury.
Xia Chujue had always lived with her maternal grandparents. Although their house was large, they had many servants, and they doted on her, she couldn't help but miss her parents and her godfather, Qingmu. But she couldn't see any of these relatives, which made her extremely sad. Since her brother Xia Tian went back to his own home, she felt increasingly lonely. Fortunately, before the Lunar New Year, her mother suddenly returned. This made her incredibly happy, and her maternal grandparents were overjoyed too. She thought she could be with her mother again, but unexpectedly, her mother left again after only a few days.
Yu Meiren felt that big cities were both wonderful and terrible. Big cities had everything, but she missed Kuaziba. The streets of big cities were packed with people, incredibly crowded, but no one knew each other, no one cared about anyone—what difference was there from no one at all? Walking on the streets felt more lonely than walking on a mountain path. Her uncle was always busy and rarely had time to spend with her. So when she heard she was going to Liuying Lane, she was overjoyed. She was eager to see Qingmu Yeye, Aunt Jingjing, Aunt Ruhua, and that talkative Crow.
As soon as the three lonely children arrived at Liuying Lane, they ran into Ruhua Bar like a gust of wind, skillfully climbed to the second floor, and arrived at Qingmu's studio, shouting inside and out:
Godfather
Uncle Qingmu
Qingmu Yeye
Boss Coal
Guagua
Before they arrived, no one had told them that Qingmu hadn't returned yet. In fact, Hu Xing, Shi Dazhuang, Yao Jingjing, and others were all eagerly awaiting Qingmu's return.
The children couldn't find Qingmu or the Boss Coal, and they became a little unhappy. No matter how the adults tried to coax them, they pouted and remained silent. It wasn't until Bi Shenghua mentioned that there would be a supermoon that night and that she had set up a telescope on the roof that the children became interested.
They started clamoring to go see the moon again.
But the sky outside was still overcast. Although the rain had stopped, it didn't look like it would clear up.
Bi Shenghua could only coax them, "You two need to eat your food properly later. Only good children can look at the moon. If the children are naughty, the moon will hide behind the clouds and won't come out!"
The three children nodded solemnly.
While waiting for the clouds to part and the moon to appear, people automatically dispersed. Several women went to help Bi Shenghua prepare dinner, while the men squatted at the doorway smoking and chatting.
The three children were playing games at first, but school starts after the Lantern Festival, so this was their last chance to play games.
While playing, Xia Tian suddenly said, "These games are so boring! You know what? I recently started playing a really fun game called Dream Guide. It's a really advanced game; you have to wear a helmet to play it!"