Her Ordinary and Uneventful Life Was Already Behind Her (Part 1)

Tomorrow night was Christmas Eve. There was originally no need to eat apples on Christmas Eve, but there were plenty left at home and nobody was eating them, so Sitangna tried making the candy apples she had bought from the tanghulu vendor when she was little.

She had heard there was a shop in Japan that specialized in them too. They were expensive but delicious. She had never tried that shop's, but the ones she made tasted pretty good too.

"Delicious. I never knew fruit and sugar could be paired like this." Watson speared a large piece and chewed, won over by the remarkable texture.

To make them easier for everyone to eat, Sitangna had cut them into small pieces. After trying them, Mrs. Hudson and Sherlock promptly polished theirs off. One apple per person was just the right amount.

"They're better than mince pies. Let's have these as our fruit after dinner tomorrow." Aunt Hudson had personally chosen the dish, so Sitangna hurriedly noted it down in her little notebook to remind herself to make it tomorrow.

"Finally, it's all done. With all of you here this year, I feel like even the decorations look prettier." Mrs. Hudson clutched her aching heart, tears in her eyes.

She had been a widow for many years and had rented her apartment to quite a few people, but never before had everyone gathered as friends and family, working together to decorate the little house as they had today. Even Sherlock was helping.

"What's this? The little old lady's shedding pearls, and it isn't even Christmas Eve yet!" Sitangna put her arms around her aunt, who was half a head shorter than her, half teasing and half comforting her.

"Don't worry. We'll be here to spend it with you from now on." Watson clenched a fist and thumped his chest. "Right, Sherlock?"

"Of course." Sherlock put away the stepladder. He had just finished hanging the decorations on the Christmas tree, and he brushed some nonexistent dust off himself.

"Good night, everyone. See you tomorrow." "Good night."

After everyone cleaned up the trash and tidied the living room together, they went back to their own rooms. Sitangna didn't know what the others were doing, but she couldn't sleep, so she eagerly wrote a letter to each of the friends who would be coming, describing her impressions of them.

She wrote about her impressions when they first met and how those impressions had changed after they grew familiar with each other. At the end of each letter, she made sure to add her best wishes. In the middle of the night, she nearly moved herself to tears.

Her nap the previous afternoon hadn't done much good, and Sitangna still slept until noon the next day. Fortunately, the main event of Christmas Eve was in the afternoon.

Mrs. Hudson had no children and few relatives, so there was no need to call on anyone. They simply combined their Christmas Eve and Christmas Day activities and celebrated however they pleased.

They ate a normal lunch. On Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, at around two or three in the afternoon, British people ate their feast early. The meal lasted a long time, and a large turkey surrounded by vegetables was served on a platter.

There was a wide variety of vegetables, with carrots and potatoes as the base, along with plenty of Brussels sprouts whose taste and texture were hard to describe.

No wonder they only ate them once a year. They really were hard to swallow. The little vegetables looked cute, but even British people themselves thought they tasted awful.

There were plenty of other dishes. The roasted smoked fish and ham tasted all right and were barely palatable. For all the food on the table, she hadn't eaten her fill at all.

"It doesn't seem to be to your taste, dear. Auntie will fry you a steak tomorrow." Mrs. Hudson was getting on in years, and her sense of taste had deteriorated somewhat, but even she knew the traditional dishes tasted mediocre. Everyone was just eating them for the festive atmosphere.

Sitangna, who was cooking cola chicken wings, nodded at once. Ordinary British food was usually fit for human consumption, so why were the special dishes for such a grand holiday so awful?

"Okay! I'll help you tomorrow, and we can make a few more dishes." Cola chicken wings, cream of mushroom soup, and typhoon shelter shrimp-tonight, she would show everyone what real food tasted like.

Sure enough, by the time she brought out the cola chicken wings, Watson and Sherlock had each speared one and were already eating them while standing. Mrs. Hudson, meanwhile, was enjoying the three left in the pan all by herself.

No one said a word. They all claimed they were full, but none of them stopped eating.

Seeing that it was almost time, Sitangna hurriedly finished piping the remaining cream decorations onto the lemon Basque cheesecake, then covered it and put it in the fridge to chill.

There wasn't much to do that afternoon, so everyone gathered to chat about anything and everything. Sherlock told them about many interesting cases, taking the opportunity to show off how quickly he had solved some of them.

Watson shared what he had seen and experienced as an army doctor. Thinking of his older brother and sister, he couldn't help feeling a little melancholy. Fortunately, he now had new friends by his side, and he could put the sad things behind him for the time being.

Mrs. Hudson also told them quite a few amusing anecdotes from her youth. Through her stories, everyone caught their first glimpse of the graceful figure this witty, humorous lady had once been.

"As for me, there's nothing particularly special about me." When her turn came, Sitangna thought for a long time, unsure how to sum up her ordinary, boring life.

The only thing she had done that could be called interesting was signing a contract with the system just before she died and coming to the combined British and American fictional universe to carry out missions. Of course, she couldn't say a word about any of that.

"I was born in a small southern city. My parents divorced when I was very young, and I was raised by my maternal grandparents. They treated me very well. I hardly ever visited my paternal grandparents, and I guess they didn't like me much, but I'm very grateful to them for putting me in touch with Aunt Hudson."

"My grades were decent, I suppose. I got into pretty good middle and high schools, and a pretty good university. Getting into Cambridge as a project member this time was pure dogshit luck." The others didn't understand what "dogshit luck" meant, so Sitangna explained it to them.

"There was nothing particularly special about me growing up. I followed the same routine every day and had a few close friends. In middle school, a friend recommended an extracurricular class that sounded interesting, so I learned to play the piano."

Sitangna had been drinking mulled wine while Watson and the others were talking. Now, her cheeks flushed, she reminisced about her past.

"But money was tight at home back then, and we couldn't afford a piano. I could only go to the piano shop early before each lesson and find an empty room to practice in. Whenever the teacher checked my homework, she would always ask me why I didn't practice at home."

"I was too embarrassed to say we couldn't afford a piano, so I put on a brave front and said every time that I was too lazy to practice." Sitangna remembered her younger self, so small and so prone to putting on airs. For a child who felt inferior and embarrassed, weren't stubbornness and awkwardness a kind of protective coloring?

"Later, Mom and Dad each started a new family and had new children, and there was even less anyone to look after me. Heaven knows how envious I was when I first went to my stepmother's house and saw my younger sister's grand piano."

At the thought, tears glimmered in Sitangna's eyes, and her voice choked up. "She was only seven, and she already had a piano of her own. How much was it again? I've forgotten. Anyway, it was very, very expensive. That was when my father and mother finally learned that I was studying piano too."