The Birthday Banquet

When Lin Er and Yan Jingting ran into each other in the office, they looked at each other in surprise. Neither of them had had any trouble in class just now!

"I'm here to ask for leave. I need to go out of school at noon. What about you?"

Lin Er looked at her for a moment and began to suspect something.

"Me too. One of my aunt's kids is turning ten!"

"What a coincidence. It's my grandaunt's grandson who's turning ten."

Since the banquet was in town, her family had told her to take the noon break off and go have a meal.

Her grandaunt was a relative on her mother's side, after all, and it was her mother whom her cousin had invited. As the eldest child in the family, she ought to go in her mother's place.

Well, unless she was mistaken, the two of them were distant relatives too.

A little while later, Ying Yuecheng and Ying Yuechi came in as well.

The four of them looked at one another. Lin Er pulled a face and made the introductions. "These are my two cousins. I expect they're here for the same reason we are."

Yan Jingting opened her mouth and looked from one to another, finding it a little hard to believe. She'd never noticed before!

Ying Yuecheng took it in stride. The two of them were in the same class, and when he heard Lin Er introduce them, he called Yan Jingting "Sis."

Ying Yuechi looked at Lin Er, then at Ying Yuecheng. Finally, he too called Yan Jingting "Sis," his face expressionless.

The teachers returned, interrupting the somewhat strange atmosphere in the office. Three students from Class One and one from Class Three were suddenly asking for leave at noon, so naturally the teachers wanted to know why.

They were all rather surprised to learn that the four were related.

Especially by the relationship between Lin Er and the Ying brothers. They were first cousins, yet the teachers had never seen them play together.

Once they had their leave slips, Ying Yuechi pulled Ying Yuecheng away. Yan Jingting's expression was growing stranger by the moment, so Lin Er hurried to stop her. If she didn't, Yan Jingting would be imagining a whole melodrama.

"Don't overthink it. It's definitely not what you're thinking. My family and my uncle's family get along fine. We just didn't play together when we were little or go to school together, so we're not very close."

Yan Jingting gave her a strange look. "Listen to yourself. Don't you think that sounds strange? You're not close to your own first cousins?"

Lin Er scratched her head, unsure how to explain.

"Aren't we all left-behind children around here? Our parents all went away to work. Those two stayed with their parents when they were little, while I stayed back home. We only saw each other once a year, at New Year.

"Later, they came back for school, but we weren't in the same town, so we didn't go to the same elementary school either. We still only saw each other once or twice a year. Isn't it normal that we're not close?"

Yan Jingting shook her head, still unable to understand. "I don't see what's normal about it. Didn't you ever go play at your maternal grandparents' house?"

Lin Er thought back. It seemed she really hadn't gone there many times.

"On my family's side, I had lots of uncles and older cousins about ten years older than me. When I was little, I hardly ever stayed overnight at my maternal grandparents' house. I might go over in the morning, and by noon they'd have stolen me back.

"And those two played pretty dirty when they were little. They mixed mud, dug in crayfish holes, and climbed utility poles. I was always forbidden to go with them.

"So we hardly ever talked, and naturally we weren't very close."

Their relationship really was distant, especially with her younger cousin. He was a child prodigy, with a personality peculiar to geniuses. He looked down on people whose IQs were too low, finding them difficult to communicate with, so he was quiet and withdrawn in the village.

She had always thought that, in the village, he would only let his older brother get close to him, because they'd grown up together and their grandmother had looked after them both once they started school.

His older brother even carried his schoolbag and always gave in to him.

Because he was genuinely smart, the adults would always tell the other children to give in to him.

Only later did she discover how sharp-tongued he was. He had emotional intelligence; he just didn't want to waste it on people he didn't want to talk to.

Lin Er's relationship with him only improved later because of her mother.

Yan Jingting clicked her tongue in amazement. They really weren't close at all.

Still...

"People were saying Ying Yuecheng was pursuing you before. They said they saw him give you all his special meal tickets!"

But it was only a rumor, and she hadn't taken it seriously.

"What? They must have nothing better to do. With his build, he gets terribly hungry if he misses one meal. Would he give me his meal tickets? During the first two days of school, I saw him skip a meal once, so I told him to give me his meal tickets."

That was ridiculous. Leaving aside the fact that the people present at the time knew the two were related, they were all middle schoolers, only twelve or thirteen. How had anyone connected that to dating at their age?

At noon, the four left school together with their leave slips. Their grandaunt's house was in town, and before they arrived, they could already see fireworks going off.

The banquet was just starting when they got there. Yan Jingting went over to her family, while Lin Er joined the brothers at their grandmother's table.

"Xiao Er, come here and let Grandma have a look at you. Your grandma said you went to learn some kind of martial arts. How's it going?"

Lin Er froze in embarrassment, but she couldn't run away. Under the curious gazes of the relatives at the table, she greeted them one by one.

"Grandma, Uncle, Auntie, I've only been learning for a few days. What could I have learned?"

Ying Yuecheng obediently greeted everyone too, then took advantage of the commotion to pull her and Ying Yuechi, who had only said hello to Grandma, into the courtyard.

"Let's not eat at the table. I'll have my mom dish up some food for us separately."

That was him being considerate as an older brother. If they stayed and Ying Yuechi didn't greet everyone, who knew how those people would tease him? Afterwards, they would secretly say that his grades were good, but he had no manners.

Ying Yuechi used to greet them too. Then he heard them praise his grades to his face but say behind his back that he was withdrawn, couldn't talk to people and had no manners, and that he would only ever bury himself in books and never amount to much. After that, he stopped paying them any attention.

Ying Yuecheng didn't think they were worth paying attention to either, but if he ignored them as well, those relatives would say their grandmother didn't know how to raise children.

The three ran into the courtyard. Sure enough, their younger aunt was helping in the kitchen. Looking at her belly, Lin Er remembered that she was home this year, probably because she had come back to await the birth.

Ying Yuecheng's little sister was born the following year, two years younger than Lin Er's brother.

When Lin Er and the boys went over, their two aunts were chatting animatedly with several relatives Lin Er didn't recognize.

Everyone stopped when the three came over to greet them. Their elder aunt was delighted and spoke first.

"Oh, how did you all come over together? You even brought Xiao Er!"

Lin Er looked at the relatives, smiling, though her eyes were full of embarrassment.

She didn't know a single one of them and could only follow Ying Yuecheng's lead in greeting them, making the women laugh.

"She's younger than your mother. Why are you calling her 'Auntie' that way? Use 'Auntie'!"

Lin Er considered herself thick-skinned in this life. Pretending she couldn't feel the heat in her cheeks, she obediently used the right form of "Auntie."

Ying Yuecheng looked as though he'd miscalculated. When he spotted his mother just now, he hadn't noticed there were so many people in the kitchen.

They were about to leave when their elder aunt stopped all of them.

"Eat here. You'll only crowd the tables if you go over there!"

So, when the women went to the tables for the banquet, Lin Er and the brothers set up a small table in the kitchen.

The people dishing up the food and carrying the plates were all paternal relatives of their grandaunt's family. They were very familiar with the brothers and picked out the best food to save for them.

The table was small, but plenty of dishes were served.

When Ying Yuecheng saw that, he went out again. Somehow, he found Yan Jingting and brought her over too, so each person had one side of the table.