Chapter 9: Sometimes My Cousin Is Just Too Frank...

“What documentary?”
Her cousin blinked, looking a little confused.
After Lin Xiyu returned home, she had changed into clean clothes, so her cousin knew nothing about her heroic deed.
Gu Bin looked slightly surprised. “You haven’t told your family yet?”
“I forgot,” Lin Xiyu replied with an awkward laugh.
“You forgot about that?!”
Gu Bin was both amused and exasperated. He wanted to tap her on the head, but restrained himself in front of her cousin.
Lin Xiyu felt her ears flush.
After coming home, she’d been too busy fuming at Zhang Dafen and had truly forgotten all about it.
“Alright, since you haven’t mentioned it, I won’t say more,” Gu Bin said, careful not to reveal anything in front of the cousin. “I just came to remind you—don’t forget to watch the Jinan Evening News at six-thirty.”
Lin Xiyu looked baffled. “Why watch the news?”
“Just do it!”
Gu Bin’s handsome face darkened, leaving no room for argument.
“Alright,” Lin Xiyu nodded, indicating she understood.
“Be sure to watch it…”

Gu Bin, recalling how she had been evasive with the female reporter, narrowed his eyes and reminded her once more, uneasy, “And don’t forget this time. Make sure your family watches with you.”
“I got it,” Lin Xiyu replied sweetly, her manner sincere.
“I’m off, we can talk about the rest tomorrow.”
Satisfied, Gu Bin turned his bike around and rode off in the direction where Zhang Dafen and her partner had left.
“Your classmate’s family must be well off. His parents seem willing to spend on him…”
Her cousin watched him go, smacking her lips in admiration, only turning away once he had completely disappeared from sight.
“How do you know that?”
Lin Xiyu was a little surprised.
“He’s riding a foreign-made imported mountain bike with gears,” her cousin said, her eyes sharp and analysis precise. “Those go for over a thousand yuan each. I’ve seen the same model at a specialty store—the one there was forest green, his is black and has even thicker tires, probably even more expensive…”
“That much?”
Lin Xiyu didn’t disappoint her cousin; her heart thudded wildly in shock.
Her mother was a primary school teacher, earning just six hundred a month.
Her grandmother’s pension was only four hundred.
A mountain bike costing over a thousand yuan was more than what the two of them earned in a month combined.
“Of course…”
Her cousin looked a little smug. “My eyes are like X-ray scanners—once I’ve seen something, I never forget. Whether it’s a person or a thing, I’ll always recognize it if I see it again.”
Lin Xiyu sighed sincerely. “If only you could remember your schoolwork as well as you remember everything else.”
Her cousin: “…”
It felt like a knife to the chest.
Sometimes her little cousin was just too blunt—not cute at all.

—

At six-thirty, as the sky darkened, their aunt called the girls in from the courtyard for dinner.
Lin Xiyu and her cousin worked together to pull down the rolling shutter, locked up, and happily ran home.
When guests visited, and especially when entertaining a son-in-law, it was their grandmother’s tradition to serve dumplings.
Today was no exception: they had carrot dumplings, with the filling divided into two batches.
The large basin held the vegetarian ones, while the small bowl contained the meat dumplings—just about thirty in all. With eight people in the family, each could have three or four at most.
Once the dumplings were cooked, Grandma turned on the fourteen-inch black-and-white Panda television, and the family gathered around the table to eat.
Lin Xiyu scooped ten vegetarian dumplings into her bowl, while her cousin silently added a few meat dumplings from the platter, splitting them with her.
The two exchanged a smile, picked up their plates, and sat together at the bedside.