The Healing Sunshine (一厘米的阳光)

Chapter 17.2 - Beneath the Same Roof (2)

Smart people have advantages that come with being smart, and they also have problems that come with being smart.

While Jì Chengyang was in the kitchen holding a small steel knife and paring a potato, he saw Jǐ Yi's figure wandering in, and straightaway, he knew what she had gone into the bedroom to do. Without a word, she had changed into a set of homewear that was a prettier colour.

Jì Chengyang had seen this particular outfit when he was helping her organize her wardrobe. Actually, most of her outfits for home were different only in colour. It was merely that this one was a smokey purple colour, very different and unqiue, so he naturally had some impression of it.

So...

He could roughly guess what kind of changes Jǐ Yi's thoughts had gone through.

This was what was called "a woman beautifies herself for a man who fancies her."

Jǐ Yi stepped over and set her chin lightly on his arm, attentively watching him slice potatoes. Turning his head slightly, he took a glance at her. He saw her eyes, which seemed to hold pools of water in them as she very naturally leaned her body against his. Her hair was even slightly damp, and it grazed flittingly against the back of Jì Chengyang's hand.

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When Jì Chengyang was in high school, there occasionally had been girls who had done this same sort of thing to him. For example, when a girl brought a textbook over to talk about an exercise problem or something similar with him, or when she moved closer to speak to him, at times, there would not be a good handle on the distance between them and they would be close enough that he could touch the other person's hair. Back then, he had not really felt too much towards this, and sometimes he had even purposely given a little hint. "That's about it now. For the steps after this, you can ask the subject rep about them." And then, he would pick up his school bag and leave, heading to the basketball court or maybe the orchestra's rehearsal hall.

At the time, he was the age that Jǐ Yi was presently. It seemed that most of his youth had been spent making great strides forward, and he had not had any desire to linger in the scenes and sights that surrounded him. In that stage of his life, love and romance had not been necessities to him. Later, he had gone to the United States, where expression of feelings was no longer in the traditionally subtle and indirect way of the Chinese. His most awkward moments had been in the very beginning, when he was attending a gathering and had been touched on the inner thigh by a blonde girl to whom he had only said hello a few times, or when an ethnic Chinese girl, who was also a foreign student, had outright requested to go home with him.

......

He had only ever wavered once. It was during a farewell party, after receiving his university degree.

It was a girl who had been on the same flight as him when he first came to the United States, one whom he had known for four years already and who was actually slightly older than him. That night, because he had received a call from the newspaper agency that he was interning at, he had hurriedly picked up his jacket and left that room that was still extremely lively and bustling with excitement. The girl had run out after him. In the subtlest of ways, she had asked him, "I have two job opportunities in front of me. One of them is to stay in this city. Do you think it's 'worth it' for me to stay here and continue waiting for you?"

It was the subtle, indirect Chinese way of expressing feelings.

After the other party finished asking this question, Jì Chengyang had looked into that beautiful, gentle pair of eyes. In them, he saw too much hope. For two, three seconds, he had vacillated ever so slightly. And then, he had bidden farewell to her and driven away.