As soon as Su Nian stepped out of the car, she saw a beautiful scene.
The red house was built quite high, and from the entrance, one could not see that behind it lay a vast field of flowers.
The flower field was incredibly large, appearing to be the size of two football fields. In the center stood a lovely little pavilion, with gravel paths separating the sections of flowers. Not far away, a beautiful golden ginkgo tree stood tall, and when the wind blew, one could faintly hear the rustling of its leaves.
“Sister Heng, you are here!”
A young girl, looking to be in her early teens, appeared from somewhere. She ran to the car happily, calling Sun Heng’s name. A group of snow-white geese followed along with her.
The white geese waddled into the yard and scattered, heading off to play in the flower fields.
Sun Heng opened the door and stepped out. The young girl happily threw herself into Sun Heng’s arms, looking up with a radiant smile. She turned to look at Su Nian and asked, “Is this a guest brought by Sister Heng?”
A guest?
Su Nian’s face puckered immediately.
“I am not a guest,” Su Nian muttered.
Sun Heng ignored Su Nian’s petty jealousy. She patted the young girl’s head and asked with a smile, “Little Sang Nian, is your school on break today?”
“Yes!” Sang Nian pulled back from her embrace and nodded. “I just arrived this morning and came to help Teacher Chen herd the geese.” Speaking of the geese, she exclaimed in surprise, “Oh no, where are my geese?”
Sun Heng kindly pointed toward the flower field. They saw the flock of white geese crazily pecking at the newly grown flowers. Panicked, Sang Nian let out a shriek, grabbed a bamboo stick, and ran over, giving each goose a little tap on the rear.
The flower bed was instantly in chaos.
Su Nian had rarely seen geese outside of a dining table. Watching the flock scurrying about as Sang Nian chased them, she could not help but laugh. She leaned toward Sun Heng and pointed at the flower field, saying, “Those geese look so interesting, Sister.”
Sun Heng’s eyes curved into crescents as she said, “Sang Nian is fifteen this year and in the third year of junior high. You can go play with her in a while.”
Su Nian was reluctant. “What am I supposed to play with a kid in junior high?”
“What is wrong with junior high?” Sun Heng asked. “Are you not only in your second year of high school? You are not much older than her.”
“I am seventeen,” Su Nian said, standing straight and puffing out her chest. “I will be eighteen in a few months, so I am not a child anymore.”
“Fine.” Sun Heng nodded and said to Su Nian, “Then when the geese come back, do not go playing with them.”
Su Nian remained silent.
Ping.
Shen Moran’s phone, which was sitting on the table, rang. She looked up from her documents, picked up the phone, and unlocked it. She saw that the message was from Sun Heng.
The two had not had any contact since the money transfer. The last few messages in their chat history were Sun Heng asking if she had eaten, if she had slept, or what she was doing, to which Shen Moran had never replied.
However, this time, Sun Heng did not send text or voice messages, but two videos.
Shen Moran originally did not want to click on them, but she saw that Su Nian was in the cover image. Her brow furrowed slightly, and she clicked on the video instinctively.
The video was short. It showed Su Nian laughing like a fool while chasing a small white goose that had come from nowhere. Above her head was a beautiful ginkgo tree, and nearby was a stunning sea of zinnias.
She clicked on the second video, only to see Su Nian looking terrified as she ran for her life, pursued by two large geese with wide beaks. Her hair was a mess, and she looked completely frantic. Just as she ran past, a young girl jumped out from somewhere and started running behind her, followed by a string of geese.
Shen Moran blinked.
What is this? Where did these geese come from?
Was Su Nian not supposed to be shopping with her classmates? Why was she being chased by geese?
Without a word, she exited the video and sent a voice call request to Sun Heng. Sun Heng was currently leaning against the ginkgo tree, enjoying the sight of the scrambling Su Nian. When she saw the call from Shen Moran, she coughed to compose herself and answered.
“Hello,” Sun Heng said with a playful smile. “Hello, Miss Shen. Am I disturbing you?”
Shen Moran furrowed her brows slightly. “Why is my sister with you?”
Sun Heng rubbed the tip of her nose. She watched as Su Nian tripped over something and tumbled into the flower bushes, disappearing from sight. She turned away from the scene and said to Shen Moran, “I guessed the child did not tell you the truth.”
Shen Moran frowned.
Sun Heng explained briefly, “She called me yesterday and said she wanted to go out with me. I asked if you had agreed, and she said yes. I brought her here to the farm stay today. Later, I felt the child might have lied, so I sent you a message to let you know she is safe.”
She added immediately, “Do not worry. I did not take her anywhere dangerous, and I will not do anything to her.”
After all, it is you I am interested in.
Sun Heng did not say this out loud, but the person on the other end of the line seemed to understand. After a long silence, Shen Moran asked helplessly, “Where are you now?”
“In a town nearby,” Sun Heng replied, her eyes brightening. “Are you coming over? I will send you the location.”
“Alright,” Shen Moran said as she began packing her things. “I will be there in a while.”
After hanging up, Sun Heng slowly sent the current address. Shen Moran paused when she saw it. She clicked on the location, checked it repeatedly, and confirmed that the address was indeed Hezhou Town Orphanage.
“Waaah…”
Su Nian was sitting in the infirmary of the red house. A kind-faced, middle-aged woman was cleaning her wound. Su Nian had been chased by the geese for a while, and finally tripped over a vine in the flower bed, falling face-first into the dirt.
Fortunately, she had landed in the flower bushes. Aside from some scrapes on her palms from the gravel, she had no other injuries.
But a little princess is still a little princess. A city child who had never been hurt before felt both aggrieved and hurt to the point of sobbing loudly. Sun Heng sat beside her, but her attempts to coax the girl were useless.
Sang Nian sat nervously next to Su Nian, staring intently at the wound on her hand. Seeing Su Nian crying in pain, she kept apologizing.
“It is my fault. I did not watch the geese well, otherwise, they would not have chased you.” Sang Nian looked at Su Nian with heartache and tried to comfort her. “Do not cry, do not cry. In a while, I will stew the goose that pecked you to make up for it, okay?”
Su Nian cried and shook her head. With red eyes, she said to Sang Nian, “Do not kill it. I was the one who chased the little goose first, it is not its fault.”
Sun Heng hugged her arms and watched from the side, chuckling. Hearing this, she laughed. “You admit you were the one who chased the goslings first? You chased their children, so of course the parents would chase you. Do you know better now? You cannot just chase country geese.”
Su Nian looked over with tear-reddened eyes and acted spoiled. “Sister, they are so fierce. They chased me and bit me, and my bottom was bitten several times.”
Sun Heng was delighted. “In the countryside, if families do not have dogs, they raise geese. Geese can lay eggs and guard the house. They chase strangers and love to travel in groups. I was bitten and cried many times when I was little, too.”
“Really?” Su Nian sniffled.
“Why would I lie to you?” Sun Heng patted the girl’s head. The teacher had finished cleaning the wound and applied some medicine. She said to Sun Heng, “It is just a skin abrasion, nothing serious. Just be careful not to get it wet, and it will be better by tomorrow.”
“Alright, thank you, Teacher Chen.” Sun Heng turned to Su Nian and Sang Nian. “You two wait here for a while. I need to talk to Teacher Chen.”
Sang Nian nodded. She lowered her head and held Su Nian’s hand, tilting her head to ask in a whisper if it hurt. Su Nian sniffled and nodded.
Sun Heng looked at the two children and gently closed the door. Teacher Chen watched her from the corridor and smiled at her cautious behavior. “What is your relationship with the child in the room? How did you bring her here?”
“Well,” Sun Heng rubbed her nose helplessly. “Her name is Su Nian. She is a child I know. She called me yesterday asking me to take her out, and since the environment here is nice, I brought her along.”
Teacher Chen nodded with a smile. “You were so worried about her that I thought she was a relative.”
Sun Heng waved her hand, her expression darkening slightly. “I do not have any relatives.” She then added, “Let us not talk about this. I came to bring you a donation. Let us go to the office to talk.”
Teacher Chen nodded and led her upstairs. As she walked, Sun Heng complained to the teacher, “Your road is terrible. It almost made me throw up from the shaking. Did the community not say they were going to fix the road? When will they actually do it? Have they found an engineering team? If not, I will find one for you. They are so slow.”
By the time Shen Moran had been shaken until her head was spinning and finally reached the flat road, she was almost ready to vomit.
She could not believe such a terrible road existed in the suburbs of a first-tier city.
She rested on the steering wheel for a full fifteen minutes, wavering between giving up on this sister and bravely moving forward. Finally, she decided to go find her unlucky sister, hoping that if they were reborn in the next life, they would never be sisters again.
With a bang, she closed the door. Shen Moran pulled her trench coat tight and walked up to the wooden fence. She wanted to call out but did not know who to call. After standing there with her arms crossed for over a minute, she finally took out her phone to call Sun Heng.
“Hello,” Shen Moran said, her voice low as she faced away from the wind. “I am here, but no one is opening the door for me.”
Sun Heng on the other end of the line was thrilled, her tone remarkably light. “Oh, oh, wait there. I am coming down to open the door for you.”
After hanging up, the wind continued to blow chaotically. Despite the beautiful weather, the wind was quite strong. Shen Moran’s long hair was blown about like flying seaweed. Finally, she reached into her pocket, found a hair tie with a little golden-orange lemon charm, and tied her hair into a messy low ponytail.
Just as she finished tying it, she saw a person darting out of the red house in the distance. When the person saw Shen Moran, she waved and ran over.
Sun Heng ran in a hurry and caught a bit of wind, but the smile on her face was uncontrollable. She looked at Shen Moran through the low wooden fence. Her dark eyes shone like stars, and she curved her lips into a smile. “You are here, Moran.”