Winter Returns

Chapter 170 "If You Are the One" (Seeking monthly votes!)

Go to the tunnel.

This was something I had arranged with my best friends beforehand.

After leaving the hospital, the old house splits into two paths. The right path leads to the basement, while the left path leads to the unknown. Zhang Shutong speculated that something was blocking the path because the water there had been too deep before. Now that the water has mostly dried up, the group plans to go back on an auspicious day.

It's actually just the weekend.

On Friday, because Lao Song left, everyone was not very interested and had no mood for adventure.

Saturday was spent on a day trip off the island, and Sunday finally arrived. When else would we go if not now?
Who told the basement to be right there?

Not only them, but Zhang Shutong also wanted to know where the left side led. If it was an air-raid shelter, they had reached the end in less than ten minutes. An air-raid shelter shouldn't be that short. So what was hidden on the left? Was it another secret room?
After so many years of schooling, I've never heard of any entrance to an air-raid shelter on the island.

As the saying goes, curiosity killed the cat, so to be on the safe side, Zhang Shutong naturally called on Lu Qinglian.

Actually, she would have gone even without being asked.

Perhaps Lu Qinglian's feelings were even more urgent than his own. The clay figure, the mother, the temple keeper, and the people in the basement were like icebergs on the sea, only the tip of which had surfaced.

Thinking of this, Zhang Shutong glanced at Lu Qinglian. Perhaps for this reason, she wasn't wearing a green robe today, but rather a short down jacket that was easy to move in.

He quickly rode to the entrance of the business hall. It was located in the south-central part of the island, not far from the school. The only building Zhang Shutong was familiar with on this street was the nail salon.

They stopped the car and walked together, like students out shopping. Lu Qinglian would occasionally glance at the shops along the street, while Zhang Shutong would idly pack up his chewing gum. It was a beautiful day, with bright sunshine on the ground. There were many groups like them. Students had left early, with relaxed smiles on their faces, buying milk tea, getting manicures, and going into bookstores, just wandering around aimlessly.

The only difference is that some people will soon go to the island's shopping mall, some will plunge into the dark and secluded underground, and some are taking a ferry to the island.

Zhang Shutong was certain that the girl named Su Yunzhi was strolling somewhere on the island, perhaps in the shopping street, by the lake, or on a bus. Zhang Shutong knew that she had a point-and-shoot camera that she would wear around her neck when she went out and take pictures whenever she saw a scenic spot.

Zhang Shutong knew her personality. Since she said she was coming to the island, it meant she had really planned the trip in advance, and it wasn't just an excuse to treat people to a meal.

The two were far from being that close, so how could she have fallen for him just because she found his phone? Although she was indeed grateful, it was only to express her thanks.

Actually, the senior had said last night that she would treat him to dinner, but Zhang Shutong had to catch the boat back to the island, so they only chatted for a few words before saying goodbye.

There was also a little misunderstanding. When he saw his senior, he was really incredulous. He wondered how such a coincidence could happen. In the original timeline, the two met because he used his time-travel ability to help her solve a small problem. Should he say that she was just unlucky or that there was indeed a karmic entanglement between them?
Zhang Shutong couldn't figure it out either. She just subconsciously called out "senior sister," but how could there be a junior sister when she was only a freshman in high school?
Su Yunzhi was stunned for a moment and asked if he was her junior from junior high school. There was no way to impersonate someone like that. Zhang Shutong quickly came up with a solution and said that he recognized her as a student from the No. 1 Middle School when they were doing volunteer work. Since he also wanted to apply to the No. 1 Middle School next year, he took the liberty of calling her "senior sister".

The senior student smiled after hearing this. She has always been a warm-hearted person. Before Zhang Shutong could say anything, she took it upon herself to accept him as her junior and added him on QQ, saying she would send him some study materials later.

"Come on."

With this sentence, Zhang Shutong and Su Yunzhi became acquainted.

Afterwards, Zhang Shutong thought about it on the ferry and guessed that the other party probably thought of him as a slightly impetuous little boy or younger brother.
It didn't really matter. He was just marveling at the wonder of fate. Zhang Shutong's feelings for his senior had always been complicated. In the original timeline, after he dropped out of school, he transferred to another city and stayed at home for a while. His senior even took a train to encourage him, but he was in no state to respond. The girl then took the train back to her own city alone, and nothing came of it. The two of them then forgot each other.

But to his surprise, he found himself back with his senior, Leng Xuexian. That time, he was a complete scoundrel, deceiving her feelings. His senior may have vaguely discovered the truth, but told him:
“Shutong, I don’t blame you no matter what, but you really can’t go on like this… You’re on that island now, I’ll come find you tomorrow…”

Sometimes having too good a memory can be a burden. Zhang Shutong clearly remembered every word on the other end of the phone, and he also remembered that they had made the call on the street outside this business hall that night. The streetlights were dim, casting a shadowy figure. But at that time, he didn't care about figuring out the emotions contained in the call; he just wanted to quickly verify the conditions for the retrospection.

Only when they reached the Wild Dog Line did Su Yunzhi seem to disappear from Zhang Shutong's life. He therefore made up his mind not to provoke her again. Even if he went to school in the city and was admitted to the same high school, it would just be that there was a senior student among the students in the year above him. But there would be plenty of senior students in the three years of high school, nothing special.

But when he got home last night, he received a message from his senior classmate. Sure enough, she sent him his junior high school review materials. After finding out that he was a student on the island, she was pleasantly surprised and said that she and her friends were coming to the island to play today. If he had time, would you like to have lunch together?

Actually, she initially said noon.

However, Zhang Shutong felt that he had something to do at noon and had already declined once, so he changed it to the evening.

Unexpectedly, he forgot his mother's arrangements and clashed with inviting Lu Qinglian to dinner.

Zhang Shutong had no intention of rekindling their relationship. The first and second years of high school might not be far apart, but the fourth year of junior high and the first year of high school were like two different worlds. Even if there were a list of competitors, Zhang Shutong's name would never appear on it.

But for some reason, I always want to see him.

If life went as he hoped, Zhang Shutong could roughly foresee that he and Su Yunzhi would no longer have much interaction. He and his best friends would go to high school in the county town, while his senior would stay in the city, like two parallel lines—

This means that if he hadn't gone to dinner this time, he wouldn't have gone to the city to look for someone else.

As for the senior student, he was just a "junior" who helped her find her phone. She would thank him if she had the chance, but if she missed the opportunity, she wouldn't chase after him to treat him to a meal.

Zhang Shutong still finds it difficult to reach a definitive conclusion.

It's only nine in the morning. The senior student isn't alone on the island; she's with a few friends. The group has their own plans. Zhang Shutong isn't exactly the host; he just recommended a few scenic spots and some unique restaurants. As for whether they should go to the appointment that evening, he's not in a hurry to answer.

Unlike cities, where distances are vast and geographical distances are difficult to measure, islands are small and you might bump into someone around the next corner.

A queue had already formed in the service hall. He took a number and waited on a chair, his eyes fixed on a promotional banner for a package deal. The slogan was "Thinking of you all the time and in all places," and another one was "Knocking on your heart's door anytime." These days, even advertising slogans are so poetic, but it's not wrong. Some people just appear in your life without any warning.

He suddenly found it strange that some people you've known for a long time can find you on the same land without much effort, without any reason or need.

These thoughts just lingered in my mind.

Zhang Shutong didn't forget that he still had important business to attend to later, so he decided to finish quickly.

He picked up an advertising flyer and studied the packages on it. Sometimes he would discuss it with Lu Qinglian. She really didn't understand anything and listened very attentively. Zhang Shutong suspected that if she came to handle it herself, she would be tricked into signing up for a bunch of bundled packages and then have her phone bill completely deducted by the end of the year.

Zhang Shutong then told her not to reply to the operator's text messages randomly, and she nodded, looking like a complete airhead at that moment.

"Don't take me for a fool." Sometimes, when she went into too much detail, Lu Qinglian would reply helplessly.

They were called in shortly afterward. The island's sales offices held a monopoly, and the staff's attitude was far from good; they simply asked casually:

"Hello, what service do you need?"

"Get a new phone number."

Zhang Shutong pointed at Lu Qinglian and handed her his ID card.

The salesperson didn't even turn their head, seemingly taking it all in stride.

"If you're only getting one... um, how about this, handsome, could you change to a different package? We have a promotion going on right now?"

Zhang Shutong had no choice but to reiterate that he wanted to get a new mobile phone number.

"I know, I meant I'd like to change your plans to a couple's plan, with unlimited calls within the province for both of you?"

"No thanks," they both calmly replied at the same time.

Zhang Shutong had anticipated this ridiculous misunderstanding.

The sales clerk paused for a moment before looking away from the computer.

"Don't be shy, it's a really good deal. How about I tell you the details of the package..." As she spoke, she glanced at the ID card and suddenly said awkwardly, "Oh, sorry, I thought it was this girl's ID card... Who is this lady to you?" "My mom."

Zhang Shutong thought the process should proceed, but after the clerk swiped her ID card, she asked again:

Does your mother already have a mobile phone number on her ID card?

Zhang Shutong nodded. The other party said regretfully, "We're currently running a new user acquisition campaign, so we can't offer discounts for that. However—"

Her eyes lit up:
"But I have an idea, handsome, would you like to change your meal plan?"

Zhang Shutong thought to herself, "Why are you trying to trick me into changing my package deal?" But the sales clerk's words were surprising:
"I'll get you a family number, which will allow unlimited calls, okay?"

The saleswoman was a young girl, and she winked playfully as she said that.

Parent and child... no, Zhang Shutong and Lu Qinglian exchanged a glance.

I think we shouldn't try to save this money.

This is what Zhang Shutong meant.

As for Lu Qinglian—

She glanced at Zhang Shutong only once before turning her face away:
How much money can be saved?

The salesperson now knows who's in charge:
"Hey beautiful, this is much cheaper than getting a separate phone number. Look, you save ten yuan a month, which is one hundred and twenty yuan a year. Plus, the new number comes with three gigabytes of data..."

"I understand." Lu Qinglian nodded politely, then turned to ask, "Won't this cause trouble for Auntie?"

That would cause me trouble.

Zhang Shutong thought to himself, speechless.

The package deal I just researched suddenly became useless.

“That’s not the problem,” he had to say. “I don’t have my ID card with me, so I can’t change the plan.”

"Handsome, your number is also registered under your mother's ID card."

Zhang Shutong really didn't remember, and he hesitated before saying:

"Can a family...family number be registered under one ID card?"

The salesperson nodded.

Everything went smoothly.

The good news is that he saved money; not only did Lu Qinglian's new number get a discount of five yuan, but his old plan also got a discount of five yuan.

The bad news is that even though he saved money, Zhang Shutong felt like he had been taken advantage of.

He was now watching Lu Qinglian choose her numbers from the side:

"You can choose an auspicious number, like 6, 8, or 9, or you can choose a homonym of your name. For example, if your name is Lu Qinglian, then the homonym is... 670. Oh, it sounds pretty good."

Upon hearing this, Zhang Shutong realized that it was easy to choose a number for someone with a name like hers, but it was much harder to match her name to a number like Zhang Shutong's.
"However, it's usually hard to find one that's so lucky; you can just pick one randomly."

A typical young girl would spend half an hour choosing a number, but Zhang Shutong knew Lu Qinglian wasn't an ordinary girl. She simply glanced at the pile of number cards and then pulled one out:
"this?"

The last four digits of this card are 2670.

Zhang Shutong had known she was lucky, as evidenced by her past fishing experiences, but he hadn't expected her luck to be this good. He was stunned.

"That's it."

The two left the service center shortly afterward.

Lu Qinglian operated her keypad phone with one hand, her slender fingers flying nimbly across the keyboard, showing no signs of being a novice at using a mobile phone. Zhang Shutong watched in amazement and gave her his number.

He has a very good memory; he memorized her phone number after reciting it once.

Zhang Shutong then gave her Lao Song and Ruoping's phone numbers. He then opened the phone book, and the pinyin "Lu Qinglian" appeared for the first time in the input method. He first selected the character "Lu" and was about to find "Qing" and "Lian" and enter them one by one, but unexpectedly the first suggested word that popped up was "Qinglian".

This proves that Zhang Shutong really is a fishing enthusiast.

He deleted the character "路" (road), intending to keep only the last two characters, when he felt an unfriendly gaze directed at him.

Lu Qinglian looked away from his screen:

"Delete."

"Do you remember the last time you went fishing, you caught a big carp? It had a huge head, and it was actually quite..."

"Delete."

"When you have a QQ account, I suggest you name it 'Qinglian' (青鲢). These days, having a unique username is the most important thing..."

"Zhang Shutong, parent-child number."

Zhang Shutong typed the three characters "Lu Qinglian".

He sighed, feeling that he had gained another handle against him.

If this got out, people would laugh at me to death.

"You really didn't do it on purpose, did you when you signed up for the package?"

"What are you thinking about now?" she said calmly. "Auntie is topping up my phone credit, do you expect me to choose a more expensive plan?"

Zhang Shutong had nothing to say.

Indeed, the package price is 10 yuan per month, which is 120 yuan per year. The salesperson gave us a discount and only charged us 100 yuan. They also gave us a universal charger as a gift.

All I can say is that the profits are enormous.

Having finally finished the first thing of the day, Zhang Shutong stretched and yawned. It was almost ten o'clock.

He was riding his bike very fast, so he didn't see a group of stylishly dressed teenagers passing by the entrance of the business hall after he left.

(End of this chapter)