I turned reality into a romantic comedy

"Right, right."

It feels like if the two of them weren't still on a crowded street, the kid would be singing a couple of lines to him any second now.

Since he still had some money left, Chen Junqian, in a rare moment of luxury, took a taxi to take Chen Xi back to his grandmother's house. Then, he took out the blind box that Xu Youwei had given him, and he and his sister sat on small stools in the front yard, listening to the songs that Chen Xi had downloaded to his laptop, while they started punching the brick where the terracotta warrior statue was buried.

It must be said that the Shaanxi History Museum has put a lot of effort into its cultural and creative products. All kinds of tools such as shovels and chisels are available. After slightly wetting the thick brick, the two of them started digging from the left and right.

Children always have endless energy and curiosity about things that interest them.

In no time, Chen Xi's posture had changed from sitting to almost lying on the ground. Unfazed by the cold, she rolled up her sleeves to her forearms, propped herself up on her elbows, and her face was only a fist's distance from the brick. She didn't bother to wipe the mud off her nose and face. The moment the shovel in her hand touched something hard, she softened her movements again.

"Dig it."

"Okay, be careful, don't break your hands or legs."

As someone who worked in the cultural and creative product design industry before his rebirth, Chen Junqian had seen countless brats who would physically break the little things inside in half with a single shovel. He could only say that with such skills and personality, they would probably be the first to be thrown out even if they went to rob a tomb, let alone do archaeology.

However, Chen Xi was clearly not the kind of impatient brat. After confirming her goal, she became even more patient and even refused Chen Junqian's help. She squatted there and continued to meticulously carve the brick in her hand, which had shrunk considerably and was gradually taking on the shape of a terracotta warrior.

Chen Junqian waved his hand and called over the little mongrel dog, Xiao Guai, who was also lazily squatting at the door. Chen Junqian scratched its chin and sat there quietly watching Chen Xi dig out the terracotta warrior piece by piece.

They brushed away the dust, chiseled away the dirt from the gaps in the armor, and then used the water pump in the yard to rinse the whole body. Finally, the small terracotta warrior sculpture, which was about ten centimeters tall and covered in black luster, stood proudly in front of them.

Jinsha's gentle voice is still there, singing the theme song from "The Myth".

However, Chen Xi doesn't think about questions like "Where will you be a thousand years from now, and what kind of scenery will you be around?" Just as the charm of history is only partially revealed to her through various literary and artistic works, all her emotions at this moment are just a nascent and innocent bud in her heart.

She simply felt that she wouldn't have to stay cooped up in her room playing computer games when visiting relatives during the Chinese New Year this year. After all, there was someone else she was willing to play with and who was willing to take her along, someone she called "brother" but who wasn't really her brother...?

Chapter 49: No One Can Erase the Promise We Made (Part Two)

The "flavor of the New Year" is a term that will be repeatedly mentioned on the internet for many years to come, but it is still quite complex and varies from person to person when it comes to describing it.

Just as everyone has different views on childhood and adolescence, some people attribute the lack of festive atmosphere to the Spring Festival Gala that they haven't watched since a certain year, some complain about the sudden ban on setting off fireworks and firecrackers after a certain year, and some feel that they have simply grown up and said goodbye to the childhood when all happiness was easily obtained.

After all, it's inevitable that anyone who goes from receiving lucky money to giving it away will feel a little wistful.

As for Chen Junqian, he prefers to define the New Year's atmosphere as the human touch, the literal meaning of human touch, because if he hadn't been reborn, after a few more years, the number of people at their New Year's Eve dinner table would start to decrease, and then decrease further and further.

When a festival meant for family reunion loses most of the relatives and friends who want to reunite with it, the meaning of the festival naturally fades and eventually disappears, becoming just another ordinary day of the year.

However, Chen Junqian himself couldn't maintain such a good mindset. After all, holidays are the days when all the wandering ghosts and spirits in the wild are most likely to be revealed, especially during the Spring Festival.

On New Year's Eve, Chen Junqian accompanied his grandfather to the ancestral graves to pay respects. Then they put up Spring Festival couplets and set up the table. However, since their family celebrated the New Year in the evening, they had a simple meal at noon. Around four o'clock in the afternoon, the New Year's Eve dinner officially began.

Chen Junqian's family has a few rules, but not too many. Apart from pouring a little bit of white wine into everyone's cup at the beginning to pay tribute to the ancestors, his grandmother always says that the first thing to eat is vegetables, and not to touch the fish on the table. There are no other rules, and they are quite casual.

After a long New Year's Eve dinner, Chen Junqian received a large red envelope from each of his parents and grandparents. Because of his outstanding performance in the exams this year, the red envelopes were even thicker than last year.

However, it's really just a formality, because the next day the parents will take it away again, saying that it's safe for a child to carry so much money, leaving him only two or three bills as pocket money.

Even if only a fraction of it remains, this is still the day Chen Junqian has amassed the most wealth since his rebirth. After all, he's not a genuine rich woman like Lin Mu, otherwise he wouldn't have come up with so many tricks to try and squeeze out a few extra dollars in kickbacks.

After helping his parents clean up the New Year's Eve dinner table for his grandmother, his mother and grandfather went out to play mahjong and cards, respectively, while his father stayed at home. Chen Junqian also took the opportunity to ask for his father's phone.

Since being promoted and given a raise to become the workshop director, his father's mobile phone has evolved from a flip phone to a smartphone. However, Chen Junqian came over not to read novels or play games, but mainly because he had his eye on the mobile QQ app.

One day after the start of winter vacation, he made an appointment with his online friend 'Qiu' to watch the Spring Festival Gala together that night. After logging into his QQ account on his phone, he saw that the other person was online and sent a smiley face emoji.

Have you finished your New Year's Eve dinner?

"Yeah, I just finished eating. How about you, sister?"

It can only be said that since it's typing on the internet, Chen Junqian is already used to the role-playing games requested by the other party. After all, in a dozen years, let alone his sister, there will be a lot of people calling elementary school students "Mom" on the internet.

"We finished eating a while ago. We celebrate the New Year at noon, so we just eat something light in the evening."

Since most TV stations were broadcasting the Spring Festival Gala live tonight, Chen Junqian casually turned on CCTV-1's live stream, leaving it running as background noise while continuing to chat with the other party via text.

Unfortunately, the current mobile QQ doesn't have a built-in phone function, so calling directly wouldn't be convenient. After all, Chen Junqian wasn't sure when his father would want to take the phone back for himself, and making calls all night would incur exorbitant phone bills, since the current data plans only included a few hundred minutes of domestic calls.

Frankly speaking, Chen Junqian himself doesn't really remember the 2010 Spring Festival Gala. Whether it was the 2009 Spring Festival Gala, which made Xiao Shenyang an overnight sensation with the skit "Not Short of Money", or the 2011 Spring Festival Gala, which will feature the grassroots group Rising Sun Gang, who are very fond of his grandparents, covering "In the Spring", they all hold more weight in his memory. 2010, on the other hand, is awkwardly stuck in the middle, neither here nor there.

Unlike most children her age who only watch comedy sketches and other talk shows on TV, Qiu herself seems quite interested in singing, dancing, and other artistic programs. After all, she was once the lead singer of a choir and received professional vocal training.

"Actually, I am learning dance now, and I go to professional ballet training classes on weekends."

"This is the first time I've heard you mention this."

"Because it's not like singing, which you can show to your younger brother. If you say it directly, people will think you're bragging. After all, we chat online and can't meet in person, so people can say whatever they want about themselves."

The reason Qiu cared so much about Chen Junqian was because he had actually foolishly pulled out his family's household registration book when they first met, revealing his real information without any precautions, just to prove who was older.

"really."

After all, when you're out and about, you have to choose your own identity online. The main reason Chen Junqian was willing to chat with her for so long was that after he did something stupid, she was actually willing to pull out her family's household registration book in a huff, just so that this little brat would willingly call her "sister."

All I can say is that rewatching the 2010 Spring Festival Gala, it felt like Chen Junqian perfectly embodied the stereotypical image in every aspect: Feng Gong, who practically kissed the audience and was about to say "I've missed you all so much!"; Guo Zi, the bald guy who changed wives every year but was always afraid of them; and Liu Qian, who said, "Now is the moment to witness a miracle." However, when Zhao Benshan came out, Chen Junqian still looked at the kitchen behind him and shouted loudly:

"Grandma, Dad, Zhao Benshan is out!"

There's no way around it; over the years, Zhao Benshan, who has appeared on the Spring Festival Gala more than twenty times and brought a skit that created a buzzword for the following year every year, has become a symbolic figure in a sense. From the elderly to children, everyone seems to have gotten used to his appearance and his ability to make people laugh.

But Chen Junqian, who is reborn, knows very well that this year is actually the penultimate time that Zhao Benshan has appeared on the CCTV Spring Festival Gala stage. After this year's "Donation" and next year's "My Deskmate", Zhao Benshan never appeared on stage again until his rebirth, sealing himself and those classic sketches such as "Red Sorghum Model Team", "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow", "Selling Crutches", "Selling Cars", "Heart Disease", "Talking About Things", and "Torchbearer" in the memories of several generations.

However, even with such mixed feelings, when watching Chen Junqian's skit this year, he still managed to chuckle along with his family and online friends on QQ at certain moments. After all, the future is set and cannot be changed, so all that can be done now is to enjoy the present.

Aside from the skits, what captivated Qiu the most was Faye Wong's cover of "Legend" at this year's Spring Festival Gala.

Actually, if you only look at the song title, Chen Junqian doesn't have any impression of it at first glance, and might even think of a web game scene next door. But when Faye Wong sang the line "It's because I glanced at you in the crowd that I could never forget your face", he suddenly realized that he had heard this old song released by Li Jian in 2003 before.

It's fair to say that many old songs are like this: you might not recognize the song title at all, but when certain lyrics appear, they can inexplicably pull you back to a certain time in the past, even if you weren't even born at that time.

Besides Faye Wong's "Legend," the reunion of another long-standing duo at this year's Spring Festival Gala further illustrates this point.

That is the Little Tigers, who reunited as a group this year, the Year of the Tiger in the Chinese lunar calendar.

As a Taiwanese idol group formed in the 1980s and active in the 1990s, frankly speaking, they should be considered idols of Chen Junqian's mother's generation. Chen Junqian is only quite familiar with Nicky Wu among the members, but this is only because of the hit palace drama "Scarlet Heart" that Nicky Wu will be starring in next year.

Even so, when the melody of "Love" played on the Spring Festival Gala stage, and the three no-longer-young "Tiger Team" clapped their hands and sang "Let's string your heart and my heart together, string a lucky clover, string a concentric circle," Chen Junqian could still feel a kind of emotion that transcended time and space.

"My mom loved them back then, so I've basically known these songs since I was little... Um, answer the phone!"

Qiu on the other end of QQ seemed quite excited about the program. In fact, just as the interlude on the TV screen started, her phone rang. Chen Junqian had just stepped out of his room to the open courtyard to answer it when he heard the girl's voice mixed with the music from her TV.

Shout "I love you!" to the sky!

"To the wandering white clouds, I say I miss you—let the sky hear it, let the white clouds see it, no one can erase the promise we made."

I want to take you to see the ocean and tell you I love you!

"I'll give you the brightest star and say I miss you."

"Listen to the ocean's vow, look at the unwavering blue sky, let us love freely—"

Completely different from the Little Tigers' timbre and singing style playing on TV, Qiu's voice was gentle, even the long "wu wu wu—" humming that followed the chorus was extremely soft, like a mother gently coaxing a child.

As for the next two songs, "Butterflies Fly" and "Green Apple Paradise," Qiu didn't sing along the whole time. Instead, she simply hummed the tunes in Chen Junqian's ear, making him feel as if the other person was really by his side watching the Spring Festival Gala together.

After the Little Tigers' medley performance ended, before hanging up the phone, the other party smiled and said to Chen Junqian:

"Although I will definitely send you a message at midnight, there are some things that I feel are better said in person."

"Well then, little brother, I wish you a Happy New Year."

"Yes, I wish you a Happy New Year too, sister."

After exchanging New Year's greetings two hours early, Chen Junqian put away his phone and returned to his warm room. Fortunately, his grandmother and father didn't seem to care too much about what he was doing outside. He simply said he had been sitting for too long and went out to stretch his legs to get by.

As the Lunar New Year of 2010 drew closer, my mother and grandfather, who had been playing cards and mahjong outside, rushed back home. The group laid out the fireworks and long strings of 500-shot firecrackers they had bought in advance in the yard, and then lit them one by one as the TV host counted down and said "Happy New Year".

In no time, loud noises and smoke filled the entire courtyard. The frightened little monster ran into the house early and huddled at Chen Junqian's feet, too scared to move. In the sky, the fireworks of thousands of homes illuminated the entire night as if it were daytime. One after another, the blooming fireworks replaced the stars and the moon, becoming the ruler of the night.

If nothing unexpected happens, the firecrackers will be going off until the wee hours tonight, and the children will finally be able to legitimately stay up all night under the guise of keeping watch or not being able to sleep.

After replying to all the New Year's greetings messages sent to him individually or in groups on QQ, Chen Junqian sent Qiu an extra message separately:

"I will definitely go to the Shanghai World Expo this year."

This is not a New Year's wish, but merely a statement of commitment.

The other party simply replied with three words:

"I'm waiting for you."

After sending that message, the girl lying on the bed pressed her phone back to her chest. The pounding in her chest had never been so clear, each beat almost audible to her.

For her, the World Expo meant that she could travel to more than 100 countries around the world together with him just by meeting him once.

Chapter 50: In the end, I also became someone else's child (Part 2)

I always feel sleep-deprived on the morning of the first day of the Lunar New Year.

Coincidentally, the Lunar New Year in 2010 fell on Valentine's Day on February 14th. However, this obviously had nothing to do with a child like Chen Junqian. The continuous sound of firecrackers kept him awake until the early hours of the morning, and he was still half asleep when he got up to wash. After simply eating a bowl of noodles made by his grandmother with chicken soup, he was handed two boxes of gifts. It was time to go out and pay New Year's visits.

Because at that time, their rural area had not yet been developed or demolished, so most of their relatives lived quite close together, which in a sense made it convenient to visit relatives during the New Year.

We send your gifts to my house, and my gifts to your house. Occasionally, we also pick out unwanted gifts from other families to give away, such as Xuanjiu liquor, Brain Gold, Fingerxin, and pure milk, thus completing a large cycle of left-hand to right-hand.

Of course, as the only son in the family, Chen Junqian still enjoys absolute control over all the gifts. If he wants to keep them, they will basically not be given away. This includes drinks that he likes to drink, such as yogurt and fruit juice, as well as snacks that he likes to eat, such as Danish Crown cookies and Orion pies.

It has to be said that receiving gifts during the Chinese New Year is also a kind of blind box experience. If you open enough gifts that suit your taste, you could almost provide Chen Junqian with drinks and snacks for an entire semester.

Besides giving and receiving gifts, the inevitable annual ritual is the classic red envelope tug-of-war. Just like the "Chinese Parents" game that will be released on Steam later, which will include a push-and-pull game where you say "Auntie, you can't do this!", Chen Junqian just wants to collect the red envelopes and leave now, since he'll be the one giving them to the kids in a dozen years.

Since Chen Junqian's grandfather was the eldest son in his generation, his other siblings would bring their families to his home for a meal on the first day of the Lunar New Year every year. As the eldest grandson of the eldest branch, Chen Junqian naturally received extra attention.

Although it hasn't reached the point of being bombarded with questions like "How's your job? How much do you earn? Do you have a girlfriend? When are you getting married?", I still can't help but be asked a couple of questions about my school grades and usual performance. It's just that the fact that I'm ranked first in my grade is so eye-catching that even the mutual compliments have become extra sincere.

At this moment, however, Chen Junqian was unaware that he had quickly become "someone else's child," because he was currently rushing with his father to Chen Xi's house in the city, where they did not live in the village.

Chen Xi's mother, who is also Chen Junqian's godmother, is a tenured teacher at a local primary school, while her father is a sales manager at Zhan's, a local pecan company. Although their family is not as well-off as Lin Mu's family, who are large suppliers with genuine pecan trees, they are still considered well-off in the current era when the pecan industry in Guoning has not yet taken a sharp turn for the worse. Therefore, they live in an apartment complex in the city.

Happy New Year, brother.

After taking the elevator to the fourth floor, Chen Junqian knocked on the door, and Chen Xi, who seemed to have been waiting there, immediately opened the door from the inside. The little girl looked up at him with a sweet smile and wished him a Happy New Year.

"Well, Happy New Year."

Perhaps because there were many guests visiting to wish us a Happy New Year, there were many disposable shoe covers on the shoe cabinet. Chen Junqian and his father each took a pair, put them on, and went inside. They were then invited to sit on the sofa.

In no time, Chen Xi steadily brought over two cups of brewed tea and politely placed them on the coffee table in front of them. Then, she pushed a plate full of various melon seeds, peanuts, nuts, dried fruits, candies, and snacks in front of them.

After doing all that, Chen Xi unceremoniously took a rather ugly-looking persimmon and happily sat down to eat it, her two little braids swaying back and forth.

Unlike the several relatives Chen Junqian visited in the village this morning, Chen Xi's family prepared a much more exquisite snack platter. Most of the snacks were packaged small treats, with glittering gold coin-shaped chocolates, round planet cups crammed together, and pure white cloud cakes and various kinds of Xu Fu Ji candies next to them. The variety was truly impressive.

Chen Junqian had just casually picked up a planet cup and started eating with a small spoon, taking only a couple of bites, when Chen Xi, who had somehow already gnawed down a persimmon that looked almost as big as her face to just the stem, quickly reached into the scrambled egg dish again. Seeing this, her uncle, who was chatting with Chen Jun nearby, gave her a light tap on the head.

"Are they the guests or are you the guest?"

"Waaah... I didn't eat breakfast this morning."

"That's because your mom and I made breakfast a long time ago, but you just couldn't get out of bed. Lunch is coming up soon, so eat less."

After being lectured like that, Chen Xi reluctantly withdrew her hand, then suddenly stood up from the sofa with an air of "I can't stand this house for another second," and somewhat laboriously picked up two boxes from the corner of the living room.

"Tch, then I'll go visit my brother now."

"We have guests coming over soon."

"They're here to wish you a Happy New Year, Dad, but I don't want to see them."

Sensing the slightly tense atmosphere, Chen Jun took the initiative to smooth things over:

"Well then, since you and your sister are going to have lunch at my place anyway, I'll take Xixi with me when I go back later. Junqian can play with her."

Having witnessed his daughter emerge from her room into the living room this morning when Chen Junqian and his family arrived, the uncle sighed somewhat helplessly and raised an eyebrow at Chen Xi:

"I'm asking you."

"Sure, I want to play with my brother."