Age of Legends

Chapter 217 Did he go astray?
Buses are less crowded on weekends, since they run frequently within the city's second ring road. Without the usual morning and evening rush hours, each bus seems less crowded, and there are often plenty of empty seats as people get off and on.

However, many places in Fuzhou are currently under construction, with many construction sites fenced off by blue corrugated iron sheets.

With urban renewal and the entry of the real estate economy, Fuzhou is undergoing the same changes that are happening in every city in China at this time, and people's pursuit and imagination of beautiful things are growing wildly with vigorous tension.

The bustling construction has led to an unprecedented pace of urban renewal. Sometimes, a pedestrian overpass has already been built in a place visited a month ago. A shopping mall has sprung up on an abandoned plot of land, and soon after, news will spread that another commercial complex has opened somewhere else, attracting crowds of people.

New things emerge every now and then, filling people's sight and, to some extent, stirring and exciting their hearts.

Rapid development has also caused many old places to change beyond recognition. Take Nanguang Company as an example. Who could have imagined that the original factory area would be transformed into a cultural tourism project in the future? The old houses, which were squeezed between new high-rise buildings, missed the wave of demolition and became dilapidated old buildings in the city.

The world we live in now is still far from being a world apart, and there are many stories yet to unfold. In this ever-changing world, Zhang Chen sometimes feels that he is moving slowly. In fact, he knows that the things that people used to find tiresome will soon become the past. He just wants to see more of these things that are about to change.

Years later, as new and old generations come and go, people have witnessed too many partings and the vicissitudes of life, so they cherish and popularize the saying, "If only life were as beautiful as the first time we met."

However, the following line reads, "Old friends change easily, yet people say that old friends are fickle."

Yes, those heartbeats we shared back then, yet the feelings we never got to express when we finally graduated. We promised each other that after graduation we'd move to your city, build our careers together, and eventually start a family, but in the end you went back to your hometown, and I was left alone. As I packed my bags, I suddenly realized that youth is just this suitcase full of things that make me want to cry, and a stack of photo albums.

A love that promises to grow from campus to wedding may not necessarily lead to you standing on the altar together.

Those partners who made a pact to start a business together back in their school days, weathered the toughest times, but when they were enjoying the fruits of their labor, they became enemies because of unequal distribution of profits, went to court, and betrayed each other, hitting each other where it hurt the most.

That year, on a moonlit night, I walked home with my mother. Who knew that her illness would worsen and she would pass away so suddenly? From then on, under the moon on my way home, there was no longer my mother's figure.

I don't know where I saw this quote, but it said: "Human life is essentially a tragedy, because if you live long enough, you will experience all the sorrows and partings of life."

Having witnessed countless hardships in the future, Zhang Chen only wanted to quietly experience the slow, warm flow of human life.

When the bus arrived at the station, Zhang Chen boarded the shuttle bus to Xinhua Bookstore, and then he saw Shen Nuoyi in the second-to-last row of double seats.

Shen Nuoyi was wearing a thin red and white striped sweater, her hair was loose, and her fair and elegant face was covered with light makeup.

Perhaps she didn't have much experience with makeup, so the powder on her face seemed a little uneven, but the sunlight shining through the car window onto her face was already stunning enough to stir up memories and the depths of her soul.

Upon seeing Zhang Chen, she smiled slightly. This was something the two of them had arranged to do today. She had come by car, and Zhang Chen had gotten in the car, so there was no surprise.

But a smile played on her lips. As Zhang Chen approached, she shifted to a seat closer to the window, still deliberately gazing out like a bird perched on a branch, looking around. Zhang Chen sat down beside her, feeling the faint, refreshing scent of laundry soap and shampoo carried by the breeze blowing in through the car window. Zhang Chen was certain he had never smelled such a pleasant fragrance before. He had an overwhelming urge to bury his face in her hair and beneath her ears and neck, to inhale deeply.

Sensing Zhang Chen's gaze, Shen Nuoyi shrank closer to the window, her feet curling up even higher over the raised wheel hub of the bus, as if a big bad wolf was sitting next to her.

Zhang Chen wondered if he was a bit of a pervert, and whether this counted as the so-called voyeurism of young girls in later generations.
Zhang Chen felt that a certain sentence in the book needed to be revised somewhat: "A person's life may not be a tragedy in essence, but an epic. Only an epic can possess the grandeur of both tragedy and joy, and the eternity of both suffering and transcendence of suffering."

The encounter between the bus and Shen Nuoyi, which didn't get lost, is also an eternal moment in these countless slices of time.

Just looking at Shen Nuoyi leaning against the car window like a small animal, her red and white striped sweater only accentuating her charming and delicate features, Zhang Chen felt a sense of blasphemy when he suddenly wanted to hold her hand.

Just like those guys who, after establishing a relationship, start to take advantage of the girl at will, Zhang Chen was confident that Shen Nuoyi might not resist when he held her hand at this moment, but in fact, there was no psychological preparation between the two of them, so it was somewhat abrupt.

On a sudden impulse, and given the eerie silence that was spreading between the two, Zhang Chen spoke up at the right moment, saying something to Shen Nuoyi that made her heart skip a beat.

"If we study hard together today... is there any reward?"

……

After a brief pause, Shen Nuo said in a clear voice, "Studying hard and learning something, isn't that a reward? What other reward do you want? Only little kids need that kind of reward of a piece of candy for learning something!"

Her words sounded like the kind of top-down, one-on-one tutoring that teachers used to give to students. But they were all bark and no bite.

Being too much like a top student makes one seem less confident.

Zhang Chen thought to himself, "You know I have the desire and the guts to do something wicked, yet you dare to act all high and mighty with me." So he said, "It's like... a reward between boyfriends and girlfriends. Like holding hands or something..."

Zhang Chen felt that he might have looked rather sly when he said those words.

Shen Nuoyi was indeed unable to withstand the pressure and her face turned visibly red again. Fortunately, she had applied powder today, so it wasn't too serious; only her ears had some red edges.

But a pair of phoenix eyes were fixed on her, a sight that would make any boy feel ashamed, and the tone of his voice even made Zhang Chen feel a little guilty.

"Zhang Chen, you...you've probably gone astray lately, haven't you?"

　Thank you, Xiao Shen gogogo, for being the patron!
　　Thank you to DaChuiTongQianJia, JingXinMengPiaoKuang, and LiXuanYi for the donations!
　　Because there's a recent event on Qidian, and I'm slow at writing this part of the story due to my clumsy writing skills, the bonus chapter for the Alliance Leader will be postponed to a week later. Sorry about that!
　　
　
(End of this chapter)