Chapter 81

After school in the afternoon, Ji Rang went to the bookstore and bought a bunch of dessert and pastry cooking recipes.

It was better to learn himself. Anyway, it’s for a lifetime. It’s better to master this skill earlier and create a taste that she likes. It’s much more reliable than buying from others.

The big guy was determined to win.

National Day was after the monthly exam.

Of course, the first year and second year of high school had holidays as usual, but Haiyi’s practice was that in addition to the winter and summer vacations, other statutory holidays were make-up classes for the third year of high school.

The senior high school students did not expect anything anymore. They did not expect that the teacher in charge of each class would notify them the day before the holiday. In response to the national policy, the school organized everyone to visit the Martyrs Memorial Hall on October 1st and they had to gather at the school at 8 o'clock in the morning.

This time, the excitement of the senior year was palpable, and it was like a big bargain. Although it was not as easy and free as a holiday, it was better than a make-up class. Everyone regarded this event as an autumn trip.

Early the next morning, the senior high school students gathered at the school gate and took a bus to the Martyrs Memorial Hall. While on the bus, the teacher in charge of each class gave each student a white chrysanthemum, and they would lay the flowers in front of the martyrs’ monument.

The Martyrs Memorial Hall in Haicheng was built under the Martyrs Cemetery. The entrance is a very large square. On the square are huge monuments of martyrs full of names of martyrs, which were added every year.

After arriving at the square, the students went to the monument one by one to bow and lay flowers.

Ji Rang had been worried about Qi Ying since yesterday, for fear that she would be stimulated by seeing things and think about her parents. But she was no stranger after school yesterday. Just after getting off the bus, he left Class 9 and squeezed to the front to find Qi Ying.

She held a white chrysanthemum in her hand and stood beside Yue Li, her expression a little sad, her eyes seemed to be covered with a layer of mist, and he couldn't tell whether it was sadness or not.

Liu Qinghua was standing next to the team. It was not easy for him to go over, so he just watched her silently.

When it was Qi Ying's turn, she and several other students walked forward together, carefully placed the flowers on the steps, bowed three times, and retreated from the side to the back row.

When she saw Ji Rang, her depression disappeared, and a little smile appeared in her eyes. She secretly looked around. Liu Qinghua didn't pay attention to this side. She rushed to Ji Rang in two or three steps, and asked him in a low voice: "How did you get here?"

He took out a strawberry candy from his pocket, smiled and handed it over: "Would you like one?"

She was a little happy, took the strawberry candy but didn't eat it, put it in the pocket of her school uniform, and said softly, "I will eat it later."

The team moved forward, and the teachers were maintaining order. Ji Rang could not stay here anymore. Looking at her smiling eyes, he whispered: "Wait for me at the entrance of the memorial hall after a while."

She nodded.

It was already an hour after all the students had offered flowers. The memorial hall was freely visited by the students. The teachers did not need to organize any more. They only explained that they should not run around, make loud noises, and respect the place where heroes slept.

When Ji Rang reached, Qi Ying obediently stood at the entrance waiting for him.

The two went in together, the hall was quiet and solemn, with only the footsteps and the low-pitched sounds of the students could be heard. The venue displayed the deeds of the martyr pioneers in six different periods from the Revolution of 1911 to the reform and opening up and modernization. Their lives were recorded in text, pictures, and videos.

Each of them gave their lives for the faith in their hearts, and then lived forever.

Many people had appeared in history books, and many people’s birth and death years were very close to the present. Every age needed such a hero, and every age had such people who succeeded.

Qi Ying took it seriously.

In fact, many students couldn't bear such a boring visit. They only regarded it as an activity to review history and remember their predecessors. They swept it away and quickly went to the front.

She was the only one who looked at every line carefully and fell to the end of the crowd.

Ji Rang had always been with her.

There were other visitors in the venue. There was a pair of parents with a child standing in front of a row of showcases. As they passed by, Qi Ying heard the child’s milky voice and said, "Uncle, I am coming to see you again. How have you been?"

She froze for a moment, and when she reacted, tears were already streaming out.

Ji Rang felt terribly distressed, pulled her hand over his palm, and coaxed her in a low voice: "Yingying, don't cry. If you're sad, we won't watch it."

She raised her head and looked at him blankly for a while. For a long time, she shook her head and said, "I'm not sad." She wiped her tears with the back of her hand, and her voice was soft and thin: "I just thought that Dad would be thought of in the same way. People would worry about him."

Some people would visit him and offer their hearts and flowers.

The staff of the memorial hall said that there were people here every day to worship, and there were always flowers in front of the martyrs' stele and the tombstones in the cemetery. They laid in the ground, but they had never been alone.

…

After visiting the memorial hall, the school gave the students a half-day vacation very humanely, and classes resumed the next day.

This was their last vacation before the winter vacation.

The countdown calendar in front of the blackboard was torn off every day. As time went, the pressure of study was getting heavier. Everyone had their string stretched. Before the college entrance examination, this string could only be tightened.

However, young people nowadays were busy taking their time to decompress. With the advent of Christmas, each class didn't know how but the trend of knitting scarves started.

Some people probably said that this was the last Christmas of their high school career. If one did not weave a scarf for their crush, they would never have a chance again.

The knitting yarn in the commissary were swept away, and even the bookstores near the school smelled of business opportunities and started to put knitting yarns for sale.

Not to be outdone, Yue Li, who was clumsy, made a fight against wool after class every day. But she really couldn't learn it, even after doing it every day.

Qi Ying could not see her embarrassed every day, so she went to learn with Yu He in the back row, and then came back to teach her.

Yue Li was stunned: "Why! Why did you learn it in only ten minutes?! Was God so unfair when creating humans?!"

Qi Ying: "I know some embroidery, so it's easier to learn."

Yue Li cried: "Why do you know everything! And I am useless!"

However, with Qi Ying's hand-in-hand teaching, she finally figured out the rules, occasionally making the wrong stitches but Qi Ying would help her correct it. The scarf was finally taking shape.

Yue Li was very happy. When she was happy, she hoped that her little sister would be happy too: "You can knit one for the big guy too! I heard that a high school girl planned to knit a scarf for him. You can't be left behind."

Qi Ying didn't know why she was a little shy, and whispered, "I embroidered something else for him."

Yue Li was very curious: "What? Gloves? Socks? Sweaters?"

Qi Ying didn't tell her.

She didn't bring it to school, but secretly embroidered in her room every day.

Her embroidery was taught by the mama who took care of her when she was in the General's Mansion. She didn't know how to embroider things that were too big. The first thing she embroidered was a sachet.

In fact, in retrospect, the embroidery of that sachet was really clumsy. There was fluffy thread on the embroidery, but when she gave it to the general, he didn't dislike it at all, and just hung it around his waist without hiding it.

Later, he was ordered to go on the expedition and accidentally lost the sachet. Qi Ying promised to embroider for him again, and then worked hard on embroidering, intending to embroider a superb one this time, but the general sacrificed himself before she could make him one.

After coming here, she never took up the needle and thread again. So, her technique was a bit rusty. She often pierced her fingers, but she didn’t forget the general skills. She stumbled like this. When Christmas came, she embroidered another one just like before. The sachet came out botched again.

It was really annoying.

She didn't want to send it anymore.

On Christmas Day, Ji Rang waited to receive the scarf.

He heard that girls in all grades were knitting scarves. How could his baby be an exception?

For this reason, he specially wore a low-neck sweater that day, showing his slender neck, which looked very cold and needed the care of a scarf very much.

Early in the morning, greeting cards and gifts were flying all over the classrooms in all classes. The boys who received the scarves were inevitably triumphant, and the girls who gave them were secretly happy.

Ji Rang waited all morning, feeling a bit cold in his neck.

After school at noon, he went to Class 2 to find Qi Ying. As soon as he passed by, he saw her walking down holding Yue Li, holding a pink gift bag in her arms, sneaking up like a thief.

When she saw him, Qi Ying only beckoned him, and whispered: "I will accompany Lili to give gifts, and you will eat by yourself."

Ji Rang: "…"

Yue Li's scarf was woven for Shen Yue.

Taking advantage of everyone going to eat at noon, and no one being in the sports office, the two people quietly sneaked in, Yue Li put the gift bag with the scarf on Shen Yue's desk, feeling that her heart was about to jump out.

After the show, Yue Li turned around and ran away, for fear of being hit by someone.

After running away, she asked out of breath, "Yingying, do you think he will wear it?"

Qi Ying was also unsure but didn't want her good friend to be sad and comforted her: "It's so cold, he will definitely wear it."

Yue Li was a little nervous and a little excited, and began to poke secretly, hoping that the scarf she knitted by herself would appear on Shen Yue's body. When school was over in the afternoon, she even went to the sports ground to take a lap.

Shen Yue stood at the door talking to a teacher and his neck was empty.

Yue Li was so sad that she almost cried, ran back to the classroom and sat down, not wanting to eat dinner.

When studying in the evening, a little snow suddenly fell from the sky. Only when the students by the window shouted excitedly, "It's snowing", the whole classroom was in a commotion, and they all leaned to the window to watch the snow.

The first snow of this year.

Qi Ying was also very happy and ran with her classmates after class. The first snow this year was earlier than last year, and it happened to be Christmas again. Everyone was very happy.

She was holding snowflakes in her hands in the snow, her wrists were suddenly grabbed. Qi Ying hadn't reacted yet. She was already dragged by the aggressive boy to the wall behind the flowerbed and pressed against the wall.

The boss showed a fierce look, as if he was about to kill her: "Where's Lao Tzu's scarf!"

Qi Ying: "…"

No wonder he looked weirdly wrong today, it turned out to be because of this.

Qi Ying suddenly felt a little wanting to laugh, how could this person be like a child.

She pursed her lower lip, and whispered, "I didn’t knit one."

Although he had already guessed the result, the boss still felt heartache. He poked his finger on her little head, and was so angry that he could not speak: "You…"

Then he saw the little girl lower her head, take out something from the down jacket pocket in the school uniform, and handed it over with a little embarrassment: "I embroidered this for you."

Ji Rang was taken aback, looking at the thing in her hand…like a sachet?

As the saying goes, there was no way out of doubt, and the big man was a little dazed by this huge turning point.

If he remembered correctly, the sachet used to have the meaning of lasting love in ancient times, right?

The sachet was small and cute, and in the dark night with the flying snow, it emitted a light fragrance. His throat tightened, and it took him a long time to ask in a low voice, "Is this your embroidery?"

Qi Ying was a little embarrassed: "Well… it's not pretty, don't dislike it."

Ji Rang grabbed it: "Don't dislike it."

How could he dislike it! Others knit scarves, she embroidered sachets, his little baby was so different and extremely cute!

He held the sachet and looked at it left and right and smelled it. He was usually calm, but his eyebrows couldn't hide his smile at the moment, as if he had received some peerless treasure.

Qi Ying felt sweet in her heart.

After finishing the last night of self-study, the snow was already heavy.

Ji Rang usually took her to the bus stop, but tonight he took her to the place where he parked his motorcycle and took out an embroidered bag from the trunk.

It was darker here, and the bus didn't go here, and students basically didn't come here. Ji Rang handed her the bag, smiled and said, "Open it and take a look."

Qi Ying blinked and asked in a low voice, "Is it for me?"

He raised his eyebrows: "Otherwise?"

She was kind of happy.

Although she knew it was a Christmas gift, it was snowing today, so it could be regarded as a gift for the first snow.

She finally received the first snow gift from him.

The bag looked like a piece of clothing.

Qi Ying took out the clothes inside curiously.

The red spread before her eyes.

It was a big red cloak, almost exactly the same as the one she wore back then.

At that time, she was wearing this red cloak waiting for him to come home for the New Year, but she waited for his coffin. She didn't know until now whether he would like her appearance in the red cloak.

The boy in front of him smiled so softly.

Qi Ying wanted to cry a little, she lowered her eyes and asked softly, "Why give this to me?"

Ji Rang reached out and took the cloak and put it on her, "I don't know." He said, "Seeing this, I think it should be yours."

He put a hat inlaid with white fluff on her head, tilted his head to admire, and laughed: "It's so beautiful."