Chapter 48: Eating free food, sleeping with old cadres… soft sleeper (please read)
Beijing Normal University became lively in the afternoon because the exams were over in the past few days.

On the playground not far from the office building, young women can be seen sitting on the ground and gathering together to recite poems, expressing their feelings about their friends’ impending departure and their anticipation of returning home.

Cheng Kaiyan stood by the window at the end of the corridor against the dim light, his warm hands resting on the cold windowsill as he looked out the window, thinking about something.

To be precise, I was considering whether I should tell my aunt about asking for leave to go to Jiangcheng.

Although my aunt is a rather cold person, she is still very nice to him. There are basically no other conflicts between the two of them except for the grudge of broken engagement, and Cheng Kaiyan didn’t take the broken engagement to heart.

After all, it is a matter of loyalty and trust.

Besides, Cheng Kaiyan could actually see that Jiang Ting was somewhat similar to himself. When he saw Jiang Ting, he always felt like he was looking at another self.

It’s just that one is cold to others and the other is gentle to others, but the same thing is that it’s difficult to get into their hearts.

“Forget it, forget it. You are my aunt…”

Cheng Kaiyan shook her head and pushed the door open.

The facilities in the small office, which is not very spacious, are still simple.

Two desks facing each other were placed near the window in the office. A gauze curtain was gently pulled up at one corner and pressed down with a bottle of Shanghai brand ink to block out the light from the outside.

On the table, a thin woman was lying on the table with her hands folded. Her long black hair covered her ears and face.

“are you asleep?”

Cheng Kaiyan looked at Jiang Ting’s figure and murmured.

Since the first time she met her aunt, Cheng Kaiyan had never seen anyone else around her aunt, including the man she saw in the wedding photo.

After a long time, Cheng Kaiyan vaguely realized why this woman asked him to help with the move. Of course, it was not because she was “worried that her husband was tired” and asked Cheng Kaiyan to do the hard labor, but because Jiang Ting was the only one who had to move.

Cheng Kaiyan has moved house by herself many times.

Some people on the Internet say that the loneliest thing in the world is moving alone.

A man was carrying a large pile of items in and out, and sat on the stairs because of exhaustion, gasping for breath to rest. He felt the coldness from the stairs, the soreness and numbness in his arms, the weakness in his palms, and the soaked clothes on his body.

A feeling of loneliness that makes you feel helpless will come from every corner of your body…

“Why would you choose to move on a rainy day?”

Cheng Kaiyan looked at the woman who was so tired that she fell asleep, and had some guesses in his mind. He walked over, picked up his aunt’s coat from the stool beside her, and gently covered her with it.

“Hey…”

Jiang Ting only let out a cold low moan. She lay on the table with her face turned sideways and slowly opened her eyes. Suddenly, a man whose face she couldn’t see clearly appeared in front of her. She felt a chill on her back and her pupils suddenly shrank: “Who!”

“It’s me, Aunt Jiang!”

“call……”

Seeing the face of the person in front of her clearly, Jiang Ting finally breathed a sigh of relief. She propped up her forehead with one hand and asked in confusion, “What time is it?”

“It’s half past three. Don’t sleep in the office. It’s so cold here. It would be better to go home and sleep. There is heating in the teachers’ dormitory. What if you fall sick in the office?” Cheng Kaiyan asked with concern.

Jiang Ting looked up at him and suddenly laughed, like winter suddenly turning into spring and the frost melting. “If you fall ill, there are still people to take care of you. Usually, you are alone.”

“You must be joking. I’m not a human. I’m by your side every day at work.”

Cheng Kaiyan retorted, then hooked a stool with her foot and sat down, “By the way, Aunt Jiang wants to tell you something.”

“Go ahead.”

Jiang Ting blinked when she heard him say that.

“I was writing something a while ago, and it got passed accidentally. Now they want me to revise it.”

“Um?!!”

Jiang Ting’s beautiful eyes widened, but she quickly regained her composure, as if the surprise just now was an illusion.

She looked calm and said calmly, “Yes, this is a good thing. Congratulations on your success.”

Looking at the man in front of him, Cheng Kaiyan opened his mouth but didn’t know what to say for a moment.

According to normal human logic, shouldn’t she be surprised next?

And then ask again?
How… “What’s wrong?”

There was a faint smile on the corners of Jiang Ting’s rosy lips, and she was swaying leisurely on her tiptoes under the desk.

hum~
So what if I stay in a guesthouse if my submission is approved?
Who told you not to show it to me before!

Cheng Kaiyan was a very thoughtful person. After thinking for a while, she remembered that afternoon when her aunt had deliberately tried to get close to her and said that she could help her look at the manuscript, but she had subconsciously rejected her offer at that time.

“I was wrong! Aunt! Please forgive me.”

“Alright, alright… tell me, where did you submit it to? I hope it’s not some low-end publication or magazine.”

Jiang Ting waved her hands, and her expression finally changed, showing a little more curiosity.

“Jiangcheng’s Jiangcheng Literature and Art has now been renamed Fangcao.”

“Jiangcheng?!!!”

Jiang Ting’s cold voice rose a few notches and became a little shrill. For a moment, she looked at Cheng Kaiyan with a complicated expression.

I have been working so hard on writing these days, and I submitted my manuscript to Jiangcheng…

Jiangcheng!

It is obvious that this child is going after Xiaoli… Yes, after all, it was the girl who came to break off the engagement. If it happened to someone else, they would have probably not been able to endure it long ago.

Fortunately, the child has been acting fine these days. I don’t know how much pain he must be feeling.

“Alas… This is really hard for you, Kaiyan! I am sorry for you.”

Jiang Ting bit her lips tightly and sighed. She felt both self-blame and guilt, as well as pity for Cheng Kaiyan.

This was her fault, after all. The boy had just returned from the army in southern Xinjiang and was shot. Not to mention caring for him, it was inappropriate for her to come to his house and cancel the engagement right away…

???

What’s going on?
“It’s all over, Aunt Jiang…”

When Cheng Kaiyan saw Jiang Ting’s look, she was confused for a moment, but then she understood what her aunt meant and said ambiguously.

“When are you going? Have you bought the tickets?” Jiang Ting no longer had a stern expression on her face and asked with concern.

“The sooner the better. I haven’t bought my ticket yet. I was planning to tell you and go to the train station to see if there are any remaining tickets.”

“You may not be able to buy one. It happens to be the Spring Festival travel rush right now. You can’t even buy a platform ticket, let alone a sleeper ticket! You better be careful.”

Jiang Ting rolled her eyes at him, but without stopping, she pulled Cheng Kaiyan outside and found the phone number in the office building and dialed it.

Half an hour later, a jeep drove into the campus and stopped under the office building. A guard in military uniform and carrying a gun respectfully brought two train tickets.

When buying tickets in the 1980s, passengers needed to go to the train station and state their destination. The ticket seller would take out a pre-printed ticket from the corresponding box and stamp it with the date and train number of the day.

But now you don’t have to go through so much trouble.

One goes today, and the other returns on February 9th.

Everything is arranged perfectly, is this the charm of Hong Er?
Cheng Kaiyan was filled with emotion as he looked back and forth at the two train tickets in his hands.

There are two small, hard-board tickets with Braille printed on the back, and different seat types are distinguished by different colors.

Train tickets are divided into different types, such as hard seats, soft seats, suburban tickets, etc. The colors of the tickets are also different, for example, hard seat tickets are light red and soft seat tickets are light blue.

Different from the hard seats when returning to Beijing from southern Xinjiang, these two are extremely precious soft sleepers, very valuable!

Ten years ago, when sleeping in a soft sleeper, the flight attendant would call you “chief”!
Of course it’s different now.

Not everyone can sleep in a soft sleeper. Only senior cadres at administrative level 14 or above or retired senior cadres are eligible.

However, people on business trips sometimes sleep in soft sleepers, but some people do not. They exchange tickets with others and sit in hard seats or hard sleepers, earning the difference to supplement their family expenses.

Some people came into being and acted as intermediaries in the middle.

So, that evening, Cheng Kaiyan, accompanied by Jiang Ting and her mother Xu Yuxiu, boarded the T38 express train from the great capital BJ to the river city Hankou Station with her luggage.

One day and one night is all it takes!

(End of this chapter)