“You’re talking nonsense. This isn’t a chicken; it’s an albino peacock,” Shen Xingruo retorted.
Lu Xingyan leaned closer to the bewildered albino peacock and said to Shen Xingruo, “Don’t you have common sense? This is an albino peacock chick, just a bit young. It’s not a chicken. Look at its crest in front.”
With that, Lu Xingyan pointed it out.
He didn’t quite see the crest as resembling a fan shape, but the shop owner emphasized it when explaining, so he conveyed it to Shen Xingruo in earnest.
Shen Xingruo hesitated for a moment, then approached.
The little albino peacock fluttered a bit but remained timidly in place, unlike a chicken. It was slightly more slender, and its crest resembled an unformed fan.
“But it’s still quite small?” Shen Xingruo leaned in, touching the peacock’s crest with her hand.
The little peacock retreated two steps.
Lu Xingyan looked down at the two white peacocks interacting and found them inexplicably cute. He chuckled and replied, “Yeah, it’s probably about four or six months old.”
The store also had adult albino peacocks. But what fun would it be to raise adult ones? Plus, his mom wanted to control his allowance, so he felt a bit shy about the sudden expense. The bigger the peacock, the more expensive it was. Since it wasn’t much trouble anyway, he figured he could just feed it casually like a chicken. Besides, his mom had nothing to do all day; raising a peacock would be quite trendy.
At that moment, Pei Yue heard the commotion and came out of the kitchen.
Seeing the albino peacock from afar, she asked, “Lu Xingyan, what kind of nonsense did you bring back? Didn’t you go to get a gift for Ruoruo?”
“This is the gift,” he replied.
Pei Yue approached and, without hesitation, patted Lu Xingyan’s head. “You’re up to your tricks again! You have so much money you don’t know how to spend it. You even brought back a chicken! Impressive! I guess you don’t need an allowance anymore!”
“No, this is a peacock, not a chicken!” Lu Xingyan tried to explain to Pei Yue with his limited vocabulary.
Pei Yue leaned in for a closer look and indeed saw a peacock. Suddenly, she became nervous and turned to grab Lu Xingyan. “Where did you get this thing? Is it legal? I remember peacocks are protected animals, and this one is an albino. If it’s illegal, hurry and send it to the zoo. You’re underage; you shouldn’t be sentenced for this!”
“Can you stop worrying unnecessarily? I asked the shop owner. Green peacocks can’t be kept, but albino peacocks are a variant of blue peacocks, artificially bred. It’s not illegal,” Lu Xingyan explained, feeling exasperated.
Pei Yue was speechless.
“Then, are there no boundaries now? Do they even say they’ll compensate if it dies on the way?” she retorted.
“You know about that too…”
“I don’t think you’re reliable at all. I’ll have your dad ask about it another day.”
While they were talking, Shen Xingruo had already been squatting down and interacting with the albino peacock for several rounds. It was a bit shy at first, but perhaps drawn by its kind, it stopped avoiding Shen Xingruo after a while, even allowing her to stroke its feathers.
Pei Yue was busy and, after asking her question, hurried to check on the old duck soup she had carefully prepared.
Lu Xingyan chuckled and finally squatted down beside Shen Xingruo. “How do you like it?”
As the little albino peacock gently pecked at her sleeve, Shen Xingruo’s lips curved into a smile. She suddenly realized that Lu Xingyan was squatting next to her and quickly straightened up again.
After a while, she nodded and then asked, “Is it a male or female?”
“It’s a male. Originally, I wanted to buy a female, but the shop owner said females don’t display their feathers. What’s the point of having a peacock if it doesn’t display its feathers? So, I bought a male,” Lu Xingyan explained.
“Oh, speaking of which, you’re quite the variant yourself, always displaying your feathers at any time,” Shen Xingruo retorted, only realizing a moment later that Lu Xingyan was referring to her.
She flicked the peacock’s tail and said, “Peck him.”
As if understanding human speech, the little peacock pecked at Lu Xingyan’s outstretched hand.
Lu Xingyan exclaimed, “Wow, he is your son.”
They both chuckled and continued to watch the little peacock. Suddenly, Lu Xingyan remembered something and said, “Sister Que, let’s give your son a name.”
Shen Xingruo thought for a moment. “Then let’s call him Yan Yan?”
“Yan Yan?” Lu Xingyan repeated.
Shen Xingruo patted his head lightly and said casually, “Good boy.”
While they adopted their “son,” Shen Xingruo’s father arrived.
Shen Guangyao remembered that Lu Xingyan and his daughter shared a birthday, so he prepared gifts for both of them. However, Shen Xingruo had one more gift, which Shen Guangyao said, “This one is from Jingran for you.”
Shen Xingruo accepted it.
Fang Jingran had sent her a necklace. It was delicate, made of silver, not very expensive, but the design was nice.
Shen Guangyao explained, “He bought it for you with the prize money from a competition.”
Shen Xingruo didn’t say anything. After examining the necklace, she took out the greeting card Fang Jingran had written for her from the gift bag.
Fang Jingran was still young, but he had a somewhat rigid masculine taste. Without much sense of aesthetics, he had drawn some fancy and colorful things around the greetings, like a handmade version of the “I’m sending you my blessings” emoji. The whole card exuded a strong elementary school vibe.
Before Shen Guangyao and Fang Min got together, Shen Xingruo had a good relationship with Fang Jingran. Fang Jingran’s father passed away early, so he had been living with his mother. When he was in junior high, after school, he would go to the Chinese language office in senior high to do his homework while waiting for his mother to finish work. Shen Xingruo often saw Fang Jingran in Fang Min’s office. At that time, she had a good relationship with Fang Min, and consequently, with Fang Jingran as well.
Shen Guangyao’s gift was much more valuable than Fang Jingran’s. He had heard that she performed on stage during the school anniversary, so he gave her a violin. There was a famous luthier’s logo on the case.
She also opened it and took a look.
Shen Xingruo accepted both gifts without any extra emotional expressions, just like Lu Xingyan, and said, “Thank you.”
Shen Xingruo and Shen Guangyao’s relationship was known to Lu Shan and Pei Yue. However, from an adult perspective, they naturally hoped for a reconciliation between father and daughter. So, during lunch, they subtly tried to mediate through their words.
Lu Xingyan didn’t interfere much. From the bottom of his heart, he felt sorry for Shen Xingruo. To him, it seemed like she had been abandoned as if her father had suddenly remembered he had a daughter and began to show concern.
However, those of us in the artistic world sometimes have a more abstract way of thinking, which ordinary people find hard to understand. Anyway, Lu Xingyan couldn’t comprehend it. He only knew that if his mother suddenly married Wang Youfu, he might nail a kitchen knife to Wang Youfu’s forehead.
On the other hand, Pei Yue didn’t treat him like her own son anymore. While she tried to mediate between Shen Guangyao and Shen Xingruo on one side, on the other, she would use him as a topic to belittle, contrasting him with Shen Xingruo’s excellence.