gentle beast

64

【有备无患 – To be Prepared, Just in Case】

After entering sophomore year, time flew by at a particularly fast pace and it was soon the end of the year.

When Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu finished her final professional course, she walked out of the classroom and received a phone call from Lù Qí Chāng’s father.

Mr. and Mrs. Jǐ had retired half a month ago and were planning to travel Europe for the next six months. They had gotten visas a week before and went to Finland the day after.

Before leaving, they especially asked their old friend to take care of their daughter.

Today’s holiday began and after Mr. Lù picked up Lù Qí Chāng, he came to pick up Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu.

Lù Qí Chāng and Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu attended college in the same city, but his was in the south and hers in the north. The two universities were rather far apart.

When Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu hung up, she was too embarrassed to let Mr. Lù wait for long. When she returned to her dorm, she quickly packed up her bags and went to the school gate.

In the car, Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu told him, “Thank you, uncle, for your trouble.”

Mr. Lù smiled and said, “So polite. Your father and mother aren’t around. Today vacation begun and there’s too many cars on the road. If I let you go home alone, uncle won’t be at ease.”

She smiled.

T City was about two hours drive from S City. When the car arrived at Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu’s house, it was already dark.

Mr. Lù gout out of the car to help her bring in her luggage and asked, “Isn’t it better for you to come eat dinner at our house today?”

Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu shook her head and politely refused, “My parents rushed to the pet center before leaving. Now I’ll have to go pick up Gǔn Gǔn. Uncle Lù, you go home first. I’ll go home and do it a little later.”

Mr. Lù wanted to invite her again, but he saw her insistence and compromised, telling her to pay attention to safety on the road, and he drove away.

After Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu brought everything into the house, she took out her keys and went out again.

Gǔn Gǔn was just one of her reasons to go out.

She went to a nearby shopping mall and bought some bread and milk for breakfast tomorrow, then she went straight to the daily necessities area.

She pushed a shopping cart and shuttled between the shelves. Paper towels, towels, toothbrush and toothpaste, sanitary napkins. . . almost everything she took a lot of.

After finally finding her way out of that section, she moved on to the non-perishable foods. She asked a special staff member for the seeds of crops like mung beans, soybeans, peanuts and other such plants.

Afterwards, she didn’t know what else to think of and returned to the dairy section where she added several cartons of milk to her shopping cart.

. . .

When Jǐ Xiǎo Ōu was standing in front of the checkout counter, the cashier looked at the two full shopping carts with her and hesitantly asked, “Is this all yours?”