The three children rushed to the platform, and the sky-train was about to enter the station. Simon still had time to buy a bottle of orange juice from the vending machine.
He took a sip; the juice was very concentrated, and there were many pulp bits. A conscientious merchant.
In the idle wait, Simon repeatedly felt ashamed of his childishness.
So stupid, getting into an argument with a child.
The most helpless thing was that he found himself becoming increasingly stupid. His young body had no desires, truly much cleaner than an adult's. He wouldn't pay extra attention to the elder sisters and aunts on the street, nor did he have the confusion about the future weighing on his mind.
What did they all say? Flowers may bloom again, but youth never returns; my little bird of youth is gone forever…
Simon was also experiencing rebirth for the first time, with no experience. He had too many things to adjust to: adapting to the era, adapting to his family, adapting to society, and most importantly, adapting to himself.
Su Xiangli: "What are you grinning foolishly about?"
Simon immediately straightened his face, "Who was grinning foolishly? I wasn't."
Su Xiangli silently took out her phone, selected a picture, and held it under Simon's nose. In the photo, a boy wearing a black pure cotton sports jacket was holding a cup of orange juice, showing a goofy smile.
Simon looked bewildered: "You secretly took my picture?"
Baiyang Yangzhen raised his hand, "Apologies, I have a duty to record. According to Chapter 16, Digital Information Flow Restriction, Article 5 of the 'Intelligent Management Regulations,' sentient machines are not permitted to upload visual data that infringes on portrait rights. Your personal information will never be leaked."
Qiu Qiongzh leaned over, "Idiot."
Simon's body trembled. How could I, a dignified man, be bullied by two children? Is there any justice? Is there any law?
He argued, "Hey, I clearly looked very handsome when I smiled."
Su Xiangli let out a giggle, unable to hold back her amusement. She covered her mouth with both hands, making a clucking sound like a hen laying an egg, her eyes curved, reflecting a bright light, like a squinting fox cub.
Qiu Qiongzh glanced at her robot: "Quick, record this interesting story."
TT-zi gave a thumbs-up: "Understood."
Simon argued a few more sentences before realizing he was being foolish again. He couldn't help but comfort himself, "Oh well, it's just this age where even drinking juice can make you feel drunk, and Su Xiangli is just too smart to keep up with his thoughts."
—At this moment, Zhang Yingxuan was reciting English words.
Their destination this time was Zhongshan Wetland Park, southeast of Linhai New District. It would take about half an hour by capsule train, or an hour and a half by sky-train.
The weekend passenger flow was quite large, but when dispersed into the vast park covering 5,300 hectares, it still felt somewhat sparse.
Such parks are not common in eastern China; they are actually the result of urbanization showing mercy. Once, cities were islands in nature, but now nature is an island in cities. By 2080, in China, artificial hardened surfaces had occupied 47.8% of the total area, especially in the east, where it was as high as 76%. To enjoy natural scenery, one had to go to western China and other underdeveloped countries.
Due to global urbanization, nature's regulation of climate has faced significant problems, leading to increasingly abnormal weather.
In the 1950s, the United Nations proposed the "National Climate and Weather Control System (NCAS)," a massive project that continues to this day, artificially simulating natural heat cycles to promote coordinated precipitation.
Man will conquer nature, won't he?
The park Simon and his companions were visiting had an NCAS base station. Usually, many rockets could be seen launching into the sky from there; these were meteorological rockets used for cloud seeding and rainmaking.
This project was semi-confidential. It was said that when the first experimental rocket was launched into the sky, it caused a sensation. A few tourists thought they had stumbled into a military base, but their curiosity got the better of them, and they wandered around, only to be caught by security guards on the spot and taken to the station for an afternoon tea.
Walking along the tourist path all morning, Simon would occasionally sneak glances at the hiking backpack Baiyang Yangzhen was carrying, wondering what delicious food Su Xiangli had prepared.
"So hungry, so hungry, so hungry, I'm really so hungry." After touring a botanical garden, Simon circled the little girl, singing in a voice so awful it sounded like chanting.
Su Xiangli made a shooting gesture at him, "Bang! You're dead!"
"Ah!" Simon dramatically fell onto the lawn. The annual herbaceous plants supported his twenty-kilogram weight, but a sunken outline was still pressed into them. It was like a soft cushion, providing a wonderful sense of support. September in Jiangnan was not yet cold, and with good sun today, the temperature was twenty-four degrees Celsius. The perceived temperature in the sun would be even higher, and the vegetation gave off a pungent smell from being baked.
Simon could smell the fragrance of the juice released when the green grass broke. He didn't intend to get up again, facing the sky. Lenticular clouds accumulated in the northwestern sky, while some cirrocumulus clouds floated in the eastern sky. Blue sky and white clouds; without white clouds, the sky loses its color; without a blue sky, white clouds have no anchor.
From his personal perspective, a sky with clouds was always more beautiful than one without, but it shouldn't be cloudy and gloomy. A monochromatic sky could make one feel depressed; it was most lovely when wind and clouds intertwined.
He still remembered reading a text about fire clouds, which contained extensive descriptions of cloud shapes, making one long for them. If he were to look at clouds himself, he might find it difficult to describe their state. Simon knew he was not good with words, so he decided not to tell the two little girls stories about clouds.
Qiu Qiongzh yawned, "I'm tired."
Su Xiangli looked around. This place was not far from the tourist path. There were a few people scattered along the shallow lake shore on the eastern flatland. To the north and west were deciduous camphor and bamboo forests, and to the south was the botanical garden they had just walked through.
It looked like a suitable place for a picnic.
Simon squinted, listening to the wind rustle past his ears. The airflow moved through the gaps in the grass stems, creating a swishing sound. A red ladybug flew to Simon's earlobe, slowly crawling, like a dandelion landing on his shoulder. There was no physical sensation, but it seemed very noticeable in his mental perception. It was a little itchy, and some hidden poetic feelings welled up in his heart…
What was that Li Bai poem about? Simon silently recalled, something about 'letting east and west'. He pulled out his phone to check. Oh, he was wrong; the poem said, "All birds fly high and far, the lone cloud drifts idly away."
So what was that 'letting east and west' thing?
Oh, it was "The heart is like a white cloud, ever free; the will is like flowing water, letting east and west," from "Investiture of the Gods."
Good thing he didn't try to show off with it, or he would have been exposed!
"Time to eat!"
Simon instinctively did a carp jump, "Coming!"
The two little girls found a flat patch of grass and spread out a picnic blanket. It was a beige checkered blanket, with a bento box for each of them. In addition, there were six kinds of pastries, eight kinds of snacks, and some drinking water and juice.
Simon opened his ceramic lunchbox; it was a box of ten different Japanese sushi pieces, each unique, accompanied by a small dish of yellow mustard and soy sauce.
"Delicious. Did you make it yourself?"
Su Xiangli puffed out her chest, her face full of the pride of a flower of the motherland, "Of course!"
Qiu Qiongzh: "As expected of you."
—At this moment, Zhang Yingxuan was practicing calligraphy.
Mencius once said, "Do not speak while eating or sleeping," but Simon had never seen anyone eat without talking. Su Xiangli suddenly gossiped, "Do you guys know that Teacher Wang likes Teacher Zhou?" Teacher Wang teaches Chinese Language, and Teacher Zhou teaches mathematics. On weekdays, Comrade Wang liked to secretly glance at Miss Zhou; anyone observant could notice.
Simon turned his head and sprayed apple juice on his younger brother's face, "What? No, how do you know?"
He was truly shocked. These kids nowadays are too precocious, aren't they?
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