Those Sweet Times - Chapter 90 Part 1

Translated by Team DHH at http://dhh-workshop.blogspot.com.

Those Sweet Times

Chapter 90 Part 1

Extra: Hu Ge and Keke

It was the Oct 1st long weekend. All the sightseeing sites were crowded with people.

It wasn’t a pleasure to go out during this time. But most people had the long weekend off and it was hard to avoid the crowds.

Laofeng Street was one of the more unique attractions in Nanshan City. Almost every tourist who was visiting Nanshan for the first time would come here following the recommendations on the travel apps.

Ke Ke[1] put her arm around her sister Ke Sha’s arm and looked at Laofeng Street at the head of the street. They saw a packed crowd.

“There’s too many people.” Ke Sha swallowed: “Jiejie, why don’t we just leave?”

Ke Ke glanced at her sister and gave her a look to calm her down. Ke Sha was only 18 years old and had just started college. She was taller than her sister by about half a head. The sisters looked alike with pointed chins, almond shaped eyes, and natural dark brown hair.

“The crowd here isn’t that bad. See for yourself.” Ke Ke took out her cell phone to show pictures to her sister: “See that’s the West Lake, this is the Imperial Palace, and this is the Great Wall. See, see, don’t those people look like ants? Shasha, don’t you feel especially lucky now?” Ke Ke rubbed her younger sister’s head while talking.

Ke Sha expressionlessly nodded: “......Oh, yeah.”

“Come, let’s go in to take a look since we’re here already.”

There were many bakeries at Laofeng Street. It happened to be the Mid Autumn Festival today and all the bakeries had mooncakes on display. The two sisters stopped by at one of the bakeries to pick mooncakes. Ke Ke was a little talkative and kept asking the salesperson what fillings each of the cakes had. Ke Sha stood beside her listening but didn’t make a sound.

After a little while, Ke Sha found her sister spacing out. Her eyes looked blankly out as if she was memorizing something.

“Jiejie, what’s wrong?”

“Oh? It’s nothing.”

“Are you thinking about mom?” Ke Sha asked in a small voice.

Ke Ke patted her younger sister’s shoulder and said: “You got into Nanshan University this year. Mom would be very happy for you up there. Shasha, you’ve done it. I’m also happy for you.”

“En.”

Both of them implicitly didn’t mention their dad.

After buying the mooncakes, the two sisters continued to walk down the street hand in hand. Ke Sha was an attentive person, she noticed that her sister seemed to be in a daze and looked somewhat confused. She asked again: “Jiejie, what’s wrong with you?”

“I don’t know. I just feel like there’s some emptiness in my heart, as if I’ve forgotten something very important. Sometimes, I have strange dreams. There’s always someone who’s very chatty in the dreams.”

“Jiejie, take your time to remember. Sooner or later you’ll remember everything.”

Ke Ke frowned and shook her head: “Shasha, tell me again about the past.”

Ke Sha had told her sister about the things in the past over tens of thousands of times. But even now she still patiently explained it one more time.

“That time dad owed a lot of gambling debts. The loan sharks threatened to take me away and sell me off. Dad didn’t try to do anything about it. I remembered that I was only in 9th grade. There were always people following me wherever I went. I was scared everyday. You said you could get rid of them. I was worried after you left home that day and was full of anxiety that day. I waited for you till very late at night and you didn’t come home. The next day I saw in the TV news that you had had a car accident.” Though she had repeated the story so many times, Ke Sha would still become teary eyed when she reached this part of the story. “After you woke up, you didn’t remember anything and dad ran away. We moved away and changed all our contact information. Those loan sharks finally didn’t come to find us again.”

That period of time was the most difficult time for the sisters.

Ke Ke patted her younger sister’s head and said: “It’s alright now. It’s all passed. As long as we are safe.”

“En. Jiejie, are you remembering something now?”

Ke Ke carefully thought about it and finally rubbed her head and shook it: “No. I don’t know why but I just keep feeling that I’ve missed something important.”

“Take your time, you’ll remember for sure.”

“En, en!”

The sisters continued to walk along the street hand in hand. Then they saw a souvenir shop called “Old Friends.” They entered the shop. It was a small shop but had a lot of people inside. The shop had notebooks, postcards, porcelain cups, and other knick knacks. There was a big blackboard on the wall right next to the checkout counter. The blackboard was filled with postcards. Each postcard was secured on the board with light yellow tape on the top two corners. On each postcard, there were words written with black ink pens. The handwriting and signatures on each card were all different. It looked like they were all written by different people.

Ke Ke curiously looked at all the postcards and asked the sales clerk nearby: “What are these?”

The sales clerk was a young man, slender and tall. He patiently explained: “This is one of the attractions of our shop. If you have someone who you’re thinking about now, you can write a postcard and leave it here. The postcards on the blackboard will be replaced regularly. Who knows, maybe someday the person you’re thinking of would come into our shop and happen to see your postcard. Don’t you think that would be rather romantic?”

“It is quite romantic. But it’s difficult for the person to see it, the probability is too low.”

“You can come more often.”

Ke Ke was amused, so it was just the shop’s promotional gimmick.

[1]: 柯可/Ke Ke is her full name. In previous chapters, she was referred to as 可可/Keke which is  her nickname. It’s a common practice for Chinese nicknames by repeating your first name twice if it’s one character or one of the first name characters if the name is two characters.

Translated by Team DHH at http://dhh-workshop.blogspot.com.