Chapter 316: Making a Wish
After everyone came into the house, the living room, usually quite spacious, suddenly felt a bit crowded.
There were seven people in total. They gave the sofa to the three women, while the others each took a small stool and sat around the table.
Wu Dongming clearly had a bit of a fear of women. He sat alone in the far corner. From the moment he entered, he hadn’t said a word. He also didn’t prepare a gift, and just nervously played with his phone.
An Han only glanced at him once before busying himself with welcoming the other guests. Su Peng also acted like the “man of the house,” asking everyone to take bowls, chopsticks, and drinks, and placing all the snacks on the table.
Lin Yi had a bright and cheerful personality and could drink well, so she quickly blended in with the group of guys. But An Kexin was a bit shy, and just like Wu Dongming, she hid quietly in the corner.
“I also bought a cake. It’ll be delivered later.”
Su Peng sat on the armrest of the sofa, one hand around An Han’s shoulder.
He knew Long Xing had a bit of interest in An Han. Even though Long Xing seemed to like someone else now, Su Peng still instinctively showed affection in front of him.
“I don't really like cake…” An Han mumbled while using his chopsticks to poke open the package of lamb slices. Then he looked up and asked, “What gift did you prepare for me?”
“Well… about that…” Su Peng looked away awkwardly and warned him ahead of time, “If you don’t like it, don’t get mad.”
Su Peng had known about An Han's birthday for too short a time, so he didn’t have time to prepare something carefully. Otherwise, he even wanted to make a handmade gift, something that’s almost never a bad choice.
“Am I that unreasonable?”
“Not really…”
An Han glared at Su Peng, then turned to look at the others and saw that the hot pot was already boiling. They were all cooking meat while drinking.
He quickly grabbed his chopsticks and snatched the meat that Chen Junjie had just cooked.
Chen Junjie was about to curse at him, but An Han said confidently, “It’s my birthday today! What’s wrong with eating two pieces of your meat?!”
“Exactly!” Lin Yi echoed from the side.
“You always steal my cooked meat. It’s like you only target me!”
Chen Junjie complained like a grumpy housewife, but unlike before, he didn’t fight back harshly. Instead, he stole a slice of meat Long Xing was cooking.
Long Xing refused to lose and immediately fought back with his chopsticks, stirring the hot pot until it was a mess.
“So childish…” An Kexin whispered a comment.
“Men are like that.” An Han agreed.
He hadn’t been living as a woman for long, so his thinking still leaned more toward the male side. He understood very well how men thought, and he totally understood their silly behavior.
“It’s mine now! Long Xing, you’re not very good at this. That’s not how you should use chopsticks!”
Chen Junjie stole another slice and proudly mocked Long Xing. He then opened his mouth wide and slowly put the meat in, making an exaggerated “enjoying it” expression. The way he did it was so annoying that even An Han felt like punching him.
Actually, there was more than enough meat for everyone to eat until full, but Long Xing and Chen Junjie still insisted on fighting over one single slice for half a day.
Watching the silly chaos in front of him, An Han couldn’t help smiling, though he also felt a bit sad.
Originally, he would have been part of this chaos. But after becoming a girl, even the usually hostile Chen Junjie became much more gentle with him. And since it was already the second half of their third year, scenes like this would only become less and less common.
“Long Xing, what are you planning to do after you graduate?” An Han suddenly asked about the future.
Long Xing froze for a moment, then answered, “I’ll see… My family wants me to become an assistant police officer first, and after two years take the exam for a permanent position.”
“What about you, Junjie?”
“Me? None of your damn business.” But after swearing as usual, he answered honestly, “I don’t know. I’m not good at anything. I’ll wait for the spring recruitment and see which company is blind enough to hire me.”
Wu Dongming was preparing for graduate school, and Su Peng was planning to study abroad, so there was no need to ask them.
An Kexin was the first to speak. “I want to be a kindergarten teacher. I’m taking the exams now. I hope I can finish all the certificates before the first semester of senior year.”
“Your personality fits that pretty well.”
Lin Yi rolled her eyes. “You didn’t study anything, you don’t know anything. You’re just giving up on life.”
“After asking everyone else, what about you?” She turned to ask An Han.
But An Han could only shake her head in confusion.
Her situation was a bit better than Lin Yi’s and Chen Junjie’s. She paid attention in most of her major classes, and she could finish assignments by herself. But she didn’t like her major.
When she applied to college, her mother chose computer science because it had good job prospects, without thinking about whether she liked it or not.
“Maybe… being a teacher sounds nice?” she replied hesitantly.
“Right! I also think being a teacher is good!” An Kexin strongly agreed, nodding nonstop.
But they weren’t from a teacher-training university, nor in a teacher-training major, so they didn’t have much advantage if they wanted to become teachers.
Su Peng spoke from the side, “It’s fine. I’ll take care of you.”
“What are you thinking?!”
An Han glared at him and knocked on his head.
Even though she felt touched, she had lived as a man for over twenty years. The values she grew up with made her strongly dislike the idea of depending on someone else or living off a partner. If she could support herself, she didn’t plan to rely on a man.
Besides, that might set a bad example for her little sister…
When she looked back at the others, she saw Lin Yi looking at her with envy.
“That sounds so nice…” Lin Yi mumbled with her mouth full of meat.
Someone knocked on the door. Su Peng quickly got up, opened it, and came back with a very big cake box. “Clear the table a bit, make some space.”
“Why is the box so big?”
“It’s three layers. If I wasn’t afraid of wasting food, I actually wanted to order a nine-layer one.”
“Even three layers might be too much,” An Han said, just before she noticed Lin Yi’s eyes shining like a cat seeing its favorite snack. She almost stood up from her seat to welcome the cake, looking like she might drool.
An Han had never noticed before that this girl liked sweets so much.
“Was it expensive?”
“1,800 yuan. Not bad.”
Su Peng opened the cake box, and both An Kexin and Lin Yi gasped loudly. “So pretty!”
Then the two girls immediately stopped the guys who were about to cut the cake. They took out their phones and started snapping photos nonstop.
“We still need candles, a wish, and a birthday song. Why are you all in such a hurry?”
“That’s too much trouble…”
An Han wasn’t very willing. She felt that making a wish and singing birthday songs was pointless and kind of embarrassing.
But thanks to the system’s training, her shame tolerance had become very flexible. She quickly accepted the girls’ suggestion and personally placed two candles on the cake and lit them.
Chen Junjie hurried to pull the curtains closed, blocking the evening sunlight. Su Peng turned off the room lights. The room went completely dark, with only the glow of phone screens.
“Blow the candles and make a wish!”
An Han frowned slightly with a bit of a headache. She bent down to blow the candles while thinking nonstop.
Make a wish? She didn’t really have one…
She puffed up her cheeks and blew out the candles in one breath.
Then Lin Yi led everyone in singing the birthday song. None of the guys had drunk much, so they were still stiff and embarrassed. The singing was messy and off-key.
An Han closed her eyes and clasped her fingers together, pretending to make a wish.
She just wanted to go through the motions, but many faces suddenly flashed through her mind.
Her parents, her sister, her friends, and Su Peng…
And also the system, the strange presence that had no human form, only a floating text projection, that suddenly barged into her life.
Thinking back to the past half-year, everything she had gained and lost…
I hope my sister can behave better and stop making Mom’s blood pressure rise.
I hope my parents stay healthy.
I hope I won’t lose any more friends.
I hope I can keep living a calm and peaceful life with Su Peng…