NOVPUBLin Wanning and Zhang Yiyi patted their chests at the same time, making a face that said "that was close."
"Brother Qingfan, you must take good care of it. If it breaks, it’s gone for good!" Lin Wanning nervously lifted the cup to check it, fortunately, it wasn’t damaged.
"Mhm!" Zhang Yiyi nodded in agreement.
"You two little fools, even if this meaningful cup were to break, I’d keep it forever anyway, so it’s still for a lifetime!" Xu Qingfan said while petting their heads as if he were stroking a cat.
"Really?" That was a path Lin Wanning had never considered before; she could only say a man’s mouth truly deceives, as she stared at Xu Qingfan with eyes full of little stars.
"Of course! Didn’t we pinky swear to always be together?" Xu Qingfan had never thought of it in a romantic way; he had always considered them as his little sisters, like raising daughters, and he felt quite accomplished at it.
"Brother Qingfan is the best!"
"Brother is great!"
After hugging Xu Qingfan’s arm and acting coquettishly for a while, Lin Wanning placed the ceramic cup, engraved with the words "Brother Qingfan’s cup," back in the gift box and handed it to Xu Qingfan for safekeeping.
"Don’t worry, I guarantee the cup will still be intact in ten years!" He stretched out his hand and promised them.
"Alright!"
Lin Wanning and Zhang Yiyi also placed their hands on the back of his, as a pledge, pressing down firmly.
Looking at the cup in his hands, Xu Qingfan couldn’t help but think of the useless stone in his room, which Xia Xiaoxiao had given him as a birthday gift when she was very young.
Xu Qingfan had thought many times about discarding it since it took up space, but every time Xia Xiaoxiao came into his room and didn’t see the stone, she would ask, "Where’s the stone I gave you?"
He had no choice but to take it out again from the bottom of a trunk and reluctantly place it in the most conspicuous spot on the desk.
[At that time, she seemed to have said she wished our friendship would last as long as this stone.]
Xu Qingfan stopped daydreaming, looked at the people in front of him, and said, "Wanning and Yiyi have both given me gifts, so should I return the favor and give Wanningyi something to even it out?"
Zhang Yiyi gently shook her head, the young girl clearly didn’t care about these things, because to her, Brother was the best gift of all.
Although Lin Wanning felt the same, having a gift herself would certainly be better, especially one from Brother Qingfan!
"Really, Brother Qingfan prepared a little surprise too?" She asked excitedly, stomping her feet on the spot.
Fortunately, the young girl lived in a detached villa, otherwise the people downstairs might suspect someone was jumping rope above them.
Xu Qingfan didn’t play coy, and pulled out two smoothly polished pieces of small bamboo from his pocket.
"Here, this is it." He handed a piece of bamboo to each Lin Wanning and Zhang Yiyi.
"Ah?" The two looked at the small sticks in their hands, blinking in confusion.
"Brother Qingfan, is this for scratching itches?" Lin Wanning stretched the bamboo to her back to scratch an itch, though it wasn’t as effective as using her hand.
"What itching? This is called a bamboo gun. Haven’t you two ever played with it?"
Xu Qingfan had played with a bamboo gun only in his childhood in a previous life, when his family wasn’t well off and they didn’t have many toys; when visiting the countryside, his grandfather specially made a bamboo gun for him.
After placing two unknown green fruits in the bamboo, he pushed hard with a slightly smaller stick inside, and then the front fruit would be instantly ejected because of the air pressure, creating a loud bang as well.
"Don’t understand."
"Haven’t played."
Lin Wanning and Zhang Yiyi shook their heads at the same time, unable to imagine what the small bamboo segment in their hands was used for, regardless of how much they tried.
"I’ll demonstrate it for you. It might not be very fun, but I made this myself last night." He tore two small pieces from Lin Wanning’s draft paper and squeezed them into balls.
"Yiyi, can I have yours for a second?"
"Alright!"
After taking the bamboo gun from Zhang Yiyi’s hand, he stuffed the two ’ammunitions’, one in front of the other, into two small holes in the bamboo tube.
"Watch closely." He aligned a solid stick with the bamboo hole and pushed forcefully in the next second.
"Pop!"
A loud bang filled the room, and the small paper scraps flew three or four meters away under the thrust.
"Wow~"
"That’s amazing, Brother Qingfan, I want to play too!"
He smiled as he handed the bamboo gun back to Zhang Yiyi, acting as a mechanic to help the two girls make ammunition by hand.
"Bang, bang!"
Two booming sounds erupted in the room, one after the other, clearly, the two girls had mastered the essence of the bamboo gun on their first try.
"That’s amazing, Brother Qing Fan! How did you think of this?" Lin Wanning gazed lovingly at the bamboo in her hands.
Actually, there was nothing special about the bamboo and the bamboo gun wasn’t particularly fun, but under such an atmosphere and because it was a gift from Brother Qing Fan, both girls were very happy.
Actually, as long as someone truly loves you, even if what you give is a very ugly handmade DIY, or just a wild flower or a piece of weed from the roadside, as long as it’s heartfelt, she will still be very happy and feel blessed.
"As long as you guys like it," Xu Qingfan was also very happy.
The bamboo gun was his spontaneous idea when he was setting off fireworks in the countryside and blowing up bamboo yesterday, so he used a knife to cut a small section and put it in his pocket.
Since he only wanted to relive childhood memories, he only made those two guns, and he was even happier that Lin Wanning and Zhang Yiyi liked them.
"Like!" Zhang Yiyi smiled sweetly.
"Super, invincible, universe’s number one like!" Lin Wanning said as well.
"Picking on Yiyi because she can only say two words, huh?" He playfully slapped Lin Wanning’s head.
"Absolutely not!"
After playing with the bamboo gun for a while, the three sat down in front of the computer to discuss how to work on the comic script.
After all, a novel is just a novel, and presenting its content in the form of storyboards still requires quite a bit of effort.
The novel had already serialized three thousand words, and it just got to the point where the trashy male lead was trampled underfoot by the aloof female scholar when he unexpectedly discovered his Golden Finger could copy others’ talents and then he roared the spirited phrase, "Thirty years in the east, thirty years in the west, don’t bully the young when they’re poor!"
There were already tens of thousands of comments in the comment section, after all, it is our own software, so this level of traffic boost is expected.
Of course, more importantly, the novel’s content is captivating, as evidenced by the comments urging for more updates.
"Sword in hand, follow me, kill all the cliffhanger dogs, hahaha Brother Qing Fan this comment is so funny!"
"And this one, my grandma said when she was young, she followed a novel and asked me to finish it for her, looks like I’ll be passing it on to my granddaughter now hahaha..."
Lin Wanning and Zhang Yiyi browsed the comments with gusto, occasionally reading them aloud.
Xu Qingfan’s forehead darkened, killing all the cliffhanger dogs was essentially about himself, and, annoyed, he smacked their heads and snatched back the mouse control: "Don’t forget we’re here to write the comic script, get serious!"
"Brother Qing Fan is being mean again!"
"Super mean."
But the two girls were just mouthing off and quickly returned to a serious state of work.
"I think it can go like this and like this..."
"Not good, how about this and this?"
"Yes, this and this is good!"
"Exactly like that!"
Xu Qingfan, who had no special training in comic scripts, sat in the middle listening to the encrypted conversation of the two girls who were immersed in their work. Lin Wanning and Zhang Yiyi, focused on their tasks, completely ignored Xu Qingfan in the middle and tirelessly typed and deleted text in the Word document.
After nearly an hour, Lin Wanning suddenly patted his shoulder: "Brother Qing Fan, what do you think?"
Zhang Yiyi also looked at him, waiting for a response.
"Ah?"
Xu Qingfan had almost fallen asleep, and he awkwardly scratched the back of his head saying, "I think it’s very good."
"Heehee~ Brother Qing Fan also thinks it’s good!"
"Yeah."
"Let’s start!"
"Yeah!"
(Extra updates tomorrow, haven’t adjusted well since the provincial exam the day before yesterday, still owe two chapters for the monthly ticket updates.)
