Chapter 34 Buying Flowers
"By the way, have you eaten?" Chen Mo asked while driving.

"Not yet. In our job, we are always so busy during holidays." Xu Hongdou shook her head.

"How can this be possible? No matter how busy you are, you have to pay attention to eating." Chen Mo frowned.

"You eat so irregularly and always make do with what you have. No wonder your stomach is in trouble."

"I'm too busy tonight, and I'm too tired to have much appetite during dinner. I'll just eat some bread and order some takeout when I get home." Xu Hongdou said with a tired look on her face.

"Don't order takeout. You'll have to wait half an hour for the takeout. Just eat outside. I haven't eaten yet either." Chen Mo said.

"Huh? Didn't you say in the group that you were going home for dinner today?" Xu Hongdou asked puzzledly.

"Don't mention it." Chen Mo thought about going home to sing a song specifically to give his mother a surprise, but he didn't expect that in the end he didn't even get to eat a bite of food.

"My parents are enjoying their own world and they think I'm an eyesore." Chen Mo said with a depressed look on his face.

"Haha, uncle and aunt are still so loving." Xu Hongdou said with a smile.

"We are an old married couple. They just put a bunch of flowers on the table and my dad cooked a meal himself."

"After being married for so long, it's good enough to still be like this."

"You are quite easy to satisfy." Chen Mo glanced at Xu Hongdou and said.

"What's important during festivals is the thought and the feeling of being cared for and remembered, not the value of the gift," Xu Hongdou said seriously.

Chen Mo didn't comment, but the corners of his mouth rose slightly.

The two of them found a large shopping mall nearby and prepared to look for something to eat.

After parking the car, the two were about to walk towards the food court outside the mall when they were stopped by a little girl.

The little girl was wearing a white skirt and cute pigtails. She was carrying a small bamboo basket with flowers of various colors in it.

The little girl said sweetly with a lovely smile:
"Brother, can you buy a bouquet of flowers for this beautiful sister?"

Chen Mo and Xu Hongdou looked at each other, then smiled and asked the little girl, "Little girl, are you selling flowers by yourself?"

"No, I came here with my mother." The little girl turned and looked at a flower cart not far away.

Chen Mo followed the little girl's gaze and saw a woman tending the flower stall. While she was busy, she would occasionally look at the little girl with concern.

"You're so young and yet you can help your mother." Chen Mo praised.

"Of course, I sold a lot tonight!" said the little girl proudly.

Come to think of it, on a holiday like today, such a cute little girl stands in front of a young couple and calls them "beautiful sister". How can the girls not be happy?

After all, how could a child lie?
When a girl is happy, it's time for the boy to show off.

On Valentine's Day, most couples in love would not refuse to buy a flower to express their love.

"Brother, would you like to buy one?" The little girl took out a bunch of red roses from the basket and asked for sales.

"Little girl, do you know who usually gives roses to whom?" Chen Mo asked, bending down slightly. Otherwise, he was too tall and the little girl had to look up to talk to him.

"The rose means I love you, so it is given to lovers. It's just right for you to give it to your girlfriend, brother."

The little girl introduced it seriously with a crisp voice, which gave off a cute contrast.

Xu Hongdou was also touched by the cuteness of the little girl. She bent down and said to the little girl with a gentle smile, "But little girl, I am not this brother's girlfriend."

"Yes, little friend, sister is not brother's girlfriend yet, so brother can't give her flowers yet." Chen Mo also said with an "embarrassed" expression.

"Hmm," the little girl tilted her head, frowned, thought for a while, and said with bright eyes, "Brother, if you buy this flower to confess your love to me, I will be your girlfriend."

Chen Mo was amused by what the little girl said after careful consideration: "You know how to express your feelings?"

"That's right. I'm already in primary school and I know a lot." The little girl raised her cute little head.

"Then I have to ask my sister if she is willing to agree to my confession." Chen Mo said and looked at Xu Hongdou beside him.

The little girl stood in the middle position in front of the two of them. Chen Mo and Xu Hongdou both leaned on their knees and spoke to the little girl, so the two of them were relatively close.

Chen Mo could clearly smell a fragrance, but he didn't know whether it was the fragrance of flowers or hair.

Feeling Chen Mo's inquiring gaze, Xu Hongdou gave Chen Mo a reproachful look, which was very beautiful. Chen Mo suddenly felt that the little girl in front of him was not so cute after all.

Xu Hongdou ignored Chen Mo and teased the little girl: "But my sister doesn't want to agree to my brother, what should I do?"

The little girl obviously had never encountered such a situation before. She scratched her head a little at a loss: "Hmm"

The people she met before would ask how much if they wanted to buy something, and would just walk away if they didn't want to buy something. At most, they would compliment her on how cute she was. She had never met anyone who wanted to buy something but couldn't find a reason to do so.

The little girl cannot understand the complexity of adults' emotions. To her, walking together means they are good friends, and good friends mean they like each other, and if they like each other, they can give each other flowers.

Chen Mo looked at the little girl's confused and anxious expression, and stopped making things difficult for her. "Do you have any other flowers? Brother will buy another bunch of flowers for sister."

"There are none in my basket, but my mom has some." The little girl looked at her basket and said, her basket was basically filled with roses of various colors, white, pink, blue, and yellow.
"Then let's go check on your mother." Chen Mo said with a smile.

"Okay, this way." The little girl said and walked in front to lead the way.

Seeing how cute the little girl was, Xu Hongdou was willing to buy a bouquet of flowers, but she felt it was not appropriate to let Chen Mo deliver it, so she said, "I'll buy the flowers later."

"You're going to buy it for me?" Chen Mo's eyes widened in surprise, and he said a little embarrassedly, "How can I do that?"

Seeing Chen Mo still looking a little "shy", Xu Hongdou said unhappily, "I'll buy it for myself!"

"Oh oh. I thought it was the other way around." Chen Mo muttered.

"Hmph~ Who said that flowers must be given as gifts?" Xu Hongdou gave Chen Mo a slightly arrogant look.

At this time, the little girl walking in front heard them talking, turned around and said seriously: "Mom said that today's flowers are usually bought by boyfriends for their girlfriends."

After hearing what the child said, Chen Mo nodded in agreement and said to Xu Hongdou, "Listen, you should listen to the children more. Children will not lie."

Xu Hongdou ignored Chen Mo and said to the little girl, "Little friend, have you forgotten that your sister just said that you and your brother are not boyfriend and girlfriend?"

The little girl looked at Chen Mo again with suspicion. She always felt that the two older brothers and sisters in front of her were lying to her because she was young. So many brothers and sisters she met tonight were like this, so why aren't you two?

Seeing the little girl's puzzled look, Chen Mo nodded and gave an affirmative answer: "Well, not yet."

Xu Hongdou couldn't help but patted Chen Mo's arm: "Hey, you are a person who is not, what do you mean by not yet? Don't mislead the children, okay?"

Chen Mo looked "confused" and asked, "What did I mislead? Does it make any difference?"

Xu Hongdou said word by word: "No, it means no. It means no now, but there may be in the future."

"What might it be?" Chen Mo asked.

Xu Hongdou looked at Chen Mo pretending to be innocent and confused, with an expression of "you think too much", and kicked Chen Mo's ankle in anger: "Nothing!"

"Wow, you murdered me!" Chen Mo took a big step back exaggeratedly.

"Murder of what?" Xu Hongdou asked after a quick glance.

"Murdering a neighbor's friend." Chen Mo patted himself and said.

"Hmph~" Xu Hongdou shook her hair and quickened her pace forward.

Chen Mo looked at Xu Hongdou's back and muttered softly, "It doesn't matter if you say it or not."

"Hey, wait for me, why are you walking so fast?" There were a lot of people in the mall on Valentine's Day, so Chen Mo hurried to catch up.

"Brother, this is it. This is my mother's stall." The little girl took Chen Mo and Xu Hongdou to a flower cart stall.

The woman at the flower stall took the flower basket from the little girl with one hand, wiped the sweat off her forehead with the other hand, then asked Chen Mo with a smile: "Hello, both of you, what would you like?" "Mom, I don't want roses." The little girl quickly looked up and said to the woman.

"Mom gets it. You've worked hard, my daughter. You must be tired. Come sit on a chair and rest for a while." The woman touched her daughter's head lovingly.

"I'm not tired, it's my mother who is working hard." The little girl shook her head.

Chen Mo and Xu Hongdou also smiled as they watched the tender scene between mother and son.

"Your daughter is so cute and sensible." Xu Hongdou praised.

"Thank you. It happened to be the weekend, and she insisted on coming out with me."

"I can help." The little girl said with a frown.

"Yes, yes, Nannan helped mom a lot tonight." The woman smiled lovingly.

"Hey, that's not the case. Just a little help." The little girl touched her head a little shyly.

The three adults present were all amused.

"What would you like to order?" the woman asked.

"Hmm." Chen Mo looked at the flower stall.

I have to say, this flower cart has quite a wide variety of flowers, and they are all relatively large bouquets, beautifully packaged, unlike the ones in the little girl's basket, which are all single roses simply wrapped in transparent paper.

Chen Mo saw a bunch of white and light green flowers, which looked fresh and elegant, and asked the proprietress, "What kind of flowers are these?"

"It's lisianthus," said the woman.

Chen Mo didn't know much about flowers. Of the entire flower stall, he could only recognize roses and sunflowers; he couldn't recognize the others at all.

You have certainly seen the appearance of the flower and you have certainly heard the name of the flower, but how to match the two is a problem.

Well, to put it bluntly, I don’t know him.

So Chen Mo’s idea was very simple, as long as it was not a rose, just pick one that looked good.

"How about this?" Chen Mo turned and asked Xu Hongdou.

"It's quite beautiful." Xu Hongdou nodded.

"Then take this one." Chen Mo said to the proprietress.

"Okay." The proprietress nodded and took out the flowers.

"Madam, how much is it?" Xu Hongdou took out her cell phone and wanted to pay.

"Ninety-nine yuan."

"Hey, what are you doing?" Chen Mo reached out to cover Xu Hongdou's phone camera, then quickly took out his own phone to scan the code and paid.

"Even children know that when a man and a woman buy flowers, the man has to buy them. You will make me laugh at the children."

Chen Mo glanced at the little girl next to him and raised his eyebrows at her. "Don't you agree, little girl?"

The little girl nodded in agreement.

Seeing that Chen Mo had already paid, Xu Hongdou did not insist and just said, "Then I'll treat you to dinner later."

"Let's talk about it later." Chen Mo said.

Chen Mo took the flowers from the proprietress and handed them to Xu Hongdou.

"Thank you." Xu Hongdou took the flowers and said.

"What's the big deal? How can a girl celebrate Valentine's Day without flowers?"

"If you don't have a lover, you can give it to a friend."

"We have to have what others have, otherwise it would be embarrassing to see others holding flowers while we are the only ones without them."

"People who don't know would think we can't afford it." Chen Mo joked.

Xu Hongdou ignored Chen Mo's nonsense and just lowered her head to smell the flowers.

"By the way, Madam Boss, what is the meaning of this flower?" Chen Mo turned around and asked.

The proprietress looked at the well-matched couple with a smile and said, "Eustia is also called thornless rose, and its flower language is: everlasting love."

Chen Mo: “.”

Xu Hongdou: "."

Chen Mo looked at Xu Hongdou a little awkwardly. After going around in a big circle, he ended up back at the starting point. What was the difference between this and just buying roses?

But Chen Mo didn't think about it. Today is Valentine's Day, and the boss lady is selling flowers, so she must have prepared some flowers related to love.

So no matter how Chen Mo chooses flowers, the language of the flowers will be related to love.

"There's a small card inside the flower, you can take a look at it." The proprietress reminded with an auntie's smile.

Upon hearing this, Xu Hongdou pushed aside the bouquet with her hands and found a card inside with a sentence written on it.

"What's written on the card?" Chen Mo also wanted to come over to take a look.

"Nothing, let's go and find something to eat. I'm a little hungry."

Xu Hongdou put the card back into the flower, then looked around, found a direction and walked forward.

"Oh, then let's go quickly." Seeing that Xu Hongdou didn't mind the meaning of the flower language, Chen Mo didn't worry about the flowers anymore.

"Goodbye, little friend." Chen Mo waved to the little girl.

"Goodbye, brother and sister." The little girl also waved and said to the two of them.

"Goodbye, little girl." Xu Hongdou also turned around and said goodbye to the little girl.

"Be careful." Chen Mo saw two children chasing each other and ran towards him, so he quickly pulled Xu Hongdou to the inside.

"Thank you." Xu Hongdou was about to say thank you, but she found that Chen Mo did not let go of her hand.

Chen Mo pulled her wrist to avoid the oncoming crowd, and while paying attention to avoiding the people on both sides, he led her forward, mumbling:

"It was indeed too long just now. I didn't pay attention."

"Next time if you're hungry, just tell me."

"We should buy the flowers again when we get back from eating."

"Otherwise, if you stay hungry for too long, your stomach will get uncomfortable again..."

Xu Hongdou let Chen Mo pull her. She looked at Chen Mo's solid back, listened to Chen Mo's muttering, pursed her lips, and a warm feeling flowed through her heart.

It seems just like what was written on the card just now:
My unchanging love is only for you. I am wary of this world, but in front of you, I am willing to let down all my defenses and embrace you.

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(End of this chapter)