Nine months after that Qingming Jie, after Ba has gone back to his Ten Rings, Ge has gone back to parking cars or something? in San Francisco, and Xialing has gone back to her club, the Xu family group chat lights up with a message from Ge:
Spring Festival in SF? Katy’s family wants to meet you all.
The group chat was so named only semi-ironically and, at Ba’s insistence, includes Mattias? The jury’s still out for Xialing on what she thinks about that. And yet, Ba almost never texts, he’s a dinosaur in that way. Of course, allowances must be made for a thousand-year-old man. Mattias prefers the voice message function as well, one-hand and all that. Still, it was a way to keep in touch.
And as a condition of Ge and Xialing’s promise to keep in touch, Ba has also promised to start using the Ten Rings and the ten rings to help people rather than cause more destructions in the world, and from what news Xialing has caught over the last few months, it seems he’s keeping to that promise. That doesn’t change the fact that Xialing doesn’t remember the last time she really celebrates Spring Festival, though. After Mama died, there is never any celebration at the Ten Rings compound, and after she runs away, the holidays are only a reminder of what she has lost, of how her mother, father, and brother all have abandoned her in their own ways.
Xialing texts back: Are you sure that Katy’s family wants to meet us?
Ge: Of course, what are you talking about??
Xialing: It just seems like an odd bunch, Katy and her family, Ba the immortal warlord, you, me, and our adopted brother the machete-armed assassin. Do they know what they’re getting into? What do Americans even do for Spring Festival?
Ge: They’re Chinese-American, and pretty much what we do for Spring Festival, I guess.
Xialing: And what do WE do for Spring Festival?
There is a long pause. Then, finally:
Ge: We come and see me in SF, because I’m too broke to travel halfway across the world again.
Later, when Ba has sent Xialing a voice message telling her of the time and date his private jet – because of course he has a private jet – would pick her up (without any consultation of whether such time and date suits her, but then she supposes they must take baby steps), Xialing can’t help but think to herself, this is either going to be a disaster, or the most awkward Spring Festival ever. Whichever it will be, it probably will still beats spending the holidays alone.
no subject
Nine months after that Qingming Jie, after Ba has gone back to his Ten Rings, Ge has gone back to parking cars or something? in San Francisco, and Xialing has gone back to her club, the Xu family group chat lights up with a message from Ge:
Spring Festival in SF? Katy’s family wants to meet you all.
The group chat was so named only semi-ironically and, at Ba’s insistence, includes Mattias? The jury’s still out for Xialing on what she thinks about that. And yet, Ba almost never texts, he’s a dinosaur in that way. Of course, allowances must be made for a thousand-year-old man. Mattias prefers the voice message function as well, one-hand and all that. Still, it was a way to keep in touch.
And as a condition of Ge and Xialing’s promise to keep in touch, Ba has also promised to start using the Ten Rings and the ten rings to help people rather than cause more destructions in the world, and from what news Xialing has caught over the last few months, it seems he’s keeping to that promise. That doesn’t change the fact that Xialing doesn’t remember the last time she really celebrates Spring Festival, though. After Mama died, there is never any celebration at the Ten Rings compound, and after she runs away, the holidays are only a reminder of what she has lost, of how her mother, father, and brother all have abandoned her in their own ways.
Xialing texts back: Are you sure that Katy’s family wants to meet us?
Ge: Of course, what are you talking about??
Xialing: It just seems like an odd bunch, Katy and her family, Ba the immortal warlord, you, me, and our adopted brother the machete-armed assassin. Do they know what they’re getting into? What do Americans even do for Spring Festival?
Ge: They’re Chinese-American, and pretty much what we do for Spring Festival, I guess.
Xialing: And what do WE do for Spring Festival?
There is a long pause. Then, finally:
Ge: We come and see me in SF, because I’m too broke to travel halfway across the world again.
Later, when Ba has sent Xialing a voice message telling her of the time and date his private jet – because of course he has a private jet – would pick her up (without any consultation of whether such time and date suits her, but then she supposes they must take baby steps), Xialing can’t help but think to herself, this is either going to be a disaster, or the most awkward Spring Festival ever. Whichever it will be, it probably will still beats spending the holidays alone.