‘SEE YOU MORNING’ 093 Please Dress Me Up

The construction of the new factory in Kalispell is progressing rapidly. There is no design process by personnel, no blueprints; instead, materials and equipment are directly brought in to start construction, which should be an expansion of an existing model. At this moment, Li Haojun finally realized what Lily had said about the human resources he could mobilize—it was all the manpower within the entire Kalispell area. They seemed to operate under the unified command of a central system, with almost no communication between individuals, acting as a whole like bees or ants. Li Haojun and Kesiya would conduct approvals and verify results based on the information distributed to them. Sometimes the two of them even became the bottleneck of the system, forcing Li Haojun to recruit more local reserve personnel to participate.
But today he has another task: to go to the Montana Plain area east of Glacier National Park to negotiate crop purchase contracts with farmers from various places. The farmers here do not belong to any industry organization or association, nor are there any capital giants unifying production and the market here, so Li Haojun has to negotiate purchase contracts one by one with small landowners from all over.
To ensure the company has sufficient bargaining power, Talaski BioGen Innovations also owns its own land around Cut Bank, which is used to balance purchase gaps and grow proprietary crops.
Although Li Haojun does not like this kind of work, he readily accepts it if he regards it as a road trip accompanied by Kesiya.
He arrived in Kalispell early in the morning, picked up Kesiya, and drove slowly through the town. Along Highway 2, the distant mountains, which gradually change from emerald green to ochre and then to the snow-capped peaks with permanent snow on their summits, lie at the end of the town’s buildings. The wild call of those distant mountains cannot help but fill people with anticipation for this road trip.
While driving, he glanced at Kesiya sitting in the back seat beside him. She was still wearing the same clothes as before, which was completely not the treatment a girl in her prime should receive. Thinking about how he had bought clothes for Sienna before, he felt a little guilty towards her.
Shortly after leaving the town along Highway 2, Li Haojun turned off Highway 2 onto a mountain path. Following the shore of Lake McDonald, ahead lay the mountain pass leading into Glacier National Park. Against the backdrop of the emerald green valley and the blue sky, half of the lake surface was a deep dark green, and the other half a light grayish blue.
“Do you like it?” Li Haojun asked softly.
“Hmm, it’s beautiful here.”
“I’ve flown over here. From the sky, you can see many lakes. Today we’ll take the road to enjoy the scenery.”
“Okay. Was that during the time we were apart?” Kesiya asked.
“Yes.”
“How was that job?”
“Boring, but…” As soon as the words left his mouth, Li Haojun suddenly wondered if he should mention Sienna to Kesiya.
“What? What do you want to tell me?” Kesiya pressed.
“I met a girl back then, named Sienna. She was very special. Then she left soon after, and I also finished that work assignment. I don’t know why I was assigned that job either.”
“So, do you actually want to talk to me about the reason for that work assignment, or about the girl you met during that job?” Kesiya asked, looking at Li Haojun in the rearview mirror.
“That girl, she has a very special ability. She can peek into my memories and also project consciousness into me.”
“Oh, so do you wish I had that ability too?” Kesiya quickly followed up.
“No, she only has that ability because she has a brain chip implanted.”
After saying that, Li Haojun glanced at the way Kesiya was looking at him. He suddenly wondered if she was putting on a brave face, showing childish competitiveness, or if she was jealous. He quickly explained,
“Actually, her special ability also confused me a lot. I had many strange dreams, and I don’t know if she projected them into me.”
After speaking, he looked at Kesiya, who was still staring at him silently, seemingly not satisfied with his answer.
Li Haojun slowly pulled the car over to the side of the road, sat down on the seat next to Kesiya, leaned over, and gently held her head in his arms. As he brushed the hair from her temples, a smile appeared on Kesiya’s face.
“You want to see me smile, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“You care a lot, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
When they hit the road again, even the entire valley was filled with a light and joyful mood. The emerald green at the foot of the mountain gradually extended upward into tundra, then into mottled brown and red rocks, and finally spread to the snow-capped peaks covered in white ice and snow. Against the blue sky, the towering mountains surrounded the winding road the car was traveling on, and the metallic clatter of the car’s exhaust echoed through the valley, breaking the silence of this secluded place.
The car left Glacier National Park. Instead of driving through the town of Browning as originally planned, Li Haojun stopped. He took Kesiya to a cultural jewelry store in the Indian Reservation.
Kesiya had no idea what he was going to do. She just let him hold her hand and wandered around, browsing various Indian cultural utensils and ornaments until they reached the clothing section.
“See if there’s anything you like.”
“Oh?” Kesiya looked at Li Haojun, silently walked in front of him, and started browsing the clothes. There weren’t many styles, only a few fixed types, but they had different patterns, colors, and totems, all in Indian style.
Kesiya looked around but didn’t choose anything. Li Haojun quickly asked,
“What’s wrong? Don’t you like any of them?”
Kesiya tugged at his hand and said,
“You choose for me.”
Looking at her earnest expression, Li Haojun did not refuse. He picked out a short floral cotton blouse for her, with embroidered lines in plum purple, red, and blue, traditional totem patterns, and a slightly yellowed cotton base that seemed to carry memories full of age.
When choosing the bottom, Li Haojun compared for a long time between a woven colorful skirt and a pair of faux leather pants, but still couldn’t make up his mind. When it came to choosing headwear, Kesiya finally voiced her opinion,
“This feather hat is too exaggerated. I don’t want it.” After saying that, she tugged at Li Haojun’s hand again, stood straight with her feet together, and twisted her body back and forth as she pulled her hands left and right, like an innocent child. In the end, Li Haojun chose colorful decorative hair ties in the same colors as the lines on the blouse.
When they took the selected clothes to the fitting room door, Kesiya asked again,
“Ethan, do you want me to wear the skirt or the pants?” She smiled and looked at him after saying that.
Li Haojun thought for a moment but hadn’t answered yet when Kesiya picked up the faux leather pants and said,
“You want me to wear this for you, don’t you?”
Li Haojun was stunned for a moment, then smiled awkwardly. He suddenly remembered that Kesiya had said before that she could more or less sense his thoughts or feelings. At this moment, Li Haojun seemed to realize that she had probably been speaking rather implicitly back then.
When Kesiya turned around to open the fitting room door and was about to walk in, she suddenly stopped, turned back, and asked,
“Aren’t you coming in with me? Aren’t you afraid of losing me?”
At this moment, Li Haojun became even more certain, because a trace of that exact concern had indeed flashed through his mind just then.
When the two left the cultural jewelry store and looked at Kesiya again in the sunlight on the street, the colorful hair ties in plum purple, blue, red, and white had been woven into her single side braid in different color combinations, resting over her left shoulder. The loose cotton blouse was perfect for this season, with short sleeves hanging down from her shoulders, showing a touch of feminine softness. Her full chest also nicely filled out the loose blouse, faintly revealing her slender waist.
The faux leather pants were tight-fitting and coffee-colored, with large and small diamond-shaped cutouts woven from leather cords on both sides of the legs, extending from the cuffs all the way up to the hip bones. Due to the tight elasticity of the fabric, the skin on Kesiya’s thighs was pressed flush with the surface of the pants.
The light green suede hollow-out high cone-heel mid-calf leather boots had to be worn with the beige boot linings turned inside out in this early summer season.
Kesiya tucked a corner of the side hem of her blouse into her waistband, then stood in front of Li Haojun with her legs apart, shifted her weight, then turned around and asked,
“Do you like it?”
“I like it.”