Chapter 151 - The Sycamore Tree and the Girl

The Three Stooges caused quite a stir when it was released in North America, perhaps because this movie with a sense of self-criticism touched everyone so deeply that the movie's box office on its opening day didn't break the record, but the box office in the following week exploded in almost geometric progression, and within a week of its release it had reached the top of the North American box office charts. Hollywood critics seldom give a high score to a commercial sell-out movie, but Three Stooges is an exception, and the fact that it was recognized by both audiences and critics is proof of the film's excellence.

Lin Mingyang mercilessly satirizes the current examination and education system in the movie, but he himself had to honestly sit back in the classroom after attending the film festival to prepare for his own coursework exams. By the time the long summer vacation came, the North American box office of Three Idiots had already exceeded 100 million dollars, and after deducting the distribution costs and the theater's share of the profits, the assets in Lin Mingyang's bank account had increased by more than 40 million dollars in a very short period of time. Making so much money at once was something he hadn't even thought of before. While others were worried about not having enough money, Lin Ming Yang had a headache about how he should spend more money.

The success of Three Idiots had sparked renewed media interest in Lin Mingyang, who had returned home for the summer vacation and returned to a simple life. He stayed home every day and refused all interviews. During his days of simplicity, newspapers and the Internet became an important channel for him to learn about social dynamics.

As usual, after returning from his morning exercise, Lin Mingyang picked up the day's newspaper from the mailbox at the front door, poured himself a glass of milk in the kitchen, and nibbled on bread while flipping through the newspaper. Both the current affairs and economic pages he just skimmed over in a hurry, there was no topic of particular interest, and his eyes usually didn't linger too long on these two pages. And the entertainment section was habitually skipped by him, and he directly flipped to the social section that he most often paid attention to.

From murder cases to the loss of a cat from a certain old lady's house, this page encompassed a wide variety of information, Lin Mingyang browsed through the entire page, and his eyes finally stopped on a piece of news with a very inconspicuous title.

"A girl named Martha Baker in Orlando, Florida, lived in a sycamore tree in the Caton neighborhood for a week in protest of the random destruction of trees by municipal projects. The neighborhood is in the process of renovating its streets and that sycamore tree is facing the chopping block. Martha's practice was supported by many residents of the neighborhood, but her parents had to climb a ladder every day to be able to bring food to their daughter. According to the project manager, the sycamore tree is located at the intersection of a newly constructed road, and if retained will severely impact traffic in the neighborhood, and they are currently attempting to open a dialogue with the girl in hopes of resolving the issue appropriately."

The Caton neighborhood was not that far from Lin Mingyang's home, it was just over ten minutes away, and after reading this brief message, Lin Mingyang suddenly became interested in the girl. Compared to the boring topic of how the girl settled for eating and going to the toilet in the tree, Lin Mingyang was more interested in knowing why she did it. With a strong curiosity, Lin Mingyang walked out of the house, he wanted to go and see that girl with his own eyes.

The sycamore tree in the newspaper grew very tall, although the newspaper did not tell the specific location of the sycamore tree, but a long way away Lin Mingyang found it. Around the sycamore tree there were no trees taller than it, and from a distance its shadow was somewhat lonely. When walking under the tree, Lin Ming Yang however found it to be bustling. Under the tree surrounded a group of people, in addition to engineers, there are journalists, police and firefighters, of course, there are also many people like Lin Mingyang "happened" to pass by.

The person in charge of the project had gotten permission from the owner of the sycamore tree to cut down the tree immediately, and if the girl continued to stay in the tree, according to the state law, she violated the right to free disposal of other people's property. The girl's parents are communicating with her from a ladder erected by the firemen, and if they cannot persuade their daughter, then the firemen and police will have to get the girl down by force.

In the end, the girl helplessly compromised, and when she came down from the tree, her eyes had cried like two puffy walnuts. Because they didn't want their daughter to see the scene of the sycamore tree being chopped down, the girl's parents refused the reporter's interview and hurriedly took the girl away. Lin Mingyang witnessed all this from the sidelines, and his heart could not help but feel a little saddened. On the way back, he always felt that this scene was déjà vu, as if he had read it in some novel.

In order to verify his judgment, Lin Ming Yang called Green Nutt after he returned home, that guy's reading was much broader than Lin Ming Yang's, maybe he knew about this novel.

Nat had said that he would be vacationing in Hawaii with his parents this summer, so the first thing Lin Ming Yang asked after he got on the phone was how he was doing over there.

"Don't mention it, it's terrible, there are a lot of beautiful women on the beach, but you know I don't like any of these!" Greene Nutter complained on the other end of the phone.

Lin Ming Yang guessed that this would be the outcome, he described to Nat what he had seen about the sycamore tree and the girl, "In the novels you've read, is there this similar plot?"

"There shouldn't be anyone who can write things that happen in reality into a novel so quickly..." said Grim Nath who at first felt that Lin Ming Yang's idea was a bit strange, he was sure that he hadn't read any similar novels, and in the end, Lin Ming Yang hung up the phone with some regret.

Grimm Nath was enjoying sunbathing on the beach at this time, the greatest pleasure of a normal person at this time was to look at the hot bikini beauties around him, but Nath had no such hobbies, and in order to pass the time he could only take a novel and lie down on a folding chair to flip through it. This was something he had accidentally found in a nearby bookstore, when the title of this novel attracted him.

Julie, the heroine of the novel, was a very different little girl. The youngster is ready to fall in love at the age of seven, and she pesters Bryce, the new boy from the neighborhood, with a bold and passionate demeanor that scares Bryce into avoiding her like the plague. Bryce's dad doesn't like Julie either, and is even more annoyed that Julie's dad is an amateur painter and always makes fun of his ugly, overgrown yard. In short, Julie's family was the oddballs of the neighborhood, and Julie was a little weirdo, but such a little nuisance was extremely beautiful, with long chestnut hair, big lake-green eyes, and a smile that melted like ice cream in the summer.

Despite what the novel portrayed, Nat had a hard time imagining sweet little princess-like Julie running around after a brat. Of course, the novel started off by explaining why Julie would like Bryce, but that reason didn't seem very convincing to Nat. What really drew Nat in after reading a few chapters was this narrative device that the author of the novel used.

As both Julie and Bryce's lives change slowly and subtly as they get older, their perspectives on each other and the world at large subtly change as well. The novel has a very detailed portrayal of the character growth experienced by the two heroes and heroines. Most romance novels are event-driven rather than character-driven, and the psychological transformation and behavioral choices of the characters are often dominated by one-time or several sudden events.

As she reads on, Nat realizes that this novel, titled Thumping Hearts, is truly different, in that what the author is trying to portray, is the character's growth and maturation process in everyday life. Julie did not grow up with a love of thinking; she realized the difference between the appearance of beauty and the inside of beauty step by step in her natural pursuit of beauty; Bryce also learned to listen to his inner voice and learn to be brave, little by little, starting from a cowardly boy.

Nat spent two days reading the novel. Although he never thought there was any spark between Julie and Bryce, he had to admit that the scene at the end of the novel was extremely moving. Nat of course knows that the angelic Julie in real life is unlikely to exist, naturally more understand a poor family of parents to educate their children to go their own way, the pursuit of illusory ideals and spiritual beauty is how difficult, but to see such a beautiful character and family is ultimately a very happy thing, even in the novel, after the heart is still a deep sigh.

After sighing, he suddenly thought of the phone call Lin Mingyang called before, the girl and the sycamore tree, these two words in his mind flashed like lightning, he picked up his hand this novel, the cover is the boy and girl sitting side by side on the tree trunk, looking into the distance I do not know whether it is the sunrise or sunset picture.

Nat's heart burst with ecstasy, although he was not sure that the tree in the painting must be a sycamore, but he knew very well that the novel did have a heroine on the front page of the local newspaper for preventing her neighbor from cutting down a tree. It was also because of this incident that the hero, Bryce's grandfather, Chet, noticed Julie, a particularly pivotal figure, and the first person to help Bryce see the fascinating iridescent light emanating from Julie.

Upon discovering this, Nat impatiently touched his pants pocket, only to remember that he had left his cell phone charging in his hotel room and hadn't brought it out at all. Just as Nat was about to bring up the idea of returning to the hotel, the gently brushing sea breeze unintentionally sent the chatter of a few bikini-clad bathing suit girls next to him to his ears.

Several of the girls were chattering about their favorite male celebrities, and Lin Mingyang's name had unsurprisingly appeared in the middle of their conversation. Nat pretended to read a book, and by eavesdropping on their conversation, he eventually determined that these girls were all fans of Lin Ming Yang, and then an idea suddenly came to him.

"Hey, a few beauties, I overheard you guys seem to be talking about Felix Lin!" Grim-Nat walked up to the girls, then lowered his voice with a mysterious face, "I know Felix, and I also know his phone number."

A few girls looked at the lewd guy in front of them with wide eyes, then poofed and all laughed. These girls have a good figure, and the body is voluptuous, guinea swimsuit and very thin, round shrugged breasts in the flowery branches of the delicate laughter trembled and swayed up. Fortunately, Green Nutt is not good at women's color, or see this scene really should be swallowing saliva.

One of the girls wearing a pink-colored swimsuit looked flirtatious and gave a thumbs-up towards Grimm Nutt, "You've got a good excuse for picking up girls, but unfortunately you're not our type!"

The sisters beside her burst into another fit of laughter, and Grimm-Nat stood there expressionlessly, waiting for them to have laughed enough before he then continued, "I'm not joking with you guys. I really do know Felix Lim, because he and I live in the same dormitory, and if you guys still don't believe me, anyone who wants to lend me their phone, I'll call him right now!"

"If you want to use this method to get the phone number of one of us, I advise you to give up on that intention!" The one who spoke was still the same girl who had complimented Grim-Nat on her creative reasons for hitting on her earlier.

"I can lend you my cell phone!" The brown-haired girl wearing a blue bikini beside her suddenly "mutinied", ignoring the puzzled gazes of her companions around her, she lent her phone to Grimm Nath.

Glyn Nutt gave a quick thank you and made a special trip back to her recliner to make the call.

"Lyle, why did you lend him the phone, do you have eyes for that guy?"

In the face of her friends' reproach, the brunette explained, "I don't think he was trying to hit on us, maybe he really just wanted to borrow the phone!"

Grim Nutter had no time to care about what the group of girls beside him had to say about him at this time, he was anxiously waiting for Lin Ming Yang to pick up the phone, but after dialing three times in a row, the final response was that there was no answer. There was really no way out, so he could only return the phone to the kind girl in frustration. The dejected expression on his face naturally became an object of ridicule for the other girls.

"Felix Lin didn't answer your call, don't you guys still live in the same dormitory?"

Even a clay Bodhisattva has three fires, not to mention that Green-Nat is still a big man, he huffed and rolled his eyes at those girls, "Let's make a bet, if I can prove that I do know Felix Lin, you guys will take off your corsets and run around naked on this beach for a lap?"

"Okay, I'll bet with you!" The blonde girl in the pink bikini really got into it with Green Nutt, "If you don't come up with convincing evidence, then it's your turn to run around naked!"

"No problem!" Green Nutt was waiting for this sentence, he stood in front of the group of girls with his waist crossed, and asked aggressively, "Which one of you has a cell phone with Internet access?"

It was the same brunette girl who had just borrowed his cell phone, and Grim-Nat grinned at her over his head, "You log on to Facebook's cell phone network and go to Felix Lin's open homepage, which has an album of my latest pictures with him."

The brunette was about to do as she was told when her cell phone suddenly rang with a string of unfamiliar numbers.

"It's Felix, it must be him calling back!" Glyn Nutter was dancing with excitement, but the phone was snatched up by the blonde girl he'd bet with and pressed the connect button without hesitation.

"Are you Felix Lin?"