In the heart of a quaint village, where every corner held whispers of the past, stood a tiny house with a peculiar charm. Its centerpiece was an ancient, rickety sofa that emitted an eternal symphony—a cacophony of squeaks and creaks, earning it the nickname 嘈杂的sofa.
Old Li, the village philosopher who preferred rice wine to reason, claimed the sofa was cursed. “Destiny,” he chuckled each night, filling his cup under the light of his single, flickering lamp.
“Rubbish, Old Li!” retorted Meiyu, the baker, balancing a tray of mooncakes on her head as she passed by, the moon casting playful shadows on the cobblestones. “If it were cursed, I’d have seen ghosts coming to buy my cakes.”
“Ghosts wouldn’t have the coin,” Li grinned, savoring the cleverness of his retort as Meiyu disappeared down the lane.
Inside the house by the street, young Xiao Wei, a poet with dreams bigger than the village itself, sat upon the fabled sofa. He was talking animatedly to Yuanyuan, the dairy farmer’s daughter, whose laughter often skipped along the village air like thrown stones across a pond.
“Do you think there’s truth to Old Li’s tale?” she asked, a mischievous glint in her eye.
“If this sofa is cursed,” Xiao Wei paused, “then it’s not doing a good job. I’m still here, alive and breathing misery into the ears of my poor, dear Yuanyuan.” She giggled, nudging him with her elbow.
“Maybe its curse is just to make us talk nonsense,” she mused.
“Well, it’s succeeding,” he replied, and they both burst into unrestrained laughter, the sofa joining in harmoniously with its clamor.
Days blended into nights as seasons cycled through the village. The conversations on the sofa continued, weaving stories and sharing secrets until one evening when Old Li stumbled in, cheeks flushed with wine and urgency.
“Listen, children,” he declared, waving an ancient document he had unearthed. “This scroll says our lives are a loop. We’re living the same life, again and again!”
Yuanyuan raised an eyebrow. “So, you’re saying I’m destined to deliver daily milk and make life miserable for Xiao Wei forever?”
“Precisely!” Li exclaimed, as if he had solved the mystery of life itself.
Xiao Wei leaned back, eyes twinkling with mischief. “What if it’s not so bad? At least it’s not boring, right?” he quipped, while the sofa protested noisily beneath him.
“Perpetual sameness, young people!” Li lamented, as if the weight of his revelation necessitated another cup of rice wine.
Laughter circled the room once more, joined by the sofa’s relentless rhythm. Their noise drifted into the village night, mixing with the chirp of crickets and the rustle of leaves.
Years flowed like water. Every spring, Xiao Wei and Yuanyuan still found themselves on that old sofa, drinking tea, and laughing away their evenings as the world revolved around them.
One day, Xiao Wei held Yuanyuan’s hand and whispered, “What do you suppose happens after the last cycle? When we’ve laughed our last laugh?”
She smiled softly. “Perhaps, like the sofa, we’ll just keep squeaking along, destined to annoy Old Li from wherever we end up.”
And so, the tale of the village and its quirky companions spun on, indefinite and noisy as the 嘈杂的sofa—a muddled melody of life echoing through time.