When Yun Li returned to the café, the group was in a stalemate.
A minute earlier, Qu Mingxin had been eager to see Yun Li again. She rarely experienced being confronted directly and couldn’t accept not being liked by others in this situation.
Fu Shize said, “They’re about to leave.”
Yun Li was surprised but could guess that something had happened while she was away. “Then I’ll see them off.”
At the entrance, Qu Mingxin reluctantly clung to Yun Li’s arm. “Yun Li, I didn’t want to mention this, but your friends don’t seem to welcome us.”
Yun Li became alert. “What do you mean?”
“I just chatted with them briefly, and that colleague of yours seemed quite irritable.”
Fu Shize, irritable? This was the first time Yun Li had heard such an assessment.
“What did you talk about?”
“Nothing much. I just mentioned you being punished to stand before. I was only trying to—”
The words “punished to stand” triggered Yun Li’s most sensitive memories from high school. She interrupted Qu Mingxin, “Did you tell them I can’t hear with my left ear?”
Qu Mingxin opened her mouth, but seeing Yun Li’s darkened expression, she became less confident. “I didn’t realize they didn’t know. Besides, we’ve been classmates for so many years. I just wanted them to treat you better.”
Yun Li found it absurd.
As a child, she hadn’t been wary of telling others about her condition. She hadn’t known there was a problem; from her perspective, she thought everyone was like her.
Everyone’s left ear couldn’t hear.
It was just a decorative feature.
It wasn’t until later when young children’s mouths spat out words like “deaf,” “disabled,” and “deformed,” that she realized she was indeed different from others.
She consciously stopped mentioning this to anyone, but the news still spread during her high school years.
At first, and even now, she felt somewhat insecure about it.
She had been emotional about it, unable to resist asking why it had to be her.
But what confused her more was why something that wasn’t her fault was repeatedly used to attack her.
The buried memories of hurt intertwined with her current anger. She had thought that after so many years, she wouldn’t react like before. Why did it still have to affect her life even now?
“I don’t think telling my friends about my past embarrassments is doing me any favors,” Yun Li looked at her. “I was too timid to argue with you before. I thought if I just endured it, I could get through it.”
“Now I see that’s not the case.” Yun Li brushed off her hand coldly. “Please don’t contact me again in the future.”
With that, she closed the door without regard for Qu Mingxin’s expression.
Behind the door, it took Yun Li quite a while to calm down. She had finally stood up for herself, and surprisingly, taking this step wasn’t as difficult as she had imagined.
…
Inside the café, Fu Zhengchu closed his book. “Uncle, were you angry earlier?”
Fu Shize replied, “No.”
Earlier, when Fu Zhengchu heard Qu Mingxin talking about Yun Li’s past, he only felt sorry for her. It wasn’t until Fu Shize spoke that he realized.
It did seem that way.
If it were him, he wouldn’t tell others about these things either.
” I never noticed that Sister Yun Li couldn’t hear with one ear…” Fu Zhengchu wracked his brain to recall his daily interactions with Yun Li but remembered something else instead. “Uncle, did you know from the beginning? Every time we went out, you were always on Sister Yun Li’s right side.”
Fu Shize: “…”
Fu Zhengchu: “Even now, you’re on her right side.”
He wanted to further investigate Fu Shize’s motives, but seeing Yun Li walking towards them, Fu Zhengchu stopped the conversation. Unable to hide his thoughts, he hurriedly grabbed a book from the side and pretended to be reading.
After a few seconds, she couldn’t help but say, “Fu Zhengchu, your book is upside down.”
“Ah, eh.” Fu Zhengchu quickly sat up straight. “I must have fallen asleep!”
Yun Li: “…”
Yun Li knew the reason for Fu Zhengchu’s unusual behavior. She felt she should say something but couldn’t organize her thoughts well, so she just continued reading quietly.
After casually ordering some light food at the café, they moved to seats with sofas. Fu Shize drooped his eyes and asked Fu Zhengchu for a baseball cap. After putting it on, he curled up in the sofa chair to sleep.
Seeing this, the other two also quietly flipped through their books.
With exams approaching, Yun Li was distracted, thinking about what Qu Mingxin had said earlier—that Fu Shize was irritable.
She knew there was some exaggeration in this, but she could imagine that Fu Shize had stood up for her.
Once this thought emerged, Yun Li’s mind was filled with images of him getting angry on her behalf. But after considering several possibilities, none seemed to fit his personality.
If only she had been there earlier.
Attempting to focus by writing some formulas on scratch paper, she ended up drawing moons all over the page instead.
Looking to the side, Fu Shize was curled up in the corner of the sofa, his thin lips tightly pressed, his body shaking slightly, and his back very tense, as if he was having a nightmare.
His brows were tightly furrowed, and his breathing became irregular as if he was struggling hard.
It didn’t seem right to let him continue having a nightmare.
Yun Li reached out to shake his shoulder, but Fu Shize suddenly grabbed her wrist, pressing her hand against his leg.
“…”
Yun Li tried to pull her hand back, but the hand gripping hers didn’t budge. His breathing suddenly became much steadier, and his brows relaxed, but he kept a tight hold on her wrist.
It oddly reminded her of a baby sucking on a pacifier.
Unable to read her book in this position, she took out her phone and opened her chat with Fu Shize. She typed out several messages, deleting them one by one.
[Are you pretending to sleep?]
[Our position is a bit… intimate.]
[You’re holding my hand.]
[You initiated it.]
[Will you take responsibility?]
…
[It’s been five minutes.]
As Fu Shize was about to wake up, he released her. When Yun Li withdrew her hand, she found her wrist had turned purple where he had gripped it.
Fu Zhengchu asked in a very strange tone, “Uncle, did you sleep well?”
Not understanding his tone, Fu Shize just raised his sleepy eyes slightly without responding.
The three of them finished reviewing before dinner. When Yun Li got home, she collapsed on the sofa, looking at the light through her fingers. Further down, her wrist still bore faint marks.
Because of the hand-holding, she had a one-sided feeling that their relationship was progressing rapidly.
Damn it, he’s always taking advantage of her.
And not taking responsibility.
Yun Li glumly opened WeChat and messaged Deng Chuqi.
Yun Li: [Another day of unrequited love.]
Deng Chuqi replied instantly: [??? Did you confess?]
Yun Li resisted the urge to tell her about being taken advantage of: [No. Wouldn’t that scare him away?]
Deng Chuqi: [Then how did you try?]
Yun Li: [I wished for it silently in my heart.]
Yun Li held her phone for a while, but Deng Chuqi didn’t reply. She scrolled back to E-station, where her candid photo post from earlier had already garnered 200,000 likes. She briefly replied to some comments, then switched to her chat window with Fu Shize.
The content was still from their last Halloween conversation.
She asked: [I’m at Tech City now!]
He replied: [Mm.]
Yun Li: [About the EAW promotional post I mentioned today, are you free Monday night?]
Both exams were on Monday morning, and coincidentally, the winter semester schedule had been adjusted, changing the internship time as well.
Fu Shize replied with another simple “Mm.”
Scrolling back, it was mostly her sending several messages and him replying with one, totaling no more than twenty messages. After looking through them a few times, Yun Li changed his contact name to “Wife,” which made it look much better to her.
She scrolled back to the earliest message and deleted the two in between.
Yun Li: [/Be my wife/]
Wife: [Mm]
…
The night before the exam, Yun Li pulled an all-nighter, not only solving several sets of practice papers but also making a matcha towel roll cake, carefully packing it in a box tied with a blue ribbon in a butterfly knot.
After finishing the exams, she went home for a nap. When she was about to leave for their appointment, it started drizzling. Yun Li changed into a waterproof trench coat, put her camera in a waterproof bag, and headed out with an umbrella to EAW.
The employees had already left work. Yun Li waited at the entrance for a while, and after a few minutes, the light rain turned into a downpour.
Looking down at the time, there were still ten minutes until their agreed meeting time. Standing by the window, she drew circles with her shoe for a while, then opened her umbrella and walked towards the fire exit that led into the company.
Large raindrops pelted the umbrella’s surface. Through the rain curtain, Yun Li saw Fu Shize standing at the fire exit door. As she had expected, he didn’t have an umbrella.
As soon as she reached the covered area, she closed her umbrella and patted the rainwater off her body. She was already soaked in large patches, and her hair ends were full of water.
His eyes darkened as he looked down at what she was holding. “Here to pick me up?”
Yun Li was too embarrassed to admit it directly, so she just made a soft sound of agreement. “I waited over there for a while, but you didn’t come.”
“Give me the umbrella.” Fu Shize didn’t ask further and opened the umbrella he took from her.
The space under the single-person umbrella was cramped, barely fitting two people. Yun Li moved her camera bag to her chest.
The sound of rain amplified in her right ear, and the rain curtain blocked her vision. Among all the sensations, only the presence of the other person was clear.
Rainwater dripped down the umbrella ribs onto the other half of Fu Shize’s body. Yun Li felt guilty. “My umbrella is too small. Maybe you should use it alone?”
Fu Shize didn’t take this impractical suggestion seriously but still looked down to ask her, “Then what about you?”
The petite girl, almost as if shrinking into his embrace, cheerfully put on her hood. “This coat is waterproof.”
Fu Shize: “…”
Fortunately, the distance wasn’t far. After reaching the experience hall, Fu Shize swiped his card to open the door and turn on the power. He went to the storage room and brought a towel for Yun Li.
Too embarrassed to dry off in front of him, Yun Li turned around and gently wiped the wet parts of her hair with the towel.
Yun Li set up the camera and reflector and then proceeded to photograph each item according to the initially set process.
The last item was playing a horror game with VR glasses. For dramatic effect, Yun Li decided to try it herself. After Fu Shize helped her put on the glasses, he guided her to open the game “Seeing Ghosts Upon Waking.”
As soon as she entered the game, she was in a bathroom bathed in blood-red light. Yun Li’s whole body tensed as she moved slowly inside. There were several rooms, and after exploring them one by one, a sudden, miserable ghost scream rang in her ear.
Yun Li couldn’t hear with her left ear, so she couldn’t locate the source of sounds like most people.
For her, all sounds came from the right.
She instinctively felt the ghost was on her right and fearfully took a step back to the left, but she bumped directly into an embrace. Looking up, she saw a ghastly pale face.
Before Yun Li could scream, Fu Shize immediately removed her VR glasses.
Still shaken, her vision returned to the real world, but the soft feeling behind her reminded her of the scene just moments ago. She turned around apprehensively, only to find—
She was in Fu Shize’s arms.
He held the VR glasses in one hand, while his other hand lightly supported her back, preventing her from falling.
“…”
“I didn’t mean to.”
She suddenly realized and awkwardly took two steps forward, leaving his embrace.
Yun Li’s face felt hot, realizing she had taken advantage of Fu Shize again. She touched her cheeks with the back of her hand, making sure the temperature had gone down before turning around.
Fu Shize lowered his gaze, turned off the VR glasses in his hand, adjusted the elastic strap to normal size, and inspected them up and down.
He repeated this action several times.
Then he looked up at Yun Li.
“Do you like me?”
His gaze was clear.
Yun Li froze in place.
Her first reaction was to deny it, but when the words reached her throat, she couldn’t voice them.
On many sleepless nights, when she opened her eyes, she could vaguely see the silhouette of another person.
Yun Li had never avoided this feeling, this experience tinged with sweetness, bitterness, and astringency, from initial admiration to final devotion.
Wanting to be part of his past.
Wanting to be part of his present.
Wanting to be part of his future.
Dense emotions grew in her heart, the sprouts had long since broken through the soil. The timid her had tried to suppress and forget, but it rebounded, growing ever stronger in this world.
It turned out that a person’s eyes could truly be filled with the image of another person.
Yun Li clenched her hands and met his gaze. “Is it not okay for me to pursue you?”
Fu Shize was silent for a long time.
Or maybe it was just a few seconds.
Yun Li felt like every second lasted an eternity. Her palms were sweating profusely, and she couldn’t stop trembling slightly.
He lowered his eyes.
Just like that night of rejection, with the same tone.
“I’m sorry.”
With each clear word he uttered, Yun Li’s momentarily intense emotions subsided.
Yun Li heard the rain stop.
She also heard every word he said.
—”Perhaps my behavior made you misunderstand.”
—”I have no plans for a relationship.”