Chapter 15 Invading Her Territory

Xu Yuewei lowered her head, her eyelashes fluttering rapidly. She caught a glimpse of figures moving in the distance out of the corner of her eye, and instantly calmed down.

How could she forget where she was?

Afraid of being seen, she quickly lifted her leg and climbed into the car.

Jiang Shiyan seemed to have been caught off guard by her sudden turn of events. He watched her get into the car and close the door, and then remained motionless for a long time.

The MPV has a spacious interior with ample legroom, so even two people sitting side by side won't feel too uncomfortable.

Beneath her wide sleeves, Xu Yuewei rubbed the callus on her left thumb, its firmness bringing a sense of reassurance.

She spoke first, using the honorific "Mr. Jiang".

The sound was like reaching into cool lake water, only to touch something as murky as sand.

Jiang Shiyan suppressed his irritation and shifted his gaze.

"I thought I had been trying to keep my distance from you during these meetings."

"Is there some misunderstanding, or did I do something wrong?"

The air was stagnant; any tiny sound could have cracked it, causing it to collapse like glass, but it didn't.

No one spoke again.

There was a narrow table between their seats and the driver's seat. Jiang Shiyan leaned slightly forward and took the tissues from the table to her armrest.

Xu Yuewei remained seated.

“This doesn’t shed foam,” he said.

Xu Yuewei wanted to laugh but couldn't. She stubbornly pretended not to hear, as if using anything from the car would shatter her dignity into dust.

Even though she was already sitting here.

The seat beneath me had a comfortable, sofa-like feel, and the car's air conditioning was set just right.

But her tears had long since faded, and she no longer needed tissues.

In the past, Jiang Shiyan would bend down and get close to her the moment she started crying, their foreheads almost touching, but he wouldn't dare to touch her, and the force with which he wiped her tears would be as light as a cloud.

It's like playing a rhythm game. If the paper isn't handed to her at the exact moment she needs it most, she won't get the point, and might even lose points for messing up the rhythm.

Whether it was preconceived notions or intuition, she preferred to believe that it was his way of mocking her earlier loss of composure.

She squeezed her handbag, and the plastic of the bread bag crumpled slightly.

The sound of the wooden box being dragged along its hard surface drowned out everything else. She looked up and saw that there was another thing on the table, which Jiang Shiyan was pressing down on with the lid and pushing towards her.

A square, black, flat box with a red border between the lid and the main body.

The man lifted the lid of the box, revealing four dishes—a mix of meat and vegetables, both visually appealing and fragrant—along with three colors of rice. There was no braised fish fillet as he had mentioned, but there were shrimp.

Peeled shrimp lie in a thin layer of red oil soup, their white meat fresh and plump, all arranged in one direction, like a C-shaped human pyramid.

This much more upscale boxed lunch should be Meng Jiao's, but no matter how famous she is, a boxed lunch is still a boxed lunch. What chef would peel shrimp for someone?

Her gaze lowered as if searching for clues, and she spotted the trash can under the table.

The top layer of the black plastic bag contained red shrimp shells and a white hand towel stained with red.

The grievances in her heart were like a layer of oil on a meat dish, seeping out.

Unable to be separated from her body, yet no longer murky and sinking to the bottom, her heart felt empty for a moment, forgetting the barrier between them, and she turned her face to look at him.

Jiang Shiyan leaned towards the window, resting his elbow on the armrest, brushing back the stray hairs from his forehead with his hand, his eyes lowered as if lost in thought.

Xu Yuewei suddenly remembered that there was a very small mole on the bridge of his nose, which was covered by the shadow. It could only be seen when you were very close. He had never noticed it himself. She was the one who told him about it.

I wonder if anyone else has discovered it since.

Xu Yuewei was distracted while looking at people when Jiang Shiyan looked up and his gaze immediately captured hers.

He said, "I heard you didn't go to collect your lunchbox."

The outer wall of the boxed lunch was still warm to the touch. Xu Yuewei placed her fingertips on it for a while and found that it was hot instead of cold.

She said, "I'm just a nobody who came here to work for a day." Is it really necessary to pay so much attention to me?

But Jiang Shiyan countered, "Do you often skip meals in Guangyang too?"

He glanced at her drooping costume; her legs were noticeably thinner than he remembered. "No wonder she's so thin."

"I only do the hand stand-in; what the rest of the body parts look like shouldn't matter, right?"

She met his gaze, her eyes filled with an unwavering determination.

Jiang Shiyan understood; with him around, she wouldn't touch a single bite.

With a hint of impatience in his brow, he said, "I'm just worried you'll faint from hunger and delay the filming, especially since you don't have a substitute now."

Xu Yuewei's heart skipped a beat, and she scratched the box with her fingernails.

I really wanted to tell him that she almost never suffers from hypoglycemia anymore.

But she stared blankly at the lunchbox and said nothing.

The sound of the car door sliding out rang out, and natural light streamed in from the other side.

Jiang Shiyan bent down and got out of the car. After a moment of silence, he finally spoke.

“…I didn’t mean to bully you.” He pursed his lips into a straight line, turned away, and stopped looking at her. “That’s it.”

Thump.

The car door closed, and in this space that no longer belonged to her, she was left all alone.

*

Half an hour later, when Xu Yuewei groped her way back to the tent to rest, relying on the route she remembered, her stomach felt heavy and her feet felt light.

Her mind was in turmoil, but those thoughts didn't have a chance to multiply like threads and surfaces. Before long, she was called away and taken in front of the camera.

Filming was actually quite easy; it was just playing the piano. After the shoot, I ran into Producer Chang and even received a compliment from him.

After filming that scene, she went to wait in the wings. In the afternoon, she filmed a scene of inexplicable wrist-cutting, as well as other miscellaneous shots.

The autumn sun sets quickly, and by the time she took off her costume and changed back into her own clothes, it was already dark.

The night fell like a bucket of cold water poured down from the sky, soaking the entire city.

Thanks to the film crew, this place, backed by a forest and with a winding stream on the other side of the road, did not become a desolate wilderness.

However, the location is still too remote, and it's not easy to hail a ride online. The dial for waiting for orders keeps spinning, and even after frequent refreshes, no one accepts the order.

In the years since she left Wuqiao, Ye Wanzhi has been driving that Audi. Now that they share the car, conflicts are inevitable, like today.

She didn't tell Ye Wanzhi what she came for, only saying that she was going to the coffee shop again.

The film crew reimbursed her for the taxi fare, and she originally thought that taking a taxi back and forth wouldn't be a big deal.

The wind blew in through the cuffs of her straight-cut coat, making her feel chilly. She hadn't expected to stay until evening. As autumn approached, the temperature difference between day and night began to widen, and her coat was more like a trench coat, thin and not very windproof.

Her fingers mechanically refreshed the screen, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw a car stop on the side of the road in front of her. She looked up with a glimmer of hope.

With the car window half-rolled down, Jiang Shiyan's profile flickered in and out of focus in the dim light.

"How do I get back?" he asked.

Xu Yuewei raised the ride-hailing page.

"You won't be able to hit it no matter how long you wait."

Their eyes met, and a faint hint of mockery flickered between his deep-set brows.

But his actions contradicted his attitude; with a click, the car door unlocked.

"Get on the bus or keep waiting, it's your choice."

Even if he hadn't asked, she would have asked him for help anyway.

After a day of torment, she finally understood what dignity was—it couldn't put food on the table.

Since the driver's side was next to the roadside, Xu Yuewei didn't go around to sit in the passenger seat. Instead, she opened the back door and crouched down to sit inside.

After the car door slammed shut, the only sound inside was the faint noise of the engine as it drove.

The rearview mirror was pointing at her, so Xu Yuewei didn't dare to look around and simply closed her eyes and pretended to sleep.

Unexpectedly, physical exhaustion prevailed, and before they even entered the city, she hadn't decided where to ask him to take her when she suddenly collapsed and fainted.

When she woke up again, she was awakened by the heat.

The car heater and the scarf wrapped around her neck made her sweat, and the oxygen content in the air was decreasing with each breath.

Xu Yuewei rolled down the car window.

Hearing the noise, the person leaning against the driver's door leaned slightly closer to the window.

The stagnant air inside and outside the car began to move and circulate, and a very faint smell of smoke entered the nostrils.

Xu Yuewei disliked the smell of cigarettes, but perhaps because it was diluted, or perhaps because the smell came from him, this unfamiliarity aroused her curiosity. In any case, she wasn't particularly averse to it.

"Where is this?" she asked, turning her eyes to look out the window, then froze.

The car was parked in front of the old neighborhood where I lived during high school.

The security booth was still a small, low, and old structure, but the barrier for stopping cars was different from what I remembered.

She looked into his eyes with confusion and nervousness. There were no answers there, but he seemed to see right through her thoughts, appearing completely at ease.

"woke up."

Jiang Shiyan rested his elbows on the car window sill, his forearms hanging naturally, as if signaling an invasion of her territory:

"Then let me pay the fare."

Hearing him say that, Xu Yuewei calmed down instead.

Anyway, all day long, she was stuck in a cycle of making the same mistake again and again, unable to stop. ...Perhaps this timeframe can be extended to after she reunited with him.

Under the streetlights, Jiang Shiyan wore a thin shirt with a suit vest over it, but his bangs were messed up, revealing half of his forehead.

He seemed like a stranger to her.

Previously, Jiang Shiyan's style leaned more towards American casual, with oversized shirts or sweatshirts covering his body, making him appear particularly large. His colors were also bolder, giving him an energetic yet reassuring look.

The streetlights cast a shadow on him, and when darkness and light coexist, one side is always hidden from view.

“Okay,” she said.

But he looked away and gazed out the right window, counting the shops across the street from the residential area, noting which ones had been replaced and which ones were still open.

Within the area of ​​view, there are exactly two new stores and two old stores.

There was nothing left to count, and the countdown, which she had been feigning composure, also reached zero. Her palms were pressed together, and her fingertips couldn't help but tighten, causing a ring of white to rise around the edge of her fingertips.

After a while, Jiang Shiyan opened the car door from the outside: "If you're still not awake, why don't you get out and walk around?"

Xu Yuewei leaned back even further: "No."

Jiang Shiyan opened the car door wider, and the next second, his leg pressed against hers, squeezing inside.

The man's crisp breath carried a faint scent of tobacco. He completely intruded upon her, and she felt as if she were being confronted by a piece of ice floating on a lake, quickly shifting her position away.

"Then I'll come in. You don't mind, do you?"

Whether you mind or not, he's already acted first and asked for permission later.

Jiang Shiyan turned his gaze, his eyes lingering on her face, which was almost completely smudged with makeup, and in a daze, he recalled her aggrieved and tearful appearance.

That day, the day he placed the white roses filled with malice into the vase, he had finally figured out what he really wanted.

However, when he actually saw her tears, the sense of relief he had expected did not come. Instead, the opposite emotion surged through his body like a tsunami, spreading to every part of his body.

From noon until now, seven or eight hours have passed, and Jiang Shiyan feels like he's about to go crazy from holding it in.

"The fare is... answer one question for me, I want to hear the truth."

He leaned closer to her, his left hand resting on the back of the front passenger seat.

The back of the seat, the car door, and the man's broad body connected, trapping Xu Yuewei in this small space.

She reached out to push him, but her hand hovered briefly at his collar before drooping back down as if powerless.

Her hands trembled involuntarily, yet she stubbornly grabbed his clothes.

"I want to ask, when you saw the 'dirty thing' on that rose..." Jiang Shiyan paused, then chuckled, "what was your first reaction? Did you feel sorry for the man who gave you the flower?"

These are two questions, and Xu Yuewei naturally chose the easier one to answer.

Her voice was dry and hoarse: "No."

"Really not?" Jiang Shiyan raised his voice in surprise, but then his words trailed off, each syllable sinking in hushed tones. "Not even once, not even for a moment?"

Xu Yuewei timidly raised her eyes and saw that his deep black eyes seemed to contain more complex emotions, emotions that her intuition told her she couldn't bear to look closely at.

A tingling, astringent feeling welled up inside her, and she subconsciously turned her eyes away.

Suddenly, Jiang Shiyan pulled her upper body closer to him with his other hand.

The narrow space between their bodies made her breath quicken. Xu Yuewei reached out and pushed against his chest, calling his name in her nervousness: "Jiang Shiyan!"

"So guilty," he actually laughed, "is that an answer?"

When Xu Yuewei looked up and met his eyes, which were covered by a light veil of shadow, her heart skipped a beat. It was as if, without her noticing, it had already been entangled into a cocoon by fine, soft silk threads.

"I was really angry when you said thank you."

Xu Yuewei turned her head to try to dodge, but he held her chin firmly, causing her a slight pain, but she dared not say anything.

"It's one thing if you don't feel sorry for other men..."

Their clothes clung together, still slightly torn, and Jiang Shiyan curled his lips into a mocking sneer:

"And what about me? Do you even remember how you dumped me back then?"

The sound waves stirred up waves, throwing all the tiny, invisible dust particles high into the air, where they stopped at the highest point, along with Xu Yuewei's heart, which was beating so hard it was about to go off track.

One second, two seconds, only the rhythm of the count remains unaffected, steadily continuing.

"sorry."

The airflow gushing from my lungs burst through my throat, and only then did the stuffy, heavy feeling of blockage in my chest ease slightly.

Xu Yuewei heard her own voice tremble slightly: "I'm sorry."

She looked away, her jaw clenching subtly as she struggled against his hold.

Jiang Shiyan relaxed, and she turned her face to one side as she wished, her thick hair serving as a natural barrier to block her view.

She took a breath, and had just uttered the first word "correct" when Jiang Shiyan interrupted her:

"Stop talking."

His breathing was heavy, and each breath became thinner.

He stared at the upturned curve of her nose and suddenly recalled the sensation of brushing his nose against it.

It's delicate yet firm, quite different from his nose.

The hallucination was suddenly replaced by a dream, in which she was breathing heavily with another man and embracing him. He had this dream at least ten times.

Like a cold current meeting a warm current, stirring up suppressed emotions deep in his heart, Jiang Shiyan desperately tried to suppress them.

A car window was open, and the sound of traffic on the street leaked in, sometimes there, sometimes not, sometimes slow, sometimes fast, gradually calming the surging anger.

Jiang Shiyan looked down at the woman who was stiff and almost lifeless. He swallowed hard, withdrew his arm, and unbuttoned another button on his shirt. The muscles under his collarbone rose and fell slightly with his breathing.

He was like someone standing on the edge of a cliff, throwing several boulders into an empty valley. The greedy valley swallowed the boulders, but the echo only fueled more desire.

not enough.

This is not what he wanted either.

The more lucid he became, the colder his expression grew.

But he still stubbornly waited for her response.

After a while, or perhaps not that long, Xu Yuewei suddenly pushed open the car door and got out of the car, even faster than when she got into the nanny van at noon.

She seized the opportunity, ran across the road, and after the traffic light turned green, an empty taxi stopped in response to her waving.

The car stopped and drove away, leaving the area under the sparsely leafed roadside trees suddenly empty.

Behind the tree, along the street, is a ramen shop that is thriving during lunchtime.

Its predecessor was a second-hand record store, with dim lighting and retro decor, exuding the artistic atmosphere of the millennium, but unfortunately it closed down a long time ago.

The owner had tried to make changes back then. One winter when it was freezing cold, he set up a roasting oven for sweet potatoes in front of the shop and sold them for five yuan each.

That year, he was a senior in high school, and she was a junior. A heavy snow fell in the winter before the winter break.

In the tense senior high school building, there are also students who are out of place with the general environment. Some are children from wealthy families who have been idle throughout their high school years, while others are students who have already been admitted to universities with a clear future. Jiang Shiyan seems to belong to neither side, yet he seems to be associated with both.

In short, even though he did nothing wrong, he was considered to be "not focused on his studies." When the teacher was selecting people to shovel snow, he was assigned because he "looked strong" and "it didn't matter if he missed a little self-study time."

To be precise, it was shoveling snow. Each person had a shovel and shoveled little by little with their heads down.

After shoveling for a while, Jiang Shiyan bent down, put the long handle of the shovel on his shoulder, clasped his hands together over his face, and breathed on them to warm them.

Looking around, several male classmates who were shoveling snow together were wrapped in thick down jackets, each with their heads down, like a flock of quails.

He smiled silently, shoveled the snow under the stairs, and walked towards the open space on the side of the building.

As soon as he turned the corner, he stopped in surprise.

The girl in front of me was also wrapped in a down jacket, and the fur trim around her hood made her face look red, as if she had been frozen.

It doesn't look like a quail, it looks like a penguin.

In the blind spot of others, under his astonished gaze, Xu Yuewei took out two roasted sweet potatoes, each wrapped in a bag, from the left and right pockets of her down jacket, and handed them to him, carrying the bags.

Jiang Shiyan took it, somewhat bewildered, and silently asked her, raising his eyebrows.

Xu Yuewei unzipped the down jacket again, revealing another one hidden inside. She explained, "I was afraid the security guard would notice if I hid too many, so I only bought three. You can share them with everyone."

If you split it in half, it'll be just right for six people.

Jiang Shiyan emphasized the key point: "Everyone? Why?"

But she misunderstood. She took a deep breath:

"...You've been taking out the trash for my house these past few days, haven't you?"

Jiang Shiyan hooked three roasted sweet potatoes with his left index finger, gripped a shovel with the rest of his fingers, put his right hand on his neck, and looked up at the sky: "I'm going to throw them away anyway."

He lied.

I guessed that she didn't want to go out because it was too cold, so she left the trash can by the door to throw it away before going to school. However, the nearest trash can to their building was facing the opposite direction from the main entrance, so it was a bit inconvenient to throw it away every time.

"How did you get in here?"

No matter what, bringing food from outside the school onto campus is a violation of school rules, and she's such a well-behaved girl.

"I signed a leave slip. I'm catching a flight in a bit. I'm going to visit a music society in another city with my seniors this weekend." Xu Yuewei kicked a clump of snow with her toe. "I saw you shoveling snow as you passed the senior building, and doing this..."

She mimicked his breathing motion: "That record store sells roasted sweet potatoes. I lied to the doorman and said I forgot something, so he let me in."

It does bear some resemblance to the current situation.

His lips curled up, but he pursed them tightly, barely able to hide his smile.

As expected, she discovered it.

She kicked the clump of snow away, and in a huff, turned and left from behind the building.

That day after school, Jiang Shiyan deliberately stopped in front of the record store. The owner greeted him, "The sweet potatoes are freshly baked, five yuan each!"

He smiled and shook his head: "I've already eaten."

Later, after that winter, the shop closed down.

The first bite was very sweet, but as you ate more, all you could taste was the soft and chewy texture. After eating all three, my stomach felt acidic from the heat.

Jiang Shiyan tilted his head back and leaned back. After a while, he closed his eyes and straightened his head, as if he were resting.

A moment later, he gently pushed open the car door that she hadn't closed properly because she had left in such a hurry.

The man's thin-soled leather shoes hit the road, the car door slammed shut, and he walked back to the driver's seat, silently starting the car.

*

It was completely dark in Wuqiao, and the lights on the residential buildings were brighter than the streetlights.

Around 8 p.m., Xu Yuewei returned home. As soon as she opened the door, Ye Wanzhi was practicing Baduanjin.

A soft chestnut-colored curtain covered the French windows. She laid a light pink yoga mat on the narrow balcony, her legs apart, her arm movements unaffected by the noise of her opening the door.

Ye Wanzhi is slender but has a stable foundation. Unfortunately, it is difficult to see any trace of classical dance in her slow and standard movements.

Xu Yuewei quietly took off her shoes and hung up her bag. On her way to the bedroom, she passed the kitchen. The sliding door was half open, and the countertop was clean and tidy, with no food left for her.

Ye Wanzhi didn't receive much money during the divorce, but she used more than 200,000 yuan to renovate the house.

The kitchen was originally open-plan, but later glass walls and doors were installed. She said it was better this way, "so that it can at least provide some protection in case of an explosion."

But at the time, Xu Yuewei thought, what if a gas explosion were to occur, causing glass to shatter? Wouldn't that be counterproductive?

She and her mother had different ideas about many things and seemed unable to understand each other.

However, blood ties are like two points forming a line.

As long as they are in the same space, even if their eyes and bodies do not meet, they are on the same straight line.

A straight line that can cross any medium, a straight line that exists forever.

"Wait a minute."

Xu Yuewei was walking towards her bedroom when she was suddenly called to a stop.

Turning around, I saw Ye Wanzhi slipping on the slippers next to the yoga mat.

Seeing this detail, Xu Yuewei secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

Ye Wanzhi told her to sit down at the dining table, muttering something about "it's uncomfortable to look at," and then turned and walked towards the restroom.

Xu Yuewei clenched her fists and placed them on the table, feeling a little uneasy, completely unable to guess what she was going to do.

After a while, to her surprise, Ye Wanzhi brought over a comb.

The wooden teeth land on the Baihui acupoint on the top of the head, moving vertically downwards, gradually moving away from the scalp, until they reach the tip and get stuck.

Xu Yuewei couldn't remember the last time her mother combed her hair, and neither could Ye Wanzhi. She was clumsy and forceful, pulling at her tangled hair, the comb in her hands acting like a saw.

"It looks like weeds, I can't even comb it out."

It was just a simple, muttered complaint, nothing special, not something that would normally be worth shedding tears over.

But Xu Yuewei burst into tears immediately.

The pain in my scalp felt like a heavy weight, as if it were about to end with a period, and everything condensed into a single tear.

The pressure from the comb disappeared, and it lifted slightly away from the ends of her hair.

Xu Yuewei lowered her head deeply, her voice trembling with tears, and murmured, "Mom..."

A few minutes later, her hair was combed.

Ye Wanzhi didn't ask her what had happened, but insisted on combing her hair, saying that her hairstyle was unkempt and that straight hair would be better. As she spoke, she adopted a commanding tone, telling her to get a haircut another day.

Xu Yuewei washed her face; the tear stains were gone, but her eyes were still red. She leaned against the wall, meeting her mother's gaze across the distance.

"Mom, how about we move?"

Let's leave the past behind together.

-----------------------

Author's Note: Male protagonist (now corrupted): No!