Chapter 56 Reversal "Xie Shijin, kiss me one more time."...
A warm, moist touch came from his lips, and his breath was filled with the warm scent of pine wood emanating from the boy.
His slightly rapid breathing sprayed onto the girl's face.
It was just a very brief moment.
Instantly separate.
Xie Shijin gently pressed his lips to hers.
Even from a distance, the cool air rushed into her nostrils again, and Cheng Shiyun was still dazed.
Her heart pounded in her chest. She blinked, regaining her senses: "...Is that all?"
She thought...
She subconsciously licked her lips.
She looked up and found Xie Shijin staring at her. He was kneeling on one knee beside her, still leaning over to kiss her.
Her hand was still held in the boy's palm. Xie Shijin was very strong and could pull her up and hold her in his arms with a single tug.
But he didn't; he just stared at her intently.
His gaze seemed to have a burning intensity, making her feel as if she were melting in his intense eyes.
Cheng Shiyun didn't know what he was looking at. Was there something on her face? No, she probably wasn't.
Under his intense, direct gaze, the surrounding air seemed to thicken.
Cheng Shiyun couldn't stand his stare any longer, and after a brief moment of eye contact, she wanted to look away: "Don't look at me like that..."
The rest of her words were stuck in her throat. Xie Shijin leaned over and kissed her again.
No longer just taking a quick bite like before, but instead meeting her wide, astonished eyes, he pried open her already unguarded lips.
He barged in, as if he had lost his mind, and began to suck and bite her lips harder and harder.
Cheng Shiyun felt the bed next to her sink a little.
Xie Shijin came up.
He enveloped her with his body, forehead to forehead, and opened his mouth on her lips.
How about this?
He wrapped one arm around her waist, pulling her closer to his chest and deepening the kiss.
With his other hand, he pried open her clenched fist, forcefully separated her fingers, inserted his own fingers, and tightly held her palm, pressing it into the blanket.
With her lips and teeth completely sealed, Cheng Shiyun could only barely breathe through her nose. She tried to draw in a wisp of thin air from the gap between their noses, but all she could smell was the hot, pine-scented scent of the boy.
Xie Shijin pressed her into his arms, leaving her no room to retreat, greedily stealing her breath and sucking on her tongue.
This gave Cheng Shiyun a sense of dread, as if Xie Shijin wanted to devour her whole.
He kissed her fiercely and urgently, sucking until her tongue went numb and her throat was filled with sticky nasal sounds.
Outside, the rain pattered down, and the sound of water gurgling filled her ears. Cheng Shiyun couldn't tell if it was raindrops falling from the eaves or the sound of their kiss. The night outside was soaked by the rain, and she was almost soaked by their kisses too.
It felt like something had fallen out of Xie Shijin's collar, like another hand touching her neck.
Cheng Shiyun trembled, and broken words finally escaped from her lips: "Xie Shijin... wait, I can't breathe..."
"Um... Xie Shijin, I have something to show you."
Her face was flushed, her pupils were slightly unfocused, and physiological tears wet her eyelashes. She huddled under him, looking somewhat like the little tabby cat that had fallen on his shoes on the night of their reunion, soaked by the rain.
They were all wet, a little pitiful, but also very cute.
Xie Shijin pressed his lips against hers and asked, "What is that?"
"...Let me go first." Cheng Shiyun turned her head and pulled her wrists, which were intertwined with his, away.
Xie Shijin released her hand, as if regaining his rationality and clarity, and looked down as she groped his body.
Cheng Shiyun rummaged in her hoodie pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper: "Why did you keep this? Wasn't it supposed to be given to Lao Zhao for me?"
Xie Shijin glanced at the self-criticism in her hand, then looked up at her, staring at her intently without moving.
In the instant their eyes met, she heard Xie Shijin say something.
"Because I like you."
The boy's voice was hoarse and panting.
"Cheng Shiyun—"
He called her name.
"I like you."
He repeated it.
I've liked you for a long time.
She guessed it.
But when she heard him say it with her own ears, her heart still throbbed with a tingling, numbing sensation.
Cheng Shiyun took his hand again, pulled it close, and touched the scar on his palm, as if her own hand was in pain as well. She choked up slightly, wanting to cry, but she held back: "You should... have told me sooner."
Seeing her moist eyes and red nose, Xie Shijin couldn't help but panic and cupped her face in his hands: "Is it too late now?"
Cheng Shiyun sniffed.
It's too late.
It's too late.
She might... be leaving soon.
Cheng Shiyun didn't want to hurt him, and she was also afraid of breaking up with him, so she said, "Just a little bit."
She tilted her head up like a kitten and nuzzled against the boy's palm: "Who kisses you before confessing their love like this?"
A barely perceptible tear welled up in the corner of her eye, but Xie Shijin lowered his head and gently kissed it away: "Didn't Ni Jiaqi tell you? I like you."
Cheng Shiyun felt a little ticklish from his kiss, and flinched away, grabbing his hand and saying, "Ni Jiaqi is Ni Jiaqi, and you are you. How am I supposed to know you like me if you don't tell me yourself? What if he's lying to me?"
"You kept my self-criticism. How are you going to explain this to Old Zhao?"
"I went to see Teacher Zhao," Xie Shijin said, omitting her earlier argument at the desk. "He said it wasn't necessary to write it."
Cheng Shiyun's eyes widened immediately: "Ah...why didn't you tell me sooner!"
She racked her brains, crossing out and revising, revising and crossing out again, before she could barely cobble together a few sentences that were neither too rebellious nor too self-deprecating.
Old Zhao retorted, "Is this a self-criticism or a declaration of war?!"
"Take this back and get your dad to sign it. If Teacher Cheng thinks it's okay, then bring it back to me."
She remembered that it was her monthly holiday, and Ni Jiaqi was going to play basketball. He asked her to wait for him at the basketball court. It was so hot, who would wait for him? After putting away her self-criticism, she prepared to go home.
More than half an hour after the school bell rang, there were hardly any people left in the school building. However, as soon as she went downstairs, she encountered several girls who were giving her trouble.
The girl in the lead raised her hand to slap her in the face, but Xie Shijin appeared, and she thought it was a chance encounter.
"...That day, you didn't just bump into me by chance. You were waiting for me downstairs, weren't you?"
Xie Shijin gave a soft "hmm".
Cheng Shiyun smiled with relief: "I was wondering why Lao Zhao didn't send this self-criticism back for me to rewrite." It turns out it never even reached him.
"And you?" Xie Shijin suddenly asked.
He began to tremble.
The neck gradually turned red.
Cheng Shiyun curled the corners of her lips and deliberately asked, "What about me?"
Do you like it?
His Adam's apple bobbed violently.
Cheng Shiyun looked into his eyes: "What do you like?"
Do you like me or not?
After he finished speaking, he leaned down again. Cheng Shiyun thought he would kiss her to force her to admit it, but he didn't. He just looked at her lips very closely, as if he was afraid of missing a single word from her mouth.
He held his breath, waiting for her answer, trying his best to suppress his inner fear and maintain his composure, but his out-of-control heartbeat betrayed him, pounding so hard it was almost hitting Cheng Shiyun's eardrums.
Xie Shijin was very nervous.
The night he went to hunt down Guo Renyi, Cheng Shiyun said she wanted to be with him and never be apart...
He didn't know whether what she said at the time was to calm him down from his losing control, to comfort him, or if she had other intentions.
The few seconds spent waiting for a reply felt like being roasted over a fire.
Cheng Shiyun reached out and hooked her arm around his neck, nestling herself in the boy's embrace, and whispered into his damaged right ear, where he wore a hearing aid:
"like."
"Xie Shijin, I like you too."
It felt like the blood in my heart had been suddenly drained, giving me a feeling of weightlessness as if I were collapsing.
An overwhelming ecstasy swept over him, causing his entire body to tremble and a burning pain to emanate from the very marrow of his bones.
Xie Shijin asked again as if he hadn't heard clearly, "You like me?"
His expression was one of disbelief, even fear, as if she shouldn't like him, and couldn't like him.
He thought of his parents' abandonment and beatings, the scars on his body of varying depths that he dared not easily show, and his dark and shameful childhood. Cheng Shiyun was so bright and happy, how could she, and how could she possibly like someone like him?
There's no reason why Cheng Shiyun would like him.
But Cheng Shiyun said she liked him.
This was the first time Cheng Shiyun had seen him with such an expression, and her heart felt like it was being squeezed. She tightened her grip on his neck and said, "Can't you tell whether I like you or not? If I didn't like you, I would have slapped you for kissing me long ago."
How could I let him pin me down on the bed and kiss me again and again?
"My lips hurt so much," she said coquettishly. "Are they cut?"
"It's not broken." Xie Shijin's gaze was wet and hot as he looked at her, and he asked in a hoarse voice, "...Didn't you say you wanted to sleep with me?"
"Our mouths hurt when we sleep together."
Cheng Shiyun pursed her moist lips, swallowed saliva that wasn't hers, and glared at him: "...Do I need you to explain? Do I look like an idiot?"
"If you're seventeen or eighteen and you're sleeping with someone you like, and you don't hug or kiss them, are you supposed to be doing math problems?"
She only realized there was something wrong with Xie Shijin when he didn't kiss her.
Cheng Shiyun tugged at him.
She was very weak and couldn't pull him at all.
He followed that barely perceptible force and unconsciously lowered his head, saying, "Don't do math problems, let me kiss you."
As she wished, Xie Shijin naturally kissed her again, inhaling her breath and absorbing the saliva from her mouth.
His lips and tongue were hot and scalding, and his long, soft eyelashes brushed against her face, sending shivers down her spine.
Cheng Shiyun rested her head against the pillow, tilted her head back uncontrollably, opened her lips, and passively and helplessly swallowed his kiss.
She was a little short of breath, her body was burning up, and she subconsciously pushed his tongue away, trying to get him to pull it off. Her weak resistance was taken as a sign of affection by him, and he instead pulled her into his mouth, holding her there and not letting go.
Xie Shijin kissed her so fiercely.
Is this his first time?
Cheng Shiyun felt like she was about to be kissed to death by him.
Do other people kiss like this?
I hope she doesn't faint.
Their lips seemed glued together, grinding and twisting, impossible to separate.
Her breath felt sticky, and Cheng Shiyun couldn't stand it anymore. She couldn't push her away, and she couldn't bear to kick her.
As her fingers groped around haphazardly, Cheng Shiyun suddenly touched a rough scar on his side, and Xie Shijin froze.
The passionate kiss was abruptly interrupted.
Xie Shijin stopped, released her lips, grabbed her hand, and pulled away from her slightly: "...Don't touch me."
His forehead was covered in a thin layer of sweat, and he was breathing slowly and deeply, stopping her from touching the ugly scars any further.
"Can't I touch it?" Cheng Shiyun's eyes reddened, and she swallowed. "When I was a kitten or a snake, I could be touched however I wanted, but now I can't?"
Xie Shijin's chest heaved violently as he avoided her gaze, his Adam's apple bobbing slightly: "There's nothing to touch."
Those ugly, proliferating scars, uneven, winding and hideous, crawled on his body like centipedes; he himself didn't want to look at them.
"Whether it feels good or not is not up to you to decide." Cheng Shiyun pulled her hand away from his, her fingertips returning to the scar on his waist, gently stroking it. "I just think it feels pretty good."
Xie Shijin's voice tightened, her body tensed for a moment, and she said somewhat awkwardly, "It's ugly."
"Where is it ugly?" Cheng Shiyun looked up at him, her eyes clear and bright. "Here, or here?"
Cheng Shiyun ran her hand from his waist down to his lower abdomen, tracing the scars of varying depths.
He trembled with every step he took.
Several of the scars on his body are because of her.
“It’s not ugly at all.” Cheng Shiyun touched his deepest scar and pressed it gently. “Turn around and look at me.”
Xie Shijin breathed softly, her eyelashes trembling. After taking a few deep breaths, she turned her head away.
He frowned, his jawline tightened stiffly, and his eyes were filled with deep inferiority and anxiety.
There is also self-loathing.
Cheng Shiyun stared straight at him, her voice a little hoarse: "This isn't the first time I've seen these scars, and it shouldn't be the last either."
Xie Shijin looked into her eyes and saw only the light of heartache and cherishment in them.
A sweet surge of warmth filled my heart, and my previously hollowed-out body felt instantly filled.
"What exactly is ugly about him?" Cheng Shiyun's nose tingled, and her tone became extremely serious. "I won't allow you to say that the person I like is ugly, or that he's not good-looking. If you always say you're ugly, it makes it seem like I have terrible taste."
"How could I have bad taste? Everything I set my sights on is the best."
Did you hear me?
He nodded obediently, his voice low: "I heard you."
“I used to climb all over you every day and you never said anything, but now you react like this just for touching you.” Cheng Shiyun was actually a little jealous of herself. “Xie Shijin, you’re being too unfair to me.”
Xie Shijin's voice remained tense: "It's different."
"What's different? Aren't you still me?" Cheng Shiyun tilted her head. "Or are you saying that when I turned into a small animal, you didn't treat me like a human at all?"
Xie Shijin looked at her, paused, and then suddenly chuckled softly: "It wasn't originally like that."
OK!
Cheng Shiyun laughed too, a laugh of exasperation, and slapped him twice: "Now that's how it is! I've become a human, I'm back, so you can't just touch me."
She wanted to touch not only the scars on his body, but also his ears.
She wanted him to see her body in the future.
What I remember is no longer the humiliation and pain, but her hand, the warmth of her palm.
She had been curious about his hearing aid for a long time.
Cheng Shiyun pinched his earlobe: "Can I see it?"
Xie Shijin turned her head, took off the hearing aid, and put it on her ear.
In that instant, Cheng Shiyun raised her hand to cover her ears.
The world seemed to have been suddenly turned up in volume, with every subtle sound amplified infinitely, becoming jarring and chaotic.
The wind howled outside the window, scraping against the wall; raindrops pounded against the glass; and the hearing aid crackled…
And there was the sound of his heartbeat, so close yet so far, emanating from his chest.
She stared at him blankly.
So this is what the world looks like through your ears.
...
Cheng Shiyun's eyes revealed a great deal of heartache.
Xie Shijin wanted to kiss her again. He leaned down, and the red rope around his neck fell out of his collar.
It was the red string he had given Cheng Shiyun to hang her keys on, with two tiny, rice-grain-like things hanging from it.
Before she could even get a good look, Cheng Shiyun's lips were captured by him, and he began to kiss her tenderly and repeatedly.
"What is this?" The bedroom was too dark, so Cheng Shiyun looked closely. "Cat teeth... um..."
The question was swallowed back into her mouth, their breaths mingling. Xie Shijin took her hand, pulled off the red string, and in a pause between deep kisses, answered her: "Your teeth."
"My tooth?" Cheng Shiyun pressed on with difficulty, "The cat tooth that was... in my purse... and placed on the shrine?"
"Um."
He brought her gardenias, her baby teeth, and the eggs she laid to Beijing.
"You made it into a necklace?" Cheng Shiyun's cheeks were burning from the kiss. She held the kitten tooth in her palm and examined it. "You're so skillful. It's so beautiful."
Her teeth, being human, should have been burned to ashes, just like her bones.
Cheng Shiyun smiled faintly.
She was buried in Songshan Cemetery two years ago.
Two years later, she was able to lie in Xie Shijin's arms.
"Did you think I disappeared on the rooftop and wouldn't come back?" Cheng Shiyun asked.
Xie Shijin nodded: "Yes."
"If," she looked up, "I mean if, I really couldn't come back... what would you do?"
Xie Shijin stiffened for a moment, then stared at her face and said, "...Study hard in college and live a good life."
"We can't let you not be able to have even one wish fulfilled."
"That's good." Relieved, Cheng Shiyun smiled and asked, "What time is it?"
Xie Shijin said, "11:55."
Cheng Shiyun was stunned.
So fast.
Is she leaving before she can even give him a proper hug?
She also said that she would go with him to see her parents tomorrow.
She hasn't yet celebrated his birthday at midnight with him.
Cheng Shiyun blinked, reluctant to tell him her premonition, and snuggled into the boy's arms, saying, "It's almost midnight, Xie Shijin, I'm sleepy, let's go to sleep, you can hold me while we sleep."
Xie Shijin stared at her for a while: "Okay."
He turned and embraced her, filling her completely into his body.
Their body temperature and breaths mingled together.
Cheng Shiyun closed her eyes, as if she could hear the sound of time flowing against the wind.
Outside, a fierce wind howled and thunder rumbled, making her feel as if she had returned to the night she died.
She walked towards school with an umbrella in hand, the rain soaking her shoes and socks, the water icy cold.
She saw that the courier station across the street was still lit up, and the familiar young man was bending over and carrying things inside.
They were caught in the same rain.
She wanted to go over and ask him why he was still busy so late.
But they weren't familiar with each other at that time.
So she held up the blue umbrella and continued walking.
Her body is slowly undergoing some kind of change.
She was in so much pain.
...
First, I felt as if my earlobe had been stapled through by a stapler, the sharp metal piercing my skin.
Immediately following was the dizziness of weightlessness and falling, her body slamming hard onto the concrete ground in the alley, the crisp sound of bones shattering spreading throughout her body.
Then she was trapped in a sealed fish tank, and the foul-smelling water rushed into her nostrils, squeezing the air out of her lungs and drowning her.
Finally, in the instant of the car accident, the world spun around, and the pain was like having your bones crushed the moment the wheels ran over you.
She's already died once, so why is she still in pain?
She bit her lip hard to keep herself from making a sound.
About two or three minutes later, Cheng Shiyun opened her eyes and found Xie Shijin looking at her.
The bedroom door was not closed, and the orange-yellow firelight shone in from the living room, flickering on the floor.
It looks like the candles on the cake have been relit.
The girl's lips were pale, and she tried her best to look sleepy as she asked, "Why aren't you asleep yet?"
Xie Shijin said, "I can't sleep."
"Can't sleep, or are you afraid to sleep?" Cheng Shiyun wanted to touch his face, but her hand hurt so much that she couldn't lift it. She could only clench his clothes tightly with her fingers. "Are you afraid that I will disappear tomorrow?"
Xie Shijin said, "No."
His eyes looked a little unfamiliar.
It doesn't seem like he's looking at her.
Cheng Shiyun knew who he was looking at.
He was looking at her from two years ago.
She walked across the eaves holding a blue umbrella.
She lay dying in a pool of blood.
She was covered with a white shroud.
She is buried in Songshan Cemetery.
Xie Shijin's voice was so hoarse it was almost broken.
He said, "Being afraid of me won't save you."
His eyes were filled with sorrow, as if he were enduring extreme pain.
Xie Shijin, are you in pain too?
The unnoticed crowd, the raindrops flowing upstream, the rekindled candlelight—Xie Shijin sensed the changes around her even earlier than she did.
Cheng Shiyun thought of the evening news she saw in the dormitory lobby: an asteroid was hitting the Earth and humanity was going to be destroyed. So, was he giving her half a day to say goodbye?
On the dormitory balcony, Xie Shijin raised his hand, not just to touch her, but more to confirm her existence rather than some kind of illusion.
If time could really turn back...
"It's okay."
Cheng Shiyun comforted him in a lighthearted tone.
“I’ve died several times already, so dying again won’t be a big deal.”
"If..." She didn't dare mention that possibility, "Don't blame yourself, and don't be sad, okay?"
Xie Shijin said, "No."
He will definitely blame himself.
It will definitely be sad.
They will surely be consumed by longing and regret in countless dark nights, never to escape it again.
Cheng Shiyun sniffed, then used all her strength to raise her hand and cup his cheek: "Xie Shijin, kiss me one more time."
She closed her eyes, and a soft touch enveloped her lips.
The boy's kiss was filled with desperate devotion.
The night was dark and deep, enveloping them tightly.
...
Just before blowing out the birthday candles, Xie Shijin made a wish:
They can wait until tomorrow.
...
Midnight.
Outside the window, a leaden gray haze enveloped the sky and earth, making the whole world seem as if it had been pressed into a faded old film.
Leaves blown down by the wind return to their branches, and rainwater flows back into the sky.
Time seems to flow backward and reverse at lightning speed.
A crackling sound of poor connection came from the old radio:
[Today is July 12, 2016. According to the latest weather forecast, affected by warm and humid air currents, heavy rain will continue in various parts of our city over the next week, with some areas also experiencing thunderstorms, gusty winds, and other severe convective weather. Citizens are advised to take precautions…]
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Author's Note: Time Reversal!
This really feels like the grand finale now. [glasses]
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