damp
"Happy wedding." Wen Yushen smiled faintly, pushed the gift she had prepared forward, and continued to speak on her own before Jiang Moyun could reply, "Isn't it a bit late to say this now? Why didn't you send me an invitation? This is too formal."
His tone naturally carried a hint of reproach, even though their relationship had long since deteriorated to the point where they could casually make such jokes.
It has been ten years since their less-than-pleasant parting at that banquet. Jiang Moyun can no longer find the familiar shadow in Wen Yushen, and it seems that their relationship is difficult to define with a precise word.
They used to be very close, they used to be in love...
"Once upon a time," a word that can only be mentioned but never touched, is the yesterday that people can only reminisce about.
"So what now?"
Wen Yushen's eyes were bright, and Jiang Moyun didn't have time to think any further. "I was going to give it to you, but I heard you have a competition, and I was afraid it would affect you." She smiled gently.
That's the truth. In fact, Jiang Moyun wasn't sure how much influence she still had with Wen Yushen, nor did she know if Wen Yushen would even come. She hesitated for a long time, and still didn't send out the invitation. But now it seems that her hasty explanation was a bit presumptuous.
"How could I? We've known each other for so many years. How could I not offer my congratulations when I heard about your happy news?" Wen Yushen's smile deepened. "I should at least send my blessings from afar. Otherwise, it would be too impolite to be shocked like this when I saw the news online and found out that I was the only one who didn't know."
He raised his glass, smiling broadly, and said, "Shall I punish myself with a drink?"
Jiang Moyun raised her glass as well, her tone becoming more familiar, "I should have done it; it was my oversight." She then downed her drink in one gulp, giving Wen Yushen no chance to react. "You must have a lot of training, remember to drink less alcohol; your health is important." Jiang Moyun's expression turned concerned, and she said it with much less effort than she had expected.
Wen Yushen stiffened slightly, but he quickly composed himself, though he looked somewhat forced.
However, Jiang Moyun felt that it was just her imagination.
"What kind of person is your husband?" He put down his wine, propped his head up, and carefully examined the expression on Jiang Moyun's face. "I've never even met him."
Jiang Moyun smiled gently, "He's a... very lovely person. If there's a chance, perhaps I can introduce you two..."
"I don't want to see him!" Wen Yushen couldn't take it anymore. The mask he had been so carefully maintaining shattered completely, revealing a stubborn look on his face. "Compared to me, who do you like better?"
"Yu Shen, don't talk nonsense." She reminded him, her tone somewhat warning. Compared to him, Jiang Moyun seemed so calm, making Wen Yu Shen look all the more ridiculous.
Her coldness became the last straw that broke Wen Yushen's back. It was always the same, whether it was ten years ago or now. She was always like this—always calm, always ruthless, always compassionately detached from the world, filled with sorrow, greed, resentment, love, hate, anger, and infatuation, leaving him alone to waste his time.
He's gone mad. The cold moon and warm sun, the long wait has killed the years. His first words were laced with mockery: "Do you really love him?"
Jiang Moyun remained silent, but Wen Yushen truly hated this. He had never imagined that he himself would one day act so aggressively and absurdly. "Do you really dare to love him? Have you told him who I am? Does he know that you once pledged your life to me?"
He almost stood up from his seat. "Jiang Moyun, you know perfectly well that I've waited for you for so long. I've been waiting for you all this time. You promised me..."
"Wen Yushen!" Jiang Moyun raised her voice and called him again. Wen Yushen stopped abruptly and slumped back into his seat.
“It’s all in the past, you…” she tried to persuade him again.
"It's all in the past?" Wen Yushen didn't want to hear anymore. Jiang Moyun's comforting words made him feel nauseous. He looked out the window, and the towering buildings in his field of vision suddenly became distorted and absurd, intertwining with the nonsensical blue of the sky, stretching into a huge, viscous phantom that made him want to vomit. Wen Yushen almost burst out laughing at her hypocritical behavior, then suddenly dropped a bombshell, "The gold medal was ours back then."
"What?" Jiang Moyun was somewhat bewildered.
“One of the judges accepted a bribe and deliberately gave us a low score. The gold medal that year should have been ours.” Wen Yushen, who was usually smiling, also showed a cold expression. “The news about that judge was exposed two months ago. Our competition was among the crimes he confessed to.”
He leaned back in his seat, looking a little dejected. "I begged the competition organizers to give me a replacement trophy, which I received a month ago. Then I rushed back to China without stopping. I wanted to contact you, but I couldn't find any of your contact information. When I checked your company's newsletter, it reported that you got married."
"Stop talking," Jiang Moyun interrupted him, "Don't talk about these meaningless things anymore." The summer sun in June was scorching, but Jiang Moyun felt a familiar chill, and his hand holding the wine glass trembled uncontrollably.
"Yes, you're married now, newlyweds. I should wish you... a long and happy marriage, and many children?" Wen Yu uttered these words with difficulty, then regained his usual smile. After tearing open the hidden ailment that had been painstakingly nurtured within him, he finally stopped mentioning the past, and his tone became like a lover's murmur, "I truly hate you, Jiang Moyun."
Jiang Moyun hesitated for a moment, and finally only said a barely audible "I'm sorry".
Looking at her changing expressions, Wen Yushen thought in a daze, "So you are not the Guanyin sitting on the lotus throne, devoid of emotion and desire. You are just a cowardly and incompetent liar who has made one lie to me after another."
But as he thought about it, tears welled up in his eyes again. "Though you are not Guanyin, could you still come and save me? Even just a drop of the sweet rain from your vase could enlighten my unawakened mind, and spare me from this torment of karmic debts..."
But he was not a transcendent saintly monk, nor was Jiang Moyun a compassionate Guanyin; from beginning to end, he only granted him a farewell.
He picked up the untouched glass of wine on the table and drank it all in one gulp. He looked at her one last time, carefully examining her features that he hadn't seen in ten years, engraving them little by little in his heart.
He chuckled self-deprecatingly, "But I still love you."
I should hate you. I hate you so much that my blood is almost drained, and I don't have the strength to hate you anymore. I still love you.
After a long pause, he spoke again in the awkward silence, "Jiang Moyun, you're nothing but a coward."
Wen Yushen left, leaving Jiang Moyun alone on the spot, the gifts he brought still quietly sitting on the table.
Jiang Moyun sat there for a long time, then opened the box, inside which was a trophy.
——
As soon as Lin Bairan got home, he looked around the living room and went straight to his bedroom. Worried about disturbing Jiang Moyun's work, he only opened the door a crack, only to find it completely dark inside.
"Still not back?" He couldn't help but frown, opening the door a little wider as he began to recall Jiang Moyun's schedule for the day: a meeting at the company in the morning, a meeting in the afternoon... It's nine o'clock now, she should be home by now. She clearly told him yesterday that she would be back by eight o'clock at the latest.
My left hand groped for the light switch on the wall, while my right hand picked up my phone to make a call. In the complete darkness, only the phone's buttons emitted a faint glow.
The room was filled with the crisp sound of buttons being pressed, mixed with a few sharp clinking sounds of glass colliding.
Lin Bairan paused slightly. He thought for a moment, then withdrew his hand from the light switch, closed the door, pressed and held the keypad, and used the dim light from the Nokia screen as illumination as he carefully walked step by step toward the source of the sound.
He hadn't walked far when he kicked something, which he picked up. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and he could barely make out the object—an empty wine bottle—which he set aside.
After taking two more steps forward, through a sliver of light from the gap in the curtains, they saw Jiang Moyun sitting listlessly on the ground.
She leaned against the windowsill, the cool moonlight illuminating the flush on her face. Her eyes were tightly closed, as if she were asleep.
Lin Bairan treaded even more carefully, gently helping her up a little and pulling her close to his chest. He smelled a faint scent of alcohol. With his other hand, he slipped under her legs and carefully lifted her towards the bed.
Just as they were about to put her on the bed, Jiang Moyun's eyelashes fluttered and she opened her eyes.
...
Jiang Moyun wasn't actually drunk to the point of being unconscious. She had already noticed when Lin Bairan came to pick her up, but she was just feeling lazy and didn't want to open her eyes, nestled in the comforting warmth. She only woke up suddenly when he was about to put her down, and the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was Lin Bairan.
Before her thoughts were fully clear, her body acted first. She reached out and hooked her arm around Lin Bairan's neck, smiled before speaking, and kissed him.
Lin Bairan put her on the bed, but she still clung to him and wouldn't let go, burying her head deep in the crook of his neck.
"Sister...!" Lin Bairan called out to her, reaching out to turn on the bedside lamp, but then suddenly froze.
Jiang Moyun was licking his Adam's apple.
Seeing Lin Bairan's embarrassment, Jiang Moyun laughed with satisfaction at her prank. She shakily propped herself up, but found she still couldn't reach it. She pouted in dissatisfaction and tried harder.
Caught off guard, Lin Bairan was pulled onto the bed. Just as he regained his balance, Jiang Moyun straddled him, and he quickly freed one hand to support her.
This put them at a disadvantage.
He was distracted, while the source of his desire was still just chuckling, a complete drunkard incapable of thinking.
He supported Jiang Moyun's waist, and could only smile helplessly, "What's wrong with you today? Why are you so drunk?"
Jiang Moyun ignored him, only smiled, cupped his face in her hands, looked at it from left to right, and kept changing the way she addressed him, "Lin Bairan!"
"Eh."
"Bai Ran!"
"I am here."
"noob!"
"..."
"Little White?" Not hearing a response, Jiang Moyun felt a little strange. "Little White, Little White, Little White... Little White!"
It seems we are determined to hear a response.
Lin Bairan sighed, "I'm here, what do you want?"
"wrong."
"What?"
Jiang Moyun leaned into his arms again, gently pecking at his neck. Lin Bairan was forced to tilt his head back to make it easier for her to move, and in his confused state, he also had to deal with the drunkard's incoherent words.
Jiang Moyun remained silent, her unringed hand moving downwards to take Lin Bairan's left hand in hers. Their fingers intertwined, the hard feel of the rings emanating from their base. She forcefully pulled Lin Bairan's hand to her eyes, examining it in the dim light.
She was also enveloped in a hazy halo, the soft light flowing over her tender, plump flesh, outlining her vibrant and dazzling bones, like a demon in the night devouring human spirits, slowly eroding Lin Bairan's precarious sanity.
Jet-black hair, crimson lips, and pearly white teeth—simple colors, reflected in the shimmering water, create a hazy mist of love and desire.
That little bit of red is getting closer and closer.
Her lips touched Lin Bairan's hand, and the warm breath exhaled from her slightly parted mouth seeped into his blood through the tiny gap between the ring and his finger.
As a result, Lin Bairan's entire body was enveloped in an ambiguous dampness.
Her pearly teeth were faintly visible as she spoke, "That's not how you call Xiaobai."
Jiang Moyun leaned close to his ear and gently bit his earlobe.
My whole body felt tingly and numb.
"..."
Lin Bairan finally gave in, his ears turning bright red as if they were about to bleed, and he barked softly, "Woof."
Jiang Moyun gave his hand a rewarding kiss.
Lin Bairan was still immersed in shame and hadn't come to her senses when she felt a slight chill on her neck—it was the ring on Jiang Moyun's hand.
What followed was a long, lingering kiss. He tasted the rich aroma of the wine, and he seemed to become intoxicated as well. His thoughts were swept away, sinking deeper and deeper, his entire being firmly controlled by the person before him. Jiang Moyun pulled away, and he subconsciously followed with a kiss, hearing Jiang Moyun let out a teasing chuckle.
She kissed him again, then pulled away and covered his mouth, leaving only her bright, moist eyes visible.
Jiang Moyun suddenly laughed mischievously and couldn't resist playing a little prank on him.
Lin Bairan obediently accepted everything.
Jiang Moyun finally smiled with satisfaction, mercifully letting him go. She casually patted Lin Bairan's face and cheerfully declared, "You are my little dog."
Lin Bairan nuzzled her affectionately. He was adrift in the sea of desire that Jiang Moyun had given him, willingly putting on the shackles in the name of love. He bowed his head in the room full of romance, following her every command. Occasionally, he would have a mischievous thought and tease Jiang Moyun a little.
Jiang Moyun also condoned his actions.
At the last moment, Lin Bairan seemed to wake from a dream and tried to get up in a panic, but Jiang Moyun just hugged him tighter and kissed his collarbone to comfort him, "Let's have a child."
Lin Bairan stared blankly at her. The drunkenness in Jiang Moyun's eyes had disappeared at some point, replaced by a variety of obscure and difficult-to-discern emotions.
"Regardless of whether it's a boy or a girl, let's call them... 'Xi Hui', 'Lin Xi Hui'."
So Lin Bairan buried himself even deeper, a muffled groan escaping his lips and teeth.
He tasted a bitter, salty flavor in that kiss.
It's like a continuous rain that lasts for years.
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