The moon's imprint gives rise to doubts about fate. The crabapple blossoms with rain intoxicate the world.
Wearing a dark red dress, with a table full of empty wine bottles, she was as lonely as a hedgehog, avoiding the noise around her; as delicate as a rose in the wind, she aroused Qian Jianjun's endless love and pity.
"Xiaoyu?"
Gu Quyu's face flushed red. "Old Qian? What a coincidence? Would you like to sit for a while?"
"Can I sit down?"
"Please sit down. There are so many people here. Can I really eat you?"
Qian Jianjun was still lucid and could hear Gu Quyu's resentment. He sat beside Gu Quyu and comforted her softly, "Xiaoyu, don't be like this."
"What happened to me? Did I miss work or ruin your relationship?"
"Xiaoyu, you're not wrong. You're not wrong at all. It's all my fault!"
"So you distance yourself from me and fear me like a tiger?!"
"I'm not afraid of you, I'm afraid of myself. I'm afraid I won't be able to control myself! Not only will it hurt me, it will also destroy you!"
"Liar! Qian Jianjun, you're a liar! You lied to me and yourself!" Gu Quyu was already drunk and emotionally agitated. "If you don't love me, how can you lose control? If you do love me, why would you imprison yourself?"
Qian Jianjun glanced around nervously, realizing that the atmosphere of the night market was filled with people enjoying themselves, no one paying attention to them. He finally felt relieved and said to Gu Quyu, "It's not that I don't love you, but it's not that either. Alas, I just can't tell the difference between love and desire! Some time ago, I fell in love with Xinyue, and I thought I had no desire for you anymore. It was just a simple feeling, and I could control everything. But that night, I realized..."
"So what if it's love? So what if it's desire? Old Qian, do you dare to hug me now?" Gu Quyu interrupted Qian Jianjun, turning to look at him sideways, seeing his shoulders tremble slightly and then still. "To put it bluntly, you just don't trust me! Old Qian, what are you afraid of me for? Are you afraid that I'll take your money? Or are you afraid that I'll keep pestering you?"
Gu Quyu became more and more excited as she spoke. Without saying anything, she hugged Qian Jianjun tightly and whispered in his ear, "I am willing to give you my pure body without any regrets! I don't ask you for anything. Even if you want me today and let me go tomorrow, I will be willing to do it!"
After saying this, Gu Quyu let go of Qian Jianjun, who was still stunned, and looked straight into his eyes. "I only hope to leave your shadow in my life, enough for me to remember for a lifetime! But you don't trust me, you don't dare! You are a coward!"
"I, I..." Qian Jianjun stammered incoherently. His heart was already in turmoil, and the last dam gave him a fragile persistence, "But then you shouldn't give me the medicine."
"Medication?" Gu Quyu was shocked by the sudden thunder. "You know everything?"
Qian Jianjun nodded.
As if she had lost all her strength in an instant, Gu Quyu supported herself on the table with one hand, staring at Qian Jianjun with lifeless eyes. Two lines of clear tears rolled down silently, followed by her soft voice, "If I don't give you sleeping pills, what will happen if you wake up? Only when you are asleep, I dare to secretly take off my clothes and snuggle in your arms, feeling your warmth, your scent, and your heartbeat up close. That is the happiest time of my life. This is just my humble wish. Is it too much? Is it wrong? Does it scare you so much?"
"Sleeping pills?" Qian Jianjun vaguely remembered many beautiful scenes in his dreams, including the fragrance he smelled from his hands before. It turned out that those were not hallucinations.
"Yeah, what's the matter? I checked the medicine, it has no side effects and no dependence! You know, Lao Qian, I would rather hurt myself than let you get hurt even a little bit."
This sentence brought back too many memories for Qian Jianjun: how many times that frail figure had supported him, how many times that delicate woman had stood in front of him at a drinking party. But deep doubts forced him to suppress the softness in his heart. "Isn't it Marofen?"
"Malaminophen, what is that?"
Gu Quyu's eyes were still wet with tears, and her expression of confusion was genuine. Qian Jianjun was even more suspicious: "Didn't you buy me the hangover medicine?"
"'Dou Shi Qian'? Does it contain malamphenicol? I don't know! Why do you care?"
"No, I heard that Amofen is a male medication that can increase interest." Qian Jianjun said vaguely.
"Oh, I don't know. The 'Dou Shi Qian' I bought for you is a hangover and liver-protecting medicine. I was afraid that you would damage your liver by drinking..." As he spoke, Gu Quyu understood, "You don't suspect that I changed the medicine for you, do you? Every medicine I bought for you was well packaged. And if it's the right medicine, you can go to the pharmacy and buy a bottle yourself to know. You suspect me to this extent? I'll resign!" Gu Quyu's tears of grievance flowed like rain.
Her reasons were irrefutable. If she had truly switched the medication, any pharmacy would have exposed her lie. Furthermore, Qian Jianjun had always opened the innermost seal of the bottle cap herself. But the next thought made Qian Jianjun break into a cold sweat—if the medication wasn't there, then all his previous absurd thoughts and actions were his fault?!
There was no time to think about it. Comforting Gu Quyu was the most urgent thing. Qian Jianjun apologized sincerely, "I'm sorry, Xiaoyu, it's all my fault!"
"It's all my fault. I made you take sleeping pills. Otherwise, no one would have suspected me. I'm a jerk, so you can't be blamed..."
Gu Quyu was talking to herself while shedding tears. Her delicate face was as charming as a crabapple blossom in the rain.
Qian Jianjun hugged her in his arms and said, "Don't say anything, Xiaoyu, it's all in the past, it's all in the past, it's my fault..."
"Punish, punish me! Drink with me! Accompany me to drink." Gu Quyu's words were still choked by the sound of tears rolling over his shoulders, but he would not refuse...
A few stars came into view.
"Are you awake?" Liu Che's voice remained gentle.
"How long have I slept?"
"I ate about ten more buns than last time."
"So long? Are you tired?" Xue Jiuyue quickly took the pillow and sat up straight.
"Not tired, I thought I could let you sleep all night."
Liu Che stroked his forehead with his right hand and moved his shoulders at the same time.
The smooth and beautiful lines of his right hand prompted Xue Jiuyue to continue the conversation about fate before bed. "Do you know why after seeing you at Lan's place that time, I decided to let you treat me?"
Liu Che hesitated slightly and then shook his head.
"Because I've seen the three crescent-shaped marks on your right hand."
"Have you seen it?"
"Yes, it was a dream." Xue Jiuyue was too embarrassed to elaborate.
"Did you have this dream after you saw me?" Liu Che asked back.
"yes!"
"So from a medical perspective, it actually means that my treatment has been recognized by your subconscious mind, which has packaged it into certain images in your dreams. This is precisely a manifestation of transference."
Liu Che's serious analysis made the romance under the stars an exposed film.
"Empathy?"
Xue Jiyue was surprised by the word mentioned by "Spit Star" and suspected the relationship between Liu Che and "Spit Star". Liu Che thought that Xue Jiyue did not understand what he meant, so he explained gently: "Empathy is..."
Xue Jiuyue interrupted him, "I know about transference. Then are the three marks on your right hand something you were born with, or...?"
Liu Che understood Xue Jiuyue's insistence, but still denied it. "I was pinched because I was naughty. If you don't believe me, just look."
Xue Jiuyue was afraid that she couldn't see it clearly, so she turned on the light of her cell phone and observed it carefully.
Liu Che's hands were already beautiful, his fair skin appearing as delicate as fat under the spotlight. However, visible scars on the three crescents marred the original texture, and faint wrinkles appeared at odds with the skin's lines upon closer inspection—clearly the result of trauma.
"I didn't lie to you, did I?"
Xue Jiuyue still didn't give up and posed a question that she thought was a dilemma, "Then how do you explain eyebrow painting? Are you trying to say that you learned to paint eyebrows after hearing my dream?"
"My father has always drawn my mother's eyebrows. I've always thought it was the most romantic thing. When I grew up, I naturally learned it, but I never had the chance to draw until..." Liu Che held back the second half of his words and continued, changing his target: "And you are more likely because you also know that 'the depth of eyebrow drawing is in line with the times', so you were wrapped up in the dream. It just happened that I can draw eyebrows..."
What Liu Che said made sense, especially since Xue Jiuyue had previously "recalled" Ye Yi's story of "drawing eyebrows and tailoring clothes" to her. However, she was still very disappointed and complained softly, "Xiao Ming, you are so boring! I thought it was a previous life."
"If you don't know life, how can you know death? If you haven't seen clearly in this life, why bother worrying about the past life? Every inch of time is a continuation of the previous inch, and every inch is also the beginning of the next inch. Every inch is independent of the present. The absence of cause and effect is the cause and effect of the present."
"Yeah, that makes sense!" Xue Jiuyue took the two cups from the table and handed one to Liu Che, "Xiao Ming, happy Qixi Festival! Cheers!"
"Happy Qixi Festival! Cheers! Xiao Shi!"
Non-alcoholic beer doesn't intoxicate, but the sweet, mellow aftertaste of cocoa, the whispers of a golden hairpin, the soft, fragrant caress of a pillow, and the starlight of "Heaven on Earth Year After Year" can make one intoxicated... So drunk that Xue Jiuyue, unable to stand alone, had to hold Liu Che's hand with one hand and use her phone with the other to light the way down the mountain. Fingers clasped, there was no discomfort, only happiness!
As soon as he got in the car, Liu Che was sensitive to something unusual. "This... it's quite late now, drive carefully."
"Got it!" Xue Jiuyue caught the change in Liu Che's expression. "This is a friend's car. You've seen it before, Mr. Qian. I was outside when I called you."
"Oh! It's okay. It's quite comfortable to sit here."
Liu Che's response was awkward.
"Here's what happened..." Xue Jiuyue didn't drive. Instead, she turned sideways and stared at Liu Che intently. "I donated some books to the children in the impoverished mountainous areas. When Mr. Qian found out, he not only donated a library in my name but also brought them to Xialin for summer vacation. The children all wanted to meet me, so I played games with them today. Later, I accidentally learned about the true meaning of Yuezhu Temple from Mr. Qian during a casual chat, so I borrowed his car to come find you."
If Liu Che was a "spitting star," he should know the whole story; if he wasn't, he would be surprised, suspicious, and perhaps reveal his true identity, Xue Jiuyue thought. What she didn't know was that Qian Jianjun had previously contacted Liu Che.
"You are always so kind!" Liu Che was as gentle as ever, without a trace of emotion.
Xue Jiuyue couldn't help but ask, "Is it over?"
"Oh, give out a caring citizen award! Give out prizes next time."
Liu Che was unhurried, even joking around! Was he unconcerned, unconcerned, or had he already known everything? All his emotions were reduced to a single sentence: "Xiao Ming, you're so bad!" Then, a heavy roar of cars filled the night...
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