Ha Yue soaked in the bathtub for twenty minutes. When she finished her skincare routine, dried her hair, and came out of the bathroom, the kitchen light was still on. Xue Jing was washing the dishes and chopsticks she had just used for the second time.
Upon hearing Ha Yue push open the kitchen door, Xue Jing immediately quickened his movements, which he had been deliberately slowing down.
He quickly placed the clean bowls and chopsticks in the colander, turned around and nodded very politely to Ha Yue, "Sorry, I ate a little slowly. I've finished washing the dishes, so I'll head back now. You must be very tired taking care of Auntie, so you should get some sleep."
Xue Jing said this, but he didn't move his feet toward the door. Fortunately, Ha Yue didn't really dislike him, so his test didn't remain unresolved.
She looked at him for a while, then walked to the cupboard, stood on tiptoe to open the door, and pulled out a packet of ginger and jujube tea. "You're going to sleep right after eating? I'm going to make some tea. Aren't you going to stay a little longer?"
So Xue Jing followed Ha Yue step by step through the courtyard back into the living room.
With his coat draped over the back of the sofa, Xue Jing sat upright on the sofa like a primary school student listening to a lecture.
Hot water steamed gently from the thermos and was slowly poured into a teacup. The television was turned back on, but this time it was on silent. The movie channel was rewatching a classic, showing Titanic from 1997.
Ha Yue gently blew on the steam rising from her teacup, and Xue Jing did the same. The two of them drank tea like that, not looking at each other, just staring at the pantomime on TV. Suddenly, Ha Yue asked him in a low voice, "Why didn't you come over for lunch this afternoon? Jinzi asked me if you and I were having a fight."
Xue Jing dared not tell the truth and immediately turned her face away to explain softly, "I didn't have a fight with you. It's just that the PR and stuff at the studio are quite troublesome, and I've been a bit busy."
Ha Yue turned her head, her gaze following his Adam's apple down to his clothes, and said thoughtfully, "Oh, so busy you don't even have time to eat."
She could skip a meal, but she changed her clothes. When she picked him up from the airport in the morning, Xue Jing was clearly wearing a matching "old-fashioned" outfit, but now the man sitting on her sofa pretending to be well-behaved was wearing a loose hoodie that only a "puppy brother" would like.
She thought she didn't know he was waiting for her to take the initiative to wipe the slate clean.
He's dreaming of playing dumb to fool others; she'll see how long he can keep up this pretense of politeness.
The two were too close. Xue Jing's gaze drifted down, unintentionally sweeping over Ha Yue's open neckline. She truly didn't treat him like an outsider; after showering, she was wearing a set of pajamas close to her skin. Although the pajamas and pants were long-sleeved, the blended material was very skin-friendly, and he could even see the curve of the top of her breasts clearly. The ginger and jujube tea he had just drunk was already taking effect; his stomach was burning, and sweat was breaking out on his forehead. He quickly put down his teacup and subtly moved to the side, saying, "Um. I'm really sorry to have troubled you to save food for me. Thank you so much, it's too much trouble."
Ha Yue pressed her tongue against the roof of her mouth and rubbed it in his direction. She wrapped one arm around the back of the sofa and put it around his neck. Then, pretending to watch TV intently, she said, "You're welcome. Auntie saved the food for you. It has nothing to do with me. You don't know, there's no room in the fridge. I was afraid of wasting food. If you don't eat it today, it will go bad tomorrow."
Xue Jing's breath hitched.
After all that fuss, it turned out that Ha Yue didn't care whether he was hungry or not. He hurriedly changed his clothes and ran over thinking that Ha Yue wanted to make up with him. He was really delusional. He just came to clean up the leftovers. He was having a great time eating dog leftovers.
Ha Yue's fingertips brushed back and forth on the stubble of hair behind Xue Jing's ear. Xue Jing's eyes turned pink from the heat. Besides the itchy ears and his anger, there was also an indescribable sensation pressing against his left elbow near Ha Yue. He tightened his fingers on his knee, making creases, and after a while, he changed the position of his legs before saying rather unhappily, "If you want to drink tea, then drink tea. Can you please stop pressing down on me with some special body parts? My hands are numb."
Ha Yue almost burst out laughing when she saw him get flustered. She continued to squeeze him forcefully, feigning innocence, and said, "Who told you to put your arm on your leg? You could have hugged me. You were hugging me so enthusiastically in the car this afternoon, weren't you?"
Thinking about how he had become the embarrassment that afternoon, Xue Jing clenched his teeth, the muscles under his eyelids twitched wildly, and his whole face was on the verge of losing control, but he still spoke softly so as not to wake Zhao Chunni who was sleeping, "Um, I'm sorry, I'm already reflecting on it. I was wrong this afternoon. How dare I touch your body without your permission? I deserve to die. It was so disrespectful and impolite to women. Why don't you just drag me out and kill me?"
As soon as he finished speaking, Ha Yue sprang off him. The pressure on his arm was gone, but Xue Jing was even more annoyed. However, before he could react, Ha Yue slammed the TV off and stood up to tell him to leave.
"Alright, since that's the case, you can go back now. The tea is almost ready, there's nothing more for you to do here."
The sarcastic tone instantly turned into a desperate act. Xue Jing grabbed Ha Yue's arm and pulled her into a tight embrace, his voice urgent, "If I go back, will you still love me tomorrow? If you still love me tomorrow, what about the day after?"
But who can guarantee anything about what will happen the day after tomorrow? You can't force matters of the heart.
This was the first time Ha Yue realized that Xue Jing's attitude towards relationships had become so insecure after their breakup four years ago. She thought her decision back then was a relief for both of them, but she never expected that the feeling of defeat would linger with Xue Jing for so long.
Ha Yue hugged him back, and when she looked up again, she stopped teasing him. Touching his face, she stared intently into his eyes and said, "Xue Jing, you said before that apologizing is to make amends to others, not to help yourself, right? Now I'm returning that to you. I've read quite a few of your books over the years. If I had really held a grudge against those comments you made back then, we wouldn't be where we are today. To be honest, I didn't feel anything when I heard them. On the contrary, I was quite happy for you. I felt that it was fortunate that I broke up with you, so that you could write such a best-selling book. I guess I did a good thing."
"Like now, we're back together, and things are going well, which I think is a good thing. Maybe everything happens for a reason. So don't be too demanding about relationships. There's no such thing as perfect love, where you have to be so calculating and scheming, even trying to turn things around in the past. Nobody's perfect, neither are we. Besides, you're not the same person you used to be, and neither am I, right?"
"We're very happy together now, and this is what a great love looks like."
"I don't have time to think about how to break up with you. You know I'm too busy to even think about it.
What Ha Yue was saying was that she didn't need to forgive him at all, because she didn't need his apology either. Now, in her eyes, the past wasn't a scene of an accident that urgently needed to be rebuilt.
He overthought things, exaggerating the situation tens of thousands of times in his mind, and then became as anxious as a frightened bird.
She sincerely hoped that Xue Jing could relax his mind about their relationship, because their foundation was clearly more solid than most couples', and there was no need to worry unnecessarily.
However, before urging him to go home, Ha Yue tiptoed and whispered in Xue Jing's ear, "But if you really want to show me your sincerity, that's fine too. I brought you some souvenirs from abroad. Why don't you take them home and try them out?"
“A whole bag of these, all carefully selected for you. While I was buying them, I kept thinking, ‘Ah! This one would definitely suit Xue Jing, and that one would also match Xue Jing well,’ so I bought several sets at once.”
Ten minutes later, Ha Yue locked the door and lay back on her wire bed. Her phone vibrated; Xue Jing from across the hall had sent her three question marks.
In the photo, Xue Jing's veins were bulging on the back of his hand as he held those colorful men's uniforms. He asked her, "Ha Yue, is this the souvenir you specially chose for me? What kind of shops did you go to when you were on your business trip? Were you there for work? I was almost moved to tears by you just now."
Ha Yue laughed out loud in bed and quickly typed: "Don't want to wear it? Fine then. You keep saying you love me, but you're not sincere at all. Remember the first time we went to the hotel near the school gate? It was snowing that day. I was so generous. I even prepared 16-centimeter high heels. You're so stingy."
After typing in the chat box for a long time, Xue Jing finally replied with a few mirror photos of her without showing her face. The black and white "maid" in the photos had rather broad shoulders and back, and her pectoral muscles were about to tear the lace trim on her apron.
What's with that left hand? Why is it kneeling and lifting up its skirt to brush against the edge?
"Of course I want to wear it! It looks good, doesn't it? It's just a skirt, every man should wear a skirt, I love wearing them. It's not convenient for me to wear it now, but when the caregiver comes back to work, you can come over tonight and I'll put it on properly for you to see."
"Wear black on Monday, pink on Tuesday, and purple on Wednesday..."
“I’m wearing all of these outfits on Sunday, just in case they’re too spicy and make you have a nosebleed.”
In the master bedroom, the mother's snoring was as loud as a train. In the small bedroom, Ha Yue hid under her blankets, like an underage girl reading forbidden books, secretly zooming in and out of the photos Xue Jing sent her, her pupils bulging like scales, not missing a single detail.
Lacking oxygen in bed, breathing became heavy. As she looked at the photos, her toes inexplicably curled up. In the end, Ha Yue herself became parched and flushed as she looked at the photos. She quickly told Xue Jing that she was really asleep and to stop sending harassing messages, then locked her phone and put it under her pillow.
Peeking out from under the covers, Ha Yue took deep breaths of the cool air, closed her eyes, and calmed herself for a long time, almost chanting the Great Compassion Mantra. Once her heart returned to normal, her mind cleared, and she abandoned her lust for men, she sat up again, turned on the bedside lamp, and began to open the emails on the bedside table one by one.
Because of limited funds in the early stages of starting a business, labor costs were already a significant expense, and the high rent in commercial office buildings was not within Ha Yue's consideration.
Recently, Su Jing is applying for her company to move into the newly planned e-commerce entrepreneurship park in Suicheng. In addition to a one-year rent-free period, they are also very optimistic about the public technology services and entrepreneurial financing platforms provided by the government in conjunction with large e-commerce platforms.
Before successfully moving into the startup park, Ha Yue did not have a proper office location, so she could only temporarily fill in Zhao Chunni's old house as the address for all business communications, and have Wu Fangtian sign for them on her behalf.
I've been away on a business trip for a week, and I've accumulated quite a few emails from factories in China.
Most of these emails contained documents or product catalogs, so when Ha Yue picked up the SF Express document envelope sent by Jiang Zifan, she didn't feel anything unusual.
Tearing open the metal strip on the back of the envelope, there was no paper at first glance. The product catalog inside seemed very small. Ha Yue reached into the open envelope and unexpectedly pulled out an old vermilion passbook. Opening the first page of the passbook, the account holder's name was Ha Yue, and the account was opened fifteen years ago.
The densely packed pages of current account deposits accumulated until they reached 560,000 yuan, at which point the accumulation abruptly stopped.
The last page of the passbook contained a photograph. In the photo, the man lying on the hospital bed looked emaciated and was not the father she remembered at all. Ha Yue's fingertips trembled slightly as she turned the photo over. On the back, besides the passbook's password, there was also a line of Yuecheng's home address.
Jiang Zifan's handwriting wasn't very neat, it looked like a dog's paddle, but Ha Yue could understand it.
He wrote: "The money was saved by him for your schooling. If you'd like to visit him, it's always convenient for my mom to come over."
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