Chapter 97 Kiss
Ji Yun couldn't drink the sweet and sour hawthorn wine. He just held a glass of water and quietly watched Liu Sijun and Cui Da and the others talk and laugh loudly, clinking glasses and drinking heartily.
Meng Yutong has always preferred sweet and sour flavors. This hawthorn wine has a mellow taste, rich fruit aroma, and a long-lasting sweet aftertaste, which suits her taste perfectly. Today, she rarely relaxes, so she drank several cups.
Liu Sijun, holding his wine glass with slightly flushed cheeks, said to Meng Yutong, "Tongtong, the other day when the clinic had an accident, I was out collecting dried fruits for medicinal tea and couldn't help at all. I really felt bad about it. Fortunately, we escaped danger in the end, otherwise I really would have... sigh!"
His tone was filled with regret and lingering fear.
Meng Yutong smiled and raised her glass to clink gently with his: "Brother Liu, why be so formal? You've been traveling all this way for the sake of Zhaoyutang's medicinal tea business. Now that this matter is over, let's not bring it up again, given how good things are today."
"Yes, yes, you're right!" Liu Sijun tilted his head back and downed the wine in his glass in one gulp, saying heartily, "Let's not mention these unpleasant things anymore! From now on, Zhaoyutang will surely have good days every day, and it will be prosperous and thriving!"
Ji Yun sat to the side, watching Meng Yutong's cheeks flush slightly from the wine. Her usually cool eyes were now as bright as stars, and a rare touch of naivety was revealed in them.
She smiled upon hearing this and then finished her drink.
Liu Sijun immediately refilled her glass, and the two drank back and forth, downing five or six cups in a row.
On the other side, He Haochuan was also pulled into drinking a few cups by Wu Ming and Bai Zhi. Cui Da and Mei San even started playing drinking games, shouting "Five is the best, six is the best," which drew bursts of laughter from everyone.
Ji Yun silently watched the noisy scene before him, picked up his teacup and took a sip. He had always preferred quiet, but tonight he suddenly felt that a little noise might not be so bad.
Finally, Liu Sijun, unable to hold his liquor, soon slumped onto the table, mumbling incoherently as he fell asleep.
Cui Da glanced at him with disdain, casually pulled over an outer garment and draped it over him, then ignored him and continued playing rock-paper-scissors with Mei San.
Meng Yutong's cheeks were flushed, and her bright eyes were glistening with tears. Compared to her usual aloofness and self-possession, she now had a rare, innocent charm.
"Don't drink too much," Ji Yun said helplessly, looking at her flushed face. "I'll go buy you a cup of tangerine peel drink to help you sober up."
Just as he got up to leave, his sleeve was gently tugged.
Meng Yutong looked up at him, her eyes slightly hazy, but her voice carried a rare softness: "Today is the Mid-Autumn Festival, Uncle Wang has already gone home for the reunion dinner, where can you buy it? Besides... I'm not drunk."
At this moment, the bright moonlight poured down completely, enveloping the courtyard in a soft glow. Meng Yutong was also bathed in this silvery light, her cheeks as if coated with a light and gentle glaze, hazy and indistinct, yet inspiring a whimsical longing to touch, to cup that handful of moonlight in one's hands.
Ji Yun's fingertips twitched slightly, and he finally sat down slowly.
Seeing him sit down, Meng Yutong smiled at him, her voice slightly tipsy: "What a pity... This hawthorn wine tastes very good. It was specially made for me by Granny Gui many years ago... Well, in short, it's a treasured wine. You can't even taste it."
She paused, her gaze falling on his hand, and added, "However, since your hand is injured, it's fine if you don't drink..."
Looking at her completely different appearance and listening to her concerned yet somewhat incoherent words, Ji Yun slowly curved his lips into a smile.
She must be drunk.
When she was sober, she would never speak to him in such a tone.
However, she is quite cute when she is drunk.
Ji Yun took the wine glass from in front of her, replaced it with a glass of warm water, and then picked up the serving chopsticks to place some refreshing vegetables and tender chicken on the plate in front of her. His movements were slightly slow due to the injury to his right hand, but they were still meticulous.
“You didn’t eat much for dinner,” he said in a low voice, which was particularly clear amidst the surrounding noise. “You’ve lost a lot of weight in the last few days. Alcohol is bad for your spleen and stomach, so eat more rice and vegetables.”
Meng Yutong nodded obediently, the intoxication making her lose her usual aloofness.
She tried to imitate Ji Yun, picking up a piece of chicken he had just given her with her chopsticks and putting it back in his bowl, but her movements were a little clumsy and she almost dropped it on the table.
“Then you eat too,” she said, tilting her head back and looking at him intently. “Let’s eat together.”
Seeing her rare display of affection, Ji Yun's heart softened. He gave a helpless smile and said, "Okay, let's eat together."
He thought to himself, though drinking wine is not good for health, how else could he see her so defenseless and vulnerable? It seems that wine is not entirely without its merits.
"Yutong." He suddenly called her softly, his voice even softer than usual.
"Hmm?" Meng Yutong was taking small bites of a chestnut when she heard the sound, turning her head to look at him blankly.
Ji Yun gazed at her, his eyes appearing even more profound in the moonlight and lamplight. His pupils, which were originally clear and cold like jade, were now clearly churning with complex and unfathomable emotions, like undercurrents surging beneath a deep pool.
His gaze was both inquisitive and subtly tense, as dark as ink, as if it wanted to suck her in.
"When Zhaoyutang was sealed off," he asked slowly, "did you ever think of asking me for help?"
Meng Yutong first shook her head.
The surging darkness in Ji Yun's eyes gradually deepened with her movement, becoming increasingly obscure and difficult to understand.
"Why?" Ji Yun pressed, leaning forward slightly to close the distance between them. "What exactly happened between us?"
His bandaged hand, however, held her slender wrist gently under the table with a slight force.
Her wrists were very slender, and with a slight cupping of his palm, he could easily envelop them completely.
He could clearly feel her pulse beating, one beat after another. At first, it was steady, but then, under his gaze and questioning, the frequency of the beating gradually increased.
His gaze was uncontrollably drawn to her lips, which were even fuller and redder from the alcohol, and he stubbornly sought an answer.
She felt extremely dizzy and exhausted even while sitting in the chair, her body unconsciously leaning slightly to the right. Ji Yun leaned forward and steadily offered his left shoulder, gently pulling her into his arms to find a comfortable position.
"So many things have happened..." she mumbled in his arms, her breath carrying the sweet scent of hawthorn wine, "I...can't remember."
At the other end of the table, Wu Ming, Bai Zhi, and the others were already quite drunk and staggering.
Those with a low alcohol tolerance, like Liu Sijun, had already collapsed onto their desks and were unable to get up.
Unexpectedly, Wu Ming had a decent alcohol tolerance and was still trying to shake Cui Da's arm: "Get up! Keep drinking!"
However, he himself was swaying, clearly having reached his limit.
"Hmph... I've really had too much to drink..." he muttered, raising the last glass of wine to the bright full moon in the sky, then tilting his head back to drink it all down before collapsing onto the table with a thud.
After nestled into Ji Yun's arms, Meng Yutong closed her eyes, letting out even, long breaths, and fell into a deep sleep.
Ji Yun carefully picked her up and carried her steadily toward her room.
After entering the room, he settled her on the bed. Because his hand injury had not yet healed, his movements were exceptionally slow and cautious.
He bent down to take off her shoes and socks, pulled the quilt over, and carefully tucked the corners of the blanket in. After finally settling her in, he was about to straighten up when Meng Yutong unconsciously reached out and softly wrapped her arms around the back of his neck.
Caught off guard, he lost his balance and almost fell onto her, his nose filled with the faint scent of her herbs mixed with the sweet aroma of hawthorn wine.
"Mother..." She closed her eyes, unconsciously turning her face to the side, her soft cheek and nose brushing against his chin and neck, murmuring with dependence, her breath warm, "Don't go... Ying is scared, don't go..."
The unfamiliar address made Ji Yun's breath catch in her throat, and her body tensed up instinctively, but she did not break free, simply letting her lean against her.
"Ah Ying..." he murmured involuntarily.
It was clearly a completely unfamiliar name, but when he uttered it, an overwhelming wave of bitterness and sharp, phantom pain welled up in my heart for no apparent reason, as if countless fine needles were pricking my heart.
At the same time, fragmented and blurry images began to flash rapidly through his mind.
It seemed as if there was another woman, carrying a similar fragrance of hawthorn wine, her figure graceful and indistinct.
Those images flickered in and out of sight; he tried to grasp them, but they were always replaced by new fragments just as he was about to touch them. It seemed... that whenever he had any close contact with Yu Tong, these unfamiliar fragments would always surface in his mind.
He gazed at the woman sleeping peacefully beneath him; she had now released his grip and was no longer trying to stop him from leaving.
But her unique fragrance, that sweet and sour scent, seemed to transform into an invisible and fine net, completely enveloping him and rendering him unable to move.
His gaze was irresistibly drawn back to her rosy, moist lips.
The room was dimly lit, with only a sliver of moonlight filtering in from the window, much like his current state of mind—a chaotic mess from which he could not find a clear way out.
Driven by some instinctive emotion, he involuntarily leaned forward slowly...
Just then, a night breeze swept through the courtyard, passing through the gap in the window that wasn't fully closed, and gently snapped the hinged window shut with a "click".
The last glimmer of light in the room was also cut off, plunging it into complete darkness.
In this darkness, isolated from the outside world and where only their breaths mingled, he finally bent down and touched something incredibly soft and warm. The sweet and sour aroma of hawthorn wine instantly enveloped and overwhelmed him.
That is not a taste that can be satisfied with just a taste. Like a traveler who has been trekking through the desert for a long time and finally finds a spring, he instinctively explores deeper and, after grasping a bit of sweetness, wants more.
Like a dream, or a half-awake state, he had no energy to distinguish between them and simply let himself sink into depravity.
In the midst of this entanglement, the previously fragmented and blurry pieces of memory in my mind began to miraculously piece together and become clear.
He seemed to see another version of himself.
Another version of myself, living a completely different life...
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