Chapter 138: Gathering and Separation
His smile was so calm that she always felt that he was playing tricks.
Chu Wang tried to find some clues from it, but unfortunately, when he smiled, he always made people feel that he was invincible.
She thought for a moment and said, "Who's going to ask first?"
"Ladies first?"
"good."
Chu Wang tilted his head and thought for a moment, then felt that asking the first question was a bit of a disadvantage, so he immediately regretted it: "...Wait, ladies please, gentlemen first."
"Okay." Xie Zeyi smiled again, looking at her without blinking, "Are you hungry? Do you want to eat something first?"
"I've had a big piece of cake, so I'm not hungry." She said firmly.
"Um."
"Um?"
"I'm done."
"..." She was so angry, "This is not the way to play the game. You have to ask what you really want to ask. You can't give in to me."
"That's what I wanted to ask."
“Try to ask questions that make the respondent feel awkward and hesitant.”
"Like what?"
"For example..." She tilted her head and thought about it. For example what?
While she was thinking, this person suddenly asked a question.
"May I have your name?"
"Um?"
"Tell me your name."
She came back to her senses from her thoughts and answered, "Lin Zhi." She wanted to tell him that it was the "zhi" in "zhi yiqiyong fang xiqiang" or "zhi zhi kekou"; but when the words came to her lips, she said, "zhi is the to in tosomeone."
"Lin Zhi."
"Ai."
"Lin Zhi..."
He said it twice in a serious and steady voice, which made her heart numb.
It felt like a lonely stranger in a foreign land, suddenly being addressed by her childhood nickname. Unlike Xu Shaoqian, she was a sojourner there, deeply inspired by his thoughts. Occasionally, she could enjoy a bowl of warm home-cooked food, but she couldn't stop. After a meal, she still had to pack her bags and set off, heading out into the vast frosty and snowy night.
This time, the man took her bag, put it on his back, and said to her with a smile and a gentle voice, "Are you tired? Welcome home."
She almost had tears in her eyes.
When he opened his mouth, his voice was hoarse, "It's my turn."
"Um."
"You understood everything I said at the racecourse. Why did you keep pretending not to understand?"
"I'm afraid of scaring you."
"Why do you scare me?" Shouldn't you be the one who is scared?
Xie Zeyi's eyelashes drooped as he pondered. Then he smiled and said, "I was planning to ask before I opened the door. But when I walked into your ward, you looked at me like that, from under the covers, as if I'd done something wrong... Do you know what that look was like? I was afraid you'd run away from me the moment I opened my mouth."
The window was open and the sea breeze was very comfortable. She immediately decided to change to a comfortable position, stood up, leaned on the windowsill and talked to him.
When Xie Zeyi looked at her, there was a brief moment of dazedness in his eyes.
She prompted him, "It's your turn."
He came back to his senses, thought for a moment, and asked, "Are you afraid?"
"What are you afraid of?" she asked with a smile.
She knew what he was asking. What was he afraid of? Fear of the slaughter in his homeland, fear of being without his kind; fear of being alone, afraid of walking alone in this chaotic world, and even more afraid of being treated as an alien if he made the slightest mistake, afraid of being misunderstood, misinterpreted. But wasn't he the same? The moment he stood at the door of the Municipal Council and confessed himself, she understood. The place her heart longed for was her home, the land she stood on, the person before her. From then on, she no longer feared living alone into the next century.
"Is that your next question?"
"No! I haven't asked yet!"
Xie Zeyi said calmly, "Okay, ask again."
She tilted her head and thought for a moment, then smiled slyly, "How many girlfriends have you had?"
Xie Zeyi also laughed, there was nothing he could do to her.
"You don't have to answer," she said complacently, pushing the fist-sized amber cup towards him, "Drink."
He took the cup and put it aside, then slowly replied, "Four."
Unable to contain her curiosity, she bent down and asked, "Besides Ma Ling and that girl from the East Coast, who else is there?"
Xie Zeyi smiled helplessly and said, "Two."
She knew she had said something wrong, so she retreated back in frustration and sat down obediently. "Okay, okay. Ask."
As I sat back on the windowsill, I heard him continue, "The girls from St. Martha's School and the girls from the Girls' Aid Society School in New York. They were all just passing through, and their stories were forgotten. Looking back, nothing is more vivid than the math homework from high school and the shrimp wontons from the Chinese restaurant her parents ran in New York's Chinatown."
She wasn't really interested in this, though. If she had, it was simply because she was deeply unimpressed by his reaction to the question. She thought it might be awkward, but she didn't expect him to automatically come up with an answer within ten seconds that was both honest and revealed a strong desire to survive. She nodded and waved her hand, letting him go. "Your turn."
"Yeah." He looked up and asked calmly, "What about you?"
She hadn't expected him to be so uncreative as to use her own lines in a rhetorical question. She was shocked, but she remained calm on the surface, "No one else, only you. In my two lifetimes combined, you're the only one."
"Um."
She thought about it and felt something was wrong. "Mr. Yan Sang is the fiancé sent by God to me, and I respect him very much. But before I even had any improper thoughts, my father ruined the marriage. If you count, then there should be two... No, that's not right, there's still only one. Before we even had the chance to date, you've already skipped the boyfriend stage and become mine..."
"My husband."
She sighed, what a loss.
"It's okay, I'll double it back later."
She looked up and thought for a long time: The boyfriend-girlfriend stage was skipped, how can I make up for it?
But rather than asking this, she wanted to seize the opportunity to ask questions and find out something else.
"Mr. Xie?"
"exist."
"When was your first kiss?"
Xie Zeyi laughed for a while and said, "Four years old."
She was shocked. "So small!"
"It is said that he was very pretty when he was young. When he was in Guangdong, he was often caught by little girls and kissed secretly."
"Ah..." She thought of his elegant nickname "A Zheng" again, and couldn't help but imagine a handsome boy named Xie Zeyi with long eyelashes, red lips and white skin.
Xie Zeyi seemed to know what she was imagining. While she was still smiling secretly, he suddenly asked, "What about you? When was your first kiss?"
"Last year, April 1st."
He lowered his head and thought, "April 1st..."
As if she was afraid that he would ask who the target was, she immediately interrupted him: "It's my turn."
"good."
She thought about it carefully for a while and decided that if she was going to play, she would play a big one, one that he would definitely not be able to answer.
So he quickly asked, as if jokingly, "When was the first time?"
"First time what?" He blinked.
"You know."
"First time? Diving? Surfing? Flying a plane? Shooting a gun? Eating betel nut, smoking, or..."
"Cheating is punishable by three drinks."
One second, two seconds, three seconds...
Xie Zeyi shook his head and smiled. He then unscrewed the whiskey bottle cap and filled a full glass. As he tilted his head back to drink, a small stream of liquid flowed down his tense neck, rising and falling with the rolling of his throat.
The amber cup shone with pearlescent light.
After he put down his glass, she asked, "One? Not three?"
He confessed, "Yes. I can't answer that."
She actually felt a little disappointed, "Oh. It's your turn."
"you--"
She immediately interrupted: "Don't ask the same questions as me!"
He paused, smiled, and said, "Okay."
She was a little angry for some reason. "Don't you have anything in particular you want to know about me? Aren't you very curious?"
“Yes, in the past.”
"What now?"
"Yes. I want fate to tell me whether I can stay with you in peace until we grow old, until we die, until the next century... I think that just having you by my side has used up all my luck, so I dare not have any more extravagant hopes."
She looked up, "But you don't even know what I look like, whether I'm 1.6 meters tall, whether I have a good education, or whether I have a good temper, and you want to spend the rest of your life with me..."
"Temper? She does have a bad temper. She's the craziest girl I've ever met. But so what?"
"You don't even know how old I am. Maybe this soul is an old lady with white hair and loose skin?"
"Longer than I have lived?"
"long."
"How long? Is this year long enough to be eighty years old?"
“…Not yet.”
"That's good. It's rare to see an eighty-year-old still so childish."
She was a little amused and helpless.
"Tell me something I don't know about you. Tell me one, and I'll give you a drink. If I know, I'll give you a drink. Let's see who gets drunk first."
She nodded, "Then you lose."
He said, “Try it.”
She immediately said, "I'm only eighteen centimeters shorter than you."
He finished his drink, holding the glass and bottle in his hands, and suddenly looked at her.
Then he stood up, walked over, hugged her, leaned her back against the windowsill, and let her lean on him.
"Yeah, to the lips."
After that, he kissed her forehead and the top of her head, and gently placed his chin on top of her head.
She smelled the same scent of green grapefruit leaves on him as she did on herself, mixed with the faint sulfur scent of malt whiskey in his breath. It was the rotten smell unique to spring, a uniquely fresh and decadent smell that made her want to pull open the collar of his shirt, bury herself in his clothes and sniff until she was addicted, satisfied, and drunk.
"Go on," he said.
"In my two lifetimes combined, I'm seven years older than you."
"Hmm. So what?"
"It means you..."
With her back to the moonlight, she was completely enveloped in his shadow. The candlelight had almost burned out, and the shadows in the room swayed seductively. He slowly lowered his head, resting it against her forehead, his eyelids drooping, and his mouth slightly opened, almost ready to kiss her.
Sensing his intention, she reached out to cover his mouth, looked at him and said, "I'm afraid you'll have to call me sister."
Xie Zeyi's mouth was covered tightly, and in this position, he took advantage of the situation and kissed the palm of her hand.
She withdrew her hand as if she had been electrocuted.
He hugged her tighter, poured a glass of wine behind her with both hands, and after drinking it, he said with a smile, "Seven years old? Even at seventy, he's still Zoe's little lunatic."
After saying that, he put the wine bottle aside in his right hand, grabbed her wrist and brought it back, moved closer, and then kissed her intently and slowly.
Her body was supported by his arm, which held the amber cup at her waist, and his hand, which was tightly gripped around her wrist. Each soft touch, accompanied by a slightly moist feeling, magnified the itch in her palm.
"What else?" He took the time to look up from her palm.
She was a little distracted by his actions, her mind was a mess, and she thought for a long time, "I... I'm a smoker."
He smiled, and his warm breath tickled her palms.
She quickly took the opportunity to withdraw her hand and put it behind her back. "What are you laughing at?"
"I know that."
"How do you know?"
"When you hold a pen," he slowly reached down to find her hand and clamped her index finger between the second knuckle of his thumb and middle finger, "you often hold it like this."
She reached for the bottle with her other hand, and was so startled by his action that she almost knocked the whole bottle to the ground.
He was quick-eyed and quick-handed, and stretched out his hand to steady the bottle.
"That was close." She breathed a sigh of relief, crawled out of his oppressive arms, found the most comfortable position, sat cross-legged on the table, unscrewed the bottle cap and filled it up for herself.
After drinking, she turned around and saw Xie Zeyi's eyes fixed on the book on the wooden box beside her.
She almost choked on the last sip of wine in her mouth, yelled "Oh no!", and quickly reached out to pick up the book and put it behind her back.
Xie Zeyi asked, "What is it?"
"No, nothing."
"oh?"
"Are you still playing games?" She changed the subject.
He thought for a moment, then rested one hand on her knee, smoothed her wind-blown hair, and chuckled softly, "Well, play."
Her eyes moved cautiously following the movements of his hands and she said, "The salmon pot you cooked is the best dish I've ever had."
He smiled and said, "Even my mother knows."
She hadn't imagined she was such a thoughtful child, her face showing it all. She was immediately frustrated. Trying to come up with something to test him, she immediately said, "I was born prematurely."
Unexpectedly, he paused for a moment, then leaned closer, his nose almost touching hers.
Seeing that he didn't take the glass to drink, she leaned back with her hands on the table and complained quietly, "Don't cheat."
He practically pressed his lips against hers and whispered, "I didn't."
She continued, "The nurse said someone had been waiting for me. But time was running out, so I couldn't wait any longer, so I was born two months early... I thought it was so naive and funny at first, but then I realized maybe this fairy tale was made up to comfort premature babies who endured two months more suffering than others."
As soon as she finished speaking, she was startled when she looked up slightly.
She didn't know if it was her imagination. At such close distance, his eyes were startlingly bright, and as he stared at her with his eyelids slightly lowered, his eyelashes drooped in a dark mass, like dark clouds covering the moon when they closed.
Then he leaned forward and kissed her gently on the lips. They both leaned slightly back against the table, and the large hand that was holding her steady was trembling for some reason.
After they separated, her heart was still pounding.
He asked, "Anything else?"
She said, "What is it that you most want to know right now?"
"have."
"What?"
He leaned his forehead down, leaned close to her and asked softly, "Do you like me kissing you?"
Her face was hot, and she nodded slightly, saying softly, "Yeah, I like it."
He closed his eyes and moved closer.
Not only that. Even his forehead wrinkles, his pupils that were so distinct that they were almost pure black and white, the focused and gentle look in his eyes when he looked at her, the teardrop mole on his eyelids...
When she looked into his eyes, for some unknown reason, before he kissed her, she blurted out, "I like to hug you, kiss you, touch your skin, and then lie in bed and talk until dawn..."
His breath caught and he stopped moving.
She turned her head away, not daring to meet his gaze. She hadn't drunk much, but somehow she acted like one, boldly teasing him, just to surprise him and get him to admit: So you're like this, and I didn't know it.
Then slowly get him drunk.
Dozens of seconds passed, and it felt like a hundred years.
He spoke, his tone was indeed very surprised, "So you would say such a thing."
Recalling the glorious days of her dirty jokes, she continued to show off with a smug look, even though her face was still red. "I'll tell you more, do you want to hear it?"
But this time, she didn't feel proud for more than two seconds.
Almost immediately, he lowered his head and held her lips, holding her head and kissing her deeply and lingeringly. She felt weightless and was afraid of falling onto the desk, so she had to reach out to hold his neck.
The next second, he moved the hand that was holding her down, hugged her waist, wrapped it around the inside of her knees, carried her away from the desk, strode to the back of the room, and sat down on a large walnut chair.
He was surprisingly strong. He pulled her legs over and made her sit on his lap. He whispered, "Don't tell me, just show me, okay?"
They were both dressed in white, their clothes so thin they were almost transparent. As he carried her over, one of her socks slipped off, leaving her leg dangling empty beside his.
She buried her head in his arms, shy to the point of going crazy. Their skin pressed against each other through their clothes, their clean and similar body scents lingering together, almost drowning her.
But he kneaded her shoulder lightly through the shoulder straps, leaned close to her ear, and said slowly, "If it hurts, I can stop at any time."
The voice was so low and soft that it was fatal. It was the last bit of oxygen before she was on the verge of suffocation.
She heard her own voice say, "Okay."
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