Chapter 141: Joke
The sky was dark. There was no moon, and he couldn’t see the sun. There was only a dim daylight. It was quiet in his ear, and the cold wind was flowing in the air, with a faint and rustling sound.
He was woken up by the cold. He didn’t know who had opened the window at night. The overly thin blanket couldn’t withstand the low temperature that was dropping again and again at night. His consciousness was wandering between being half-asleep and half-awake. He subconsciously touched the side of his pillow, and he only touched the pillow core, which had a lingering warmth.
Su Yu took out his phone from under his pillow and glanced at the time. It was six or seven in the morning. He rubbed his heavy and sore eyes and suppressed his sleepiness. He lifted the blanket and got up and went out of the bedroom.
The bedroom door was ajar, and an unnatural light was shining in. He gently pushed it open and squinted his eyes to adjust to the strong light that was shining down from the ceiling. The un-drawn curtains were slightly fluttering, and the cold wind, which was filled with moisture, was robbing the blood from his skin.
Su Yu was stunned for a moment. His gaze instinctively looked at the sofa. She was sitting in a corner of the sofa, and the hazy light was outlining her thin and slender silhouette, and it was illuminating half of her face.
The person had curled up in the sofa, and her arms were wrapped around her calves. The cuffs were rolled up, and half of her arm was exposed. Her skin was as transparent and fragile as glass. Su Yu could clearly see the prominent blood vessels and meridians on it.
He was relieved. For a while, Xia Qiange’s sleep had been very bad. She would go to bed late, but she would wake up very early. Sometimes, when he got up early to go to work, he would always see her sitting on the sofa in a daze, motionless… as if she were asleep, but her eyes were open. Her bloodshot eyes occupied most of her eye sockets, and her pupils were dilated and had no focus at all.
This time, it was fine. At least the lights were on, and her dark pupils… could still see the light.
“You’re up so early. Aren’t you cold?”
“I went to the bathroom. Maybe… I had a stomachache from eating seafood yesterday. It’s stuffy in the house. I’ll sit outside for a while.”
Xia Qiange looked up at Su Yu and smiled. She slowly gathered her calves, and her fair and delicate ankles were in her slippers. “I’ll go back now…”
The little girl was on her tiptoes, and her eyelashes were drooping and trembling. She was hastily brushing past his shoulder and was running into the bedroom.
“Wait, are you…”
Su Yu suddenly grabbed the corner of Xia Qiange’s clothes. Xia Qiange had her back to him, and her movements suddenly froze. Her head was drooping, and she was forcefully pulling at the corner of his clothes, which he was holding. Then she let go as if she had given up her resistance.
The girl was twisting her ankle with a coy and deliberate look, and she had turned away the heel of her left foot. But he had still caught the bright red and bloody mark on her delicate skin. It was seeping with a few strands of blood, and the skin was broken, and there was a faint bruise.
“How did you get this? It’s bleeding.”
His face was not very good-looking, because he was heartbroken, and also because the girl had hidden it from him.
“It was from my high heels. I went to look for medicine this morning, but I couldn’t find it.”
Xia Qiange bit her lower lip and slightly raised her head. She was not a pampered person by nature. This little bit of pain was nothing at all. It would be fine if she just endured it. But she looked at the boy’s slightly sunken eyes, and she couldn’t help but feel a little aggrieved.
“It hurts so much. I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“I’ll go and buy some medicine. You just sit here.”
“It’s so early. Where are you going to buy it?”
“It’s okay. The convenience store is open.”
Su Yu helped her to sit down on the sofa and closed the leaky window. He looked at the two not-so-deep wounds with a serious expression. His voice was involuntarily softened. He touched the little girl’s head. “Be good. If you’re sleepy, you can go back to sleep.”
“Then… you have to come back quickly.”
Xia Qiange pulled at the corner of Su Yu’s sleeve. Her hair, which she hadn’t had time to comb, was messy and scattered. She revealed a pair of dark and shiny eyes, like a clingy little cat, and she looked at him with a reluctant look. “You’re always troubling me with these things. It’s as if without you… I can’t live.”
“But we’re getting married. It’s not a shameful thing to rely on each other.”
He shrugged and held her hand and squatted down by the sofa. His eyes were as dark as ink, but in the light, they were so soft that it was almost incredible.
“I had a dream. At that time, we were already married. But you were so focused on your work that you were not willing to talk to me about anything. Slowly… we became as distant as strangers. The dream woke up later. But I was just thinking… if we could rely on each other more, maybe we wouldn’t have the ending in the dream. Yeah… it would become… it would become as good as we are now.”
“Haha… how could you have such a strange dream?”
Xia Qiange seemed to have been amused by him. She didn’t believe this joke. “Are you trying to scare me again? You can’t fool me anymore.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
He smiled noncommittally and stood up and walked to the entryway. He was a little worried and turned his head back. “Dreams are always the opposite. Don’t overthink it.”
The little girl moved her chin and nodded obediently, a little smug. “Don’t worry. I’m not that stupid.”
…
The convenience store was not far from the entrance of the neighborhood. It was about a ten-minute walk. He had also bought two bowls of freshly cooked wontons at a breakfast stall on his way. He was holding them in his hand, and they were heavy. She had been thinking about eating the breakfast downstairs a few days ago, but she had complained that she had always overslept.
The morning in the deep winter was so cold that a breath would instantly condense into a water mist. The white mist that was steaming from the bottom of the bowl had dispelled the cold in the deep part of his knuckles. His entire heart, which was in his chest, was at ease.
The old building, which was decades old, had rusty handrails on the stairs. Just after the New Year’s Eve, people were rushing back one after another. A thin layer of white ash was on the stairs. The sound of his footsteps as he went up the stairs had woken up the voice-activated lights in the corridor, which were still in hibernation. He was climbing up layer by layer, and the doors of every household were pasted with spring couplets with a red and fiery meaning.
They were holding an optimistic attitude and were praying to God for future happiness and joy at the beginning of the New Year. But what about him? God had played such a big joke on him, and had given him such a stable life now.
It was not until the last step to the door of his house that he had thought that all the instability had passed. Even though he had been wandering around before, he had been stable for too long now, but he did not know it… this joke, which was clinging to him like a persistent curse, had never ended so simply. It would always pop out from some unpredictable corner, and it would catch him off guard, and his scar would break open…
…
“You little bitch. You’ve ruined my family. Now you’re living a stable life here. Old Xia was kind enough to take you in when your mother died. But what you did, was that a human thing to do? You’re a white-eyed wolf! I curse you to a bad death.”
The bright red paper was scattered on the pale porcelain tiles. It was as bright as blood. The spring couplets on the edge of the doorframe, which had not yet dried, were unrecognizable. The beautiful wishes that had been written on them were completely unrecognizable.
The shrewish and unreasonable woman, her features were twisted like a monster that had killed and drunk blood. Her palm was raised high, and she was about to swing it down without any mercy.
But the girl was just frail and was curled up in a corner of the entryway. She was standing in place in a daze, and her gaze was as if it were not on the hand that was cutting through the cold and gloomy air. Instead, it was as if she were staring at him. The clear and cold, sparkling tears were rolling down from her eyes.
Su Yu felt as if his heart had been squeezed hard by a hand. The silk thread was tightly strangling his beating pulse…
