Chapter 87
“Xiaoyu, do you know what you’re saying?” Lin Chuwan grabbed Bo Muyu’s hand, her face a mask of astonishment. “When did this happen? Jiang Chenyin… does President Jiang know? What’s the situation between you two now?”
She wasn’t shocked that the person Bo Muyu had been talking about liking all this time was of the same sex, but because of this person’s identity. The Jiang family and the Bo family were close. Jiang Chenyin was of the same generation as Bo Muyu’s mother, which made her Bo Muyu’s elder, someone who had practically watched her grow up.
Although there was no blood relation, this identity…
Putting aside whether their feelings were mutual, even if they were, there were still many obstacles between them. Just as Bo Muyu had said just now, the relationship between their two families was an obstacle, and the huge age gap was even more so.
Bo Muyu shook her head. “She doesn’t know. Before I moved out of her house, it was the same as before. I liked being with her every day, and she didn’t notice a thing. She never thought that my feelings for her were no longer familial love. In her subconscious, she still thinks I’m a child. But I can’t blame her for that. Even I only found out not long ago. By the time I realized that my feelings for her were no longer the same as before, I couldn’t control them anymore.”
Lin Chuwan was taken aback for a moment and said softly, “No wonder she didn’t notice. Even you only found out not long ago, and you’ve always been so close…”
Bo Muyu’s heart was pierced by Lin Chuwan’s summary, and her eyes turned red.
Lin Chuwan let go of her hand, patted the back of it comfortingly, and said, “Then did you move out of her house with the intention of giving up?”
“No, I don’t want to give up yet,” Bo Muyu looked up, her voice low and hoarse. “If I’m always by her side, she’ll always see me as a child. So I want to use a period of separation to make her remember that I’m not a child, that I can be a lover.”
Lin Chuwan had to remind her, “Are you mentally prepared? There are too many obstacles between you. Even if you plan meticulously, the ending may not be as you wish.”
She was unwilling to hurt Bo Muyu with her words like this, but as a friend, she couldn’t watch her pour her heart out only to be met with unbearable pain in the end. How many people could calmly accept an outcome that went against their own wishes?
Besides, Bo Muyu was a girl who had never been in a relationship before, and her feelings were so deep. She was really afraid that if the ending was not satisfactory, Bo Muyu would not be able to bear it.
“I’ve thought about the worst-case scenario,” Bo Muyu’s expression was sorrowful, her voice slow and low. She paused, then let out a soft laugh. “It’s just going back to how it was at the beginning. I won’t let her know. If it really doesn’t work out in the end, then we’ll just be like before. At least that’s something I can have for a lifetime.”
Lin Chuwan sighed. “You won’t regret it?”
“I don’t know. I only know that if I do nothing, I will definitely regret it in the future.”
The determination in Bo Muyu’s expression was something Lin Chuwan had never seen before. Her previously childish look was gone, and even her words were full of strength.
The afterglow of the setting sun was swallowed by the encroaching night. In the private room, the sound of someone drinking without a care for their image could be heard.
“Drink slowly. No one’s going to steal it from you,” Jiang Chenyin said, frowning as she reminded Lan Yuxin.
The latter, for a rare occasion, was wearing a woman’s suit. Her jacket was thrown on another chair, and several buttons of her shirt were undone, her good figure on full display.
“Ahem…” Lan Yuxin let out a drunken burp, put down the wine bottle, and touched her stomach. “Damn it, that supermodel is so blind. I already told him I’m not interested, and he still had to wait for me outside the studio!”
Jiang Chenyin shot her an amused look. “Weren’t you the one who gave him the wrong idea in the first place?”
“I didn’t do anything…” Lan Yuxin’s confidence wavered, and her voice lowered. “I just thought he was really cute, so I touched his face, just once.”
“And once wasn’t enough for you?” Jiang Chenyin was extremely helpless. Lan Yuxin was really too playful.
Lan Yuxin blinked and tried to reason with her. “I just thought his body was good, but his face was so tender. It was very cute. The kind of puppy face with a wolfdog body, wow, it was amazing…”
As she spoke, she clasped her hands together and rubbed them up and down, her face full of longing.
Jiang Chenyin mercilessly interrupted her reminiscence. “That’s no excuse for you to be so playful. You touched his face. What do you think he would think? How could he not think you’re interested in him?”
This time, Lan Yuxin became agitated and slammed the table. “How dare you say that to me? Teacher Jiang, you’re at home with the little one every day, hugging and sleeping, kissing and touching. It’s not just touching her face, is it? Why don’t you say something about yourself!”
Jiang Chenyin’s ears burned at her words. “What nonsense are you talking about! When did we… and how can our situation be compared to yours? Muyu has been close to me since she was a child. The nature of your matter is completely different.”
Kissing and touching, what kind of description is that…
Jiang Chenyin put down her chopsticks and glared at Lan Yuxin.
Speaking of kissing, hmm… there was. She had kissed Bo Muyu when she was little. And she had also given her a reward a while ago, letting her kiss her. She had also kissed Bo Muyu’s forehead when she was asleep. But touching… wasn’t that unavoidable in daily life? What was there to mention?
This was completely different from Lan Yuxin’s deliberate teasing of others.
Lan Yuxin’s cheeks were flushed with alcohol. She continued to drink from the wine bottle, and as she drank, she retorted, “How different can it be? Don’t you know about homosexuality? It’s okay for a woman to be in a relationship with a woman like that. Didn’t I tell you last time to consider me? What’s the use of hugging the little one? Her chest is not as big as mine… hiccup…”
Jiang Chenyin looked at her with a headache. “Yuxin, are you drunk!”
“Are you kidding me? Don’t you know my tolerance?” Lan Yuxin said dismissively, putting down the wine bottle and wrapping her arm around Jiang Chenyin’s shoulder, a seductive smile on her lips. “I’m serious. You should consider me. Although my family background is not as impressive as yours, I’m rich too. We’re a good match. If you’re worried about our bodies not being compatible…”
Jiang Chenyin’s brow twitched. She felt something was wrong. Sure enough, a whiff of alcohol came over, almost touching her face. “We can give it a try tonight. What do you think?”
“Yuxin!” Jiang Chenyin quickly supported Lan Yuxin’s body. “Sit properly, or you can drink by yourself. I’m going home.”
Only then did Lan Yuxin let out a huffy “humph” and sit back in her seat, muttering in a small voice, “Do you have to be so serious? You can’t even take a joke. It’s not like I can really do anything to you…” As she spoke, her voice suddenly grew louder. “And how do you know you won’t like women if you don’t try? You’re at home with that little one all day. How would you know what it’s like to be with a woman?”
“I don’t need to know what it’s like to be with a woman. I have no such thought,” Jiang Chenyin said with a frown, then her tone softened a little. “And Muyu is not living at my place anymore.”
Lan Yuxin stared at her blankly. “What do you mean?”
A wave of melancholy washed over Jiang Chenyin. She poured herself a glass of fruit juice, and after a sip, she said leisurely, “She’s not living with me anymore. She’s moved out.”
Lan Yuxin was mostly sober now. “When did this happen? Wasn’t she still there last month?”
Jiang Chenyin’s lips curved up, her eyelids drooping. “It’s been almost half a month. She moved out at the beginning of the month. She said she wanted to live by herself.”
Lan Yuxin’s eyes widened, and she saw the obvious sadness on Jiang Chenyin’s face. This change had come too quickly. It was a sudden change, a huge change!
She had thought that Bo Muyu would only completely stop depending on Jiang Chenyin after she had a boyfriend. Who knew that this change would come so quickly? She remembered that Bo Muyu was not in a relationship yet.
Thinking of this, she quickly grabbed Jiang Chenyin’s clothes and asked, “Teacher Jiang, is the little one in a relationship? Does she have a boyfriend?”
Jiang Chenyin thought for a moment, then shook her head. “No.”
“That shouldn’t be right. With the way she is with you, how could she bear to move out if she hadn’t put her mind on someone else?” Lan Yuxin couldn’t figure it out. She simply stopped drinking and sat beside Jiang Chenyin with the wine bottle, deep in thought.
“Maybe it’s because she’s grown up, so she’s slowly not like she was when she was a child. It’s not necessarily because of other things.”
Jiang Chenyin stroked the glass, her eyes fixed on the liquid with the fresh orange scent in it.
Lan Yuxin looked up at her. Seeing her calm face, but with a heavy sorrow in her eyes, completely devoid of the usual breezy smile, no matter how much Lan Yuxin could talk, she was unwilling to tease her in that way at this moment.
At this moment, Jiang Chenyin seemed sadder than at many other times.
“Teacher Jiang, don’t be sad. This day had to come sooner or later…” Lan Yuxin shook her arm, feeling that she suddenly didn’t know how to comfort people.
Jiang Chenyin was slightly taken aback, then she smiled. “Alright, let’s not talk about this. Let’s continue eating.”
She sighed inwardly. Lan Yuxin’s every word directly touched the thoughts in her heart, making her feel even more uncomfortable, but they were indeed the truth.
By the time they had finished their meal, Lan Yuxin was in no condition to drive. Jiang Chenyin drove her back first.
After settling Lan Yuxin, Jiang Chenyin went to the garage to get her car. As she was fumbling for her keys in her bag, she accidentally pulled out another set of keys.
They were the keys to Bo Muyu’s house, which she had stuffed into her hand when she had moved out that day.
She gazed at the keys in the light for a long time, clenched them to put them back in her bag, but the image of Bo Muyu’s firm yet reluctant look from that day suddenly appeared before her eyes.
The keys dug into Jiang Chenyin’s palm. Finally unable to bear the longing that had existed for nearly half a month, she strode into the garage and started the car.
Her destination was Bo Muyu’s house.
She bought a mango pancake from a cake shop on the way, for the first time in so many days feeling so anxious to reach her destination as soon as possible. She wanted to see Bo Muyu, to see her smile with her little canine teeth showing as she ate the dessert she had bought. That smile would be even sweeter to her than the cake.
Jiang Chenyin wanted to give Bo Muyu a surprise, just like when she had gone to Lingzhou last year.
She quietly opened the door with the keys Bo Muyu had given her. There was a pair of high heels at the entrance that she had never seen before.
Perhaps Bo Muyu had bought new shoes. She smiled, her lips curving up. They should have a lot to talk about tonight.
Jiang Chenyin changed her shoes, and as she walked in, she grumbled at herself in her heart. What had she been resenting all this time? Since she wanted to see Bo Muyu, why had she been so secretive, always reminding herself of the decision Bo Muyu had made?
But that day, Bo Muyu had so anxiously called out to her and stuffed this set of keys into her hand. These actions could not be faked. No matter how far Bo Muyu would be from her in the future, at least for now, they were not completely separated.
Jiang Chenyin’s heart was full of softness as she tiptoed to the vicinity of the lit dining room. Just as she was thinking of how to give Bo Muyu this surprise, the voice from the dining room made her stop in her tracks.
It was Bo Muyu’s voice, a hoarseness and trembling she had never heard before.
“Sister Chuwan, I don’t even know when I started to like Auntie Yin. If I had known earlier, I might not have let myself go on like this. But just as I said just now, by the time I realized that this feeling was no longer familial love, it was already too late. I can’t stop. I love her very much…”
There was a long silence in the dining room, and then another female voice sighed deeply.
And all this was like a violent clap of thunder, mercilessly stopping Jiang Chenyin’s desire to get any closer, striking her heart one after another.
