A Promise in a Thought 94

Chapter 94

The bleakness of late winter. Bo Muyu felt that the atmosphere of the New Year was not very strong this year, just like an ordinary day.

It was probably because she was away from home. She was at the film set every day, facing the director’s team and the actors. When she returned to the hotel, she would work on her computer. She hardly left any free time for herself.

Her fever had finally subsided. Su Man told her to rest in the hotel for a few more days and get a good sleep. She did not refuse. Her body had been very tired during the few days she had a fever. No matter how much she slept, she felt that she had no energy.

Bo Muyu moved a chair to the balcony and sat down, a coat draped over her. Her features were shrouded in a soft light in the morning sun.

She called Lin Chuwan, who was very surprised that she was not returning to Qinzhou for the New Year.

“Xiaoyu, you’ve been away for several months. Are you really not coming home for the New Year?”

Bo Muyu’s gaze was very placid. She let out a soft laugh, her small canine teeth dazzling in the sunlight. “No. We’re about to wrap up filming soon. It would be very rushed to go back at this time. Besides, I’m not away for a long time.”

“You haven’t been back for several months. Don’t you miss her?” Lin Chuwan’s tone was hesitant, but also seemed to have a hint of understanding. “You told me last time that you don’t want to give up yet, but you’ve been away from home for so long and you’re so busy every day. You don’t have any free time at all.”

Bo Muyu’s throat moved. She suddenly felt that the sunlight was a little dazzling.

Lin Chuwan paused, then said, “You didn’t have to join the crew at all, Xiaoyu.”

Bo Muyu closed her eyes, the familiar sense of powerlessness making her voice deep. “Sister Chuwan, you’ve guessed it?”

Lin Chuwan said in a warm voice, “Your mood has been very off when you’ve called me during this time. How could I not have guessed? I thought you were just having a tiff, but when you answered me just now that you’re not going back for the New Year, I suddenly had a gut feeling.” She paused, then added, “Did something happen between you two?”

“How can I hide anything from you?” Bo Muyu let out a faint sigh, her voice turning even fainter, so faint that it seemed it could be blown away by the wind. “She knows. Just before I left Qinzhou with the crew.”

Lin Chuwan gasped in surprise. “Then what’s the situation now? You… you haven’t been back to Qinzhou for several months because of this?”

“Mmm, she wouldn’t want to see me, and I can’t stay in the same city with her as if nothing has happened after she knows about my feelings.”

Bo Muyu opened her eyes, a throbbing pain in her head, and she murmured in a low voice.

“I need time to calm down, and I also need time to accept the ending of my feelings.”

She knew very well that it was impossible for her to not go back forever. She and Jiang Chenyin would have to meet again. She didn’t know what their relationship would become, but at least the next time she saw Jiang Chenyin, she hoped that she wouldn’t cry.

That look of stinging eyes and trembling hands, she needed time to learn to restrain it.

After hanging up, Lin Chuwan couldn’t come back to her senses for a long time. She had long expected that it would not be so smooth for Bo Muyu, but now that it had come to this, she didn’t know how to help her.

Should she advise her not to think too much about it? If it were her, and someone advised her to think less about these things, could she do it? Of course not.

When a person has taken root in your heart, it is impossible to ignore it no matter what. Bo Muyu’s departure from Qinzhou could not be said to be a bad thing. At this time, what was most needed was distance.

“You’re not eating breakfast. What are you thinking about?”

Song Muqing’s voice suddenly sounded in her ear, and a cold aura surrounded her. Lin Chuwan immediately lowered her head and took a small sip of her milk. This slightly mechanical action made Song Muqing narrow her eyes slightly, an unreadable emotion in them.

As Lin Chuwan was drinking her milk, she suddenly heard Song Muqing speak again, “Your auntie is out for a walk these few days. You’re at home by yourself.”

“I know,” Lin Chuwan replied without looking up.

This unwilling-to-get-close look and simple answer made Song Muqing frown, her gaze turning sharp. But a deeper sorrow accompanied it in her heart. Wasn’t this what she wanted? For so many years, she had never relented with Lin Chuwan. Every time they were alone, it was with harsh words.

Seeing Lin Chuwan sad because of her, her heart was happy, but she didn’t know if the pain was greater than the happiness, or the happiness greater than the pain. But at least Lin Chuwan would still have emotional fluctuations because of her, right? Even if it was pain, that was what she wanted.

She suppressed her emotions and asked with a cold gaze, “The few women I mentioned to you during this time, do you think they’re okay?”

Lin Chuwan’s movements paused, and she said in a low voice, “I don’t like any of them. Don’t arrange any more. I don’t want to see any of them.”

She bit her lip tightly. Song Muqing’s question had pulled her back to reality, an absurd reality. She had never thought that Song Muqing would actually arrange for her to meet a few people. None of those women were not beautiful and from a good family, but every time she received a notification from Song Muqing that she was going to meet someone, it was as if a knife were stabbing at her heart.

The person who was doing the stabbing was Song Muqing, this person with not a hint of warmth in her eyes.

She had confessed her sexual orientation to her mother a few years ago, but that was not to get such a result now. It was to be able to love the person she wanted to love without any worries, to let that person be able to trust her and love her with peace of mind.

But that feeling from back then was ultimately killed by her own hands. It was she who had watched that sword-like gaze gradually soften, and then become even colder than before.

“You don’t want to see them?” Song Muqing put down the cup she had just picked up heavily. “Do you want to make your auntie uneasy?”

Lin Chuwan’s heart trembled, and the pain that had been suppressed for a long time filled her eyes. She turned her head and said with a trembling voice, “Will Mom be at ease if I go and see them? Or do I have to pick one to date, so that you’ll be satisfied?”

“Whether you see them or not has nothing to do with my satisfaction. I just don’t want your auntie to worry about you and be unable to sleep all night,” Song Muqing said, emphasizing the last words, not a hint of pity in her eyes, but rather a faint hint of glee.

The feeling of stimulating Lin Chuwan like this should have been painful, but she couldn’t stop. As long as she thought of her own pain from back then, she couldn’t help but let Lin Chuwan suffer with her. She had trusted her so much, liked her so much, and in the end, what she had gotten was an unhesitating abandonment.

To have gathered the courage to rely on someone and in the end be abandoned, she only felt that a bloody hole had been dug out of her chest, and the person she had trusted and liked the most had cruelly crushed her bright red heart into pieces.

Lin Chuwan bit her lip hard, her eyes completely red, and she said to Song Muqing in a hoarse voice, “I don’t need you to worry about me. I’m begging you, let me go.”

This was the first time Lin Chuwan had used such a humble word. She wanted to endure it, but the current situation no longer allowed her to. Was she to endure all the discomfort and date someone she didn’t like? And it was arranged by Song Muqing.

This was a huge irony.

“Caring for my little sister-in-law, how can that be called a bother? It’s what I should do,” Song Muqing stared at her, her voice cold as she gritted her teeth, her hands already clenched into fists under the table.

Lin Chuwan felt as if a huge rock had been thrown at her heart. Her eyes were moist, and her lips were already bitten white. If this went on, she would break the skin in a little while. Song Muqing stared at her coldly, her whole body tense. When she saw a glint in the corner of Lin Chuwan’s eye, she abruptly stood up and left the dining room without a moment’s hesitation.

A couple of days before Jiang Chenyin’s birthday, Ye Xialan called her home for dinner, saying that she had suddenly gotten the urge to reminisce.

When Jiang Chenyin arrived, Ye Xialan was tidying up in the study. Bo Mingliang led her to the study door and then went back to his room to play games.

It was snowing outside the window. Ye Xialan had her sleeves rolled up and was picking and choosing things in the study, packing them into a box. Jiang Chenyin leaned against the doorframe with her arms crossed, her gaze on the window outside.

Ye Xialan chatted with Jiang Chenyin as she worked. “Teacher Jiang, why haven’t you been on a couple of variety shows recently to solidify your position as the leader of the cool, mature women?”

“I don’t have time,” Jiang Chenyin replied placidly. After being called back to her senses by Ye Xialan, she glanced around the study.

The bookshelves in the study were clearly categorized. There were books on investment and financial management that Bo Mingliang and Ye Xialan would read, and also some novels about family written by famous authors, which Ye Xialan read. In addition, there were several bookshelves with foreign literature, famous domestic works, and also very obviously student-used reference books and textbooks, which were Bo Muyu’s.

Jiang Chenyin’s vision blurred. It was as if she could see the girl from many years ago, sitting at the desk and quietly doing her homework. The scene changed, and then the girl was in middle school, having grown up to be extremely quiet, only showing a little childishness in private.

These scenes flashed by, and after that seemingly short yet long four-year separation, the introverted girl had wiped away the tears that had welled up in her eyes from reminiscing about the past with her warm fingertips, and then had held her, their foreheads touching, and had softly said that she would protect her in the future.

Thinking of that day of mutual confession, Jiang Chenyin’s nose tingled, and she didn’t dare to recall any more.

Ye Xialan was bending over, tidying up Bo Muyu’s childhood homework into stacks and putting them in a box, muttering, “I wonder if it’s as cold where Xiaoyu is as it is in Qinzhou. She brought enough clothes, but I’m just afraid she’s too busy and won’t pay attention to her health. You know, that silly girl, what’s the point of joining a crew? It would be so much better for her to just sit in her office and be a supervisor!”

Jiang Chenyin didn’t know how Bo Muyu was doing in the other city, what she was eating, or what time she went to bed.

But before Bo Muyu had turned and run away, Jiang Chenyin had known everything clearly and in detail.

Whether it was familial love or romantic love, Bo Muyu had given her whole heart to her long ago. That young and vibrant heart, filled with a longing for love and a reckless courage, was walking on thin ice, and she had never even intended to let Jiang Chenyin know her feelings, swallowing all the bitterness herself.

“I’ll take it to the storage room first,” Ye Xialan said, finishing packing a box of old textbooks and homework and picking it up to leave. Who knew that when she turned around, she was so scared that she took a step back.

“Teacher Jiang, what are you standing here for!”

“Let me,” Jiang Chenyin said with her head down, and took the box from her without a word.

Ye Xialan’s eyes crinkled with a smile as she handed the box to her. “Okay. You know where the storage room is, right? Just find a place to put it inside. These are all Xiaoyu’s childhood textbooks and homework. She won’t need them anymore.”

Jiang Chenyin nodded and took the box to the storage room.

She did not immediately put down the box and leave. The dusty scent in the storage room made her suddenly reluctant to part with this box of the past.

She placed the box on the table and couldn’t help but take out the notebooks inside, flipping through them one by one. The names written on the title pages of the textbooks went from scrawled handwriting to a nascent style, and the image of Bo Muyu from childhood to youth seemed to appear with them.

Jiang Chenyin focused on flipping through Bo Muyu’s notes in her textbooks. Occasionally, when she saw the records of inspiration sparked by the content of the text, her eyes were misty and filled with a smile.

It wasn’t until she picked up a draft notebook and opened the first page that her whole heart trembled, and the tears that had been welling up in her eyes fell, drop by drop, staining the aged paper. Her trembling hands continued to flip through the pages, her vision both blurry and clear. She covered her mouth, and tears streamed down her face.

On it were all her names, stroke by stroke, neat and powerful.