Chapter 17

After a long while.

Qiu Shuxue held her, her fingers resting on Luo Qingmeng’s waist. Some things had finally calmed down, yet Qiu Shuxue still coaxed her to look up at her once, insisting on checking if her lips were chapped.

Luo Qingmeng wiped the corners of her eyes. She knew she had been crying, but she stubbornly refused to admit it.

In the past, no matter how great the pain she faced, she had always kept it bottled up inside without breaking down like this. Her tears wouldn’t stop. Qiu Shuxue kissed her, and she cried; Qiu Shuxue teased her, and she cried too. In short, her eyes were always brimming with tears, and her gaze remained vacant.

Not wanting to be discovered, she turned her body sideways, facing away from Qiu Shuxue. Her tears first soaked the stray hairs along her cheeks.

Before long, the pillow was wet in a patch too.

Qiu Shuxue’s hand rested on her waist and abdomen as she kissed her shoulder. Luo Qingmeng said, “I’ve already… I won’t believe you anymore.”

Her voice cracked with a sob, sounding utterly aggrieved.

“Mm.”

Qiu Shuxue’s response was just that single simple syllable. She continued to ravage Luo Qingmeng’s face without restraint. Luo Qingmeng tried to push her away but couldn’t. Qiu Shuxue was shameless, but she was even more so—she craved this feeling.

Especially when Qiu Shuxue’s fingers circled between her legs, that lingering sensation refused to fade, as if she were still adrift at sea.

Qiu Shuxue asked her, “Why are you still struggling like this?”

Luo Qingmeng said, “I’m thirsty. I want some water.”

“Ah… alright.” Qiu Shuxue murmured softly against her lips. “If you still want it, I can feed it to you right now.”

In the past, Luo Qingmeng would have needed a moment to process that, but now she understood Qiu Shuxue’s meaning instantly. She quickly clarified that she was genuinely thirsty. Qiu Shuxue kissed her again, determined to suck every last drop of moisture from her body.

Luo Qingmeng was so parched that her fingers instinctively pushed at her. She finally managed to create a small gap and said, “Can you go get some water? Then… then I won’t resist anymore. You can do whatever you want to me.”

Qiu Shuxue lifted herself up, her forehead pressing against Luo Qingmeng’s. She asked, “For real?”

“Mm.” Luo Qingmeng let out a muffled hum. They were too close; Qiu Shuxue’s warmth enveloped her entire body. Qiu Shuxue gently nuzzled her cheek, drawing another muffled hum from Luo Qingmeng. Then Qiu Shuxue pulled away, looking down at her with a smile.

Qiu Shuxue swung her legs to the floor, and the motion-sensor light came on, bathing the entire room in an orange warmth. Twist the air a little harder, and honey would drip from it.

Qiu Shuxue slipped on her pajamas and went out the door. Sounds from outside flooded in—Li An was holding forth, gossiping about his marriage with his female colleagues. Luo Qingmeng’s gaze followed Qiu Shuxue until she vanished from sight. Then she turned to Qiu Shuxue’s bookshelf, where the books were neatly arranged. Amid a row of wooden collector’s editions, she spotted the words Snow Country.

Nobel literature—she had read that book, but she hadn’t liked it much. What stuck with her most was the snow swirling everywhere, the train rumbling past on the tracks, and the man’s love at first sight for a beautiful woman, captivated by the pure, mirror-like clarity of her eyes. But soon enough, Luo Qingmeng saw through those Japs’ definition of pure love: it was nothing but a tangled mess of emotions between a few people and some old man, pure bullshit romance.

Qiu Shuxue said a few words outside, cutting off Li An’s nonsense. When she returned, she raised her hand slightly. Luo Qingmeng sat up, parting her lips, her fingers bracing against the bed. Qiu Shuxue held the cup to her lips and fed her water. She lost fluids even as she replenished them.

Luo Qingmeng’s face was exceptionally flushed, her eyes swollen from crying, making her lower eyelids puff out prominently. She looked entirely rosy, ripe to the point of bursting.

Once she finished drinking, Qiu Shuxue leaned down and nuzzled her cheek softly. She murmured, “Such a fragrant big sister.”

Outside, Li An started talking animatedly again. “I wasn’t with her for anything special, but she lied to me. She’d been married once before, gotten pregnant by someone else—even had a history of domestic violence. To be honest with you all, I ended up in the hospital because I couldn’t bring myself to hit back. From what I know, she was fooling around with several clients, all kinds of ambiguous entanglements, specifically targeting rich guys…”

Qiu Shuxue’s lips pressed down hard, kissing her. Luo Qingmeng felt a pang of sorrow from the defamation and insult, but a secret thrill of revenge surged within her too. She kissed Qiu Shuxue back.

These two women, both entangled with him before, were now secretly tangled up together. It made the man outside seem all the more arrogant and foolish.

A few more rounds of people came by outside, but Qiu Shuxue brushed them off with excuses—said there was a call from home, that she was on a video call, and so on. She handled each one perfectly, except for that girl Luo Qingmeng really disliked. Her voice cropped up the most, probing like a detective, always convinced there was someone else inside.

Luo Qingmeng felt like she had gone mad too, no longer holding herself back.

She grew tired. Lying there, she kept her eyes closed for a long time, letting this younger girl Qiu Shuxue do as she pleased.

But a faint suspicion crept in. She pushed hard at Qiu Shuxue—there were voices outside, so she kept her voice low. “Are you deliberately ignoring… deliberately? These past few days, deliberately?”

She didn’t know how to phrase it right without seeming too invested in Qiu Shuxue. She interpreted that investment as pent-up anger, furious at being toyed with.

Qiu Shuxue looked up at her and asked in confusion, “Hm? What? I didn’t catch that.”

Luo Qingmeng glared at her hatefully. “Don’t play dumb!”

Qiu Shuxue smiled and spent a little more time fooling around with her. Only after she’d had her fill of her big sister did she shift to the side, lying beside her. In a low voice, she said, “Holding you like this, kissing you nonstop, calling you my wife—it’s so wonderful. My whole body goes soft. Big sister, it would be the happiest thing if I could call you my wife.”

She always answered a different question than the one asked. “On the day of your wedding, guess what I was thinking…”

Luo Qingmeng choked up. She wanted her to get back on topic, yet she also wanted to know. Qiu Shuxue leaned in again, and Luo Qingmeng made a sound. What was she thinking? Just how to toy with her?

Pervert.

And yet Luo Qingmeng loved it like this. Qiu Shuxue shifted through several positions to hold her. Qiu Shuxue was soft and fragrant, so good at taking care of her—not just selfish indulgence. Being with another girl like this, she felt that being gay could be pretty blissful too.

But why wouldn’t she ever stop?

Qiu Shuxue called out several times in a row. Luo Qingmeng kept feeling like she was calling her wife. She wanted to resist, but Qiu Shuxue bit her ear, and she realized that was one of her sensitive spots.

Luo Qingmeng’s cries turned into muffled grunts and choked sobs. Listening carefully, she finally made out what Qiu Shuxue was saying.

Qiu Shuxue pressed against her neck and said, “It’s my birthday today. This is the best gift ever. Thank you, big sister.”

Luo Qingmeng felt uncomfortable hearing that. She shook her head, tears welling in her eyes as she denied it. “I’m not a gift.”

Qiu Shuxue said, “Then give me a different gift.”

Luo Qingmeng pursed her lips and looked toward Qiu Shuxue. It was too dark to see clearly; she just felt stuck to something. She turned her head away, but soon leaned back in on her own, the back of her head bumping Qiu Shuxue’s forehead.

The meaning was clear: “What gift do you want?”

Qiu Shuxue softly said she wanted one of the books Luo Qingmeng had read—one with her reading notes in it.

She didn’t need to say the last part, since Luo Qingmeng filled every book she read with notes. But Luo Qingmeng didn’t understand. “Why not a new one?”

“No reason,” Qiu Shuxue said. “I just want it. Give it to me.”

Luo Qingmeng didn’t want to be swayed anymore. She closed her eyes, trying hard to sleep. Qiu Shuxue closed her eyes too and whispered hypnotically in her ear, “Big sister, you’re getting sleepy, aren’t you?”

Luo Qingmeng slept on her side, eyes shut.

Were they just going to sleep like this for the night?

Luo Qingmeng didn’t choose that. She dozed shallowly for a couple of hours, then forcefully woke herself up.

Qiu Shuxue was already asleep, lying beside her, her arm wrapped tightly around her. It gave off a sense of stubborn obedience that bordered on deadly—impossible to say if it was a good kid or a naughty one.

The curtains were drawn tight, no moonlight seeping in. The room was pitch dark. Luo Qingmeng carefully removed Qiu Shuxue’s hand, then crept up, skirting the motion-sensor light below as she peered outside. Sometimes Luo Qingmeng was shy to a frightening degree; other times, she was boldly daring. She summed it up like this: the more scared and reluctant she was to do something, the more she’d egg herself on.

Luo Qingmeng bowed her head, looking for her clothes, but she had no idea where her underwear had been stuffed. After a search, she could only slip on Qiu Shuxue’s pajamas. She found a pen on the nearby desk and rummaged in Qiu Shuxue’s drawer for a notebook, gently tearing out a blank page. Then she gripped the pen and wrote on it.

Once finished, she went out and dampened the edges of the note with water. Qiu Shuxue’s place was fairly large; one of her female colleagues was crashed out in the spare room, while several guys sprawled haphazardly outside. The air reeked of booze.

Luo Qingmeng utterly despised this kind of scene and atmosphere—it meant these guests would just up and leave whenever, leaving her to clean up for ages.

Fortunately, they all looked dead to the world.

Luo Qingmeng bit her lip and snorted coldly to herself. She first stuck the note to Li An’s forehead, just like pasting on a curse talisman, nonstop maledictions running through her mind. It read: 【Whoever helps him wash his pants will be jinxed for life—cancer, sudden death! Cheap bastard, if you don’t pay back the money, vicious diseases will plague you, leaving you half-paralyzed! Anyone close to Li An—he’ll pass his bad luck on to you, and you’ll have a year of endless misfortune!】

She forcefully twisted open the cap of the pepper spray she’d brought, then poured the chili oil right onto Li An’s crotch. This stuff was viciously spicy, and it would take a little time for the oil to seep in. For now, Li An just felt a bit of a burn. Still deep in his dreams, he reached down and tugged at his pants.

Luo Qingmeng emptied every last drop, then bolted barefoot, exhilarated as she ran. She had originally planned to flee back to the house next door, but she worried she wouldn’t get to see Li An’s agonized expression, so she sidled back along the same path. She dashed into the room and had just eased the door shut when a howl of agony erupted outside. She couldn’t hold back and burst out laughing, then quickly clapped her hand over her mouth. The racket outside was deafening, and soon a few more cries rang out. Qiu Shuxue, lying on the bed, stirred slightly.

What a relief!

Now she only regretted not going even further—not dumping pesticide on it!

Otherwise, she would have given herself the title: “The Deadly Poison Widow!”