Chapter 37: Sister

I Thought You Loved Me So Much

In recent years, Xing Yue had never been this unrestrained. Last night, she barely slept. They were still going at it even at dawn, her voice hoarse from calling out.

When Xing Yue woke, she saw Bu Yao lying on her side next to her, her fingers still tracing Xing Yue’s face. Bu Yao’s gaze was deeply affectionate and lingering, but the moment their eyes met, she hastily looked away in a fluster.

That bashful look—anyone who didn’t know better would think Xing Yue had been the one topping all night.

Xing Yue held Bu Yao’s hand, her voice carrying the uniquely lazy tone of just waking up: “Nice to look at?”

Bu Yao paused slightly, then nodded.

She was wearing Xing Yue’s clothes, a pure white silk shirt. Its slightly long style perfectly covered her hips. It gave her an aesthetic of pure, innocent allure—incredibly alluring.

Her own clothes were discarded on the floor. Even though she’d already changed, this shirt was already wrinkled, clear proof that someone had left plenty of work on her body too.

Xing Yue: “I mean last night, when you couldn’t find the right spot and turned on all the lights.”

One bedside lamp wasn’t bright enough. Bu Yao was nervous and couldn’t even find the right spot. Xing Yue had turned on every bright light in the bedroom, even using a pillow to raise her hips.

At that angle, under that kind of light, even the fine, tiny hairs on the skin were clearly visible.

Bu Yao’s face heated up. She buried herself into Xing Yue’s chest, too embarrassed to make a sound.

Xing Yue had asked the same question back then. At that time, Bu Yao was still angry, her face completely flushed, but her words were stubborn: “Barely passable.”

Upon hearing this, Xing Yue simply agreed: “I think so too. The Eldest Miss’s is much better looking.”

That one sentence made Bu Yao’s body continuously release courtship pheromones. The air was thick with the scent of snake. The woman’s face became even more exquisitely beautiful, like a dewy flower.

Xing Yue chuckled lightly. Her voice had not yet returned to normal; it was low and hoarse: “What time is it?”

Bu Yao handed Xing Yue her phone: “Your agent called just now. I asked for a half-day off for you. She approved.”

Hearing this, Xing Yue showed no expression. That leave wasn’t granted to her; it was granted to Bu Yao.

From her years of working with Qiao Rui, Xing Yue knew Qiao Rui had a fiery personality. She’d even dare to argue with big celebrities, cursing them right to their faces. Yet now, she was obsequious and bowing to everyone in the Bu family.

It was obvious that Madam Bu must have given the studio considerable benefits.

“Mn. I’ll get ready and head to the training venue. I’ll send you the location once I’m there. If you’re free tonight, want to come over and help me with my treatment?”

Xing Yue got up and dressed. She had already explained the treatment plan for her snake tail to Bu Yao last night. She needed someone to use their snake tongue to soothe the wound and suppress the pain.

Although the hospital had specialized nurses, she wasn’t too keen on having a stranger lick her, and Bu Yao certainly wouldn’t agree—she’d probably tear the roof right off.

Just as she finished buttoning her shirt, arms suddenly wrapped around her waist from behind.

Bu Yao’s forehead rubbed against her back shoulder, murmuring abruptly: “If anyone asks if you’re single, you have to say you have a girlfriend, then show them my photo on your phone screen, okay?”

Many entertainers, under company arrangement, created certain personas for public appeal—the vast majority being the single persona. But since Bu Yao specifically brought it up and it bothered her, Xing Yue naturally wouldn’t hide it.

“This one?” She lit up her phone screen. Her lock screen wallpaper was Bu Yao kneeling under a camellia tree. Even her snake tail was showing. Xing Yue frowned. “Looking all like you want to be done. I’ll keep this one for myself. Let’s pick another.”

Bu Yao whimpered, biting her lower lip in embarrassment, mumbling softly: “You could tell I wanted it, but you still… rejected me…”

She was vexed with Xing Yue, having been rejected during courtship over and over again, wishing she could bite Xing Yue’s lips until she could never say another word of rejection.

Xing Yue sat on the sofa, pulling Bu Yao into her lap, and opened Bu Yao’s WeChat Moments to find another photo. She teased deliberately: “Your estrus cycle hasn’t even started yet, and you’re begging for it every day. Sooner or later, I’ll have to arrest you and throw you into a pile of little female snakes.”

Bu Yao bit her face immediately: “You dare!”

“I don’t dare. Can’t bear to.” Xing Yue tightened her arms, holding the woman in her embrace even closer, as if wanting to fuse her into her own body. “Call me ‘Sister,’ hmm? Haven’t heard it in a long time.”

She suddenly remembered the night they returned from hiking, when Bu Yao asked if she’d checked her WeChat signature. They’d gone out then, and upon returning, Bu Yao hadn’t brought it up, so Xing Yue put it out of her mind.

Now, scrolling through Moments, Xing Yue deliberately glanced at the signature below Bu Yao’s WeChat avatar.

It was a very familiar song lyric. So familiar that just reciting the words in her heart, she could sing it.

[Between the sky and me]

Mayday’s “Bu Bu,” a song she really liked. The first cover she’d shared online ten years ago was a snippet from this song.

Bu Yao had only written half the lyric. The second half was missing, just like Bu Yao’s feelings for Xing Yue.

Such profound love, so deep that Xing Yue felt dazed, as if it were unreal.

The first night after their divorce when they reunited, Bu Yao had said, “I missed you so much.” Heartfelt words, lonely and agonizing. But Xing Yue had overlooked them completely, never even hearing Bu Yao’s longing.

In the ten years Xing Yue was gone, seven of them were spent with another woman. Being deeply affectionate with someone else, talking of love. She rarely even thought about Bu Yao’s existence, often forgetting she’d ever been married.

If she loved her this much, why hadn’t she appeared in ten years? With Bu Yao’s status, finding her would have been effortless.

The woman in her arms didn’t know what she was thinking. She simply kissed Xing Yue’s soft lips, blushing as she called out: “Sister…”

Feeling it wasn’t enough, she kissed Xing Yue’s face, Xing Yue’s chin—no amount of kissing was enough. Still immersed in the joy of Xing Yue agreeing to be her girlfriend, she was overjoyed, sitting on Xing Yue’s lap, her legs swinging in the air.

Xing Yue suddenly brought up: “When we went hiking, you said you hadn’t been taking your medicine for a while and that your emotions were unstable? Did something happen?”

She assumed Bu Yao had fallen ill during those ten years, never knowing Bu Yao had been sick since ten years ago.

“Just that Love Obsession Sickness, erotomania,” Bu Yao lowered her head, playing with her own fingers, her voice faint. “I actually thought you loved me so much. One meeting and I wanted to get married. Holding hands and I wanted to grow old together…”

Her voice was fragmented and weak, yet her tone was unusually calm. She had suffered so much before she could correctly perceive that Xing Yue didn’t love her, didn’t like being with her, didn’t like helping her put on her shoes, didn’t like cooking for her, didn’t like coming home by eight in the evening.

She had told herself this cruel fact over and over again. From flying into rages, smashing the things Xing Yue left behind in their marital home, cursing Xing Yue like a madwoman, torturing herself until she was covered in scars—only when she saw that Xing Yue truly didn’t want her anymore did she powerlessly accept the truth.

Now, she could say, very calmly, that Xing Yue did not love her.

That brief marriage, she had replayed it in her mind countless times over ten years. She hadn’t liked bullying Xing Yue—it was just that their married days were some of the few memories she had of being in the same frame with Xing Yue.

Xing Yue’s chest ached. Choked with emotion, she asked: “You don’t want to marry me now? Don’t want to grow old with me?”

In truth, Xing Yue was also profoundly wrong. When she reached marriageable age, the Bu family happened to propose, and Bu Yao was so beautiful. Coveting her beauty, Xing Yue accepted.

After marriage, she couldn’t stand Bu Yao, nor could she stand being treated that way by the entire Bu family. She hadn’t even been willing to say a proper goodbye. When she left, she simply dropped off the divorce papers and walked away.

She knew Bu Yao’s temperament perfectly well. Seeing divorce papers, Bu Yao would surely be furious for a long time. Still, she did it that way, not even giving them a chance to communicate.

In Bu Yao’s heart at that time, Xing Yue was a wife who loved her very much. To have that beloved wife suddenly sign divorce papers and leave… the pain of losing the woman she loved—how agonizing was that?

Before she could even ease the pain of divorce, she discovered she’d been sick for a long time and was forced to recognize the fact that her wife never loved her at all. Undoubtedly, it was a double blow.

During that time, she spent her days weeping, yet stubbornly waited for Xing Yue to come back for her. When her stubbornness finally broke and she went looking for Xing Yue herself, she found that Xing Yue had long ago changed all her contact details, avoiding her like the plague.

“I do,” Bu Yao answered, snuggling deeper into Xing Yue’s embrace. “When you want to remarry, we’ll get married again. I know there are a lot of factors you have to consider. Just let me know when you’ve thought it through. Any time is fine with me.”

She had no plan to consider anyone else. In this life, she was set on Xing Yue.

Xing Yue lingered with Bu Yao a while longer. Before leaving, Bu Yao hugged her, asking for kisses again. Like a newly passionate couple, they kissed at the entranceway, reluctant to part, intoxicated with desire.

On the way to the company, Xing Yue changed her WeChat signature to the second half of that lyric:

[Only torrential longing remains]

Barely moments after she changed it, Bo Wuxue suddenly sent a message. A forty-second voice clip. Xing Yue’s pupils constricted, thinking something had happened to Bo Wuxue.

She rarely received such long voice clips. Usually, they were short, a few seconds each. If she really had so much to chat about, she’d just call.

Xing Yue played the voice message. Over her Bluetooth earphones came Bo Wuxue’s poor, off-key, deliberately coy singing: [Between the sky and me, only torrential longing remains… Within the scenery that’s lost you, yet you occupy every single street…]

Xing Yue: “…”

Two more emoticons popped up in the chat window. One was a cat head passionately singing into a microphone.

The other was a cat waving glow sticks, swaying left and right.

Bo Wuxue was sending her congratulations.

Last night, Xing Yue must have disciplined the Eldest Miss Bu thoroughly, right? She probably went through the entire box of finger cots. As expected of A’Yue—her best friend was the fiercest top in the world!