Chapter 51: Gentle and Agreeable

A Spring Breeze

Xing Yue was teased a little but didn’t explain further. She just treated it as ordinary small talk. “And President Bai?”

She had wanted to give the address of her rental, but seeing that Bai Yulun had already brought it up on the navigation, she skipped that step.

Thanks to that girl, the bar owner was indeed taking good care of her.

The woman chuckled, the slight movement of her shoulders making her double-ring earrings clink and sway, very eye-catching.

“I improvise. Can be a top or a bottom,” she said, suddenly putting on a serious expression.

This answer was probably true for most women. In their world, the proportion of homosexuals was simply too high; the ratio of homosexuals to bisexuals was about eight to two. The percentage of purely heterosexual men or women, however, was so small it was almost negligible.

Xing Yue suddenly thought of Madam Bu’s mother, who had passed away early due to illness. She was a poet who opposed homosexuality—

The proliferation of homosexuality in this world all stemmed from the past few centuries, where aristocrats, for the sake of preserving their bloodlines, popularized arranged marriages between snakes of the same breed. Female-female unions and male-male unions. Such marriages produced snakes carrying homosexual genes, passed down generation after generation, causing the proportion of homosexuals to rise higher and higher.

This poet of the Misty Poetry School deeply loathed this aristocratic product because of the state of society. She even vowed never to fall in love with a woman in her lifetime, fiercely fighting against aristocratic oppression.

Unfortunately, the poet’s ending wasn’t beautiful. Not only did she fall in love with a woman, but that person was also the daughter of a hereditary count—a family that took pride in bloodline purity for inheritance and epitomized the full exertion of noble privilege.

It was also because of this that many people now had mixed reviews of her work, but Xing Yue was a steadfast and loyal reader.

Back then, when the poet returned from a trip to a remote mountain area, she was too ill to even leave her sickbed. Yet she still wrote many articles for equal rights. In those small, impoverished places in the gullies, there were basically no snakes with noble bloodlines. The allocated charity funds were also distributed according to a tiered system, based on bloodline purity.

This resulted in the children of the poor becoming poorer, and the little snakes trapped in the mountains becoming even more isolated.

Madam Bu’s mother wrote many influential articles about this. Although, even today, a small degree of bloodline discrimination still existed, under the harsh societal environment of that time, many little snakes who couldn’t leave the mountains were able to go out and attend school thanks to the poet’s influence. Xing Yue’s mother was one of those little snakes.

So, Xing Yue had never wavered in her reverence for this poet. It was the horde of internet users nowadays jumping on the bandwagon to judge and criticize her that made Xing Yue want to roll her eyes.

~

Back at the rental, Xing Yue didn’t let Bai Yulun drive the car inside. She stopped at the entrance of the alley by the roadside. “This is good. Thank you for the trouble, President Bai.”

She unbuckled her seatbelt and was about to push the car door open.

Bai Yulun suddenly spoke up. “Aren’t you going to invite me in to sit for a bit?”

Xing Yue’s movement stiffened. She was an adult; she knew what those words meant. But Bai Yulun was so much younger than her. Surely she didn’t mean anything else by it. If it were a slightly older boss, Xing Yue might have misunderstood.

“Another day, I’ll treat President Bai to tea,” Xing Yue said, her brows furrowing slightly, a look of embarrassment on her face. “My place truly has no space. It’s not convenient for receiving guests.”

Xing Yue wasn’t making excuses here. Besides the inappropriate hour, her rented room was indeed too small. In this city where every inch of land was worth its weight in gold, a forty-square-meter single room cost her 2,300 a month.

There were cheaper places, but the locations were very remote. She didn’t have a car now, and getting off work at three or four in the morning was too dangerous. She could only rent close to her workplace.

Being refused, Bai Yulun wasn’t upset. She just hummed twice. “Fine then. Goodnight, Sister Little Yue.”

Xing Yue was someone who warmed up very slowly. She wasn’t used to this kind of closeness. She nodded, not knowing what to say in return, then turned and walked into the narrow alley.

From the outside, this building had been painted with solid-color walls. The aesthetic suited young people, but the inside was a bit shabby.

Xing Yue lived on the sixth floor. Thankfully, there was an elevator, or she wouldn’t be able to climb up.

Back in her room, she still wasn’t quite used to the unfamiliar environment. Even though her body was already exhausted, feeling like her bones were being taken apart, she wasn’t the least bit sleepy.

The room had pitifully few things: just a desk, a chair, a bed, a wardrobe, an air conditioner with outrageously expensive electricity costs, and a small fridge. Other than that, there was nothing.

Xing Yue was lying on the bed, her mind blank, when her phone rang with a familiar ringtone. Her breath hitched, and her heart tightened. This damn conditioned reflex…

On this old phone, the lock screen was still a picture of her and He Zhiwen. The ringtone for everyone else was the default. Only He Zhiwen’s was specially set. So, whenever He Zhiwen called, she knew without even looking at the contact name.

After He Zhiwen broke up with her, she had never changed her phone number. For two long years, she had waited for He Zhiwen to contact her. This caused her heart to clench every time this old phone’s ringtone sounded, even if the ringtone wasn’t He Zhiwen’s, she would fantasize that maybe He Zhiwen was calling from another number.

But this time, she wasn’t mistaken. It was He Zhiwen’s ringtone ringing…

Xing Yue didn’t really want to answer, but the other party, seemingly certain she would soften, called once, and when she didn’t pick up, called a second time.

Her finger slid over the green button on the screen. “What is it?”

Xing Yue asked, her tone flat, making it impossible to tell if she was in a good or bad mood.

He Zhiwen didn’t mind. She always loved to smile. Even through the screen, it felt like you could almost see her smiling face. “A’Yue, my mom made some rice dumplings. She wanted me to bring some over to you.”

Back when they were together, Ming Shushan would send Xing Yue rice dumplings every Dragon Boat Festival. After the breakup, that stopped. Perhaps the earlier misunderstanding about Xing Yue had left Ming Shushan feeling a bit guilty, so she had started sending the rice dumplings again.

rice dumplings… Xing Yue felt dazed. Was it Dragon Boat Festival already? She remembered her mom, who had been calling her incessantly the past two days. She truly didn’t dare answer. Every call was just urging her to get married. Her mom probably didn’t even know about the online harassment, or that her company had terminated her contract.

Xing Yue felt a sense of loss, loneliness growing even sharper. “Okay, you can bring it tomorrow. It’s very late now.”

“If, if I bring it tomorrow… it’ll go bad,” the voice on the other end murmured softly. “The rice dumplings were made yesterday. I wasn’t sure if I should bring them to you. I know you’ve been very busy lately and was afraid of bothering you. I’ve been agonizing over it until now.”

The weather was very hot now. Cooked food left in the fridge for a day already started to affect the taste. Two or three days, and it would likely spoil.

It wasn’t like she absolutely had to eat these rice dumplings. Xing Yue decided to simply decline. “Just tell Aunt Ming I received them. You can eat them yourself or give them to your colleagues. It’s so late, I don’t have a car to come pick you up. A taxi would take forever and it wouldn’t be safe.”

She knew what Aunt Ming was thinking. If she let He Zhiwen tell a small white lie, proving she’d accepted them, Aunt Ming could let the matter rest.

“It won’t take forever. I’ve been transferred to Mo City. The school shouldn’t be far from you. Fifteen minutes by taxi is enough,” He Zhiwen insisted on delivering the rice dumplings personally. She added, explaining, “The police haven’t caught Jiang Yue yet. I was afraid she might find me, so Mom moved. That’s why I applied for the transfer here…”

As if fearing Xing Yue would think she was trying to cling, she softly listed many reasons for moving to Mo City.

After going through all these events, He Zhiwen was even gentler and more mild than before. She had always spoken and done things this way—everything slowly, unhurriedly.

He Zhiwen’s temperament actually suited Xing Yue very well. Xing Yue liked quiet and a slow pace. Just listening to He Zhiwen speak was a kind of enjoyment, like a gentle stream flowing, able to soothe one’s irritability.

This was also why the two of them could be together for seven years.

Since He Zhiwen was so insistent, Xing Yue couldn’t refuse any further and sent her the address.

After hanging up, she cleaned the already clean rental again. He Zhiwen had experienced her embarrassment and difficulties once before, from when she had absolutely nothing, to owning a house and a car. Now, back at square one, Xing Yue inexplicably felt awkward and uneasy.

She didn’t wait long before He Zhiwen arrived.

The woman standing at the door had clearly lost weight. Her already petite frame looked even more fragile. In her hands, besides the rice dumplings, she also carried a bouquet wrapped in newspaper—little seed-pod grass, pink lisianthus, and a small porcelain vase.

She came in, placed the things on the table, and went to unwrap the rice dumplings, wanting to heat them up for Xing Yue. She didn’t say a word about the pitifully sparse furniture in the room.

“Not long after the incident, Jiang Yue kept brainwashing my mom, saying you had abducted me,” she said, looking at Xing Yue with a hint of apology in her eyes, her complexion sickly pale. “Don’t be angry with my mom. She was too anxious.”

In that situation, Ming Shushan would have deeply believed any claim, no matter how flimsy. At her age, the greatest fear was outliving her own child.

Xing Yue had accepted many gifts from Ming Shushan in the past—hand-sewn socks and padded shoes in winter, mooncakes and pomelos in autumn. Although they were all small, inexpensive things, they were heartfelt gestures from an elder towards her daughter’s partner.

The harsh words born of misunderstanding that day couldn’t erase seven years of her acknowledging her place.

“I didn’t take it to heart,” Xing Yue said flatly.

He Zhiwen placed the rice dumplings in the steamer. Now, she just had to wait for the water to boil, then wait three minutes.

She returned to the table, spread out a tablecloth, arranged the white porcelain vase nicely, and placed a few stems of lisianthus inside, with the little seed-pod grass as accent decoration.

Looking at this green tablecloth with tiny floral print, Xing Yue felt the originally cold little room become warm and inviting with such decoration—like a spring breeze.

She knew firsthand He Zhiwen’s attitude towards enjoying life: fond of handicrafts, loving fresh flowers, cherishing greeting cards from her students, never complaining about having too many or too few lessons, even finding planting little green moss interesting.

As Xing Yue ate a rice dumplings, she couldn’t help but ask, “How’s your health?”

The woman before her looked seriously ill. But Spirit Snakes didn’t get sick. Only mental illnesses, or injuries from abuse—those were possible.

He Zhiwen shook her head, her breathing weak. “Nothing serious. Just a bit anxious and frightened. Can’t sleep well…”

Jiang Yue was still at large, having colluded with that male accomplice. The man was arrested, but Jiang Yue remained a fugitive. Moreover, the man had insisted he was the mastermind, that Jiang Yue was acting under his coercion.

Even if Jiang Yue were caught, she’d serve ten years max. The man, on the other hand, might be executed by lethal injection. Now, the man’s family kept harassing her, wanting her to write a letter of forgiveness.

She couldn’t sleep or eat properly every day.

A way to solve this problem occurred to Xing Yue. “You could apply for police protection.”

He Zhiwen gave a bitter smile. “I’m already a key protected individual now. But I can’t exactly have a police officer eat and sleep with me 24/7.”

The conversation ended there. Xing Yue didn’t say anything more. He Zhiwen looked at her with bright eyes, as if expecting something. Even after the rice dumplings were all finished, Xing Yue never opened her mouth again.

He Zhiwen wasn’t the type to push her luck. Although a little disappointed, she didn’t press further, knowing where to stop. She tidied up the bowls and chopsticks and waved goodbye to Xing Yue. “See you tomorrow.”

“Wait,” Xing Yue called her back. “What do you mean, see you tomorrow?”

The woman lowered her brows and eyes, looking gentle and agreeable. “My mom also wants to make you hibiscus cakes, osmanthus pastries, candied longans, lotus leaf soup, rose cream cheese…”