I Patted Bu Yao, Said—
Although she wasn’t unfamiliar with Aunt Ming’s cooking, Xing Yue wasn’t really in the mood to enjoy these delicacies right now.
She saw He Zhiwen downstairs and found an excuse to refuse. “My stomach hasn’t been feeling well these past couple of days. Let’s wait a while. Thank Aunt Ming for me. Once I have some time off, I’ll definitely visit her.”
Xing Yue gave He Zhiwen enough face, even promising to visit the elderly woman during the holidays. Having said this much, if He Zhiwen still insisted, it would be quite unseemly.
Some contact was unavoidable with all this back and forth, but Xing Yue’s entire being, her whole life, was a mess right now. She had no extra energy to deal with these things.
Fortunately, He Zhiwen wasn’t the type to impose either. A little disappointed, she then shrugged her shoulders and answered breezily, “Alright. Then how about I come over on the Dragon Boat Festival and cook you some good food? You can’t spend a holiday alone. After we eat, I’ll leave.”
Xing Yue’s expression stiffened slightly, but she wasn’t too averse. “Mm.”
After seeing her down and watching He Zhiwen get into the car, Xing Yue returned to her room. She took a quick shower and curled up in bed. She couldn’t sleep yet; she had to sleep during the day, or else she’d be sleepy late at night again.
She turned off the lights. The laptop randomly played a popular TV drama. The screen’s faint blue light illuminated her face. The room was filled with the dialogue of the TV characters and various background sound effects.
Xing Yue pulled out the “Double Happiness” paper cut she had torn from the Bu Residence from under her pillow. Gold foil paper cutting—even though they had used high-quality material, after the passage of long years, it had already slightly faded.
Perhaps, aside from Fire Snakes, all other snakes were the same. They had no concept of loyalty in love.
That rainy night, He Zhiwen, already married by then, even came back hoping to beg for her help for the sake of her wife. Even though He Zhiwen appeared to love her wife deeply, she hadn’t refused Xing Yue’s attempted kiss, had she?
Everyone’s nature was like this—a terrifyingly high infidelity rate.
Perhaps, before she had encountered Bu Yao, Xing Yue could have been like everyone else: marrying someone suitable, divorcing after a partner cheated, then switching to another.
After all, everyone lived this way. Affairs and divorces were commonplace. But she had met Bu Yao. This woman spent ten years proving that besides snakes ruled by their own nature, there were also those who were devoted.
This kind of loyalty was rare and precious. Xing Yue indeed found it hard not to be moved. But she also couldn’t bring herself to serve Bu Yao like a slave. Leaving was her only choice.
She deleted the thousands of photos from her photo album and changed her phone wallpaper to the system default. Looking at it now, it felt much more comfortable.
She put the paper cutting back in its place and tossed and turned on the bed. Secretly, she began the shameful act of stalking her ex—
Bu Yao’s WeChat showed no activity. Her personal status was still that same song lyric. Her profile picture and nickname hadn’t been changed. She then went to check Bu Yao’s Weibo. It was all the usual posts—reading notes, case analyses. Nothing recent had been updated either.
Xing Yue felt a surge of irritation. Her own life had undergone earth-shattering changes, while here Bu Yao’s was peacefully idyllic.
She looked at the chat window, originally intending to block Bu Yao, but accidentally double-tapped Bu Yao’s WeChat avatar. A line immediately popped up on the screen: [I patted Bu Yao and said, your girlfriend is really pretty]
Seeing this small line of text, Xing Yue’s heart almost stopped. This girlfriend… it meant her, right? Bu Yao didn’t have any other girlfriends. So the Eldest Miss thought she was pretty…
She pressed her lips together, feeling the nervousness of having secretly stalked an ex and being discovered by that ex.
Her thumb brushed over this “pat” notification. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. What kind of new WeChat feature was this? Xing Yue long-pressed to try it out and found that these pats could be withdrawn. She immediately retracted it.
Hopefully, it wasn’t seen.
These actions were rather ridiculous. She simply turned off her phone and tossed it to the side of the bed. She didn’t even know what exactly she wanted to see.
But the fact that Bu Yao’s social media was calm, as if nothing had happened, made her chest feel very tight…
She took out that transparent bottle of eye drops, applied them, burrowed back under the covers curled into a comfortable position, listened to the TV drama, and drifted off to sleep.
Late at night, under the dark moonlight, her legs under the blanket began to itch from dryness, rubbing and tangling together restlessly.
Xing Yue was really too uncomfortable. She had to get up and turn on the light. Pulling back the blanket to look, her two legs were like an allergic reaction—dry, red, and peeling a layer of skin on the surface. She furrowed her brows tightly and got up to go to the bathroom, turning on the showerhead to rinse them with cold water.
Moistened by the water, her legs finally stopped itching, but they were still red, and transparent shed skin kept flaking off. Was she about to molt? Xing Yue mocked herself, letting out a silent, bitter laugh.
Healthy snakes molted every year. Because she had no tail, she had stopped molting at age seven. She assumed this current reaction was just an allergy from the new environment.
Xing Yue ordered a box of allergy medicine online through a delivery rider, got a fresh set of bedding, took the medicine, and prepared to watch TV, planning to stay up until dawn before sleeping.
But as soon as she lay down, the skin that had only been slightly peeling began to wrinkle in large patches. When the blanket rubbed against her, with a shhlllp, it opened right up, causing her so much pain she broke out in cold sweats, trembling uncontrollably. She stumbled and staggered back to the bathroom and turned the cold water on again to drench herself. Only by soaking in water could her legs feel slightly better.
There was no bathtub in the bathroom. Xing Yue curled up on the ice-cold tiles, her pajamas and hair all wet, looking like a little dog just fished out of a river.
This symptom was very much like when a snake molts. Xing Yue couldn’t help thinking: other people’s little snakes had their parents assisting with molting all the way until adulthood. When she was little, it was her grandmother helping her.
That old woman, whose back was bent beyond bending further, often struggled to hold her, lacking the strength. Several times, she had dropped Xing Yue. Although Grandma felt guilty and heartbroken, she had no other choice.
If even her grandma hadn’t taken her to damp places to molt, then she would have just had to collapse in the vegetable garden, unable to walk, unable to stand, rolling around in agony.
Thank goodness her tail had become crippled at age seven. Otherwise, how could her grandma have carried her at ten? At fourteen? At eighteen?
Just like this, Xing Yue fell asleep in the bathroom under the cold water shower, not even noticing when she had drifted off.
“Sister Little Yue!”
“Sister Little Yue!”
…
Xing Yue’s head was heavy and muddled, aching so much it seemed about to split open. She lifted groggy eyelids. Bai Yulun had appeared at her bedside at some point.
Her forehead was ice-cold. Subconsciously, she raised her hand to touch it and felt a bag of ice.
Seeing her awake, Bai Yulun sighed in relief. “I wanted to find you to get your work uniform tailored. I called you, but you didn’t answer. Knocked on the door, no one responded. Got the key from the landlord. What happened to you? Why were you sleeping in the bathroom?”
She had pushed open the door and found Xing Yue lying in the bathroom, thinking she had fallen and hit her head. After carrying her out, she realized Xing Yue’s body temperature was very high, but she had no visible external injuries, so she felt a little more at ease.
Xing Yue sat up from the bed. Outside the window was the dim yellow sunset. It must be afternoon already. She took off the ice pack. Aside from a heavy head, she felt fine. “Thank you, I…”
Looking down and seeing her body in dry clothes, her voice cut off abruptly, her expression shifting.
Seeing Xing Yue’s expression, Bai Yulun understood immediately and explained: “Little Snowflake changed them. She was just here a moment ago, but something urgent came up at the factory and she had to go back. I didn’t see a thing.”
In this world with a high proportion of homosexuality, unless people were very close, everyone was very careful to avoid seeing the bodies of the same or opposite sex.
Bai Yulun wasn’t one to have a fetish for violating others. She had even deliberately called Bo Wuxue to rush over here at top speed.
Xing Yue had just woken up, her mind a bit wooden. She nodded slowly, not saying anything. She didn’t even need to question the truth of this statement, because her phone had already been bombarded by that girl.
[Waaahhh! So spicy! So big! So fair!]
[I will take responsibility for you, A’Yue! My fiancée can be the lesser wife, you be the primary wife!!! For the betrothal gift, one box of sexy lingerie, are you satisfied? I have all the styles you like!]
[Wuuwuu, crying tears of jealousy. Why couldn’t I develop? Who stole my life as a hot, mature beauty?]
[I’m truly a bad kid who falls in love with every pretty face.jpg]
Xing Yue replied with a sticker: [Alright, you can shut up now.jpg]
“Do you want something to eat, Sister Little Yue?” the woman asked, leaning close with both hands propped on the bedside. Her pink-white-gold ponytail swayed, looking full of youthful vitality.
Once again, Xing Yue lamented: Youth is great. Even without doing anything, that air, that liveliness, truly makes people envious.
Every age has its own beauty. Xing Yue used to accept the passage of time naturally. That was, until her mother started hammering her with calls every few days. It was always “You’re at this age now,” “You’re already thirty-six,” “You’re not a young girl anymore.”
All this left Xing Yue increasingly anxious about aging.
They had a little something to eat at a small restaurant nearby. Xing Yue went along with Bai Yulun, who said they were going to get work uniforms tailored. But she was brought to a large shopping mall instead.
The storefronts, just from their decorations, looked prohibitively expensive. The whole way, Xing Yue hesitated over how to speak up, her eyes already brimming with resistance.
Bai Yulun picked up a black-and-white ink-wash painting style midi skirt and held it up against Xing Yue’s waist to compare. “What about this one? Paired with a linen-cotton blouse. I can already picture it. Gentle wife/bottom uke. Not bad, not bad.”
This type of clothing could easily look frumpy. But Xing Yue carried herself with elegance. She was very fair-skinned, with a slim yet not boney figure. Wearing this, she’d have a kind of melancholic beauty, a fragile beauty.
And her long, straight black hair really did pair well with a linen-cotton white blouse.
Xing Yue hadn’t expected that the custom uniform Bai Yulun talked about was actually buying her clothes. What kind of custom uniform was this?
“President Bai…”
“Go back and ask the others in your work group. The clothes they wear to sing were also bought by me. They don’t wear their own personal clothes. Do you want to be the exception, Sister Little Yue?” Bai Yulun took the offensive, opening her big, innocent eyes wide and blinking them at Xing Yue.
If what Bai Yulun said was true, then maybe Xing Yue was overthinking.
Besides elegant, refined clothes, there was also a black halter dress with a silver fringe hem. It suited the bar’s atmosphere quite well. At first, Bai Yulun worried this type of dress might look tacky, but when Xing Yue tried it on, instead of looking cheap, it was simply sexy and alluring.
The moment that fitting room curtain was pulled open, even the air seemed to heat up.
Bai Yulun’s gaze lingered on her figure for a few seconds before she shook her head. “No, no, not this one.”
She refused to have this dress added to Xing Yue’s wardrobe.
After clothes-shopping, then shoe-shopping, Xing Yue was completely worn out. Yet Bai Yulun was still full of energy.
“It’s still two hours until 8 p.m. Want to go to the amusement park for a bit? Looks like they have a lot of flowers blooming over there. I just happen to have my camera. How about I take a couple pictures of you, Sister Little Yue?”
The clothes were all placed in the car and trunk. She was already pulling Xing Yue towards the amusement park.
Hearing this, Xing Yue couldn’t help feeling a trace of helplessness. “At my age, what amusement park would I play at?”
“Wow!” Bai Yulun’s expression suddenly turned serious. She straightened Xing Yue’s shoulders and declared, “An eighty-year-old granny can wear floral dresses and put flowers in her hair. Thirty-six years old? Don’t be too young, okay! Let alone an amusement park, you can still go on adventures, try skydiving or bungee jumping, go skiing!”
