Chapter 42: A God-Given Match Part 2

Her clothes, however, were not.

The rain had drenched her through, turning her into a shadowy specter amid the darkening sky.

Xiao Qing stared at the figure until she made out that it was a woman.

The stranger seemed lost in the downpour. She wiped her face and glanced toward Xiao Qing as she passed the door.

She seemed puzzled—why were all the doors in the village shut tight in this weather, yet this one stood wide open with a woman in a red skirt sitting there?

She looked a little frightening at first glance.

Hong Long had no time for ghost stories; she was far more afraid of poverty.

Just then, Xiao Qing looked up, and their eyes met briefly.

Lightning cracked across the sky, turning the world white for several seconds. They saw each other’s faces clearly.

Xiao Qing thought the woman looked truly pitiful.

Hong Long thought the woman seemed a bit dim-witted.

Who sat out in the doorway during a storm, letting the rain soak their shoes and the hem of their skirt?

With that one glance, Hong Long wondered: Is she an idiot, by any chance?

It didn’t concern her, though. She cared far more about how much she could earn that season.

Others complained that leaving home meant loneliness, but Hong Long didn’t feel that way.

Money filled every desire she had—because she had no other desires or talents left.

After their eyes met, she trudged onward. The next moment, a voice called out “Hey!” amid the roar of the rain.

The next instant, someone tugged at her heavy pack, followed by the thud of a heavy weight hitting the ground.

Hong Long was already as soaked as she could be from the wind-driven downpour.

But the disheveled woman in the red skirt who tumbled onto her had her wild hair instantly plastered by the rain, transforming unkempt messiness into sodden strands. And those eyes—they were strikingly pretty.

Hong Long asked, “Do you need something?”

The weather could make anyone irritable, but she kept her temper in check. The next moment, she noticed the emptiness beneath the other’s skirt.

She helped the woman to her feet. “Did you hurt yourself in the fall?”

Xiao Qing replied, “Where are you headed?”

She had seen plenty of people carrying packs like that. They were all tea pickers.

For someone as slow as her, it was a rare moment of sharp intuition.

Hong Long couldn’t bear to see her out in the rain any longer and tried to nudge her inside.

But the doorstep was high, and with half a leg missing, the woman looked utterly pitiful. She must have tripped on it.

Hong Long dropped her pack and scooped the woman up, carrying her indoors.

Hong Long was drenched to the bone, and even the threshold glistened with rainwater as she stepped over.

Yet her body felt warm and comforting to Xiao Qing.

Nestled in Hong Long’s arms, Xiao Qing peered up curiously at her. Hong Long asked, “I’m looking for work. Is no one home?”

The old house was pitch-black inside. The faint daylight filtering through revealed old tables and chairs in the main hall.

All antiques, worn by time.

Hong Long set Xiao Qing down on a bamboo stool. Xiao Qing directed her to turn on the light.

But the bulbs were burnt out. Hong Long fetched her pack, rummaged for tools, and fixed the light.

Once the hall was illuminated, Hong Long noticed the portrait on the central table: an elderly couple.

It was too quiet, too desolate. It made the woman on the stool, gazing up at her, seem all the more vibrant.

“Only me,” said Xiao Qing. “I have work.”

The words made no logical sense, yet Hong Long understood perfectly.

Even after two marriages, Xiao Qing still possessed an air of innocence.

She might have been born missing a piece of her soul, but she knew who treated her well. Intuition had guided her life—it wasn’t that she was a fool easily tricked, as others assumed.

It was just that no one ever paid attention to her protests.

Like the first time her parents had brought a man for her to meet.

She hadn’t liked the man with the dopey smile—his gaze had turned contemptuous the moment he looked away.

The second time, her brother had taken her to see a widower. His eyes had made her uncomfortable too, filled with that lecherous gleam she always sensed when trying to squirm away.

But no one cared.

Everyone said she had it good. Her parents had left her the house, her brother the tea fields.

Look at the idiot from the next village over. She got married and lived behind an earth stove. When she fell ill, no one even took her to the hospital.

Xiao Qing fell silent. The wind lifted the hem of her long skirt, and she let out a dazed “Oh.”

Was this what “good” meant?

But she didn’t even know what “good” was.

Was it her mother’s rough hands caressing her cheek, braiding her hair and saying, “My girl is so pretty”?

Or the contented licking sounds as a mother dog groomed her pups?

Or the swallows tirelessly feeding their chicks, day after day?

But there were no mothers left in the world. They had become corpses, reduced to ash, buried under a mound of earth.

Would anyone ever treat her this kindly again?

The rain continued to fall, and inexplicably, Hong Long understood what this “idiot” meant.

She asked, “Can you make the decision?”

Hong Long had a pair of gentle eyes. Perhaps from years of shouldering burdens, or from the ingrained sense of duty society had drilled into her, she naturally cared for others.

Even as a teenager working odd jobs, her kindness had gotten her picked on. Over the years, she’d sharpened her defenses against scams, but she still acted on her heart.

Just like now.

She felt a pang of pity for this young woman.

Because her skirt hem dripped with water. Because that missing lower leg.

Because of the unhesitating leap over the threshold.

It was a retention that even the pouring rain couldn’t wash away.

Xiao Qing let out a laugh, her voice carrying an innocent, bell-like crispness. “I can!”

“I have two mu of tea garden! Two mu!”

She even flashed a peace sign.

Hong Long chuckled. “So, do you want to hire me?”

Xiao Qing nodded vigorously.

Compared to Wu Xiaoqing’s halting words, Hong Long’s account sounded like someone else’s story.

She even laughed when she mentioned first thinking Wu Xiaoqing was an idiot.

“I’m not an idiot!” Xiao Qing protested.

“You’re my little idiot,” Hong Long said.

Hong Long continued, “She claimed she could make the decision, but in the end, it was still Xiao Qing’s wife who called the shots.”

Yan Muyu let out a “Whoa.” “So you stayed here that night?”

Hong Long nodded.

“I’m awesome,” Xiao Qing boasted. “I can cook.”

“But you can’t start a fire,” Hong Long pointed out.

“I hate lighting fires,” Xiao Qing said.

She always peppered her speech with little particles—a touch whiny, but endearingly cute.

Qiu Chao’s lips curved into a smile. Without thinking, she mimicked, “I hate bits of green onion too, yeah.”

Goosebumps prickled across Yan Muyu’s skin. “Why say that right next to me?”

Qiu Chao blinked innocently. “Don’t you think I’m cute like this?”

Yan Muyu replied flatly, “No.”

【I don’t care what you think. I think I am.】

【Qiu Chao is the cutest in the world!】

【Heh, Yan Muyu’s just saying the opposite of what she means.】

【But Boss Wu is seriously adorable!】

Yan Muyu asked, “Did you braid Boss Xiao Qing’s hair?”

Before Hong Long could answer, Xiao Qing jumped in. “Yeah! Longlong’s super talented—she knows everything! She picks tea crazy fast, she bakes tea, she starts fires like whoosh, she makes me skirts, she fixes roof tiles, she even…”

She started counting on her fingers, trying to prove Longlong’s virtues to their guests.

But the little simpleton wasn’t great at math. In the end, she lost count and let out an “Aww!” “Anyway, Longlong’s the best.”

“So envious,” Qiu Chao said.

She meant it from the heart. Even on the way back to the Embroidery Workshop with Yan Muyu, clutching the plum pork ribs recipe, she was still sighing over it.

“This show can actually air?” she asked, the doubt dawning on her late.

Yan Muyu replied, “It’s a live stream.”

Qiu Chao went, “Oh. You’re the boss—what do you think?”

Yan Muyu grinned. “A meeting that romantic? I’m all for it.”

How could she not be moved? If time had permitted, Yan Muyu would have wanted to linger a while longer.

But Hong Long had work to do as well. She exchanged contact information with Yan Muyu and told her to reach out if there was any jobs available.

Qiu Chao asked, “So, all your relationships are like that?”

Yan Muyu shook her head. “Not this romantic.”

【Thanks Boss Yan for letting me hear this story!】

【It’s not that bad, not super explicit. The law doesn’t ban realistic interviews anyway.】

【Maybe they’ll cut it in the replay?】

【I’m still savoring it. Feels like those two are way better off together than with any man.】

【Boss Wu saying she likes thunder and rain— isn’t that basically a love confession? “My Longlong,” don’t kill me with the sweetness.】

【I think it means thunder and rain bring good luck. Lost two bosses, gained a real wife.】

【Qiu Chao… do you envy… this kind of love too?】

【Their bond isn’t all romance, right? Feels like Boss Wu is just… only for Boss Hong?】

Yan Muyu began, “What they have is a bit…”

She paused, her usual playful grin fading for once.

Just then, Yan Muyu was pushing her bicycle down a narrow village lane, the wheels rumbling over the stony path.

Qiu Chao walked alongside, eyes on the road but glancing at Yan Muyu now and then.

It wasn’t a stormy day today—no crashing thunder.

Yet they were still wrapped in the mood of someone else’s tale, impossible not to sigh over it.

Yan Muyu was a sentimental soul, quick to empathize, but her empathy often stayed lofty. She respected it, but never truly grounded herself in it.

Heartless, in a way.

This time was no different.

“It’s like a god-given fate, something ordinary romance can’t define.”

It encompassed redemption, waiting, leaning on each other, indulgence.

A disheveled widow fated to kill her husbands had waited through the winds and rains for that one traveler. From then on, the house lights would never fail again from faulty old wiring.

The doorstep would be remade, flipped down for easy passage—no more straining leaps required.

All because of that desperate leap she took that year, that month, that day—stumbling forward to clutch the stranger.

Only then did she hold onto a wanderer who might otherwise have braved the storms without pause.

Qiu Chao asked, “Are all your relationships just ordinary ones?”

She even analyzed it solemnly: “They’re all beauties, and they love you so much.”

Qiu Chao’s words were superficial, laced with mockery that Yan Muyu easily caught.

She wasn’t angry, merely glancing faintly at Qiu Chao.

Her knuckles whitened on the handlebars, gripping with unknown force.

The camera slung across her back had captured a moment of tender warmth at someone’s kitchen stove.

The memory card once held frozen instants of Qiu Chao too.

Kitchen silhouettes, a glance back at the stairwell corner.

Mostly close-ups, though—Yan Muyu’s repeated attempts to capture Qiu Chao’s inner conflicts, only ever catching surface emotions.

As if this woman’s heart were a fortress of iron walls, secured with an unknown lock.

No brute force could break it. A code was needed to unlock all her hidden pain and tangled loves and hates.

Yan Muyu thought of this, then of that line from Xu Xue’s suicide note—

Chérie… a part of you isn’t with me anymore. I hope you can find it again.

If there’s a chance, I want to meet the complete you—the one who falls a hundred percent for just one person.

Yan Muyu reflected—

My curiosity.

My urge to pry.

My creative spark.

All stolen away.

Qiu Chao figured Yan Muyu would get mad, gnashing her teeth like before but powerless to act.

But Yan Muyu just shook her head.

Her hair was tied into a short ponytail, wrapped with the wave-pattern hairband. For an instant, Qiu Chao felt like she stood by the seaside.

The sea was blue, melancholic, harboring underestimated dangers.

Yan Muyu was wandering, never lonely, touchable but impossible to hold onto.

Yet in that moment, Qiu Chao felt like she’d grasped her.

Not some intimate tangle between them.

A summer breeze swept through. Yan Muyu’s bangs lifted, and she let out a sigh before suddenly smiling.

Yan Muyu said, “I envy it too, but I’m scared of feelings like that.”

The lane ended. Yan Muyu swung onto the bike and nodded her chin at Qiu Chao, signaling her to hop on.

The bicycle sped down the slope, wind whistling past.

Yan Muyu’s voice carried through the rush: “Love is too heavy. I just want to like.”