“Teacher Lin, you’re gripping me too hard—it hurts. Please let go.” In the end, Lou Yixuan softened again. Her face was ashen as she pried Lin Huayan’s hand away. “I’m going to take a shower.”
But strangely, even though her heart ached with every twitch, not a single tear fell when she stood under the showerhead.
Actually, it wasn’t that strange.
She had prepared for the worst from the beginning.
This was just the confirmation.
While Lou Yixuan showered, Lin Huayan called the guest room hotline and asked the staff to take her coat and scarf for cleaning and drying, to be delivered by eight-thirty the next morning.
She sat on the sofa in a daze, staring blankly at the silhouette on the frosted glass, and then at the white earphone case on the nightstand.
It was still white, the shape unchanged, but she somehow felt this one was different from the first one she’d seen.
About ten minutes later, Lou Yixuan emerged from the shower.
She had bathed once in the evening, so this time she rinsed quickly—just her body, no shampoo.
“I’m done. Teacher Lin, feel free.” Exhausted, she skipped skincare altogether, lifted the covers, and climbed into bed.
She unplugged the charger and started scrolling on her phone.
Lin Huayan endured the girl’s indifference, grabbed her pajamas, and entered the bathroom. She stood sideways before the mirror for a long while, as if confirming Lou Yixuan wouldn’t slip away, before finally undressing.
Piece by piece, she stripped, gazing at her naked reflection in the mirror, at the vicious scar on the right side of her waist and abdomen—a heavy, unspeakable pain.
Before Lou Yixuan returned to the country, she hadn’t minded the scar much.
She never wore revealing clothes anyway, nor did she like swimming, soaking in hot springs, or any activity that might expose the scar to others.
If not for Lou Yixuan, she wouldn’t have cared how poor her physical condition was, how quickly her bodily functions were declining.
—Just this afternoon, I heard plenty of juicy stories about Director Lin. Let’s skip the old chestnuts and get to the fresh one.
—As the saying goes, people are in high spirits when good things happen. Director Lin, you’ve been positively glowing this semester. Got some good news? It’s obvious to everyone—don’t play coy and tell us we’re seeing things.
—The young folks in our department picked up some gossip: that Teacher Lou’s already been snatched up by someone in your teachers’ group. And the heart-stealer? You, the great Director Lin.
—Put it nicely: this time it’s not ruthlessly destroying a flower, but swiftly plucking one. Put it harshly… well, you can guess.
—Women liking women these days? Nothing to it, really. That little Teacher Lou? She’s great. If I were ten years younger, I’d like her too. A graceful beauty—the gentleman can’t help but be smitten.
—Director Lin, I have no intention of meddling in your private affairs. I’ll only say this once, today. Once we leave this Hot Spring Resort, your business and Teacher Lou’s? None of my concern.
—Just one piece of advice: relationships, gay or straight, fear unclear boundaries most of all—especially in our shared circle, where gossip spreads fast.
—Teacher Lou strikes me as an innocent girl, sheltered like a greenhouse flower. If you’re going to protect her, do it thoroughly and boldly.
Not a single word Sun He said to Lin Huayan that evening was about work.
Their familiarity stemmed not just from professional overlap, but from being alumni of Huai’an No. 8 Middle School.
Lin Huayan was two grades below him.
They hadn’t known each other in school. It started when her computer glitched, and she went to the IT center for help—Sun He fixed it that day. They chatted and discovered their shared alma mater.
That connection let him tease her occasionally with harmless jokes.
Plus, working across departments, he shared the crude “jokes” about her that circulated privately—ones too indelicate for other teachers to say to her face.
Her reputation on personal matters had always been poor.
People said all sorts of things.
True or rumor, folks believed what they wanted. Few cared about the truth.
Now, she couldn’t dodge it, and it dragged Lou Yixuan into the gossip whirlpool too.
Whether Zhang Jue or someone else started the tales of her “romantic exploits,” she couldn’t righteously call it slander.
After all, she and Lou Yixuan weren’t “innocent.”
Sun He’s words boiled down to urging a decision: spare Lou Yixuan from becoming a target, from the pointing fingers—bad for her career and personal life.
Breaking the impasse was simple.
Either openly admit mutual feelings, pursue dating or marriage, and weather the storm together.
Or draw a hard line beyond “colleagues.”
She’d walk her lonely single-plank bridge; Lou Yixuan, her broad sunlit path.
Both choices were cruel.
Both were disasters for Lou Yixuan through no fault of her own.
Lin Huayan couldn’t bear it.
That’s why she’d allowed this ambiguous, half-hearted “flirtation” with Lou Yixuan lately.
By the time Lin Huayan finished showering and blow-drying her hair, Lou Yixuan wasn’t on her phone anymore. She’d pulled up the covers and lay down.
The standard room’s 1.2-meter single bed—she slept in the middle, facing the balcony.
The opposite direction from her afternoon nap.
Lin Huayan wasn’t sure if Lou Yixuan misunderstood her “just sleep with me tonight,” or understood but refused to indulge her.
Lou Yixuan had said she cooed when no one was around, kicked her away when others were—like toying with a cat or dog…
She wanted to defend herself: At dinner with the roast lamb, so many people were there, and I still cooed at you, didn’t I?
As for “toying like a cat or dog,” she wanted to explain: I do often think of you as a cat—a lazy, white, clean, dumb-cute, adorable one. I want to take you home, keep you by my side, have you with me, always and forever.
But how many years could her “always and forever” last?
She had no confidence.
In her melancholy, Lin Huayan turned off the main light and gently sat on the bed’s edge beside Lou Yixuan, lightly stroking her hair.
“Can I hold you while we sleep?”
Almost simultaneously, the tears Lou Yixuan had held back all evening poured out.
She pulled the blanket higher, covering her entire face.
But her shuddering shoulders betrayed her, as did her choked breaths.
Lin Huayan leaned down, embracing her—blanket and all. “I’m sorry. For everything I’ve done these past months to hurt you, I apologize.”
“Are you pitying me?”
“I’m begging you.”
“I don’t want to wake up the next morning to a cold pillow beside me again.”
“It won’t happen. Not tomorrow—I promise.”
How could she refuse Lin Huayan’s tenderness? How could she refuse her embrace?
She couldn’t.
Lou Yixuan let out a few sobbing laughs of resignation, then awkwardly scooted forward, making space behind her.
This “just sleeping together,” pretending nothing happened.
It was Lin Huayan’s concession.
Her answer.
A warm body pressed against her back—no bra, fragrant and soft.
Lou Yixuan had worn one for her afternoon nap, but not now, not tonight.
Lin Huayan’s arms encircled her waist, drawing her fully into the embrace. She closed her eyes, sinking into this long-lost intimacy, tears slipping from the corners to soak the pillow.
She clasped Lin Huayan’s hand at her waist, trying to imprint its lines, its warmth, this night’s fleeting tenderness.
Because she knew, when morning light spilled in, this dreamed-of warmth and closeness would vanish like mist.
She knew this embrace was mere comfort—demanding more would be childish.
But why must she be mature?
All these years of maturity, and what had it gotten her?
Family ties, love…
She’d guarded and nurtured both with utmost care, yet failed at everything. Nothing fulfilled.
So, just as her tears nearly stopped, before her heart could ache to a halt, she mustered her courage and asked unwillingly.
“Lin Huayan, I’ve never been your student. I’m 26—I can own my words, actions, life. Same-sex marriage is legal. What are you still worried about?”
Her words dissolved into fresh tears.
Like a biting wind.
Like relentless rain.
“If you were married, if someone was by your side, I wouldn’t have come back. But why? Eight years—why have you been alone all eight years?”
“Lin Huayan, stop lying to yourself. You like me too, don’t you? I have a place in your heart, so you can’t accept anyone else. Or… give me a convincing reason. Let me give up, let me…”
Let me turn back from the wrong path, rein myself in from the cliff, fulfill you—and myself.
Feeling the utter sorrow in her arms, Lin Huayan turned her over, holding her tighter, as if to fuse her into bone and soul.
“Yixuan, listen to me. Listen.” She cradled Lou Yixuan’s face, voice anguished but tone gentle.
“I was just a youthful dream from your school days—back then, I excelled in every way, so like many classmates, you admired me, looked up to me. We lived close, saw each other often, and you mistook our normal closeness for something special.”
“But now, you’re young, accomplished, with a bright future—far superior to most, including me.”
Reason reasserted itself, chaining Lin Huayan to the unbridgeable reality between them.
Plunging her into deeper pain.
Last December, that Wednesday night she met Jin Yilin in the Art Office—from entry to exit, less than three minutes.
Yet those minutes dragged like years, making her feel self-debasement for the first time—facing the one she loved most.
