Si Jiamu had only come to pass along a message, and she left the office shortly after.
Leaving behind… a thoroughly baffled Si Nanyu.
Then again, there was a lot Si Nanyu couldn’t make sense of lately. Si Jiamu was just one item on the list, neither big nor small, and she was quickly forgotten.
Because that was how things always went. Nothing happened for ages, and then everything came at once.
Right after Si Jiamu left, Si Nanyu got a call from Qin Hua. The other end was noisy, and Si Nanyu guessed she wasn’t at home but at the market.
Sure enough, Qin Hua rattled off a stream of questions. “Boiled Meat Slices in Chili Oil, what kind of meat? Chicken? Pork? Or beef?”
“Never mind, not pork. Little Wen doesn’t like it. Last time I insisted on making it with pork and she barely touched it.”
“Chicken or beef, I’ll decide myself.”
“Does she eat asparagus? Or how about Braised Eggplant, Guobaorou…”
It sounded like questioning, but Qin Hua was really just announcing the menu to Si Nanyu, and the list kept growing until Si Nanyu’s attention drifted.
Because while she’d been replying, Wen Qingyan had sent her a WeChat message telling her to head home first, or wander around wherever, and meet at the subway entrance at six thirty.
Si Nanyu replied obediently: “Okay, Teacher Wen!”
She even attached a sticker, a dog nodding furiously.
She thought it was pretty funny. Wen Qingyan replied with a stock “OK” emoji…
Si Nanyu stared at it several times. Wen Qingyan said nothing more, and in the meantime Si Nanyu had half-forgotten she was on the phone with Qin Hua.
Because the other end had gone quiet.
Until Qin Hua’s impatient roar came through. “Si Nanyu, are you even listening to me?”
“Huh?… Yes!”
Her voice faltered, and Qin Hua caught it, but she couldn’t be bothered to fuss. “Fine, that’s settled then. I’ll prep the ingredients and you come over to cook.”
“Okay, Mom!”
“Don’t act all sweet, you’re annoying. Oh, right… Little Wen isn’t working late, is she?”
“If she works late, I’ll wait for her.”
“I see… Then I’ll make dinner too. No sense in Little Wen waiting around after work…”
Long story short, there wasn’t much else about Si Nanyu. Their last meeting…
Had been at the hospital, and a dazed Si Nanyu hadn’t felt a shred of her mother’s affection. Now she had even less.
Si Nanyu felt a little wronged. She wanted to ask her mom why she treated Wen Qingyan better than her own daughter, but before she could, Qin Hua suddenly said, “The factory just made a new batch of Boneless Chicken Feet. I brought some back for you. Have a drink with me tonight.”
Qin Hua spoke fast, and the moment she finished, click, the call was dead.
Si Nanyu sat there, a little stunned.
The truth was… ever since she’d woken up from that drunken night to find that everything was the same, except she’d somehow doubled her identity and Wen Qingyan had become her wife, her heart had never stopped fluttering with unease.
She didn’t dare touch alcohol again!
“Nanyu, no work today?”
Si Nanyu’s team had relatively light duties, with regular hours, and Yang Miao had packed up her things ready to head out before noticing Si Nanyu hadn’t moved. Si Nanyu instantly sat up straight, her fidgeting stopped, and she said with a bright smile, “I… I’m going to prep my teaching work for next week.”
“Oh, is that so? Then I’ll head off.” Yang Miao nodded and left her desk, only to turn back just before reaching the door.
She leaned over mysteriously and whispered, “Nanyu, with your schedule, you should get out more, meet more people.”
Si Nanyu understood her meaning at once and agreed awkwardly. “Uh… okay, Teacher Yang, I will!”
She would definitely spend more time with Wen Qingyan…
Before leaving, Yang Miao even shot her an encouraging, teasing smile.
Playing matchmaker… was there really no escaping it once you hit a certain age?
Or maybe… it was just that her sudden ten-year jump left her out of her depth? After all, the last time she’d seen Yang Miao face a romance issue was right before the Gaokao, when a girl in their class got caught writing a love letter to a girl in the class next door.
It had caused a huge stir at the time, and Si Nanyu had overheard Yang Miao’s opinion by chance.
Like most teachers and parents, Yang Miao disapproved, even considered it a distraction from proper studies.
That was a hard one for Si Nanyu to judge.
For students, studying was obviously the main thing. But she… she had been secretly in love with Wen Qingyan while still a minor herself.
And it seemed she’d… well, gotten her wish, hadn’t she!
With Yang Miao gone, Si Nanyu was alone in the office.
This was an unprecedented moment of leisure. She sprawled across her desk, and instead of doing any of that so-called teaching prep, she stared at Wen Qingyan’s WeChat profile picture.
Wen Qingyan’s looks hadn’t changed much from ten years ago, only her bearing had grown more severe. Her profile picture was simple too, just a shot of her from behind.
The scenery in the photo was lovely. It looked like someone else had taken it for her.
Si Nanyu wasn’t one to flatter herself, but she couldn’t help imagining she was the one who’d taken it, so she started scrolling through her phone gallery.
The phone was new, so of course there were no old photos on it. But she had a few small tricks up her sleeve, and she logged into the Cloud Drive to dig for traces of the past.
In the end she’d clearly overestimated her skills. The results were poor, and she only turned up a handful of old pictures.
None of them was the one from Wen Qingyan’s profile picture, but there was a photo of the two of them together at Wen Qingyan’s college graduation.
In the photo, she looked closer to what she’d imagined herself to be, long jet-black hair down to her waist, sharp, striking features, bare-faced, one hand resting quite naturally on Wen Qingyan’s waist.
And Wen Qingyan…
Was different too.
Si Nanyu knew Wen Qingyan only had mild nearsightedness, and wore glasses at work purely for convenience. But she’d rarely seen her without them. She had these past few days at home, though Wen Qingyan had been cold as ice the whole time.
Nothing like the person in the photo, leaning faintly against her shoulder, smiling with quiet restraint, her alluring eyes half-lidded as if they could speak.
Her gaze, fixed on her, was achingly gentle.
And there was a tiny mole at the corner of her eye.
That little mole would be completely hidden by her glasses if you weren’t paying attention, and a flash of astonishment crossed Si Nanyu’s eyes. She’d never known Wen Qingyan had such a… bewitching, sultry side.
Over the blank ten years, Si Nanyu had imagined many things about what might have happened. Complicated things, joyful things, sorrowful things, heartbreaking things.
But never, not once… anything of that color.
With a Wen Qingyan like this laid out before her, claiming her heart wasn’t stirring would be an outright lie.
And, good grief, the possibilities it invited.
Once upon a time, she, Si Nanyu, had possessed a woman like this.
Austere and stern on the outside, and looking like this in private.
She’d reached that conclusion because in the photo she’d noticed Wen Qingyan’s pinky finger gently hooked around… her own.
She couldn’t be sure, but that didn’t stop her from interpreting it.
It meant clingy. Affectionate. Attached.
A Wen Qingyan who was pure-faced yet seductive, with a clingy streak on top, left Si Nanyu’s head spinning and her cheeks burning hot…
“What are you looking at?”
A cool, questioning voice from behind shattered Si Nanyu’s wandering thoughts. The vivid colors scattered in an instant, leaving only black and white.
Because Wen Qingyan was standing there in a pure white shirt dress under a black suit jacket.
Staring at her with a grave, probing expression.
Guilty as sin, Si Nanyu hurriedly flipped her phone face-down. “N-nothing…”
Wen Qingyan clearly didn’t buy it. Her expression didn’t change, and she said nothing.
Si Nanyu blinked, coming back to her senses, and could somewhat understand the disbelief. Her hiding maneuver had been far too obvious.
So she set the phone back on the desk and confessed. “I was looking at photos of us.”
She didn’t dare voice the sneaky little thoughts in her heart, so she kept her head slightly bowed as she showed Wen Qingyan the screen, failing to notice the change in Wen Qingyan’s expression.
At first, Wen Qingyan had only asked out of curiosity about what Si Nanyu could be looking at to turn her cheeks so red.
Instead, she’d been met with panic and guilt.
She couldn’t figure out what Si Nanyu was thinking. The phone screen really did show a photo of the two of them, but not just that…
There were WeChat messages too.
Her face darkening, Wen Qingyan asked slowly, “Someone’s asking you to a hotel room?”
“Tomorrow?”
Si Nanyu’s head shot up in shock, and she protested, “How is that possible?”
But the moment her eyes moved to the phone, she saw a WeChat message flash past on the screen. “A-Yu, free to hang out tomorrow? Book a room…”
