Chapter 2

Tricks? In bed?!

Si Nanyu’s eyes went round in an instant. She understood every single word Wen Qingyan said, yet she simply could not process such a thing, let alone imagine those words coming out of Wen Qingyan’s mouth.

But Wen Qingyan was dead serious, staring at her with eyes as red as a rabbit’s, a trace of grievance buried in them.

The earth-shattering information gradually faded into the background, because Si Nanyu found herself captivated by this Wen Qingyan she had never seen before. Her lips trembled as she tried to say something, but in the end it all dissolved into boundless shame.

Yes, she was lost about her current situation, and unexpectedly curious too, but the person she had loved for years was this close to her. She could smell the perfume on Wen Qingyan, that faint white tea fragrance that had barely changed at all.

It was a scent so familiar it made her heart race and her cheeks flush.

And Wen Qingyan had just said something so suggestive. She was eighteen now, not eight. How could she not let her mind wander? She simply didn’t dare ask, terrified that any question might be a blasphemy against Wen Qingyan.

So she kept her eyes fixed unblinkingly on Wen Qingyan, wet and clear with longing, the kind of attachment that belonged to Wen Qingyan alone, and said in a small, soft voice, “Teacher Wen, I’m sorry…”

“I don’t really understand what you’re saying, but I’m not faking it, and I haven’t lost my memory…”

Even while thinking the girl was spouting nonsense, Wen Qingyan was burned by that gaze. She jerked back, and the accusing edge in her voice softened.

Then she heard Si Nanyu say, “Maybe… probably I was just drunk.” Si Nanyu’s wording was vague, but after thinking it over, she said with sudden conviction, “Yes, I was drunk!” Then, blinking, she asked Wen Qingyan, “Then… Teacher Wen, what did you mean when you were talking to my mom just now? And that doctor auntie…”

The mood Wen Qingyan had finally calmed shot right back up at those words, and she laughed out of pure anger. “Doctor… auntie?”

She gave a cold snort, folded her arms across her chest, and walked toward her step by step. “Si Nanyu, why don’t you go look in a mirror and see exactly how old you are.”

“See whether you can still pass for eighteen.”

As she spoke, she fished a compact mirror out of her bag and held it up to Si Nanyu’s face.

Si Nanyu had almost never heard Wen Qingyan speak like this. Wen Qingyan could hardly be called gentle, her aura quiet and understated, but she was never this cold, never this quick to anger.

Still, her deeply ingrained reflexes around Wen Qingyan as her teacher kicked in. The moment the mirror was offered, she took it and pressed it against her face.

When she saw that familiar yet unfamiliar face, Si Nanyu froze, then stared, jaw slack.

The mirror wasn’t big, but it was more than enough to see her own face clearly.

Si Nanyu raised a hand and touched her cheek, murmuring, “This is… my face?”

Si Nanyu knew she wasn’t the cute type, but at eighteen her features hadn’t been that sharp, and she couldn’t have pictured her matured self at all.

The woman in the mirror looked mostly the same, deep-set eyes, a high nose, a far more defined jawline, radiating a striking, valiant air, and her hair was an awkward in-between length…

To be precise, shorter in the front, longer in the back…

It lacked the spirit of her high ponytail, carrying instead a sort of disheveled… beauty?

In any case, she didn’t look eighteen. At a glance, she had to be at least twenty-five.

Aging several years overnight was impossible, so she had gone from eighteen to…

“You’re twenty-eight this year.”

“And I’m no longer your teacher. I’m your wife. You’d best not call me anything else in public.” A strange look crossed Wen Qingyan’s face as she said this, her gaze wandering restlessly, and out of Si Nanyu’s sight, the tips of her ears quietly turned red.

The reason was simple enough: nowadays, “Teacher Wen” was a name Si Nanyu only ever moaned in bed.

Si Nanyu, however, was completely floored by those words. Missing the shift in her expression entirely, she set down the compact mirror and looked at Wen Qingyan with something close to fear.

Her mind was full of one thought after another…

She, she, she was actually twenty-eight?!

Ten years, gone, just like that???

So had she transmigrated, or… lost a whole decade of memories?

Either possibility was absurd enough on its own.

And what was even more absurd was that she and… Wen Qingyan…

The moment that thought popped into her head, Si Nanyu couldn’t help the smile that tugged at her lips, but before it could go any further, Wen Qingyan’s sharp voice cut in, “Haven’t you had enough of acting yet?”

By the time Si Nanyu cycled through all those expressions, Wen Qingyan had already collected herself, and had been watching her one-woman face-changing show for several seconds.

Shock, collapse, disbelief, and then… faint joy…

The shifts came so fast it was dizzying, but Wen Qingyan only felt irritation, and her opening words dripped with mockery.

As if Si Nanyu couldn’t hear it. She could. She just couldn’t relate to Wen Qingyan’s feelings at all. Long years of alarm, fear, and “love” kept her sitting bolt upright, and she offered the compact mirror back with both hands. “Teacher Wen, here you go.”

Wen Qingyan didn’t take it. Instead, she looked her over from head to toe.

Si Nanyu knelt half-upright on the bed, head slightly bowed, blinking every few seconds. When the mirror went unclaimed, she edged her hands even closer.

What an enthusiastic little performance.

Wen Qingyan had no interest in playing along anymore. She reached out, snatched the mirror, and tucked it back into her bag, preparing to put some distance between them.

Of course, that was exactly when Si Nanyu murmured something, so quietly that Wen Qingyan didn’t catch it, and turned back to ask, “What did you say?”

“N-nothing…” The instant Wen Qingyan looked back, there was anger in her eyes, and Si Nanyu lost her nerve. She couldn’t bring herself to ask the question burning on her tongue: Are we really married?

Instead she sat up properly and shrank back into the covers as far as she could go.

Wen Qingyan had barely taken two steps before that terrified look infuriated her all over again. She turned back to the bedside, and this time she didn’t hesitate, hooking a hand around Si Nanyu’s neck.

In their relationship, Wen Qingyan was rarely the one to make a move. The intimate moments had almost always been initiated by Si Nanyu. So she… she only wanted to see how far Si Nanyu could keep up the act, whether a sudden gesture would break her cover.

She never expected to be the first one to crack. Her hand, looped around the back of Si Nanyu’s neck, tightened without her meaning it to, and her breathing grew heavier.

This close, her eyes locked directly onto Si Nanyu’s face, and to her surprise, the girl who used to have no sense of restraint whatsoever now had cheeks flaming red, even her neck tinged a faint pink.

At that sight, Wen Qingyan’s hand withdrew fast.

Because it had been so, so many years since she’d seen that kind of shyness on Si Nanyu.

Her heart skipped a beat, and she retreated in flustered steps, all the way out to the balcony.

The room fell so quiet that only the beeping of the monitor could be heard. Wen Qingyan said nothing, and Si Nanyu didn’t dare speak.

The red drained from her cheeks, gradually giving way to pallor. Without having to face Wen Qingyan directly, she felt less nervous and could finally think through her situation seriously.

One night’s sleep, and the world had turned upside down. From eighteen to twenty-eight.

And twenty-eight-year-old her seemed pretty impressive, actually. She’d actually married Wen Qingyan.

That fact made Si Nanyu a little giddy, but after the excitement came the realization that she had no idea how to act around Wen Qingyan now.

Instinct told her their relationship probably wasn’t good. Wen Qingyan treated twenty-eight-year-old her even more harshly than eighteen-year-old her…

A reality Si Nanyu couldn’t bear to imagine.

Putting herself in Wen Qingyan’s shoes, facing a version of her that had suddenly woken up ten years younger would surely look ridiculous, so a sour face and turbulent emotions were only natural.

Even she herself couldn’t accept the situation right away.

Even if it was a situation that made her happy.

The age gap didn’t matter. She and Wen Qingyan were together. Married.

It was just… facing it was unavoidably difficult. Helpless was the better word.

Si Nanyu scratched her head and looked toward Wen Qingyan in the distance. With her back turned, her emotions were unreadable, but Si Nanyu figured they were probably complicated too.

“Little Wen, Little Wen! I bought your favorite xiaolongbao!”

“Still hot, eat up before you go back to work…”

Qin Hua came bustling back into the hospital room loaded down with bags, and her entrance shattered the silence between Si Nanyu and Wen Qingyan. The two exchanged a glance, then both turned to look at Qin Hua.

Wen Qingyan shed her frost and walked over to Qin Hua with a soft smile.

Si Nanyu, still hooked up to the IV, couldn’t make any big movements, so she could only swallow and gaze at Qin Hua with pleading eyes.

She was starving.

She’d eaten almost nothing before drinking, and who knew how long she’d slept.

Catching that hungry look, Qin Hua shot her a slightly disdainful glance. “Here. There’s your jianbing guozi too.”

Si Nanyu reached out to take it, and Qin Hua added, “No chili.”

The light in her blinking eyes went out instantly. Si Nanyu looked down at the warm jianbing guozi…

A little disappointed.

But Wen Qingyan turned out to be even more ruthless. She took the jianbing guozi from Si Nanyu’s hands, split it in two, and handed half back. “You can only eat half.”

Her smile faded, her tone flat, and she even pushed up her glasses when she finished.

Si Nanyu accepted it with both hands, not daring to make a sound, clutching the remaining half tightly.

“Mom, I ordered some pumpkin congee for Nanyu. It’ll be delivered later.”

Wen Qingyan had two faces. In front of Qin Hua, she wore her smile again, picking up a xiaolongbao and thanking her sweetly. “Thank you, Mom, for still remembering what I like to eat.”

“Oh, it’s not me who remembers! It’s that girl Nanyu… A scoundrel, sure, but she’s never once been careless about food!”

“She said you love noodle dishes. Every time she came home for dumplings, she’d mention it. That you like them, but xiaolongbao are your favorite.”

However much Qin Hua disdained her daughter, Si Nanyu was still her own flesh and blood, and she wanted to say something nice. It wasn’t an exaggeration either. Si Nanyu really did say it every single time…

But when she finished with a chuckle, Wen Qingyan fell silent. Her eyes lowered, her emotions unreadable, she just stared at the xiaolongbao without eating.

Qin Hua’s temper flared, and she glared at Si Nanyu.

Only to find Si Nanyu was also looking down, opening the bag of jianbing guozi, fiddling with who knew what…

That made Qin Hua even angrier, so furious she couldn’t get a single word out.

What she didn’t know was…

Si Nanyu was blushing.

Having finished fiddling with the jianbing guozi, she rubbed her burning ears and batted her lashes several times before looking up at Wen Qingyan, who was putting a xiaolongbao in her mouth.

Qin Hua was still glaring at her.

Si Nanyu quickly ducked her head again.

How was she supposed to handle this?

Ten years in the future, she told her mom everything? What must Wen Qingyan think of her?

Si Nanyu couldn’t guess how Wen Qingyan would react, but she racked her brains thinking about it, until…

Wen Qingyan didn’t look up until she finished eating and prepared to leave.

The IV had finished dripping, and she was free to move around, so she obediently got down from the bed to see Wen Qingyan off.

A strange shyness came over her, and she instinctively went to stand at Qin Hua’s side, giving Wen Qingyan a small wave. “Take care, Teacher Wen. Be safe on the road.”

Qin Hua shot her a suspicious look…

Si Nanyu seemed oblivious, practically glued to Wen Qingyan.

Just then the delivery arrived. Wen Qingyan faced Si Nanyu fully, handed her the congee with one hand, and studied her.

Without thinking, Si Nanyu ducked behind Qin Hua.

At that, Qin Hua’s suspicion turned to bewilderment… She stared at Si Nanyu, utterly baffled.

Si Nanyu pressed her lips together, gave Qin Hua a nudge, and stepped back out, revealing a frame that towered half a head over her mother, then took the pumpkin congee with both hands again.

Tilting her face up, she declared with conviction, “Teacher Wen, I promise I’ll drink every last drop!”

Wen Qingyan left.

Si Nanyu climbed back onto the hospital bed and took a sip of the piping-hot pumpkin congee…

Then let out a shriek like a slaughtered pig. “AHHH! Mom!”

“What are you howling about?! Just because it’s a private room, you think you can carry on like this?!” Face dark, Qin Hua tried to snatch the pumpkin congee out of Si Nanyu’s arms.

Si Nanyu clutched it tight and refused to let go, glaring like she was facing down an enemy. “Teacher Wen bought this for me!”

Qin Hua was so exasperated she actually laughed.

Hands on her hips, she planted herself at the bedside and started scolding. “What’s wrong with you? The moment you saw Little Wen, you scurried around like a mouse spotting a cat, hiding behind me, not even daring to look at her…”

“And now what’s all this?”

“Your wife’s not even here anymore. Who are you performing for? Whose attention are you trying to attract?!”

“Mine? The only attention you’re attracting is the attention of my fists!”

“I wasn’t performing! I wasn’t…!”

Si Nanyu insisted, chin jutting stubbornly, though her voice did lose conviction with every word. After all, it was true that she didn’t fear her mom. It was Wen Qingyan she feared.

With Wen Qingyan in the room, there really had been some “acting” on her part.

She just couldn’t help wanting to avoid leaving a bad impression on Wen Qingyan.

Now that Wen Qingyan was gone, her courage had come back and her true nature was surfacing, and all the questions in her head came spilling out.

Setting down the pumpkin congee, she bit on her spoon and asked Qin Hua, eyes darting, “Mom, did I really… marry Wen Qingyan?!”

Then, voice trembling, “Is she really… my wife?”

At that, Qin Hua’s temper exploded, and she smacked her forehead. “Do you actually want a beating?!”