Chapter 36 Part 2

“Your nose is so high-bridged, and sometimes your eyes take on this faint violet hue. Yes, yes! Look, in this lighting right now!” She nudged Song Xiao beside her, who glanced over. “It does kind of look that way.”

Meng Ning thought it was because Wen Zenian’s eyes were so deep. Only someone who had been through a great deal from a young age could have eyes like that—like the night sky, where the darkest hour wasn’t pure black but shimmered with a gorgeous purple.

She cut in before Wen Zenian could continue. “You’ve had too much to drink. Let me take you outside to sober up.”

But Wen Zenian caught the hand Meng Ning had reached out to grab her with, pinching her fingertips lightly. She kept speaking to Qi Xiao and Song Xiao. “Before I went abroad, my family situation was terrible. My parents died when I was very young. I bounced between my two uncles for a while, then moved in with my grandparents in Crane City. That’s when I had a severe vascular tumor. We couldn’t afford surgery, so I was stuck on hormone pills, just dragging it out. It was the year I transferred to school in Crane City during middle school that I met Meng Ning.”

Qi Xiao stared blankly, thinking that when Wen Zenian said she’d been fat and ugly back then, it must have been true. A kid in that situation could barely struggle to survive—appearance wouldn’t have crossed her mind.

But look at Wen Zenian now.

Her gaze had gone a little unfocused from the alcohol. Qi Xiao, who usually couldn’t bring herself to stare directly at Wen Zenian, now looked her straight on. Beneath the table, one of Wen Zenian’s hands held Meng Ning’s fingertips. With the other, she lightly twisted one of her diamond earrings before letting her hand drop to straighten the collar of her shirt.

Qi Xiao stared in a daze. Whether it was Wen Zenian’s skin—soft and white, glowing from whatever treatments she had—that impeccably tailored shirt, or the casual way she had rolled up the sleeves to her elbows, everything about her screamed refinement, elegance, even luxury.

“Your aunt…”

“She’d been hurt by my grandparents and cut ties with the family early on. She made her own way abroad by herself.”

Qi Xiao sighed inwardly. One person’s fate could change in an instant.

If her aunt hadn’t been childless and taken Wen Zenian to Britain, she might not even be alive today.

“So back then, my circumstances were awful,” Wen Zenian went on. “You know how it is when you transfer to a new school—you become an easy target for bullies. Meng Ning was the only one who was kind to me. She talked to me, helped me with my homework, and even took me to her house after school.”

Years had passed, and Wen Zenian spoke of it all with perfect composure.

Unconsciously, her fingers unfurled Meng Ning’s palm, the tips tracing her palm lines feather-light.

This time, the path was clear: first the love line.

Then it doubled back, slowly stroking over the life line.

Was she reminiscing about the past, feeling that Meng Ning had rewritten a chapter of her life? Or was it just a meaningless gesture born of relaxation?

Meng Ning lowered her lashes, unable to tell. She only felt that tingling, itchy ache creeping up her arm again, branching out to her heart and the back of her neck.

She gripped Wen Zenian’s hand to still it. Wen Zenian curved her lips and let her hold on.

Out loud, she asked Qi Xiao, “What do you think Meng Ning looked like in her teens?”

Qi Xiao eyed Meng Ning. “She’s got a delicate frame, so probably about the same as now.”

“Pretty much.” Wen Zenian nodded and turned to Meng Ning. Her thick lashes filtered the light, casting time-worn shadows beneath her eyes. “Just as pretty, just as pure. But her personality was much more outgoing back then. Half the school had secret crushes on her. I still don’t know why she bothered with me.”

Her gaze drifted lower, landing on the Buddha beads around Meng Ning’s wrist. “You were so kind, weren’t you?”

She slipped her hand free and draped her arm back over Meng Ning’s shoulders, but her fingertips drifted to the black mandala tattoo at the back of Meng Ning’s neck, brushing it feather-light.

Meng Ning felt an itch and squirmed. Wen Zenian smiled faintly and laid her palm flat against the nape of Meng Ning’s neck, the warmth of it soothing.

“But later on.” Wen Zenian leaned forward as she spoke, her body arching from shoulders to hips in a graceful curve. She picked up her wineglass from the table and took a sip. “She stopped paying attention to me.”

“Ah, why?” Qi Xiao asked.

“Because she was so popular and made new friends. When I went looking for her, she wouldn’t talk to me. I was about to walk away when I felt so sad that I told her, ‘Wait until I count to three before you go, okay?'”

“And then?”

“And then I started counting.” Qi Xiao thought Wen Zenian must be drunk too—from the moment they’d met her, Qi Xiao had never seen her smile so many times in one night. “One.”

“Two…”

Wen Zenian’s low voice carried a natural storytelling cadence, like it held some magic from another time.

One hand rested on the tattoo at the back of Meng Ning’s neck, the other held her wineglass, and a faint smile played at her lips.

Suddenly, the sound system glitched with a sharp “Screeech!” Everyone flinched as if the spotlights had dimmed for an instant.

In that moment, Qi Xiao had a sudden feeling that when Wen Zenian reached three, something monumental might happen.

She clenched her fists without thinking.

But the sound system recovered, the lights swayed gently, and Wen Zenian let out a short laugh. “And that’s where it ends.”

“Huh?”

“She didn’t wait for me to get to three. She just turned and ran.”

Her knuckles curled, lightly scraping at the back of Meng Ning’s neck.

She spoke of it all so casually, and Qi Xiao laughed along. “Meng Ning, how could you do that? So heartless!”

“She deserves a good scolding.” Wen Zenian took another sip of wine, as if in encouragement.

“What happened after that?”

“Not long afterward, I went to Britain for high school and college. Then I traveled the world optimizing hotels and never came back. The next time we met was this time, at the C Hotel.”

“Destiny, huh.” Qi Xiao put on an air of wisdom. “Meng Ning, you should apologize to her.”

“No need.” Wen Zenian looked at Meng Ning. “After all, in my first fourteen years, Meng Ning was the only one who ever made me feel warm.”

She stood up, the corners of her eyes tinged with a drunken allure, her lips curving seductively. “But how about a little punishment? Dance with me.”

Qi Xiao had seen Wen Zenian extend her hand to Meng Ning in that pose exactly three times.

Once on a yacht amid all-night revelry.

Once beside a helicopter that had stirred up the night.

And now, this time.

No matter what she intended to take or give, that posture always seemed like it would drag Meng Ning into a dream from which she’d never wake.

Meng Ning placed her hand in Wen Zenian’s.

They made their way to the dance floor.

When Wen Zenian entered Meng Ning’s world, the upside was how vastly different it was from Meng Ning’s own—no one here knew her, so there was no need to hold back.

Wen Zenian’s arms wrapped around Meng Ning’s shoulders, her head resting lightly against the hollow of Meng Ning’s neck.

Meng Ning held her waist, feeling the heat of her skin through the thin fabric of her shirt.

“You’ve had too much to drink,” Meng Ning murmured.

“A little,” Wen Zenian admitted without denial. Her forehead against Meng Ning’s neck was burning hot too. “Do you know why I asked you to dance?”

She went on. “The punishment doesn’t matter. I wanted you here because the dance floor is dark enough… and I wanted to kiss you.”

She leaned into the crook of Meng Ning’s neck, hidden by the hoodie’s collar, and pressed a gentle kiss there.

Maybe her waist was hot, her forehead hot, but nothing compared to her lips. That one kiss felt like it could sear straight into the soul.

Followed by a soft nip.

In this lighting, no one else should be able to see a thing. Still, Meng Ning shifted her arms higher, encircling Wen Zenian’s shoulders, half-shielding her face like a protective gesture.

Until Wen Zenian lifted her head.

Meng Ning pressed her lips together.

Wen Zenian chuckled. “Where’s the restroom?”

Meng Ning pointed. “I’ll take you.”

There were people inside the restroom, so they waited by the door. Wen Zenian didn’t lean on Meng Ning, just lowered her gaze. Their shadows overlapped at an intimate angle under the lights.

The door opened, and the girl who emerged paused for a second, struck by the sight of them, before walking away.

Meng Ning thought for a moment. “I’ll go in and check if it’s clean.”

She stepped inside, but Wen Zenian followed right behind and locked the door.

Meng Ning blinked in surprise.

Wen Zenian hugged her from behind, her shoulders embraced. In her fine high heels, she stood half a head taller than Meng Ning in sneakers. She tilted toward Meng Ning’s shoulder, positioning their faces side by side in the mirror.

Her arm came around, thumb gently rubbing the spot she’d just kissed. “Didn’t you want to see what I did to you?” Her fingertip stroked slowly. “No marks at all, right? I don’t want anyone else seeing.”

Meng Ning gazed at their reflections.

Tonight’s recounting of the past had stirred greater waves in her heart than in Wen Zenian’s, probably.

They had once been equals, close. But look at Wen Zenian now.

Even her eyeliner was impeccably precise—a far cry from the timid girl who used to keep her head down as she walked.

Meng Ning was a little grateful that Wen Zenian had brought her here, to see how starkly different they looked side by side in the mirror. Just as she was grateful for the helicopter delivering medicine earlier—after that feather-light tracing of her palm lines—letting her understand what Wen Zenian truly wanted.

Wen Zenian wasn’t proving anything to her, perhaps, but to her past self.

Look, she seemed to say. Now I can do so many things.

As Wen Zenian’s fingers now rubbed gently at her neck, was it more tenderness or more desire?

Meng Ning exhaled slowly, her breathing unsteady from the teasing.

Clearly, desire. Settling an old youthful dream was a kind of desire too.

Wen Zenian stared at their reflections as well. “Meng Ning, what’s that look in your eyes?”

“If you keep looking at me like that, it makes me think… you might actually like me a little.”

“I had that illusion when I was a teenager. Want to go through it again?”