Chapter 27

When Yun Li returned to the coffee shop, the group was in a standoff.

Just a minute earlier, Qu Mingxin was eager to reconnect with Yun Li. It was rare for her to be confronted so directly, and she couldn’t accept not being liked here.

Fu Shizhe: “They’re leaving.”

Yun Li felt it was abrupt, but she could guess that something had happened while she was away: “I’ll go see them out.”

At the shop’s entrance, Qu Mingxin, unwilling to let go, clung to Yun Li’s arm: “Yun Li, I didn’t want to bring this up, but your friends didn’t seem very welcoming.”

Yun Li was on guard: “What do you mean?”

“I just chatted with them for a bit, and your colleague seemed quite irritable.”

Fu Shizhe, irritable?

This was the first time Yun Li had heard such a description.

“What did you talk about?”

“It wasn’t much, just about the time you were punished by standing, I was only…”

The words ‘punished by standing’ triggered Yun Li’s most sensitive memories from high school. She cut Qu Mingxin off, “Did you tell them I’m deaf in one ear?”

Qu Mingxin’s mouth opened, but seeing Yun Li’s stern face, she lost her assertiveness: “I didn’t realize they didn’t know, and besides, we’ve been classmates for so many years, I just wanted them to be nicer to you.”

Yun Li found it unreasonable.

As a child, she wasn’t afraid to tell others about it, not realizing she had this problem. From her perspective, she thought everyone was the same.

Everyone was deaf in their left ear.

It was all just for show.

It wasn’t until children innocently uttered words like ‘deaf,’ ‘disabled,’ and ‘deformed,’ that she realized she was indeed different.

She consciously stopped mentioning it to anyone, but the news still spread during high school.

At first, or even now, it made her feel somewhat inferior.

She had been emotional, asking why it had to be her.

But what puzzled her more was why something that wasn’t her fault was used repeatedly to attack her.

The buried grievances and current anger intertwined, and she thought, after all these years, she wouldn’t be affected like before. Why did it still have to impact her life now?

“I don’t think bringing up embarrassing things from the past in front of my friends is being nice to me.” Yun Li looked at her, “I used to be too timid to contradict you, I thought I could just endure it.”

“It seems that’s not the case.” Yun Li pushed her hand away, speaking coldly, “Please don’t contact me anymore.”

With that, she didn’t wait for Qu Mingxin’s reaction and closed the door behind her.

Behind the door, Yun Li took some time to calm down. It was a relief, and unexpectedly, taking this step wasn’t as hard as she had imagined.

…

Inside the coffee shop, Fu Zhengchu closed his book: “Uncle, were you angry just now?”

Fu Shizhe: “No.”

Fu Zhengchu had listened to Qu Mingxin talk about Yun Li’s past and felt pity for her, but it wasn’t until Fu Shizhe spoke up that he realized.

It seemed true.

If it were him, he wouldn’t have shared those things with others.

“Actually, I never noticed Li Li was deaf in one ear…” Fu Zhengchu wracked his brain trying to recall his daily interactions with Yun Li, then remembered something else: “Uncle, did you know from the start? Every time we went out, you were always on Li Li’s right side.”

Fu Shizhe: “…”

Fu Zhengchu: “Even now, you’re on the right side.”

He wanted to delve further into Fu Shizhe’s motives, but then he saw Yun Li walking towards them. Fu Zhengchu stopped the conversation and, unable to hide his thoughts, hastily grabbed a book from the side, pretending to flip through it.

Within seconds, Yun Li couldn’t help but say, “Fu Zhengchu, you’re holding the book upside down.”

“Ah, oh.” Fu Zhengchu quickly sat upright. “I must have fallen asleep!”

Yun Li: “…”

Yun Li knew the reason for Fu Zhengchu’s abnormal behavior and felt she should say something. After much thought and still unable to organize her words, she simply continued to read quietly.

After casually ordering some light snacks at the café, they moved to seats with sofa chairs. Fu Shizhe, with droopy eyes, asked Fu Zhengchu for a duckbill cap and, after putting it on, nestled into the sofa chair to sleep.

Seeing this, the other two quietly flipped through their books.

With exams approaching, Yun Li was distracted, her thoughts lingering on Qu Mingxin’s words—Fu Shizhe’s temper.

Knowing there was an exaggeration to it, she could imagine Fu Shizhe standing up for her.

The thought of him getting angry on her behalf filled her mind, but after considering several possibilities, none seemed to fit his character.

If only she had been there earlier.

Trying to focus on writing formulas on scratch paper, she ended up drawing moons all over it.

Looking over, she saw Fu Shizhe curled up in the corner of the sofa, his lips tightly sealed, his body trembling slightly, his back tense, as if he was having a nightmare.

His brows were tightly furrowed, his breathing irregular, as if struggling.

It didn’t seem right to let him continue having a nightmare.

Yun Li reached out to shake his shoulder, but Fu Shizhe suddenly grabbed her wrist and pressed her hand against his leg.

“…”

Yun Li tried to retract her hand, but the hand that held hers was immovable. His breathing suddenly became much steadier, his brows relaxed, but he kept a tight grip on her wrist.

She was reminded of a baby sucking on a pacifier.

Unable to read with this gesture, she took out her phone and opened her chat with Fu Shizhe, typing a few sentences and then deleting them one by one.

[Are you pretending to be asleep?]

[Our actions are a bit ambiguous.]

[You grabbed my hand.]

[You initiated it.]

[Can you take responsibility?]

…

[It’s been five minutes.]

As Fu Shizhe was about to wake up, he let go of her. Yun Li pulled back her hand and noticed it was marked with purple from his grip.

Fu Zhengchu asked in a strange tone, “Uncle, did you sleep well?”

Unsure of his tone, Fu Shizhe just lifted his sleepy eyes and didn’t respond.

The three of them wrapped up their review before dinner, and Yun Li collapsed on the sofa at home, watching the light through her fingers and noticing the faint marks on her wrist.

Because he had held her hand, she felt a unilateral rush of emotion.

Damn it, why was he always taking advantage of her?

And not taking responsibility.

Yun Li opened WeChat in frustration and messaged Deng Chuqi.

Yun Li: [Today was another day of unrequited desires.]

Deng Chuqi replied instantly: [??? Did you confess?]

Yun Li resisted the urge to tell about being taken advantage of: [No. Wouldn’t that scare him away?]

Deng Chuqi: [Then how did you ask?]

Yun Li: [I silently wished in my heart.]

Yun Li waited with her phone but didn’t see a reply from Deng Chuqi. She scrolled back to E-station, where her candid shot from the day had already garnered two hundred thousand likes. After briefly replying, she switched back to her chat with Fu Shizhe.

The conversation was still about Halloween night.

She had asked: [I’m heading to Tech City now!]

He had replied: [Mm.]

Yun Li: [About the EAW campaign I mentioned today, are you free Monday night?]

Both exams were on Monday during the day, and with the winter term schedule adjusted, she had also changed her internship hours.

Fu Shizhe replied with his usual brief “Mm.”

Scrolling back, it was mostly her sending several messages and him replying with one. The total didn’t exceed twenty messages. After flipping back and forth, Yun Li changed his contact name to ‘Wife’, which seemed much more pleasing to her.

She scrolled back to the very first message and deleted the middle two.

Yun Li: [/Be my wife/]

Wife: [Mm]

…

On the night before the exam, Yun Li pulled an all-nighter, not only working through several sets of papers but also making a batch of matcha Swiss rolls. She carefully packed them into a box and tied it with a blue ribbon, shaping it into a neat bow.

After the exam, she caught up on some sleep. Before heading out to her appointment, it started to drizzle. Yun Li changed into a waterproof coat and placed her camera into a waterproof bag before setting out with her umbrella to EAW.

The employees had left for the day, and Yun Li waited at the entrance for a while. A few minutes later, the light rain turned into a downpour.

Glancing at the time, she noted there were still ten minutes before their scheduled meeting. Standing by the window, she idly drew circles on the ground with her shoe. Then, opening her umbrella again, she headed towards the fire escape entrance of the company.

The heavy rain pelted the umbrella as Yun Li, peering through the curtain of rain, spotted Fu Shizhe standing at the doorway of the fire escape, just as she had anticipated, without an umbrella.

Once under the shelter, she quickly closed her umbrella and patted the rain off her coat. A large portion of her outfit was soaked, and the ends of her hair were dripping wet.

His eyes darkened, and he glanced at the item in her hand, “Are you here to pick me up?”

Embarrassed to admit it outright, Yun Li hummed softly, “I waited over there for a while, but you didn’t show up.”

“Give me the umbrella,” Fu Shizhe said without further questions, taking it and opening it up.

The space under the single-person umbrella was cramped, barely enough for two. Yun Li shifted her camera bag to her front.

The sound of rain amplified in her right ear, and the rain curtain obscured her vision. Among all the sensations, the presence of another person was the most palpable.

Rainwater trickled down the umbrella spokes, drenching the other half of Fu Shizhe’s body. Yun Li felt guilty, “My umbrella is too small, maybe you should use it alone.”

Fu Shizhe didn’t take her impractical suggestion seriously but still asked, “What about you?”

The petite girl, almost as if shrinking into his embrace, quickly donned her hood, “My coat is waterproof.”

Fu Shizhe: “…”

Fortunately, the walk wasn’t long. Upon reaching the experience hall, Fu Shizhe swiped his card to open the door and turned on the lights, then fetched a towel from the storage room for Yun Li.

Too shy to dry off in front of him, Yun Li turned away and gently dabbed at the wet parts of her hair.

After setting up the camera and reflector board, Yun Li proceeded to shoot each item according to the planned sequence.

The last item was playing a horror game with VR glasses. For the sake of the show, Yun Li decided to take on the challenge herself. After Fu Shizhe helped her put on the glasses, he guided her to start the game “Wake Up to Ghosts.”

As soon as she entered the game, she was in a bathroom under a blood-red light. Yun Li tensed up, moving slowly inside. There were several rooms to explore, and as she searched, a sudden ghastly scream rang in her ears.

Yun Li was deaf in her left ear, so she couldn’t pinpoint the direction of sounds as most people could.

To her, all sounds seemed to come from the right.

Instinctively feeling that the ghost was on her right, she stepped back in terror, only to bump into someone’s arms. Looking up, she saw a ghastly face.

Before Yun Li could scream, Fu Shizhe swiftly removed her VR glasses.

Still shaken, her vision returned to the real world, but the soft sensation behind her reminded her of the scene she had just witnessed. With a lingering fear, she turned around only to realize—

She was in Fu Shizhe’s arms.

He held the VR glasses in one hand, and with the other, he lightly supported her shoulder to prevent her from falling.

“I didn’t mean to.”

Suddenly realizing what she had done, she bravely took a couple of steps forward, extricating herself from the embrace behind her.

Yun Li’s face heated up, realizing she had once again taken advantage of Fu Shizhe. She touched her cheeks with the back of her hand, waiting for the temperature to drop before turning around.

Fu Shizhe lowered his gaze, turning off the VR glasses in his hand and adjusting the retractable cord to its normal size, checking it thoroughly up and down.

He repeated this action several times.

Then he looked up at Yun Li.

“Do you like me?”

His gaze was clear.

Yun Li froze in place.

Her first instinct was to deny it, but when the words reached her throat, she couldn’t speak.

On many sleepless nights, she would open her eyes and vaguely see the silhouette of another person.

Yun Li had never avoided this feeling, this experience tinged with a bit of sweetness, bitterness, and astringency, from the initial admiration to the ultimate wholeheartedness.

She wanted to be part of his past.

She wanted to be part of his present.

She wanted to be part of his future.

A dense thicket of emotions sprouted in her heart, the buds had already broken through the soil, and although she once tried to suppress and forget them, they retaliated, growing even more in this world.

It turns out, in someone’s eyes, there can truly be only the figure of another person.

Yun Li clenched her fists and met his gaze, “Can’t I pursue you?”

Fu Shizhe was silent for a long time.

Or maybe it was just a few seconds.

To Yun Li, it felt like an eternity, her palms sweating profusely, trembling uncontrollably.

He lowered his gaze.

Just like that night of rejection, with the same tone.

“I’m sorry.”

With each clear word he uttered, Yun Li’s momentary intense emotions also dissipated.

Yun Li heard the rain stop.

And she heard every word he said clearly.

—”Perhaps my actions gave you the wrong impression.”

—”I have no intention of being in a relationship.”