Chapter 26

1:00 PM (4)

There was no rush to name the stray cats; Doctor Fang took the three little ones away in the rain.

The phone at the front desk rang, and Xia Xia couldn’t go send Doctor Fang off. She raised the receiver and reminded him, “The steps are very slippery on rainy days, Doctor Fang, please be careful.”

After taking a two-minute consultation call, Xia Xia stood dazed in the front desk work area, first glancing at Xing Pengjie and Xu Muzi chatting not far away, then looking outside at Deng Yun.

After looking back and forth a few times, Xia Xia became even more bewildered and stood there in a daze.

Xing Pengjie had several red, swollen mosquito bites on his arm. He had just applied the herbal ointment Xia Xia gave him, and his skin was shining with a layer of oil.

Mosquito bites may be uncomfortable, but they can’t compare to the allure of gossip!

Xing Pengjie secretly glanced at Deng Yun outside and thought that this guy had broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and was tall and handsome, but he hoped he wasn’t a scumbag who played with people’s feelings.

He couldn’t help but ask Xu Muzi, “You were just fine a moment ago; why suddenly is there nothing to talk about?”

Xu Muzi maintained a calm expression, looking at Xing Pengjie with a distant gaze, saying nothing.

Xing Pengjie quickly clarified, “I don’t mean anything by it. I’m not trying to take advantage of your low mood to make conversation or anything like that. What I said about love at first sight means both people have to mutually feel something; I won’t act like a simp.”

Xu Muzi sighed and nodded, “Yeah, mutual understanding is important.”

“I see you and that guy have some unspoken connection. That counts as mutual understanding, right?”

Xu Muzi, gripping her phone, loosened two fingers to make a “two” gesture. “It’s been over two years.”

“What’s been over two years?”

“We haven’t been in contact for more than two years.”

Xu Muzi thought that perhaps her interactions with Deng Yun were too natural, and he always seemed to…

How should she describe it? Always taking care of her? Always indulging her?

In any case, she realized she had been thinking too simplistically. Given the current situation, it was inappropriate to reminisce about the past.

Especially since the reminiscing she hoped for was not just the standard “How are you?” “I’m fine, thank you, and you?” from elementary school English textbooks, but came with some not-so-innocent intentions.

Perhaps Mr. Deng, who wasn’t very familiar to her, had already “crossed mountains and rivers” and started a new romantic life. Bringing up the past now would indeed be pointless.

Xing Pengjie felt awkward as well and sighed in sympathy with Xu Muzi.

“True, even for someone like me who’s socially outgoing, running into a friend I haven’t seen for over two years, I probably wouldn’t know what to say. Moreover, your situation seems… a bit more complicated.”

Xu Muzi sighed and rested her head on the cushion in her arms.

The allergic skin behind her ear had turned a deep purple-red, quite noticeable, almost matching the color of the pot of flowers next to her.

Xing Pengjie handed her the herbal ointment and asked if she needed it.

Xu Muzi shook her head, indicating that she had already applied medication before going out and didn’t need to reapply.

The flower pot had a plant name tag tied to the flower stalk. Upon closer inspection, she learned that the fluffy purple-red flower petals were called “Black Swan Peony.”

Many plants in the inn had similar name tags. She fiddled with the small metal tag, marveling at the attention to detail in the inn, while feeling melancholy about Deng Yun.

Not talking about it felt frustrating.

Did she have to go up to someone she hadn’t seen in over two years and say, “I’ve thought of many things from the past; why don’t we chat”?

A few minutes ago, Deng Yun had a similar question.

Knowing full well that Xu Muzi had a stable boyfriend, did he really want to find ways to entice Xu Muzi to cheat?

A week ago, Deng Yun came to stay at the inn to relax.

When he walked in, Xia Xia had jokingly said to him, “Why did you come all of a sudden without any notice? We’re fully booked today, not a single room is available. Oh, you look so pale, did you get dumped?”

He had just mumbled a “hmm.”

That “hmm” left Xia Xia stunned, and she stammered for a long time without finding any comforting words.

In the end, Xia Xia handed him a can of herbal tea and ran off dejectedly.

It wasn’t a breakup.

It was just that his mother, Ms. Wu Jiawen, was stuttering on the phone, even more so than Xia Xia, saying she had found out from Xu Muzi’s mother that Muzi had a stable boyfriend who also graduated from a music academy.

He played the violin, and Deng Yun knew.

Deng Yun had seen Xu Muzi’s boyfriend at her school.

Her boyfriend held a violin, was a foreigner with curly brown hair, quite tall, and considered handsome.

They chased each other around the campus, both laughing happily.

Damn, a boyfriend.

The rain drizzled continuously for over ten hours, but it couldn’t douse Deng Yun’s feelings of annoyance and irritation.

It might be hard to let go.

There might also be some wicked, morally questionable thoughts arising.

Especially when Xu Muzi, who had a boyfriend, got particularly close to the new guy she had met at the inn.

Deng Yun was mad with jealousy.

“Deng Yun, you didn’t hear a word I said, did you?”

Deng Yun snapped back to reality. “Sorry, I was distracted.”

The woman standing opposite him was his friend’s wife, Cheng Zhucun.

Cheng Zhucun’s parents had just retired and wanted to find a beautiful place for their retirement, so she had long thought Deng Yun’s place was nice and bought a house at the foot of the mountain, which was currently under renovation.

Cheng Zhucun smiled knowingly, glanced at the glass door, and teased Deng Yun, “Is it the arrival of someone that makes you so restless?”

Deng Yun didn’t respond, which counted as an acknowledgment.

“Then I won’t disturb you for now. I’ll come back in the evening and show you the blueprints.”

Deng Yun handed Cheng Zhucun the umbrella but didn’t rush to go inside. He frowned at the curtain of rain.

Cheng Zhucun was right; he was indeed restless.

Memories of Xu Muzi flooded his mind, and the more he tried to ignore them, the more they sprang up uncontrollably—

Like that time he took Xu Muzi to the arcade.

Deng Yun’s friend had made a careless joke about Xu Muzi’s unhealed wisdom teeth, which she held a grudge against.

After discovering that she was surprisingly good at those arcade games, Xu Muzi went all out and dominated.

Deng Yun’s friend lost terribly, and Deng Yun wasn’t even trying to win. Who would have thought that even losing could be difficult? He inadvertently sent the puck flying into the goal.

Xu Muzi, who hadn’t been on guard, was furious. Seizing the moment when no one was watching, she gave Deng Yun a hard slap on the back.

Deng Yun was caught leaning forward with his head down, laughing, and then continued to laugh while getting hit.

At that moment, he thought the old lady wasn’t wrong; Xu Muzi resembled her, but it wasn’t in looks—it was in their strength.

Taking Xu Muzi to climb a mountain to watch the sunrise.

Xu Muzi was like a child, bouncing around, and Deng Yun recorded videos with his phone, replaying them multiple times when editing back home.

Xu Muzi was really very cute.

On the phone, she told him, “Deng Yun, actually, I know your birthday; it’s January 9th, right?”

Xu Muzi said it was because Deng Yun always joked around and had even tricked her into thinking he had just gotten his driver’s license.

She was a little afraid that his driving skills were inadequate and that he might turn her into a vegetable or an ice pop in an accident, so she secretly checked his driver’s license in the glove compartment of his car.

“I still have to play the piano; I can’t die too early.”

Deng Yun laughed at her, saying with such a tiny bit of courage, she was thinking of becoming a street racer?

She retorted, “I’m not going; street racing isn’t as…”

Her following words were hurriedly swallowed, and she didn’t say more, but Deng Yun understood what she meant: street racing wasn’t as thrilling as kissing him in the piano room.

This girl really knew how to entice people.

The night was deep. After Deng Yun finished coding, feeling a bit lazy, he jokingly asked Xu Muzi if she had ever thought of something more exciting than kissing.

Xu Muzi diverted the conversation, stammering.

In a soft voice, she said, “Deng Yun, today on my way to the piano room, I saw a beautiful flower I didn’t recognize; it was white, and the pattern on the petals looked a lot like peacock feathers.”

Deng Yun lay in bed, holding the phone to his ear, quietly listening to Xu Muzi say, “If only all these plants could have name tags; just a glance, and we’d know their names.”

There were a few small puddles below the steps, and the stormy weather continued, with rainwater pouring off the eaves into the puddles.

Deng Yun tilted his head and saw Xu Muzi leaning on a pillow, chatting with her new friend.

He wondered how that dark-skinned male student had such charm that made Xu Muzi’s expressions become rich and even made her show a wilted look.

Xu Muzi had also shown that kind of expression to Deng Yun.

That night, she was particularly soothing, wanting to hear why he was unhappy, yet fearing to touch on his painful past, so she even brought red wine.

At night, she blushed and crawled off him, her calf hitting the edge of the table, causing her to wince in pain—a similar little expression to what she had now.

Deng Yun took a breath of the damp, cold air, pressing it back into his chest, trying to shift his focus away from Xu Muzi.

When his friend first pursued Cheng Zhijun, a software guy, he decided to put down higher mathematics for love and began studying astrology with fervor.

His friend used acquaintances to practice, explaining to their group that Deng Yun was an Aquarius, whose emotional luck was mediocre and was especially prone to ruining a good hand of cards.

That wasn’t accurate.

He had never encountered a time when he had a “good hand” in relationships.

When Deng Yun realized he cared about Xu Muzi, she had a secret crush on a male classmate for who knows how many years.

By the time Xu Muzi showed some interest in Deng Yun, everything seemed to fall into place, but his family’s finances collapsed.

The old lady often muttered in her lifetime that when Deng Yun was young, he had a serious illness and that surviving such a disaster meant he would have good fortune later.

The idea of good fortune was quite unpredictable.

Overnight, the family owed a debt in the eight figures, and it was fortunate that neither of his parents jumped off a building or fell into depression.

But none of that mattered; it wasn’t the reason for Deng Yun’s confusion.

He was relatively smart, learned things quickly, and had never needed to cram in school. Occasionally glancing at extracurricular books or taking naps in class was enough to get him into the prestigious school his grandmother liked;

During the family’s debt crisis, they indeed faced some hardship, but relying on what was in his head, he managed to earn some money to help his parents.

Deng Yun looked toward the inn—

That male student pointed to his ear, probably recommending Xu Muzi some herbal balm.

Xu Muzi half-blocked herself behind the blooming black swan peony by the sofa, gently shaking her head.

Before the family encountered difficulties, Deng Yun had been pushed by professors to apply for graduate school;

He decided to give up the chance to pursue a master’s degree at his own school and apply to the country where Xu Muzi was studying, so he hadn’t felt academic pressure either.

Deng Yun didn’t expect that after being smart for over twenty years, the most perplexing question he faced was whether or not to become Xu Muzi’s third wheel.