Chapter 37

7:00 PM (2)

An aromatic candle sat on the table between them, its flame flickering, warm in color, like the sunrise they had once watched together from the mountaintop.

But if she didn’t let her mind drift to Cheng Zhichun…

Xu Muzi stared at Deng Yun’s phone screen, practically lost in thought as she hesitantly asked, “Wait, did you… think I had a boyfriend?”

Deng Yun, his elbow propped on the table in a lazy posture like a fox just waking from a nap, had his eyes reflecting the dancing candlelight. He teased her, “Yeah, I was thinking about roping you into a bit of mischief.”

That would indeed be pretty mischievous!

Xu Muzi’s face heated up again as she held her cheeks with both hands, staring at Deng Yun for a long moment before finally managing to say, “But…”

She glanced toward the lively crowd behind the schefflera plants, lowering her voice cautiously. “Why would you think that… you don’t mean… you didn’t think Xing Pengjie was my boyfriend, did you?”

“No, not at all.”

Deng Yun’s reasoning was this:

He thought she was just out here cooling off after a fight with her boyfriend and happened to run into a college guy who caught her eye, so she’d just casually flirt a bit.

Xu Muzi was stunned.

But her mind didn’t work the usual way, and the more she thought about it, the more she felt he was overestimating her.

So, in his mind, her image wasn’t so bad—she could even flirt with a college guy.

Honestly, Xu Muzi had regretted the excuse she’d used earlier to get out of the game: saying she “couldn’t really show off her intelligence.” She was worried Deng Yun would actually believe it.

The one thing Xu Muzi couldn’t quite understand was, “What made me seem like I had a boyfriend?”

“Too long without seeing you, and I heard it from your parents.”

“What? My parents said that?”

“Mm-hmm, they said you had a stable boyfriend.”

Xu Muzi’s mind struggled to keep up, and after wracking her brain, she suddenly felt a burst of excitement.

With shining eyes, she asked Deng Yun if he meant that their families were back in contact.

“They haven’t mentioned it to you?”

“Not a word!”

She immediately felt like she’d said too much and quickly explained herself so he wouldn’t get the wrong idea.

After a failed investment, Xu Muzi’s parents had changed a bit.

With less money, it seemed like there were more bad days than good ones. They spoke less, rarely compared themselves to other families at the dinner table, and hardly joked anymore.

For over two years, her parents had often sighed.

If Xu Muzi was home, they would try to put on a cheerful front.

After the heavy rain, the inn had locked down and was running the heating system, making the atmosphere a bit stuffy.

Xu Muzi brushed a damp strand of hair from her neck and said, “Around the end of last year, their business started improving. They seemed more upbeat, talking about meeting a helpful person and sounded really motivated.”

All the relatives who once gathered every few days had lost touch.

Everyone had their struggles, each climbing their own hurdles. Whether it was due to resentment or simply being too busy, they had all drifted apart over time.

The last time Xu Muzi heard any news about Deng Yun’s family from her parents was not long after the incident. She had heard that his parents went south to work for a friend.

At the time, she pretended not to hear, numbly wrapping tape around a cardboard box.

In her peripheral vision, her father sat on the couch, rubbing his face hard, saying that everything that had happened was his own fault.

“Deng Yun, they didn’t lose contact because of the debt; they weren’t afraid of being dragged down further.”

Xu Muzi spoke quickly, and Deng Yun gave her a comforting look, reminding her, “Take your time.”

“My parents, they probably felt very guilty toward your uncle and aunt.”

“I know.”

In this situation, Deng Yun had the clear-headedness of an outsider.

Xu Muzi understood that him being willing to listen from this outsider’s perspective was already a gesture of favor toward her and her parents.

After all, in her family’s rented living room, an uncle once cried, and even filed a police report.

Though it was just a failed investment due to misjudgment, nothing close to fraud, he still told the police it was possible her parents were in cahoots with those scammers.

It was like in the past when Xu Muzi encountered something and told Deng Yun about it.

He would always stand by her side without hesitation, criticizing the opposing side with words like, “Poor judgment,” “They’re foolish,” “They have no taste, no appreciation.”

This time was no different.

He was only concerned about her emotional burden. “Don’t worry about the elders’ issues. I’m already hearing gossip about your love life from them; how bad could their relationship really be?”

Xu Muzi nodded, moved.

After finishing their conversation, they both grew quiet.

She took a while to digest the news.

An unexpected encounter, Deng Yun’s feelings, the reconciliation of their parents…

Could one person really come across so many happy things all at once? Wasn’t this all a little too smooth?

On reflection, if their families had resumed contact, her mom might indeed have said she had a boyfriend just for appearances.

When she had exchanged messages for more than three days with a violin-playing match her mom set up, her mom was quick to tell the relatives about it.

But Deng Yun had already said he’d never had a girlfriend and had confessed that he liked her.

Xu Muzi felt it was necessary to clarify: “You know how my mom exaggerates. I’ve never had a serious boyfriend; I really haven’t…”

She was talking about her relationship status, but then she suddenly realized and asked, “Wait, did you actually think I had a boyfriend?”

“Yes.”

“If I really had a boyfriend, why didn’t you just wish me well?”

“Couldn’t do that.”

“And you still wanted to rope me into mischief?”

“Couldn’t help it.”

“And you even kissed me!”

Filled with righteous indignation, Xu Muzi clenched her fist and tapped the table with the massage ring on her finger. “Deng Yun, do you want to be the third wheel?”

Deng Yun was completely unserious.

He said his grandma had always stressed the importance of virtue. If he really did that, when he died and met her in the afterlife, she’d refuse to acknowledge him, saying he had disgraced the Deng family…

There was likely a “but” coming.

She didn’t let him finish, reaching out to cover his mouth. “Stop with all the talk about death.”

After stopping him from saying something unlucky, Xu Muzi realized their physical closeness.

In her eagerness, she had leaned in, her knee touching the fabric of his dry, casual pants.

The hem of her skirt tickled around her knees.

And with this gesture to quiet him, her fingers brushed his nose and lips.

He stopped speaking, his gaze lowering to her fingers for a couple of seconds before lifting to meet her eyes, his gaze moving past the flickering candlelight to focus on her.

His warm breath fell on her fingers, and as Deng Yun held her gaze, he lifted her wrist gently, with just enough force that she couldn’t pull away.

His lips were soft, trailing kisses from her palm to her fingertips.

The breaths and kisses tingling through her hand traveled like an electric current, climbing along her arm.

It felt like rain-washed hops outside the window, vines moistly curling around every nerve, ultimately infiltrating her chest and soaking her heart.

Xu Muzi was about to lose it, her breathing uneven.

Just as a fluttering warmth began gathering, his lips left her palm.

Again!

She impatiently tried to pull her hand away, only to have him hold on even tighter.

Under the table, Xu Muzi stepped on Deng Yun, but didn’t press down hard.

He took it with a smile.

In the common area, the bottle-spinning game was still going on, the questions getting more daring, and the answers growing wilder—

Question: “Which part of your body are you most proud of?”

Answer: “Probably my digestive system, never had constipation.”

The person answering laughed amidst a chorus of laughter, criticizing the question for being too tricky, vowing to be kinder and asking the next person, “When was the last time you were really happy?”

The empty bottle had probably pointed to Xing Pengjie.

Xing Pengjie answered, “Just now, when you said you never had constipation.”

The voices were loud, but Xu Muzi wasn’t really listening.

Her palm was still tingling, and all the noise was just going in one ear and out the other, faint and indistinct.

But then Deng Yun repeated the question, his thumb brushing against the pulse in her wrist as he asked, “When was the last time you were really happy?”

Her reflection in the glass window beside them, tinted warm by the candlelight, looked flushed, even down to her neck.

Xu Muzi thought Deng Yun was teasing her over this and, feeling he had bad intentions, stomped on his foot again.

She shot back with, “Well then, you tell me—when was the last time you were really happy?”

After all, that intimate moment just now involved both of them; it takes two to tango.

Deng Yun tapped his phone, lighting up the screen; it was a few minutes before eight.

He gave an unexpected answer: “About ten minutes ago.”

They’d discussed several topics already, and Xu Muzi couldn’t remember what they’d been talking about ten minutes ago.

She looked at him, puzzled.

He said, “That was when a certain girl got a little jealous.”

Under normal circumstances, Xu Muzi wouldn’t get jealous.

She had confidence.

For almost three years, she hadn’t fallen into despair, hadn’t given up on her studies, hadn’t let self-pity waste her time.

She kept pushing forward, relying on herself, and managed to get through difficult times.

If she was worthy of being liked back then, she could only be more worthy now.

But after such a long time without seeing Deng Yun, Xu Muzi felt he didn’t know all this, so she was sensitive and eager, always worried he wouldn’t see her growth.

Just as she was about to express dissatisfaction with his answer, Deng Yun kissed the pad of her ring finger.

He said, “Xu Muzi, don’t worry.”

He told her that the girl he knew wasn’t just someone who stayed up at night, cried, and got adorably drunk.

She was also the strong girl who, after her family troubles, took on the pressure silently, doing everything she could to survive and complete her studies.

“You once did a hotel job that almost lasted all night, playing for ten hours straight.”

“You performed at your school’s anniversary event, collaborating with a renowned film score composer to play a piece by Haydn.”

“You were taken to Boston by a professional professor to participate in a four-university exchange, accompanying a musical with Ph.D. students from other schools.”

“You also performed at a famous local music festival, playing Beethoven with… a violinist.”

…

Deng Yun remembered things even better than Xu Muzi herself.

The Boston trip, following right after the school anniversary performance, had left her so busy that she’d almost forgotten about it.

When she’d thought earlier about recounting her highlights, this hadn’t even come to mind.

One by one, he listed her achievements.

Xu Muzi couldn’t even understand it; they hadn’t spoken in 1,075 days.

How did he know all these details about her life?

Had he installed surveillance around her? Planted a secret informant nearby?

Finally, Deng Yun said, “In my eyes, you’re nearly perfect.”

Her ears grew warm. She wanted to downplay it, but her mind stalled, and all she could do was shake her head awkwardly, unsure of what to say.

“I’m not lying. Even when my grandma was alive—she loved to boast about her family—she would’ve stayed up at night wondering if her precious grandson was even worthy of you, you know? So stop worrying.”