Chapter 18

11:00 AM (1)

“So, you’re in a state where you can accept advances from the opposite sex now?”

At first, Xu Muzi didn’t understand.

After a moment’s thought, due to the earlier drunken incident, she sensitively judged that Deng Yun was mocking her.

“Why can’t I accept it?”

Just because she got drunk?

Just because she hugged Deng Yun when she was drunk, does that mean that after all this time apart, she hadn’t made any progress compared to before?

As the elevator doors closed, the laughter and chatter from Xing Pengjie and the others in the public area of the inn faded away.

This kind of conversation could be seen as a mutual retort.

But when Xu Muzi pondered whether “not appearing to have made progress” would be judged as lingering feelings, suppressing some emotion, and turned to meet Deng Yun’s gaze, she fell into his similarly restrained eyes.

The tension instantly dissipated.

The subtle ambiguity spread like the light drizzle outside, filling the confined, narrow space of the elevator.

The ride from the first to the second floor only lasted a few seconds.

His gaze swept over her eyes, then shifted, landing on the swollen, red skin behind her ear, silently observing.

Deng Yun reined in his emotions and sighed helplessly, “Do you have some ointment for insect bites?”

Xu Muzi, harboring ill intentions, shot him a glare, her confidence wavering. “Why do you care!”

After saying that, she hurriedly stepped out of the elevator.

The morning’s casual drinking had taken down almost half of the guests, leaving only a few willing to wander into the mountains in the light drizzle.

Xing Pengjie followed closely beside Xu Muzi, chattering endlessly, finding many topics to discuss, most of which were aimed at highlighting his own abilities, carefully weaving in various details.

It wasn’t until Xu Muzi stepped into a muddy puddle that Xing Pengjie stopped in surprise. “Xu Muzi, you…”

Xu Muzi felt like someone awakened from a dream.

She glanced at the pine trees around, heavy with rainwater, and apologized, “I was a bit distracted. What were you saying?”

“Oh, nothing, just that it’s been raining for so long, we probably won’t see any squirrels.”

“You want to see squirrels?”

Xing Pengjie seemed momentarily choked. “Ah, I was hoping to see them…”

This place had a great ecological environment, with dense vegetation and moss-covered stones surrounding the sturdy pine trees, their bases also growing moss.

Several beautifully shaped pine cones lay scattered in the muddy ground covered with pine needles.

The animals were all hiding from the rain, and the empty spider webs hanging between the branches displayed the sparkling raindrops like a window showcasing diamonds.

With the others absent, Xu Muzi asked Xing Pengjie, “Where are they?”

Xing Pengjie scratched the back of his head. “They passed by the berry patch a moment ago. A few of them said they wanted to stay and pick wild strawberries. I asked if you wanted to keep walking towards the pine forest, and you agreed…”

Xu Muzi had no recollection of that.

To be honest, her jumbled thoughts were all about Deng Yun.

Concerned, Xing Pengjie asked, “Xu Muzi, are you okay? Is it that you didn’t feel well from the beer? You look a bit… low on energy?”

Xu Muzi squatted down, wrapped a damp pine cone in a tissue, and tucked it into her bathrobe pocket. “I’m fine.”

She just couldn’t understand.

Even male classmates from her IELTS class could develop a natural friendship.

Why was it not possible to interact naturally with Deng Yun?

That year, when returning to school, Xu Muzi coincidentally boarded the same international flight as a male classmate from her IELTS class.

There were a lot of people in line at the check-in counter. They encountered each other while checking in their luggage, with the male classmate greeting her first.

After exchanging a few casual pleasantries about the coincidence, he straightforwardly asked Xu Muzi if her early departure from the gathering was because she heard something when they were settling the bill.

Xu Muzi was not someone good at hiding her feelings, and her little gesture of pressing her lips together was caught by the male classmate.

The male classmate looked apologetic. “So it really is like this.”

He explained to Xu Muzi that he had been in a bad mood that day due to some unpleasantness with the girl he was pursuing.

Based on that premise, his friends had been gossiping about his relationship with Xu Muzi, which had made him impatient.

The male classmate clasped his hands together. “Xu Muzi, I’m sorry, I sincerely apologize to you. If I said something that upset you, I hope you can forgive me.”

It seemed that she could really forgive him.

Moreover, it was something she could forgive quite easily.

Upon hearing that the male classmate was pursuing someone, Xu Muzi surprisingly felt no sense of loss.

It had only been less than a month.

The days of stealing glances at each other in IELTS class, the panic and nervousness when mentioned in the group chat, the deliberate loosening of his shirt collar during gatherings…

It all felt like it happened a long, long time ago.

Just like what Li Bai wrote in his poem, “The light boat has already passed through countless mountains.”

At check-in, the male classmate asked if she wanted to sit in the same row, and Xu Muzi agreed.

They didn’t have many topics to chat about. Most of the time, Xu Muzi listened to him agonize over how to win the heart of the girl who was “always smiling,” “looks like a little sun when she smiles,” and “radiates positive energy.”

His agonizing wasn’t in vain. After returning to school, within less than two months, the male classmate was happily dating the girl he liked.

Occasionally, Xu Muzi would encounter them on campus and stop to chat for a bit.

By the time the holidays came, the three of them would even book tickets to go back home together.

Xu Muzi still had the question: why could she be friends without any awkwardness with the male classmate, but not with Deng Yun?

She thought, maybe it was because she had never truly understood him.

From the very beginning of their relationship, she found it hard to see through him—

That winter break, Xu Muzi indeed went to the hospital to have her wisdom teeth removed.

In the three days following the extraction, her face swelled up like a chipmunk with its cheeks stuffed full of nuts.

Even in that state, she stubbornly wore a mask to go out, climbing the mountain with Deng Yun at night.

At the summit, they used a telescope to gaze at the moon, which had eavesdropped on her secrets, and even saw the rings of Saturn.

Xu Muzi was so excited upon seeing the moon and Saturn that she jumped around and danced, which Deng Yun commented made her look like a human devolving into an ape.

But she didn’t care about that.

A few hours later, they squatted at the mountaintop to wait for the sunrise, and once again she exhibited devolved behavior, mimicking her ape-like movements in reverse.

When she turned around, she found Deng Yun recording it.

So Xu Muzi said that the most rebellious thing she ever thought about doing was to use her iron palm to send Deng Yun down the mountain.

During that period, they were secretly communicating every day, away from their two families. On the first day her face had started to go down, Xu Muzi went to the amusement park with Deng Yun.

Upon arriving at the amusement park, they discovered it was hosting a music-themed event in collaboration with several music schools.

It was very hot, and the main pathways were crowded with people, many of whom had taken off their down jackets and were carrying them in their arms.

Deng Yun took the down jacket from Xu Muzi and encouraged her to get on the piano stage in the exhibition area.

Surrounded by onlookers and children, Xu Muzi sat nervously in front of the piano, pressing her lips together.

Deng Yun entertained the children with several cotton candies, and those kids, holding cotton candy, started cheering for Xu Muzi, making this impromptu performance feel somewhat exhilarating.

A slightly older boy jumped onto the stage, cleared his throat seriously, and said, “Now, let’s welcome Miss Xu Muzi to perform for us—”

The applause from the audience was enthusiastic, and after the boy stepped down, he received the most complex cotton candy from Deng Yun while the other kids looked on with envy.

Xu Muzi looked into the crowd, and at a distance of a few meters, Deng Yun gestured for her to proceed.

She was about to play the piece that her teacher had scolded her for many times, which had also been her nightmare for a year.

She knew from this piece that she was not a genius.

Although she didn’t play well enough, the children were very supportive and applauded.

Xu Muzi heard one child tell their mother, “There’s a beautiful sister playing the piano really well over there.”

The music-themed event had its own underlying purposes, and of course, the music training schools were seizing the opportunity to advertise for recruitment.

Xu Muzi encountered a young parent who mistakenly thought she was a piano teacher and said, “My child just heard you play the piano, and he was quite interested. I wanted to ask which school you teach at…”

Xu Muzi recommended the piano training school she had once attended, and after walking silently with Deng Yun for a few hundred steps, she squatted down on a rarely traveled path and suddenly cried.

The insomnia and anxiety from recent days, the frustration of not being able to compete for a performance slot at the concert, and the disappointment of not being able to become a pianist…

All melted into this sudden outpouring of tears.

When Xu Muzi cried, Deng Yun squatted beside her, holding their down jackets, gently patting her back in comfort.

Once she dried her tears, he handed her a cotton candy. “I checked on my phone; after the first three days, you should be able to eat a bit of sugar. Do you feel better after crying?”

Xu Muzi slowly munched on the cotton candy. “Mm.”

“Have you passed your rebellious phase?”

“Not yet.”

“Perfect timing, there’s a pretty rebellious competition tomorrow. You have to come.”

“What competition?”

Deng Yun said that just moments ago, two children had challenged him from the audience.

The children arranged to meet Deng Yun by the river outside the city park for a rock-skipping competition, and it was going to be a doubles match. Deng Yun insisted on having Xu Muzi as his teammate, even though he said he couldn’t win by himself.

It was said that the two children had even hesitated:

“What if she’s so good at playing the piano that she wins the rock-skipping competition?”

“You’re silly. Just because she’s good at playing the piano doesn’t mean she’s good at rock skipping!”

After some discussion, the children reluctantly agreed.

Xu Muzi herself did not agree.

She asked in astonishment, “Are we two, big college students, really going to compete against two first-grade elementary school kids in rock skipping?”

Deng Yun suppressed a laugh. “I’ve already agreed; adults need to keep their word, right?”

“What could be more thrilling than smoking? Competing in rock skipping with elementary school students?!”

Clearly, it wasn’t.

Deng Yun just smiled meaningfully and didn’t answer.

In the end, Xu Muzi did go to participate in that exciting rock-skipping competition.

Ultimately, because she wasn’t good enough, she lost to the elementary school students, and both she and Deng Yun ended up paying for the kids to get ice cream cones.

This frequent contact and meeting continued until the area where Xu Muzi had her wisdom teeth removed had fully healed.

After her recovery, however, Deng Yun vanished. He didn’t contact Xu Muzi for three consecutive days.

This made her feel quite uncomfortable; she constantly checked her phone, even bringing it with her to practice piano and placing it beside her.

How could she compare this discomfort?

Was it like when her piano teacher in middle school stopped teaching due to illness, and she had to get used to a new teacher?

Or like the stray cat that often came to eat cat food in the yard suddenly stopped coming one day?

Was it the discomfort of realizing she wasn’t particularly gifted?

But it seemed none of these comparisons were quite accurate.

Xu Muzi dreamed of Deng Yun.

In the dream, when he helped her apply antiseptic ointment, it was more ambiguous than in reality; he gently stroked her lips with his fingertips, rubbing her lip beads…

She woke up from this dream, and for the first time, she took the initiative to call him.

In the middle of the night, when normal people would already be asleep, Xu Muzi had a feeling that Deng Yun was still awake.

Sure enough, after no more than three busy signals, the call was picked up.

Xu Muzi communicated very directly: “Deng Yun, why haven’t you contacted me these past few days?”

Deng Yun leisurely asked back, “What do you hope I’d contact you for?”

Xu Muzi was momentarily speechless and couldn’t answer.

Yet, in the confused silence, she subconsciously rubbed her lip bead with the back of her hand.

Deng Yun continued to ask her, “I can play with you, and I can take you for some thrills. But if you want me to contact you, what exactly do you want to do? Come over and show me?”