When I Meet the Moon - Chapter 26

Chapter 26

From the girl's perspective, Yun Li's words felt more like staking a claim; her tone was as soft as cotton, yet her brow and eyes carried an undeniable certainty.

After the girl left, Yun Li took a sip of her mocha coffee, and out of the blue, Fu Shize asked, "You still remember that?"

Yun Li looked back at him. The man's features were cold and sharp, yet they failed to mask his youthful aura, and his demeanor possessed its usual, unruffled calm.

An inexplicable wave of pressure washed over her, and Yun Li feigned composure: "It's not really that I remember it, but I wanted to encourage her since she's my fan."

Fu Shize put down his knife and fork: "Encourage her to do what?"

"We've known each other for a while now, so I suppose we can be considered friends at this point? Friends can help friends scout for potential partners."

Fu Shize: "Weren't you not close."

"..."

Having briefly sniped at her, Fu Shize smoothly returned to the previous topic: "Scout for what kind."

His tone was as flat and casual as ever, but to Yun Li, it carried a subtle flavor of temptation and enticement.

All those feelings she had always suppressed to the bottom of the box, unwilling to reveal, surged up in a single instant.

Unable to curb her anticipation and nervousness, she simply wanted to make sure whether Fu Shize might possibly be open to someone like her.

Yun Li swallowed hard, staring straight at him with a hint of probing in her voice: "Good-looking and quiet, introverted around strangers but extroverted around you, and spinning around you all day long—do you think that works?"

She didn't even give him any other options.

Nor did she want to hear any other answer.

Fu Shize was slightly taken aback. He leaned back toward the right, picked up his water glass for a sip, and then flipped through her textbook.

"This part is an exam point."

Failing to get the answer she wanted, Yun Li's attention drifted back to the chaotic, glyph-like flowcharts and formulas.

A quarter of an hour past the agreed time had already gone by, and Fu Zhengchu still hadn't arrived. Yun Li opened her phone and saw a text message from him sent fifteen minutes ago.

Fu Zhengchu: [Sister Lili, should I still come over?]

Yun Li: [Why wouldn't you come?]

Fu Zhengchu: [I feel kind of awkward. Wouldn't I just be ruining the mood if I came over?]

Yun Li: [What you said makes sense.]

Fu Zhengchu: [...]

Yun Li: [Please come anyway qaq, otherwise my intentions here are way too obvious.]

Fu Zhengchu: [Coming.]

In reality, Fu Zhengchu had arrived near the coffee shop quite early, finding a corner to hole up in where he could read while keeping an eye on the two of them. After watching for a bit, he found it entirely too boring, which prompted him to text Yun Li.

After walking inside, Fu Zhengchu sat down opposite Fu Shize and opened his own book to read.

He barely uttered a word the entire time.

Finding it a bit odd, Fu Shize poked Fu Zhengchu's book with his pen.

Fu Zhengchu didn't make a sound.

Fu Shize poked the book again and asked, "Bad mood?"

Fu Zhengchu shook his head: "Little Uncle, I'm studying, stop bothering me."

At that moment, he just wanted to be completely transparent.

It was rare for Fu Zhengchu to shun him like this, so Fu Shize shifted his focus back to Yun Li.

After walking Yun Li through the core knowledge points for each type of problem, two whole hours had passed. Fu Shize glanced through the past exams, pulled out one of moderate difficulty, and placed it right in front of her.

His instruction consisted of a single, simple word: "Do it."

While Yun Li worked on the problems, Fu Shize rested his chin in his hand, his lowered gaze fixed squarely on her test paper.

...

Yun Li felt as though she had returned to the third grade of primary school, with a math teacher standing menacingly over her shoulder while constantly tapping a ruler to maintain strict order.

With every tiny bit of progress she made, she had to read his facial expressions carefully.

Fu Shize hardly ever concealed his thoughts; every time Yun Li answered a multiple-choice or true-or-false question, or wrote a wrong formula in her margins, micro-expressions would cross his face, such as a slight frown or narrowed eyes.

Half an hour later.

Having finally managed to finish all twenty small problems, Yun Li was already breaking out in a cold sweat.

Fu Shize checked her answers—all correct. His brow relaxed instantly, and he looked thoroughly pleased with the score.

Yun Li couldn't understand: was this the joy of being a top student?

Not only did he have to get everything right himself, but the person he was watching over had to get everything right too?

Staring at his face, Yun Li couldn't help asking, "Did you used to help other people cheat a lot?"

"?"

Yun Li: "You just look way too practiced at this."

Fu Shize was momentarily speechless. Yun Li then added, "Actually, I feel like doing these problems is terribly brain-frying. If it weren't for the upcoming exams, I probably wouldn't touch them at all..."

Fu Shize stared at her. Noticing Yun Li's eager, hopeful expression craving validation, he gave a half-smile, curving the corners of his lips in a perfunctory manner: "Right."

"I suppose I might not be all that great at academics," Yun Li began defending her lack of studiousness, "being a content creator is still pretty great, though. My last video has already hit three million views, and what's more, it's in the handmade tech category."

She purposely emphasized the words "handmade tech" to make the video sound at least somewhat technically demanding.

"I reassembled a robot."

Fu Shize: "Let's see."

Yun Li opened the video and placed it on the table. Fu Shize watched the screen in absolute silence until that little soccer ball appeared, whereupon his expression finally shifted slightly.

Remembering something, Yun Li casually followed up: "I need to film a new update for EAW, can you help me operate the equipment when the time comes?"

Absentmindedly, Fu Shize hummed a yes.

Before the video even finished playing, the ACG site bombarded her with dozens of notifications. Yun Li hadn't intended to tap anything, but by a clumsy misclick, she opened a dynamic update where the comment section was flooded with tags of her handle. The post featured nine photos taken from the exact same perspective.

Photo 1: Fu Shize leaning over the table with both hands, turning his head to explain a problem to her while she tilts her ear to listen, her gaze resting on his face.

Photo 2: Fu Shize holding a pen and writing something on draft paper while she props her chin with her hand, her gaze resting on his face.

Photo 3: Fu Shize forking a piece of waffle and moving it toward his lips while she rests her head on the table studying, her gaze resting on his face.

The fans quickly realized that across all nine photos, regardless of what the two of them were doing, Yun Li's gaze was eternally locked onto Fu Shize's face.

[@XianyunDida-jiang They are such a perfect match! I'm shipping them so hard, wuwuwu!]

[@XianyunDida-jiang Women are all liars, my heart is broken, my wife has been stolen by someone else, unfollowing.]

[@XianyunDida-jiang Wuwuwuwu my wife is committing bigamy.]

Who the hell took these covert photos.

Caught in a state of utter bewilderment, Yun Li judged from the angle of the shots that they were taken from the direction of the cafe's restroom, where a few clusters of dried flowers were haphazardly arranged.

Fu Shize glanced over, and upon seeing this, Yun Li immediately slapped her phone face down.

Whether it was because she had triggered the notifications too many times just now,

Yun Li blurted out: "Honey, let's do some problems."

Fu Shize's hand stiffened.

Fu Zhengchu fought hard to maintain his status as a transparent entity, but he couldn't help letting out a laugh.

Looking at the two of them, Yun Li had only one thought running through her mind—

How awkward.

Extremely awkward.

How could such an excruciatingly awkward thing possibly happen.

Whether he hadn't heard her or simply couldn't be bothered to respond, Fu Shize didn't utter a single superfluous word. This silence caused the awkward atmosphere to multiply a thousandfold, burrowing into every single cell of her body.

Averting her gaze, Yun Li covered her face with her hands, trying to force her temperature back down.

"I'm going to the restroom." Failing to lower her temperature, Yun Li fled in panic.

Back at the table, Fu Zhengchu was still suppressing a chuckle, while Fu Shize tapped him on the head with his pen.

Paying it no mind, Fu Zhengchu clutched his stomach and laughed out loud: "Hahaha, honey!"

Fu Shize: "..."

"Let me ask you something." He tapped Fu Zhengchu with the pen once more.

Seeing Fu Shize act like this, Fu Zhengchu instantly quieted down.

Fu Shize opened his mouth, forcing out the words with evident difficulty: "Do I look like a woman?"

...

By the time Yun Li returned, the two of them looked completely composed. She sat back down with a semblance of calm, and with a restless heart, she threw herself back into her written exercises.

"Oh, Yun Li?"

Just as Yun Li was locked in combat with the past exam questions, Qu Mingxin's voice popped up from right above her head. She looked up to see Qu Mingxin dressed in a white lace dress with exquisite makeup, gently wrapping an arm around Yun Li's neck.

"I saw you outside just now and was wondering if it was you."

"Can I sit here? Is this that colleague from Halloween last time?" Qu Mingxin pulled out a chair and sat down with practiced familiarity, waving toward someone behind her, "Li Weiran, come over here."

Only then did Yun Li notice another fair-complexioned girl standing behind them who also pulled out a chair and sat down.

The moment a stranger entered the picture, Yun Li's pores instantly constricted, and she offered a stiff, formal greeting to the pair.

"Let's go sit at another table, my classmates are studying for exams."

The moment she stood up, however, she realized the cafe was already completely full.

"Just sit right here, I'd love to get to know your friends too." Taking charge, Qu Mingxin naturally pulled Yun Li back down into her seat.

The group fell instantly silent.

While Yun Li didn't care for Qu Mingxin, she was well aware that high school was many years in the past.

As the victim, those memories remained vivid and indelible to her.

Yet she didn't want to let actions taken by the other party before her personality had fully formed define her for the rest of her life.

Qu Mingxin chatted with her about her work and inquired about how things were going for the rest of them. Yun Li's phone kept buzzing incessantly in her pocket; pulling it out to check, she saw it was a call from He Jiameng. She raised her phone as a gesture: "I'm going outside to take this call."

He Jiameng wanted to confirm the promotional theme for the upcoming video, and since Yun Li had already thought about it earlier, she gave her an immediate reply.

"I want to make this EAW promotional update into a short clip of around one minute, centered around the theme of 'Trying'. What do you think?"

Reflecting on her journey as a content creator, she had gone through numerous trials. From starting out in the food section, gradually migrating to the handmade and lifestyle sectors, all the way to her recent viral robot video.

Driven by career prospects, she had chosen automation for both her undergraduate and graduate studies, and when she first began her internship at EAW, she had originally wanted to join the technical department.

Yet being reassigned to the human resources department shattered her predictable routine while simultaneously opening the door to new attempts and opportunities—she had also yearned to integrate into crowds, and she wanted to prove that being introverted didn't mean she couldn't handle this job.

Yun Li loved the theme of this episode.

Trying always implied a sense of expectation for the future.

And her expectations for the future shared with Fu Shize burned brighter and stronger than anything else.

"Just now, looking through the window at Yun Li chatting with you guys, I felt like she's become a lot more outgoing, and I'm really happy for her," Qu Mingxin smiled. "I'd love to catch up on how Yun Li's doing lately, mind adding me on WeChat?"

She proactively pulled out her phone. Hearing this, Fu Zhengchu unlocked his screen and had just started to slide it toward them when a single finger pressed down firmly over his wrist.

Fu Shize: "No need."

It was Qu Mingxin's first time asking for a WeChat contact and being rejected outright, especially by someone who carried such an unapproachable aura.

With an apologetic smile, Fu Zhengchu said to the two of them, "If you have any questions, you can just ask Sister Lili directly." Since they were Yun Li's friends, he didn't want to seem distant, so he asked, "Are you guys Sister Lili's high school classmates?"

Qu Mingxin: "Mhm, yeah. We were super close back in high school, though Yun Li generally tended to hang out more with guys; among the girls, her only really good friends were me and Deng Chuqi."

"Let me order some drinks for you guys, to treat you on behalf of Sister Lili." Not thinking much of it, Fu Zhengchu pressed the service bell.

Qu Mingxin casually chatted with Fu Zhengchu about Nanjing University of Science and Technology for a bit before shifting the topic back to Yun Li's high school days: "Yun Li had it pretty rough back in high school. Because one of her ears couldn't hear, she often missed what the teachers were saying during class. When they called on her to answer questions, she wouldn't even know what the question was. Our teachers would always scold her for spacing out and not paying attention."

Fu Shize shifted slightly.

Fu Zhengchu clearly hadn't processed this yet.

With a tone of lingering pity, she continued: "So in high school, she was frequently punished by being made to stand in the corner, and her grades weren't great either. I heard she failed to secure a recommended spot for grad school in college—probably because she couldn't hear the professors clearly during university lectures either. But none of this was her fault to begin with; she seemed to have had hearing issues since childhood, and she faced a lot of discrimination because of it, which is why she stopped keeping in touch with us."

"So many people asked how she was doing, and she never replied. But seeing her looking so happy with you guys, we can finally rest easy."

Fu Zhengchu wanted to say something, but catching sight of Fu Shize's expression out of the corner of his eye, he smartly clamped his mouth shut.

The waitress happened to bring over the menus. Just as Qu Mingxin reached out to take one, Fu Shize directly grabbed the other side of the menu and handed it back to the waitress.

Fu Shize: "You mentioned—you graduated from college and are currently working."

Qu Mingxin nodded: "Yeah, right now I'm at..."

It was rare for Fu Shize to interrupt anyone, but breaking convention this once, he sneered: "Listening to you expose Yun Li's vulnerabilities, I've been wondering since last time,"

"You don't sound like an educated person."

The smile on Qu Mingxin's face faltered. She tried to justify herself: "I only meant to—"

Fu Shize: "Hoping we'd discover her flaws, is that it?"

Fu Shize: "As for finding any of hers—yours are standing out quite clearly right now.”