When I Meet the Moon - Chapter 27

Chapter 27

When Yun Li returned to the cafe, the group was in a state of stalemate.

A minute prior, Qu Mingxin had been eager to see Yun Li again. She rarely experienced being called out to her face like that, nor could she accept not being liked by others here.

Fu Shize: "They're leaving."

Yun Li found it sudden, but she could also guess that something had happened while she was away: "Then I'll go see them off."

At the cafe entrance, Qu Mingxin unwillingly grabbed Yun Li's arm: "Yun Li, I didn't want to bring this up originally, but your friend seems a bit unwelcoming toward us."

Yun Li grew alert: "What do you mean?"

"I was just chatting with them for a bit, and that colleague of yours has quite a fierce temper."

Fu Shize had a fierce temper?

This was the first time Yun Li had ever heard such an evaluation.

"What did you guys talk about?"

"Nothing much, just brought up how you used to get made to stand in the corner. I originally just wanted to—"

The words "stand in the corner" triggered Yun Li's most sensitive memories from high school. She cut Qu Mingxin off, "Did you tell them that my left ear can't hear?"

Qu Mingxin opened her mouth, but seeing Yun Li's expression turn ice-cold, she wasn't quite as righteous as before: "I didn't think they didn't know. Besides, we've been classmates for so many years, I just wanted them to treat you a bit better."

Yun Li only found it absurd.

When she was little, she hadn't been guarded about telling others this matter; she had never known she had this issue, and from her perspective, she assumed everyone else was just like her.

Everyone's left ear couldn't hear.

They were all just decorative.

It wasn't until later, when crude words like "deaf," "disabled," and "malformed" spilled from the mouths of immature children, that she realized she was indeed different from the others.

She consciously stopped mentioning it to anyone, yet the news still leaked and spread throughout high school.

From the very beginning—or rather, right up until now—she had felt somewhat inferior because of it.

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

Yet what baffled her even more was why something that was never her fault was continually used by others to attack her.

The grievances buried in her memory intertwined with her present anger. She had thought that after so many years, she wouldn't be like she used to be. Why did it still have to come and affect her life even now?

"I don't think bringing up those past embarrassing incidents in front of my friends to humiliate me counts as treating me well," Yun Li said, looking right at her. "I used to be too timid to talk back to you, thinking that if I just endured it, I'd somehow pull through."

"It turns out that's not the case." Yun Li pulled her arm away and said coldly, "Please don't contact me ever again."

With that, she pulled the door shut, completely ignoring Qu Mingxin's expression.

Behind the door, it took Yun Li quite a while to calm her emotions. She had finally let out a breath of long-suppressed frustration, and unexpectedly, taking that step hadn't been nearly as difficult as she imagined.

Inside the cafe, Fu Zhengchu closed his book: "Little Uncle, were you angry just now?"

Fu Shize: "No."

Earlier, when Fu Zhengchu had listened to Qu Mingxin talk about Yun Li's past, he had just thought she was pitiful, but it wasn't until Fu Shize said those words that it clicked for him.

It seemed indeed true.

If it were him, he wouldn't go around telling other people those kinds of things.

"Actually, I never noticed that Sister Lili couldn't hear out of one ear..." Fu Zhengchu racked his brains trying to recall his daily interactions with Yun Li, only to remember something else: "Little Uncle, did you know from the very beginning? Every time we went out before, you always walked on Sister Lili's right side."

Fu Shize: "..."

Fu Zhengchu: "Even now, you're still on her right."

He wanted to probe further into Fu Shize's motives, but seeing Yun Li walking back over this way, Fu Zhengchu cut the conversation short. Lacking any skill in masking his thoughts, he flusteredly grabbed a nearby book and pretended to flip through it.

A few seconds later, she couldn't help saying: "Fu Zhengchu, your book is upside down."

"Ah, oh." Fu Zhengchu hurriedly straightened up: "I must have fallen asleep!"

Yun Li: "..."

Yun Li knew the reason behind Fu Zhengchu's abnormal behavior, feeling internally that she ought to say something. Yet try as she might, she couldn't organize her thoughts, so she simply went back to quietly reading her book.

After casually ordering some light refreshments at the cafe, the three of them moved to a seating area with sofa chairs. Fu Shize drooped his eyes, asked Fu Zhengchu for a baseball cap, and after putting it on, curled up in the sofa chair to sleep.

Seeing this, the other two quietly returned to flipping through their books.

With exams right around the corner, Yun Li's mind was completely elsewhere, fixating on what Qu Mingxin had said earlier—that Fu Shize had a fierce temper.

She knew there was an exaggeration to that claim, but she could easily imagine that Fu Shize had stepped up on her behalf.

Once that thought popped up, Yun Li's brain was filled entirely with images of him getting angry for her sake, though none of the scenarios she imagined quite matched his personality.

If only she had been there just now.

Trying to concentrate by jotting down some formulas on her draft paper, she ended up absentmindedly sketching a page full of moons.

Glancing sideways, she saw Fu Shize curled up in the corner of the sofa, his thin lips pressed tightly together, his body trembling slightly, and his back held rigidly taut, as if he were caught in a nightmare.

His brows were knitted tightly, and his breathing had grown irregular, as though he were struggling hard.

It didn't seem right to just let him stay trapped in a nightmare, either.

Yun Li reached out to shake his shoulder, but Fu Shize abruptly grabbed her wrist, pressing her hand down against the side of his leg.

"..."

Yun Li tried to pull her hand back, but the hand holding hers remained completely unmoving. His breathing suddenly grew much steadier, and his brows relaxed as well, except that his grip on her wrist stayed locked tight.

She inexplicably thought of an infant suckling on a pacifier.

With her hand trapped like this, she couldn't study anymore, so she simply pulled out her phone, opened her chat interface with Fu Shize, typed out a few sentences letter by letter, and then deleted them one by one.

[Are you pretending to be asleep?]

[Our pose is getting a little bit ambiguous.]

[You grabbed my hand.]

[You initiated it.]

[Can you take responsibility for this?]

...

[You've been holding it for five minutes now.]

Just as Fu Shize was about to wake up, he let go of her. Pulling her hand back, Yun Li noticed faint purplish indentations left around her wrist from his grip.

With a very peculiar tone, Fu Zhengchu asked: "Little Uncle, did you sleep well?"

Unsure what was up with that tone of his, Fu Shize merely lifted his drowsy, sleepy eyes and ignored him.

The three of them wrapped up their studying right before dinner. When Yun Li got home, she collapsed onto the sofa, staring at the lights through her fingers, and looking down, she could still see faint marks on her wrist.

Because they had held hands, she unilaterally felt like their relationship was progressing at lightning speed.

Damn it, why was he taking advantage of her all day long.

Without ever taking responsibility.

Feeling depressed, Yun Li opened WeChat to message Deng Chuqi.

Yun Li: [Another day of unrequited yearning.]

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

Suppressing the urge to talk about being taken advantage of, Yun Li replied: [No. Wouldn't that scare the person away?]

Deng Chuqi: [Then how are you yearning?]

Yun Li: [I'm yearning silently in my heart.]

Yun Li stared at her phone for a while, but Deng Chuqi didn't reply. Swiping back to the ACG site, she saw that the candid photo post from earlier in the day had already racked up twenty thousand likes. After briefly replying to a few comments, she switched over to her chat window with Fu Shize.

Their conversation was still frozen on Halloween night.

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

He had answered: [Mhm.]

Yun Li: [About that promotional video for EAW we mentioned earlier, are you free on Monday evening?]

Both of her exams fell during the daytime on Monday, and since her winter term schedule had undergone some adjustments, her internship hours had shifted accordingly.

Fu Shize replied with his usual single, brief "Mhm."

Scrolling further up, almost every exchange consisted of her sending a few messages while he replied to one, the total number of texts barely scraping twenty. Scrolling back and forth for a bit, Yun Li changed his display name to 'Wife', finally finding it much more pleasing to the eye.

She scrolled all the way back to their earliest messages and deleted the two in the middle.

Yun Li: [/Be my wife/]

Wife: [Mhm]

On the night before her exams, Yun Li pulled an all-nighter, not only plowing through multiple sets of past papers but also staying up late to whip up a batch of matcha crepe rolls, which she carefully packed into a box and tied with a blue ribbon bow.

After taking an exam and catching up on some sleep afterward, the skies turned to a drizzling rain just as she was setting out to meet him. Yun Li changed into a waterproof trench coat, tucked her camera into a waterproof bag, and headed out to EAW with her umbrella in hand.

The employees had already finished work and left. Yun Li waited by the entrance for a bit before the light drizzle escalated into a downpour.

Glancing down at her watch, she saw she was still ten minutes early for their meeting time. Standing by the window while her shoes drew circles on the pavement for a while, Yun Li opened her umbrella again and walked toward the company's fire escape entrance.

Heavy raindrops pelted the umbrella canopy, and through the veil of rain, Yun Li spotted Fu Shize standing at the doorway of the fire escape. True to her expectations, he hadn't brought an umbrella.

The moment she stepped under the overhang, she immediately closed her umbrella and patted the rainwater off her clothes. A large patch of her outfit was soaked through, and the tips of her hair were damp with water droplets.

His gaze darkened as he lowered his eyes to scan what she was holding in her hands: "Here to pick me up?"

Reluctant to admit it outright, Yun Li gave a soft, wordless hum: "I was waiting over there for quite a while, and you didn't show up."

"Give me the umbrella." Without asking any further questions, Fu Shize took it and opened it up.

The space under the single-person umbrella was cramped, barely enough to shelter two people. Yun Li shifted her camera bag around to carry it in front of her chest.

The sound of the rain was amplified many times over in her right ear, while the curtain of rain blocked out her vision. Amidst all sensory inputs, only the presence of the other person remained.

Rainwater trickled down the ribs of the umbrella, splashing against Fu Shize's other side. Feeling a twinge of guilt, Yun Li said, "My umbrella is too small, why don't you just use it by yourself."

Fu Shize didn't entertain such an impractical suggestion, but he still lowered his gaze to ask her: "Then what about you?"

Looking small enough to be curled up right inside his embrace, the girl briskly pulled up her hood: "My clothes are waterproof."

Fu Shize: "..."

Fortunately, the distance wasn't far. Once they reached the exhibition hall, Fu Shize swiped his card to unlock the door, flipped the main power switch, and went to the storage room to fetch a towel for Yun Li.

Too shy to dry herself off right in front of him, Yun Li turned around and gently dabbed at the damp sections of her hair with the towel.

After setting up her camera and reflector, Yun Li began filming project by project according to the predetermined process.

The final item on the list was playing a horror game using VR goggles. For the sake of the video's production value, Yun Li decided to brave it herself. After helping her put on the goggles, Fu Shize instructed her on how to launch the game, Waking Up to Ghosts.

The moment she entered the game, she was greeted by a bathroom bathed in blood-red light. Her whole body tensing up, Yun Li moved through it cautiously. After fumbling her way through several rooms one by one, a miserable, shrieking ghost wail suddenly pierced her ears.

Since Yun Li couldn't hear out of her left ear, she couldn't pinpoint the direction of sounds the way ordinary people could.

To her, every single sound came from the right.

Subconsciously assuming the ghost was on her right, she panicked and took a step back to the left, only to crash straight into a warm chest. Looking up, she found herself facing a ghastly, pale face.

Before Yun Li could scream, Fu Shize whipped her VR goggles right off.

Still shaken, her vision returned to the real world, yet the soft sensation at her back reminded her of the scene from just moments ago. Heart still hammering, she turned around, only to discover—

She was wrapped securely in Fu Shize's arms.

He was holding the VR goggles in one hand while using his other hand to lightly brace her upper back, keeping her from losing her balance and falling.

"..."

"I didn't mean to."

She suddenly snapped back to reality, biting the bullet as she took two steps forward to break free from his embrace.

Her face burning hot at having taken advantage of Fu Shize yet again, Yun Li pressed the back of her hand against her cheeks to confirm that her temperature had dropped before turning back around.

Lowering his gaze, Fu Shize powered down the VR goggles in his hand, adjusted their elastic strap back to normal size, and inspected them up and down.

He repeated this action several times over.

Only then did he raise his eyes to look at Yun Li.

"You like me?"

His gaze was clean and unclouded.

Yun Li froze in place.

Her first instinct was to deny it, but the words stuck in her throat, refusing to form a sound.

On countless sleepless nights, whenever she opened her eyes, she would always vaguely catch sight of another person's figure.

Yun Li had never tried to run away from this feeling—an experience laced with threads of sweetness, bitterness, and astringency, evolving from initial admiration into full-blown devotion.

She wanted to be a part of his past.

She wanted to be a part of his present.

She wanted to be a part of his future.

Countless entangled emotions bred within her heart. The sprout had long since broken through the earth, and though her cowardly self had tried to suppress and forget it, it had only rebounded with a vengeance, growing all the more fiercely in this human world.

So it was true that a person's eyes could truly, entirely hold nothing but the reflection of another.

Clenching her palms tightly, Yun Li met his gaze head-on: "I'm pursuing you, is that not allowed?"

Fu Shize fell silent for a long time.

Or perhaps it was only a few seconds.

To Yun Li, every second dragged on like a year. Her palms were slick with sweat, trembling uncontrollably.

He lowered his gaze.

It was the exact same tone as that night of rejection.

"Sorry."

With every distinct syllable that fell from his lips, Yun Li's abrupt, tightly wound agitation melted away along with them.

Yun Li heard the rain stop.

And she heard every single word he said with crystal clarity.

——"It must have been my actions that gave you the wrong idea."

——"I have no plans to date.”