When I Meet the Moon - Chapter 52

Chapter 52

The surrounding lights were gradually extinguishing. Fu Shize used the mini hot pot to boil some water and poured it into a hand warmer. Yun Li's sleeping bag was still completely chilly, but after the hand warmer was tucked inside, she began to feel much warmer around her legs.

With both of them having the lower halves of their bodies tucked inside sleeping bags, Yun Li sat beside Fu Shize to keep him company while playing on her phone.

"Your life is really quite monotonous." Yun Li looked through his apps. Aside from Sudoku and 2048, there was no other entertainment; usually, he only used his phone to read the news and check information.

Fu Shize looked over at her phone, which was set aside to charge. Yun Li unlocked it to reveal a colorful screen filled with all sorts of apps. As an up-and-coming video creator, she would regularly unlock new skills, such as rope weaving or paper folding.

Right on the spot, she folded a paper lantern ball for Fu Shize. Seeing that he seemed genuinely interested, she grabbed two fresh sheets of paper and taught him step by step.

"Your movement is wrong."

Yun Li wore a puzzled expression, lowering her head to look at the half-folded object in her hands. "It's right."

Without needing her further explanation, Fu Shize wriggled out of his sleeping bag, scooted behind her, and pulled her into his embrace.

He made her sit between his legs, encircled her from behind, and rested his chin on her right shoulder.

This way, he could view the origami process from her perspective.

And he could hold her.

Originally intending only to teach him how to fold paper, his breath kept brushing against the tip of her nose right now.

Origami was a process requiring intense focus, yet at this moment, Yun Li's thoughts were completely occupied by him.

Unconsciously, she recalled scenes of the two of them from when they first met up until now, the warmth of their physical contact seeming to tell her—

They were already inseparable.

Thinking of what Tang Lin had said, Yun Li spaced out for a moment. She halted her movements as Fu Shize's voice pulled her back to reality. "What are you thinking about?"

"I'm thinking about Yun Ye coming to Nanwu." Yun Li fabricated a lie, keeping her head down as she continued tinkering with the paper ball in her hands.

Fu Shize stared at her from the side, sensing her unease. "Lili." He pressed a hand down to stop the origami movements she was using as a cover. "Tell me the truth."

Yun Li sat dazed for a moment, repeatedly playing with the paper ball, her tone carrying a hint of self-doubt: "Did you only get together with me on an impulse?"

"..."

Fu Shize wondered if he had misheard. Suppressing a smile, he said, "Do I not show enough that I like you?"

"You're still laughing." Her sense of dejection was cast to the winds by his chuckle, and she retorted, "That could also be interpreted as you acting very experienced."

"?"

"You don't look like someone experiencing their first relationship."

"..."

After she uttered these words with complete composure, Fu Shize didn't look provoked at all. He reached out to stroke her earlobe. "In the future, you might start thinking I've done this before."

"..."

Driving out late at night with the confined space of the tent only heightened the romantic atmosphere, causing Yun Li to flush as she said, "You can't just keep telling jokes like that."

Showing no concealment of his words, Fu Shize lazily replied, "A leopard never changes its spots."

"..."

Jokes aside, Fu Shize hadn't forgotten Yun Li's underlying concerns.

The two of them finished folding the paper ball together, and Fu Shize used it to gently tap the tip of Yun Li's nose.

She laughed and dodged away. Wrapping his arms around her, Fu Shize leaned close to her ear and spoke word by word, "Lili, I haven't been this happy in a very long time. Not because of the camping, and not because of the stars."

He kissed her right ear. "It's because of you."

...

By the time they fell asleep, it was already one in the morning. Yun Li lay on her side facing Fu Shize; though she couldn't see him in the dark, she knew he was right there.

Sensing that she wasn't asleep, a hand reached out to stroke her face. Drowsy and drifting off, Yun Li fell asleep right against his hand.

Awoken by the sound of the wind, Yun Li instinctively felt that Fu Shize was no longer beside her. She turned on her phone's flashlight; the space next to her was completely empty.

Four in the morning.

Feeling somewhat dazed, she noticed his phone was still inside the tent. After waiting in place for a short while, Yun Li changed into clean clothes.

A chill was mixed into the wind. Pulling her jacket tightly around herself, Yun Li walked toward the patch of bushes where they had spent time together the previous night. The entire path was silent save for the crunch of twigs beneath her shoes. Still a short distance away, she spotted that familiar figure.

He was sitting on a stone pier by the lakeside not far off, wearing several layers of clothing yet looking lean and slender from behind, holding a cigarette pinched between his fingers.

As he exhaled, gray plumes of smoke diffused into the air.

He seemed lost in a trance. Yun Li made quite a bit of noise on her approach, but he didn't notice her at all.

Standing right beside him, Yun Li finally saw his card holder resting on the stone pier, flipped open to a particular student ID card.

For all this time, Yun Li had never asked him about the things that happened in the past.

Whatever had caused Fu Shize to become so taciturn and take a leave of absence from school, she could only imagine it must have been an immensely painful matter that was too difficult to bring up.

Yun Li had no idea what he had endured.

But it certainly wasn't some trivial detail.

Only when she arrived did Fu Shize snap back to reality. He extinguished the cigarette butt and naturally pulled her hand, having her sit down right beside him.

A heavy scent of smoke emanated from the man. Yun Li glanced at the cigarette pack lying open nearby—only a few cigarettes remained.

Fu Shize unzipped his jacket, letting Yun Li huddle inside his embrace.

At this hour, the mountaintop was below zero degrees Celsius, and Yun Li had no idea how long he had been lingering out here. The lake surface shimmered faintly, ripples moving slowly in obtuse angles.

She glanced down at the card holder, which she could now clearly identify as that half-worn student ID card.

Fu Shize fell silent for a brief moment before letting out an affirmative hum.

Yun Li waited for him to elaborate further, but she was met only with silence. This heavy quietude loomed between them like an iceberg in the ocean, making her acutely aware of the invisible barrier separating their hearts.

Yun Li repeatedly counted the rhythm of his heartbeat. After a long while, he pinched her cheek and asked, "Can't sleep?"

Instead of asking, Did I wake you up? he asked, Can't sleep?

He had already been outside for a while.

"No, the wind woke me up. I didn't see you there." Yun Li masked the disappointment in her heart. "Has your insomnia been acting up more lately?"

Fu Shize: "It's alright."

"Well, if you can't sleep, would you want to talk to me about what's bothering you?" she explained. "After you tell me, your mood might feel a bit better."

Fu Shize barely remembered what had just happened. He had dreamt of standing in front of the Department of Control Engineering building; the path was damp and gloomy with an endless downpour. Wearing his Unique team uniform and soaked through, Yun Li stood in the rain completely dry, holding out an umbrella for him.

There was only the frame and the handle of the umbrella, with no fabric covering. The moment it opened, the heavy rain abruptly battered them with intrusive force, soaking the person before him as well.

The dream stopped there, and when he woke up, Yun Li was fast asleep.

He had simply sat here in a daze by the dim lakeside, the cold wind howling past, but he didn't want to move.

From the moment they first met until now, Yun Li's hair had grown down to her shoulder blades, and her dyed color had completely faded. Lowering his head, he twirled a lock of her hair around his fingers, feeling his numb heart finally rediscover its warmth.

After a long silence, he finally spoke, "My stomach feels a bit uncomfortable."

"Ah." Believing his words, Yun Li pressed her hand against his stomach through his layers of clothing. "Right here?" She furrowed her brows. "I remember the cream wasn't expired, and the cake base was freshly made. Could it be that glass of wine!"

Recalling the drink Gu Kaiming had given them, Yun Li deduced the situation with the mental workings of a hamster running on a wheel. Finding it amusing, Fu Shize refocused his attention entirely on her and said, "That's not the spot."

"Then here?" Yun Li's hand shifted a bit lower.

"No."

"Here?"

"No." He said flatly, "Can't quite tell through the clothes."

"..."

In a panicked rush and completely past caring whether he was doing it on purpose, Yun Li slipped her hand through a gap in his base layer and slid it straight inside.

Her fingers brushed against his intensely hot abs.

She groped upward and stopped right where his stomach was. "Here?"

Her fingertips were delicate and tender, feeling like they ignited cluster after cluster of sparks against his skin. Despite the dead of winter, his entire body grew feverish as he gazed down at her collarbone and nodded.

Involuntarily, he began playing with her hair strands over and over again until Yun Li suddenly spoke up, "Why don't we move in together?"

"..."

Her tone carried no other implications: "When next semester starts, I can rent a two-bedroom place so your three daily meals can be more regular, and I can help nourish your stomach."

With an utterly expressionless tone, Fu Shize joked, "Then my sleep schedule might become even more irregular."

Yun Li: "..."

Staring at his clean-cut face—where the cold, sharp edges around his brow softened slightly whenever he smiled, making him dangerously tempting—Yun Li tried to dispel his misgivings. "Don't worry, I won't have any improper thoughts."

Fu Shize chuckled softly. "I might."

Yun Li: "..."

Once dawn broke, they packed their bags and prepared for the return trip. Having stayed awake the entire night, Fu Shize looked utterly exhausted and barely spoke throughout the journey.

As they neared Qixiangdu, he received a phone call from his father, which consisted of only a brief exchange. After hanging up, Fu Shize struggled to concentrate on driving; even Yun Li, driving her own car, could sense that his acceleration and braking were much more abrupt than before.

"My maternal grandmother is hospitalized, so I'm going over to stay with her for a few days." Fu Shize kept his emotions tightly contained.

Normally he would walk her upstairs, but Yun Li could sense his anxiety. She leaned closer, opened the driver's side door, and leaned in to wrap her arms around his neck.

"If anything happens, you can talk to me." She kissed his cheek before letting go.

Fu Shize gave a slight nod.

After returning home to catch up on sleep, she woke up at ten. Fu Shize sent a message letting her know he had arrived at the hospital and that his grandmother's condition was relatively stable.

After a brief chat, thoughts of the camping trip began to trouble Yun Li, prompting her to give Deng Chuqi a call.

Deng Chuqi had been waiting all day: "I heard from Fu Zhengchu that you guys went camping together?"

"Mn."

"Did you stay overnight?"

"Mn..." Yun Li explained, "We both stayed in tents, and besides, it was pitch dark, what could possibly happen?"

Unable to hold back her laughter, Deng Chuqi said excitedly, "It's precisely because it was pitch dark that things could happen!"

Her tone was full of anticipation. Yun Li drew repetitive circles on a piece of paper and sighed, "That's not it, Qiqi."

"What's wrong then? Did you guys fight?"

"No..." Not knowing how to accurately describe this sense of emotional distance, Yun Li muttered, "We've been so happy every single day for the past month."

Her voice lowered a fraction. "It's just that... he doesn't talk to me about his personal troubles. He has a great personality, which is why we get along so well."

"Does he have a great personality? I can't tell." Deng Chuqi's focus locked onto the latter half of the sentence.

"..."

"Then have you asked him?" Knowing Yun Li's temperament, Deng Chuqi figured her questioning style probably wasn't very direct.

"I asked... but he didn't want to answer, and I didn't want to keep pushing..."

After discussing it for a while without reaching a solution, Deng Chuqi comforted her, "Dating is all about being happy. It's just eating, drinking, and having fun—you only need to worry about unhappy things when you break up, so don't overthink it." Along the way, she poured out a mountain of relationship advice, though almost none of it applied to Yun Li's situation.

By the time the call ended, it was already ten-thirty, and Yun Li's mood had improved somewhat. With no mineral water left at home, she headed downstairs to a nearby convenience store to buy two bottles and walked back carrying them.

Yun Ye: [Yun Li, I ranked sixth in my grade for final exams.]

Yun Li: [Oh.]

Yun Ye: [??]

If she were to buy a plane ticket for Yun Ye right now, Fu Shize wasn't around, and it would be a bit awkward if she had to go out hanging out with them alone.

She was still standing in place pondering this when a crude, mocking laugh suddenly echoed from the side.

"Little girl."

Yun Li whipped her head around. Standing between two trees was a figure whose build was obscured, looking as though he was wrapped up in a bulky bundle. On high alert, she tensed her body. The man took a step forward beneath the streetlamp and abruptly threw open the bundled items wrapped around him.

Her expression froze completely in shock. Satisfied with this reaction, the man lunged fiercely in Yun Li's direction.

Instinctively, Yun Li hurled her water bottles at him and sprinted back toward Qixiangdu.

Only when her legs felt ready to give out did she finally halt. A tree leaf brushed against her shoulder, and thinking it was the man catching up to her, she recoiled in terror.

The space behind her remained dead silent.

Aside from pure fear, Yun Li felt a wave of intense nausea—the sight of that fat, greasy lump of flesh, accompanied by the man's lewd and shameless laughter.

Was this that same pervert He Jiameng had mentioned a long time ago?

She rushed back to her apartment, bolted the door shut from the inside, and pulled out her phone with trembling hands to call Fu Shize.

Right as the call went out, she managed to calm herself down.

The connection went through. His voice sounded somewhat weary as he tenderly called out to her.

"Lili."

Hearing his voice, Yun Li's tears almost spilled over. She reined in her emotions and asked quietly, "When can we see each other again?"

Fu Shize's voice was slightly hoarse, having stayed up all night without getting any rest once he arrived at the hospital. "In a few days." He paused. "Missed me?"

"Mn..."

She didn't speak again.

Walking over to a relatively quiet spot, Fu Shize noticed her silence and asked softly, "What's wrong?"

He had his own matters to deal with, and Yun Li didn't want to worry him, so she forced a relaxed tone. "Nothing, it's just that you're not here, and I'm not quite used to it."

She fell into a momentary trance. She really wasn't used to it anymore.

Ever since encountering the incident with the punk with dyed hair, she rarely went out late at night. Over the past month, thanks to Fu Shize's constant companionship, she had convinced herself that everything was completely safe, which was why she had dared to step out alone at ten o'clock.

It was like a side effect of his absence.

She kept feeling as though he was always right by her side.

Staring at the origami creation he had left on the desk, her nose stung. She wished he was right here with her at this moment, wishing he could keep her company.

She had always thought she was well-educated enough not to feel ashamed of speaking up about such matters. Yet right now, she found it agonizingly difficult to open up.

Only then did she realize that she felt utterly humiliated and disgraced, blaming herself for not having enough courage to fight back against that pervert, while also disgusted with herself for having laid eyes on something unclean.

The next day, Yun Li went to the police station to file a report. Since her physical safety hadn't been compromised and the incident spot was a blind spot for surveillance cameras, the police could only advise her not to go out alone at night and to call the police immediately if anything similar happened again.

With the Chinese New Year arriving early this year, most students had already left campus. Fu Shize wouldn't be returning in the short term, and feeling somewhat scared, Yun Li booked a flight for Yun Ye to arrive in two days.

The following day, after finishing her internship at EAW, she packed her things and ran into Lin Wanyin standing guard outside Xu Qingsong's office.

As soon as she stepped out, Yun Li averted her gaze and quickened her pace toward the exit.

The person behind her caught the door before it swung shut. When she looked back, Lin Wanyin had also exited EAW. Yun Li stood her ground, waiting until Lin Wanyin had walked off first before letting out a breath of relief.

Passing by that same spot from before, Yun Li's heart pounded wildly despite it being daytime, and she hurried her pace.

Only after safely passing through did Yun Li truly relax.

A man walked toward her from the opposite direction, dressed in proper athletic wear and wearing a pair of gold-rimmed sunglasses. As the man stared right at her, Yun Li froze in her tracks.

Before Yun Li could even react, he swiftly unzipped his pants.

Her phone was already set for an emergency distress call as the man tried to approach her. Yun Li shifted her shoes, turning to run, when a figure brushed past her side.

Carrying a small violin case, Lin Wanyin looked frail and delicate thanks to her Japanese-style outfit and appearance.

Striding forward aggressively, she sneered, "What is it you're trying to show us? Such a tiny little thing."

The turn of events was so sudden that neither the man nor Yun Li knew how to react.

With a swift and decisive motion, Lin Wanyin swung her violin case downward as if she intended to risk her life fighting him. It was the first time the man had encountered such fierce resistance; his expression shifted dramatically as he pulled up his pants and bolted backward.

Hampered by his pants, the man's speed wasn't fast. Refusing to let him go, Lin Wanyin slipped off her shoe and chased after him, hurling her shoe in the direction of his escape once he managed to distance himself.

"Don't let me ever see you again, you moron! Next time I'll rip it straight off for you!" she shouted at the retreating back, her clear young girl's voice echoing across a radius of several hundred meters.