When I Meet the Moon - Chapter 66

Chapter 66

It had been more than two years since Yun Li last ate late-night snacks at an open-air food stall. Sitting on a plastic chair, she looked at the menu, which was simply a piece of laminated red paper.

"What would you like to eat?" Fu Shize asked her.

Yun Li didn't have any particular cravings. Since she didn't eat much to begin with, her main purpose in coming today was simply to pay the bill.

"You order." Yun Li pushed the menu back toward him. "You're more familiar with the place."

Fu Shize went into the tented stall to order a few things. After returning and sitting down, his phone started vibrating continuously. He glanced at it once and slid it straight back into his pocket.

"Aren't you going to answer that?" Yun Li asked him.

Fu Shize replied, "It's Fu Zhengchu."

"I didn't mention this to you before," Fu Shize said. "He managed to get into your undergraduate university for his graduate studies."

"..."

"Do you want to see him?" Fu Shize asked her.

After their breakup, Fu Zhengchu had checked in on her a few times.

Because of the reasons behind her breakup with Fu Shize, Yun Li often found herself unable to reply naturally, sometimes even leaving his messages unread and unanswered.

As time went on, the two of them stopped getting in touch.

While waiting for Fu Zhengchu to arrive, Yun Li continuously rehearsed what she wanted to say in her mind.

Seeing her all high-strung and nervous, Fu Shize asked thoughtfully, "Were you this nervous before meeting me?"

"..."

Whenever a critical question came up, Yun Li's rationality rushed right back. She took a sip of water to calm her nerves. "Not really."

Fu Shize: "Then are you very nervous about meeting Fu Zhengchu?"

Hearing a hint of commentary in his question, Yun Li instinctively explained, "No, it's just that the last time he reached out, I didn't reply much, so I feel a bit awkward about it."

"..."

Yun Li remembered that the man sitting right across from her had been blocked by her twice, yet she hadn't seemed to feel awkward about that at all.

Realizing that the more she explained, the worse it sounded, Yun Li simply snapped her mouth shut.

Just like that, Yun Li pushed the whole matter of Fu Zhengchu straight to the back of her mind.

Although the expression on the face of the man before her hadn't changed at all, Yun Li felt as though the atmospheric pressure had suddenly plummeted.

She had no idea how to salvage the atmosphere, but fortunately, within a few minutes, Fu Zhengchu appeared on his electric moped.

He was still sporting that same candid, innocent face, his apricot-shaped eyes filled with delight the moment he spotted her.

"Sister Lili!" Fu Shize—wait, no, Fu Zhengchu called out from a distance the second he parked his scooter.

He hurried over and sat down right beside her. "I haven't seen you in forever! Uncle told me last year that you went abroad—did you come back to work here?"

Seeing him, Yun Li's lips curved into a smile as well. "Yeah, I'm currently doing an internship here in Xifu."

Fu Shize's nephew chatted with her about various trivial matters, and it was only then that Yun Li learned her former roommate, Tang Lin, was still pursuing Fu Zhengchu. Tang Lin was currently looking for a job in Xifu, plotting to secure a favorable position close to her target.

As the two of them chatted animatedly, Fu Shize remained silent, sitting quietly to the side as he listened. Once the meat and vegetable dishes had all been polished off, Fu Shize stood up and headed into the stall to order some more.

Seeing Fu Shize's retreating figure vanish, Yun Li turned to Fu Zhengchu and asked, "When did you find out I went abroad?"

"Right after you left last year, I asked my uncle, and that's what he told me."

"..."

At the time, the news of Yun Li going abroad hadn't been shared with many people.

Yun Li pondered for a moment, wanting to dig further and ask him about Fu Shize's surgery, but seeing Fu Shize walking back, she had no choice but to drop it.

Fu Shize looked relaxed, speaking almost not at all. Their dynamic felt as though they had regressed right back to when they first met, entirely carried by Fu Zhengchu keeping the conversation going single-handedly.

After finishing their late-night snack, Fu Zhengchu rode his moped back to the dormitory by himself.

With her mind occupied by other things, Yun Li wasn't paying much attention to her surroundings, yet she still noticed that the scooter was moving a lot slower than on the way over. She asked, "Is the scooter broken?"

Fu Shize replied calmly, "Battery's running low."

The North Gate was closed for the night, meaning Fu Shize had to take the outer perimeter of the campus to loop around to the front entrance.

Autumn had arrived in Xifu, bringing gradually dropping temperatures and the faint scent of osmanthus drifting on the wind. With the road entirely deserted, the moped plodded leisurely down the wide avenue, stretching endlessly into the distance.

For a brief second, she was seized by an illusion.

She hoped this road would never end.

Sitting behind him with her nose enveloped in the delicate fragrance of autumn osmanthus and feeling the warmth radiating from the body in front of her, the emotions she had suppressed and locked away deep within her heart began bubbling up out of control once again.

It wasn't until the vehicle came to a complete stop that Yun Li snapped back to reality, realizing just how much time had slipped away.

She stepped down from the moped, and Fu Shize offered a light, steadying hand at her elbow before letting go.

Yun Li lifted her gaze to look at him. The streetlights cast a glow across his fair face, making his skin look luminous and completely flawless, while the usual aloofness and detachment between his brows had been washed away.

The two of them stood in silence for a long time.

Yun Li finally spoke in a soft voice, "Sleep well."

Fu Shize was slightly startled before the corners of his mouth curved upward. "You too. Sleep well."

It was already past midnight by the time she got home.

With the living room brightly lit, the moment Yun Li stepped through the front door, she spotted Yun Yongchang sitting on the sofa with his arms crossed and a foul look on his face.

She locked the door behind her.

Yun Yongchang said coldly, "You didn't go yesterday?"

He was talking about the blind date setup. After Yun Li had rejected it multiple times and realized Yun Yongchang wouldn't budge, she had simply chosen to ignore it entirely.

"Oh, I didn't know we were supposed to meet yesterday." Yun Li kicked off her shoes and walked toward her bedroom door. "Even if I had known, I wouldn't have gone."

Yun Yongchang: "..."

Yun Yongchang snapped angrily, "You're already twenty-four, and your personality is so introverted. If you don't go on blind dates, how are you going to get married later on?"

Yun Li had lost count of how many times she had heard these exact words; calluses had practically formed inside her right ear.

Seeing that she had zero reaction, Yun Yongchang raged, "Back then you stubbornly insisted on being with that guy from Nanwu, refusing to listen to me and insisting on staying over there, and in the end, it still fell apart. The people your mother and I have been introducing to you are all—"

Those words struck a raw nerve in Yun Li, prompting her to shut her bedroom door right in his face, leaving him to drone on outside.

Yun Li had no desire to argue. She had to work tomorrow, so she tiredly sat down at her vanity table to take off her makeup.

"Why can't this girl ever understand what her mother and father go through? If she could just handle her life properly, would we have to worry this much?"

Yun Yongchang was still rambling endlessly in the living room, sending a wave of irritation through Yun Li that made her want to turn back around and start a screaming match.

Pressing a makeup remover wipe over her eyes, she ultimately stamped out the urge to fight.

When dealing with an unreasonable person like Yun Yongchang, neither endless bickering nor total submission could solve anything.

What she needed to do was achieve financial and personal independence so she could buy an apartment and move out.

Lying face down on her bed for a while, she waited until the living room finally grew quiet before getting up. Her heart wasn't made of stone; hearing Yun Yongchang talk to her like that still hurt.

There was nobody she could call at this hour to vent to, either.

Yun Li stood up, took out the paper star lantern Fu Shize had given her, and turned it on. Then, she switched off her bedroom light.

The light filtered through the hollowed-out patterns of the paper ball, casting a field of stars across the walls. When Yun Li gently spun the lantern, those pinpricks of starlight swayed lazily around the room.

The corners of her mouth curved up, and her mood improved significantly.

...

A few days later came the permanent employment evaluation defense. Yun Li spent several days organizing her work from the internship period and put together a standard, middle-of-the-road report. The results of the employment review would come out a few weeks later.

Throughout this period, Yun Li didn't forget to keep sending out resumes.

She interned during the day and practiced interview problems at night. When she finally tallied it up, she realized that from July up until now, she had already applied to over thirty companies.

Interview invitations trickled in one after another. Yun Li never had the luxury of time to wallow in failed interviews; after summarizing the takeaways, she quickly threw herself into the next round. Her resume was still quite impressive, and while her on-the-spot adaptability had improved, it was still only average, forcing her to make up for her shortcomings through round-the-clock internships and non-stop interviews.

When the results for her very last interview finally dropped, Yun Li let out a long breath of relief.

"I feel like my entire soul has been hollowed out." Lying in bed, Yun Li called Deng Chuqi to chat. Deng Chuqi was doing a year-and-a-half master's program, heading back to China next year, and was currently job hunting herself.

"As expected, I had you pegged right from the start." Hearing about her ordeal, Deng Chuqi was utterly floored. "That is so damn inspiring."

"..."

Deng Chuqi asked, "Wait a minute, didn't you actually prefer being a content creator? Did your dad still veto it?"

"I just wanted to see if there were any suitable corporate jobs out there first," Yun Li said with a smile. "Actually, I never expected to land this many offers; my dad honestly thought I'd be lucky just to find a single job."

Yun Yongchang had always believed that once Yun Li hit a wall during interviews, she would completely spiral and ultimately be forced to rely on his connections to secure a temporary contract worker position.

The definition Yun Yongchang had forced upon her had once caused Yun Li to view herself the exact same way.

Deng Chuqi asked out of the blue, "How are things going between you and Xiaoxia's maternal cousin?"

"Ah..."

"No further developments? Don't you think you guys are super fated? You two are practically tied together at the hip!" Deng Chuqi grew more excited the more she talked.

"There won't be any developments," Yun Li muttered. "We haven't been in touch for quite a while."

Well, that wasn't entirely true. Whenever Yun Ye went home for the weekend, he would always manage to leave either a book or his homework behind, and she invariably ran into Fu Shize every single time she dropped it off at school.

Fu Shize would usually hand her a cup of cocoa milk.

Yun Li felt it was rather abnormal.

Whenever a spark of hope flared up, she ruthlessly stamped it right back down.

She didn't want to over-interpret Fu Shize's actions—after all, he was naturally someone who knew how to take care of others.

After chatting with Deng Chuqi for a couple more minutes, Yun Li caught sight of the show ticket resting on her desk and decided it would make a great treat for herself. She changed her outfit, applied some light makeup, and headed out.

According to her map app, the area around Xifu Tech was gridlocked with traffic, making it inconvenient to drive a car onto campus.

She hailed a taxi to Xifu Tech instead.

...

After loitering outside the dormitory building for a few minutes, Fu Shize finally spotted a flashy blue electric scooter pulling up.

"A-Ze." Xu Qingsong slid his sunglasses down to the bridge of his nose, revealing a pair of charming peach-blossom eyes. "Long time no see."

He smoothly backed his scooter into a parking space, humming a tune under his breath.

Ever since Fu Shize returned to Xifu Tech, the two of them hadn't had many chances to meet up. It was only occasionally when Xu Qingsong had business in Xifu that they would get together.

Xu Qingsong followed Fu Shize up to his single dormitory room, which was furnished simply with a bed, a desk, and a wardrobe.

Fu Shize pulled open a drawer and retrieved two event tickets. Xu Qingsong swept a glance over the drawer, which happened to contain a few boxes of sleeping pills.

Without a shred of formality, he picked up a box, rattled it, and asked, "How's the insomnia?"

"Mm."

Xu Qingsong picked up the tickets, inspected them, and raised an eyebrow. "Tonight's show? Who'd you invite?"

Fu Shize looked straight at him.

Xu Qingsong pointed a finger at himself in astonishment. "Me?" He laughed. "How come I didn't know about this?"

"Mm." Fu Shize handed him a bottle of cold water from the fridge. "Lili is coming too."

Thinking he must have misheard a familiar name, Xu Qingsong tilted his head toward Fu Shize as if trying to catch the sound better. "Yun Li?"

"Mm."

"..." He pondered for a moment before laughing again. "Didn't you say you weren't going to look for her until you got your degree?"

That had been Fu Shize's original plan.

During the two years away from campus, he had wrecked himself completely, both physically and mentally.

Fu Shize didn't like making promises without anything to back them up.

His original intention was to wait until he finished his doctorate to go find Yun Li; no matter where she was located, he would track her down.

"We ran into each other," Fu Shize answered concisely.

Xu Qingsong stroked his chin and asked, "What's her attitude toward you?"

"Let's go." Instead of answering, Fu Shize urged him toward the gymnasium.

"The show doesn't even start until six-thirty." Xu Qingsong was reluctant to move.

It was barely past four o'clock right now.

Xu Qingsong had driven a company car over the moment he stepped off a plane, and right now all he wanted was to find a place to crash.

Seeing Fu Shize holding the door open and waiting for him, he resigned himself to his fate and stood up.

The two of them stopped by a convenience store downstairs to grab some bread.

After waiting outside the gymnasium for half an hour, Xu Qingsong felt utterly helpless.

"We're just standing around waiting here?" Xu Qingsong leaned lazily against a pillar in a comfortable posture and teased, "Why didn't you just ask her out directly?"

Fu Shize paused for a beat before answering, "She might say no."

He cared far too much.

He wasn't willing to gamble on the probability of Yun Li rejecting him, and he refused to take that risk.

"I originally came here to have dinner with you, and now I've been downgraded to guarding a rabbit hole." Xu Qingsong adopted an unserious tone, curiosity getting the better of him. "Aren't you going to fill me in?"

He had arrived in Xifu on short notice, forcing Fu Shize to scramble and rustle up an extra ticket from someone else.

Fu Shize looked at him. "Fill you in on what?"

Xu Qingsong's eyes danced with amusement. "Does she know you want to get back together?"

Fu Shize thought about it. "Probably not yet."

The two of them waited until the gymnasium security screening systems were fully set up, the crowds began streaming in, and after turning down at least a dozen people asking for their phone numbers, they finally spotted that familiar figure.

After getting out of a taxi, Yun Li checked the time—she still had twenty minutes.

As she approached the vicinity of the ticket checkpoint, she caught sight of Fu Shize and Xu Qingsong standing there talking.

The two of them stood out conspicuously in the crowd.

Xu Qingsong spotted her first and gave a polite nod.

Yun Li froze in her tracks, caught in an awkward state of neither advancing nor retreating, until Fu Shize turned his head and looked at her as well.

"What a coincidence." Yun Li bit the bullet and walked over to greet them proactively. "Turns out you have tickets too."

"Want to sit together?" Fu Shize asked her.

"Uh..." Yun Li glanced down at her ticket. "Aren't there designated seats?"

"No."

After clearing security together, the group found a row of adjacent seats.

Yun Li sat to Fu Shize's left, while Xu Qingsong took the seat on his right, consciously turning himself into an invisible background prop whose only job was to offer a polite smile whenever Yun Li happened to glance his way.

It was a national tour performance by a symphony orchestra. Xu Qingsong leaned back in his chair, listening with half a mind.

The lighting inside the venue was dim. Turning his head sideways, he noticed that the two people beside him were both sitting rigidly straight. It seemed his presence was making them somewhat stiff and inhibited, as neither of them was speaking.

Xu Qingsong chuckled internally and considerately stood up to head to the restroom.

After wandering around outside for a while, he took his sweet time walking back from the very last row. Standing a short distance away, he could see Fu Shize's face turned toward Yun Li.

Ever since he left, the two of them had become much more natural; Yun Li would actively raise her gaze to speak with Fu Shize.

The volume of the live music drowned out ordinary speech.

Because Yun Li couldn't hear him clearly, whenever Fu Shize spoke, he would lean his upper body closer to her.

From Xu Qingsong's angle, it looked as though he were kissing her ear.

Maybe he shouldn't go back just yet.

On the day Yun Li proposed breaking up, Xu Qingsong had happened to be standing right beside the hospital bed.

Fu Shize had gone into shock from the agonizing pain, requiring emergency surgery. When he was first woken from the anesthesia, his cognitive faculties were still sluggish.

After being wheeled back to the ward, Xu Qingsong had sat by his side, watching the indwelling IV needle in the back of his hand and the oxygen tubing under his nose, while his limbs twitched involuntarily from the residual pain—an indescribable feeling twisted in his chest.

What left the deepest impression on Xu Qingsong was that even though Fu Shize was too weak to sit up after the surgery, he still insisted on propping his phone up and calling Yun Li over and over again.

And during that very last phone call, Yun Li had broken up with him.

Because the phone was leaking audio, Xu Qingsong had heard every single word crystal clear.

There had been zero color left in Fu Shize's face.

Xu Qingsong had watched him get wheeled out of the operating room. Right after the surgery concluded, Fu Shize's complexion had at least retained a hint of life.

But at that moment, he looked as though his soul had been entirely hollowed out.

His expression held a mix of despair, bewilderment, and incomprehension.

He understood, yet he didn't understand why he had been discarded.

Later on, Xu Qingsong found out that Fu Shize hadn't told Yun Li about his perforated stomach because Yun Li's younger brother was also suffering from a severe illness.

It was a completely rational decision; if it had been Xu Qingsong, he would have done the exact same thing.

After all, Yun Li was all the way over in Xifu; if she worried herself sick over Fu Shize's medical condition, who knew if her mental state could even handle it.

Fu Shize believed the reason for the breakup was that Yun Li only loved the old version of him.

Having rarely experienced setbacks and never having tasted the bitter coldness of the world, his love was bound to be pure and burning hot.

Since he had already fallen in love with her, he simply accepted his fate.

The moment he was discharged from the hospital, he immediately contacted his advisor to arrange his return to campus, throwing himself into endless days and nights of grinding away in the lab.

When Xu Qingsong saw Fu Shize again, he had suffered a fleeting optical illusion, momentarily thinking that he had reverted to his former self.

Until the crowds dispersed completely.

When the two of them went out to find a bar to sit down at, Fu Shize had reverted to his habitual cold detachment.

Utterly disconnected from the outside world, with no desire to connect either.

That was when Xu Qingsong finally realized.

Oh.

He hadn't changed at all.

That fiercely flickering candlelight in front of people still quietly burned itself out when he was all alone behind the scenes.

It was just that everyone else had mistaken him for someone who had changed.