Chapter 34

The night was so quiet that there was no sound at all, and a sparrow flew past the window, its wings rustling against the leaves.

With a bit of moist soft touch, it seems that it still remains on the side of the face.

Zhou Zhenyue froze all over.

After a long while, the hand hidden under the quilt shook, only to realize that the fingertips were numb from the ice.

She suppressed the trembling in her throat and said softly in her usual soft voice:

“Who allowed you to kiss me?”

Mu Xueyi was lying on the pillow, very close to Zhou Zhenyue, and the breath when she spoke hit Zhou Zhenyue’s ears: “You allow it. This is what I exchanged for ten years.”

Zhou Zhenyue’s eyelashes trembled.

She suddenly laughed: “Is it interesting to joke with me like this?”

“I’m not kidding.” Mu Xueyi stared at Zhou Zhenyue’s profile, her tone was soft and soft, “Ayue, I really like you.”

She rubbed her chin on the pillow, half-drooping her eyes, and muttered: “I want to be by your side, in any form. Whether it is consensual or a contract, if you think that contract can be given to you A sense of security, I am willing to sign with you for ten years, twenty years, one hundred years.”

“I can sign, but you have to understand,” Mu Xueyi gently stretched out his hand and held Zhou Zhenyue’s hand on the quilt, “Even if you don’t sign, I will never leave you again.”

Zhou Zhenyue pursed her lips and fell into silence.

She seemed to want to say something.

There seemed to be a thin layer of tears in his eyes.

But soon, she gathered up all her emotions and closed her eyes, as if everything just happened was an illusion in the night.

She curled her lips, “Which muscle did you have today?”

“It’s not that it’s wrong today, it’s that it’s the right one today.” Mu Xueyi tried to tighten her fingers and hold Zhou Zhenyue’s hand tightly, speaking like a sigh, “Suddenly I felt that maybe I should have gone earlier. Let me tell you this. But Ayue, I’m afraid…”

Zhou Zhenyue’s pupils slid to the end of her eyes, looking at Mu Xueyi beside the pillow, her voice was very soft: “What are you afraid of?”

Mu Xueyi took a deep breath, as if holding back her choked sob: “I’m afraid that you will think I’m still lying if I say anything, I lied to you, I don’t know if you can re-establish trust in me, I… I believe you still like me, but I don’t know about you…I don’t know if we can still…”

She doesn’t seem to be able to organize the language into a smooth way.

Zhou Zhenyue looked away, stared at the ceiling, and smiled palely.

“Indeed, when two people are together, it’s not enough to like each other.”

Mu Xueyi bit her lower lip, tears falling from the corners of her eyes to her temples, “I know, I understand. It’s because I understand so well… I don’t know what to do with myself. I don’t want to miss it again, but… I don’t. I know what I have to do, and I am not willing to stay with you in this unclear relationship. I really want to go back to the time three years ago, at least then I would hold your hand and kiss You don’t need any excuse to extend the contract…”

“Snow coat.”

Zhou Zhenyue said these two words gently.

This was the first time she called “Xueyi” after the mountain road collapsed.

When Mu Xueyi heard her calling herself like that, she couldn’t hold back her tears, and was about to cry: “Huh?”

Zhou Zhenyue pulled out the hand held by Mu Xueyi and put it on the back of Mu Xueyi’s hand.

“It’s still a long time, we can take it slow.”

Mu Xueyi curled up, crying so much that her whole body trembled.

Zhou Zhenyue smiled lightly: “I’m very happy to wait until you tell me this. But I can’t get back with you now, because there are still many problems between us that have not been resolved.”

Mu Xueyi sobbed and said, “I, I know.”

Zhou Zhenyue’s voice was very low, lining the darkness, sinking like a quiet well: “Chase me again, Xueyi.”

She looked at Mu Xueyi who was curled up, stretched out her hand, and gently touched her hair.

“Maybe… when you catch up to me again, all problems will be solved.”

Mu Xueyi wiped away her tears and said with a weeping voice:

“Can I really catch you again?”

“If you don’t try, how do you know if you can?”

Zhou Zhenyue’s fingertips slid to the end of Mu Xueyi’s hair, where there was a very gentle curling arc, circling around her fingers, with the body temperature of Mu Xueyi’s ear.

But before he could stay for a while, the owner of the tail suddenly sat up and turned on the lamp.

Zhou Zhenyue was squinted by the lit desk lamp, she didn’t quite understand Mu Xueyi’s move: “What are you doing?”

Mu Xueyi climbed out of bed, her voice still choked: “I…I’ll write you a love letter.”

Zhou Zhenyue: “…”

Although she was a little helpless, Zhou Zhenyue sat up and leaned against the head of the bed, looking at Mu Xueyi with her arms folded.

She knew that writing love letters was Mu Xueyi’s way of expressing her love. She had written many love letters before when she was chasing her. She kept it all, specially found a spare room for collection, and tied it into several bundles.

But Mu Xueyi’s writing is actually very general, and he writes so many things that are very fragmentary, the kind that is too watery to read as a novel. Back then, Zhou Zhenyue had to stay up late after work every day to read her water-filled love letter, and she often fell asleep halfway through it.

Other than that, the hypnotic effect is pretty good.

Mu Xueyi walked to the desk and sat down, the light of the lamp fell on her face, and she could still see the mottled tear stains under her eyes. While wiping her tears, she took out the stationery, looking around in confusion to find a pen.

“The pen is in the first drawer on the right.” Zhou Zhenyue reminded.

Mu Xueyi found the pen, looked at Zhou Zhenyue a little embarrassedly, and said, “Go to sleep first, I can’t finish writing in one night, I will give it to you when I finish.”

Zhou Zhenyue said, “Read it to me while you write it.”

“This…” Mu Xueyi blinked, “Well, you’ll have to watch it sooner or later anyway.”

In this way, Mu Xueyi wrote a sentence and read it to Zhou Zhenyue. If Zhou Zhenyue thinks it is OK, she will hum, and if she thinks it is not OK, she will say “rewrite”.

In the middle of the night, the two of them talked and listened to each other and wrote love letters, inexplicably like a parent dictating to their children.

Under the guidance of Zhou Zhenyue, Mu Xueyi finally wrote a concise and clear love letter, which is not easy to say, but at least the length and words and sentences are at the level of normal people.

Zhou Zhenyue said: “I will write it later, and write it according to this template.”

Mu Xueyi frowned: “But I used to write pretty well.”

Zhou Zhenyue: “According to the way you wrote it before, you can’t catch anyone.”

Mu Xueyi: “Didn’t I catch you?”

Zhou Zhenyue: “…that’s annoying you.”

“Oh…” Mu Xueyi held the pen, her eyelashes drooping down.

Seeing her like this, Zhou Zhenyue pursed her lips, “…There are also merits.”

Mu Xueyi’s eyes lit up: “What’s the merit?”

Zhou Zhenyue pondered for a long time and choked out two words: “Number of words.”

Mu Xueyi sighed sullenly: “If I had a talent for literature, I would go to major in Chinese language, why should I deal with probability theory and linear algebra in finance.”

Zhou Zhenyue raised the corners of her lips: “But you can’t write anymore. You also wrote for Professor Shen for a year, didn’t you?”

Mu Xueyi was speechless: “I… I was young…”

Zhou Zhenyue smiled intriguingly: “Yes, it’s not my turn to follow other people to play the rest of the routine.”

Mu Xueyi’s expression froze.

She blinked and her tone became lighter: “Why do I feel… this sentence sounds familiar…”

“Ah, yes,” she suddenly remembered, “Lin Daiyu also said something like this. When people gave her palace flowers, she said, ‘If others don’t pick the rest, they won’t give it to me’.”

Zhou Zhenyue raised her eyebrows: “Compare me to Lin Daiyu?”

Mu Xueyi laughed, softened her voice, and said, “Sister Daiyu is very good. You, like her, are both smart and good-looking people.”

Zhou Zhenyue ran for a day today, especially in the afternoon when she bent over to look for ducks for several hours. Now she has a sore back and no energy to care about her anymore. She glanced at the wall clock on the wall and said, “Go to sleep.”

Mu Xueyi said yes, cleaned up the table, turned off the light and climbed into the bed.

When Zhou Zhenyue lay down, she supported her waist, propped herself on the bed with one hand and reluctantly flattened her body. After bending over in the breeding pond for too long, the pain in the lumbar spine, which was not very good, became worse, and the small sound of bones rubbing could still be heard vaguely.

Mu Xueyi rubbed against the middle of the bed, then leaned beside Zhou Zhenyue and said, “I’ll rub it for you.”

Zhou Zhenyue closed her eyes and hummed.

Mu Xueyi supported Zhou Zhenyue’s shoulders and turned her slightly, then put both hands into her quilt, found the silk pajamas that had a very different feel to the quilt, and pressed them lightly with ten fingers.

Zhou Zhenyue’s pajamas were separated from the top and pajamas, and Mu Xueyi pressed the back waist again. Pressing it, the hem of the pajamas was unknowingly rubbed up.

When the fingertips touched the warm and greasy skin, Mu Xueyi’s heartbeat suddenly began to accelerate abnormally.

Because of the quilt, she couldn’t see Zhou Zhenyue’s back waist, which made every touch of her fingertips magnified infinitely. The ups and downs of every vertebra were in the palm of her hand, and the more she couldn’t see it, the more she couldn’t help but make up the appearance of those narrow bones wrapped in soft skin.

She lowered her eyes and caught a glimpse of the elastic of her pajama bottoms through a slit in the quilt.

Hoop it under the waist, because the waist is too thin, the waist of the trousers is not tight against the skin, it is loose and loose, like an unfastened pocket.

Zhou Zhenyue is too thin.

When I realized this, the unreasonable thoughts in my heart were instantly thrown to the back of my mind.

She remembered that three years ago, by chance, she had also seen Ah Yue’s waist. Although he is thin, he is not as thin as he is now. The spine is section after section, like a skeleton hollowed out by beasts, except for a thin layer of skin, there is no soft meat in the middle that can support it.

The tip of her nose was sore, and she covered her mouth, trying her best to suppress the surging emotions.

No one knows what days Zhou Zhenyue has spent these years. Even if Mrs. Zhou told her some past events, in just a few words, it is impossible to express all of Zhou Zhenyue’s feelings.

Fingers touched the spine, stroked one by one, counting one piece, one piece, another piece.

It’s like counting the years she owes her.

every year.

every month.

every day.

Even…every second.

The pain that Zhou Zhenyue had endured seemed to have all turned into pieces of the spine, cutting her palm and connecting to the apex of her heart, and they were all cut into pieces.

Maybe it’s because I’m really tired today. I just listened to a long hypnotic love letter. I don’t know when, Zhou Zhenyue has fallen asleep.

Mu Xueyi could no longer hide the trembling of her fingers, and in a panic, she took her hand back from Zhou Zhenyue’s waist.

She could have held back her tears, but the words Zhou Zhenyue had just said to her suddenly sounded in her mind.

– “It’s still a long time, we can take it slow.”

The teardrops finally overflowed down the corners of the eyes, drop by drop, and slid into the temples.

She suddenly understood.

In fact, Ah Yue… never really blamed her.