It should have been snowing, but outside, without warning, a persistent drizzle had begun. Under the dim yellow streetlights, the rain fell like dense ox hair. Looking at the ripples stirred up by raindrops on the river’s surface, passersby lost interest and headed home. The sounds of laughter gradually faded as they quietly passed by his courtyard wall. After the farewell door-closing sounds from various households, the surroundings returned to tranquility.
It was so quiet that one could hear raindrops falling onto leaves. Ye Meng didn’t feel the wild joy she had anticipated. She only felt heartache—making him compromise with her this way. She gently freed her hand from Li Jinyu’s grip and looked at the person leaning against the fish tank, asking softly, “Do you want to try with me?”
Li Jinyu seemed surprised that she had pulled away. He was momentarily stunned, then slowly straightened up from the fish tank and walked inside. From several disorderly stacked boxes by the yard entrance, he effortlessly grabbed four cans of beer with one hand, casually placed them on the coffee table, and sprawled himself on the sofa.
“Forget it if you don’t want to,” Li Jinyu opened a can of beer for himself, took a sip, then pulled out his phone to glance at it before tossing it emotionlessly onto the coffee table. “Pretend I never said anything.”
Ye Meng sat down closer than her usual safe distance. Their heated skin almost touched. Li Jinyu didn’t move away as he usually would; he nonchalantly kept drinking his beer, one sip at a time.
The room suddenly felt as if someone had brought in a burning coal. The atmosphere seemed to ignite.
Ye Meng gently snatched his beer and hid it behind her back, coaxing in a low voice, “Stop drinking, baby.”
Li Jinyu said nothing, stubbornly leaning forward to grab a new one.
Ye Meng immediately pressed down on the bottle’s mouth, grabbing his slender, warm fingers in the process. The sensation was distinct. It felt as if warm water had been poured into her heart, washing away her unclear emotions. “I just want to know, do you like me? Or were you just provoked by Little Gao?”
He countered, “What about you? Do you like me?”
Ye Meng answered honestly, “I do like you very much. But truthfully, I’ve liked many people before and been hurt. Now at this age, and given that girls mature earlier than boys, I approach relationships more rationally. I won’t go crazy over love anymore.”
It was only a two-year age difference, yet she made it sound like twenty.
Li Jinyu leaned back, legs spread, beer casually resting between his legs, with Ye Meng’s hand pressing down on it. He kept his head lowered, his chest rising and falling, his voice muffled, “How many relationships have you had?”
“Three.”
“All with younger men?”
“No.”
Big pig’s trotter. Li Jinyu held the beer with both hands, shrugged once, irritably brushed her hand away, opened the can, and said, “I probably like you. I’m not entirely sure yet.”
“I don’t know if it’s because you’ve been too good to me and I don’t want to let you go to someone else, or if I’ve fallen for you,” he pinched the can with two fingers, lifted it, and took a somewhat indifferent sip, then gave a self-mocking smile. He didn’t hide anything, directly revealing his cards, “I can’t tell because I’ve never liked anyone before. This is the first time.”
“First love, huh? That tends to be more intense,” Ye Meng nodded thoughtfully, teasing him, “But isn’t a first love at twenty-seven a bit late? You’re lying, right? Not a single person that touched your heart all these years?”
Li Jinyu drank his beer while looking at her, his eyes full of mockery, with an expression that said, “You’re fucking asking something you already know.”
His eyes were already turning slightly red. Ye Meng realized he couldn’t hold his alcohol—two bottles of beer and his eyes would redden. He reclined drunkenly on the sofa, looking at her half-lazily, half-seriously, his voice even hoarser: “Will you never return to Beijing?”
“Do you want to go back?” Ye Meng carefully took the beer from his hand and placed it on the coffee table.
Li Jinyu lowered his now-empty hand. He seemed particularly tired since returning from Beijing this time. He leaned his head back against the sofa, covering his eyes with his elbow. After a long while, he finally said in a stifled voice, “No.”
He had turned on the air conditioner at some point, and the temperature was rising. Ye Meng couldn’t help but take off her coat, wearing only a white high-necked tight sweater that wrapped around her proportionate, shapely upper body. She gently stroked his naturally hanging fingers and asked softly, “Are you hurt? About the past.”
Inside and outside the room, all was quiet except for the pitter-patter of gentle rain hitting the window awning.
After a while, Li Jinyu, still covering his eyes, gave a low “Mm.”
Ye Meng had always felt he was quite resilient, able to endure anything. What could have happened to make a man so unable to hold his head up?
Ye Meng held his hand, pulling his arm away from his eyes, and said tenderly, “Alright, I’ll stay here with you until you’re better.”
Although Li Jinyu kept his eyes closed, the hand she held suddenly tightened. His long fingers slowly slipped between hers, interlocking them tightly.
Ye Meng half-knelt on the sofa, her head already close to his ear, breathing softly, and asked somewhat presumptuously, “Little brother, can I kiss you?”
Li Jinyu was leaning back, his head resting on the sofa. He finally opened his eyes, looked at her helplessly, and chuckled, “Sister, can you not be so eager? Has it even been a minute since we made it official?”
Ye Meng lay in the opposite direction, her head also resting on the sofa back, kneeling, curiously pursuing the question: “Did you ever kiss Jiang Luzhi?”
Li Jinyu released her hand, got up from the sofa, leaned over to grab his beer and took a sip, saying with some exasperation, “Would it stop you from kissing me if I had?”
Ye Meng made a dismissive sound, getting off the sofa, “Don’t act so pure. If I didn’t know better, I’d think I was molesting a child.”
“I’m a guy, what purity am I pretending to have,” Li Jinyu said with one leg crossed over the other, unable to suppress his laughter. “Can’t you give me a moment to react?” As he spoke, he stood up, casually picked up the jacket he had just taken off and thrown on the sofa, and mercilessly covered Ye Meng’s head with it. Out of sight, out of mind. Like he was defending against a wolf, he said, “I’m going to the hospital to see grandma later. I’ll take a shower first. Don’t peek.”
Pah!
Who was he calling a pervert? Ye Meng almost thought she had the wrong script. Indignantly, she spelled out his name word by word: “Li. Jin. Yu!”
“Don’t take it off, or I won’t let you kiss me for a month.” While searching for clean clothes in the bedroom, he spoke lazily.
The bathroom door was broken. It had been damaged when the old lady fell that day, and now it banged loudly whenever the wind blew. He had removed it but hadn’t reinstalled it yet. After all, he was the only one living in the house now. Occasionally Yang Tianwei would come over, and during those days, he would try not to shower.
Though he wasn’t that pure, he wasn’t at the point where he could let Ye Meng openly watch him shower.
He took his things and went in, undressing in a few quick moves, left with only his underwear. He looked back at Ye Meng, who was obediently covered by his jacket. As he turned back, from behind came: “Li Jinyu.”
“Hm?”
“Did you go to the hospital to donate blood?” Ye Meng suddenly asked out of nowhere, her head still covered.
The water rushed noisily. Li Jinyu turned it down slightly and slowly lathered the soap, saying, “Did you visit my grandma?”
“I could smell it. Your jacket has the scent of disinfectant,” Ye Meng said.
“It would be more believable if you said you were a vampire,” he laughed. “Even able to smell that I’m missing a few hundred cc of blood.”
“I think I can. I’d notice if you lost even a single hair. You’re all mine now. Without my permission, you’re not allowed to run back to Beijing to donate blood to your mother again.”
“Okay, it won’t happen again.” He lowered his head and smiled.
“Did something happen to you in Beijing?”
Since coming to Ning Sui, he had never returned to Beijing. He discovered he still harbored a subtle expectation for Beijing in his heart. Initially, he was escaping—escaping the city, escaping everyone. But now, he realized that once someone has been an ostrich, they can never raise their head again.