MTMIO Chapter 8

Lu You couldn’t fall asleep until dawn.

Around three in the morning, electric light brightly illuminated the walls, thunder rumbled in the clouds, cracking open gaps, and the sound of rain hitting the glass windows immediately penetrated her ears.

Listening to the rain, Lu You got up, lit a cigarette, sat on the bay window, and listlessly scrolled through her Moments.

She saw a photo posted by the drummer who often accompanied Tao Xin.

A group of people were grilling skewers at a barbecue restaurant. In the lower right corner of the eighth picture, Tao Xin and Yue Yunxi were in the frame. Yue Yunxi was looking down at her phone, and Tao Xin, sitting next to her, was pouting, seemingly unhappy about something.

Lu You set it so she wouldn’t see that person’s updates, and continued to scroll down, accidentally hitting refresh.

A new update from Chen Feifei popped up: [Ms. Chen wants to sign me up for a senior citizen tour group and said if I behave well, maybe my future in-laws will be in there. [Smile]]

Lu You was amused and even less sleepy. She commented: [What senior citizen tour group? Recommend it to me.]

Chen Feifei replied directly in the Moments: [You wouldn’t be going straight, would you!]

YoYo: [No, I want to take Grandma to play.]

Chen Feifei: [Oh! Ms. Chen has her eye on the Haicheng Seven-Day Tour, but it’s too far, isn’t it? Can Grandma handle it?]

Too far was one thing, but another was that she didn’t want to go to that city for the time being.

YoYo: [Are there any others? I don’t believe Auntie only gave you one set of future in-laws options.]

Chen Feifei: [Knock][Despise][Goodbye]

YoYo: [Sneer] Send them quick]

Chen Feifei sent a few more sets, and the two chatted a long string in Moments, taking up the entire screen.

In the end, Lu You couldn’t help but complain: [Why are we chatting here? It’s not like we’re not friends!]

As before, Chen Feifei didn’t reply immediately. Lu You switched to a small game to pass the time and occupy her thoughts. After clearing two levels, she saw a new message notification and switched back.

This time, Chen Feifei sent her a message in the chat window: [Ahhhhhhhh!]

YoYo: [?]

Almost simultaneously, Chen Feifei sent her: [The goddess liked my post!]

Of the women Chen Feifei called “goddess,” there were at least nine if not ten. Lu You asked: [Which goddess?]

Chen Feifei sent a screenshot.

Below their conversation that filled the entire screen, the liking nicknames spanned three lines. The last one stood out because it was a crescent moon emoji.

It was Yue Yunxi’s WeChat name.

A feeling of guilty conscience and panic suddenly rose in her heart, rising quickly and falling quickly.

Lu You smiled helplessly at her own conditioned reflex.

Given her current relationship with Yue Yunxi, it wasn’t enough to get angry just because she said she was going to sleep but was actually partying in her Moments.

What was there to panic about?

Yue Yunxi sent a message: [Can’t sleep?]

Even though it was just words on the screen, she could almost feel the inclusive tone buried between the lines.

Lu You confessed: [Yeah.]

As soon as she closed her eyes, listening to the pattering rain leaking in from the window, she would remember Tao Xin’s flirtatious words in Chu Xiao’s Moments.

Yue Yunxi: [Has it been like this all the time?]

YoYo: [No, just these past few days.]

Since the day she broke up, it was as if a person with a smoking addiction suddenly had all their cigarettes taken away. From initially thinking it wasn’t a big deal, she gradually fell into an unbearable withdrawal reaction.

As if having mind-reading abilities, Yue Yunxi suddenly asked: [Smoking, is that something you started in the last few days too?]

Lu You was stunned for a moment.

It was very much like an elder asking a question, so much so that she subconsciously told the truth: [I started that the year I started working. I’ll have one when I’m irritable, not addicted.]

After a moment, Yue Yunxi asked: [Can you get your schedule back on track?]

Lu You was inexplicably distracted for a moment, perhaps because she was too sensitive, so that she had a strange feeling.

She felt that Yue Yunxi’s question was not just about her schedule.

The sound of rain seeping into the room from the window had lessened a lot, from pattering to drizzling. The drizzle was not as urgent as the heavy rain, but it was longer, and she didn’t know when it would stop.

But there would always be a time when it stopped.

Gathering her thoughts, Lu You gripped her phone and replied: [Yes.]

Yue Yunxi replied to her: [Okay.]

Putting down her phone, Lu You got up and went to the bathroom.

When she returned to bed and picked up her phone again, she only saw a system notification on the screen: The other party withdrew a message.

Chen Feifei had complained to her about this notification, saying that if you withdraw, just withdraw, but you have to notify you. It would be nice if the other party was willing to tell you, but if they were not willing, it would really whet your appetite.

Lu You didn’t think there was anything to it.

There were only three situations – either there was a typo; or she pressed the wrong key and sent the wrong message or emoticon; or the other party realized that what she said was inappropriate.

Lu You thought Yue Yunxi should be the first one, but she still asked: [What did you withdraw?]

Yue Yunxi: [An untimely word.]

Lu You froze.

It was actually the third type.

She knew that Yue Yunxi was drawing a social boundary by saying that, so she knew better than to ask any further.

Instead, she ended the topic: [Okay, I’m going to bed.]

Yue Yunxi: [Can you fall asleep?]

YoYo: [Building up to it.]

The “typing” prompt at the top of the screen was sometimes there and sometimes not. Lu You thought Yue Yunxi had something to say to her.

But after waiting for a long time, Yue Yunxi sent: [Good night.]

Probably a system glitch.

Lu You didn’t think much about it and replied: [Okay okay]

Plugging in her phone, Lu You adjusted her sleeping position, closed her eyes, and inexplicably remembered that withdrawal notification.

It was hard to imagine someone like Yue Yunxi saying something inappropriate.

So what inappropriate thing did Yue Yunxi send?

Lu You turned over, trying to build up sleepiness again.

In less than five minutes, she turned over again, felt the plush antlers of the doll, grabbed them, and squeezed them hard, thinking, Chen Feifei’s complaint was really right.

The numbers on the digital clock at the head of the bed ticked by.

Lu You sprang up from the bed, poured herself a glass of water, and didn’t suppress her curiosity at all, even after drinking most of it.

She held the phone in her hand, and it was almost soaked in sweat. Of course, she wouldn’t be so tactless as to ask Yue Yunxi.

So she posted her first Moments of the month.

YoYo: [Curiosity doesn’t kill the cat, curiosity keeps the deer from sleeping well [Smile]]

After posting, Lu You opened the puzzle game she usually used to de-stress and used up all her stamina. She clicked on Moments again and took a look.

Friends who hadn’t gone to bed yet were commenting like a broken record: [Got some tea?]

The person at the very end stood out as particularly serious.

Yue Yunxi: [Curious about what?]

Lu You pondered for a moment and replied to her privately: [Curious about what you withdrew]

Just when Lu You thought Yue Yunxi had fallen asleep, a new message notification popped up in Moments.

Yue Yunxi: [It’s not appropriate to tell you now.]

It would be impolite to ask again.

Lu You turned off her phone and rubbed the antlers of the doll in her arms a few times.

Her thoughts rippled open, and she suddenly realized that the rain had stopped.

She didn’t even know when it had stopped.