MTMIO Chapter 71

Chapter 71: Love and Death Are Always Consistent

That night, Lu You didn’t sleep soundly, having many disjointed dreams, like a piece of music pieced together from multiple piano pieces, turning and tossing, chaotic and mixed.

She woke up twice in between.

The first time, at the end of the dream, Yue Yunxi looked at her, her eyes deep and dark, either reciting or singing that line of lyrics, suddenly engulfed by a thick black fog.

It was like the crescent moon symbol Yue Yunxi had used as a nickname before.

However, it was a process that changed in the opposite direction.

As if time was flowing backward in the world of dreams.

Until Yue Yunxi’s figure was completely covered in ink, revealing Tao Xin’s appearance, Lu You’s increasingly heavy breathing suddenly stalled, and she woke up with a start.

She reached out to hug Yue Yunxi, but grabbed at empty air.

The sheets still retained warmth, and Yue Yunxi’s suppressed voice could be vaguely heard from the direction of the bathroom.

Fragmented English, she strained her ears to listen, her brain automatically translating.

Yue Yunxi was explaining to someone: “…That day also happened to be my girlfriend’s competition day, yes, girlfriend, you heard correctly…Thank you…Yes, it’s the one Teacher Zhong cares about very much…I think you also know something about her from Teacher Zhong, it’s a very important competition for her, so I’m very sorry teacher, please forgive me for not being able to attend…”

The warm temperature in her palm, and the peaceful and gentle tone made Lu You feel at ease.

Her heartbeat gradually calmed down, and sleepiness slowly spread on the beach like a tide.

The second time, Yue Yunxi was not in the last dream where consciousness remained.

Someone asked her in the dream: “Youyou, that person confessed to you overtly and covertly so many times before, and you pretended to be stupid and didn’t respond. Why did you agree later?”

“Because of a song, I really like that part.” She heard her own voice, ethereal, unreal, as if floating into her mind from a distant time and space, “You are an inescapable throbbing, an uncontrollable delusion, a walking crescent moon…”

She was about to cry as she sang, her heart seemed to be entangled by invisible threads, and she woke up from a spasmodic pain.

This time, Lu You stretched her arm over and touched Yue Yunxi’s body, which was cold.

As if she had just come in from outside and gotten into bed.

She wrapped her arms around Yue Yunxi’s waist from behind, leaned over, and pressed her warm chest tightly against the other’s back.

She felt Yue Yunxi hold her hand, which was also cold, with not much flesh on the joints.

Like grape flesh that has been frozen and slightly thawed in summer, only the surface is soft. She rubbed it unconsciously twice, feeling extremely tired, and soon fell asleep again.

In the thick night, Yue Yunxi heard the even and long breathing behind her, and slowly and gently lifted her eyelids.

Her back was very warm, and her body, which had been cold outside for too long, slowly warmed up in the warmth.

There was a faint light under the pillow, silent.

Yue Yunxi took out her phone and glanced at it.

Li Can sent: [The sheet music flower looks good, right? Don’t be envious, you’ll have it sooner or later~ [Wicked laugh] [Wicked laugh]]

Yue Yunxi smiled silently, turned on airplane mode, and turned off the screen of her phone.

Closing her eyes, another bouquet of flowers appeared in her mind, which she had pruned and put into a vase after returning home that day.

After two days of nurturing, the apricot-colored multi-headed roses turned pink.

Like an epic twilight, infinitely close to the arrival of a night.

Hard-won, so I always want the night to come later, so they can bloom longer.

She followed the online tutorials, using solution A to decolorize and dehydrate the roses, and then using solution B to rehydrate and dye them, and finally sealed them in a desiccant box.

Seeing her tinkering, her grandmother smiled and said: These roses are like they’ve been reset.

She smiled and said, this is to survive from desperation.

Grandma asked her again, how long can this tossing make these flowers “live”?

Yue Yunxi shook her head and said she didn’t know.

At least the flowers finally taken out of the box filled with desiccant were soft and delicate, just like when they first came into her hands.

She re-inserted the flowers into the vase, watching them bloom full of vitality in her vision, the moonlight biting on the roses, like a song that would flow, with a unique rhythm and their own rhythm.

At that moment, Yue Yunxi felt that she could accept any kind of ending that would happen to them next.

Grandma also stared at it for a long time next to her, and said with emotion: I am lucky to get it, and I am destined to lose it.

Yue Yunxi knew that what Grandma was lamenting was the length of time that life could continue to exist.

It was just that the words fell into her ears and became an undercurrent wrapped in another meaning, surging in the calm lake of her heart.

She mocked herself, she was probably addicted to gambling with fate.

Having gambled once, she dared to come again.

Even if she was drunk and drowned in Dangtu, knowing that it was impossible, she would still bend down to take that handful of moonlight.

To make her see her infatuation and madness, to recognize that her life was more than just a gentle skin.

And still willing to completely belong to her.

If not, love and death are always consistent.

ˉ

The next afternoon, Lu You took her grandmother to Zhong Shuyun’s place. It happened to be a weekend rest day, and Yue Yunxi had no arrangements, so she went along.

In autumn, the afternoon sun is not hot, the wind is not cool, it is a good weather for a nap.

Getting into the car, from fastening her seat belt to starting the car, Lu You yawned frequently.

“Why don’t you let Yunxi–” Grandma turned her head to look at the back seat, her voice stopped abruptly.

The one in the back holding a pillow in her arms was also yawning repeatedly.

The two of them seemed to be infecting each other, rising and falling, which made her unable to hold back and yawned too.

The car drove out of the yard, and Grandma glanced at the driver’s seat. Lu You was holding the steering wheel with one hand and holding the other hand in front of her lips to yawn.

Grandma raised her arm and grabbed the handrail on the roof of the car and said, “You two last night…did you steal something as a group? One or two are so sleepy.”

This gasping speech shocked Lu You and reduced most of her drowsiness. She scratched her nose and said, “No.”

“You still say no, you’re touching your nose.” Grandma reacted half a beat later, “Did you really go steal something? What did you steal?”

Steal… someone?

Lu You didn’t dare to say it so blatantly. She stopped the car at the intersection in front of the red light and looked up at the rearview mirror.

In the mirror, two gazes collided in the air.

Yue Yunxi’s eyes rippled, her hand reached into her knitted turtleneck sweater, and her palm stroked the deep red mark on the side of her neck, and said in a calm voice: “Stealing food.”

“…”

Lu You didn’t yawn well and coughed so much that she almost died on the spot.

“I told you that you ate too little last night, it’s a good thing I asked Xiao Liu to leave some.” Grandma didn’t think much about it, and muttered, “Don’t always lose weight, you still have to eat what you should eat, especially you.”

Lu You was very innocent: “I… I ate it.”

I ate two meals.

“Eat too little.” Grandma said word by word, and sighed, “Your physique is poor, you not only have to exercise, but also have to eat more supplements. Don’t think Grandma is nagging, you have to be like Yunxi, then I won’t have to worry so much.”

“You’re not being kind, when have I ever disliked you? Isn’t it already Yunxi who drags me to the gym every day.” Lu You glanced quickly at the rearview mirror.

A wisp of wind brushed past Yue Yunxi’s sight.

Yue Yunxi tilted her head, supporting her head against the window sill with her hand, half-covering the curve of her mouth.

Yunxi.

These two words bit out the feeling of an illicit affair.

Lu You continued: “I also eat well, but my stomach is only so big, it’s because I didn’t lay a good foundation when I was a child.”

She said it casually, but Grandma listened carefully.

“Yes, I didn’t lay a good foundation since I was a child. Other people’s premature babies are fed like piglets later on. You’re not, you haven’t drank a mouthful of breast milk, and you don’t have milk powder for some meals.

If it wasn’t for me and your grandfather insisting on lending a hand, I was afraid you would starve to death at home, and it was hard to raise some meat. Your dad is still that dead look.”

This was not the first time Lu You had heard Grandma say these trivial things from past events.

She often heard it when she was a child. When Grandma first moved in, she always recalled the things she and Grandpa came to the city to see her granddaughter, with angry emotions.

She said that when she came, she could hear the baby’s heart-wrenching cries from two miles away.

Lu You always laughed at this time: “I shouldn’t have learned the piano, I should have learned bel canto, my voice is so loud, my breath is so full.”

Grandma always spat and said: “One step later, you would be gone! I really don’t know how your mother could be so cruel, leaving the child alone, not feeding her a mouthful of breast milk, not making milk powder, and complaining that you were noisy. Such a small child can’t even speak, how can she not cry when she’s hungry?

When your grandfather and I went, she even wanted to throw you to death!”

At that time, Lu You was young, only ten years old. When she heard Grandma say these things, she pursed her lips and her eyes filled with tears.

Grandma asked her why she was crying.

She wiped away her tears randomly and said, “So Mom doesn’t want me.”

Because for a moment, her mother may have truly hated her.

Although she didn’t know why.

But she thought, it must be that love couldn’t overcome hate, so Mom didn’t want her.

A little later, when Grandma said these things again, Lu You had a repulsive mentality.

She didn’t want to listen, but she couldn’t stop the old man’s endless talk.

She tried to find a breakthrough that would shut Grandma up, and finally realized that there was a key figure missing in this event – the missing father.

So she asked: “Then where’s my dad? Where did my dad go? Why didn’t he feed me milk?”

Grandma said: “Your dad has to earn money.”

At that time, Lu You had already realized that Lu Huai’an was unreliable, and she dismantled the stage with disgust: “He has been earning money for so many years, but I haven’t seen him give me much money, so don’t make excuses for him, he just thinks I’m a daughter and doesn’t bother to go home to take care of me.”

Grandma had nothing to refute, because that’s what Lu Huai’an thought.

Later, Grandma said it less frequently.

Later, Grandpa passed away, Grandma was admitted to the hospital with cerebral infarction, diagnosed with bowel cancer, had surgery, and had a second surgery two days later because of wound infection.

Having experienced too much, too many times being disappointed with the inaction of Lu Huai’an, when she mentioned this again, Grandma would add another sentence.

“Lu Huai’an is not a good thing.” Grandma let go of the handrail on the roof of the car and stroked her chest, “Don’t mention him, it makes me angry when I mention him.”

Lu You opened the storage box, took out a Want Want milk candy and handed it over, “But no one asked you to mention it, don’t make yourself angry, come, have a candy.”

The old lady said proudly: “I don’t want candy.” She turned her head and asked Yue Yunxi for oranges.

Worried that Grandma would get motion sickness, Lu You had stuffed two oranges into Yue Yunxi’s bag before going out.

Yue Yunxi took out the oranges from her bag, handed one to the old lady, and peeled another one’s peel, seemingly casually saying: “A friend of my mother’s only fed her breast milk for one day after giving birth because it was too painful, every time it was bloody.”

Lu You couldn’t help but gasp: “Hiss, it hurts just thinking about it.”

She couldn’t help but think of herself.

Wasn’t Zhang Wenyin not feeding her breast milk also because it was too painful?

She just thought about it and felt it was unbearable pain.

Not to mention experiencing it firsthand.

For a moment, Lu You wanted to ask Grandma if this was the case?

But she gave up in a flash, what was there to ask, they would never have any intersection anyway.

Grandma leaned against the back of the chair, holding the orange-yellow orange, about to peel it, when she heard Yue Yunxi’s words, her hand stopped, and she looked up, glancing at Yue Yunxi.

Her eyes went from surprise to realization, with a fleeting pain and guilt, which were all hidden under her drooping eyelids.

Yue Yunxi didn’t seem to notice her gaze, and continued to say: “The money from their family was taken by her husband to start a business, so they didn’t hire a confinement nanny, nor did they let the man’s mother come over to help, because her husband said that his mother was old and might not be able to help, but they would have to take care of her.”

“It would be good if two people could take care of it together.” Lu You no longer substituted herself into it, purely listening to it as gossip, that way she would be more relaxed.

So as not to fall into the emotional consumption.

“The man is busy with work and basically doesn’t come home.”

Lu You clicked her tongue and said earnestly: “Yi Ping, why is your work getting later and later? Don’t you even have a Sunday?”

Yue Yunxi chuckled softly: “We’re talking about serious things.”

Lu You obediently: “Oh, so that aunt took care of the child by herself?”

“Yes.”

“It’s so hard.”

“Yes, it’s very hard. She is awakened many times at night, she has to feed the baby, she has to change the baby’s diapers, and she has to hold her in her arms and coax her to sleep. She will wake up as soon as she puts her down, there is no way.” Yue Yunxi’s voice was particularly gentle.

But it was different from her usual voice. If this gentle feeling was compared to water, Lu You thought it was probably the wide and inclusive sea.

And the usual one was more like a stream.

The tone she used to say these words was as if she had heard a mother’s narration countless times.

So the stream imitates the sea and becomes like a river.

The orange was peeled, revealing the flesh inside. Yue Yunxi broke off a segment, carefully removed the white veins, moved forward, and handed it to Lu You’s mouth: “Youyou.”

Lu You bit it subconsciously, only to realize that this gesture was ambiguous and intimate, and she quickly glanced at the passenger seat.

Grandma lowered her head and stared at the orange in her hand, not noticing them at all.

Lu You breathed a sigh of relief.

Yue Yunxi chuckled softly, a bit catchy.

Lu You rubbed her ears, swallowed the orange flesh and asked: “What happened to that aunt later? Did she get divorced?”

“Divorced.” Yue Yunxi said, “She found out that the man cheated on her.”

“…Good divorce!” Lu You gritted her teeth, “Men will never learn to sleep by themselves in this life.”

Yue Yunxi was amused by her again.

The car approached Zhong Shuyun’s small western-style building. Zhong Mi was standing at the door. The little girl was wearing a lamb velvet sweater with rabbit ears on the hood, jumping and waving to her, and the rabbit ears were shaking along.

Having a unique vitality that belongs to children.

Lu You turned the steering wheel and followed Zhong Mi’s direction to turn into the yard, and asked: “Who did her child…follow?”

Yue Yunxi broke off another segment of orange flesh. The thin skin of that segment was tightly attached to the adjacent orange segment, and the skin and flesh were separated when it was broken off.

It didn’t look good.

Yue Yunxi handed the orange segment to Grandma, who hadn’t spoken all the time, “Followed the man.”

When Grandma took it with trembling hands, Lu You stepped on the brakes.

She stepped on it a little hard, and people rushed forward out of inertia.

The orange segment that Grandma had just received and the whole orange she had been holding in her hand fell out of control and fell on the carpet.

Lu You clenched the steering wheel and heard her own voice, uncontrollably overflowing from between her lips and teeth: “Why to the man?”

“Yes, why to the man?” Yue Yunxi lowered her eyebrows, watched the old woman in front bend down and pick up the orange and that segment of orange flesh, and said lightly, “Unsolved mystery.”

Lu You: “…”

Stories with suspense always make people feel itchy to know the answer.

Lu You unbuckled her seat belt and said: “Do you have a chance to see that aunt and ask her?”

Yue Yunxi smiled: “I think it’s okay.”

Lu You turned her head and saw Grandma carefully wiping the dust off the orange flesh, about to put it in her mouth, she reached out to stop her and said: “Hey, it’s dropped on the ground, don’t eat it.”

Grandma looked at her taking away the orange segment like a child who had done something wrong, at a loss, her throat rolled, and she wanted to say something but stopped.

Until Yue Yunxi opened the door of the passenger seat, “Get out of the car, Grandma.”

The old lady was stunned for a moment.

Yue Yunxi stretched out her hand to Grandma, the palm of her hand was the remaining peeled orange: “There are still many to eat.”

Grandma slowly took it in her hand, got out of the car, and instinctively looked towards the open paint-dropped window on the second floor.

Lu You closed the car door and just happened to see this scene. She followed the old lady’s sight, turned around, and looked up.

The wind blew up the white gauze curtain, and you could vaguely glimpse the dark green velvet skirt behind it.

A woman’s profile that left in a hurry.

“Sister!” Zhong Mi hopped over and hugged her.

Lu You retracted her gaze, and for no reason, she wanted to ask, so she asked: “Mi Mi, is your mother at home?”

I hadn’t seen her for a long time. Zhong Mi arched her head excitedly in her arms like a rabbit, and said without thinking: “Yes!”

Lu You raised an eyebrow.

Because she felt Zhong Mi stiffening in her arms.

Like a weak animal playing dead when caught.