SWG Chapter 20
by VolareYe Min came out after changing her clothes, just as Xie Yu was handing out mooncakes all over the place. When it came to her, the woman pretended to be profound and hid the remaining few behind her, flicking her hair. “Guess, which one is your favorite five-kernel mooncake?”
Ye Min patted her shoulder and looked at the bar. “Put the five-kernel mooncakes aside for now. Go save our poor glasses.”
Behind the bar, Ruan Shengyi, who had come to work in the afternoon, silently wiped the glasses, her eyes wandering, not knowing what she was staring at. But from time to time, her gaze would drift to the black screen of the phone placed aside.
She was waiting for a message, a message that hadn’t been replied to since last night.
Xie Yu shook her head helplessly, stuffed the five-kernel mooncake into Ye Min’s hand, and said, “Go off work. It’s the first day of the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday. Go back and have a good lie-in!”
“As for our boss…” She leaned against the nearby armchair and sighed softly. “I didn’t expect her to be so innocent.”
Ye Min: “Could it be that she hasn’t been in a relationship for too long, and she’s throwing herself completely in at the slightest hint of affection?”
Xie Yu: “Who knows? I didn’t expect our boss to be so pure! Maybe she’s just been busy. She might have gone home to spend the Mid-Autumn Festival with her family today. She… tsk, tsk, tsk.”
The two sighed almost simultaneously, looking at their pure girl boss with worry, feeling a bit of a headache.
Xiao Wenyu hadn’t said or done anything yet. The two of them had only known each other for less than a month, counting that first encounter that night. Ruan Shengyi was already like this. If Xiao Wenyu made it clear that she wasn’t willing in the future, or if the two of them broke up after dating…
Oh my god, they couldn’t imagine it.
Ye Min patted Xie Yu’s shoulder. “There will be a lot of people tonight, so work harder and don’t sell our store.”
Xie Yu scoffed. “If I sell it, I’ll go back to Le Xin. If that doesn’t work, Xiao Wenyu will always be hiring cleaners. It doesn’t matter where I work.”
“…”
“Who wants to work for me?” A bright voice came from the door. The three of them looked up almost at the same time, but two of them felt a sense of relief, while the other…
Ruan Shengyi glanced over, then withdrew her gaze and continued to wipe her glass.
Xiao Wenyu wasn’t wearing a skirt today. The hem of her white shirt embroidered with light-colored patterns was tucked into khaki straight-leg pants, outlining her waist. She wore a warm brown trench coat, making her look warm, like the golden sun in autumn.
Her slightly curly long hair was loosely tied behind her head with a hair tie with a bow, revealing her slender neck and the camera strap hanging on it.
Xie Yu glanced at the unmoved Ruan Shengyi, cursed inwardly, and took the initiative to greet her, smiling and saying, “Xiao Wenyu is here again? If you’re here for a drink today, you can’t escape. It’s Mid-Autumn Festival.”
Xiao Wenyu smiled gently, raised the camera in her hand, and said, “I’m here to take some promotional photos for you. A Mid-Autumn Festival gift. Do you want it?”
Behind the bar, the person who had been looking down all along raised her head, the light in her eyes flickering slightly. She opened her mouth, but didn’t know what to say.
–“Okay, if you’re unhappy in the future, you’ll be punished.”
–“How will I be punished?”
–“Punish… punish Xiao Wenyu to take promotional photos for my Tonight Intoxicated, for free.”
Ruan Shengyi almost instantly thought of that scene. Her lips trembled, and the sentence “Are you not happy today?” was clearly on the tip of her tongue, but looking at Xiao Wenyu’s smiling face as she chatted with the people around her, she couldn’t say it.
Today was the first day of the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, and she had even given herself a holiday. So why would she be unhappy?
Maybe she had already forgotten the promise she made casually a long time ago. Maybe she really came today to give a Mid-Autumn Festival gift that wasn’t too heavy or too light, to take some photos for them, and that was it.
Ruan Shengyi still wanted to ask why she hadn’t replied to a single message from last night until just now. Was she too busy to see them? Or was it that she had finally seen the reality of the situation and didn’t plan to play this good neighbor game with her anymore?
Xiao Wenyu, what exactly do you want to do?
She gently put down the glass in her hand. The glass wall touched the table and made a crisp sound, but this sound was not enough to break the noise, nor was it qualified to insert itself into the hubbub. It could only stay in the corner alone, as if nothing had happened.
So Ruan Shengyi cleared her throat and said softly, “I don’t want to take any.”
The voice wasn’t loud, but she believed Xiao Wenyu could hear it.
Sure enough, the person in the liveliest place fell silent, stepped forward slightly, met Ruan Shengyi’s eyes, and then bent her eyes slightly, saying, “Can I not take a photo of the Ruan boss?”
Ruan Shengyi pretended to be calm and looked at her. “Why?”
The woman flicked her hair and said helplessly, “The Ruan boss doesn’t want to take it. How would I know why?”
“…” That’s not what she meant.
Xiao Wenyu took another step forward, leaned on the bar, and said with a bit of a smile, “Okay, I won’t tease you anymore.”
“Yesterday, my mom came. She originally wanted to see if this store would affect my business, but she admired the Ruan boss very much.” Xiao Wenyu said, propping her chin up slightly. “So, today she told me that neighbors should help each other more. So, didn’t I come to help?”
Ruan Shengyi took half a step back. “You went home today?”
Xiao Wenyu nodded. “Yes.”
Liar.
Ruan Shengyi snorted softly, threw the cloth in her hand aside, and said coldly, “You guys take the photos. I’m going out for some fresh air.”
Xie Yu scoffed at her, hooked her arm around Xiao Wenyu’s, and said kindly, “Xiao Wenyu, let’s ignore her. She hasn’t slept enough these past two days, and her brain is a little messed up.”
“Can you take a photo of Ye Min first? She’s about to get off work. Then can you take a photo of the store’s situation?”
Xiao Wenyu shook the camera in her hand and said gently, “Of course.”
Xie Yu: “By the way, was that particularly elegant older sister yesterday Xiao Wenyu’s mother? She’s so beautiful, she looks like she walked out of a painting…”
Ruan Shengyi didn’t hear the words that followed. She gently closed the store door and leaned against the pillar outside the door, sighing softly.
She had indeed slept too little today.
So much so that she saw Xiao Wenyu go out for breakfast in the morning and come back, carrying a large bag of food bought on the road to make do, locking the door, going up to the third floor, turning on the lights briefly and then turning them off.
And then the day passed.
She got up once at lunchtime and saw that the door opposite was still locked, and it had been locked until just now.
Xiao Wenyu hadn’t gone home at all. She had been in the store all the time, but she had started making do again because they hadn’t eaten together for a day, and she had started to become estranged because they hadn’t met for a day…
Or rather, had she started distancing herself since last night after her mom saw through everything? And today, she was just doing things officially?
She gently raised the tip of her shoe, scratching the ground. After a long time, she hummed and laughed.
So it still wasn’t considered a special relationship. Using the same lies to fool everyone meant that everyone was equally unimportant in her eyes.
She thought that Xiao Wenyu’s words to her, with her back turned, meant that the relationship between the two of them had changed, had become special. It turned out that it was just her own imagination. In reality, it was just something that warm, sunny personality did casually.
Ruan Shengyi hated the sun.
The sun would illuminate everyone equally. The sun wasn’t just for her.
She should recognize that.
No one would come just for her except the weasel.
“Why is the Ruan boss standing at the door?” A regular customer with sharp eyes quickly spotted Ruan Shengyi hiding next to the door, and walked over unsteadily with a cigarette in his hand. He gasped when he saw her clothes. “Aren’t you cold?”
Ruan Shengyi shrank her shoulders. “Cold, how could I not be cold?”
“If you’re cold, why don’t you go inside? Want a cigarette?”
“Finish it at the door.”
The regular customer tilted his head and glanced at her, pressed his lips and laughed twice, and then said after exhaling a smoke ring, “The Ruan boss has a lot of rules here. I’m used to it.”
“Le Xin has fewer rules. Go there.” Ruan Shengyi lowered her head, unusually talkative, but every sentence was stinging.
The person next to her felt that even the cigarette was tasteless. He stared at the light of the cigarette tip for a while, pressed it against the wall and extinguished it. “Drinking, drinking. The Ruan boss’s mouth.”
“Want a cigarette.”
The regular customer took a few steps back and looked at her gossipingly. “Are you in a bad mood?”
“No.” Ruan Shengyi sighed. “Forget it, go inside.”
But the regular customer still handed her a cigarette and kindly lit it for her.
So, Ruan Shengyi in the night was no longer standing here alone. At least she had the light of her fingertip accompanying her.
Just that little bit of light, what could it illuminate?
Ruan Shengyi pinched the cigarette and tilted her head to look inside the door.
Her glass had just been wiped, and it was very clear. She could see the situation in the store.
But it was also separated by a layer of misty fog, making the scenery of the store seem so ethereal, like the soft blue light of the sea.
It also made the person who was holding the camera in the center seem like a mermaid jumping out of the sea, captivating.
But Ruan Shengyi had never been to the coast.
She hadn’t seen the sea, didn’t know if the sea was as blue as those photos, and didn’t know if there really were beautiful mermaids in the sea.
A warm brown mermaid.
She bit her cigarette and took out her phone from her pocket, entering the photo interface.
Just separated by a layer of glass, separated by the misty blue sea, she gently took a picture. In the center of the photo was a somewhat blurred back view of the warm brown Miss Xiao.
She didn’t get the focus right. The clearest part of the photo was the two hair ties hanging down from the brown hair tie.
Ruan Shengyi stared at the photo on her phone screen, hesitating whether to delete it or not, unaware that, separated by a layer of glass, the camera inside the room was also aimed at her.
“Xiao Wenyu, what are you taking pictures of?” The person surrounding Xiao Wenyu to take pictures suddenly leaned over.
Xiao Wenyu took back the lens and smiled gently. “Nothing, just taking a picture of the night scene. Isn’t the light at Tonight Intoxicated quite beautiful?”
“Yes, Tonight Intoxicated is most famous for its lighting design, like being immersed in the sea. Can Xiao Wenyu also send me a photo?”
“Sure, but there’s still the most important person who hasn’t been photographed yet.”
Xiao Wenyu silently pressed the screen tightly. After a long time, she swiped the photo she had just taken aside, and then walked to the door carrying the camera–
“Ruan boss.”
The sound of the doorbell and the woman’s soft call merged together. Ruan Shengyi looked up and saw a beautiful face with a shallow smile looking at her, asking gently, “Really not going to take a picture?”