MTMIO Chapter 25

Chapter 25: The Itch That Scratches the Heart

Dense rain cascaded down from the eaves, the sound of jade beads falling onto a plate echoing into the house.

“They said the rainy season would end today, but it’s raining again, raining every day.” Grandma sighed, withdrawing her gaze from the living room window and turning to look at Lu You, who was still staring at the crack in the door. “Still not gone?”

Lu You shook her head: “No.”

In her sight, Tao Xin was still holding onto Yue Yunxi’s phone, not returning it.

Her hushed voice was shattered by the noisy rain, only a few scattered keywords reaching Lu You’s ears.

Forming phrases such as “But you’re my sister,” “We can’t even be friends,” and the like.

The emotions were unclear.

So, she couldn’t tell if Tao Xin was accusing Yue Yunxi of not taking her side, or if she was trying to persuade Yue Yunxi to stand with her.

Or something else…

Lu You suddenly felt that Tao Xin was like the weather during the rainy season, swaying between sunny and rainy days, with a contradictory sense of division.

Making her inscrutable and unpredictable.

“If she hasn’t left, invite her in, let them wait for the rain to stop before they leave,” Grandma said. “What’s the point of always staying outside?”

Not wanting to experience the awkward atmosphere of the three of them again, Lu You immediately denied Grandma’s suggestion: “I’ll get them an umbrella.”

Putting down the cup in her hand, she opened the storage cabinet and saw the deer-head umbrella Tao Xin had given her. She took it out directly, hesitated for a moment, and then took out another umbrella.

Seeing that she had taken out her most treasured deer-head umbrella, Grandma felt it wasn’t necessary, thinking that the two sisters could share one umbrella. So, she said, “One umbrella should be enough, right?”

Lu You closed the cabinet door, “The rain is heavy, it’s better for each of them to have one.”

“I’m just afraid they’ll forget to return it. I’m too embarrassed to ask for it back, and then you’ll pout and cry,” Grandma said, mimicking a crying voice, “Grandma, I don’t have any of my deer-head umbrellas left, and I can’t buy them anymore.”

Lu You chuckled: “I’m not a child anymore, I won’t pout and cry. And now, you don’t have to worry about not being able to buy them, you can find someone online to customize them.”

She waved the deer-head umbrella in her hand and said, “Isn’t this one?”

“I remember you said that this one is different from your old one, right?” Grandma pointed to the deer ears on the umbrella handle, “You said that the grandpa at the school gate saw you were a girl and specially carved a bow on it for you, right? Did I remember correctly?”

Lu You smiled and said, “You remembered correctly. Your memory is really good.”

“It used to be even better.” Grandma raised her eyebrows proudly, paused slightly, and said, “If you find someone to carve another one, it will be different again. What if it’s not as good as this one?”

It was as if she was just talking about the umbrella.

But it was also like she was using the umbrella to talk about love.

“It might be even better than this one, these things, everyone is different, who can say for sure?” Lu You looked at the wooden deer head carving on the umbrella handle and added softly, “Besides, I still like the original one the best. This one has changed, keeping it will only make me miss the previous one more.”

But no matter how much she missed it, she couldn’t go back to the past.

Grandma sighed and raised her chin towards the door, “Since you’ve decided, then go.”

Worried that the two of them were sharing secrets she couldn’t know, Lu You deliberately cleared her throat as she walked over, hearing Yue Yunxi say that they would talk again later.

Only then did she open the door.

She just happened to see Tao Xin switch the small dog doll to the other arm, using the hand closer to her to return the phone to Yue Yunxi.

The phone screen wasn’t off, and the screen was tilted towards her side.

Lu You’s eyes couldn’t help but glance at the screen.

She could vaguely see that the interface was on the WeChat homepage, and the most obvious black background avatar was at the top of the message list, the rest she couldn’t make out.

Because Yue Yunxi quickly took the phone and turned off the screen at the same time.

Lu You raised her eyes and looked over, inadvertently discovering that Yue Yunxi had frowned very slightly, but it smoothed out in a second or two.

So fast that it seemed like an illusion.

Only the gloom of the rainy day was still reflected in those amber eyes, like a heavy shadow smeared in a sketch, showing a hint of melancholy.

She didn’t know if she was unhappy that Tao Xin hadn’t returned the phone for so long, or if she was displeased with her subconscious glance.

Maybe both, after all, neither the former nor the latter was a good behavior.

Although she didn’t do it on purpose and didn’t see anything.

Just as she was thinking, Yue Yunxi clenched the phone tightly and looked at her.

Seeing her gaze in the void, Yue Yunxi slightly loosened her grip on the phone and calmly asked in a gentle voice, “Why did you come out?”

Lu You came back to her senses, touched the tip of her nose and said, “It’s raining, Grandma asked me to bring you umbrellas.”

First, she handed her usual transparent umbrella to Yue Yunxi, frankly reminding her, “There are no more umbrellas at home, Sister Yunxi must remember to return it to me.”

Hearing this, Yue Yunxi chuckled: “Okay, I’ll remember.”

She lowered her eyes, her gaze lightly touching the other deer-head umbrella, her eyebrows twitching almost imperceptibly.

Lu You turned to the side, handing the deer-head umbrella to Tao Xin and said, “I forgot last time, I’ll just return it to you today.”

Tao Xin didn’t reach out to take it, her gaze fixed on the umbrella handle for a few seconds, slowly moving upwards, passing over Lu You, and turning to look at Yue Yunxi directly opposite.

The humid air, the frozen atmosphere, seemed to be woven into layers of silk, wrapping people round and round in an airtight manner.

Lu You didn’t want to waste time standing in this atmosphere, so she simply stuffed the umbrella into Tao Xin’s arms, where she was holding the small dog doll, and turned back into the house.

The moment she stepped over the threshold, she heard a crisp “pa” sound.

Shaking her heart, her steps faltered slightly.

After a moment, Lu You turned back to close the door, seeing in her lowered gaze Tao Xin walking out of the yard step by step with the dog’s ear in her left hand, the pouring rain drenching both the dog doll and her.

Her long eyelashes lifted slightly, her eyes turning to the left.

The cobbled path was wet with rain, turning into a fragmented mirror.

The deer-head umbrella was discarded among the mottled cracks, lying in the damp mud, drenched in a cold rain.

Until it was covered by a transparent umbrella.

Picked up by slender, fair hands.

As if treating a lost object that she had accidentally lost, Yue Yunxi’s slender fingers carefully and gently wiped off the rain stains on the deer’s head.

Behind her, dusk and rain converged, like a huge sandpaper, scratched with a match, scraping out a strip of phosphorus-like glittering light, suddenly flashing across Lu You’s eyes.

Lu You’s eyelashes trembled slightly.

She closed the door, cutting off her sight.

ˉ

The next day, after dinner, Grandma and Auntie Liu went to the square dance, Lu You was at home on a voice call with Li Can, discussing setting off to Xicheng in mid-July.

After ending the call, about ten minutes later, Yue Yunxi sent her a message asking: [Li Can said you want to leave at the beginning of Fu? Is it okay to leave four days earlier?]

Lu You pulled up the calendar to confirm the date, only to find out that mid-month was the beginning of Fu, so she readily replied: [Okay]

After replying, she put her phone on the coffee table and continued to list the things she needed to bring on the trip.

Until the phone vibrated several times in a row, she picked it up and looked at it, Yue Yunxi had pulled her into a WeChat group.

The group name was “Morning Flowers Evening Harvest Women’s Orchestra”.

The group members were Yun Zhu, Li Can, and a few others, who were queuing up to send messages in the group.

Mi Mi: [Warm welcome.jpg]

The four words “Warm Welcome” held in both hands with hearts, like a hair salon effect, were surrounded by nine roses.

The age-old emoji made Lu You go back and look at the nickname again.

It was the 13-year-old Mi Mi, that’s right.

In short: [Mi Mi… did you steal Zhong teacher’s emoji?]

[Bamboo]: [Zhong teacher: I’m not taking the blame~]

[Bamboo]: [I suspect she’s using Caroline teacher’s phone, Caroline teacher likes middle-aged and elderly emojis the most!]

Lizi: [Newbie! Newbie! Show photos, show photos @YoYo@Is Feifei Ah]

Is Feifei Ah: [Show what, what kind of look haven’t you seen, I’ve even shown you my ostrich run!]

Lu You couldn’t help but laugh when she saw this, most of the bad mood lingering from yesterday was swept away.

But she hadn’t forgotten the main thing, she poked Yue Yunxi and asked: [Why did you pull me and Feifei into your orchestra group?]

Yue Yunxi replied almost instantly: [The personnel are almost the same, I’m too lazy to build another one.]

Lu You raised her eyebrows, Yunxi sister is so lazy.

She realized that Yue Yunxi had a very special kind of personality tension, as the interaction deepened, she could faintly feel the sense of mystery under the gentle, dignified, and quiet aura.

This mystery came from the unexpected contrast, the deeper you dig, the more profound it became, the more profound it made people want to dig deeper.

Lu You jokingly asked: [You won’t kick me and Feifei out after the trip is over, will you?]

Yue Yunxi: [How could I, I’m just afraid you’ll quietly quit yourself.]

Lu You paused for a moment.

She had this plan, after all, she wasn’t a member of the orchestra.

YoYo: [I won’t be quiet, I’ll say goodbye]

After sending this sentence, Lu You inexplicably thought of Yue Yunxi notifying Li Can and others about going abroad for the competition, but not telling her.

Although there was no need to notify her.

But, why didn’t she notify her?

A few days ago, when chatting with Chen Feifei, she learned that even Chen Feifei knew that Yue Yunxi was going abroad, and Yue Yunxi even asked Feifei if she wanted her to bring anything back.

Only she didn’t know.

Did she forget to tell her?

Or did she know that she wouldn’t ask her to buy anything, so she simply didn’t say it?

What if she wanted her to bring something back…

Her cold wasn’t getting better, and her head still felt like it was covered in lard, blurring her thoughts into a mess, not one was clear.

The phone was vibrating non-stop, Lu You felt her hand was almost numb from the vibrations, she lowered her eyes and looked at it.

There were four more messages on the left.

Yue Yunxi: [You don’t have to quit either.]

Yue Yunxi: [This orchestra combines professional and amateur, with interest as the main thing, so even if you don’t want to or can’t perform for the time being, you can join as long as you’re interested.]

Yue Yunxi: [It’s okay if you don’t want to join, you can also get together with everyone often.]

The last was a voice message, only three seconds long, Lu You directly clicked on it, Yue Yunxi’s deliberately softened, warm tone came from the phone, brushing against her ears.

“Don’t quit… okay?”

Lu You keenly heard a very slight nasal sound in it.

It had a kind of dazed feeling of just waking up.

Falling into her ears, it was like a cat lightly sweeping its furry tail across a person’s palm, creating a scratchy itch in her heart.

Lu You unconsciously rubbed her palm, kneading her left little finger twice, and then rubbed her ear cartilage.

But she couldn’t alleviate that subtle and unbearable feeling at all.

The phone was still vibrating, and the group chat messages kept popping up at the top of the screen.

She clicked in to slow down a bit.

After Chen Feifei refused to show photos, Li Can replied to her: [Don’t mention the ostrich run!!! Don’t look at yours, look at Little Deer’s, I always feel like Little Deer’s photos should have a special atmosphere @YoYo]

Zhong Mi replied in seconds: [Look at sister’s! Sister show photos @YoYo]

Chen Feifei’s main thing was to integrate: [Look at sister’s! Sister show photos @YoYo]

Her copy and paste led others to join in the fun neatly, so Lu You inexplicably had a few more younger sisters, who @ her in three rounds in a loop.

Until the system prompt that the group name was changed to “National First-Level Protected Waste Group” interrupted them.

Lu You’s fingertip sliding the screen suddenly hovered over the phone.

National first-level protected waste?

It looked familiar.

Staring at it for a long time, a flash of insight, Lu You clicked on the order she had purchased for Tao Xin’s concert tickets and looked at the seller’s nickname.

Sure enough, it was exactly the same.

Lu You switched back to the group chat, slid the screen twice to look at the record, and after confirming that the modifier was Yun Zhu, she directly asked in the group: [@Yun Zhu is your nickname on Little Yellow Fish also called this?]

Yun Zhu replied quickly: [How do you know?]

Lu You raised an eyebrow, she sent a screenshot of the concert ticket order to Yun Zhu in a private chat: [Is this you?]

After half a minute, Yun Zhu replied to her: [Ah! It’s you!!! What a coincidence!!!!]

A bunch of exclamation marks made this sentence reveal a feeling similar to “exaggerated acting”.

At the same time, the bichon at home barked, running to the door with pattering sounds.

Then, the doorbell rang.

Lu You put her phone on the coffee table, got up and walked over.

She opened the door, the sensor light in the corridor lit up in response, and Yue Yunxi standing under the light raised her eyes, meeting her eyes.