MTMIO Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Her Long-Cherished, Unreachable Dream Always Ended With Her

Chapter 3 Her Long-Cherished, Unreachable Dream Always Ended With Her

Overwhelmed by emotions, Lu You, crying so hard her stomach churned, bypassed Yue Yunxi and staggered through the back door to the bar’s restroom. She locked herself in a stall and immediately threw up.

She vomited until there was nothing left, her stomach spasming as if being wrung out, before finally stopping.

Slightly recovered, she unlocked the door but suddenly heard Chen Feifei’s voice outside, making her pause.

“What’s your budget for renting a place?”

“…Six hundred.”

It was the waiter who had brought the ice cream earlier who answered.

Lu You remembered that this girl was a struggling student working part-time at the bar.

Outside, Chen Feifei pondered, “What’s the latest the school will let you stay?”

“Next Wednesday.”

“Okay, I’ll help you look around.”

“Thank you, Sister Fei!”

Hearing them leave, Lu You finally pushed open the stall door and walked to the sink, looking at herself in the mirror.

Her palm-sized oval face was pale, her nose and eyes red, and her eyes filled with tears. She looked utterly wretched.

After a long while, she turned on the faucet, cupped her hands, and lowered her head to wash her face.

The cool water soothed her thin eyelids and dampened her long eyelashes.

A scene of her crying against Yue Yunxi’s shoulder suddenly flashed in her mind.

Lu You abruptly turned off the water and opened her eyes.

Someone reached out and offered her a bottle of mineral water.

Looking up, she was stung by the heartache in Yue Yunxi’s eyes, and she immediately averted her gaze.

“Thank you.”

Lu You took the water and easily twisted open the cap, her hand pausing involuntarily.

The cap had been loosened beforehand.

After she rinsed her mouth, Yue Yunxi asked with concern, “How do you feel now?”

Lu You: “Better.”

Yue Yunxi: “I’ll take you home to rest.”

“Don’t bother, Sister Yunxi, I can go back myself.” Lu You took out her phone and sent a WeChat message to Chen Feifei to let her know.

Yue Yunxi hesitated for only a moment before handing over the umbrella she was holding.

Even with all her worries, she was afraid of seeming disrespectful again and causing Lu You to feel aversion.

Lu You looked at the umbrella handle but didn’t take it. “There’s a spare one at the bar.”

Yue Yunxi didn’t retract her hand either. “I have another one in my car. Leave the spare one at the bar for others who don’t have an umbrella.”

Without a reason to refuse, and feeling too embarrassed to let Yue Yunxi keep holding the umbrella, Lu You took the umbrella and thanked her.

Yue Yunxi gently instructed, “Be careful on the way. Make yourself a cup of warm honey water when you get back. If you don’t have honey, just drink some warm water. Don’t set the air conditioning too low. Go to bed early and don’t think about anything.”

Lu You listened absentmindedly and said goodbye before leaving.

She currently lived in Jingjiang Residential Complex, only two streets away from Trendy Street District.

She remembered when Tao Xin was a resident singer at the bar, she would often walk her back. They would walk side-by-side on this road, as if it were yesterday.

Lu You cut off the budding memories in time and looked up to take a breath.

The moon hanging in the sky had frayed edges, as if it had gone moldy.

Not far behind her, a black car followed slowly, stopping and starting. Yue Yunxi, in the driver’s seat, lowered the car window and felt the wind blowing into the car from Lu You’s direction, carrying the dampness of the rain.

The car drove into the residential complex, and Yue Yunxi watched Lu You enter the apartment building, raising her eyes to count to the seventh floor.

The light inside the glass window was turned on, illuminating a small patch of the night.

Clutching her phone, she sent a WeChat message at a not-so-precise time: 【Are you home yet?】

YoYo: 【Mm】

Clichéd words of concern were typed frantically, deleted, and repeated many times until the light on the seventh floor went out. In the end, she couldn’t send it.

Yue Yunxi cleared the input box one last time, put away her phone, and drove away.

It was the same road she had come on. The lights of the shops along the street, along with the streetlights, were soaked in the fine rain. The colorful lights were scattered by the rain into the puddles on the ground. The wipers occasionally swept the wet windshield.

Those mottled shadows were sometimes clear and sometimes blurry, making everything that had happened tonight seem like a dream.

Like a dream, but it wasn’t.

Her long-cherished, unreachable dream always ended with her, but she never imagined her unhappy.

—

Lu You lay on her side in bed, holding the pocket watch that Tao Xin had given her for her last birthday. A plum blossom deer was engraved on the watch lid.

Opening the lid, the hands moved clockwise, tick by tick, but the memories in her mind played in reverse.

From the day of her birthday, when Tao Xin put the watch on her, and the two of them unintentionally got close, and then Tao Xin suddenly startled and avoided her as if fleeing.

To a date before her birthday, a similar scene, an identical reaction.

And even before that, when they had a heart-to-heart talk, Tao Xin told her that she was a bit unaccustomed to the change in their relationship. She smiled and said, “We can just get along the same way as before.”

Because she wasn’t sure how far they would go, she didn’t dare, and didn’t want to, cross the line.

From friendship to love, it seemed that they had only added a title.

Looking at it now, there were traces everywhere.

Lu You closed her eyes groggily and dreamed that at the beginning of the year, when they had a conflict, Tao Xin had rushed back overnight to coax her.

Half-asleep and half-awake, she felt the sound of knocking on the door actually echoing in her ears.

She woke up abruptly.

The room was quiet enough to hear a pin drop.

She looked up at the digital clock on the bedside table. It was only 4:30.

Getting up, she pulled open the curtains.

The desolate gray-blue sky surged towards her like gloomy tides, enveloping her whole body and “soaking” her into wakefulness.

After washing up, Lu You began to pack her luggage. The 40-square-meter one-bedroom apartment was small, and she had low material desires, so she didn’t have many things. Two suitcases were enough.

The remaining pocket watch, small deer pillow, coal ball pendant, phone case printed with the moon, ukulele… Lu You put them into a cardboard box one by one.

The scenes of Tao Xin giving her these things kept flashing in her mind.

Finally, it settled on the records Chu Xiao had sent her, a series of identical gift photos.

Lu You closed her eyes.

If she had known this would happen, she shouldn’t have agreed to the pursuit in the first place. She wouldn’t even be able to be friends now.

Sealing the cardboard box with tape, she went to the bedside table to pick up her phone to order same-city delivery.

The screen unlocked, revealing an unread WeChat message.

Just as she was about to click on it, the doorbell rang first.

Lu You looked through the peephole. Outside stood a deliveryman wearing a yellow uniform.

She thought it had been delivered to the wrong place.

But when she opened the door, the deliveryman held the delivery slip and confirmed with her, “Miss Lu, right?”

Lu You was stunned for a moment and nodded with an “Mm.”

The deliveryman handed over the delivery bag. “Your delivery, please take it.”

Lu You took it and looked at the delivery slip.

Nourishing millet porridge, lotus leaf sweet bean paste buns, and small portions of side dishes.

Lu You lowered her head to look at her phone and clicked on the unread message, discovering that it was actually from Yue Yunxi.

The message had been sent twenty minutes ago: 【I ordered you some porridge. You don’t have to eat it if you really don’t have an appetite. Just remember that there’s ready-made porridge when you’re hungry.】

Something seemed to prick Lu You’s heart.

Another message slid out on the left.

Yue Yunxi: 【Did you receive the delivery?】

YoYo: 【Received it, thank you, Sister Yunxi】

Confirming the price on the delivery slip, Lu You transferred the money over.

Afraid that Yue Yunxi would order her another portion at noon, and also afraid of seeming presumptuous if she said it too bluntly.

After thinking it over, she sent a message saying: 【Luckily, I haven’t left yet, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to receive it】

She added curiously: 【If I had left, what would have happened to the delivery?】

Yue Yunxi didn’t accept the money and replied: 【Give it to the deliveryman who made a wasted trip】

Yue Yunxi: 【Are you going out later?】

YoYo: 【Mm, to take a walk】

She didn’t specify where she was going, and Yue Yunxi was also mindful of boundaries and didn’t ask too much, only replying with a “Okay.”

The transfer hadn’t been claimed yet, and Lu You reminded her one last time. Yue Yunxi didn’t reply.

She wondered if something had happened.

Putting the phone aside, Lu You opened the porridge container.

She really didn’t have an appetite, but she still forced herself to eat a little. She didn’t want to be half-dead over something that wasn’t a huge deal.

Afterward, she sent the luggage away separately. After the cleaning lady finished the deep cleaning, she had someone come and change the locks. Before lunchtime, Lu You returned to Lanwan Garden.

It was also good timing that she received a call from the deliveryman just as she parked her Vespa in the innermost part of the garage.

“Are you at the entrance now? Wait a moment, I’ll be right there.” Lu You saw the deliveryman as soon as she came out of the garage, hung up the phone, and walked forward, reaching out her hand and saying, “Give it to me.”

Having seen each other just over two hours ago, the deliveryman pushed two suitcases to her and pointed to the cardboard box at his feet, drawing an arc to the yard gate next to the cardboard box. “This cash-on-delivery box is to be delivered next door, right?”

Lu You nodded, listened to the deliveryman’s voice on the phone, pressed her fingerprint lock, and dragged her suitcase into the courtyard.

Not long after, the yard gate next door was pulled open, and Yue Yunxi came out. Through the hollowed-out gap in the Lu family’s yard gate, she saw a familiar slender figure carrying a suitcase up the steps.

“Two hundred and fifty, beauty.” The deliveryman held out his payment code.

Yue Yunxi turned her head back, glanced lightly at the “Tao Xin” in the recipient field on the cardboard box, and paid the bill.

Looking at the neighboring house again, the mahogany door was tightly closed, and there was no one under the porch.

—

The elderly eat early. When Lu You entered the house, her grandmother and the nanny, Auntie Liu, were already eating at the table. The little Bichon Frise in the house heard the movement first and squatted at the door, wagging its tail.

Lu You pushed her suitcase into the house, bent down to touch the Bichon Frise’s head, and straightened up, looking at her grandmother with a smile, saying, “Surprise, surprise?”

“Oh my!” The old lady’s face, deeply caressed by time, crinkled with smile lines. She went over and took Lu You’s hand, half-scolding, “Why didn’t you say you were coming back in advance? If I had known, I would have asked Xiao Liu to make two more of your favorite dishes.”

“We couldn’t finish it even if you made more.” Lu You craned her neck to look at the two meat dishes, one vegetable dish, and one soup on the table. “This is pretty good. I’m going to wash my hands.”

Auntie Liu brought the rice.

Lu You didn’t have much of an appetite, and she paid special attention to her portion. She belatedly realized that, apart from the first time, when Auntie Liu didn’t know her portion size, she had given her less rice than she normally ate.

Adhering to the principle that she could always add more if she wasn’t full.

Being so thoughtful, Lu You couldn’t help but think of the person who had recommended Auntie Liu to her.

“It’s not even the change of seasons yet. Why did you bring two suitcases back?” Grandma clipped a piece of braised pork for her, removing the fatty part and putting it in her own bowl. “Are you packing some treasures to take away?”

Lu You’s nose tingled with soreness. She stuffed meat and rice into her mouth, not replying.

Grandma didn’t urge her to answer. “Eat slowly, no one’s going to steal it from you.”

Swallowing the rice in her mouth and the tears, Lu You turned her head to look at her grandmother, smiling. “How about I come back and live with you?”

“Good, of course, good!”

“Then let’s make it clear beforehand. I sometimes come home late, don’t wait for me.”

“I won’t wait, I won’t wait. I won’t wait for you.” Grandma asked, “Then the apartment you rented outside? Did you cancel the lease?”

Lu You touched the tip of her nose and mumbled “Mm”, taking out her phone to send a WeChat message to Chen Feifei: 【I’m not living in the apartment in Jingjiang Residential Complex anymore. Help me rent it to the part-time student at the bar. Just charge her six hundred for the rent】

Chen Feifei: 【?】

Lu You: 【I heard you talking in the restroom yesterday】

Chen Feifei: 【No, then where are you living?】

Lu You: 【Lanwan Garden】

Chen Feifei: 【!!! You didn’t want to live under the same roof as your dad, that’s why you moved out, right? Don’t tell me it’s for the student at the bar】

Lu You: 【[Smile] He’s found another one and is completely lost in happiness】

If Grandma hadn’t let it slip when she was sick, she wouldn’t have known that Lu Huai’an, bewitched by his new love, wasn’t home every day and had only arranged an unreliable nanny to take care of Grandma.

Thinking about it, Lu You got angry and poked at the rice twice.

Grandma glanced at her. “What’s wrong?”

Lu You slumped her shoulders and shook her head. Just then, Auntie Liu came over with a bowl to get soup. She leaned closer to Grandma and asked in a low voice, “How is this Auntie Liu?”

Grandma’s eyes curved, and she said very satisfiedly, “She’s especially good! She has an eye for work and is quick. She doesn’t mind me either. She walks the dog and goes to the park with me every day, and she even tells me gossip!”

Lu You relaxed, unconsciously thinking of the person who had recommended Auntie Liu to her.

She could draw a line with Tao Xin, but with Yue Yunxi, she couldn’t.

—

After lunch, Lu You accompanied her grandmother to watch TV on the sofa.

Having been busy all morning, tensing her nerves and pretending to be okay, she suddenly relaxed, and a feeling of dizziness and weakness immediately washed over her.

Her tired eyelids grew heavier and heavier. Lu You hugged a pillow and dozed off. She woke up suddenly, seeing Grandma take the needle and thread box over.

“You’re awake? Just in time to mend the hole in your pants.” Grandma said, sitting next to her and threading the needle.

Lu You didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Mend what? It’s the style.”

“What kind of style is so tattered? You’re just embarrassed to say you tore it.” Grandma pinched the hole. “Don’t move, be careful of pricking yourself.”

Lu You obediently didn’t move, letting the old woman do as she pleased.

Grandma asked her, “Did you call Taotao back last night?”

Lu You “Mm”-ed.

Having sewn up one hole and preparing to sew the other pant leg, she heard the young couple on TV arguing. Grandma asked again, “You two really didn’t argue yesterday?”

Not wanting Grandma to worry, Lu You wiped her nose and said considerately, “We didn’t argue. We just talked and felt that we’re not really suitable for being in a relationship right now. We should just be ordinary friends.”

The last four words were truly like a lump in her throat, but luckily, Grandma didn’t notice anything.

Grandma was only surprised for a few seconds before saying, “That’s good too. I didn’t think you two were suitable either.”

Although she had accepted the fact that Lu You liked the same sex, Grandma still held a glimmer of hope, thinking that Lu You just hadn’t met the right heterosexual person yet.

Seeing Auntie Liu bring over a fruit platter, she immediately suggested, “Xiao Liu, next time you go to the matchmaking corner to find a partner for our girl, take me with you.”

Hearing this, Lu You quickly stated, “I don’t mind you going to chat with those aunties and grandmas, but don’t matchmake for me, okay? I don’t want it! I refuse!”

“What if you meet a good one?”

“I don’t want it.”

Grandma persevered, “A really, really good one?”

Lu You laughed. “A really, really good one wouldn’t like me.”

Grandma dismissed it. “Nonsense. Our YoYo is good-looking, has a great figure, and is highly educated. Why wouldn’t they like her?”

Lu You was amused. “You’re giving me the granddaughter filter. Everything looks good.”

Grandma said confidently, “It’s true! There are a lot of people who like you!”

Lu You asked jokingly, “Who likes me?”

As she was talking, the Bichon Frise that was sleeping stood its head up and looked towards the front door. Immediately following, the doorbell rang. Still sewing up the hole, Liu Yi went to open the door.

Grandma continued the topic. “I, Xiao Liu, you-”

Lu You interrupted in advance, “Relatives don’t count. Besides you two, who else?”

In her sight, Grandma clipped the thread and paused her hand, the voice falling to her ears, “Yunxi.”

Lu You paused slightly.

Yue Yunxi’s voice came from behind. “Grandma.”

Lu You turned around, reacting after a beat that Grandma had just greeted Yue Yunxi.

“I brought some gifts from Switzerland for you.” Yue Yunxi was wearing a moon-white shirt dress, her temperament set off as more gentle and at ease. The gift box she held in her hand looked a little flashy.

Every time she went abroad, she would bring souvenirs for Grandma. At first, Grandma was embarrassed to accept them, but now she happily opened the box in front of her.

Inside the box were a bar of chocolate, a box of throat lozenges, a few bottles of health supplements, a bottle opener fridge magnet, a small cowbell, and something wrapped tightly in paper.

Lu You liked cowbells. She picked it up and shook it.

The jingle bell seemed to have a healing effect that swept away all depressed moods.

Yue Yunxi’s gaze turned to her, and she asked without changing her expression, “When did you come back?”

Having slept and digested everything for a morning, Lu You didn’t have as deep a sense of rejection towards Yue Yunxi as she did last night, and she remembered the favor, her attitude and tone were much gentler: “Noon.”

Yue Yunxi noticed the suitcase standing in the living room that hadn’t been put away: “Are you back for a few days?”

Lu You: “Not sure, I want to spend more time with Grandma.”

She should say that she wanted Grandma to be with her. When she was sad, she didn’t want to be alone at all.

The tone was low and listless, and Yue Yunxi slightly raised her eyes to look at her.

The sunlight slanted into the room, falling softly on her fair, slightly cold face. The transparency of her features was illuminated more clearly, like fired glass.

Having the contradictory nature of being tough and fragile at the same time.

“Yunxi,” Grandma pointed to the English on the back of the throat lozenges and health supplements and asked, “This time, you didn’t put a paper with a Chinese translation on it.”

Yue Yunxi withdrew her gaze, saying without blinking, “I forgot.”

She turned her head, patiently explained it to Grandma first, and then asked Liu Yi to bring paper, pen, and transparent tape. She wrote neatly in small regular script, carefully sticking a meticulous translation on the corresponding packaging.

Lu You tilted her head and watched.

Perhaps her gaze was too direct, too long, Yue Yunxi’s pen paused twice, stopped, and suddenly looked over.

They only made eye contact for a moment before Yue Yunxi quickly withdrew her gaze, handing her the thing wrapped in paper in the gift box.

Lu You was puzzled: “What is this?”

Yue Yunxi lowered her head and continued writing: “Open it and see.”

The paper was unwrapped layer by layer. Inside was a glass.

Inside the glass stood a crystal-clear mountain peak, standing quietly in the cup, lying in the palm of her hand.

After Yue Yunxi finished sticking one translation, she turned her head to look at her holding the cup and asked casually, “Do you like it?”

Lu You: “It’s pretty.”

Yue Yunxi pointed to one of the boxes of chocolate and recommended, “This one is pretty good, do you want to try it?”

Sweets.

Lu You opened the box and took out a piece. The chocolate melted in her mouth, the texture silky and delicate, melting instantly, and even her mood melted a little.

Grandma looked at it longingly, reaching out to take one.

Lu You stopped her. “You can’t eat it.”

“You can’t eat it.”

The two voices sounded almost simultaneously.

Lu You subconsciously looked towards Yue Yunxi, meeting the other’s gaze, very light, and quickly withdrawn.

A trace of subtlety, like lightning hidden in thick clouds, looming, was caught by her unintentionally.

Knowing that Grandma couldn’t eat chocolate, but still sent it.

A souvenir for Grandma, but asked her if she liked it.

Lu You rubbed the cup and asked, “Are the chocolate and the cup for me?”

Yue Yunxi lowered her eyes and said in a flat voice, “Yes, I originally wanted to tell Grandma to give them to you when you came back, but I didn’t expect you to be home.”

Lu You nodded, not thinking too much.

After sticking the translation paper on all the packaging, Yue Yunxi said goodbye and prepared to leave.

Her headache from the morning had become much worse, stabbing like needles, and Lu You was exhausted. So, after returning the umbrella to Yue Yunxi, she said lazily, “Then I won’t see you off.”

“This child.” Grandma got up to see her off, but Yue Yunxi stopped her.

“It’s just a few steps, don’t see me off.”

“Then come play often when you have time.”

“Okay.”

Walking out through the small courtyard, Yue Yunxi turned a corner and saw Tao Xin’s father’s car parked at her gate. Her footsteps paused. Seeing who was sitting in the driver’s seat –

It was the chauffeur Tao Fu had arranged for Tao Xin.

Yue Yunxi opened the door and unsurprisingly heard Tao Xin’s voice.

“It’s a deal, Dad, Auntie Yue, and Sister are all going to listen to my concert~”

Hearing the opening of the door, Tao Xin turned her head, her eyes lit up, her smile deepening: “Sister Yunxi!”

Yue Shao asked: “Did you give the things to Xiao Lu’s grandma?”

Hearing this, Tao Xin’s raised corners of her lips drooped instantly.

Yue Yunxi “Mm”-ed, changed into house slippers and entered the house.

Tao Xin’s eyelids twitched twice.

The more she feared Yue Yunxi being alone with Lu You, the more annoyed she was that Yue Yunxi entered Lu You’s house alone without her knowing.

She followed Yue Yunxi and asked, “Did you go to Yoyo’s house? What did you go to Yoyo’s house for?”

“I went to see Grandma and gave her souvenirs.” Yue Yunxi said naturally, “I received your delivery at noon.”

Tao Xin asked, “What delivery?”

Walking into the kitchen, Yue Yunxi took a bottle of water from the refrigerator: “I put it in your bedroom.”

Tao Xin was absent-minded: “Oh, then I’ll open it when I come back after the tour.”

Glancing at the pink envelope in Tao Xin’s hand, Yue Yunxi asked casually, “Didn’t you say you had an interview today? Why did you come back?”

Tao Xin’s expression became unnatural, clutching the envelope tightly: “To… give you tickets.”

Before this, she had gone to Jingjiang and found that the lock had been changed. She had knocked on the door for a long time before confirming that Lu You wasn’t home.

Tao Xin hesitated and asked: “Did you see Yoyo when you went over there just now?”

Yue Yunxi lowered her eyes and picked up the water cup, “No.”