MTMIO Chapter 37
by VolareHer voice was muffled in the soft belly of the deer doll, a low voice containing an unspeakable complex mood.
As if she had been holding her breath and waiting for her reply, after hearing the answer, Yue Yunxi breathed a long, light sigh, even more drawn out than the gradually relaxed breath after being frightened before.
Like a drizzle, it made Lu You’s heart even wetter.
“Will the lessons start after you return to Nanquan?” Yue Yunxi asked.
Lu You said, “I have to wait for Teacher Zhong’s tour to end, probably at the end of the month if nothing unexpected happens.”
“Will you be nervous this time?” Yue Yunxi asked softly with concern.
“It’s okay this time, maybe because Grandma Zhong set an example. Her situation is even worse than mine, and she can already play four against three. If I work hard, I should be able to do it too.”
In the end, Lu You still revealed some lack of confidence.
“Grandma Zhong started learning piano late, only in junior high school, and she didn’t study for long, it was intermittent. She studied for two years, then stopped for four or five years for her studies, picked it up again as a hobby for a few years, and then some unpleasant things happened, so she had to put it down. She only started learning to play again the year before last. You started learning early, you’ve studied for a long time, you have perseverance, and you’re still young…”
The sound of water came from the other end, as if Yue Yunxi had poured herself a glass of hot water. Lu You heard her voice as if it was seeping through the rising heat, carrying warmth.
“You can definitely do it.”
Even though a bottle of ice beer wasn’t enough to get her drunk, Lu You had a tipsy feeling, her brain and blood all over her body were heating up.
She recalled how before leaving the Zhong family’s ancestral home, the old woman had appeared in person with good intentions to share her experience. And in those words, the most important turning point was Yue Yunxi’s name.
She injured the little finger of her left hand, so she couldn’t play the piano, just like Grandma Zhong.
Using an avatar for three or four years that came from a movie about a secret love story, it was hard to say whether Yue Yunxi had already planned to pave the way for her when she persuaded Grandma Zhong to rekindle her hobby two years ago.
Lu You sat up from the bed, grabbed the small deer doll and hugged it in her arms, “Sister Yunxi…”
As soon as she finished speaking, a “dong dong dong” sound came from the other end, like someone was banging on something frantically, making people’s hearts tremble.
Lu You’s throat tightened: “What’s that sound?”
“Someone’s knocking on the door, I’ll go see.” Yue Yunxi replied.
“Hey, don’t go.” Lu You had a bad feeling and quickly stopped her, “Call the front desk.”
Yue Yunxi responded with a “okay.”
Lu You listened intently as Yue Yunxi put down her phone and used the room’s landline to call the front desk.
After a while, the knocking that would occasionally burst out finally stopped, but Lu You still didn’t agree to let Yue Yunxi go take a look.
After a while, the room’s landline rang. After Yue Yunxi answered, communicated, and hung up, she picked up her phone and said, “It was other guests who went to the wrong floor.”
Lu You’s tense shoulder line sank a little, and she sighed, “This night of yours is even more exciting than riding a roller coaster. A little carelessness, and your life would be in danger.”
Yue Yunxi didn’t speak, not knowing if she hadn’t recovered yet.
Lu You continued to grumble, “I’m going to put Italy on the tourism blacklist.”
Yue Yunxi, who had drunk half of her water, heard this, put down her cup and asked, “Don’t you want to go to Florence to see the sunset anymore?”
Lu You was momentarily stunned.
When she was twenty years old, Tao Xin gathered a group of friends for a road trip. One day, they went to a small coastal town and arrived at the seaside hotel just in time for the sunset in the evening. So they climbed on the rocks to a high place to watch the sunset, like a spark turning into a prairie fire, burning the sea red.
She said she also wanted to go to Florence to see the sunset.
Tao Xin grumbled behind her, “Is there a location requirement for watching the sunset? Isn’t it just the sun setting, it’s the same wherever you watch it.”
She stood on the rocks, holding down the straw hat that was about to be blown away by the sea breeze, turned her head and said, “It’s not the same, the sunset in Florence is especially gentle, with an unspeakable romance.”
Twenty years old, twenty years old.
Lu You suddenly felt uneasy.
If Yue Yunxi had feelings for her back then… that would be a full six years.
Lu You didn’t dare to think about it anymore, constantly hypnotizing herself that she might be overthinking it, maybe Yue Yunxi had also seen those online promotions about the Florence sunset, so she remembered her words.
But even if it wasn’t six years, everything Yue Yunxi had done for her during this time was still vivid in her mind.
Lu You only felt like she was being squeezed into a sealed jar, suffocating and unable to breathe.
She hugged the doll, and the words she couldn’t say before came to her lips again, but she heard the landline ringing on Yue Yunxi’s side again.
Immediately afterward, Yue Yunxi greeted her and went to answer the landline.
Lu You collapsed, like a balloon that had been punctured, most of the energy she had mustered was released.
After a moment, Yue Yunxi’s clear, soft voice flowed slowly into her ears like a stream: “It was the front desk calling, they also got the room number wrong. Listening to her apology, it seems that the guest from just now was drunk and went into the wrong room again, almost assaulting a female guest.”
The low voice contained a restraint that tried hard but still couldn’t suppress the lingering fear.
Lu You also felt a chill run down her spine after hearing this, secretly rejoicing that she had thought quickly at that time and asked Yue Yunxi to call the front desk first.
Otherwise, it would be… Lu You stopped herself from making unnecessary assumptions in time, and said a little irritably, “You really have a big heart. Something almost happened just now, and you still dared to open the door.”
“I hadn’t recovered yet, my head was empty.” Yue Yunxi paused slightly, weakly defending herself, “I didn’t want to open the door, I just wanted to look through the peephole.”
Lu You “tsk”ed, “Have you ever watched a horror movie, where the protagonist looks out through the peephole, and then—”
“Hey! Don’t scare me.” Yue Yunxi quickly interrupted her, the panicked emotions stirring the soft ingredients in her gentle tone even more obviously, “I’m a coward, and you’re not here to sleep with me at night, and you can’t stay on the phone with me all the time…”
Her voice stopped, Yue Yunxi didn’t continue, like a silent test and wait.
Lu You didn’t know what to say and didn’t say anything.
The phone was pressed against her ear, followed by two heavy breaths with different meanings, making these dozens of seconds of silence feel like an ambiguous tug-of-war.
After a while, Yue Yunxi picked away the invisible line in the middle and asked softly, “Can you?”
It was she who scared people first, and she was really embarrassed to say no irresponsibly.
Lu You closed her eyes and asked, “Are you very scared?”
“Yeah.” Yue Yunxi said softly, “Things are not going well today.”
Lu You said lukewarmly, “Then I’ll hang up after you fall asleep.”
Who knew that the other side would take it a step further: “Don’t hang up even when you’re asleep, okay?”
Lu You fell silent again.
After another moment of stalemate, she said vaguely, “If I fall asleep, I might unconsciously hang up.”
After a pause, she couldn’t bear it, “If you’re really scared, you can call me to wake me up.”
Yue Yunxi didn’t respond, just chuckled softly and remembered to ask, “What did you want to say to me earlier when you called?”
Lu You’s red lips parted slightly, and Yue Yunxi’s previous helpless sigh “Things are not going well today” appeared in her mind.
In the end, it was the third time that she couldn’t say those words that were lingering in her heart to make the other person feel even worse.
“I’ll tell you when you come back.”
Yue Yunxi was silent for a few seconds and asked, “Can’t you say it now?”
Lu You pursed her lips and raised her hand to wipe the tip of her nose, “Mainly, I forgot.”
Yue Yunxi laughed softly and said considerately, “Then tell me when you remember.”
“Yeah.” Lu You changed the subject guiltily, “Zhong Mi said that Auntie Yue took you to rent Teacher Zhong’s house.”
“Yeah, that was when I was in elementary school.”
The sound of rustling came from the other side of the phone, like she was packing things, followed by Yue Yunxi’s voice, sometimes near and sometimes far,
“At that time, Auntie Zhong was studying abroad, and Grandma Zhong was bored living alone, so she put the vacant room up for rent. Just when my mother and I transferred to a nearby school, we saw the advertisement and saw that it said the room also had a piano room, so we contacted Grandma Zhong.”
Lu You “oh”ed and asked, “Did anything interesting happen?”
“Um…” Yue Yunxi pondered, “When we first moved in, Grandma Zhong was very happy and cooked herself.”
Lu You was tired of holding the phone and put it on the bed, and she also fell down, “Was it not good?”
“The dishes were all the same color.” Yue Yunxi said.
“What color?”
“Charcoal black.”
Lu You laughed after hearing this, temporarily throwing the worries of peeping into the other person’s heart behind her. She remembered the table of dishes she ate in the evening and said, “What I ate today was not bad, I thought it was Grandma Zhong who made it.”
After a few seconds of silence, Yue Yunxi opened her mouth and asked, “What dishes?”
Lu You turned over and told her the names of the dishes: “Braised pork, winter melon ribs soup, stir-fried eggplant, potatoes, and green peppers, and braised crucian carp. I don’t know if Zhong Mi told Grandma about my taste, the braised pork was all lean meat.”
“Maybe.”
The intermittent chat, intertwined with the chirping of cicadas in the courtyard, was playing in unison on the evenly flowing timeline.
Yue Yunxi didn’t hang up the phone even when she went to wash up, she put the phone on the sink outside the shower.
So the sound of water passed through the frosted glass, vaguely transmitted to the phone and flowed into Lu You’s ears.
Like the sound of a gurgling stream, coupled with the croaking of frogs leaking through the cracks in the doors and windows, it unconsciously relaxed people’s nerves.
She was too tired from sending Yue Yunxi to the airport and tuning the piano during the day. As soon as she relaxed, the feeling of fatigue spread, and Lu You closed her eyes unconsciously.
She didn’t know how long it had been when she vaguely heard Yue Yunxi call her and ask if she had fallen asleep.
A very light voice, as if it was a murmur overflowing from her dream.
Lu You didn’t remember if she had responded, she only knew that she had quickly lost consciousness again.
This sleep, she slept even more uneasily than the night before. In just a few hours, she had more than a dozen dreams.
At the beginning of the dream, Zhang Wenyin was holding her and walking on a cobblestone road full of flowers. At the Y-shaped intersection, Zhang Wenyin put her down and walked to the left without looking back. She was confused for a while and walked to the right.
Ahead of the road, Lu Huai’an was sitting in a four-wheeled car, leaving her alone to walk barefoot behind. The road was bumpy, covered with uneven stones, and she stumbled and fell countless times.
Until she passed the rapeseed field, Lu Huai’an was long gone. She turned her head to look at the flower field, and her grandma waved to her. She trotted over happily and put on the shoes her grandma made.
She stepped on the beautiful cloth shoes and stepped onto the dam. Tao Xin beside her said to her, “We will always be together.”
So, at the three-way intersection where dandelions were floating, she held Tao Xin’s hand and walked to the left side of the road together.
Unexpectedly, it was a dead end. Tao Xin stayed where she was, and she slowly retreated back.
Standing at the intersection again, she stared at the other two roads for a long time and stepped onto the rightmost road.
Every dream was like this, the people around her kept changing, and they often dispersed while walking.
At the end of the dream, there were two forked roads, one long without end, and one that reached the end at a glance.
Yue Yunxi stood on both roads, they were watching her, one gentle and one charming, with red lips slightly open, chanting her name.
“Youyou…”
Lu You shuddered and woke up suddenly, opening her eyes.
The phone lying across in front of her was barely hanging on with 2% of its battery, and the screen was still on the call interface.
On the other side, Yue Yunxi’s breathing was light and even, she should be asleep.
But in the next second, she moaned, “Lu You…”
Lu You’s heart jumped suddenly, her eyelashes trembled slightly, watching the phone turn off automatically.
The screen suddenly turned pitch black, devouring the little sleepiness she had left.
After a while, Lu You got up from the bed and found the data cable to charge her phone.
She looked up, her gaze passed through the lacquered window and landed on the courtyard.
The sky was about to dawn, and the square walls framed a misty shadow. A crescent moon still hung on the top of the wall, and the thin light brushed past the branches of the pomegranate tree standing quietly in the shadow, vaguely outlining the outline of the branches and leaves.
In the corner of her eye, the phone screen lit up again.
Between the light flapping of her eyelashes, Lu You’s eyes fell on the pomegranate hanging on the branch.
The fruit that was not yet ripe, heavy and green with a hint of reddishness, was full of sourness.