MTMIO Chapter 40
by VolareThe next afternoon, Yun Zhu posted the name of the restaurant and the private room in the group chat. It was a private restaurant listed on the Black Pearl Restaurant Guide, only serving members and requiring advance reservations.
Due to the suddenness of the event, Yun Zhu went to great lengths to book the private room, so the message was also given a bit late.
Lu You, having finished her piano lesson, finally had time to take out her phone and see it.
At that time, the group was buzzing with activity, the content quite chaotic. One second they were talking about a bowl of old braised noodles for sixty-eight, and the next they were discussing the gossip of socialites and internet celebrities.
Lu You didn’t know much about Nanquan’s high-end restaurants or the love-hate relationships of internet celebrities, and was utterly confused. She simply went online to check out the restaurant.
The pictures in the review section were more elegant than the last, and the descriptive text was also particularly artistic.
She didn’t know if the food was good, but she knew the environment was very photogenic.
The location was in the southern suburbs, far from the city’s hustle and bustle.
It was in the style of a Jiangnan garden, with bamboo shadows embroidered on stones, koi swimming in the pond, long pavilions and waterside gazebos, and winding paths. If it weren’t for the waiters leading the way, Lu You felt that with her sense of direction, it would take at least an hour to find the private room.
Everyone was already in the private room. As soon as the door was pushed open, she heard the chirping of various female voices intertwined.
Yun Zhu and Chen Feifei were arguing about something, their faces flushed; Zhong Mi was scribbling away, rushing her summer homework; Yue Yunxi was discussing matters with Li Can.
A quick glance caught Lu You by surprise. Yue Yunxi was wearing glasses on her high nose bridge today.
In her memory, she rarely saw Yue Yunxi wearing glasses, but it wasn’t like she hadn’t seen them before.
For example, that night when she had a fever, she had vaguely caught sight of the silver thin frames of those glasses.
Jian Yanzhi, with nothing to do, propped her head up and looked around boredly, suddenly spotting Lu You. She made a sound and said, “Little Lu is here.”
As soon as the words fell, there was a moment of silence.
Lu You’s steps faltered slightly as she entered, and subconsciously, she looked in the direction of Yue Yunxi.
Every night of the Xicheng trip, she had faced Yue Yunxi without makeup, remembering her skin and lip color as peaches of different seasons, with varying degrees of pink in their whiteness. So she could tell at a glance that Yue Yunxi was wearing makeup.
But it was very light, so light that there was no eye makeup, so she wore glasses, so light that it only had the effect of adding a little color.
Li Can looked left and right, and jokingly said, “Seriously, Little Lu, are you and Yunxi having some kind of weight loss PK? It’s only been a month, and you’re both getting thinner and thinner, not giving us full-figured girls any face at all.”
Yue Yunxi had noticed Lu You entering the door long ago, but feeling a mix of anticipation and fear, she only cautiously touched her with her peripheral vision, which was enough to make her restless and uneasy as she retracted her gaze.
Hearing Li Can say this now, she couldn’t help but turn her eyes over.
Practicing the piano had been tiring lately, and Lu You hadn’t paid much attention to her outfit. Today, she was wearing a loose white T-shirt, the hem just covering her shorts, revealing only two slender legs swaying outside. And she was so fair-skinned that from a distance, she looked as thin as a piece of white porcelain.
Their eyes met, and Lu You couldn’t help but hold her breath, quickly turning her eyes to look at Li Can and explaining, “I’m just worried about the new fingering technique. I couldn’t get it right before.”
As she spoke, she walked towards the only empty seat – between Chen Feifei and Yue Yunxi.
Probably because no one knew about her and Yue Yunxi’s affair, the seating arrangement was still like during the trip, placing her and Yue Yunxi together.
Lu You sat down, and she didn’t know if it was because Yue Yunxi was wearing a black halter dress today, giving off a gloomy and oppressive feeling, or because it had been a while since they had seen each other, but there was a subtle sense of awkwardness between them.
Compared to sitting together before, she felt a little uncomfortable.
Yun Zhu handed over a tablet, “Old Yue ordered you a portion of braised pork that’s all lean meat, stir-fried eggplant, potato, and green pepper, and winter melon and pork rib soup. See if you want to add anything else.”
They were all the names of the dishes she had mentioned in the last phone call. Lu You’s eyelashes fluttered slightly as she pushed the tablet back and said, “That’s enough, there’s nothing I want to add.”
“How’s your fingering practice going now?” Li Can asked, seizing the opportunity to show concern.
“I can play one piece… but I still need to practice more…”
The middle and end of her words paused for a moment, because Yue Yunxi took the ceramic cup in front of her, picked up the jug of plum juice, poured her a cup, and silently pushed it in front of her.
Lu You paused for a few seconds, reached out to take it, nodded slightly and said softly, “Thank you.”
Yue Yunxi didn’t seem to hear, didn’t respond to her, and didn’t look at her. Instead, she lowered her head and fiddled with her phone.
“Is that student looking for you again?” Li Can’s gaze fell on the phone in front of Yue Yunxi, her words carrying a hint of teasing.
Yun Zhu put the tablet into the compartment under the table, her eyes lingering on Lu You for a moment before turning to Yue Yunxi and Li Can, “Hey, I just heard you say something about Old Yue giving lectures at Nanquan University, and then, what was it?”
“And then male and female students all wanted to chase her to be their girlfriend.” Li Can laughed, “Our Teacher Yue is so charming.”
Jian Yanzhi asked, “So are you in contact with them now?”
Lu You listened to them teasing Yue Yunxi while holding her cup and sipping it carefully. Then she frowned and moved the cup away from her lips.
So strong the plum juice…
Yue Yunxi withdrew her eyes from her face and said in a flat voice, “No, I rejected them all. Maybe I’m too idle, so I sent them a few assignments.”
The sour taste faded away and began to taste sweet. Lu You recovered slightly and took another sip.
Chen Feifei said as if it was nothing, “You don’t know, when the goddess used to go out with us, eight out of ten people were interested in her.”
“Really? Your aesthetics are so uniform. To be honest, although Yunxi is very good, I prefer Little Lu. The first time I saw Little Lu, I thought, she’s so beautiful!”
Zhong Mi continued Li Can’s words, “That’s right! My sister is beautiful! The most, most, most beautiful!”
Li Can avoided Zhong Mi, lowered her voice and said, “And she feels especially kissable! Zhizhi thinks so too, right, Zhizhi.”
Jian Yanzhi couldn’t wait to lower her head under the table.
Lu You: “…”
Truly, she was a straight woman, uttering wild words as soon as she opened her mouth.
She didn’t know what she was thinking, but she glanced to the side, and coincidentally, their eyes met again.
The other person’s gaze gently fell down, sinking into the white porcelain cup against her lips.
Lu You choked and almost coughed herself to the heavens.
Fortunately, the waiter came to serve the dishes soon after, and everyone began to eat, ending this increasingly crooked topic.
During the meal, Li Can suddenly remembered to care about Yue Yunxi, “By the way, yesterday they said in the group that you haven’t been in good condition lately, what’s going on? Because of preparing for the competition?”
Yue Yunxi still had food in her mouth, and wasn’t in a hurry to speak, so she put down her chopsticks first, but Yun Zhu snatched the lead.
“It’s not because of preparing for the competition. She has a very good mentality and never gets emo for competitions.” Yun Zhu thought of something, paused, and then changed the subject, “Oh, no, there was one time, just that one time. Two years ago, the day before a competition, her condition was particularly bad. She couldn’t play a single note of a piece she had practiced so well that she could play it backwards.”
Li Can: “What happened later?”
Jian Yanzhi: “What competition was it?”
“Later?” Yun Zhu laughed, with a hint of helplessness, “What else could have happened? Napoleon must have encountered Waterloo.”
In other words, she lost the competition.
Yun Zhu wanted to say something else, but a chopstick of coriander was placed in her bowl, and the smell of stink bugs drilled straight into Yun Zhu’s nose. Yun Zhu pushed the bowl away in disgust, “Don’t you know I hate coriander the most?”
“I don’t know.” Yue Yunxi said indifferently.
Yun Zhu then understood the meaning, “…Okay, okay, I’ll shut up.”
Lu You still wanted to know what competition it was, but obviously, Yun Zhu wouldn’t say.
She ate the dishes in small bites, swallowing her curiosity into her stomach.
She had been eating very little lately, and correspondingly, her appetite had also become very small. Feeling bloated, Lu You couldn’t eat any more dishes. She made an excuse to go to the restroom and wandered around the garden.
She stood by the koi pond for a while and wanted to go back, but didn’t know which path led back to the private room.
She waited in place for a while, and finally encountered a waiter. She was about to say “Excuse me” when the other person took out a bag of fish food from their pocket and sent her away.
So she had no choice but to stand in place and wait for the next passerby while feeding the fish.
The sound of footsteps gradually approached her ears.
In almost a few seconds, she distinguished that the person coming wasn’t a passing waiter, but Yue Yunxi.
Turning around to look, the hazy lamplight was like a piece of tulle, softly floating in the night, gently lifted by the person coming, allowing her vision to gradually become clear.
“Why are you out here too?” Lu You asked, pretending to be natural.
“I came to find you, I felt like you would get lost.” Yue Yunxi’s tone was very calm, saying the straightforward words even more naturally than she did.
Which also meant that she knew she would come out wandering, and knew she was a hopeless case when it came to directions.
Lu You was slightly stunned, “…Is everyone done eating?”
Stopping beside her, Yue Yunxi looked at the half-bag of fish food still in her hand, “It’ll be over after you finish feeding them, it’s about over.”
“…Oh.” Lu You was skeptical, and felt that Yue Yunxi was making allowances for her, but she didn’t know the way, and didn’t want to make their relationship ambiguous again at this moment. She didn’t say anything, turned around, and absentmindedly scattered a handful of fish food.
“Do you want to feed them?” She turned slightly and handed over the bag in her hand.
Yue Yunxi reached out to take it.
Whether intentional or unintentional, Yue Yunxi’s fingertips grazed her knuckles.
The place where she had been bitten by a mosquito was faintly itchy.
Lu You withdrew her hand, pinched a cross on the slightly raised red bump, and silently watched Yue Yunxi feed the fish stingily.
The pond of fish was being turned around and around by her intermittent feeding.
The quiet atmosphere and time rippled slowly on the water’s surface.
It seemed like a long time had passed, but it was probably only a minute or two.
Yue Yunxi asked, “Is there anything you want to say to me?”
Lu You’s hand hanging by her side curled up, “Oh, yes, Grandma Zhong asked me to tell you to combine work and rest, and not to ruin your health, that nothing is more important than good health.”
Yue Yunxi replied almost obediently, “Okay, I’ll remember.”
After a pause, she asked, “What about you?”
The last bit of fish food fell down, the fish tail swayed on the water surface, the sound of water was loud, covering the sudden heartbeat, and the slight tremor in her answer.
“Me what?”
After a long time, the water surface returned to calm.
“Also remember to combine work and rest, and take care of your health.” Yue Yunxi closed her fingers and held the empty bag, “Let’s go back.”
Lu You didn’t say anything, and silently followed behind.
She knew what Yue Yunxi actually wanted to ask.
She wanted to ask if she had anything to say.
But she hadn’t thought it through yet.
In the new game, she would still admit defeat in advance.
Because Yue Yunxi was too good.
So good that she couldn’t figure out what she had that was worth Yue Yunxi liking so much, so good that she couldn’t bear to give Yue Yunxi an unfair start, so good that she didn’t dare to let Yue Yunxi down…
Under the streetlights, the shadows of the two people were very close. Lu You lowered her head, her eyes falling from the shadows to the distance in between.
Only half a step apart.
When they returned to the private room, the others were coming out. They bumped into each other, and Yun Zhu, holding her phone, quickened her pace and walked forward, saying:
“The one who does handmade ceramics in Xicheng, just called and said that all the ceramics we made have been fired, and can be mailed, I added her customer service WeChat, you two send me the address.”
Lu You remembered that Grandma had mentioned this on the first day back to Nanquan.
The old lady seemed to particularly cherish the large ceramic jar she had made, and was very afraid that it would be damaged during the mailing process.
“Can we pick it up ourselves?” Lu You asked.
“We can, but we can.” Yun Zhu looked puzzled and confirmed, “Are you planning to go to Xicheng again and carry it back by hand?”
“Yeah.” Lu You nodded, “Grandma cares about the one she made, do you have anything you want me to bring back with me?”
“Is it easy for you to carry? The one your grandma made is so big.” Li Can waved her hand, “Never mind, mine can be mailed.”
The rest of the people also said that mailing was fine.
When it came to Yue Yunxi, she was silent for a moment and asked, “Can you help me bring it back?”
Lu You smiled and nodded in agreement, and then recalled what Yue Yunxi had made.
Walking to the parking lot, she only remembered the scene of Yue Yunxi holding a lump of mud as they were about to say goodbye.
At that time, all her attention was on the pottery pot that Grandma made and her own unidentifiable object, and she didn’t pay much attention to anything else.
“Be careful on the way back.” Yue Yunxi said to her.
Lu You made an “hmm” sound, and asked, “What is the ceramic you want me to bring?”
“…It’s a little deer.”
Not far away, the car lights turned on, and the orange-yellow light fell over, scalding a strand in Yue Yunxi’s gaze towards her.
“I can’t bear for her to be broken at all, so I can only trouble you to help me bring her to me.”