MTMIO Chapter 42

Chapter 42: She is on My Endless Island

September is already the season of autumn, but the sky still brightens early. Before six o’clock, the morning light poured into the small courtyard, flowing through the cracks in the doors and windows, gradually spreading across Lu You’s face.

She never slept peacefully, the quilt was kicked open, leaving only a small corner to keep the little deer plushie in her arms warm. As for the “big deer” herself, most of her body was exposed.

The autumn morning air was slightly chilly. Her arms and legs, exposed to the air, finally felt the cold. She turned over, groggily hearing the chirping of birds from the courtyard.

For a moment, she felt disoriented, as if time had regressed to the summer more than a month ago, the air conditioner blasting cold air, cicadas and birds chirping in succession.

She tucked her hands and feet back under the covers, curling into a ball, and slowly snuggled twice in the direction of her memory.

Only when she touched the cold sheets did she suddenly wake up. This time, it was just her alone.

It was as if she was pricked by a habit seeping out from her memories, stinging her so that she had no sleepiness left.

They hadn’t even officially dated, yet she felt like she had broken up.

No, even during a real breakup, it wasn’t this heart-wrenching.

Not sure if it was morning grumpiness or dissatisfaction with her own sentimentality, Lu You felt a little annoyed. She reached back and grabbed the little deer she had just tossed aside, hugging it to her chest, and glumly snapped off its right antler.

She closed her eyes, intending to doze off for a while.

A rustling sound came from inside the little deer plushie. Lu You’s ears twitched slightly, and she hesitantly pulled the plushie out from under the covers.

At the same time, Yun Zhu’s voice sounded from inside: “Why are you sending voice messages too? Is Little Deer awake?”

“Not only awake, but also gone out.” Yue Yunxi’s voice was hoarse from just waking up.

“Gone out? Where to so early in the morning?”

“Don’t know.”

The recorder inside the plushie fell silent.

Lu You frowned, pondering for a moment. She suddenly remembered that morning when she tiptoed out of bed to book a hotel room, without bringing the plushie.

Sure enough, Yue Yunxi had already been awake at that time. She might have accidentally broken the left antler of the plushie and recorded while chatting with Yun Zhu via voice message on WeChat.

After a brief silence, Yun Zhu’s voice came from the plushie again: “If you were in my current situation, what would you do?”

“Yun Zhu, there are no ‘ifs’ in this world. The hypothetical situation I set up cannot become your decision. It doesn’t even have any reference value, because I’ve already missed it once…”

Lu You paused slightly, then clearly caught a low sigh.

The regret and loss permeating that sigh seemed to have been filtered, leaving only sadness as it flowed out of the plushie. It traveled through her ears, reaching a deeper place.

After that sigh, Yue Yunxi’s gentle voice spread like water,

“She is different from others to me… She is on my endless island.”

—

Lu You was a little restless all morning. She didn’t know what “endless island” represented, nor did she dare to search for it online.

She could only get out of bed and wander around, using this to empty her mind of the thoughts stirred up by the recording.

She had basically visited all the nearby small towns during her last trip. So, Lu You simply went to the bus stop, studied the stop names, and boarded a bus to the last stop.

There was a village there that had been transformed into an internet-famous spot in recent years, with a name that was very attractive to Lu You, called “Moon Village.”

The village was small, and the map looked like the Chinese character for “moon.” The horizontal line at the bottom was a long street, with countryside-style shops on one side and a large lawn turned into a camping area on the other.

The place was too remote, the summer vacation was over, and it was early in the morning, so there weren’t many people. It felt empty and a little desolate.

Lu You strolled from beginning to end and entered a shop called “Moon’s Noodle Shop,” ordering a bowl of noodles to solve her breakfast problem.

At the table diagonally across from her, a few middle-aged women were sitting around, picking vegetables and chatting.

One of them, slightly overweight, said in a deep voice, “My son came back last month and said he saw that person.”

“Who?”

“Yue… Yue something? Ah, it’s Yue Shao, her daughter.”

Suddenly hearing Auntie Yue’s name, Lu You paused, eating her noodles in small sips, and pricked up her ears to continue listening.

“Yue Shao? Oh! That’s the one who locked the door at night and froze her husband to death outside?”

“Let me tell you, that matter might really have nothing to do with her. Her daughter is not simple. She knew how to lie at a young age. I still remember her falsely accusing my son of going into the women’s restroom to peek.”

The shopkeeper who had just served Lu You was speaking, her face sharp and mean, revealing a harsh expression. “What’s so good about little girls that’s worth peeking at?”

Lu You couldn’t listen anymore. She deliberately knocked over her bowl on the table, spilling the noodle soup all over the place and onto the floor.

She deftly avoided it, not getting a drop on herself. “Oops!”

“Oh dear, it’s spilled everywhere.” The shopkeeper hurriedly got up and walked over.

“I couldn’t help but take a few more glances because your voice was so loud. I was too busy admiring your expression and didn’t pay attention, so I accidentally spilled it. I’m sorry.”

Lu You softened her tone, appearing somewhat innocent.

“…Oh, it’s okay, it’s okay.” The shopkeeper didn’t quite understand the meaning of her words. Seeing that she was beautiful, she worried that she might be some influential internet celebrity, so she grinned and smiled. “Are you burned? Would you like me to make you another bowl?”

“No thanks, it wasn’t delicious anyway.” Lu You picked up her bag and went straight out the door.

Hearing the other party cursing inside the shop, she walked back, tilted her head, and looked into the shop. “Oh, right, aunty, although the noodles weren’t good, your breath is a little heavy. Go brush your teeth again.”

The shopkeeper was confused by her “although but.” When she realized what she meant and angrily walked to the door to curse, she couldn’t even see Lu You’s shadow anymore.

Lu You stretched and walked on another path, circling back to the bus stop, got on the bus, and went to other places to stroll around, eating soup dumplings that tasted pretty good.

On the way back, Chen Feifei sent a photo: [The handwriting is Yun Zhu’s. She drew a lot on the first day of the new year, copied from the [smiley face] in the photo album.]

Lu You looked at it.

There were two paragraphs of text in the photo. The first paragraph read, “You come to ask the fortune, I know in advance, carefully consider what is in your heart; wealth and rank are clearly destined by fate, what is the length of love?” The handwriting was unrestrained, flowing smoothly.

The second paragraph read, “See the fishing boat in the depths of green willows, slowly roll up the silk fishing line and seek again; fish and drink alone with wine, get up drunk and lie down on the river.” The handwriting was newly iron, charming as silver hooks.

It was clear that it was from different people.

Lu You: [Who wrote the second paragraph?]

Chen Feifei: [The goddess wrote it.]

Lu You raised her eyebrows and couldn’t help but click on the picture again to take a look.

Out of curiosity, she took out her phone and searched for the meaning of the lottery.

The 49th lottery of the Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva.

The interpretation said, “Fishing for fish, seize the opportunity,” is a lucky sign that you must actively grasp everything, and you can harvest a great harvest.

For some reason, Lu You thought of the scene that night when Yue Yunxi sprinkled fish food with her fingertips.

The ripples of the fish swarming vibrated in her mind, for a long time, long enough for her to reach the tree hole shop, before gradually calming down.

There were no other customers in the tree hole shop, only two female clerks chatting across the cashier.

Seeing Lu You enter, the clerk standing outside the cashier stepped forward and pointed to the two boards standing by the tree hole and the pool, saying, “Welcome, here is an introduction to the activities of our shop, you can take a look.”

Lu You walked to the pool and asked, “I wrote it in July, is it still inside?”

“As long as it hasn’t been fished out, it’s still there.”

“Has anyone come to fish it out in the past month and a half?”

“Yes, but not many, just a few, and they only fished out a few bottles.”

Lu You stared at the bottles covering the bottom of the pool for a long time, then turned her head and asked, “Can I use a net to pick the desired color of stationery inside?”

Hearing such a question for the first time, the clerk couldn’t make the decision and went to ask the cashier, who was also unsure. The clerk smiled sheepishly: “Please wait a moment, I have to call our boss to confirm.”

Lu You said before the call was connected, “Then tell him, if possible, I’ll take all the bottles with pink and light blue stationery in the pool.”

The call was connected, and the boss said hello a couple of times on the other end before the clerk came back to her senses from the concept that the other party was a rich woman. She relayed Lu You’s needs to the other side of the phone. After a while, she moved the phone away from her ear and said, “The boss said it’s okay. There are a lot of bottles, and it would take too much time to fish them out one by one. If you really take them all, we’ll change our clothes and go down to help you take them all out.”

Lu You smiled and said, “Thank you for your trouble.”

The two employees put on waterproof suits and went directly into the pool, starting to screen the stationery color from one corner, placing the glass bottles with pink and light blue inside out.

Lu You was not idle either, first opening the bottles with pink stationery one by one to confirm.

After reading countless jokes and eating a lot of exploding melons, she finally found the pink stationery belonging to her grandmother.

“I don’t know if you will really fish up this letter, but I still want to write it to you, my precious granddaughter Yoyo.

From the moment you came into this world, I became the happiest grandma…”

After reading only two lines, Lu You confirmed that the old lady was going to be sentimental.

Not wanting to see her grandma’s letter and burst into tears outside, Lu You didn’t read any further. She silently folded the stationery and put it in the mezzanine of her shoulder bag, continuing to look at the glass bottles with light blue stationery.

Some stationery couldn’t be poured out and had to be clipped out with tweezers, which was very time-consuming.

Unconsciously, it was time for lunch. The clerk asked, “Can we continue after eating?”

“Of course, eating is important.” Lu You first paid for the bottles that had already been fished out and asked, “Is there a good restaurant to recommend?”

“A new big bowl of fried rice restaurant has opened on the street. It’s very popular, and many people go there every day to check in. The taste is also very good. I’ve eaten it once, it’s amazing!” The clerk thoughtfully walked to the door and pointed it out from a distance.

From a distance, she could vaguely see the people sitting outside waiting in line to enter the store.

“Okay, thank you.”

Lu You was not in a hurry to go over. She took out her phone from her bag and took a photo of the pile of bottles on the ground, and sent it to Chen Feifei, saying, “I’m going to eat first, I’ll find it for you after eating.”

Chen Feifei: [Okay, okay ~ What are you going to eat?]

Lu You leaned against the door frame and sent a voice message: “Big bowl of fried rice.”

The phone was running out of power. As soon as she sent the voice message, it shut down.

Lu You had to go back to the store and ask the clerk if she had a data cable to charge.

“I do, but the cable is short and can’t reach outside. You can put it inside to charge if you don’t mind,” the cashier said.

Lu You handed the phone to her and waited patiently at the cashier.

Seeing the two clerks discussing which takeaway to order, she suddenly became too lazy to walk so far to eat fried rice, so she asked, “Is this one delicious?”

“It’s pretty good, but not as good as the fried rice one.”

Lu You smiled and said, “I’m too lazy to go. Can you order one for me too? I’ll transfer the money to you.”

“Okay.”

While waiting for the takeaway, the two employees fished out some more bottles. Lu You followed behind and opened them, taking out the notes from the bottles and sharing jokes and gossip.

Until she opened a rolled-up piece of paper and saw the familiar iron hook, Lu You unconsciously held her breath and looked down intently.

The first line, just the word “You,” made her heart jump.

The second line: “As soon as I pick up a pen, I want to write your name, but unfortunately, I can’t draw your appearance with horizontal strokes, slashes, vertical strokes, and pushes.”

The third line, she only wrote one word: moonquakes

When the moonlight trembles, the earth will never know.

Lu You’s eyelashes trembled. Now she knew…

The third line: “You are the moonlight that fills me.”

The fourth line: “It’s not that I don’t want to report my itinerary, it’s that I have no identity, just as I have countless reasons to see you, but no identity to see you.”

The fifth line: “Don’t call me Sister Yunxi.”

The sixth line: “I really want you to stand in my future.”

The seventh line: “Haste makes waste.”

The eighth line: “I’ve been wandering between expectation and disappointment many times, it’s okay.”

The ninth line: “It starts with willingness and ends with accepting the bet.”

For a moment, Lu You seemed to see the person writing sitting in the tree hole, pressing this piece of paper under her wrist, not knowing how long she had been sitting quietly. The tip of the pen fell on the paper, involuntarily writing her name, writing these things, as if writing to her who would never see these, and as if she was talking to herself.

Implicit and direct, it was the slight indulgence and gaffe of a steady person, and the effect of poking a sour heart seemed to be doubled.

Lu You clenched the paper tightly. After a while, her eyes slowly fell on the last line.

“When the moon comes out, the sea covers the land, and the heart is like an island in the endless.”

Lu You’s heart trembled, like stepping on a soft cotton, and suddenly her feet softened, falling to the ground.

The next second, there was a sudden roar in the distance, and the house she was in shook with it. The bottles standing on the ground tilted and fell, and screams and cries spread out in the crisp sound.

The air was filled with a burning breath.

Outside, the voices were noisy, and the fear and miserable cries were mixed with intermittent words:

“The big bowl of fried rice exploded!”

—

The video of the gas explosion at the Big Bowl Fried Rice in Xicheng Ancient Town was quickly posted online.

Li Can happened to see it while browsing her phone. She couldn’t help but sigh, after all, they had strolled on that street in July. She forwarded it to the group: [A newly opened Big Bowl Fried Rice restaurant in Xicheng exploded. The comments section said that many people died, it’s so scary.]

Chen Feifei, who had just finished eating and took out her phone to play, glanced at the group chat and was about to reply, when she suddenly remembered something. She quickly switched to Lu You’s chat window and listened to the voice message she sent again.

“Big bowl of fried rice.”

Chen Feifei’s face suddenly turned pale, and her fingers trembled as she dialed Lu You’s phone.

One, two, three… all of them were not connected. The blood in her whole body turned cold. Tears filled her eyes. On the eleventh call, she dialed Yun Zhu.

At this time, Yun Zhu’s rehearsal in the theater had just ended. She was dragging Yue Yunxi, who had been forced to listen to the rehearsal, to go to lunch.

It was too noisy around, and she didn’t hear the phone ringing until the second segment. She picked it up and turned up the volume.

After entering the elevator, those noisy ambient sounds were isolated outside, and Chen Feifei’s crying voice came out loudly from the phone:

“Yun Zhu, what to do! I can’t get through to Youyou’s phone. She told me she was going to eat lunch at Big Bowl Fried Rice, but now, Big Bowl Fried Rice exploded, and many people died… I can’t get through to her phone… what to do.”

Never thought that such a thing would happen to people around her, Yun Zhu’s brain buzzed. She didn’t know what to do either. She could only try to comfort Chen Feifei: “Don’t worry, maybe, maybe Little Lu was sitting outside, the situation is not that bad…”

The elevator door opened, and the people around her walked out quickly. Yun Zhu’s mind was full of the word “finished.” She saw Yue Yunxi going straight to the parking lot, her pace so fast that she had changed from walking to running.

—

The scene of the explosion was extremely tragic. Painful moans were endless. In sight, people with charred bodies were lying on stretchers and being carried away, vaguely pitying the opponent’s blurred flesh.

Just a glimpse of the corner of the eye would cause a feeling of pain.

Lu You didn’t dare to think about how painful they must be.

Even more dare not think that she almost became one of them.

The clerk who recommended her to go to the Big Bowl Fried Rice Restaurant had lingering fears, covered her heart and looked at her, tears streaming down her face: “It’s a good thing you didn’t go, I’m sorry, I, I, I almost harmed you.”

Even if she didn’t go, it was enough for the little girl to be afraid and blame herself for it.

Lu You pursed her lips and patted her shoulder: “You didn’t know this would happen. You were just kindly recommending me a delicious restaurant, don’t think too much.”

The little girl wiped her eyes and nodded.

Lu You couldn’t eat the takeaway that she ordered with the clerk. No one could eat in the face of such a tragedy.

For what happened outside, the passers-by could only watch. Only occasionally when the medical staff needed something would they provide a little material help.

The fire in the Big Bowl Fried Rice was extinguished. The entire shop was devoured by coke and only the frame was left. The sound of the ambulance’s whistle almost never stopped, and the wounded were sent to the nearest hospital one after another.

The crowd watching the street slowly dispersed.

Lu You and the two clerks also returned to the store, solemnly fishing out the remaining bottles.

Finding Yun Zhu’s note, she didn’t look closely, and folded it with Yue Yunxi’s note and put them in different layers of her shoulder bag. She suddenly remembered to take a look at the time.

She had already missed the time for the high-speed train ticket…

It really was a blessing in disguise.

Lu You pondered, she had to go back and renew the room.

Taking the phone to pay, she found more than a dozen missed calls, all from Chen Feifei.

Lu You was stunned. After paying, a flash of inspiration came to her, remembering that she had told Chen Feifei about going to Big Bowl Fried Rice, she quickly called back.

As soon as the call was connected, she heard Chen Feifei’s howling cry: “Youyou! How are you? Are you still alive?”

Lu You said as she walked out, “I’m fine, don’t worry. After sending you the voice message, my phone ran out of power. I borrowed a data cable from the clerk at the tree hole shop, so I didn’t go to that one——”

Passing by the charred shop, Lu You’s voice stopped, her eyes widened slightly, and she stood there in a daze. The hand raised to her ear slowly fell down.

A few steps away, the afterglow of the setting sun and the blackened house created light and dark. Yue Yunxi was in that rich shadow, stepping step by step into the sunlight filled with orange juice, walking to her.

At the moment of being hugged, a breeze brushed her face, wrapped in the burning smell and heat in the air, wrapped in Yue Yunxi’s dusty breath.

Lu You’s long hair fluttered.

As if the throbbing of her heart she suddenly mentioned.

Even more noisy than when she saw the last sentence on the note and understood the meaning of Endless Island.