MTMIO Chapter 50
by VolareLu You had originally thought that Yue Yunxi’s secret base would be far away.
Unexpectedly, it was only a twenty-minute drive from Lanwan.
It felt like searching for something right under your nose.
Plane trees lined the road all the way until the car turned right, heading towards the wide entrance of a residential complex. Lu You noticed the large characters on the deep gray wall, outlined in gold by the lights – “Yun Qi · Bamboo Rhythm Jiangnan.” She jokingly asked, associating it with Yun Zhu, “This complex isn’t Yun Zhu’s home, is it?”
Yue Yunxi in the front seat replied with an “Mhm.”
Lu You was a little surprised.
Although the surname Yun wasn’t common, Yun Qi Group was very famous, and she knew Yun Zhu’s family was wealthy, she had never connected the two before today.
“Yun Qi.” Grandma slapped her thigh, “No wonder it sounds so familiar. The old men dancing in the square were chatting about it the other day, saying Yun Qi is failing and pinning their hopes on a marriage with the Tan family to revive it…”
Hearing this, Lu You’s thoughts drifted back to some time ago.
About three days after returning from Xicheng, she went to Lost Deer and gave Yun Zhu’s light blue letter to Chen Feifei.
Yun Zhu’s letter was a bit special.
The first line read: “Hi, Lu Rendong, if time could be reversed, would you still choose to be Yun Zhu?”
When comparing the handwriting at the tree hole store, for a moment, Lu You even wanted to read the whole thing there.
However, the explosion that day had affected her too much, and she really wasn’t in the mood.
After Chen Feifei finished reading the letter, she couldn’t help but ask curiously, “I saw a line when I was confirming if it was her letter, who is Lu Rendong mentioned in it?”
“It’s her, it’s the her from twenty years ago who lived with her mother, whose economic conditions weren’t good, who lived very hard, but lived very freely.”
Chen Feifei lowered her eyes and folded the letter into a heart, pinching the bottom tip with her fingertips, and said, “This is Yun Zhu, who chose a material life, who is shackled by her identity, and will become a tool of a wealthy family in the future, writing a confession to herself.”
There were many customers at Lost Deer that day. When Chen Feifei said that, the waiter was at the bar asking the bartender to make a sidecar, and the resident singer on stage was singing the climax of “Flammable and Explosive.”
The surroundings were so noisy that Lu You didn’t pay much attention to the subtle pause in her words at the time.
So it was… a marriage tool?
Just as she was thinking, her phone vibrated. Lu You looked down and saw it was a WeChat message from Chen Feifei.
Chen Feifei: 【How is it? Still at the police station?】
YoYo: 【Back】
Chen Feifei: 【[Hug]】
Lu You hesitated for a moment, then asked: 【Yun Zhu is with you now, so will she still go through with the marriage?】
It wasn’t until the car stopped that Chen Feifei replied: 【Maybe you should ask me, now that I’m with her, will I still listen to my mother and go on blind dates and get married?】
Lu You didn’t say anything more.
She had always adhered to the principle of respecting each other’s differences and maintaining a sense of boundaries. She had shown concern as a friend, and she believed that as an adult, Chen Feifei had her own judgment.
Pushing the car door open and getting out, in front of her was a detached two-story house with a courtyard, gray walls, black tiles, redwood doors and windows, a semi-high outer wall inlaid with wrought iron railings, covered with thorny green plants, dotted with a few small orange flowers, exquisite and lovely.
Lu You leaned closer to look, “What kind of variety is this?”
“Sweet Dream, climbing rose,” Yue Yunxi said, “It’s beautiful when it blooms in late April.”
“Is it like a whole flower wall?”
Yue Yunxi remained noncommittal, smiling and saying, “You’ll know when it blooms next year when you come and see.”
Lu You didn’t say anything, and reached out to gently touch the soft petals.
The flower facing the sky, whether it was under the pressure of her fingertip, or in the teasing of the wind, nodded its head.
Entering the courtyard gate, the wide, flat path led straight to the small building. To the left was a sunny lawn and a sunken leisure area, with a wooden dog house in the corner.
Grandma led the Bichon, her back hunched, tilting her head to look into the dog house.
Lu You also bent down with her and looked over.
No matter how she looked, she couldn’t find anything worth observing in the empty dog house. She supported her knees and turned her head to look at Grandma, wondering, “What are you looking at, Grandma?”
Grandma straightened up: “I’m looking at what kind of dog is raised in there, it’s so dark.”
Lu You was dumbfounded and looked carefully at the dog house again.
Yue Yunxi, who was leading the way in front, turned around and cleared her throat, saying, “…Grandma, we don’t have a dog, it’s just dark inside.”
Lu You stood up straight, laughing.
Perhaps she had been bending over for too long, and suddenly standing up made her dizzy. She held her dizzy forehead and swayed uncontrollably.
Yue Yunxi quickly reached out to hold her.
The force supporting her shoulders and waist outlined an intimate posture.
“I thought it was a black dog curled up in there because it was so dark.”
Grandma said, turning her face towards them, and was stunned when she saw the scene.
At the same time, through the coat, Lu You still clearly felt Yue Yunxi’s hand on her waist tighten suddenly.
It made her cerebral cortex tingle, and a feeling similar to having an affair welled up in her heart.
Yue Yunxi quickly withdrew her hand and reminded her calmly, “Be careful, don’t fall.”
Lu You lowered her head and mumbled a response.
She still felt her heartbeat was uneasy.
“Originally, we planned to raise a dog, so we specially had the workers make a dog house there, but later we felt we didn’t have that much energy, so we gave up.”
Yue Yunxi picked up the conversation very naturally.
So naturally that Lu You couldn’t tell whether the pinch on the soft flesh of her waist just now was because she was also nervous, or… deliberately scaring her.
Grandma’s attention was quickly diverted: “Raising a puppy takes a lot of energy, you have to walk it every day.”
Yue Yunxi smiled, lowered her waist, summoned the Bichon that was sniffing everywhere, touched the dog’s head and said, “Perfect, let you live in it.”
The Bichon tilted its head and rubbed against Yue Yunxi’s palm, happily circling around twice, then rubbed against her trouser leg, its tail almost shaking into a fan.
Lu You saw it in her eyes and was thoughtful.
The Bichon, who had been abused during its stray life, was very wary and not very friendly to people. Grandma and Auntie Liu had only gotten close to it after feeding it for nearly a month. Lu Huai’an still couldn’t get close to it.
But this was the first time it had seen Yue Yunxi, and it was like this, rubbing affectionately against her legs.
“What is that over there?” Grandma suddenly asked.
Lu You came back to her senses and looked to the left in the direction she was pointing.
It was the courtyard she had seen in the video last time.
“A place to read and practice the piano.” Yue Yunxi arranged, “Let’s go back to the main house first, put our things away and have dinner, and I’ll take you to see it when we come back.”
Walking forward along the path to the front door, Yue Yunxi pressed her fingerprint to unlock and enter, turned on the lights, and took out two pairs of basic cotton slippers in different colors from the shoe cabinet in the entrance hall and handed them to Grandma and Auntie Liu.
The pair given to Lu You had giraffe-patterned plush uppers with two antlers standing on them.
Grandma raised her eyes and saw it, and jokingly teased Lu You, “These are suitable for you.”
“…”
Lu You twitched the corner of her mouth, lowered her head to change her shoes, and while close to Yue Yunxi, whispered, “You really like giraffes.”
Yue Yunxi’s eyes swept over the back of her neck exposed after her long hair fell, and she said “Mhm,” echoing, “You’re right.”
These words were full of deep meaning, and Lu You suddenly had a feeling, glanced over, and sure enough, she saw Yue Yunxi take out another pair of the same style from the cabinet.
Immediately afterwards, she heard Grandma ask, “Two pairs of the same?”
Lu You’s heart suddenly beat out of rhythm.
On the other hand, the other person’s face was calm, and she couldn’t see a trace of ripples, even her reply was particularly natural.
“I thought they were very cute, so I bought two pairs.”
“Cute is cute, but…” Grandma hesitated, “You’ll get confused if you wear the same ones.”
Yue Yunxi reached to the empty table and took a clay moon that a child had given her from the decorative plate.
A pin was glued to the back of the clay, she squatted down, pinned the crescent moon to the antlers, and said, “This way you can tell them apart. I’ll take you on a tour.”
“Okay.” Grandma responded, her attention diverted.
Lu You followed behind them, supporting her side waist, and slowly exhaled, feeling like she had been on a roller coaster twice.
…Although with Yue Yunxi’s character, that pinch on the waist just now should have been caused by nervousness.
But at this moment, she was pretending to be ignorant, thinking that 50.1% was intentional!
The space inside wasn’t large, more like a duplex apartment, with light retro decoration and all solid wood furniture.
The floor lamp next to the sofa was warm yellow, baking the wooden floor like fried chestnuts. A chandelier hung from the high ceiling, and a faint white light sprinkled a layer of frosting.
From the living room to the kitchen, and then to the terrace and bedrooms on the second floor, everything exuded a calm and warm atmosphere.
Grandma and Auntie Liu were packing their luggage in the second bedroom, and by the way, seeing what was missing, so they could go to the supermarket to replenish it after dinner.
Lu You followed Yue Yunxi into the master bedroom’s walk-in closet.
Yue Yunxi pointed to the left cabinet and said, “It’s empty inside, put your things there.”
Lu You pushed her small suitcase over, squatted down and opened it, remembering the underwear at the bottom, and subconsciously glanced at Yue Yunxi.
Only to find that she was standing at the door with her arms folded, and hadn’t followed her to the front.
Lu You’s eyes rippled, like details thrown into the lake of her heart, causing ripples.
“What do you think of this secret base?” Yue Yunxi asked suddenly, as if afraid she would be uncomfortable, casually starting a topic.
“It’s pretty good,” Lu You said with a smile, “Completely different from what I imagined.”
Yue Yunxi asked with interest, “What did you imagine?”
“The kind of large flat in a high-rise building, with gray-brown marble tiles on the floor, and a whole floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the city’s night view. When you enter the door after the sun sets, a sense of loneliness will rush towards you.”
Speaking of the last sentence, Lu You remembered when she was a child, before Grandma moved to Lanwan, every time she came home from school, it was that kind of feeling.
A very empty and large house, filled with loneliness by the night, opening the door would submerge her.
And Lu You always felt that Yue Yunxi’s heart was like this too.
Because the house in Lanwan was Tao’s, not her home.
In a sense, they were a bit similar, both having experienced being under someone else’s roof, without belonging, without the feeling of having their own home.
Lu You thought, during the time when Lu Huai’an arranged for her to always freeload at Tao’s house when she was a child, if she wasn’t the same age as Tao Xin, in the same school, in the same class, and Yue Yunxi was four years older than her, with some generation gap.
She might have gotten along better with Yue Yunxi.
Just like at this time, Yue Yunxi understood her very well, and didn’t ask her why she imagined it that way, but laughed softly and asked, “So, that’s why you didn’t want to come the first time I invited you, right?”
Lu You gathered her thoughts and replied, “Half of it is because of that.”
“What about the other half?” Yue Yunxi asked.
Lu You paused as she stood up the suitcase, “I just felt it wasn’t appropriate, Auntie Yue doesn’t even know the address here.”
Putting the suitcase aside, she picked up her satchel and hung it over her shoulder, continuing as she walked out, “And, no matter what, you are also considered Tao—”
“Shh.”
Lu You thought Grandma and Auntie Liu were coming, and stopped her footsteps and words at the same time.
She stopped in front of Yue Yunxi and looked towards the door.
The door was still half-closed as it was when she came in. Looking out from the slightly open crack, there wasn’t even half a shadow in the brightly lit corridor.
“…Are you teasing me again?”
Lu You turned her head to meet Yue Yunxi’s eyes.
Her light amber pupils should have been a warm color, but she didn’t know if it was because the light in this area was dim, or because the emotions contained were too thick, but they seemed particularly deep at this moment.
“I didn’t mean to tease you,” Yue Yunxi said, looking at her, “I just feel the atmosphere is very good when I’m alone with you, I’m a little greedy, and I don’t want to hear you mention those dispensable names.”
Lu You was stunned.
She suddenly thought of the “shh” that Yue Yunxi had fooled her with before, which seemed to have the same effect.
She said it very restrainedly, very euphemistically, the gentle tone almost carefully restrained all the negative emotions, but Lu You still captured a hint of subtlety in it.
“Are you… jeal…” Lu You clutched the pendant on her bag, the ending sound paused, and softened to silence.
Because the distance between the two suddenly narrowed.
Yue Yunxi’s hand went around behind her, pulled the door shut, and in the closest movement, tilted her head, her breath wrapped in a low, light voice, and kissed her ear:
“Mhm, I’m jealous.”