Chapter Ninety-Seven: I Am Not Afraid of Two People
Lin Shuo...
"Hush." His voice was soft. "Don't speak. Close your eyes and just enjoy it quietly."
She wondered why, when he could not see, he still knew her eyes were open; then she thought herself foolish. His thoughts always astonished her, and if she deliberately tried to guess them, she would only tire her mind further.
"I keep wondering what you feel like each night when you lie here," he murmured, resting his chin tenderly on the crown of her head. The faint rasp of it made her shiver from head to toe with a helpless sweetness.
The delicate fragrance of magnolia drifted through a dream already steeped in beauty. In countless nights, loneliness gnawed at her seven apertures and eight vessels like an attached parasite, forcing her to flatter grief and submit to it. She could evade the man, but she could not cast off the scattered ruins of her own heart. She loved him, loved him so deeply that even carving out her heart and weeping blood for him still felt insufficient. And yet she could not possess him. He had come and gone in a hurry, but in his haste he had already taken her heart with him.
"I am not afraid of being alone with someone else. I am only afraid of being without you." Her lashes trembled softly, and a tear slid into the hollow of his neck, searing hot. His arms tightened around her.
The reason fingers are parted into five is so they may one day be interlaced with the hand of the one you love. We shape ourselves to fit another, only so we may stand closer, held more tightly together. If my hand is not in his, then whoever stands beside me is surplus to requirement.
The small room had taken on many of his things, and the already cramped space could hardly spare an inch. He would deliberately place his toothbrush in her cup, then wait to watch her exasperated, helpless expression. At other times, with his mouth full of foam, he would tempt and coerce her into straddling his lap and clumsily shaving him. And when she was absorbed in tending the flowers and plants, he would stretch extravagantly in the rocking chair and yawn with deliberate exaggeration, all just to catch her attention, even if it was only a glance of annoyance over her shoulder.
They pleased each other, tangled together in tenderness and desire, yet somehow still kept up a courteous distance. Only when outside troubles finally broke through the door did she realize how tranquil their days had been, so tranquil that she had forgotten the passage of time.
Xiao Xiao... Hua Mei's call caught Xiao Xiao off guard. Since Hua Mei's marriage, they had not kept in touch as closely as before. After all, once a person has a family, her priorities naturally shift toward home. Hearing the faint sound of sobbing on the line, Xiao Xiao's heart lifted with alarm. The usually lively Hua Mei only ever showed this timid, sorrowful girlishness when something was wrong with Zeng Zi Yu. A bad feeling struck her at once. Could it be that something had happened to him again?
As she answered the phone, she looked at Lin Shuo for an answer with her eyes. Lin Shuo met her gaze with an innocent expression. Marriage had also kept him from contacting Zeng Zi Yu very often, so how could he know what had happened?
The matter could not be made clear over the phone, so she decided to go and see Hua Mei herself. Lin Shuo saw her out, and she spun a quick excuse to keep him at home, not wanting Hua Mei to know any of this for fear it might upset her further. He gave a strained smile and tried hard to hold his emotions in check, so as not to make the situation irretrievable, and stood on the balcony silently watching her leave the alley.
Not long after, she received a message from him.
How long do you plan to keep this from me? This only makes me feel like I'm sneaking around with someone else's wife!
The words brimmed with his deep displeasure. She found it almost laughable. Wasn't it better for everyone to understand without saying it aloud? Besides, what exactly could she be hiding? What, in the end, was their present relationship? No one had ever made anything explicit. Was she a companion, or a bedfellow? How was one to define it?
She paid him no mind and simply put the phone back into her bag.