Not Angry

Xu Zhitong’s loungewear still held the warmth of her body, and Lin Yang’s hand was trapped in her grip, pressed flat against the muscles of her abdomen.

Lin Yang’s hand trembled. She couldn’t stop herself from feeling the texture beneath her palm.

Xu Zhitong even guided her to rub it twice.

So Xu Zhitong really did have muscles there. They weren’t the kind of neat, well-defined abs you usually saw, but the lines were still beautiful.

And they really were soft and springy.

Lin Yang’s ears burned. Maybe the heat had rushed straight to her brain, because all she could think, in utter confusion, was that before her amnesia, Xu Zhitong really had mentioned on stream that she had a habit of going to the gym.

But Xu Zhitong had always been stingy about showing fans even a glimpse of her fitness results.

Whenever people asked, she’d say there was nothing to see; even if they spammed Carnival gifts, nothing; she’d just laugh it off.

And yet she’d been secretly training this well.

Lin Yang’s mind was a mess, but her expression was purely instinctive.

Her eyes widened a little more, making her pupils seem even clearer against the whites; her pretty lashes trembled, and a flush spread quickly to the roots of her ears.

She looked like a little cat startled silly.

Xu Zhitong thought she was adorable. She was even happier than Lin Yang was, and generously said, “Do you like it, Yangbao? If you like it, you can touch it anytime.”

That was far too silly.

It snapped Lin Yang back from her dazed reverie. The moment she came to herself, she hurriedly pulled her hand away.

Once she finally realized what she’d just touched, not only the roots of her ears but her whole face went red.

Lin Yang had fair skin; the blush blooming across her cheeks was especially obvious, like a ripe apple.

She seemed to hold it in and hold it in before finally muttering, “Are you stupid or something?”

Too cute.

Even cursing was cute.

Xu Zhitong’s heart softened just looking at her. Even after being called stupid, she was still smiling as she picked up the coat that had fallen by her feet.

She put it on, then deliberately pointed at her abs and said, “I’m serious. Don’t you think it feels really nice?”

“How can you just let people—” Lin Yang cut herself off, then said, “I think the fever’s making you delirious.”

Xu Zhitong looked innocent. “I already have a concussion.”

Lin Yang drew in a light breath and fell silent, then turned and headed toward the dining room.

Ah, ah, giving me the cold shoulder.

Xu Zhitong trailed after her and said, “I’m starving. Have you had breakfast? I’ll make you a bowl of noodles.”

Lin Yang’s face was still faintly red, though she didn’t seem to notice it. Keeping her expression stern, she said, “There’s salted bone congee on the stove in the kitchen.”

Seeing Lin Yang like this, Xu Zhitong felt ridiculously pleased for some reason.

Was she some kind of wife devotee? If the wife was Lin Yang, then she had amazing taste.

Even Lin Yang ignoring her on purpose felt good.

Why didn’t Lin Yang act like this toward other people? Lin Yang only did this to her. Lin Yang treated her like one of her own, Lin Yang liked her.

Xu Zhitong made herself feel wonderful with her own thoughts and walked into the kitchen. She lifted the lid on the clay pot on the stove; inside was a big pot of congee, still warm.

The aroma was rich and appetizing.

Xu Zhitong took a deep breath and exaggeratedly said, “Wow, this looks so good. Little Xu actually gets this kind of blessing? I get to eat congee made by Miss Lin?”

Lin Yang said, “It wasn’t made for you. Order takeout yourself.”

Xu Zhitong pounced over and loosely wrapped her arms around the pot, stubbornly shaking her head. “You can’t mistreat a patient. I’m eating this. When we’re sick, we’re supposed to drink congee.”

“……” Lin Yang apparently couldn’t bear to look at her anymore and turned away.

Xu Zhitong looked regretfully at Lin Yang’s back.

Damn, she still hadn’t coaxed her at all.

Lin Yang had cooked the congee beautifully: the rice grains were plump and glossy, each one distinct; even the pork bones looked fresh and full of flavor. There were also some greens and ingredients Xu Zhitong didn’t recognize.

Xu Zhitong ladled out two bowls, one for Lin Yang and one to set beside Lin Yang’s seat. She sat down beside her by default.

But Lin Yang was unwilling to sit with her. She stood up and moved her bowl to the other side of Xu Zhitong.

Under Xu Zhitong’s nervous gaze, she went back into the kitchen to get another pair of chopsticks and a small bone dish.

She set them beside Xu Zhitong, sat down across from her, and said coolly, “I put shredded ginger in the congee. There are also dried scallops, dried clams, and lily bulbs. If you can’t get used to that, you can pick them out.”

Xu Zhitong was indeed a picky eater. She didn’t eat scallions, ginger, or garlic; she didn’t eat odd seasonings or uncommon side dishes.

Every time she went out to eat with Lin Yang, she had to pick through her food for ages.

There wasn’t much shredded ginger in the congee. Xu Zhitong picked that out and didn’t bother with anything else.

After all, this congee was made by Lin Yang.

And since Lin Yang had put those ingredients into it, that probably meant that before her memory loss, she’d been able to eat them.

If she could eat them before, she could eat them now too!

When Lin Yang saw that Xu Zhitong really didn’t pick through the rest and just took a big mouthful, she was a little surprised.

She had thought Xu Zhitong wouldn’t be able to get used to it.

But Xu Zhitong thought it was delicious beyond words.

Maybe her tastes had broadened as she grew into adulthood.

Or maybe she’d been eating Lin Yang’s cooking so often that she’d grown used to these ingredients.

Xu Zhitong drank several mouthfuls in a row and praised, “Your cooking is amazing, Yangbao. It’s way better than that seafood congee from yesterday! Why are you even running a coffee shop? If you opened a congee shop, you’d be famous all over the country.”

Lin Yang ignored her and kept her eyes lowered while stirring her congee.

Fine, fine.

Xu Zhitong was obedient for two seconds, then asked very shrewdly, “Then have you ever made congee for that senior you ate with?”

Lin Yang: “……”

She finally looked up at Xu Zhitong and said with a cold face, “I make congee for pigs.”

Xu Zhitong reacted for a second, then understood.

Her mood instantly turned sweet. Smiling, she said, “Then you still sit and eat congee with pigs. You’re so nice to pigs. Pigs like you.”

As she spoke, to show her affection, she took another big bite of pork rib.

The ribs in the congee had somehow been made by Lin Yang so they were perfectly sweet and savory, exceptionally tender, and full of flavor.

“Pigs’ ribs are delicious too.”

She said it casually, but Lin Yang’s spoon paused.

Her stomach suddenly felt swollen for no reason.

Not because she’d eaten breakfast late; it was because of that “like you.”

Lin Yang thought about it. Xu Zhitong’s amnesia had stopped at National Day, when she was seventeen.

From that point in time to when Xu Zhitong had confessed to her, there was still more than half a year to go……

Lin Yang lifted her eyes to study Xu Zhitong’s expression, and only after confirming that Xu Zhitong really had said it casually, with no other meaning, did she lower her gaze again.

She didn’t know whether to feel disappointed or relieved. In the end, she could only sigh quietly in her heart.

-

On a morning when she had a cold, a hot bowl of salted bone congee was truly comforting.

Xu Zhitong ate quickly, then went back for half a bowl more. After Lin Yang finished, she took the initiative to carry the bowls back to the kitchen and wash them.

When she came back out, she found Lin Yang standing by the water bar, selecting cold medicine for her from the first-aid kit.

Xu Zhitong walked over and watched Lin Yang sort through the box. She tried to explain, “I don’t drink granules.”

She was carefree about many things, but when it came to taking medicine, she was absurdly picky. She wouldn’t drink anything too sweet, wouldn’t drink anything too bitter; she rejected all granules and only took capsules, but even capsules that were too big, she wouldn’t take.

Lin Yang said indifferently as she handed her a box, “Mm. It’s not granules. It’s rat poison. Eat it.”

Ah, she still wasn’t over it.

She had gone from pig to rat.

Xu Zhitong blinked and felt extremely innocent.

She had only accidentally said she could call her Mom.

And, by the way, accidentally let Lin Yang’s hand slide into the muscles under her loungewear.

Was that really too much? Actually, she had done it all by accident; and doing that to a wife wasn’t just normal flirting?

In the book she had secretly read last night, the heroine had done exactly this to her wife.

After that, the wife had gone weak all over and fallen into the heroine’s arms……

Lin Yang had been pretending to be fierce all this time; she really was thin-skinned.

How close had she and Lin Yang been before her amnesia? Surely they wouldn’t blush just from a kiss, right?

But when she saw Lin Yang, she wanted to kiss her. That definitely meant it was something she’d grown used to.

Then wouldn’t Lin Yang be……

Whenever they kissed, did she always……

Xu Zhitong abruptly cut off her thoughts.

Still, she thought this was a good thing. At the very least, it meant the cold war between Lin Yang and her pre-amnesia self wasn’t something that couldn’t be resolved.

If Lin Yang really didn’t like her anymore, how could she possibly get up early and make congee for her? And she definitely wouldn’t have any reaction to her body.

It was shyness, not disgust or indifference.

Lin Yang must still like her a lot; she was just still hung up on what happened before.

It was all the fault of her twenty-five-year-old self.

But it was fine. She was very capable. She would definitely untie the knot in Lin Yang’s heart.

Xu Zhitong thought it through to her own satisfaction. After taking her medicine, Lin Yang sent her to look through the organized livestream materials.

After reading them once, Xu Zhitong was shocked.

Lin Yang really understood her so well.

Maybe even her mother didn’t understand her this well.

All sorts of little habits and verbal tics from her streams were written down on it.

Because Lin Yang knew Xu Zhitong’s reading habits so well, she had even used different colored highlighters and sticky notes to mark important sections.

And to make things easier to identify, some of the gifts and streamers from the livestreams even had pictures attached.

Xu Zhitong couldn’t help thinking that even a pig could livestream with this material in hand.

Moved, she stared at it for a long time, then ran off to the livestream room to find Lin Yang.

Lin Yang was in there adjusting the livestream equipment for her.

After she finished, she took Xu Zhitong’s phone and posted the night’s livestream notice in the fan group.

Along the way, she also checked the app usage history on Xu Zhitong’s phone.

Over the past two days, aside from the video app she used to watch livestream recordings, the most-used app by far was actually a novel-reading app.

But she still hadn’t looked into any of the other apps on the phone, and she barely touched the messaging app. The 99+ red dots just sat there; she was too lazy to even clear the unread notifications.

Maybe because she’d watched novels for too long and gotten dizzy, and when she was dizzy she didn’t bother opening the other apps.

Or maybe Xu Zhitong still didn’t have the awareness that she could use her phone to learn about her past self.

Xu Zhitong hadn’t even asked Lin Yang much about what she was like at twenty-five.

Lin Yang watched for a while and had no intention of touching anything else.

She thought it was enough to let things take their course.

The things were all here. If one day Xu Zhitong really noticed some trace of them and grew suspicious, she would naturally tell her the truth.

She wouldn’t take the initiative to stop Xu Zhitong from discovering the truth…… at least not for now.

When Xu Zhitong pushed the door open and came in, she just happened to see Lin Yang looking at her phone.

“How’s it going?” Xu Zhitong came in and sat down beside Lin Yang.

She didn’t seem to think there was anything wrong with Lin Yang using her phone like that.

Lin Yang didn’t even, like last night, use the excuse of hand cream to soften the fact in Xu Zhitong’s mind that she was looking through Xu Zhitong’s phone.

Caught in the act, she still looked perfectly calm. “I posted the livestream notice in the group. I told the admins you’ll stream for forty minutes tonight. Is that okay?”

“It should be okay, right?”

Xu Zhitong wasn’t very sure and calculated it. “How about half an hour? If I get nervous and too embarrassed to chat with them, I’ll just keep singing. Shorter is fine; half an hour is about five or six songs.”

Lin Yang said okay.

She had basically figured out this livestream setup.

Xu Zhitong had only livestreamed the day before the car accident, so nothing had been moved around. Everything was still exactly where it should be, waiting for a broadcast.

Lin Yang made Xu Zhitong sit in front of the computer desk, then moved to the seat beside her and taught her one thing at a time.

The main things to pay attention to were microphone tuning, livestream interface settings, bullet comment speed, and the important points to watch for.

Lin Yang held the mouse and leaned very close to Xu Zhitong.

As Xu Zhitong listened, her thoughts drifted to Lin Yang beside her.

Still mad?

Lin Yang, expressionless and focused on her work, was beautiful too.

Cool and aloof.

Just like when they’d once sat at the same desk for a while.

Xu Zhitong liked sneaking glances at Lin Yang’s profile like this.

Watching Lin Yang tip her head back to listen in class; watching Lin Yang occasionally press the cap of her pen against her lips while thinking over a problem; watching Lin Yang tuck her hair behind her ear and diligently do her homework.

Too little, too late. So that was how serious her improper thoughts about Lin Yang had already been back then.

She just hadn’t realized it herself.

If she had figured it out earlier, maybe she could have been dating Lin Yang before she lost her memory.

That way, after losing her memory at seventeen, she wouldn’t have been left with not a single memory of the two of them being in love.

Author’s Note:

Actually, there were no such memories before the amnesia either, haha!