It Was Me Who Wanted to Propose

Lin Yang couldn’t think what to do.

The car circled the overpass twice and wasted an hour before finally rolling slowly into the residential garage.

Lin Yang sat in the car for another five minutes before forcing herself out.

Even if... even if Xu Zhitong really did have that sort of intention.

It probably wouldn’t happen so soon.

Maybe before there was even a proposal, she’d recover her memory.

Then naturally, there’d be nothing to worry about.

Lin Yang forced herself to pretend she didn’t know Xu Zhitong had bought a diamond ring, gathered her thoughts, and walked into the building.

The elevator went up; her fingerprint was recognized; she stepped into the apartment.

The home was warm, just as expected.

On the table sat a wooden takeout box for sushi.

Xu Zhitong was probably in the living room playing games. These past two days, she had gotten obsessed with a mystery game, and every day she would sit in front of the coffee table with her console in her arms, playing while taking notes in a notebook.

Lin Yang changed her shoes, and Xu Zhitong stood up to meet her.

She stood in the entryway, eyes fixed on her, and muttered, “So late.”

There was no warmth or kiss like Lin Yang had expected, which only made her feel more guilty.

After all, she really had come home late.

It was her fault; unable to face Xu Zhitong, who might have been planning to propose to her, she had deliberately had the driver circle around before coming home.

Lin Yang pressed her lips together and said apologetically, “It won’t happen next time.”

Xu Zhitong looked a little appeased.

“You couldn’t eat your master chef’s omakase, so I ordered you a small omakase box and asked them to add a few extra sea urchin hand rolls. Want to eat now?”

She was dressed in soft loungewear and showed Lin Yang the sushi she had ordered. After speaking, she even gave a very proud little huff.

Lin Yang couldn’t help herself; she took Xu Zhitong’s wrist and leaned in to kiss her first.

Xu Zhitong seemed stunned for a moment.

She looked at Lin Yang so close in front of her, gritted her teeth silently, and then wrapped her arms around Lin Yang to take control.

Her kiss was fierce, as if she wanted to grind Lin Yang’s lips and teeth to pieces and swallow her whole, pushing deeper and deeper until Lin Yang could hardly breathe.

It had clearly been Lin Yang who kissed first, yet she was the one being kissed so hard she had to arch back, unable to resist.

When they finally parted, her lower lip was wet and swollen from being nipped.

Xu Zhitong hadn’t held back at all today.

Lin Yang thought she was still sulking over the late return, so she let Xu Zhitong finish kissing her, then touched her cheek. “Still mad?”

“...”

Xu Zhitong stared at her for two seconds, then turned her head away and said, “Eat first. It’s almost ten; that’s bad for your stomach.”

So hard to appease.

Amused, Lin Yang deliberately copied Xu Zhitong’s usual sulky manner, reached for her hand, and gave it a shake. “What, you really are mad at me?”

Xu Zhitong puffed up her cheeks. “No...”

She lowered her head, looked at Lin Yang’s face, and kissed her. “Did I hurt you when I bit you?”

Lin Yang deliberately said, “It hurts a lot.”

Xu Zhitong: “You’re lying.”

Lin Yang laughed. “Then do you want to kiss a little longer?”

She looked at Xu Zhitong, tilting her face up in a way that invited a kiss.

Xu Zhitong then circled Lin Yang’s waist, tilted her head, found a better angle, and lovingly sucked on her lower lip, kissing her again.

They kissed for a long time; Lin Yang even grew a little heated and sore at the waist, breathing in fragments. “All right, I’m eating.”

“Mhm.”

Xu Zhitong went to the kitchen and brought out a small dish and chopsticks, squeezed the soy sauce packet into the dish, and set everything down in front of Lin Yang.

The wine from last time still hadn’t been finished, so she poured Lin Yang half a glass.

Then she sat across from Lin Yang and watched her eat the sushi one bite at a time.

She thought Lin Yang looked adorable even eating like this.

The heart that had nearly gone crazy while waiting for Lin Yang to come home now felt sweet, as if soaked through with honey.

Xu Zhitong’s canine teeth slowly pressed into the soft flesh inside her lip.

She thought of the photo Lin Zhao had sent her.

It said Lin Yang had gone home to go on a blind date.

Her match was some young lady from an elite family; her mother was very satisfied and wanted Xu Zhitong not to keep delaying Lin Yang any longer or coveting what she shouldn’t.

What a persistent pest. Blocked, and she’d just switched to another account.

Reason told Xu Zhitong that this lunatic was either spreading lies or twisting the facts just to damage the relationship between her and Lin Yang.

But she still couldn’t stop the sourness rising in her chest.

She definitely couldn’t make Lin Yang’s mother and sister satisfied.

Her work wasn’t very respectable, and she and Lin Yang were not quite a proper match.

Her mothers had asked her the same question tonight too; would Lin Yang’s family agree?

But, but...

Actually, dinner with Xu Ran and the others tonight had ended rather unhappily.

Xu Zhitong stubbornly said that in any case she was going to marry Lin Yang, and the mothers’ expressions had been strange, as if they thought she was childish.

But an immature mental age was because of her memory loss, not because she herself wanted to be like this.

Did you have to be mentally mature to marry Lin Yang?

Lin Yang had also said she was childish before.

After Lin Yang had eaten more than half, Xu Zhitong finally asked, as if casually, “Was the food at your place tonight that bad?”

What she really wanted to ask was: who did you meet tonight?

Naturally, Lin Yang couldn’t read the little drama in Xu Zhitong’s head. She took a sip of the chilled wine; satisfied and full, her eyes curved as well.

In a good mood, she said, “Not as good as what you bought me.”

“...Hmph.”

Xu Zhitong felt that Lin Yang was coaxing her.

She definitely felt guilty toward her; Lin Yang usually rarely said such straightforward sweet talk, and even more rarely took the initiative to ask for kisses.

She was just like the pitiful sleeping wife in a TV drama who had been betrayed.

When Lin Yang saw her sulking in silence, she couldn’t help laughing. “Why are you just huffing all the way after coming home? Turning into a little pig?”

Xu Zhitong: “Hmph!”

This time the huff was especially forceful.

Lin Yang: “It’s really good. Try some.”

She pushed the wooden box over. Unexpectedly, Xu Zhitong didn’t even get new chopsticks or a new dish; biting her lip, she wordlessly took the chopsticks and small plate Lin Yang had used, and even dragged over Lin Yang’s wine glass.

Lin Yang: “Why not use your own?”

Xu Zhitong: “There’s something on the chopsticks, and it’s in my mouth too.”

“...” It took Lin Yang a moment to understand, and her face turned red. She kicked Xu Zhitong under the table. “What are you saying?”

Xu Zhitong angrily tasted the sushi Lin Yang had left behind.

It really was pretty good; this was the shop she had chosen after reading countless delivery reviews.

But she still felt off.

She cleaned up the takeaway box and continued asking Lin Yang, “Did you meet your mother tonight? How was it?”

Lin Yang was bending down to get the notebook from the coffee table.

At the question, she froze for a moment. “Mm, she...”

Lin Yang didn’t know whether she should tell Xu Zhitong that she had already left the Lin family.

She worried that if she said it, Xu Zhitong would feel obligated to give her a new home.

And then immediately take out the diamond ring and propose.

She didn’t even need to think hard; Xu Zhitong really was capable of something like that.

So Lin Yang paused for a moment before saying, “It was all right. Not very pleasant.”

Xu Zhitong moved closer and asked, trying to sound casual, “Why? She specially called you back for dinner; did she scold you?”

“Not really,” Lin Yang shook her head. “Lin Zhao came back from vacation, so she asked me to come home for a meal. She didn’t say anything to me; mostly Lin Zhao was talking with her friend.”

“Oh, her friend.”

Xu Zhitong repeated sourly, understanding that Lin Yang had no intention of telling her the truth.

It was obviously the blind date partner.

It was obviously that she had been called back for a blind date.

Lin Yang, embarrassed by the lie, was pretending to look carefully at Xu Zhitong’s game notes.

Xu Zhitong stood beside her, staring at Lin Yang for a while until her eyes started to sting.

She bit her lip for what felt like the umpteenth time, then said, “Oh right, I went shopping with mommy and the others today, and I bought you a gift too.”

Lin Yang was startled.

She abruptly lifted her eyes from the notebook.

A dark blue H-brand gift bag was sitting by the TV cabinet.

Xu Zhitong picked it up and rummaged through it with her head down.

“This one’s the scarf they gave with the purchase, this one’s the chocolate they gave with the purchase, this one’s the..."

She tossed the small and large gift boxes aside, and only at the end did she take out a long rectangular box.

“This is a necklace I bought you.”

Oh, so it was a necklace.

Seeing the long box, Lin Yang finally relaxed.

Maybe Lin Zhao had misunderstood.

Lin Zhao probably had only seen Xu Zhitong once and, seeing her carrying an H-brand shopping bag, assumed Xu Zhitong had bought a diamond ring.

Though H-brand necklaces weren’t as famous as diamond rings, they were still classics.

Xu Zhitong might really have been helping the aunties buy rings and bought herself a necklace on the way.

She untied the ribbon on top and took out the sparkling diamond necklace.

Xu Zhitong had never been stingy when spending money on Lin Yang; if she had ten, she would spend at least nine. She had been like that ever since school, spending so much of her own allowance that when she bought Lin Yang a breakfast egg pancake, she had to get the deluxe combo.

Lin Yang said, “Will you put it on for me?”

Xu Zhitong said okay.

She came around and carefully fastened the diamond necklace around Lin Yang’s fair neck.

It glittered brilliantly.

It was a gift from Xu Zhitong.

Lin Yang rarely had much emotional reaction to outside things, but at this moment she still couldn’t help looking at herself in the mirror again and again.

Turning her head, she happily kissed Xu Zhitong and asked softly, “Wasn’t it expensive?”

Xu Zhitong asked, “Do you like it?”

Lin Yang nodded. “I like it. It’s really pretty.”

“Mm, the prettiest in the world.”

Xu Zhitong looked at Lin Yang in the mirror.

Her Bao was beautiful everywhere. Going back to the Lin residence for a blind date, she had put on light makeup and sprayed perfume. After a whole night, the makeup was still flawless; she was still just as fair and luminous, like a lotus rising from the water.

Only her lip color was a little heavier, because Xu Zhitong had kissed it there.

The only things that could leave a mark on her, apart from expensive, dazzling gemstones, were herself.

She should clearly belong only to her.

Xu Zhitong couldn’t help thinking with a mix of obsession and irritation that Lin Yang absolutely could not have any possibility of being with someone else.

She could only belong to her.

The Lin Yang she had liked at first sight, the Lin Yang who was the best person in the whole world to her; would she really be with someone else?

Back in middle school, when they talked about everything under the sun, Lin Yang had said she wanted to escape her mother’s control someday.

So why, now that they were twenty-five and had been dating for years, had Lin Yang still not left, and was still obediently going home to follow her mother’s arrangements for blind dates?

Xu Zhitong thought Lin Yang must have some difficulty she didn’t know about.

Of course she wouldn’t feel even the slightest resentment toward Lin Yang; she only felt the emotions she had been holding in for half the night churn in her chest, making her anxious.

...And powerless.

What could she do?

With only the memories of a seventeen-year-old, she had no experience handling things like this. For a moment, she even hated her amnesiac self.

If she were twenty-five, would she be more mature, more capable; could she make Lin Yang confide in her about the unhappiness of the blind date, or even solve the matter?

If only there really were a red thread in this world. She wanted to tie herself and Lin Yang together so tightly that nothing could ever pull them apart.

Xu Zhitong was lost and miserable. She looked at Lin Yang in the mirror for a long time until Lin Yang met her gaze in confusion and made a strange, “Hm?” sound.

“Did I make you stupid?” Lin Yang asked her amusedly.

Xu Zhitong’s lips trembled.

She asked, “Do you like this brand?”

Lin Yang: “...Hm?”

Xu Zhitong looked into Lin Yang’s eyes.

She took a breath.

Her voice was very faint, very weak.

Yet what she said sounded as if it carried the courage of someone staking everything on a single throw.

“I ordered a diamond ring from their brand, Bao. My mom and the others didn’t celebrate a wedding anniversary at all; I wanted to pick a good day and propose to you.”