Study

Nan Changgeng’s forearm stiffened for an instant. The touch against her fingertip was impossibly soft, followed by a gentle pressure; the breath that brushed her skin was warm and damp.

Yu Mao was wrapping the soft flesh of her lips around her teeth, making the shape of a bite.

Teeth were sharp. They were the outward weapon of desire, the visible act of gnawing and devouring.

Perhaps because she had never had such intimate contact with another person before, Nan Changgeng’s senses kept folding inward like a collapse of quicksand. From the touch of that finger, the sensation kept rustling deeper and deeper, and for a moment the air around her was silent to the extreme.

She received the signal of yearning Yu Mao was sending her, and at the same time, she felt Yu Mao’s restraint to the point that she would rather hurt herself.

She had never been able to touch any of Yu Mao’s hardness.

The girl’s cherishment was like silk spun from ice silkworm threads, woven into layer after layer; fine and intricate, cool and moist, carefully wrapping around her in an effort to be so harmless that it would not abrade her skin at all.

Yet the spikes growing from her body would always pierce through the gaps in that silk, becoming the fixed grips she could climb on.

Nan Changgeng lowered her brows and eyes. Through the girl’s long lashes and the pale, slightly upturned tip of her nose, she looked down at her from this angle, and the face took on the pious air of a Western classical oil painting, like an angel in the kingdom of gods.

Without realizing it, she tightened her jaw; her breathing was light, and ripples spread slowly through her blood.

It was only when Yu Mao’s lips parted from her finger that she regained awareness of the world around her, as if surfacing from underwater; the dust in the air once again fell in a steady stream.

The girl looked up at her with dark eyes and said solemnly, “Changgeng, this is what I want to do.”

Nan Changgeng was stunned for a moment before she realized that she was carrying out her request: to sense her own desires, and then act on them.

“Good. Well done.”

She gave the praise in a hoarse voice held back tight; both hands kneaded the girl’s cheeks, and a faint smile hung at the corners of her mouth, while something deeper hid beneath her lowered eyelids. “Good girl.”

…

After dealing with the problems online and delaying for a while longer, the two of them stopped dawdling and took a taxi back to the production team.

A driverless car was truly convenient; even public figures could enjoy the freedom of hailing a ride, without having to keep using their own car out of privacy concerns.

Only in the car did Nan Changgeng have time to take a closer look at how far this matter had spread online, only to discover that the heat was already slowly dropping.

It had only been half a day; the speed was completely unreasonable. There was even an abruptly trending celebrity scandal, some traffic-star actor cheating and having a threesome.

The people above really had made a move; it was just that their methods were relatively gentle, not too forceful or direct.

Since there was at least some hesitation on their part, she felt a little more at ease.

Putting away her phone, she turned her gaze back to the girl beside her.

Yu Mao was looking at her too, her body soft against the seat as she tilted her head. She looked like a sunflower in human form, facing no one but Nan Changgeng.

Nan Changgeng smiled helplessly. After thinking for a moment, she reached over and dragged the rear screen to the middle, then found a film to watch.

“Let’s watch a movie. Stop staring at me all the time.”

Yu Mao slowly turned her head toward the front, looking a little reluctant.

When the display turned on, the first page happened to be a movie; it must have been left there by the previous passenger, and the progress bar was stopped at two-thirds.

Nan Changgeng exited to read the synopsis and found, to her surprise, that it was a lesbian art film, its color palette carrying a lonely, melancholy gloom, like a dusk about to fade; in fact, it had a very happy ending.

After a moment of hesitation, she clicked in again and dragged the progress bar back to the very beginning.

This would do. It was quite suitable for letting Yu Mao experience a bit more of those subtle emotions.

Most importantly, the ending was good. Reality was already heavy enough; she did not want a movie to involve life-and-death separations as well.

“Watch carefully, and tell me what you thought when it’s over.” She reminded Yu Mao; after speaking, she even laughed once, feeling very much like one of those tiresome parents, or a stern teacher.

But Yu Mao clearly did not think so; she nodded obediently. “Okay.”

The film opened on shimmering water, its misty tones slowly flowing into a small town. Antique-style buildings and creaking boats drifted into the frame.

The story was about the encounter between a painter who came to the town to sketch and the owner of a local bar. The writing was plain and grounded, and the dialogue matched reality, yet the beautiful camera language gave it a unique romance, full of contrast, just like the two heroines.

The owner ran the bar alone, fiery and down-to-earth; the painter was sensitive and artistic. They were two completely different people, two completely different worlds colliding and blending together.

The film’s overall style was as if the camera itself belonged to the painter: the colors carried the damp, melancholy beauty of a Jiangnan town, and the composition was exquisitely detailed, like a painting. Yet the story itself was written by the owner; the lines were direct and clear, and whenever the owner faced the painter’s countless twists and turns of feeling, she often misunderstood them, taking the deeper meaning of her actions in entirely the opposite direction, creating plenty of comedic effect.

The film’s greatest conflict also lay in the huge difference between their personalities. Misunderstanding the other woman’s lack of interest in her, the painter, after doing everything she could to pursue her, sadly decided to bow out. She deliberately chose a rainy day full of poetic atmosphere to send the other woman a farewell love letter, then left the town.

Just after finishing her morning exercise, the owner took the letter with a hand full of sweat. The moment the painter turned to leave, she tore it open in a rush and read it at a glance; shocked, she immediately ran out, blocked the woman, who had only managed to walk a few dozen steps while being drizzled on and mentally acting out a tragic melodrama, and forcibly dragged her back.

What followed shifted into a humorous and warm comedy. The sentiment in the love letter was answered with a passionate kiss. The owner was equally resentful inwardly, feeling that since words always led to misunderstandings, it would be better to prove it with actual action instead.

Once the two of them confirmed their relationship, the story reached its end.

Nan Changgeng turned off the screen and pressed around her eyes to ease the fatigue, then said offhandedly, “The film’s quality is pretty high; the storytelling and visuals were better than I expected, and the ending is very happy.”

“I just don’t know how long they’d last if things kept developing this way.”

She rarely thought about romance, but based on her understanding of human nature, such a large gap in personalities would sooner or later drain both sides through the difficulty of understanding each other; feelings would naturally fade along with that.

Of course, it was also possible that the two of them had found a suitable way to be together, and could accompany each other all the way through life.

She turned her head and looked at the girl beside her, then asked gently, “How was it? Any thoughts?”

Yu Mao blinked and said with certainty, “If you’re dating, you have to have a mouth; you also have to have a brain.”

Nan Changgeng paused, then let out a soft laugh. “You’re right. Not just when dating; in any relationship, those two are indispensable.”

“I do, I will!” Yu Mao looked at her earnestly. “I can guess what you’re thinking, so it’s okay even if you don’t want to talk.”

“That’s not something I need to leave entirely to you.” She was both amused and exasperated, shaking her head.

Though she had already seen how sharp Yu Mao could be, if she really let her do that, she would feel like she was abusing a patient.

“With that energy, you could observe the outside world more. For example, in the film just now, which scene did you think was the most beautiful? Was there a line that touched you? Did you like the Jiangnan scenery in it?”

She guided Yu Mao to think about and sense her own preferences.

“The most beautiful…” Yu Mao fell into a slightly longer recollection. She always treated Nan Changgeng’s questions with enough seriousness, serious enough that she had to pull every frame of the movie back through her mind and inspect, frame by frame, which moment could be called the most beautiful in her judgment.

About a minute passed. She opened the display and dragged the progress bar, now near the end, back a little, stopping precisely at 1:13:25. On the screen was the painter, miserable inside, sitting in the bar and drowning her sorrows in alcohol.

Nan Changgeng’s brow jumped in surprise; she had not expected Yu Mao to choose a shot of the character herself.

“Changgeng, look. She’s a little like you were twelve years ago.”

The image on the screen was somewhat dim. To deepen the atmosphere, the bar at night had only candlelike lamps lit. The woman wore a white dress; half her face was hidden in the dark, and her cheeks were tinted with a faint flush from the yellow light, drunken and hazy.

The frown Nan Changgeng had unconsciously knitted loosened and returned to calm. “Like me? I don’t drink much; I probably have never gotten this drunk outside.”

“No. It was when you had a fever. Your face was all red, just like you were drunk.”

Yu Mao was fully intent on remembering the question she had been asked. After answering the first one, she dragged the progress bar farther ahead and read the subtitle below:

“Other than your happiness, I ask for nothing.”

Nan Changgeng pressed her lips together in silence for a moment, then let out a quiet sentence: “No. You should ask for something.”

Yu Mao turned back in confusion. “Is that wrong? Isn’t that love?”

“It’s not wrong, but it’s only a line of sweet talk.” Nan Changgeng explained patiently. “All normal people, besides loving one person, have countless other desires in life. For this character, for example, although she said this, what she pursues is definitely not only the other half’s happiness; there must also be her own happiness, her own pursuits, hobbies, and so on. Putting yourself first, basing things on your own feelings; that’s what a mentally healthy, clear-minded normal person is.”

“The reason I want you to be happy is that I’ll feel happy because of it.” Her gaze softened and shimmered gently. “When you understood that line, did you sense that ‘I’?”

Yu Mao fell into thought, then hesitated. “I don’t know if that’s the reason, but when you’re happy, I’m definitely happy.”

“Then suppose this instead: if, when I’m happy, all you can feel is pain, would you still want me to be happy?”

“…” Yu Mao opened her lips; her tone was even a little strained. “That hypothetical is too hard. That would mean I no longer love you. I can’t imagine that. I don’t know.”

Nan Changgeng smiled and patted the top of her head. “That’s fine too. You didn’t immediately tell me ‘yes’; that means it isn’t too bad.”

At the very least, it meant she had not completely lost her own sense of self.

“One more question then: do you like Jiangnan waterscapes? What do you feel when you see scenery like that? Any other scenery you prefer?”

“I don’t like it, and I don’t dislike it.” Yu Mao thought carefully, but still shook her head in the end. “It’s very pretty on the screen, but I don’t want to go in person; my skin would feel damp.”

But for the last question, she answered at once and with certainty: “Snow. I like places where it snows, thick snowy mountains, snowy scenery.”