Chapter 54

She rushed in too quickly and nearly collided headfirst with Gu Yanqiu’s arms.

She managed to stop in time, but in that split second, Lin Yuewei changed her mind and deliberately let herself “fall” into Gu Yanqiu’s embrace. Gu Yanqiu instinctively wrapped both arms around her.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” Lin Yuewei breathed in the fresh scent of body wash on her and, pretending to be slow to catch on, straightened up. Her gaze met Gu Yanqiu’s; the other woman was just a little taller than she was.

The two of them often ended up looking at each other for no reason at all, and every time, an ambiguous mood seemed to drift between them.

Gu Yanqiu traced Lin Yuewei’s features with her eyes, feeling as though the other woman’s face were slowly growing larger before her.

As Gu Yanqiu looked at the increasingly clear reflection of herself in Lin Yuewei’s pupils, she slowly closed her eyes.

Lin Yuewei’s warm breath brushed the side of her nose; just as it reached the corner of Gu Yanqiu’s lips, Lin Yuewei stopped, counting the long, faintly trembling lashes one by one.

Gu Yanqiu waited and waited for the expected touch, but it never came. She opened her eyes.

“Do you usually use eyelash growth serum?” Lin Yuewei looked as though she were genuinely only curious about her eyelashes.

“No.” Gu Yanqiu spoke to her from this close distance.

“You’re just born with them that long?”

“Probably inherited. My mother’s lashes are long too.”

“Mine aren’t nearly this long.” Lin Yuewei sounded a little envious.

“Yours are dense. They look very dark, like you’re wearing eyeliner naturally.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Lin Yuewei casually stepped back and went to the bathroom to look in the mirror.

Gu Yanqiu’s brow tightened slightly.

This was already beyond her control.

In Gu Yanqiu’s plan, things were supposed to proceed step by step; she would quietly seep into Lin Yuewei’s life. She had already succeeded in getting a hug from Lin Yuewei before, but last night’s sleepwalking had thrown all her assumptions into chaos. Lin Yuewei had first been absolutely forceful, then deliberately or unintentionally intimate; hot and cold in turns, she had left Gu Yanqiu completely baffled.

The most troublesome part was the sleepwalking. Gu Yanqiu had no memory of it; she didn’t know the full picture, and with no way to make a proper judgment, she couldn’t tell what Lin Yuewei was really trying to do.

“Yuewei.” Gu Yanqiu leaned against the bathroom doorframe and called to her.

“Hm?” In the mirror, Lin Yuewei had one eye narrowed and the other half open; she was seriously counting her eyelashes. Even at this distance, she couldn’t possibly see them clearly, but she was counting with great interest anyway.

“Can you tell me what I did last night?”

“You planning to pay for it?” Lin Yuewei opened the eye she’d closed and smiled at her.

“Yes.” Gu Yanqiu answered.

“Then how are you going to calculate the interest?” Lin Yuewei asked again.

“…” Gu Yanqiu’s eyes widened slightly. There was interest too?

Lin Yuewei turned on the tap, wet her hands, squeezed out a pump of hand soap, rubbed it evenly over her skin, and worked it into white foam before rinsing it under the water. Only then did she say unhurriedly, “If you’re paying me back, how can you not count the interest?”

“…Whatever you say.” Gu Yanqiu paused before agreeing.

“You listen to me that much?”

“…”

Lin Yuewei shut off the water, flicked the drops from her hands, and didn’t bother drying them with a towel. She walked back out of the bathroom and sat on the bed, curling a finger at Gu Yanqiu.

Gu Yanqiu walked over with a slight frown.

Lin Yuewei used her slender fingers to smooth the crease between her brows. It seemed this matter had truly caused her a great deal of trouble. Lin Yuewei had lived for over twenty years and never met anyone like Gu Yanqiu; after doing something while not fully awake, she was still insisting on taking responsibility for it. If it had been someone else, would she have done the same?

She probably would. Gu Yanqiu really was that good a person.

At that thought, Lin Yuewei startled again. Since when had Gu Yanqiu’s image in her mind become so much more positive and vivid?

Lin Yuewei had just washed her hands; her fingertips were cool and damp, but after resting on the center of Gu Yanqiu’s brow for a while, they gradually grew warm again, burning softly against her skin. Gu Yanqiu took a small step back, pulling away from her fingers.

Lin Yuewei froze, then blurted out, “You did that to me last night too.”

Gu Yanqiu stilled completely. Then she took the initiative to take Lin Yuewei’s hand, resuming her original posture.

“What else?” Gu Yanqiu asked in a very low, slightly hoarse voice.

Hearing the restraint in her tone, Lin Yuewei was suddenly filled with pity and no longer wanted to “bully” her. “Nothing else. We just hugged and slept for a while. Doctors talk a lot of nonsense sometimes; you don’t need to take it too seriously.”

“When I woke up this morning, I was in my own room.”

“I’m talking about the couch in the living room. You were holding me and wouldn’t let go, and you kept calling for your mother.” Lin Yuewei told her everything except the kiss, including how Gu Yanqiu had pinched her face, her hand, the back of her neck, and her shoulder while sleepwalking, leaving nothing out.

“That’s all?” Gu Yanqiu said.

“That’s all.” For some reason, Lin Yuewei felt as though Gu Yanqiu sounded a little regretful. “What were you hoping for?”

“Nothing. Thank you for taking care of me last night.” Gu Yanqiu thanked her sincerely once more.

“It’s not really taking care of you. At most, I just played the role of a pillow.” Lin Yuewei waved it off with a laugh.

Gu Yanqiu smiled. “That’s still different. A pillow doesn’t have you—”

She stopped abruptly. Lin Yuewei pressed, “Doesn’t have me what?”

“…It doesn’t have your looks.”

“You definitely weren’t about to say that.”

Gu Yanqiu only smiled without answering.

What she had wanted to say was “soft,” but that was far too lighthearted. She and Lin Yuewei weren’t close enough for her to say something like that; it would have been rude.

Lin Yuewei didn’t know what she’d wanted to say, and wasn’t especially curious either. The most important thing was to make one thing clear: “So last night you really didn’t do anything to me. You don’t need to keep thinking about repayment or compensation. It’s making me very troubled.”

“Troubled about what?”

Of course, troubled about whether you like me. Lin Yuewei said to herself. Out loud, she joked, “Troubled about whether I’ve lost my memory or something. Otherwise, how could you do things to me and I’d forget them, while my memory is perfectly fine? Don’t make me start doubting myself.”

“All right,” Gu Yanqiu said. “You’re magnanimous, Yuewei.”

“No, no, I’m the opposite. I’m petty. What should be repaid still has to be repaid.” Lin Yuewei spread her arms to show the pajamas she was wearing. “But only one thing needs to be repaid; let me stay here tonight, okay?”

Gu Yanqiu’s brows had barely started to draw together before they relaxed again. “I brought a rope.” This afternoon, Doctor Zhang had said that it would be best for someone to stay with her while she sleepwalked, so they could wake her up at night. That was why Lin Yuewei had come down here in the first place: mainly to keep her company.

“You’re a young lady. Sleeping tied up with a rope all the time; what does that look like? You’re already at my house tonight, so just let me do my duty as your host. If you really won’t agree, then repay me for last night by holding me while I sleep.”

Lin Yuewei was firm; no matter what, she was staying.

Gu Yanqiu didn’t know what to say to the way Lin Yuewei treated her. She could only look at her with those burning eyes, as if a fire were blazing inside them.

Lin Yuewei felt uncomfortable all over, avoided her intense gaze, and said, “Do you want some water? I’ll go get you a glass outside.” Without waiting for Gu Yanqiu to answer, she pulled open the guest room door and went out.

Lin Yuewei felt that if she stayed in there any longer, she was going to catch fire. The room was clearly large, but once Gu Yanqiu was in it, the air seemed to thin out; even breathing took more effort.

Lin Yuewei found a clean cup, then took her own cup and set them side by side. Halfway through pouring the water, she felt a gust of cold air at the back of her neck and turned to look; she met a magnified face.

“Ah!!!” Lin Yuewei almost smashed the kettle into the other woman’s face. At the last possible moment, she saw who it was.

“Mom, can you please not suddenly appear behind me next time? What if I mistake you for a bad person and hurt you?”

Mrs. Lin narrowly escaped being hit by a hot-water kettle and was startled too. She snapped irritably, “I should be the one asking you that. Why did you suddenly appear in the kitchen? Didn’t you go upstairs to sleep?”

“I came down to get some water, is that not allowed?”

“Isn’t there water upstairs? You specifically ran down here…” As she spoke, Mrs. Lin’s gaze shifted to the counter.

Lin Yuewei thought, Oh no. She moved at once to block the two cups standing side by side.

Mrs. Lin asked with a smile, “What are you hiding?”

“N-nothing.”

“If it’s nothing, then what is it? Let me see.”

“Really, there’s nothing worth looking at.”

Mrs. Lin brushed Lin Yuewei’s shoulder aside and saw the two cups. Her eyes lit up instantly.

Lin Yuewei: “…”

Lin Yuewei tried to explain. “Here’s the thing, Mom. Gu Yanqiu doesn’t know where our hot water is. I’d just finished the water upstairs, so I came down to get some; since I was here anyway, I poured one for her too. It’s not what you think.”

Mrs. Lin said nothing, only angled her eyes at her with a look that said, Go ahead, keep making it up. If I believe you, I lose.

Fine. Go all in, then. Lin Yuewei thought.

“Yes. I’m staying with her tonight. What about it?” After declaring it in the most direct and crude way possible, Lin Yuewei picked up the two cups and left. Under her mother’s watchful eyes, she openly knocked on Gu Yanqiu’s door, went in, and never came out again.

Mrs. Lin, whose jaw had nearly dropped to the floor: “!!!”

It looked like her matchmaking career was completely over.

Mrs. Lin cheerfully went back to her room.

Gu Yanqiu was sitting at the head of the bed, removing the Buddhist beads from her wrist and putting them away in a box. Under the lamplight, her quiet silhouette was beautiful and peaceful, enough to stir a person’s heart. Lin Yuewei set one cup of water on the nightstand with a calm expression and asked, “Is there anything particular about this when sleeping?”

Gu Yanqiu glanced at her and said a little embarrassedly, “Buddhist beads can’t be worn during conjugal relations, and they’re supposed to be kept outside the bedroom; otherwise it would be disrespectful to the Buddha. We aren’t sharing a bed, but… so I put them away.”

Lin Yuewei: “Cough.”

She regretted asking.

Watching Gu Yanqiu close the box and place it far away on the desk, Lin Yuewei kept thinking about the words “conjugal relations.” She had not been thinking in that direction at all before, but now her mind had somehow gone crooked. And when she looked again at Gu Yanqiu’s cool, thin pajamas, she picked up the cup in her hand and gulped down two big mouthfuls of water.

The two of them stood and sat awkwardly, keeping a distance between them.

Gu Yanqiu broke the silence first. “Are you sleeping now? Or later?”

“Later.” Lin Yuewei nodded at her. “I’m going to play on my phone for a while.”

That was the best way to avoid awkwardness. Gu Yanqiu lay down first, placing both hands neatly at her sides, and closed her eyes. Lin Yuewei turned off the main light, leaving only the small nightlight on her side, and stared straight ahead while scrolling through web pages on her phone.

When she felt that Gu Yanqiu should already be asleep, she quietly adjusted her stiff posture and turned her gaze toward Gu Yanqiu’s sleeping face.

She stared without moving for a long time. Sleepiness crept up on her, and Lin Yuewei yawned before lying down and turning off the light.

Lin Yuewei’s sleep quality was decent; she was the sort of person who would only wake up to a loud disturbance. Ordinary movements wouldn’t wake her at all. To be safe, Lin Yuewei reached for one of Gu Yanqiu’s hands, threaded her fingers through the gaps, and clasped it tightly.

In the end, she still miscalculated.

Lin Yuewei woke to a beam of light. She raised a hand to shield her eyes; her consciousness followed, and she instinctively reached toward the spot beside her, only to find empty air.

It was like a bucket of ice water had been dumped over her head. Lin Yuewei sat up at once.

The room’s main light was on, making everything bright as day. Lin Yuewei looked around for Gu Yanqiu, but the room was empty. She hurried to open the door with a click; the sound told her the door had been unlocked from the inside, which meant Gu Yanqiu hadn’t left the room.

Lin Yuewei turned back and found Gu Yanqiu in the bathroom.

Gu Yanqiu was sitting on the toilet lid, elbows propped on her knees, silent.

“Gu Yanqiu?” Lin Yuewei called tentatively.

Gu Yanqiu looked over at her. Beneath her fringe, those half-open eyes held no spark of life. Lin Yuewei was sure she was sleepwalking again, and she held out one hand to her, speaking gently. “Come back to bed and sleep with me, okay?”

Gu Yanqiu lowered her head; her bangs fell forward, and she didn’t react.

Lin Yuewei gently took her wrist and lifted it, noticing that the crook of her arm was red. She must have been sitting there for quite a while. Self-reproach flooded over her. How had she managed to sleep so deeply?

She tugged at Gu Yanqiu, but Gu Yanqiu didn’t budge at all. Lin Yuewei tried to force her back to bed in a hug, only to be met with resistance from Gu Yanqiu. When they were both awake, they might have been evenly matched, but right now Gu Yanqiu was several times stronger than she was in the daytime. The more Lin Yuewei touched her, the more fiercely she resisted. Lin Yuewei didn’t dare provoke her any further and stood helplessly to the side.

Gu Yanqiu’s lips moved, and two very soft words came out.

Lin Yuewei had an inspiration. She crouched down and looked up at her, saying, “Mommy’s here. Be good, baby.”

It seemed Gu Yanqiu’s unfocused eyes found a point on her face for a brief instant, but it vanished almost immediately and returned to their previous state, as if it had only been an illusion.

She had to try everything, even if it was hopeless.

“Mommy will take you to sleep.”

“Mommy will sing you a nursery rhyme, okay?”

“I found a penny by the roadside…”

“Once upon a time, there was a king…”

Lin Yuewei spoke until her throat was dry, but Gu Yanqiu never gave any response. Lin Yuewei went back to drink some water; when she stood at the doorway, she remembered Doctor Zhang’s suggestion to wake her with a loud noise from a distance. But for some reason, she just couldn’t bring herself to do it. Besides, her mother was sleeping in the room next door. If she didn’t wake Gu Yanqiu, she might end up waking her mother instead.

At last, Gu Yanqiu began to nod off while still sitting on the toilet lid. Lin Yuewei kept her eyes open and waited for this moment, then stepped forward to support her; Gu Yanqiu softened and fell into her arms.

Lin Yuewei carried her back to bed, lowered her head, and took another kiss from her lips, finding a reason for herself with complete moral confidence. “This is payment.”

Yesterday had only been a fleeting brush; today was the same, yet Lin Yuewei still wasn’t satisfied. Gu Yanqiu was sleeping very soundly; her lips were warm, glowing with an enticing sheen under the light. Lin Yuewei couldn’t help lowering her head again, gently sucking on her lower lip.

She didn’t know how many seconds passed before she pulled back slightly, one hand resting against Gu Yanqiu’s sleeping cheek. Unable to restrain herself, she closed her mouth over Gu Yanqiu’s lips, lingering there, then parted her teeth with no instruction from anyone and found the other woman’s soft tongue.

Sweetness like honey flowed from Gu Yanqiu’s lips and teeth straight into her heart. Lin Yuewei kissed her with her eyes closed, utterly intoxicated.

Only when Gu Yanqiu, short of breath, shifted slightly onto her side and gave a soft hum did Lin Yuewei wake as though from a dream. She left her lips in a rush of breath, lay flat beside her, and felt her heart pounding like a drum.

Lin Yuewei stared at the ceiling for a long time and couldn’t fall asleep. On the other hand, after making a sound, the person beside her had gained some air and was breathing lightly and evenly. Lin Yuewei turned her head, tracing the other woman’s face in the dark; faint dimples formed in her cheeks. Even without needing to guard against her suddenly getting up, Lin Yuewei still reached into the blanket and found her hand, holding it.

The first ray of morning light spilled into the room. Gu Yanqiu opened her eyes and immediately felt a weight on her body. She moved and discovered an arm pressed across her waist; there was no need to guess whose arm it was.

Gu Yanqiu was just about to carefully move the hand away when its owner woke as well. Lin Yuewei drew her arm back, looked at Gu Yanqiu, and smiled brightly. Her voice carried the hoarseness unique to early morning. “Good morning.”

“Good morning.” Gu Yanqiu asked, “Did I sleepwalk last night?”

“You did.” Lin Yuewei’s expression changed subtly. She felt that she’d only kissed for a little while last night, so why were Gu Yanqiu’s lips swollen…

“Did I do anything?”

“No, n-no.”

Why was she stuttering if nothing happened? Gu Yanqiu also noticed that Lin Yuewei’s lips seemed to be an unusually deep color.

Gu Yanqiu got up and went to the bathroom.

Lin Yuewei had no face to see anyone and pulled the blanket over her head.

Looking at herself in the mirror, Gu Yanqiu’s expression was especially hard to describe.

After a long while, she stood at the doorway and said apologetically to Lin Yuewei on the bed, “About last night, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to kiss you, and I even got you looking like this.”

Author’s note: Miss Lin: There’s even someone actively rushing to take the blame for this???