Chapter 61

“I’m feeling a little dizzy now. Let me lean on you for a bit,” Yu Min said. “That’s better. More comfortable.”

With her other hand, she reached back and touched Yu Min’s forehead.

“Do you have a fever?”

“Probably not.”

She didn’t. Her temperature was normal; she was fine.

She had been perfectly all right during the day, and even just now she had seemed fine. Then all at once she wilted, the change as sudden as a roller coaster drop. It was so abrupt that it left Lin Baixin helpless.

For a moment, Lin Baixin was at a loss for words. Even though she could tell Yu Min was probably just pretending to fool herself, she still went along with it.

“Lie down in bed later and rest,” Lin Baixin reminded her. “Be careful. If you do get a fever, take medicine.”

Yu Min hummed in acknowledgment, her forehead pressed near Lin Baixin’s collarbone. “I won’t. It can’t get that bad.”

Yu Min didn’t mention Zheng Qing and the others transferring the property into her name. There was no need to bring it up in front of Lin Baixin; saying it would only make one more person worry. It would just add to the irritation.

But she had gone to see Jiang Zhou; Lin Baixin knew that much. Yu Min didn’t say much about it, while Lin Baixin circled around the subject and asked a few questions. She didn’t seem all that interested, as if it were only casual conversation.

“Was it just you people again?”

“Liu Yun and the others didn’t come.”

Lin Baixin’s lips pressed together slightly. “So you went alone?”

Yu Min said, “Mm. Liu Yun was supposed to go, but something came up at the last minute and she couldn’t make it.”

“I see.”

“She’s only coming next week.”

So she would still have to go next week; she would still have to see Jiang Zhou again.

Lin Baixin’s fingertips unconsciously rubbed the edge of the sofa. A strange feeling rose in her heart; she couldn’t quite name it, only that she felt a little uneasy.

Yu Min, still resting against Lin Baixin’s shoulder, didn’t think much of it. After running around outside for half the day, she soon felt tired. She had only closed her eyes to rest for a moment, but when she turned her head, she had actually fallen asleep.

Noticing that her breathing was growing deeper and steadier, Lin Baixin turned her head and stayed completely still. To let Yu Min keep using her shoulder as a pillow, she held that position for a long time. By the time half her body had gone numb and stiff and started to ache, Lin Baixin could no longer stand it. She tapped Yu Min lightly twice and told her in a low voice to go back to her room and sleep.

Yu Min was still half-dazed from sleep. The moment she was woken, she didn’t react at first; she opened her eyes groggily and looked around. She still thought she had only closed them for a bit and hadn’t realized more than half an hour had already passed. She didn’t get up. Not only did she not go into the room, she pressed herself closer to Lin Baixin again and shamelessly said in a soft voice, “Wait a minute. I’ll go in right away...”

Right away turned into another ten-odd minutes.

Lin Baixin had no choice. She couldn’t bear to wake her up again, so she could only let her sleep a little longer and casually drape a blanket over her. Then she kept watch as Yu Min continued sleeping.

That night, Yu Min never did go into the room to sleep. She ended up sleeping on the sofa. Once this person fell asleep, she was dead to the world; no amount of tugging could get her up. Lin Baixin didn’t want to go through the trouble of moving her, and she didn’t bother waking her either. If she wanted to sleep, then let her sleep; the sofa worked just as well. It was the same.

Maybe the summer heat made people lazy. As soon as they got home, they both lost all energy. Over the next few days, without either of them saying anything, they mostly just flopped onto the sofa whenever they had nothing to do; they watched shows, played on their phones, or each did their own thing. Yu Min memorized words and read books, while Lin Baixin tapped away on her laptop and fiddled with all sorts of random things.

Once it got hot, they usually dressed lightly and casually. Lin Baixin liked slip dresses; Yu Min wore nothing but shorts with short-sleeved shirts, and sometimes tank tops.

Their exposed skin brushed against each other’s—arms, legs, even feet... When Yu Min got tired from studying, she would simply collapse and sleep, practically treating the sofa as a second bed.

Once, this girl even somehow ended up lying across Lin Baixin’s thighs as she slept, using the other woman’s legs as a pillow. She looked perfectly comfortable.

Lin Baixin found it amusing and pinched the tip of her ear, not hard enough to hurt her at all; she wouldn’t feel a thing.

Yu Min was blunt and straightforward; she said whatever came to mind.

“Being with you feels really comfortable. It makes me feel safer,” she said softly.

Lin Baixin said, “So I even have that effect now? I’m practically a sleeping pill.”

“You work better than a sleeping pill. I don’t know why, but whenever I’m with you, I get sleepy and just want to sleep.”

“Maybe because I’m too boring.”

“No, that’s not it.”

Lin Baixin was used to it. She patted the space beside her. “Sleepy again? Come on, if you’re tired, take a break.”

Yu Min wasn’t tired, but since she’d been told to rest, she rested. She lay down at once and, with no sense of restraint whatsoever, said again, “I like being with you.”

“...Mm.”

“No one is better than you.”

Lin Baixin didn’t answer. She only hooked a finger around the tip of Yu Min’s hair and twirled it into two little circles, her fingertip intentionally brushing Yu Min’s chin and absently grazing it twice.

When both of them were free, they sat close together again and watched a movie.

It was still the film Zhao Shiyu had recommended: a niche movie called *Saving Face*, a story tangled up with family and love, about family and lesbians.

According to Zhao Shiyu, it was a very profound film, well worth watching together. It wasn’t just about homosexuality; more than that, it was about the ideas behind it, about life, about freedom and pursuit, about the meaning of living and one’s attitude toward the world. In short, it was meaningful and worth seeing.

Yu Min didn’t know that the movie’s female lead was part of a lesbian couple. Zhao Shiyu told her there wasn’t much homosexual content, that the main line was still about family, but after watching for a while, Yu Min realized Zhao Shiyu had been talking nonsense and deliberately misleading her.

Still, it really was an excellent film. Halfway through, Yu Min’s gaze fell on Lin Baixin twice.

Lin Baixin could follow it. She rarely watched this sort of movie, but the conflict in the story was quite interesting. Though somewhat clichéd, it wasn’t dull. More importantly, one of the leads was Joan Chen, an actress Lin Baixin recognized. A movie with a veteran actor like that was worth watching.

There was one scene in the film with a particularly strong impact. The younger protagonist, Wil, was gay. Worried that her traditional, conservative mother would not accept her sexual orientation, she always hid herself and remained in a secret relationship with her girlfriend, Vivian. When their conflict finally erupted, Vivian demanded in front of everyone at the airport that Wil kiss her. Wil couldn’t do it, and the two of them eventually broke up.

By the ending, after a series of adjustments, the two still got back together. But the director handled that scene so well that both Yu Min and Lin Baixin, who had originally just been killing time, became quite absorbed.

The movie lingered after it ended; once it was over, the room grew especially quiet.

Yu Min didn’t say anything, only glancing sideways in silence, while Lin Baixin spoke first and awkwardly asked, “Is there a second part?”

Yu Min said, “I’m not sure. I’ll ask Zhao Shiyu later.”

There was no second part. It was a complete film.

Yu Min said, “If this were real life, they probably wouldn’t get back together. They wouldn’t end up together again.”

Lin Baixin was usually quiet. After a while, she asked, “Why?”

“Once they’ve split, they’ve split. It’s hard to turn back,” Yu Min said bluntly. “And people’s views are hard to change. It’s impossible to suddenly wake up like that the way it’s written in movies, isn’t it?”

Lin Baixin couldn’t give an answer. Meeting Yu Min’s eyes, her lips moved soundlessly. It took a long time before she finally forced out a sentence: “Maybe...”

“If you were Wil, what would you choose?”

“I don’t know.”

“Hypothetically. Would you choose to win Vivian back, or just end it there?”

“That’s hard to choose.”

“So that means you’d make the opposite choice, right?”

“No.”

“Then you’d choose to win her back?”

“No, either.”

Yu Min stared at her closely. It was obvious she wasn’t just asking about the character and the plot on the surface. Lin Baixin’s avoidance wasn’t that obvious on her face, but in the end she still couldn’t give a definite answer, so Yu Min had no choice but to give up. She couldn’t force the other woman.

Because of this, because Lin Baixin’s vague attitude was probably too frustrating, Yu Min stayed mostly quiet for much of the rest of the day and stopped looking for trouble.

Lin Baixin wanted to explain, but there wasn’t much to explain. How was she supposed to explain it? Tell Yu Min that she wasn’t like that?

Yet Yu Min had hit the nail on the head. She was like that. She would make the opposite choice; only unlike the character, she wasn’t being forced by her surroundings. She wasn’t a lesbian, so she couldn’t take that final step.

She didn’t know how to explain all that to Yu Min. It was awkward; strange.

Fortunately, Yu Min’s temper only lasted half a day at most. By the time the sky darkened, she was fine again.

It wasn’t worth making such a big deal over something so small; Yu Min could regulate herself. After half a day, she’d be all right.

Resting against Lin Baixin’s shoulder, Yu Min weighed it for a long time before finally asking. She stripped away the flimsy, useless pretense and said bluntly and openly, “What if I’m a lesbian? What if I like girls?”

But Lin Baixin wasn’t surprised at all. As if she had been expecting it, there wasn’t a trace of shock on her face; only calm, only composure.

“Then that’s fine too,” she said softly after a while. “As long as you can be responsible for yourself.”

“Would you hate me?”

“No.”

“Would you kick me out?”

“Neither would I.”

Yu Min’s face was almost pressed into the crook of her neck. After a pause, as if she didn’t know when to stop while she was ahead, she asked again, “Then if I did something wrong, could it still be the same? Could things still not change?”

This time, Lin Baixin no longer gave a firm answer. Instead, she asked, “What thing?”

“I don’t know yet. Maybe I’ll only know when that day comes.”

“Then we’ll see when the time comes.”

Yu Min said, “Can’t you give me a promise now?”

Lin Baixin didn’t. Instead, she suddenly lifted a hand and touched Yu Min’s back, not fully pressing in, hovering in that in-between place without settling.

“Don’t think so much,” Lin Baixin said, changing the subject and failing to give a direct answer.

Feeling the touch on her back, Yu Min half-lowered her eyes and reached out by instinct, then suddenly caught her wrist and held on tight, not letting go. In a murmur that was hard to make out, she said, “You have to give me a chance...”