Chapter 47

Yan Can fell onto Su Ci, and Su Ci’s cool voice brushed her ear, laced with temptation.

“Kiss me.”

Her hand slid under the hem of Yan Can’s clothes.

The fingertips grazing soft skin sent a shiver through her.

Yan Can gritted her teeth and caught that wandering hand.

She looked down into Su Ci’s unfocused eyes.

“Are you sober?”

Su Ci didn’t answer. She only repeated those two words: “Kiss me.”

Drunk, then.

It was strange. She clearly desired Su Ci’s body, yet Yan Can found that she was slowly becoming unable to handle intimacy without emotion.

She wanted the person in front of her to be with her because she liked her, not merely to satisfy a physical need, not just to do it for the sake of doing it.

People really were greedy, Yan Can thought.

Once you got one thing, you wanted another.

She had gotten Su Ci’s body, and that was no longer enough; now she wanted her heart, too.

She knew Su Ci was drunk, and that asking now wouldn’t produce an honest answer.

But Yan Can still couldn’t help asking, “Su Ci, do you like me?”

She thought again of what Zhang Ru had said during the break earlier.

“Only if you like someone would you do this kind of thing. If you don’t like them, how could you possibly kiss and sleep together?”

That sentence had been echoing in Yan Can’s mind lately.

At the very beginning, when she still hadn’t realized she liked Su Ci, she had already been having these intimate moments with her.

Only later, after she understood that she liked Su Ci, did she suddenly realize: maybe the moment she stopped resisting kissing Su Ci, she had already fallen for her.

Then what about Su Ci?

Kissing her, hugging her, even sleeping with her—did she not feel the slightest heartbeat at all?

Yan Can stared into Su Ci’s eyes, afraid of missing even the tiniest reaction. Yet Su Ci only repeated the same words again.

“Kiss me.”

Even when she wasn’t fully conscious, she still couldn’t say a single “I like you.”

Yan Can’s eyes burned. She held Su Ci’s restless hand tightly, buried her face in the crook of her neck, and forced back her tears.

After she stayed there for an unknown amount of time, she sat up, kissed Su Ci on the forehead, and said softly, “I’ll take you back to the bedroom.”

Su Ci seemed to hear her. Her hand fell weakly away, her lips pressed into a thin line, and she let Yan Can carry her upstairs.

The next day, when Su Ci woke up, the space beside her was already empty. Yan Can was sitting at the table, looking at her phone. Seeing her wake, she asked with concern, “How are you? Does your head still hurt?”

Su Ci pressed her temple and said very lightly, “It’s fine.”

The sky was gray and overcast; the snow in the courtyard was silently melting.

Seeing Su Ci looking for her phone, Yan Can picked up the one charging on the desk; it was already full.

“Your phone kept vibrating just now. Someone probably wanted to reach you.”

It was that boy, “.”

Su Ci took it and looked at the message Huo Tian had sent. He was asking what time they should meet in the afternoon.

Su Ci: Two o’clock this afternoon.

Su Ci: [address]

.: Okay

After seeing her put down the phone, Yan Can asked, “He’s looking for you?”

Who “he” was, they both understood.

Su Ci: “We agreed to meet at two this afternoon.”

Yan Can gave an “oh,” looked into Su Ci’s eyes, and thought of what had happened last night. Her chest felt sour and tight.

Staying here too long, she was almost forgetting that Su Ci was the heroine of this romance novel; how could she possibly like girls?

She remembered a coworker once mentioning that after the heroine’s death, the male lead would transfer to this school to investigate the truth behind her death.

Even if the plot had changed now, the male lead would probably still come.

Yan Can scratched her head, irritated.

What was she now? The wicked supporting character stealing the male lead’s girl?

While Yan Can was lost in wild thoughts, she heard the person beside her call her name. She snapped back to herself and saw that Su Ci had already changed clothes and was standing in front of her.

“Do you want to come with me?”

“Of course I’m going with you. This place is in a villa district; there’s no way to get a cab here.”

As Yan Can spoke, she stood up and subconsciously reached for Su Ci’s hand, wanting to kiss her, but then she thought of something and bit down on the inside of her cheek to hold herself back.

After Su Ci finished washing up, the two of them ate a simple breakfast together. Chen Shu drove them to the agreed-upon café; Yan Can didn’t get out.

“I won’t go in. I’ll wait for you here.”

Su Ci glanced at her and nodded. “Okay.”

Something felt off, though it was hard to say what. It just seemed like Yan Can was deliberately keeping her distance today.

Huo Tian was seated by the window. The moment Su Ci got out of the car, his gaze fixed on her.

When Su Ci sat down, he called over the waiter and asked, “What do you want to drink?”

This spot had an open view; they could see the foot traffic outside the shop, and they could also see Yan Can’s car. Su Ci drew her gaze back from the window and said, “Nothing. Someone’s waiting for me.”

Huo Tian had no choice but to order for himself. After the waiter left, Su Ci said, “I’ve already let that matter go…”

“I know,” Huo Tian said. “The moment you agreed to meet me, I knew. But I have something else I want to ask you.”

Su Ci frowned. “Something else?”

As unbelievable as it sounded, Huo Tian felt that those things that had happened before had all been real. He had only never been certain, and had never found a chance to confirm it.

His expression turned solemn; unable to hold back, he frowned and asked, “When school first started, did you ever think about death?”

Su Ci’s pupils trembled.

He’d hit the mark.

Huo Tian’s brow furrowed even tighter.

So it was true.

At that moment, the server brought over the coffee. Huo Tian stirred the ice around and said, “Nothing, I was just asking casually. Don’t take it to heart.”

Su Ci said nothing. She turned to look out the window; snow had begun to fall again.

The conversation was mostly about past events, as well as Zheng Ming’s follow-up treatment. Su Ci glanced at the time and stood. “I should go.”

Huo Tian nodded and watched her leave.

“So fast?”

Seeing Su Ci open the car door, Yan Can was a little surprised; less than half an hour had passed.

Su Ci hummed and said, “We talked on the phone.”

Yan Can exited the mobile game she’d been playing, sat up properly, and the car drove back toward the villa.

That night, Su Ci, who had not dreamed in a long time, had a dream.

She dreamed of Zheng Mo.

She was back in that summer when she was sixteen.

Only this time, she was no longer watching everything from a third-person perspective, floating above it all.

She had become her sixteen-year-old self again.

“Hey! Someone clear this table!” someone called for her to clean it.

Zheng Mo was sitting in the corner of the stall, playing a mobile game. She was holding a tray while customers kept urging her to clear tables.

Her phone, left on the table, rang. This time Su Ci ignored everything and walked straight toward Zheng Mo.

But she was still a step too late; Zheng Mo answered the call and was about to leave.

The moment she turned around, Su Ci called out to her.

“Zheng Mo!”

The sounds around them faded away; the people and things nearby all turned into blurry black-and-white shadows, like mosaics, their features impossible to make out.

The whole world was left with only the two of them in color.

Zheng Mo smiled and said, “A Ci, are you A Ci?”

Su Ci found that strange, but didn’t think too much of it. She stepped forward and grabbed her hand.

“You can’t go!”

Zheng Mo smiled at her. “A Ci, you still haven’t let me go?”

When she said that, Su Ci froze. She realized she was dreaming again.

Sound rushed back into her ears, and the world became clear once more.

“Su Ci! Go clear that table!” She saw her sixteen-year-old self running toward her, passing through her body, and hurrying to the customers at that table.

She was trapped in that dream again—the one she could never stop.

Heat surged through her fiercely, and tears slid down. Her right arm was lifted by an invisible force; fingertips gently wiped away the tears at the corner of her eye.

Zheng Mo said, “A Ci, everyone has their own fate. Go back. This is the last time I’ll come into your dream.”

…

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

Moonlight filtered into the room through curtains that hadn’t been fully drawn; on the floor, it cast a small patch of shadow.

Half-asleep, Yan Can heard the faint sound of sobbing beside her and immediately switched on the bedside lamp to look.

The yellow light illuminated the furrowed lines between Su Ci’s brows. Tears streaked her face in messy tracks; no one knew how long she had been crying.

“Su Ci?” Yan Can patted her shoulder. The person still half-lost in sleep opened her eyes; they were wet with tears. She hugged Yan Can around the waist and, her voice still hoarse from crying, said, “I dreamed of Zheng Mo…”

…

That night, Su Ci cried on and off until dawn.