CHAPTER 20

The room key left a white mark in Xue Jing’s palm. Ha Yue stared at his trembling right hand, then suddenly grabbed the scar.

Why endure it? After all, it’s not like it’s their first time, and it certainly won’t be worse than the first time.

Ha Yue’s grip was tight, like a pair of pliers cracking a walnut. She heard Xue Jing gasp, and then he apologized, loosening his grip slightly.

She tried to rub the bite mark with her fingertips, her voice like she was coaxing an injured water bird. “I didn’t know I bit so hard, does it hurt?”

The man in her arms was still as sly as ever, with one sentence he erased any hesitation or second thoughts.

The door card clicked into the lock, producing a crisp sound.

Xue Jing didn’t hesitate anymore. He embraced her, pushing her against the cold door. As he kissed her, his words became muffled, filled with ambiguity.

But as they got closer, when Ha Yue tilted her head to look up, she understood what he said: “Of course it hurts, it’s been hurting from that day until now.”

The wooden door and walls of the hallway were so hard that their kissing tango continued into the living room, where the thick carpet lay.

As he stepped back, Xue Jing tripped over the suitcase on the floor. He barely sat on the edge of the bed before starting to clear the clothes off it with his right hand.

They had tried on so many outfits before leaving, everything was a mess—one piece, two pieces, all thrown onto the floor, including the leather jacket he was wearing.

Ha Yue leaned over, her fingers tracing his pulse, before moving lower without hesitation.

Her palm was burned by something, her pupils widened, and out of the corner of her eye, she took in the scenery of the room.

Ha Yue smiled faintly, the corner of her lips curving with a mischievous childlike energy. The whole expression on her face combined with the sound of the belt buckle made it even more striking. “Did you go to a beauty contest at the hotel before leaving?”

The skin behind Xue Jing’s ears turned an eye-catching red. His eyes started to burn with embarrassment. He growled, “No more talking.”

He pulled her wrist, turning the tables on her.

What had started as a tender game quickly turned into a race: the one who acted more decisively and ruthlessly would win.

No need for pretense; everything was inevitable, and when Ha Yue was suspended in the air, Xue Jing realized he had forgotten protection.

The penthouse suite had been vacant for a long time. The place where the bedside essentials should be was instead filled with disposable tea bags.

Calling the front desk would ruin the mood, so Ha Yue grabbed her down jacket hanging by the bed, pulled out a pack from her pocket, tore one open, and handed it to him.

He lost. Xue Jing was thoroughly defeated in this game.

Before leaving, he had acted like a lovesick teenager, applying cologne in front of the mirror. But his ex-girlfriend, like a great omnipotent god, had long foreseen what would happen tonight. She had fully prepared, both physically and mentally, and even had the tools ready.

So, embarrassed, he asked a very tasteless question, probing her with, “How many did you have after we broke up?”

No sooner had the words left his mouth, he regretted them. He pressed his hand over her mouth, urging her to be quiet. He hadn’t been on guard, and no matter what her answer was, he knew he wouldn’t be able to bear it. If she said any number greater than zero, he would bleed from all seven orifices on the spot.

Fortunately, Ha Yue was obedient this time. She kept quiet as he wished. When she closed her mouth, her lips were very relaxed, and with a “squeak,” she kissed his palm. She took off that layer of armor and didn’t bite his hand to strike back.

For a whole three hours, the tides inside the room rose and fell, until the fishermen who had been rushing to catch the tide collapsed on the beach.

At eleven o’clock that night, Ha Yue was still full of energy. She rested her head on Xue Jing’s arm, still observing his scar.

The breath behind her grew longer and deeper. It was time for Ha Yue to go home. Before getting up, she turned her head and softly asked while counting Xue Jing’s eyelashes, “You’re not poor, why don’t you get a scar removal surgery?”

The scar was ugly, it didn’t suit him.

A mark like that, left by someone else, was a brand, a humiliation. Even celebrities who built deep emotional personas would remove tattoos they had gotten for their exes.

Xue Jing was a man of talent and good looks, he didn’t want to stay behind the scenes. He still needed to face the public and give interviews.

Ha Yue speculated that every time he typed on his keyboard, his gaze would drop to that ugly scar, and when he appeared in public, he would need to cover it with special effects.

If he still hated her, it would be understandable, but if he still loved her, that would be foolish. Letting go of the other person would always make one feel better.

Xue Jing wasn’t that stupid. He studied literature, and he was deeply immersed in philosophy. His thoughts would only be more transcendent.

“Fool,” Ha Yue whispered as she stared at him. He still kept his eyes closed, clearly exhausted. His eyelashes cast butterfly-shaped shadows beneath his eyes, and the corner of his lips dropped low.

Ha Yue’s insight from that day in the rickshaw wasn’t completely accurate.

Her first love had aged slightly. He hadn’t gotten fat, lost hair, or grown ugly, but his face had become colder than before. Only at this close distance could she tell that when he lay on his side, there were cold and pale lines beneath his eyes.

When they were young, dressed in fine clothes and riding high horses, he often smiled at her. That smile was as warm as spring mountains, so she never noticed that when he wasn’t expressing anything, his handsome features revealed no brightness at all.

Those glaring rays of light seemed like slaves escaping quickly as he closed his eyes, and he himself was like a cruel, suspicious tyrant sitting on the Iron Throne.

Even tonight, his alternating coldness and warmth were somewhat chilling.

Hearing Ha Yue speak, Xue Jing furrowed his brow. He was still tired, especially with her lying beside him so comfortably, he didn’t want to open his eyes or answer. Annoyed, he pulled the blanket over both their heads and muttered, “Why should I tell you everything? You figure it out.”

At midnight, someone quickly walked along the empty, cold street, wrapped tightly in their clothes.

But there was also someone coming out of an internet café, having just done their business in the public green space without any sense of decency.

Luo Zhiyun had asked Ha Yue to watch a movie with him in the afternoon, but she had turned him down, leaving him feeling bitter and uncomfortable.

Though in front of others, he had to put on a tough face and spout the usual nonsense about women being like clothes, he truly couldn’t understand the psychology of girls. He had no clue how to approach them.

The suggestion of adding each other on WeChat had clearly come from Ha Yue, but despite many attempts over the past few days, she hadn’t accepted his request.

What kind of “play hard to get” technique was this?

Luo Zhiyun felt trapped in a love problem with no clear answer. The key was that Ha Yue was giving him very few hints, and he didn’t even know which direction to take.

He had tossed and turned for days, feeling anxious and stressed. His gums were swollen, and he couldn’t eat properly.

Finally, unable to sleep one night, he posted the situation in a local marriage and dating group he frequented and got a solution.

Ignoring all the comments that told him he had no chance, Luo Zhiyun picked out advice from a fellow group member who seemed to think like him.

He sent Ha Yue another message, saying that there had been a mistake when paying for something last time.

Sure enough, Ha Yue immediately accepted his friend request. Her first message, without any apology or pleasantries, simply asked him how much money he had gotten wrong.

Using the excuse of the wrong change, Luo Zhiyun talked about his achievements at work and plans for his life.

But Ha Yue’s responses remained inscrutable. He wrote a long message, but she replied only with stickers.

By the afternoon, he couldn’t stand her mixed signals anymore. He directly broke the ice and told Ha Yue that he wanted to watch a movie with her and that he was officially pursuing her.

This time, Ha Yue’s response came quickly.

She said that at the moment, she wasn’t interested in a relationship, but thanked him for his kindness.

Luo Zhiyun had experienced rejection. That afternoon, he skipped work and went to an internet café in the county town to kill time.

A beer, two packs of Red Tower cigarettes, and twenty-eight rounds of games until midnight.

Every virtual enemy he shot in the game was imagined as a woman’s face. Not just Ha Yue, but every woman who had ever rejected him in his life, including those women in the group who mocked him and called him a “straight man cancer.”

It was hard to believe that those women in big cities who considered themselves too good for him, as well as the simple, virtuous women from small towns, all seemed to despise him.

Why? Why was the world so unfair to him?

What was it about Luo Zhiyun that was worse than others?

More than ten hours of dual release of frustration had lightened his mood a bit.

Just as he was walking out of the internet café, his body smelling of smoke, his eyes blurry with drunkenness, and his confidence rebuilt, ready to forget his feelings for Ha Yue…

After watering the trees, he looked up as he adjusted his pants, and to his surprise, he saw that woman who claimed she wasn’t interested in a relationship walking out of the business building across the street.

Ha Yue was dressed casually as usual, but this time she hadn’t tied up her hair. It cascaded over her shoulders, just the right length, soft and delicate. Especially at this late hour, her three thousand strands of hair moved with the wind, glowing under the moonlight like a man’s soul-calling banner.

Luo Zhiyun stared at her, somewhat mesmerized. He subconsciously took a few steps forward, following her.

He thought to himself: At this time, with the outdoor temperature close to freezing, Ha Yue must be cold walking alone on the street. The streetlights in Sui City were poorly lit, and a girl like her shouldn’t be out walking alone in the middle of the night—she definitely needed someone like him to protect her.

He had ridden his motorcycle down the mountain earlier in the day, so now he could use his bike to give her a ride home.

Perhaps, she might even start to look at him differently.

So, Luo Zhiyun suppressed the urge to call out to her loudly, quickly took out his motorcycle keys from his pocket, and staggered to start his bike.

But just as he was about to sit on the motorcycle, not yet having started to drive under the influence, his muddled gaze suddenly shifted warily toward the building where Ha Yue had just appeared.

Upon closer inspection, his heart sank, and all his rising excitement fell into an ice-cold pit.

Ha Yue had just walked out of a chain hotel’s lobby.

She hadn’t taken a tricycle. She definitely wasn’t there to deliver something.

And Ha Yue wasn’t an actress. He didn’t believe she had been in a room discussing a script with someone earlier in the night.