Chapter 16

The Five-Sided Mirror - Romance (3)

But no matter how hard she tried, she still couldn’t fall asleep. She held her phone, buried her head deep into the blanket, and took a deep breath, but her phone suddenly vibrated. She raised it, and the name on the screen left her stunned—”Xiaoying.”

What’s going on? It’s almost midnight…

She held her breath, pressed the green answer button, and hesitated to speak, like a student caught in the principal’s office, afraid to say a word.

“Hello?”

The moment she heard He Yingze’s voice, her eyes blinked quickly, her heart raced, but she still spoke in a calm and soft voice: “What’s up?”

“Why aren’t you asleep yet?”

So that’s it. He had seen her quickly deleted post on WeChat. The corner of his mouth unconsciously curled up, and she didn’t even realize it. “Aren’t you still awake?”

“I just got home.”

“Oh, okay.” After a pause, when He Yingze didn’t speak, she remembered that he was waiting for her to respond. “I can’t sleep. I’m a bit restless tonight.”

“If you play on your phone before bed, insomnia will get worse.”

“But if I don’t use my phone, I just lie in bed and overthink.”

“For a single-celled organism, overthinking must be exhausting, huh? Sorry to trouble you.”

“It seems Mr. He has quite a bit of experience with such exhausting matters.”

“Finally remembered my real name, huh? Took you long enough. I thought you wouldn’t even recognize it from my WeChat name.” He Yingze’s light laugh came from the other end of the phone. “Go on, tell me what’s bothering you. Haven’t your problems been solved already?”

“Was your attitude toward them today intentional?”

“What do you think?” He Yingze replied impatiently.

“Ah, I really didn’t realize... Well, you’re even more capable than Monkey Brother. To repay you, I’ve decided to tell you a joke.”

“Hm? You can tell jokes?”

His casual “hm” made her heart race even faster, but she still mustered the courage and spoke seriously, like she was giving a speech in front of two hundred people: “This is something that actually happened to me. Listen carefully. I have an ABC friend who can speak Chinese, but not very well. One time, I went shopping with her and her mother. While she was trying on clothes, she said to me, ‘Hold my mom.’ I was stunned, not knowing how to ‘hold’ her mom, so I stood there awkwardly in front of her. After a long pause, I realized she meant ‘bring my mum’ and directly translated it into Chinese! Isn’t that hilarious?” She pounded the bed and laughed for a long time, but all she heard from the other end was a light grunt. She cleared her throat and said, “Wasn’t that funny? Okay, let me tell you another one, still about her. One day, we went to eat, and the waiter asked us what we wanted to drink. She said, ‘Please give me a glass of orange juice.’ The waiter, like the one last time, was stunned and said they didn’t have orange juice. I immediately realized she had meant ‘orange juice’ but translated it directly. Isn’t that funny? Hahaha...”

Still no laughter from He Yingze. She cleared her throat again and said, “One more. One time, she said to me, ‘Do you have time?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ Then she said, ‘Tell me.’ I was confused. What should I tell her if I have time? It was so strange. Guess what she actually wanted to say?”

“She wanted to ask you what time it was.”

“Wow, Xiao Ying, you’re so smart!” After saying this, Luo Wei laughed again for more than ten seconds. Suddenly, she stopped, straightened her face, and said, “Hmph, I’m telling a joke, but you’re not laughing, even though it’s making my stomach hurt. Forget it. I won’t tell it anymore. No laughing.”

“Luo Wei, you really haven’t changed much. Whenever you’re in a bad mood, you use laughter to cover it up. Come on, tell me, what’s bothering you?”

This question made Luo Wei’s heart skip a beat. She hesitated and said, “It’s nothing really... just some emotional issues with a female friend, and it’s been affecting me a little. It’s a small thing, nothing to worry about.”

“Why would someone else’s issue affect you?”

“I have a friend who’s been in a relationship with her boyfriend since university. They were together until graduation, but in the end, they broke up. Now she has found her ideal job, but her love life is still not going well. She told me she feels like she’ll never meet anyone better in this lifetime...” Every couple of sentences, she could hear his attentive “mm” on the other end, which encouraged her, making her become a bit more sentimental. “Then I thought, even though there are so many people in the world, for many, meeting someone they love deeply, and who loves them back, might only happen once in a lifetime.”

“Is that so?” He Yingze paused for a moment. “Is that how you feel?”

Luo Wei didn’t expect him to ask her directly. She thought for a long time before answering, “I... I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t want to love many people in my life, just one is enough.”

“Have you met that person?”

The second question was like a thunderstrike, hitting Luo Wei’s back. His voice lingered in her ears, leaving her at a loss. She turned over, burying her head in the blanket. “O-of course not.”

“What’s with your voice?”

“I’m under the blanket.”

He laughed lightly. “You really act like a kid, covering your head when you sleep. But, I’m also in bed.”

His voice was so pleasant, and his laugh even more so. Just listening to it was enough to make her feel intoxicated. She buried her face deeper in the blanket, her face flushed, her heartbeat still racing. Then, with her eyes closed, she gathered the courage to ask, “So, Xiao Ying, what did you think about that question I asked earlier?”

“What question?”

“The question I asked earlier.”

“Hm? I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

She was sure he was pretending to be confused, and in frustration, she said, “You’re such a cheapskate. I already gave you the answer, and you won’t say anything. Looks like you’re just a player with several girlfriends at the same time.”

“I don’t have a girlfriend.”

His quick response caught Luo Wei off guard for two seconds, and a joy she hadn’t anticipated filled her chest. She didn’t want to analyze where this happiness came from, just surprised she said, “The famous, well-known King is actually just like me? You must be joking.”

“Even dogs have their ranks, no need to be so moved.”

“Ugh, that was a thousand-point damage hit.” Luo Wei covered her chest and coughed a few times, trying to hide her quickened heartbeat from the next question. “Then, isn’t Ni Lei your girlfriend?”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because I think you two seem well-matched.”

“So this is Luo Wei’s understanding of boyfriends and girlfriends. What kind of person do you think you’re well-matched with?”

How did the topic shift back to herself... but this question was interesting, so Luo Wei thought for a moment. Her parents were both honest and traditional people, and their advice on choosing a partner was also the most conventional. She decided to just share the standards her dad had given for a son-in-law: “Three to five years older than me, height between 1.73 and 1.78 meters, an office worker, stable income, and someone with a gentle personality.”

He Yingze was silent for a few seconds. “Except for the age, I don’t meet any of those requirements. You really have high standards, Wei’er.”

Her parents liked to call her “Wei’er,” and when they were younger, He Yingze liked to tease her with that name. At this moment, Luo Wei’s face turned completely red, and of course, it wasn’t just because of the name “Wei’er.” Quickly, she changed the subject. “I can’t believe you’re a humanities major. And with how popular you are, you must like to flirt around.”

“My living environment has indeed changed a bit, but I’m still the same as before.”

Sweet joy once again filled her thoughts. She laughed loudly, tossing and turning restlessly, not in the least bit calm. “I don’t remember what you were like before.”

“Coincidentally, I don’t remember either.”

She stopped, her face pressed against the pillow, the hot phone in her hand. Though the moonlight filtered into the room, casting a dim glow on the surroundings, these images only stayed on her retina, unable to enter her memory. Her mind and heart were completely filled with He Yingze. Holding her phone in both hands, she said with a touch of childishness, “I just remember your name is Xiao Ying, and I used to always think of you as an older sister.”

“Coincidentally, I don’t remember that either.”

Xiao Ying had really changed, much more cunning than when they were younger. Luo Wei smiled and refused to admit defeat. “It’s fine, I remember it, and that’s enough…”

They talked for a long, long time. Although most of the time it was Luo Wei doing the talking, He Yingze didn’t seem to want to interrupt. Whenever she ran out of things to say, he would always bring up another topic that piqued her interest. It wasn’t until the call system automatically hung up that Luo Wei realized an hour had passed. She was considering whether to send him a message telling him to rest when he called again. Then, as if nothing had happened, he continued from where they left off. They kept talking until Luo Wei was so tired her eyes could barely stay open, and she sleepily said, “Xiao Ying, I’m so sleepy, let’s sleep now,” before finally hanging up.

Her mind felt like mush, and she fell into a sweet sleep...

The next day, she woke up late. When she opened her phone and saw the call log, she realized that she and He Yingze had talked for three hours the previous night! What did they even talk about? It didn’t seem like anything inappropriate, but the morning sunlight streamed in, turning her bed into gold, and she had a strange feeling of being exposed. Why did she feel so shy? She rubbed her face vigorously with both hands and slapped herself a few times, trying not to think too much. Xiao Ying must have been bored in the middle of the night to do this... he must have... But just as she was thinking this, a new notification appeared on her phone:

A message from He Yingze.

With a blank mind, she opened it. The content was just one word:

“Morning.”

But that one word gave her the happiest start to her day. She lay on her pillow, thinking it was Sunday, and she didn’t have anything to do. How wonderful. She lazily stretched out, letting her long hair tangle with the sheets like seaweed, then smiled and typed: “Good morning, Xiao Ying. ^_^”

No matter the distance between them, no matter how he felt about her, she still liked him, still relied on him involuntarily. Just like when they were little.

No, to be exact, it was a little more than before...

-Rose Theater-

Xiao Lajiao: “Some readers can’t quite understand the somewhat flirtatious character setting for Xie Xiu Chen because he seems so reliable and gentle, not really the type you’d expect to be flirtatious...”

Luo Wei: “If everyone in the world knows about it, that’s not flirtatious, that’s just a playboy.”

Lu Xiren: “I get a cold shiver down my back.”

Xiao Lajiao: “I’m the one getting a cold shiver, okay!”

Chang Feng: “They say that flirtatious men are usually taken down by the shiniest women. It’s a law of society.”

Xie Xiu Chen: “Everyone’s misunderstanding me, I don’t have a girlfriend.”

Chang Feng: “Why does it sound so different when Young Master Xie says it compared to when our Sixth Brother says it…”

King: “What do you think?”

Luo Wei: “!! Xiao Ying actually said something other than ‘hehe’ in the little theater. I’m shocked…”

Author’s Note:

Without any premeditation, this chapter, which is so sweet, just happened to be published on New Year’s Eve. The new year will surely bring us all good fortune.

Happy New Year’s Eve, everyone! Wishing you a joyful Spring Festival with your families!