The ear was bitten by a small dog.
The bathroom door was suddenly knocked upon, and from outside came Taotao’s soft, sweet voice: “Mommy, Mama?”
The two adults inside were simultaneously stunned, feeling a little guilty for having entered the bathroom to exchange affections right after returning to the room, leaving the cub alone for a long time.
Yu Luo cleared her throat. Her voice still carried an unspeakable hoarseness as she answered, “Zaizai, wait a moment, we’ll be out right away.”
“Ao.” Taotao obediently answered and just stood at the door waiting.
The bathroom fell into silence.
Realizing the night was about to end, the two of them coincidentally held each other a little tighter, trying to use the soft, fitting warmth to retain the emotional afterglow.
Qi Song closed her eyes, and in the boundless fondness and sourness, a question suddenly surged in her heart.
She was desperate to ask it, fighting for minutes and snatching for seconds1.
The fermenting intoxication made it impossible to hide any emotions or words. So, she whispered lowly in Yu Luo’s ear, “Jiejie, do you like me?”
She heard the woman’s gentle, unhesitating reply: “I like you.”
This answer was clearly very sweet and perfect, yet Qi Song always felt that something seemed not quite right.
For a moment, it was hard to think clearly, and she couldn’t help but instinctively ask again: “Do you like me?”
She faintly realized that the focus of this question was perhaps not just on 「like」, but more on 「me」.
But, who is 「me」? Who was she trying to distinguish herself from?
This time, Yu Luo paused for a moment.
Her hand slowly stroked the top of Qi Song’s hair, a nearly inaudible, light sigh escaped her throat, and she answered again, slowly and firmly: “Of course Jiejie likes you.”
The woman’s gentle words brushed into her ear, and Qi Song felt her heart skip a beat.
This time, she seemed to finally be satisfied.
Yu Luo said she liked her, so that meant her. How could another person exist between them?
The logic of a drunk person is extremely chaotic, yet it can somehow be self-consistent. Through some unknown line of reasoning and argumentation, she easily convinced herself.
The bathroom door finally made a sound. Taotao looked up and saw Mama leading Mommy out.
Mama’s whole person was red again; she was already used to this.
The problem was, Mommy was also red, and her steps were a bit soft.
Taotao tilted her head in confusion.
She took small steps to walk in front of the two of them, tugged on the corner of Yu Luo’s clothes, and asked, “Mommy, why are you red too!”
After thinking for a moment, she used the knowledge Yu Luo had once taught her to make a clever deduction: “Is Mommy shy too?”
“…” Yu Luo’s eyelashes trembled; she had the feeling of lifting a rock only to drop it on her own foot2.
It wasn’t appropriate to explain the specific reason in front of the cub, so for now, she would let it be taken as shyness.
So she nodded vaguely.
Taotao saw what looked like a red mark on Mommy’s ear and said worriedly in her soft voice, “Was Mommy’s ear bitten?”
Yu Luo paused slightly, then casually swept a glance at the person beside her and huffed a laugh, “Maybe it was bitten by a small dog, I don’t know either.”
Taotao blinked her eyes, bewildered, and looked around. Where was the small dog?
She yawned, a watery mist filling her big eyes. In the face of irresistible sleepiness, she no longer dwelled on it. “I’m so sleepy, Mommy.”
“It’s time to take a bath, Zaizai.” Yu Luo rubbed Taotao’s head. “Mommy will go with you.”
“Okay.” Taotao obediently went to the suitcase to get the pajamas she would wear tonight.
Yu Luo looked toward Qi Song and saw that the young woman’s eyes were still hazy and her cheeks were flushed with an abnormal crimson. She couldn’t help but say softly, “Wait for me here for a moment.”
Qi Song nodded without understanding why and really just stood on the spot without moving, watching eagerly as Yu Luo left the room.
A moment later, Yu Luo came back carrying a cup of warm honey water.
She saw at a glance that Qi Song was standing ramrod straight in the place she had just casually designated, standing like a little white poplar3. She didn’t even think to go sit on the sofa that was so close.
Yu Luo’s brow twitched slightly. She remembered telling Taotao to 「wait a moment」 just now, and Taotao had also stood just like this at the bathroom door, waiting for them to come out.
This similarity made a certain softness rise in her heart.
She couldn’t help but gently curve her eyes as she handed the cup in her hand to Qi Song. “Finish drinking this, to sober up a bit.”
Taotao had already found her and Mommy’s clothes, her two small, short arms holding a stack of clothes in her embrace.
Yu Luo beckoned to the cub and led her to the bathroom to take a bath.
However, three people stepped into the bathroom.
Yu Luo’s steps paused. Looking at Qi Song who had followed, she asked with full knowledge, “What’s wrong?”
Qi Song blinked slowly, holding the cup in her hand, and let out a slightly dazed “Ah?”.
It was as if she was supposed to come along, to bathe together with Yu Luo.
A smile flashed through Yu Luo’s eyes. Her slender white fingertips unhurriedly wound around the button of her collar as she said leisurely:
“Do you want to bathe with us? It’s not impossible.”
With hazy eyes, Qi Song watched the woman’s fingers undo the first button of her collar, a patch of exquisite fairness faintly visible. She immediately, and belatedly, took a panicked step back.
The roots of her ears turned red, her eyes felt as if they had been scalded, and she turned and fled the bathroom.
Yu Luo stood on the spot, her fingertips rubbing the button, the corners of her lips curled up.
When a certain person was biting my ear and refusing to let go just now, how come I didn’t see her being so innocent?
Thinking this, she checked her ear in the mirror. Qi Song hadn’t been willing to bite hard and had barely left a tooth mark.
But the thin and tender skin of her auricle had been sucked into a red mark. She would probably have to put makeup on her ear for the program recording tomorrow.
Yu Luo touched the spot, as if she could still feel the heat and itch from before.
Her eyelashes drooped slightly as she steadied her breathing.
Just recalling it brings a moist feeling… the heat period is really coming soon.
At two o’clock in the middle of the night, all sounds were still.
Qi Song somewhat regretted drinking that cup of warm honey water; otherwise, she might have been able to stay drunk a while longer, ideally sleeping until she woke up naturally.
Instead of uncontrollably recalling everything from before in the quiet and deep night, and in this recollection, coming to a profound understanding of herself.
The unreserved, clumsy confession in the bathroom, and the wholehearted passion of lips and tongue.
Thinking of that moist, soft warmth and clear sweetness, and the sound of the woman hooking her neck, whimpering unbearably in her arms, Qi Song felt her heart beat uncontrollably fast, so violently it seemed to reverberate through the room.
She was crazily savoring the aftertaste, unable to break free, unable to avoid it.
Was the person who bit Yu Luo’s ear and kissed her until she 「couldn’t take it anymore」 really me? Qi Song thought in a panic, yet from it, she despairingly felt a trace of dark pleasure.
She tried, as before, to push all of it onto the original owner, but this time she couldn’t succeed.
The jealousy towards the original owner still lingered at this moment—this was an emotion that could only belong to her.
So that intense sourness was hers, and accompanying the sourness, the soft and sticky fluttering of her heart… was also hers.
Things having come to this, she unwillingly, yet had to realize, that her jealousy towards the original owner was not even related to the stray puppy being taken in.
It was purely because that owner was Yu Luo.
Recalling all the past events, Qi Song, in an unprecedentedly clear self-reflection, further realized:
All the past heartache, heart-fluttering, and sourness blended together with her current mood, making them difficult to distinguish from each other, as if they naturally came from the same source.
So—what she previously thought was “acting against one’s will” under the original owner’s influence, seemed to be just her own “unable to restrain one’s feelings.”
Once that cloth of self-deception was unveiled, she discovered just how much obscure and deep emotion had been secretly brewing inside.
But…
If “the original owner’s influence” was just a comfort zone she subconsciously constructed for herself, then as a book transmigrator, how could she have so many unrestrained feelings for the original owner’s ex-girlfriend right after transmigrating?
Even when she firmly believed Yu Luo was a cheating scum woman and felt indignant for the original owner, she couldn’t help but subconsciously make many concessions and show concern for Yu Luo—remembering Yu Luo’s hand was injured and rushing to help her cook, even being unable to bear Yu Luo’s wound not being treated well, and personally helping her apply medicine.
This is also why Qi Song felt it was due to the original owner’s love-addled brain; otherwise, it really didn’t make sense logically.
Suddenly, the conversation from that night with “Soft Peach Gnawed Whole” floated into her mind.
“I’ve only known her for a few days.”
“You fell in love at first sight.”
Words she hadn’t taken seriously at the time now suddenly caused a strong wind to howl in Qi Song’s heart.
Could it be that she fell in love with Yu Luo at first sight?
Could it be that she was so unprincipled that, while mistakenly thinking the other person was a scum woman, she still eagerly fell for her, her spring heart sprouting and moving4?
Having lived for more than twenty years, Qi Song felt her understanding of herself was completely overturned in this instant.
A person who prided herself on having a high sense of morality, for the first time discovered that perhaps she couldn’t escape the common practice either; in the face of true desire, a base human nature was faintly revealed.
Then, can this feeling still be controlled? It must be controlled…
Qi Song furrowed her brows in thought.
The person in her arms suddenly moved, making her heart jump.
Having woken up and fallen into a life-tremor of overturning self-perception, Qi Song hadn’t even realized she was holding a soft and fragrant bundle.
Yu Luo’s arm was wrapped around her waist, nestled limply in her arms. The two’s posture was so fitting, as if they had fallen asleep like this countless times before.
Having already realized her feelings for Yu Luo, Qi Song instantly couldn’t face this intimacy calmly.
However, just as her body was about to slightly pull away, the person in her arms let out an uneasy whimper and clung even tighter.
Qi Song took a deep breath.
She lowered her eyes and, by the moonlight, saw Yu Luo’s brows were slightly furrowed, as if trapped in a not-so-pleasant dream.
A certain heartache instantly overshadowed all the previous struggles. Before she could react, she had already decisively given up the idea of pulling away.
She even held her a bit tighter, her hand lightly patting Yu Luo’s back, coaxing the other person to settle down.
Yu Luo seemed to really like the feeling of being patted on the back. Under her comfort, she let out a cat-like light hum, and her brows gradually relaxed.
The woman’s excessively beautiful face was as otherworldly as a fairy in the clear moonlight, her tightly closed, thick eyelashes as cute as cattail fans. Her rosy lips were slightly pursed, her sleeping face pure and serene.
When being gently patted on the back, her eyelashes would occasionally tremble comfortably.
Qi Song stared at her without blinking, and her own mood seemed to relax along with it, soaking into a field of softness.
Those feelings of disappointment and hesitation receded like the tide. Suddenly, she didn’t want to think about anything; she just wanted to look at her more.
As she kept looking, she felt bubbles rising from somewhere with a gurgle-gurgle.
When they gently bumped, with a bo sound, a patch of warm pink scattered.
A sense of fate floated up in Qi Song’s heart.
Wu, it seems I, really like Yu Luo.
I can’t control it.
The author has something to say:
Wu, a peacock is about to spread its tail feathers (digging my own wall corner5 version)
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