Green Plum, Green Plum (24)
“Elder sister’s mouth isn’t just a mouth, it’s the clear water under the Anhe Bridge.”
A few minutes ago…
Shen Yelan tugged at Xu Jiao’s sleeve, taking a deep breath as if she were about to make a momentous decision. Her throat tightened with tension.
Finally, she mustered the courage to repeat the words that were never meant to see the light of day:
“Setting aside teaching me how to fall in love and making a clay figurine, we still have six times left. I want to use all the remaining chances to ask for one thing. Is that okay, Sister Xu Jiao?”
Xu Jiao responded leisurely, “Go ahead.”
Shen Yelan asked in a low, slow voice, “Will you be my girlfriend?”
As her words fell, Xu Jiao fixed her gaze on her for two seconds. Her left eyebrow raised high, as if she had heard something amusing. Her eyes showed no surprise but rather a faint smile:
“Did I hear you correctly, Shen Yelan?”
“Counting the time when I was drunk, we’ve shared a bed thrice in total. So… are you saying you liked my skills in bed so much that after a three-time trial, you’ve decided to pursue a long-term relationship?”
Despite the playful teasing on her face, Xu Jiao couldn’t help but inwardly exclaim to the system, “Humans are indeed greedy creatures. I guessed she originally just wanted some entanglement with me, no matter what kind. But now, she doesn’t just want the person, she wants the heart too.”
Xu Jiao’s words felt like a fine needle, piercing straight into Shen Yelan’s heart. Initially, there was a sharp, intense pain, which gradually subsided but lingered as a dull ache that pulsed with every heartbeat, spreading through her entire body.
Perhaps spurred by Xu Jiao’s words, the voices in Shen Yelan’s ears grew even more rampant—
“See, even she won’t fall for your tricks.”
“When she wanted to sleep with you, she did. Now you want to talk about love, and she should just go along with it? Shen Yelan, if you were truly that charming, would you be in such a pitiful state now?”
“Do you know? The saddest part about you is that you don’t even realize how pathetic you are.”
Shen Yelan listened to the cacophony of denials, mockery, and ridicule, struggling to carve out a moment of clarity in her mind. Her eyes moved, trying to recall which words were truly spoken by Xu Jiao and which were merely her mocking illusions.
But she failed.
Her once-proud memory seemed to falter at this crucial moment.
Shen Yelan looked at Xu Jiao’s gentle smile in front of her. In her field of vision, there were several identical figures—some standing before her with gentle smiles, some casually brushing their hair back to reveal large bite marks on their necks, and others bending down, pretending to tie their shoelaces, revealing glimpses of tattoos as their pant legs lifted.
She blinked lightly. Since she had forgotten what Xu Jiao had said, she could only continue from where she left off:
“This request might put you in a difficult position, and I know I’ve done some excessive things to you before, so you probably don’t have a good impression of me. But… but I’ve actually liked you for a long time. Could you give me a chance to try? Or maybe you could try dating me for a week first.”
At this point, the voices in Shen Yelan’s head changed to malicious laughter, pressing down on her in waves.
Pausing, she struggled to speak again, deciding to confront the very thing she’d always avoided. It was like an ordinary person in an old, haunted mansion being entangled by wandering spirits, layers of ghosts clinging to her, trying to bite off her flesh. She was almost assimilated, yet she managed to drag herself, zombie-like, to the mansion’s gate, opened the rusted bronze door, and stepped into the sunlight.
She knew she had many, many wounds and that she might be so gravely ill that those bone-chilling shadows clinging to her like maggots would evaporate in the sunlight, leading to her death.
But she still sought redemption.
“Of course, it’s okay if you refuse me—”
Shen Yelan’s mouth was dry, perhaps from the sun or from worrying too much about Xu Jiao’s upcoming answer, and she slowly said, “I will still cancel the remaining six compensations. From now on, you don’t owe me anything, Sister Xu Jiao.”
In other words, the choice before Xu Jiao was whether or not to be Shen Yelan’s girlfriend for a week. Regardless of her decision, she wouldn’t have to fulfill the remaining six compensations, which seemed like a great deal.
Given Xu Jiao’s usual behavior, she would refuse without any guilt.
However, the bothersome, hard-to-reduce blackening value lingered there. Xu Jiao struggled against the temptation to choose “refuse,” her gaze steady as she observed Shen Yelan in front of her.
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After a while, she finally spoke, repeating as if to confirm, “Trying it out for a week first is okay?”
Shen Yelan focused intently, trying hard to ignore other noises, her gaze fixed on Xu Jiao. To be precise, she was staring at Xu Jiao’s pale pink lips, to avoid missing her words once again.
Almost the moment Xu Jiao asked, Shen Yelan quickly nodded: “Yes, within this week, I will transform myself into the kind of girlfriend you like. I won’t force you like before. I’ll strive to be a normal and good girlfriend.”
Just as she finished speaking, she suddenly sensed another presence approaching. Instinctively, she shifted her gaze and saw Su Xi crouching nearby, trying to get closer.
Shen Yelan had just stopped speaking, but couldn’t help asking Xu Jiao another question:
“Will you be my girlfriend?”
Even if it’s just for a week.
Even if this dream seems too distant for me, I still want to stand on tiptoe and stretch out my arms to reach for it once.
Xu Jiao followed Shen Yelan’s gaze and turned her head. As she did, she saw Su Xi, who had just straightened up by the roadside. Su Xi had already raised her hand, preparing to greet her, but her face was full of embarrassment.
Who knows how much this kid actually heard.
However, her appearance made Xu Jiao realize that she had been late for a long time. She smiled at Shen Yelan and said in a relaxed tone, “How about this? Let me think about it, and I’ll give you an answer tonight. Is that okay?”
After all, there were still some things she wanted to say, but those were not suitable for Su Xi to hear.
Shen Yelan was momentarily stunned and then nodded.
Su Xi, who had been greeting with a raised hand, forgot to put it down. After a while, when both of them had stopped talking, she looked around and said belatedly:
“Shen Yelan, you’re here too.”
Shen Yelan’s dark eyes glanced at her indifferently. It was Xu Jiao who raised her hand to pull Su Xi away: “Yes, it’s not like you just found out today that we go to the same school. Let’s go. If we arrive any later, we’ll have to wait in line for two hours just to get lunch.”
Su Xi, still a bit dazed, followed her forcefully: “Oh…”
……
“Sister Jiaojiao…”
All the way, Su Xi looked at Xu Jiao with hesitation. Just as they stepped into the underground subway station, Su Xi couldn’t help but call out to Xu Jiao, her expression full of confusion.
Xu Jiao glanced at her, chuckled lightly, and patted her on the shoulder, “You want to ask about Shen Yelan and me, right?”
Su Xi nodded like a pecking chick.
Xu Jiao maintained the same curve at the corner of her lips and simply said, “It’s not something you should know about; don’t ask.”
Su Xi: “…”
She held it in for a moment but could only suppress the many doubts in her heart. Obediently, she let out an “oh.” After a few seconds of silence, she couldn’t help but complain, “Sister Jiaojiao, you’re so strange.”
Xu Jiao liked her well-behaved and obedient demeanor. Hearing this, she responded good-naturedly, “How am I strange?”
Su Xi frowned in distress, “I just feel like you’re very mysterious. When we celebrated your summer vacation earlier, I asked if you liked someone, you didn’t say. I asked what kind of feelings left a deep impression on you, and you still didn’t say. Now, I’m asking what’s going on between you and Shen Yelan…”
“Hey, it just feels like you really don’t like talking about feelings. Compared to before, you’ve changed a lot.”
Xu Jiao listened to her words and simply laughed.
Su Xi looked at her in confusion, not understanding what she had said that was so amusing. However, upon careful reflection, ever since Xu Jiao started taking her studies seriously in the second year of high school, there had been more and more moments like this where she couldn’t read Xu Jiao.
As usual, she promptly gave up on thinking about it. She picked up her phone and used the dark screen as a mirror to check her makeup. Then she took out her lipstick from her bag and touched it up. After she finished, she beamed brightly at Xu Jiao once again:
“Forget it, if you don’t want to say, then don’t. What are we going to eat later? Haidilao?”
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“That place has a long wait. Let’s choose another. There’s a barbecue restaurant nearby that’s quite good,” Xu Jiao replied gently.
……
Xu Jiao parted ways with Su Xi and returned to the school dormitory. It was already past seven in the evening.
In this northern city, the weather was quite nice today. In the evening, the sky was adorned with vibrant, dramatic clouds lit by the setting sun, spreading several miles across, resembling the colorful garments woven by a fairy. As the wind blew, the skirts of these cloud-garments fluttered outward.
The sky gradually darkened, and when the night fully descended, sparse stars would hang in the sky, twinkling like scattered candies.
Xu Jiao loved watching the sky. She was captivated by the edges of the fiery clouds slowly being swallowed by the deep blue. Even as she walked, she couldn’t help but look up, her spirits lifting as her gaze rose higher and higher.
As a result, when she reached the dormitory entrance, she nearly tripped over a water thermos someone had left by the roadside.
Only then did she lower her head, stepped aside slightly, and discovered that her movement hadn’t kicked over the person’s water thermos, exposing the scalding hot water. She let out a sigh of relief, bent down to pick up the water thermos, and placed it back in its original position.
Someone was approaching her step by step.
The soles of their shoes unceremoniously rubbed against the small gravel on the cement road, making a light scraping sound.
Xu Jiao first saw a pair of white and gray sneakers come into view. When she realized they looked familiar, she had already lifted her head to look up—
It was Shen Yelan.
Behind her stood the tall dormitory building, and the sky beside it revealed a half-drawn curtain of deep colors. The gray-blue, black-blue, and ink-blue hues gradually devoured the distant horizon, already swallowing up a good portion of the world.
Above Xu Jiao’s head, the oil painting-like fiery clouds were making their final struggle, resplendent like a phoenix spreading its wings—golden, red, orange, and purple… Only the edges were caught by the night, gradually fading in brilliance, like a prolonged game of chess.
Xu Jiao maintained her half-squatting posture, holding the water thermos, her clear eyes meeting Shen Yelan’s deep black gaze.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
It was Xu Jiao who broke the silence first: “What are you doing here?”
Shen Yelan’s major was different from hers, and their dormitory buildings were not even in the same area; in fact, you could say they were poles apart. If it weren’t for Shen Yelan choosing to take some public courses here, the two of them might never cross paths.
Shen Yelan stopped in front of her, looking down at Xu Jiao’s relaxed expression. After a moment, she also squatted down and reached out to tie Xu Jiao’s slightly loosened shoelace, which she hadn’t even noticed.
There was a swish sound.
It was Xu Jiao’s movement, stepping back a bit too abruptly.
Shen Yelan’s hand grasped at empty air.
Following her movement, Xu Jiao lowered her head and deftly untied her shoelace before retying it into a neat bow. She intentionally pulled it tighter to demonstrate that she could handle it herself. However, Shen Yelan raised her hand and brushed the top of her head.
Having confirmed that the person in front of her was indeed real, Shen Yelan finally spoke, “I’m waiting for Sister Xu Jiao’s answer.”
After tying her shoelace, Xu Jiao was surprised by Shen Yelan’s audacity to stroke the tiger’s whiskers, even daring to casually touch the top of her head. She immediately looked at her palm with suspicion and instinctively raised her hand to touch the top of her own head.
Apart from her hair, there was nothing extra there.
Was Shen Yelan… looking for an opportunity to make contact with her?
Xu Jiao’s eyes revealed a gentle smile, unfazed by Shen Yelan’s earlier actions. She casually asked, “How long have you been waiting here? What if I didn’t come back to the dorm tonight? What would you have done?”
Shen Yelan averted her gaze, and the sky gradually darkened at a pace imperceptible to most. She didn’t tell Xu Jiao that she had been waiting there foolishly since noon; instead, she simply said:
“Sister Xu Jiao promised to give me an answer tonight. No matter where I am, you will definitely give it to me.”
Xu Jiao, intrigued, pressed further, “Since you knew that, why wait here?”
Shen Yelan was silent for a long time—so long that Xu Jiao thought she wouldn’t answer—when that husky voice, tinged with a bit of a nasal tone, unexpectedly drifted into her ears:
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“Because…”
“I want to hear you say the answer yourself.”
Knowing full well that Xu Jiao’s words could mean life or death to her, Shen Yelan still decided to face the outcome. Especially after enduring a long and torturous wait, her desire to hear the answer had grown much stronger.
Xu Jiao, whether deliberately or not, refused to give Shen Yelan a straightforward answer. Instead, she proposed another condition: “I can be your girlfriend for a week, but you have to promise me one thing—”
Shen Yelan immediately responded, “What?”
Xu Jiao: “You have to be happy every day.”
Shen Yelan was taken aback, her eyes filled with obvious hesitation as she tried to discern the true meaning behind Xu Jiao’s words.
Xu Jiao patiently explained, “Moreover, whether or not you’re happy will be determined by me. If I find that you’re unhappy on any given day, I’ll terminate this relationship. Is that acceptable?”
As for the judgment of happiness, of course, it would be based on the blackening value.
Xu Jiao’s mind was abuzz with calculations, even formulating a series of plans. Based on the patterns she had written in her previous romance novels, she was confident that even a small act reducing blackening value would enable her to completely clear Shen Yelan’s blackening value within a week.
Shen Yelan couldn’t resist the temptation of having Xu Jiao become her girlfriend—
Forget about being happy every day; even if Xu Jiao demanded that she pluck a star from the sky each day, she would do everything in her power to achieve it.