Peaches and Plums Don’t Speak – Chapter 81

Does That Include You Too, Auntie?

“Even if it’s your lover, they cannot touch you or kiss you without your permission. Other people absolutely cannot—not men, and not women. Do you understand?” Yan Xi said to her, her tone carrying a note of severity.

She placed special emphasis on men and women, stressing that people of all age groups needed to be kept in mind.

            

Anzhi had no idea what kind of mental gymnastics Yan Xi had just gone through; she was simply confused as to why Yan Xi was suddenly saying this. She instinctively nodded in her usual well-behaved manner, but then a thought struck her. “But I don’t have a lover?”

Yan Xi paused. “Aren’t you dating Xu Jia’er?”

“Ah! Of course not!” Anzhi panicked so much that she slid right off Yan Xi’s lap, landing on the carpet on her bottom, and waved her hands frantically. “No! I’m not!”

            

“You’re not?” Yan Xi was taken aback, and then a wave of anger surged into her chest. If they weren’t dating, then Xu Jia’er had actually done something like that to Anzhi? “Does she like you?” she asked.

Anzhi hesitated. “She did say that, but I rejected her. She has a lot of people who like her, and I don’t think she was very serious about it anyway.”

This was the first time Anzhi had ever had a girl confess to her. She treated Xu Jia’er as a friend and was even more at a loss as to how to handle it. After being rejected, Xu Jia’er hadn’t made any obvious follow-up moves; she still hung around with a large group of friends and continued to accept love letters as usual.

            

Anzhi didn’t quite understand it. When she liked Yan Xi, she only had eyes for Yan Xi. But since the other party hadn’t taken things any further, she couldn’t let her imagination run wild either.

“I don’t think I’m that great in her eyes anyway, plus she’s planning to go abroad,” Anzhi added.

Yan Xi listened in silence for a moment before saying, “That’s not right. You can’t say you aren’t great. Romance is a very complicated thing. Since you feel there’s no possibility with her, you should keep your distance from her.”

            

Anzhi lowered her head.

Yan Xi cast a glance at her. “Or do you actually like her too, but just feel that this isn’t the right time to be dating?”

“No, no, no, I really only see her as a friend.” A faint blush swept across Anzhi’s face. “I just feel a little sad.”

            

“I know. You want to have friends.” Yan Xi’s voice softened.

Anzhi kept her head bowed. “Auntie,” she asked in a muffled voice, “if someone you didn’t like liked you, would you also keep your distance from them?”

Yan Xi thought about it for a moment and nodded. “Yes, I would keep my distance from them.”

            

Hearing this, Anzhi sank into a gloomy mood. She focused on her exam paper, silently working through the questions, no longer wanting to say a single word.

Sitting beside her, Yan Xi browsed the internet on her phone, taking in Anzhi’s every expression. Anzhi was looking at the test questions, her little mouth pouting, looking thoroughly unhappy. After thinking it over, Yan Xi couldn’t help but feel a pang of heartache.

She knew exactly how hard it was for Anzhi to make a friend.

            

“Taotao?” Yan Xi called out softly.

Anzhi gave a tiny “Mn” of acknowledgment without looking at her, and pushed the math paper aside.

Yan Xi was momentarily stunned: She’s already finished it?

            

Anzhi pulled her Chinese paper in front of her. “Ah, so many words…” She pouted. “So annoying. I don’t want to write.” She flipped to the essay section. “Taiwanese cartoonist Cai Zhizhong¹ once said that if life is compared to an orange, one kind of orange is large but sour, and the other is small but sweet. Some people complain about the sourness when they get a large one, and complain about the size when they get a sweet one. But if I get a small orange, I am thankful it is sweet; and if I get a sour orange, I am grateful it is large. Please choose a perspective from which to write an essay.”

Her reading voice was soft and crisp. When she finished, Yan Xi smiled and asked, “How do you want to write it?”

Anzhi was clearly not in the mood to write an essay. “I want a big and sweet orange!” she said petulantly. “I don’t want to write the essay!”

            

“Pfft!” Yan Xi teased her. “But you can’t do that. You can’t have both the fish and the bear’s paw².”

Anzhi pouted, looking as if she didn’t want to talk anymore.

Yan Xi put on a serious face to help her analyze the prompt. “You can approach this essay from many angles. How to properly view gains and losses in life. How your mindset determines your state of being, the choices you make in life, or looking at life’s circumstances with optimism…”

            

Anzhi stared at her, an expression of “I don’t want to listen, I don’t want to listen” written all over her face.

She lowered her eyes dejectedly. So no matter what she chose, she would have to give something up? And she still had to face it with as much optimism as possible? Was this the so-called silver lining of a dark cloud?

Just like her and Yan Xi. They could only maintain this relationship of family and friends. If she confessed her feelings to her, Yan Xi would distance herself, and Anzhi would lose her.

            

Could she only choose one of the two? Just like those two kinds of oranges?

Forcing down the bitterness in her heart, Anzhi simply took her frustration out on the exam paper. “I hate Chinese! I hate writing essays! I won’t write it!”

It was rare to see her throw a tantrum like this. Yan Xi looked at her in slight astonishment. Anzhi turned her body sideways, her fair, pinkish cheeks puffed out. Her former baby fat had already faded considerably, revealing a melon-seed face³, and her eyelashes were soft and fine. One could already perfectly imagine just how movingly beautiful she would be in the future.

            

The genetic combination of Tao Zhenzhen and Chen Muqi had turned out quite perfectly. Moreover, though Anzhi was young, her aura was already entirely different from her parents’—it was a sort of supple, pure, yet resolute temperament.

Yan Xi suddenly smiled. “Alright, if you don’t want to write it, then don’t. You can write it another day.”

“I won’t write it another day either!” Anzhi flared up. She had been exceptionally well-behaved since childhood, and now she was completely, inexplicably using this as an excuse to act out. Yet, she suddenly found that acting unreasonably felt rather good, and she was intensely curious to see how Yan Xi would respond to her.

            

Her heart was clearly racing, but her mouth blurted out, “I just won’t write it!” With a sweeping motion of her hand, she brushed the papers off the desk.

With a rustle, the stack of exam papers scattered all over the carpet. Anzhi was secretly startled. She felt she had gone a bit too far, but since things had already reached this point, she could only bite the bullet and keep up the act.

She quickly stole a glance at Yan Xi, only to see the smile freezing on the corners of Yan Xi’s lips, a somewhat baffled light in her eyes.

            

Oh no, Anzhi thought. What do I do now?

She stood up uneasily, thinking she might as well just retreat to her room.

But Yan Xi’s next words left her stunned.

            

“Alright, then we won’t write it. Do you want a hug?”

Anzhi turned her head to see Yan Xi looking right at her. The baffled look in those smiling eyes had vanished, replaced by a warm gaze as she opened her arms to her.

Anzhi’s face instantly burned red. She felt a deep sense of shame for her own petty little schemes, yet hidden within that shame was a profound, overwhelming burst of joy.

            

Awkwardly and hesitantly, she walked back, finally deciding to just throw caution to the wind. “Yes!”

Yan Xi hadn’t expected Anzhi to do exactly what she had done earlier—climb onto her lap and wrap her arms around her.

Mn… this position feels a bit weird…

            

Yan Xi chalked up Anzhi’s little tantrum just now to teenage rebellion. Besides, Anzhi’s exams were approaching, her stress levels were high, her hand was injured, and she had just dealt with the whole Xu Jia’er situation. It was completely understandable that her mood would be volatile.

She just needed a little coaxing.

It was just that Yan Xi was slightly perplexed. Did teenage girls really experience such drastic mood swings? Over the summer break, she had completely ignored her, but these past few days she was clinging to her like glue.

            

Whenever Yan Xi tried to treat her like a child, Anzhi acted like an adult. But the moment she tried to treat Anzhi like an adult, she seemed to instantly revert to her childhood self, acting even more clingy and delicate.

No wonder the senior colleagues at the station always said that one had to pay special attention to the developmental status of teenagers.

Having reached this conclusion, Yan Xi suddenly felt as though she understood the majority of the situation, and her heart settled. Meanwhile, Anzhi buried her face in the crook of Yan Xi’s neck. She was currently sitting sideways on Yan Xi’s lap, hugging her, and her voice was thin and soft: “Auntie, you just said that others can’t touch me without my permission. Does that include you too, Auntie?”

            

Yan Xi instantly choked on her breath. This question sounds far too weird.

Ah? How was she supposed to answer that?

Answer that it didn’t include her? Meaning she could touch Anzhi without her permission?

            

Answer that it did include her, and she couldn’t touch Anzhi without her permission?

The real problem was: why was she suddenly being placed inside this context of ‘touching her’ in the first place?

Not to mention, the words she had spoken earlier had also included “kissing her.”

            

When Yan Xi had said those words to Anzhi, she hadn’t factored herself into the equation at all. She had been thinking of other men and women who might have designs on Anzhi.

With a single sentence, Anzhi had dragged her right into that circle. Yan Xi was completely dumbfounded.

That feeling of being a “sleazy older woman” came rushing right back.

            

“Mn? Auntie?” Anzhi lowered her head a little further, resting against Yan Xi’s shoulder, and blinked as she asked.

“Mn…” In all her thirty years of life, Yan Xi had never encountered a question so difficult to answer.

“Auntie is different,” she managed to answer with great difficulty. “I meant other strangers, or people you might like in the future, people you might date. Naturally, I’m not included in that. Just like how it’s different with your uncles and aunts—everyone can be a bit closer and have physical contact.”

            

Anzhi’s heart tightened. She bit her lip and said nothing.

When she didn’t speak, Yan Xi carefully chewed over the words she had just said, unable to sense anything wrong with them.

The atmosphere was a little awkward. Yan Xi grabbed a test paper, flipped it over, and read aloud: “《Xunzi·Exhortation to Learning》 points out that although the earthworm’s body is weak, it can ‘, __’, because of its single-minded dedication. Which two lines are these?”

            

Anzhi pouted and answered, “Eat the dirt above, and drink the yellow springs below⁴.”

“‘Last night I dreamed of fallen flowers by the idle pool⁵’—what’s the next line?”

“Alas, spring is half over and I have not returned home.”

            

Anzhi leaned against her shoulder, able to clearly feel the shifting of Yan Xi’s breath as she spoke, and smelling the pleasant scent near her collar.

“The river water carries spring away, soon to be exhausted—”

“The moon setting over the river pool slants west again,” Anzhi replied in a daze.

            

“Do you really not want to do the questions?” Yan Xi asked with a soft chuckle. As she spoke, her breath brushed against Anzhi’s face. Anzhi quietly tightened her embrace. “I don’t want to.”

Yan Xi felt that she was holding on a bit too tightly. Anzhi was no longer that five-year-old child who felt like a soft, squishy throw pillow when hugged. The person in her arms was a teenage girl, carrying a faint, sweet fragrance, and against her chest, Yan Xi could feel the distinctly well-developed contours of her changing body.

Yan Xi felt somewhat uncomfortable. From the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of Anzhi’s white, lotus-root-like calf. Right at the ankle, there was a large, dark bruise. She must have accidentally bumped into something. It was exceptionally striking.

            

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