The Amnesiac Omega Who Reels Me In Every Day – Chapter 119
by Little PandaSome Sweetness
Honeymoon Extra
Drained of Love by Her
The moment the wedding was over, the two wives dumped little Yurou into Jiang Ningshu’s care and ran straight off on their honeymoon.
Three years into their marriage, they were back in a world of just the two of them.
They could do whatever they liked, however they liked — no one to interrupt them, no child to tiptoe around, no worrying about corrupting young ears.
Back home, their intimate moments had been walked in on by little Yurou more than once, and each time it had taken ages to explain.
No — not explain. Sweet-talk.
Deceiving a child takes real effort, and even after you’ve pulled it off, you’re left worrying about what ideas she might have gotten.
Now the reins were off entirely.
Three years married, and still they had that fresh-off-the-register, newlywed sparkle and thrill.
Their first stop was the seaside. Like ordinary people, they rented a small homestay by the shore — mornings spent picking up crabs along the beach, noontime spent sampling street snacks.
They stopped to wait at a little wheel cake1 stall, watching the owner’s practiced hands at the griddle, and amid all that warm, lived-in bustle of ordinary life, Jiang Youwan sank into a memory.
She’d rarely eaten street food like this. Before twenty-four, she’d been trapped in the Su household, where it was out of reach; after twenty-four, the few times she’d had it were all because of Jiang Jinyi.
When she was twenty-four, Jinyi was eighteen — an eighteen-year-old held aloft by everyone like the moon ringed by stars, who decided Youwan knew nothing about the world and kept dragging her out to see it.
That year’s Mid-Autumn Festival2, she took her to the lantern fair in Luo City.
She gave her a set of hanfu3, taught her how to put it on, did her makeup for her.
Then, softly, she praised her: you’re so beautiful.
The two of them wandered the old town’s streets in their hanfu among the crowds, and Youwan would remember forever the way eighteen-year-old Jinyi — tsundere to the last — took her hand, glanced back at her, and said: “Too many people. Scared you’d get lost.”
That instant — the sweet face tilting away under the amber lanterns, lips pursing into a pout — truly deserved a photograph, a permanent record.
Sadly, there’d been no time to pull out a phone. But the image stayed carved into Youwan’s memory, so much so that for many Mid-Autumn Festivals afterward she missed Jinyi with an ache — missed her enough to wring out what little pitiful rest time she had and travel hundreds of miles, all just to steal a single glimpse of her.
Ever since, roadside snacks always made her think of Xiao Jin.
Back then Jinyi would buy heaps of snacks and split them half-and-half — and whenever something didn’t suit her palate, the Eldest Miss Jiang would matter-of-factly shove it at Youwan and make her finish it all.
Always making her eat what she’d left behind.
Youwan’s lips curved before she knew it.
“Jiejie, I want to drink neige.”
Jinyi’s voice pulled her back to the present. She followed Jinyi’s gaze to a coconut-juice stand, watched the proprietress fiddling with her machine for a couple of seconds, then turned to Jinyi.
She smiled and reused the exact words from that Mid-Autumn long ago, in the same sort of scene: “Then go and buy it. Jiejie will wait here — and remember to come back and find jiejie later, okay?”
It was the tone you’d use on a little kiddo. Jinyi’s face went faintly pink; she lifted her eyes and mumbled, “How is jiejie still treating me like a kiddo?”
The first times she’d heard Youwan instruct her in that tone, she’d puffed up in indignant embarrassment, insisting she wasn’t a child — of course she’d know how to come back to you.
Back then, Youwan had smiled with a trace of bitterness and said it was because she hadn’t been out in the world for so long — she’d feel unsafe — that’s why…
Hearing that, Jinyi’s mortification and fire had guttered out on the spot, and she’d promised obediently to wait, and that she would come back and find her.
Youwan back then had truly known how to show weakness — how to win the Eldest Miss Jiang’s tender protectiveness, then slowly, step by step, secretly gather her into the palm of her hand.
This was the legendary truth in action: a skilled hunter appears as prey.
“Jiejie’s just scared Xiao Jin will get lost, that’s all.”
“Now go on, off you go~”
Youwan urged her along with a smile. Jinyi turned to buy the coconut juice. The two stalls weren’t far apart — well within sight of each other — how could anyone possibly get lost?
Jinyi ordered a coconut juice, sweetly grumbling to herself that Youwan really was such a sap.
The cups were huge, and they still wanted to try other things later, so one cup between the two of them was just right.
The proprietress was a young woman in a sexy camisole. She gave Jinyi a couple of extra looks, then asked with a smile, “Here on vacation, pretty lady?”
“Mm-hm.” Jinyi answered absently.
“What’s the plan — how are you going to spend it?” The proprietress was all warmth.
“Just wandering around.”
“Just wandering? That won’t do! There are loads of fun spots here you out-of-towners don’t even know about.”
Now that was intriguing. Jinyi’s interest piqued. “Like where?”
“Plenty of places that aren’t even on the map. You seem interested, and I happen to be off tomorrow — what if you hired me as your guide?”
When Jinyi didn’t answer right away, the proprietress laughed and added, “The free kind, of course. See, I love photography, and you’re gorgeous — just model for me a little and we’ll call it even.”
“I guarantee I’ll shoot you some atmospheric stunners. Deal?” The proprietress worked fast — the coconut juice was done before she’d even finished speaking — but she didn’t hand it over.
“Drink it here. There’s AC inside — we can chat.”
At that, Jinyi instinctively glanced toward Youwan not far away — and immediately met her eyes.
She was watching.
So that was what Youwan had meant by remember to come back and find jiejie.
It dawned on her all at once: this woman really was sharp.
Jinyi’s survival instinct kicked in at once. She gave up on the coconut juice entirely, withdrew her hand, and told the proprietress, “That’s all right. My wife’s waiting for me.”
The proprietress blinked. Jinyi pressed on: “She has the whole itinerary planned. We’re on our honeymoon.”
The proprietress raised an eyebrow, didn’t push any further, and handed over the cup. “Then congratulations on the wedding — enjoy your honeymoon.”
Hearing the good wishes, Jinyi thought it over and accepted the juice after all. “Thank you.”
Jinyi trotted back to Youwan’s side just as the wheel cakes came off the griddle. Youwan took them from the stall owner and bit into one.
“Xiao Jin’s back?” She looked over at Jinyi and held the wheel cake to her lips — the very spot she’d bitten — for her to eat. “It’s delicious.”
Jinyi took a bite, and before she’d even finished swallowing she blurted, “Jiejie — the coconut-juice lady said congratulations on our wedding!”
The world-weary detachment in Youwan’s eyes melted into a tender smile. “Mm. Did you thank her?”
Jinyi went soft and obedient: “I did.”
Youwan lowered her gaze to the corner of Jinyi’s mouth, then — as a reward for coming back to her jiejie like a good girl — leaned in and gently kissed away the red bean paste clinging there.
A moment later she drew back and breathed, “Good girl.”
It was hopeless. Like this, she would only ever make Jinyi want to be more and more obedient.
They wandered for hours, getting back to their homestay only in the afternoon. Lying on the comfortable big bed, wrapped in each other’s arms, everything around them hushed — only the gentle voice of the sea wind and each other’s breathing. Perfect for an afternoon nap.
After a deeply comfortable sleep, she drifted slowly awake. The sky outside had darkened; the wind and the waves had grown loud. There was no trace of Youwan’s scent in the air, and Jinyi realized Youwan was gone.
She didn’t panic, because right away she spotted the note Youwan had left.
【The southernmost tip of the island, facing the boundless open sea — the seabed is my home.】
What an enticing sentence.
Youwan was staging another romantic surprise.
Anticipation bloomed in Jinyi’s chest. She changed and went out to find her, renting a little electric scooter and riding toward the island’s southern end, stopping midway at a roadside florist for a bouquet of roses.
Also very romantic.
When she reached the end of the land, she saw a figure standing far off on the sand — long hair and gossamer skirt tangled together in the sea wind, a tangle with a beauty all its own.
Jinyi walked toward her cradling the roses. At the sound of her steps, Youwan turned, glanced back over her shoulder, and her eyes curved into a smile.
Jinyi was stunned.
Her face bore an exotic siren’s makeup — green irises, white pearl earrings, a sapphire set into the band across her brow.
Beneath a shell-lace bustier, the lines of her torso appeared and vanished beneath a gossamer overskirt; a mermaid-tail hem trailed along the ground, stirring in the wind. In the light of the setting sun, she truly looked like a mermaid on the verge of returning to the sea.
“Are you a mermaid?” Jinyi held the roses out to her. Youwan took them into her arms. “Thank you for the flowers. But they don’t suit the seabed.”
“Are you going home?”
“Mm… I was about to return to my domain. But now that I’ve seen you, I find myself a little reluctant to go.” Youwan gazed at the eyes that curved at her words, and said, tender and cruel at once, “I don’t care for humans. It’s only that you look delicious.”
Being regarded as food didn’t frighten Jinyi in the least. Instead she made a polite request of the mermaid lady: “Then could you stay with me a little longer?”
“Humans have no right to ask anything of a mermaid. Still — you truly are cute. I suppose I can indulge you, just this once.”
The two of them sat side by side on the sand, sea wind on their faces, listening to the waves break.
Watching the sea alone is a lonely thing — especially at sunset, when the departing sun is like a life about to dim.
A desolation with no name.
But with the one you love beside you, it’s another thing entirely. Watching the sun sink into the sea with your beloved is, by worldwide consensus, one of the most romantic things there is.
All the more so when the wind kept unraveling the scent of the roses in Youwan’s arms, spreading it across the whole beach.
Rose perfume threaded through the sea wind — an atmosphere made for sweet nothings. Jinyi asked the mermaid lady, “Can you stay?”
“Why?”
“Because you’re so beautiful. I’m utterly bewitched by you — I can’t bear to let you go.” Clichéd as the words were, from Jinyi’s mouth they sounded nothing but sincere.
“Is that so?” Youwan said. “But a mermaid doesn’t belong here. The moment the sun rises tomorrow morning, I’ll dissolve into sea foam.”
Jinyi’s heart sank a little; then she thought it over and said, “Then I’ll come here and wait for you every night from now on. Is that all right?”
“All right.” Youwan agreed with a smile.
“Although… did you know? A mermaid really can live on land — if…” Youwan tilted her head, looking at her deeply, and murmured, low and bewitching, “…that mermaid possesses a human heart.”
“I want your heart. Will you give it to me?”
“Mm…”
As if under an enchantment, Jinyi drifted closer to her, bit by bit, helpless to stop herself. The mermaid’s face grew larger in her vision, and they kissed, there in a stretch of sea that belonged to them alone.
The kiss went deep — tongues tangling, glimmering wetness spilling past the corner of a mouth again and again only to be licked away, neither of them able to help themselves.
“They say humans are greedy and fickle. I risked staying on land for you — you won’t go giving your heart to anyone else, will you?”
“Mm… I won’t.”
The mermaid lounged back against the reef, stroking the human’s head, her fingertips seeming to hold some power of command — savoring the way the human knelt so obediently beneath her, worshipping, kissing.
The howling wind became accompaniment to the mermaid’s song, thick with desire; the air brimmed with the salt of the sea. Wave after wave broke over her, breath after breath was stolen, until Jinyi — dazed, half-dreaming — truly believed she had drowned into the sea.
Yet whenever they parted, the dark-red sky and the fresh air reminded her: she was on shore, she was on the sand, she was beneath the wide-open sky.
With nothing to shield her.
There was no time to think before the woman wound around her again — wringing the love out of her.
The fallen bouquet of roses tossed in the waves. How tragically beautiful.
All around was pitch black, only moonlight scattered across the water. The surging waves drove one another onward, wave upon wave, their roar shaking body and mind — enough to make anyone choke, anyone fear.
But right now the two of them were wrapped in each other, kissing, lingering close, listening to each other’s heartbeats and breath. Home was right there in her arms, and that fierce sense of safety scattered every fear.
Even if a great wave were to sweep them into the depths that very moment — hidden away together in the deep sea — it would only feel impossibly romantic.
The author has something to say:
Next chapter preview: A/O switch-up
Footnotes
- 车轮饼 | chelunbing | A round griddle cake named for its wheel shape, poured into a cast-iron mold with spoke-like cavities; the crisp golden shell hides a hot filling of sweet red bean paste or custard. A beloved street-stall snack in Taiwan and along the mainland coast.
- 中秋 | Zhongqiu | The Mid-Autumn Festival, falling on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month when the moon is at its fullest. Families reunite and share mooncakes, and historic quarters often hold lantern fairs like the one Jinyi took Youwan to.
- 汉服 | hanfu | Traditional dress of the Han Chinese — layered, wide-sleeved robes with crossed collars, worn for millennia before Manchu-era styles like the qipao. Its modern revival has made hanfu a favorite costume for festivals and lantern-fair outings.
0 Comments