Chapter 5

“I, I’ll wipe your shoes clean for you.”

Remembering that she was wearing Zhao Mingyue’s coat, Cui Xuan was afraid Zhao Mingyue would misunderstand, so she hurriedly took some tissues out of her pocket.

“I won’t use your clothes. I brought tissues. They’re… a little wrinkled, but I haven’t used them. They’re clean.”

Zhao Mingyue looked at the nervous Cui Xuan. Her lips twitched, but she could not say a word. It was as if her heart had been gripped tightly by something, and the sour, swelling ache made her throat feel clogged with cotton.

Sympathy? Heartache? Pity? Zhao Mingyue did not know. She only knew that aside from feeling awful, there was also an indescribable fire trapped in her chest.

She inhaled deeply, then slowly breathed out.

“No need.”

Seeing that Cui Xuan still wanted to say something, she simply reached out and snatched the tissues away. She wiped her shoes casually, then tossed the dirty wad into the trash can by the road.

“The light is about to turn green. We’re going to the cake shop across the street.”

Cui Xuan pressed her lips together. She still felt bad about it. After looking at Zhao Mingyue for a few seconds, she gathered her courage and asked softly, “Thank you. I, I can hold the umbrella… is that okay? I can do it. I’ll hold it properly and won’t let you get wet. Really.”

Zhao Mingyue was silent for two seconds, then tilted the umbrella toward her in indication.

Cui Xuan lifted her arms, then lowered them again. Flustered, she tugged her sleeves upward and finally exposed her fingers. Only then did she steadily take the umbrella handle with both hands.

When they reached the intersection to wait for the traffic light, the rain was much heavier than before. It fell crackling against the umbrella’s surface, sliding down along the ribs and dripping densely.

Cui Xuan glanced at the person beside her and quietly raised both arms a little higher.

Zhao Mingyue lowered her eyes and saw Cui Xuan’s slightly damp hair. Only then did she belatedly realize that the current Cui Xuan was even shorter than she had imagined.

Zhao Mingyue had seen Cui Xuan’s class group photo. Perhaps because long-term malnutrition had stunted her growth, even though she was one or two years older than her classmates, Cui Xuan in the photo had still not been tall.

They had once differed by half a head, but the current Cui Xuan only reached the tip of her nose.

Zhao Mingyue gripped the umbrella handle with one hand and ​unauthorized copy​pressed it downward, tilting it more toward Cui Xuan.

Cui Xuan quickly said, “No, no need to do that. You won’t be able to see the road…”

“As long as you can see, that’s enough.” Zhao Mingyue reached out and held Cui Xuan’s arm. “If you can see, then you can lead me.”

“You can… lead me, Cui Xuan.”

What Zhao Mingyue said was clearly very normal, but for some reason, Cui Xuan felt a little sad.

Pushing aside that inexplicable thought, Cui Xuan answered seriously, “I know… I’ll watch the road carefully. I won’t let anything dangerous happen to you.”

She carefully observed the road conditions and led Zhao Mingyue across the street. Only when they stopped in front of the cake shop did Cui Xuan let out a breath of relief. Standing on the steps, she carefully shook the raindrops from the umbrella.

Zhao Mingyue took the umbrella from her hand, shook off the rain, folded it, and pushed open the glass door.

The wind chime hanging by the door rang with a clear tinkling sound. Cui Xuan instinctively looked up. A crystal butterfly strung on transparent thread swayed gently, and for a moment, she stared at it in a slight daze.

“What are you looking at?”

Zhao Mingyue glanced in the direction Cui Xuan was looking, then took Cui Xuan’s hand and led her inside.

“Come on. Let’s look around.”

After Grandma Cui bought the cake, she got into a car accident at a nearby intersection. Zhao Mingyue did not know where Grandma Cui was right now, so she could only bring Cui Xuan to this cake shop and wait.

Warm yellow lights shone before the display case. Layers of beautiful, delicate desserts that Cui Xuan could not name were arranged neatly inside.

A shop assistant came over to greet them. Hearing Zhao Mingyue say that she wanted to look around herself, the assistant returned to the cashier counter and waited.

Zhao Mingyue looked left and right, taking a long time without choosing. Cui Xuan wanted Zhao Mingyue to finish buying quickly so they could go back to class sooner, but she did not dare urge her. After struggling for quite a while, she finally managed to ask, “What do you want to eat?”

Zhao Mingyue was in no hurry at all, strolling leisurely in front of the display case.

“I haven’t decided. I’ll look a little more.”

Cui Xuan was anxious and started clutching the hem of her clothes again. After tugging twice, she remembered that this was not her own [stolen content]coat. Panic flashed through her, and she quickly let go, carefully smoothing out the wrinkles on the coat.

Before she had fully smoothed them, someone suddenly hooked an arm around her shoulders and pulled, nearly making her stick to the display case.

Zhao Mingyue said, “I can’t choose. Help me see which one looks good.”

Cui Xuan slowly calmed her heartbeat and whispered, “…Sorry, I don’t know.”

She had never eaten any of the pretty pastries here, so naturally she had no way of knowing which one tasted good.

Zhao Mingyue said, “Then feel it out. Which one looks delicious to you, makes you hungry, makes you want to eat it?”

Cui Xuan scanned them once and hesitantly chose the cheapest one. “That one, maybe.”

“Your attitude isn’t serious at all. One look and I can tell you didn’t choose properly.” Zhao Mingyue raised the hand resting on Cui Xuan’s shoulder and pressed under Cui Xuan’s chin to make her lift her head. “Choose properly. Don’t be perfunctory.”

Cui Xuan actually had not been unserious. Everything she looked at seemed delicious, appetizing, and something she wanted to eat. But since Zhao Mingyue wanted her to choose again, she could only look over them carefully once more and choose the second-cheapest one.

Zhao Mingyue drawled lazily, “It doesn’t look like the most delicious one, and it’s too cheap. Not eating that. Choose properly.”

Was being cheap not good?

Cui Xuan did not understand. She lowered her head and looked again, then pointed to one that was neither too expensive nor too cheap.

Zhao Mingyue leaned closer and examined it critically. After pondering for a few seconds, she reluctantly gave a hum.

“Close enough. Then this one.”

As if receiving amnesty, Cui Xuan watched Zhao Mingyue raise a hand and call over the shop assistant to make the selection. She thought that once they bought it, they could finally go back to school, and her expression had just relaxed a little when she heard Zhao Mingyue add, “No need to pack it. We’ll eat here.”

Cui Xuan: …

Cui Xuan’s eyes rounded. !

Zhao Mingyue lowered her eyes and laughed, rubbing the head Cui Xuan had tilted up to look at her. She deliberately scared her.

“Try glaring at me again?”

Cui Xuan quickly squeezed her round eyes into half-circles and did not dare look at her anymore. Clutching her fingers in distress, she asked softly, “Can’t we… bring it back to school to eat?”

Zhao Mingyue wagged a finger. “No. It tastes best when eaten fresh. If we bring it back, it won’t taste good anymore.”

Cui Xuan actually did not understand why a journey of only a few minutes would make the cake stop tasting good, but she knew she had no way to make Zhao Mingyue change her mind.

She gave a soft sigh. Then the dessert on the tray suddenly appeared before her eyes. Cui Xuan looked up in confusion and heard Zhao Mingyue ask with a little laugh, “Do you want some?”

Cui Xuan hurriedly shook her head.

Too expensive. It was too expensive. So expensive, and only such a tiny piece. Something like this was not something she could eat, nor something she should eat.

Zhao Mingyue pushed the tray into Cui Xuan’s hands. “I’ll go pay. Help me carry it to that table.”

Cui Xuan gave an “oh” and obediently carried the tray over, setting it down properly. Seeing that Zhao Mingyue had not come over yet, she stood beside the seat and looked around, wanting to find a clock and check the time.

They were probably going to be late. How should she apologize and admit her mistake to the teacher? Would they be very late? The dessert was only such a small piece, so even [bailiantales.com]if they were late, it should… probably would not be too long, right?

The unique sweet fragrance of cake lingered around the tip of her nose. As Cui Xuan thought and thought, her gaze was unconsciously drawn to the display cakes inside the display case.

Today was her birthday.

If only she could use a display cake to make a wish. How wonderful would that be?

Zhao Mingyue walked over and sat down, blocking Cui Xuan’s view. She knowingly asked, “What are you looking at?”

Cui Xuan did not answer that question. She only gathered her courage and softly urged, “Can you… eat just a little faster? Otherwise we might be late…”

“I’ll try. I’ll try.” Zhao Mingyue agreed verbally, then leisurely picked up the little spoon, scooped off a tiny piece of dessert, and put it into her mouth.

A little too sweet.

She gave up on the idea of letting Cui Xuan eat it.

She ate slowly. Cui Xuan watched anxiously, but stolen contentdid not dare say anything. She only looked at Zhao Mingyue again and again, trying to secretly hint at her with that movement and urge her along.

Zhao Mingyue turned a blind eye and ate with unhurried, rock-steady composure.

Probably realizing that urging her was useless, Cui Xuan finally gave up. Feeling that staring at someone while they ate was not very good, she half-lay on the table and turned her head away. With that turn, her gaze unconsciously met the display cake in the case again.

Cui Xuan was looking at the display cake. Zhao Mingyue was looking at her.

Cui Xuan’s collapse and despair, the fantasy that came later, the entanglement of love and resentment between them… everything, all of it, began today. It began with Grandma Cui’s death.

With Cui Xuan’s personality, she would not take the initiative to ask her grandmother to come celebrate her birthday. But her grandmother probably could not bear for Cui Xuan to spend her coming-of-age ceremony all alone, so she had come despite the hardship, hoping to give Cui Xuan a surprise and accompany her into adulthood.

But the cake for Cui Xuan’s eighteenth birthday and her grandmother were crushed together, forever left in the past.

During those few hours when her grandmother lay on the operating table, had she regretted that she should not have come? Had she been afraid of simply passing away like that, dying on Cui Xuan’s birthday? Had she worried that the child she had raised with her own hands would suffer, collapse, and hate herself?

Zhao Mingyue had no way of knowing.

But no matter how much Grandma Cui wanted to survive, she only [bailiantales.com]managed to hold on until the early hours of the next morning before passing away forever.

When Cui Xuan’s blood relatives argued with the perpetrator over compensation, every word out of their mouths accused the other party of killing a person. Yet when they turned back, they said Grandma Cui had been killed by Cui Xuan.

Joining together to hate one person was always easier than investigating responsibility. Selecting a scapegoat to bear their guilt was always simpler than reflecting on their own mistakes.

They obtained wealth from the perpetrator, then convicted Cui Xuan to escape their own responsibility for neglecting an elder they should have cared for. They would not say that when Grandma Cui wanted to go out, no one had accompanied or looked after her. They would only say that if it had not been to celebrate your birthday, how could Grandma have died?

The tragic thing was that even Cui Xuan herself believed from the bottom of her heart that she was the one who had killed her grandmother.

In this tragedy, the person Grandma Cui cherished most, cared about most, and most wanted to protect suffered the heaviest blame, was left with an eternal wound that could never be erased, and many years later, ultimately walked step by step toward death.

Grandma Cui’s love for Cui Xuan had become a knife in someone else’s hand, used to stab Cui Xuan. If her grandmother knew from beyond the grave, Zhao Mingyue imagined she would be in agony too.

The light, delicate sound of the wind chime brought Zhao Mingyue back to herself. Before she could look over, a voice reached her ears first.

“Little Fu!”

Zhao Mingyue instinctively looked across the table. Cui Xuan, who had been lying on the table listlessly, suddenly sat up [Read on BaiLianTales]straight. Her eyes widened, and she craned her head toward the door.

Zhao Mingyue saw it clearly.

The expression on Cui Xuan’s face changed from confusion to surprise. The light above reflected in her eyes, making those wide round eyes grow bright and sparkling. Even when she abruptly stood and hit the corner of the table, she paid no attention to the pain. Calling “Grandma,” she rushed toward the door like a little bird freed from its cage.

It was an urgent joy, lively and vivid, that Zhao Mingyue had never seen before.