I Really Didn't Want to Have a Happy Ending with the Black Moonlight Female Lead - Chapter 7

The confined space was filled with warm steam. In the crowding, there seemed to be a moment of stagnation.

The panic on Xu Shiyue’s face hadn’t completely dissipated, but the hand resting on Lu Shizhen’s arm was barely supporting her.

The wet fingers rested on Lu Shizhen’s exposed forearm, the sensation of the loose grip and detachment was exceptionally clear.

The small sphere cooperated by turning on the light, illuminating the entire space. Xu Shiyue’s wet, long hair clung to her face. Her water-beaded eyelashes blinked uncontrollably, revealing a sense of unsupported frailty and wariness.

Lu Shizhen knew Xu Shiyue didn’t trust her. She pretended to be preoccupied with steadying herself, saying: “Hey, hold on tight. The floor is full of water. Don’t pull me down too.”

Lu Shizhen’s voice contained a hint of complaint, but it was precisely this negative emotion that made Xu Shiyue relax slightly.

Since Lu Shizhen was preoccupied, she wouldn’t have any opportunity to grope or take advantage of her.

The door had been opened from the outside, and the cooling pooled water slowly consumed the temperature of Xu Shiyue’s feet.

Despite the disgust, and despite wanting to distance herself, the waterlogged tile floor was too slippery, and she couldn’t see the surrounding situation. Xu Shiyue lowered her eyelashes and decided to listen to Lu Shizhen this one time.

She was nothing more than a convenient tool.

Holding this thought, the force on Lu Shizhen’s arm finally became a little firmer, accompanied by a rare warmth from the girl’s palm.

Xu Shiyue slowly and cautiously tried to regain her balance, while Lu Shizhen quietly supported her, truly acting like a lifeless guide cane.

Heat lingered between the two slowly moving figures, and a faint rose fragrance settled on Xu Shiyue’s shoulder—a rare moment of peace.

Perhaps because she had lost her sight, she had become much more sensitive to other sensations. It was as if she caught a different scent within the quiet rose fragrance.

It wasn’t strong, diluted and enveloped by the steam, yet it landed right on the tip of her nose.

It was cool and sharp—the smell of alcohol, though she wasn’t entirely sure.

A weak, sharp intake of breath sounded close to Lu Shizhen’s ear.

The sniffing was like a small animal’s tentative test, the warm and damp breath tickling her heart.

Lu Shizhen rarely had intimate contact with people and was sensitive to everything.

She didn’t like this tickling sensation. She turned her head to check the cause, but her heart abruptly skipped a beat.

A pale white towel covered the girl’s modesty. Water droplets traced the collarbone, slowly painting a deeper color on the edges.

Xu Shiyue had lowered her eyelashes at some point. Her long hair, which the shark clip couldn’t hold, hung loosely and casually beside her face.

Her originally pale, bloodless face was flushed pink by the surrounding heat, and even her shoulders and collarbone were tinged with this color.

She was calmly and intently turned slightly toward Lu Shizhen. The nose that had caused the itching gently twitched.

She might not realize it, but others could see clearly.

She was like a cat, behaving recklessly without realizing her actions were intrusive.

It was hard to say whether Xu Shiyue’s behavior was too intimate. After all, Lu Shizhen was being held as her guide cane, and the distance between them was less than a centimeter.

But perhaps precisely because of this, the surrounding heat accumulated and failed to dissipate for a long time. Lu Shizhen watched Xu Shiyue’s cat-like action of leaning in to sniff, and her heartbeat strangely started to quicken.

Lu Shizhen didn’t have much experience with interpersonal interactions and couldn’t explain why this was happening.

Time slowly passed. The mirror next to them cleared of fog. A hint of disgust gradually appeared on Xu Shiyue’s calm face: “Miss Lu has been drinking?”

The clear, cold voice overshadowed the warm air currents around them. Instantly, the slight itch on Lu Shizhen’s neck and her unbalanced heartbeat all scattered and disappeared without a trace.

The wind seemed to come alive at that moment, settling on Lu Shizhen, allowing her to smell the scent on herself without surprise.

The originally faint alcohol scent was amplified by the heat. Looking at the expression on Xu Shiyue’s face, she instantly realized that Xu Shiyue had misunderstood her.

—She really hadn’t been drinking.

She had just felt hungry from thinking so much, and secretly sneaked an extra serving of the sweet rice wine dumplings Sun Yi made this afternoon…

In fact, Lu Shizhen being able to rush to the bathroom and save Xu Shiyue so quickly was thanks to that bowl of sweet rice wine dumplings.

If she hadn’t secretly gone downstairs to look for food to replenish her energy, it would have been impossible for her to execute the system’s warning so promptly.

Truly, sweet rice wine dumplings were both her success and her failure.

It felt like a giant “-1” was hanging overhead, heavily unbearable.

Lu Shizhen could almost see the “Underage Alcoholic” label about to be slapped onto her. She quickly explained, like offering a treasure, before Xu Shiyue could brand her: “Want some sweet rice wine dumplings? Osmanthus flavored.”

Xu Shiyue paused, then replied without much change in tone: “Thank you, but no.”

“Oh.” Lu Shizhen was a little disappointed.

She had heard Sun Yi say today that sweet rice wine dumplings were good for strengthening the spleen and stomach and promoting blood circulation.

They walked the rest of the way in silence. They quickly left the tiny bathroom space.

Lu Shizhen watched Xu Shiyue put on the shoes she had left outside, and without lingering, withdrew the arm that had been guarding Xu Shiyue’s waist.

The reassuring support that had been close behind suddenly vanished.

Xu Shiyue felt a momentary emptiness, but returned to normal within half a second.

The lights on the first floor, which had been dark, were turned on at some point, brightly coloring her blurred vision with a faint hue.

This included the person whose arm she was holding, who was currently only serving as her guide cane.

To Xu Shiyue, this was the most genuinely polite Lu Shizhen had been since she had known her.

This thought was very strange.

Xu Shiyue knew better than anyone that the person next to her was the most hypocritical and superficially friendly person there was.

She couldn’t figure it out, and she didn’t want to waste energy thinking about such meaningless things.

Xu Shiyue slightly loosened her grip on Lu Shizhen’s arm, draped the bathrobe that was hanging nearby over herself, and said politely, maintaining a clear distance: “Then I won’t disturb Miss Lu’s late-night snack.”

The night was deep. Every window was a canvas coated with thick ink, reflecting the scene inside the room.

The wide bathrobe covered Xu Shiyue’s entire body. Her slender calves peeked out from the hem, the tightened Achilles tendon forming a thin line that contrasted slightly with the soft flannel.

Light was not an important tool for her. Her steps remained slow as she climbed the stairs.

Red roses silently bloomed in the hallway vase. Lu Shizhen was not in the mood to admire them; she only felt that every unsecured vase was a potential danger to Xu Shiyue.

The original owner’s arrangement clearly hadn’t considered Xu Shiyue’s situation; she might have even done it intentionally.

Otherwise, how could she find an excuse to make Xu Shiyue “pay” her for something?

Lu Shizhen truly admired the original owner’s unscrupulous methods. Without hesitation, she stepped forward and supported Xu Shiyue: “Eating too many sweets at night isn’t good either.”

“No need.” Xu Shiyue instinctively refused.

As she spoke, she tried to pull her arm out of Lu Shizhen’s grip.

But she still didn’t succeed.

Lu Shizhen did not let go of Xu Shiyue’s hand.

She certainly knew what kind of person she was in Xu Shiyue’s mind, but she also knew that if a vase were broken, the first thing to be cut would be Xu Shiyue’s hand reaching out in front.

And Xu Shiyue was constantly refusing treatment; if this dragged on, her body definitely wouldn’t hold up.

Lu Shizhen had already considered that to regain Xu Shiyue’s favor and trust, contact and point deductions were unavoidable.

It was like a cat that was hostile toward humans. At first, it would definitely scratch, but later, when the cat realized you held no hostility or threat, it would expose its belly and lie purring in your arms.

Lu Shizhen didn’t expect Xu Shiyue to lie purring in her arms. She only hoped that when Xu Shiyue realized the truth later, she would give her a boost of points.

For now, let the points be deducted.

Lu Shizhen hardened her heart and said to Xu Shiyue again: “Haven’t you heard the saying, ‘See a good deed through to the end’?”

The girl deliberately laced her voice with a hint of arrogance, but the hand holding Xu Shiyue’s wrist didn’t force the issue with the same obsessiveness.

Perhaps due to the contact in the bathroom just now, or the proof from this morning, Xu Shiyue rarely refrained from rejecting this person’s help again.

Lu Shizhen was afraid that the more she spoke, the more mistakes she would make, so she didn’t try to make conversation with Xu Shiyue along the way. The two quickly arrived at the door of Xu Shiyue’s room.

After all that exertion, the exhaustion that the bath had briefly dispelled returned to Xu Shiyue.

She stepped into the room ahead of Lu Shizhen, but Lu Shizhen’s hand supporting her arm didn’t let go; she moved to guide her further inside.

Moonlight fell into the unlit room, revealing a lot of wariness on the girl’s face.

Xu Shiyue gauged the distance between herself and the bed with her steps, secretly reaching into her pocket.

One step, one step…

Just as Lu Shizhen was helping Xu Shiyue sit down on the bed, a hand suddenly guarded her knee.

The girl’s hand, hidden in her pocket, was on the verge of acting out, but at the same time, she heard a warning next to her ear: “Ouch, watch out.”

Lu Shizhen’s hand was placed between the bedside table and Xu Shiyue’s leg. She inspected it with a hint of distaste and said to Xu Shiyue: “Tsk, this bedside table doesn’t match the style of your room.”

“Fine, I’m tired. I’ll find Sun Yi to change it tomorrow. It’s truly too ugly.”

A slightly undignified yawn passed through Xu Shiyue’s ear. The girl paused slightly.

Before she could react, Lu Shizhen’s hand, which had been resting by her knee, cleanly withdrew, along with the hand that had just been unyielding in supporting her arm.

In the darkness, a figure seemed to move toward the door. Xu Shiyue saw a streak of light pass across her vision, then disappear.

The room returned to its original silence and stillness. However, the warmth that had lingered on her wrist and knee did not dissipate for a long time.

Xu Shiyue looked toward the direction of the door, her eyes, illuminated by the moonlight, swirling with complexity.

She hadn’t forgotten that this very bedside table was the one Lu Shizhen had painstakingly bought at great expense and placed here to flatter her.

While all of this person’s words could be explained by her capricious nature, how could that hand, swiftly and precisely placed between her knee and the bedside table, be explained?

The height of this bedside table was unsuitable. The one at the hospital was also unsuitable. Xu Shiyue couldn’t see, and she could easily bump into it if she wasn’t careful.

But whether here or at the hospital, no one had ever cared about this issue, even when she occasionally bruised her knees on the sharp corner.

This was the first time someone had stood in her shoes and considered something for her.

But that person was Lu Shizhen.

What exactly did she want?