Chapter 12

Before Bai Muxi realized her own feelings back then, physical contact between her and Shen Zhong had absolutely not been rare. Holding hands had practically been an everyday thing. If she did not seize the chance to push her luck and lace their fingers together, that could only mean she had not been in good form that day.

But now, four or five years had passed, and Bai Muxi was no longer that familiar with this kind of contact. She knew she was overreacting and wanted to naturally pull her hand back.

“I already had calluses when I was in high school, didn’t I? You saw them too…”

But she failed to pull away. Shen Zhong seemed to have become concerned about something new. She suddenly straightened her fingers and compared her hand with Bai Muxi’s. The result was very obvious: Bai Muxi’s hand was a little bigger than Shen Zhong’s, giving the impression that if she curled her fingers, she could wrap Shen Zhong’s entire hand in hers.

“…Did you grow again later?” Looking at the half-knuckle length Bai Muxi had over her, Shen Zhong frowned in confusion. “I remember we compared hands before too. Back then, they should have been… about the same size.”

Bai Muxi was a little dazed too. In her memory, it had indeed been like that. Shen Zhong was older than her, and in every aspect, Bai Muxi had always been the one chasing after her—height, grades, or that hard-to-describe feeling. Even when her height finally surpassed Shen Zhong’s in her final year of high school, it had taken Bai Muxi quite a long time to realize that when she looked at Shen Zhong now, her gaze lowered slightly, instead of needing to lift her eyes and look up at her like before.

The sight before her now was real, yet for some reason, it carried a strange impact. In a daze, Bai Muxi suddenly realized that she was already twenty-three, even a little older than Shen Zhong had been when Bai Muxi had fled from her.

It was a strange feeling, like stopped time had begun flowing again. Bai Muxi let out a soft breath and said, “Maybe they did grow again. I heard that if you play instruments a lot, secondary growth is possible.”

As she said this, she finally managed to withdraw her hand. Somewhat awkwardly, she picked up her glass and drank a few sips of water. Shen Zhong, however, seemed a little distracted. After a moment of silence, she said softly, “…You’ve grown up.”

She looked at Bai Muxi again and spoke seriously. “Then if I start learning now, is it also possible for my hands to grow as long as yours?”

That probably was not very possible, right? Bai Muxi blinked in confusion.

“…Why are you suddenly concerned about that? Is it because you don’t want to lose to me?”

Shen Zhong pondered for a long while, lowered her eyes, and smiled faintly. “Maybe. After all, I’m a few years older than you.”

For some reason, a tiny bit of resistance rose in Bai Muxi. She raised her brows and thought, So what if you’re three years older? It’s not like I’ve ever called you Sister.

That was true. She had always called Shen Zhong by her full name, surname and given name together, from the very beginning. Her parents had initially tried correcting her a few times, but to no avail. Later, seeing that Shen Zhong herself looked calm and unconcerned about it, they gave up and let her call her whatever she wanted.

It seemed Bai Muxi had subconsciously placed Shen Zhong on equal footing from the start. Back then, many people felt that Shen Zhong seemed cold and difficult to approach. Some mutual friends privately asked Bai Muxi why she was not afraid of Shen Zhong at all. She had looked over in confusion and asked in return:

“Why should I be afraid? Don’t you think Shen Zhong is really cute?”

Just like now. That little bit of unwillingness to lose was very cute. The strand of hair that disobediently kept falling before her eyes was very cute. The expression she made when she slightly furrowed her brows and reached over to pinch Bai Muxi’s face was also—

Only when she felt her face being gently pinched did Bai Muxi belatedly come back to herself. She looked blankly at Shen Zhong across from her, who was pressing her lips together. The person opposite her was clearly pretending to be displeased. After lightly pinching Bai Muxi’s face twice, she let go, her voice cool.

“When Teacher Bai teaches others, does she also often zone out like this?”

Bai Muxi paused, then answered softly, “…I probably don’t.”

She had not taught many people in total. When teaching Qu Yangyang, she had only wanted to finish as quickly as possible and free herself sooner, so she taught extremely fast, angering Qu Yangyang so much that she scolded Bai Muxi for spoon-feeding her like a duck.

But only after saying this did Bai Muxi realize that it might cause ambiguity. Seeing Shen Zhong indeed lightly furrow her brows, she hurriedly patched it up.

“What I mean is, I’ve never taught a student like you before…”

Shen Zhong raised a brow and asked, “Like me?”

Bai Muxi glanced at her and muttered very quietly, “…The kind who doesn’t properly pay attention in class.”

Class had started half an hour ago, and all Shen Zhong knew how to do was chat idly with the teacher. She really did not have the slightest intention of concealing that the real purpose of this lesson was to close the distance between them.

Teacher Bai, who still had some professional ethics, cleared her throat. Ignoring Shen Zhong, who had inexplicably started smiling after hearing her words, she forcefully pulled the topic back.

“…In any case, if you want to learn guitar, it might be a little uncomfortable at first. It still depends on whether you truly want to learn…”

“I do.” Shen Zhong answered without hesitation. “Didn’t you also say just now that I’m suited to playing piano? All right. After I finish learning guitar, teach me piano too, okay?”

Those two casually spoken sentences landed in Bai Muxi’s ears as at least reserving the next year or two of her future, roughly equivalent in meaning to: How about coming to my house every day from now on?

Bai Muxi was silent for a long while, then lowered her head to flip through the textbook and replied with lowered eyes, “Let’s talk after you learn guitar properly first.”

“Mm.” Shen Zhong casually plucked a few strings, producing a clear, tuneless sound. The natural wood-colored guitar was very pretty. She lowered her head and looked at it for a while, then suddenly asked, “That song of yours, Nervous… would it be very hard to learn to play?”

Bai Muxi’s motion of randomly flipping through the pages paused. Concealing her suddenly mistimed heartbeat, she lifted her eyes to look at Shen Zhong and slowly asked in confirmation, “What?”

“I said Nervous, the song you sang on the stage of The Flower Season and You.” Shen Zhong repeated herself, then continued, “I just thought it sounded very nice. I was thinking that if there was a chance, I’d like to learn to play and sing it too.”

The gaze she cast toward Bai Muxi was deep and quiet. She pressed her lips unauthorized copy together slightly. Only after a long while did she gently part them, her voice drifting like a subtle test.

“…I saw online that you wrote the lyrics and melody yourself, so…”

The words from across from her broke off lightly there, as if Shen Zhong was hesitating and had not finished speaking. Bai Muxi’s gaze fell emptily on the open book on her lap. After staring at it for too long, the neat black text on the page gradually melted into strange characters of unclear meaning.

She felt confused. The page in her hand had been pinched until it wrinkled. The silence at this moment was unbearable. Bai Muxi felt that it should not continue like this. Shen Zhong had always been like this, never saying what she meant directly. Then Bai Muxi would be the one to cut certain things open, as if slicing through a rotten wound festering secretly beneath smooth skin.

“It was written for you.” Bai Muxi said calmly. When she looked at Shen Zhong, her gaze was focused and composed, and she curved her lips brightly. “You guessed that, didn’t you?”

Even though her hand had already loosened, the wrinkled page remained wrinkled. It could never return to its fresh, flat state from the very beginning.

Writing songs was a technical job.

Singer Bai Muxi, who was busy creating a new song, deeply believed this. In recent days, she had been having a headache over this matter, thinking about it whenever she had free time. She had quite a few demos she had written before, but this time, she did not really want to use any of them, thus trapping herself in the situation of being forced to write something new.

“The style is too similar to Nervous,” Bai Muxi said to her manager with righteous conviction. “That would make the fans aesthetically fatigued.”

As for the real reason, Bai Muxi herself had some idea. She just pretended she did not know.

On the first night of giving Shen Zhong lessons, she had calmly admitted that Nervous was written for Shen Zhong. Before the atmosphere could turn awkward, she had naturally flipped back through the guitar textbook, her tone casual, as if she were chatting about the weather that day.

“It was written a very long time ago. Don’t mind it. Now, it’s purely just a song.”

She did indeed think that way. It was only her slightly immature first composition from several years ago. As for why she had chosen to bring it out and [read the original at bailiantales.com]sing it when she participated in For Whom I Sing, the psychology behind it was not that complicated, though it was not simple either. She had always felt that if she could present it openly before people like that, then it would count as proof that everything had truly come to an end.

Shen Zhong seemed to freeze, saying nothing. Bai Muxi took the opportunity to move the conversation along.

“But you still shouldn’t learn to play and sing it. Otherwise, it would actually be pretty awkward.”

That topic ended there. After that, she quickly moved into guitar teaching, teaching especially seriously. But perhaps because it was Shen Zhong’s first time touching a guitar, her learning did not go very smoothly. Bai Muxi was not in any rush either. When she left, Shen Zhong handed the guitar back to her, but Bai Muxi waved her hand and said:

“Just leave it here. I think the size is suitable too. When you want to practice, you can use it directly.”

Shen Zhong’s eyes widened slightly. The hand holding the guitar strap had already honestly drawn it back in front of herself, while her mouth was actually a beat late in asking, “…Is that okay? Won’t you need it?”

“It’s fine.” Bai Muxi smiled at her and put on her mask with one hand. “I don’t really use this one anymore.”

For the first lesson, Bai Muxi felt it ended quite satisfactorily.

But the next few days did not go so smoothly. The problem mainly came from the outside world. After all, Bai Muxi was a very busy person. For two days in a row, by the time she finished work, it was already past ten. She apologized to Shen Zhong early and asked for leave.

At first, Shen Zhong was very easy to talk to. After being informed that this kind of thing might happen often in the future, she was silent for a long while before finally proposing a solution: if Bai Muxi could not come over, video lessons would be fine too.

How nice. Technological development allowed everyone to communicate over long distances.

Later, Bai Muxi told Lin Bei, who was particularly concerned about the relationship between the two of them and kept asking around, that she was giving Shen Zhong lessons. The person on the other end of the phone was clearly rendered speechless by this news. After a long period of stunned silence, he quietly asked, “What kind of scheme are you running here? Self-torture?”

Bai Muxi argued back with reason. “What scheme could there be? She wanted to learn. [unauthorized copy]She also wants to get familiar with me again along the way. Friends who haven’t seen each other for more than four years will also become distant.”

Lin Bei scoffed and mocked her. “Oh, come on, Bai Muxi. Do you believe that yourself? If you have the guts, say it directly on the phone right now. Say, ‘I really don’t like Shen Zhong anymore.’ Let me hear it. Say it—”

Bai Muxi hung up the phone with a snap. She sincerely felt that if she had not lacked the free time, she really would have rushed over to scold him in person.

In truth, it was not that she could not say it. Bai Muxi thought. But why did she have to say it for Lin Bei to hear?

The past could not be pursued. There was no need to go through this sort of formality either. In any case, she might as well treat it as a mistake she had once made. Bai Muxi stayed calm and worked hard and taught hard with the resolve to repair that mistake. Even Qu Yangyang next door was infected by her high-spirited attitude toward life. On another morning when they did physical training together, Qu Yangyang said sleepily, “I played guitar all night in my dream yesterday.”

Bai Muxi, who had taught a video lesson quite late last night and personally demonstrated many times, felt a burst of guilt. She turned her gaze away and praised her.

“…Very good. Very diligent.”

It seemed the soundproofing conditions of their dorm were truly not very good. After finishing work, Bai Muxi frowned as she calculated when she could squeeze out time to look at apartments. For a moment, the hand pouring dog food for Haru forgot to lift away. Shen Zhong, who was watching nearby, stopped her. Haru, gifted with an extra meal from the heavens, barked once and buried its head to eat with great effort. From the look of it, it was afraid someone would snatch back the extra food in its bowl.

“What are you doing?” Shen Zhong laughed helplessly and rubbed a few times—rubbed Bai Muxi’s head. Her face remained composed, but her tone was soft. “Haru has already been getting fat recently. I think you deserve part of the credit.”

Bai Muxi came back to herself and felt a little embarrassed too. She reached out to poke Haru, who was working hard to eat. The Samoyed was very happy and turned its head to rub her with its ear, so enthusiastic that Bai Muxi could not bring herself to say a single bad thing.

“Were you thinking about something?” Shen Zhong naturally fixed the hair she herself had just mussed. “Why did you start spacing out?”

The recent lessons had indeed had a very noticeable effect on increasing their communication. At least now, Bai Muxi would not feel like she was facing a great enemy just because Shen Zhong touched her hair. She restrained herself and shrank her neck slightly, then turned her head and said, “Not really. It’s just that Qu Yangyang, she—”

Halfway through speaking, Bai Muxi suddenly felt that directly saying Qu Yangyang had heard her playing guitar seemed a little like she was complaining that they should not video call at night. So she paused and changed stolen contentdirection, bringing up another topic that had troubled her for quite a while.

“…She’s one of my friends. If you watched For Whom I Sing, you should know her too. She really likes you.”

Shen Zhong looked at her quietly, neither agreeing nor disagreeing as she nodded. “I watched. You pretended not to know me on the show.”

“…” Bai Muxi choked and selectively followed that thread, avoiding the important part. “…It’s about that. Because I never told her before that I know you, so now it feels a little hard to say. But I also feel like it doesn’t seem very good to keep hiding it from her…”

She frowned in some distress. Shen Zhong’s cool gaze rested on her face for a moment before moving away. She said softly, “It doesn’t seem like a big deal. Did this make you think for a long time?”

Bai Muxi originally wanted to deny it, but Shen Zhong had already stood first and sat down on the sofa. Even when sitting at home, her posture would not become too lax. Her bearing was still elegant as a white crane as she said faintly, “Just tell her the truth. Wouldn’t that be fine?”

She had really given advice quickly. Bai Muxi blinked and first asked tentatively, “…By the truth, you mean I should just tell her that I actually know you?”

“Mm.” Shen Zhong lowered her eyes, her exquisite face without much ripple. “Just say I’ve known you since you were little, that our families have a very good relationship, and that I stayed at your house before. You didn’t tell her before because you were afraid of scaring her.”

“…”

For a moment, Bai Muxi did not know what to say. Sensing that Shen Zhong’s mood seemed subtly not very good, the words “Wouldn’t that be saying a little too much?” rolled around and around in Bai Muxi’s throat. In the end, she still did not say them.

“All right.” Bai Muxi ultimately accepted Shen Zhong’s suggestion and sat down on the sofa as well. “It just so happens that there’s a music festival in a couple of days. The two of us were both invited and will go together. I’ll find a chance to tell her then.”

“Music festival?” Shen Zhong looked over at that, slightly furrowing her brows. “In Nancheng?”

“It’s in another city.” Bai Muxi honestly explained, “We need to go there in advance. I was originally planning to tell you about this today too. I probably might not have Read on BaiLianTales much time to video call you at night then. If it really won’t work, I’ll tell you in advance.”

After hearing the exact date she mentioned, Shen Zhong’s cool brows and eyes lowered slightly, and her voice was low.

“I remember… The Flower Season and You should premiere around then.”

“Mm…” Bai Muxi answered in some confusion. Although she was not quite sure why Shen Zhong was bringing up The Flower Season and You at this time, she somehow felt that this person seemed to want her to watch the premiere. So she guessed and answered, “Then I’ll… watch it if I have time?”

“Mm.” The tension in Shen Zhong’s brows suddenly melted away. “Then I’ll wait for you.”

…Somehow, in a muddled way, they seemed to have settled on an agreement to watch it together. Bai Muxi was still a little puzzled before leaving Shen Zhong’s house, not knowing how things had developed into this. Before going out, her peripheral vision swept over Haru, who was still working hard to chew. After their eyes met, its tail wagged wildly.

She ruffled the dog’s head, secretly glanced at Shen Zhong, and after judging that Shen Zhong could not hear, quietly said to Haru, “…You’re much easier to understand than her. But you should still eat less, Haru. This is also, also for your own good.”

Completely unaware that its diet would soon be controlled by Shen Zhong, Haru rubbed against the human’s palm and only felt that today’s meal had been so filling. It really liked humans.