With this chapter, we have officially pa.s.sed the halfway mark of the online version of the novel. I’m so slooooow….
In a world with technology at our fingertips, guess it’s not so easy to have a “private” date.
Chapter 27 – Spicy Crispy Skin Fish (5)
Oh G.o.d…
A buzzing sound went off in her mind, and then, it went entirely blank.
She could sense the middle-aged man’s eyes on her had instantly become much more kindly and amiable. He seemed to say something along the lines that it had been quite some days since he had seen Mo Qingcheng’s parents, that even a little gathering of family was difficult to arrange with them… What did Mo Qingcheng say? Something like, they were both out of town doing surgeries…
Gu Sheng felt as if she were floating. She was completely stupefied.
Gu Sheng, wake up, you! Wake up!
Hurry and wake up!
“Cheng Cheng’s parents are usually very busy. If you have time in the future, come to Little Uncle’s house for dinner, alright?” This sentence successfully pulled her out from one void and then kicked her into another void… Gu Sheng’s response was completely by automatic reflex when she gave a very well-mannered and likable smile.
Little Uncle turned around and left.
“I need to go to the hospital,” she heard Mo Qingcheng tell her. “Should I drop you off in front of the grocery store?”
Gu Sheng felt she would not be able to hold up for much longer. She was utterly unable to talk to Toupai one-on-one right now … Her eyes drifted here and drifted there but just dared not look at him.
He chuckled, “Let’s go. I’m in a bit of a hurry.”
The red in her cheeks deepened another few shades.
She swore, she had never had a boyfriend before, but she had read romance novels and watched idol dramas… None of them had ever said what she should do if suddenly someone called her his girlfriend… Especially when that someone was Toupai, what should she do? …
“Sheng Sheng?” His voice was a little low as it coaxed her out of her trance.
“Huh?” She answered, “Um, well, let’s go then.”
With head lowered, she followed his footsteps and waited for him to unlock the car before pulling open the door and sitting down in the pa.s.senger seat. During this whole process, she behaved as if Mo Qingcheng was thin air. Or rather, she acted completely as if she herself was thin air … All she wanted was to hurry up and get to the grocery store. However, even though she was looking straight ahead at the sights outside of the front windshield, her peripheral vision was still able to see his hand move to adjust the vents and then casually drape itself over the steering wheel.
The car drove out of the community compound and out onto the main road.
So many cars out on Valentine’s Day …
Gu Sheng tried hard to focus on the sea of vehicles in front of them.
Could she pretend that, just now … she hadn’t heard anything? …
“Are you hot? Do you need to take off your down jacket?” he asked her.
The voice he was using was like the one that night, when he had sung “Song Has Not Ended” to her — low, even, and captivating.
She wanted to act composed, to carry herself with ease and poise. She wanted to seriously reflect on this suddenly messy and confusing relationship between her and Toupai, where, the more she thought about it, the more of a mess it seemed… but she could not be disloyal to her own ears.
This voice was the one she loved.
The voice she loved…
Wordlessly, she shed her jacket, placed it in her lap, and hugged it to herself.
This voice that she loved had basically broken all of her “firsts”: her first time giving all her contact details to someone she knew in the 2-D world; her first time meeting up with someone from the 2-D world; her first time having dinner with a boy who was neither a relative nor a cla.s.smate; and… her first time going out with a boy on Valentine’s Day… and then being called his girlfriend. T.T
So…
Were she and Toupai really… honestly… boyfriend… and girlfriend… now? T.T
Why was her mind completely blank, like some sort of natural disaster had happened?! Just thinking about the words, “boyfriend and girlfriend” caused her heart to start pounding rapidly, and she immediately tried to block the idea from her brain. She did not dare let herself think about those words anymore.
The exhibition centre was very close to the hospital, and soon, the car was stopped across from Gu Sheng’s family’s grocery store. When Gu Sheng saw the store, it was as if she had seen a lifeboat, and finally she had the courage to say something.
“I’m going now,” she said quietly.
“I’ll try to finish up as soon as possible. Want to have dinner together?”
“Huh? No, that’s okay.” Gu Sheng’s blurted out her decline as she stared at him in shock. But as she looked at those beautiful eyes, her boldness immediately weakened. “I need to go home for dinner tonight. Another day, maybe? …”
He answered with an “mm.”
He answered with an “mm.” From the backseat, he grabbed her schoolbag and handed it to her. “Be careful when crossing the road.”
“Mm.”
“Call you later tonight?”
“Mm.”
Gu Sheng took her bag from him and reached to open the door for her escape.
Mo Qingcheng, however, unexpectedly grabbed her arm. She turned to look at him, her expression dazed and bewildered. “Put on your jacket first and put your bag on your back before you get out of the car.” When he finished saying this, he could not hold back a laugh.
Gu Sheng felt her face was hot enough to fry an egg on it. Under Toupai’s attentive gaze, she obediently put on her jacket and backpack. And then… she glanced at him. Not seeing any further objections, she finally opened the door and stepped out of the car. It seemed the person in the car intended to watch her cross the road before he would leave.
Gu Sheng instantly felt as if she was at least five years younger, like she was sixteen or seventeen years old. She nearly did not know how to work her hands and feet.
Luckily, oh luckily, her road crossing went smoothly, and she entered the grocery store.
Cousin was standing behind the checkout counter helping someone who was paying. After handing the change back to the customer, he looked her over with a serious eye. “Just celebrated Valentine’s Day? Didn’t you say you weren’t coming home this week? How come you’re back?”
How was she supposed to know? …
Her plan had been to go back to school, but then Toupai said he was going to drop her off at the grocery store so she obediently came back here with him. T.T
Today could be considered a big holiday, and there was an especially large number of customers in the store. Cousin did not have any spare time to poke fun at her anymore. Gu Sheng wandered alone to the cooler and pulled out a can of cola. With a crack, she pulled open the tab on the can and took a drink. Still dissatisfied, she swigged down another few mouthfuls.
Girlfriend…
Boyfriend…
She and Toupai?
How in the world did they turn into boyfriend-girlfriend?…
Really?
No way?
She downed a few more mouthfuls of cola. Suddenly, she felt a pair of eyes on her.
She tilted her head to the side and saw Dong Yiru standing beside her, eyes bright and unblinking as they stared at her…
“What’s up? … Do you want to ask for a day off? Or…” Gu Sheng felt as if her hairs were standing on end, and gooseb.u.mps were popping up because of her gaze.
Dong Yiru continued to look fixedly at her. “Sheng Sheng Man? Sheng Sheng Man!”
Her mouthful of cola nearly came spewing out. Choking on it, she covered her mouth and started coughing furiously. Dong Yiru immediately took the can of cola from her but still continued to stare at her like she was a s.p.a.ce alien. Gu Sheng was coughing so hard her eyes were watering. Finally managing to catch her breath, with red eyes, she lifted her head, wanting to ask if she had heard wrong. But then, she heard the girl in front of her carry on to say, “How did I not hear it? Ever since I found out you and my idol were dating, I honestly listened to all of the recordings of your voice taken from various birthday celebrations and singing events. How did I not recognize that you were the same person? This is so amazing. So amazing!”
Dong Yiru was so excited she was near incoherent.
Gu Sheng felt she would soon not be able to keep herself together…
“I’m not…”
“You definitely are!”
“I’m honestly not…”
“I can’t be wrong. I’m positive it’s you. Absolutely certain it’s you! It’s completely identical.”
Dong Yiru promised in a firm tone, “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone at all!”
Admitting utter defeat, Gu Sheng asked, “How did you know I’m… Sheng Sheng Man?”
She honestly just wanted to dig a hole and bury herself in it…
“Because fate was on my side.” Dong Yiru pulled out her mobile phone from her pocket. In an extremely furtive manner, she showed her a Weibo tweet. “Mo Bai just posted something, and then several dadas instantly re-tweeted it. And then, right after, Mo Bai deleted his post…. Deleted within seconds, aaah! But I still managed to see it!”
The tweet she was showing Gu Sheng was from Mo Bai’s Weibo.
Sure enough, it had been deleted already. But before he removed the post, Mo Bai had first re-posted and written: My bad. I’ll delete. =。=
Gu Sheng had a very, very bad feeling.
Ever since she discovered that Gu Sheng was Sheng Sheng Man, Dong Yiru suddenly had a sense of pride stemming from “my idol’s wife and I are bosom sisters” and was a hundred times friendlier to her. “Sheng Sheng, you can put your mind at ease. I will not tell anyone who you are. I swear! It will be kept a secret! Oh G.o.d, you don’t know how excited I got when I first recognized that it was you!” Dong Yiru could not help placing her hand on her chest. “I know Toupai’s golden master. I’m so emotional right now I could cry…”
“What did he post?”
Gu Sheng felt she was about to cry too T.T……
“It was a photo taken of your backs. He originally did not say anything about the photo, but once deadpan face Mu re-tweeted it, everyone understood what it was.”
Dong Yiru completely failed to notice Gu Sheng’s frozen expression. She pulled up Mu Mu’s Weibo page, and in front of the post that he had re-tweeted that now said, “The original Weibo post has been deleted,” he had added a single sentence: Hey, isn’t that Toupai and his wife?