That Was Close

How did the young mistress want to punish me?

A fierce wind rose, and rain came pouring down.

Xing Yue tried several shops, but none were open. She pulled over, her headlights illuminating the greenery along the street. Southern magnolias lined both sides, a feature unique to Silent City.

He Zhiwen used to love them. Whenever a thunderstorm battered the magnolia blossoms, she would be heartbroken.

Now Xing Yue was the only one who still remembered the southern magnolias.

"Who?" she asked mildly. Her eyes unfocused as she watched the rain beyond the window, her tone as casual as if she were chatting with the woman in the passenger seat.

Even though tonight had left her heart in ruins.

Xing Yue remembered getting the text and rushing over in a panic. She must have looked ridiculous. No wonder Bu Yao had said she'd been starved of love since childhood. She had acted exactly like someone desperate to be loved.

When she first brought it up, He Zhiwen had worried Xing Yue might be upset. Hearing her normal tone now, she relaxed and smiled. "My wife. Her online name is 'Deep-Sea Great White Shark.' You might have seen her short videos. Her transformation videos went viral last year."

The mention of Jiang Yue visibly brightened He Zhiwen. It seemed she could talk about Jiang Yue forever.

Her eyes curved into crescents. Remembering something amusing, she added, "Oh, and the last character of my wife's name sounds the same as yours. I don't call her A Yue. I use a doubled nickname instead. Otherwise it feels strange."

By the end, He Zhiwen was touching the tip of her nose, her cheeks faintly pink.

Xing Yue vaguely remembered the username. She had recently seen a Deep-Sea Great White Shark video with twenty or thirty thousand comments. Jiang Yue was a minor internet celebrity. Xing Yue couldn't remember what she looked like, only that she existed.

"You texted me and asked me out for this?" Xing Yue asked.

He Zhiwen paused, then shook her head. "No. It's been so long since I saw you. I wanted to catch up. My wife's situation was just something I brought up along the way."

Xing Yue's face hardened. Her voice remained measured. "Really? You asked me out in the middle of the night and sent me a hotel location. I thought you wanted a room with me. I even brought my ID."

Her tone was impossible to read—mockery or teasing, He Zhiwen couldn't tell. Embarrassment crossed her face. She really had sent Xing Yue a message that could be misunderstood. "Aren't you with... Miss Bu..."

"No. We're not a couple," Xing Yue said flatly. At last, she looked away from the magnolia trees and turned to the woman beside her, a humorless smile on her lips. "Now you know I can't help, are we still having dinner?"

There was nothing unbothered about her voice. It was cold enough to chill.

Perhaps He Zhiwen heard it too. She wasn't happy, especially when Xing Yue's attitude toward her was so different from when they had been together.

Back then, Xing Yue couldn't bear to say a harsh word to her. Now she took digs at her.

"A Yue, don't make it sound as though I only contacted you to use your connections." Displeased, she tried to coax a gentler answer from Xing Yue.

Xing Yue didn't give her one. "Isn't that exactly what you're doing?"

From their meeting that morning until now, He Zhiwen hadn't once asked what was going on between Xing Yue and Bu Yao. Her certainty that they were dating could only have come from gossip about Xing Yue and the Bu Family.

As far as He Zhiwen was concerned, Xing Yue was probably just like the rumors said: kept by the young mistress of the Bu Family and living off her money.

The first thing He Zhiwen had done was ask her to pull strings—a favor Xing Yue would then have to ask of Bu Yao.

Xing Yue's words were too sharp. He Zhiwen was neither used to them nor comfortable with them. "I thought we could still be close friends even after we broke up. I misjudged you, Xing Yue..."

She opened the car door and got out. The hotel wasn't far; she could walk back.

Xing Yue sat quietly for a few seconds, but the more she thought about it, the less she could swallow her anger. She went after He Zhiwen.

Rain drenched Xing Yue. She had no umbrella, so she ducked under He Zhiwen's. Made for one person, it was suddenly cramped.

She grabbed He Zhiwen's waist with both hands and held her in place.

"A Yue..." He Zhiwen's heart raced as Xing Yue's familiar face drew closer. Time had given her a maturity like tempting red wine, intoxicating enough to make He Zhiwen lose herself.

He Zhiwen nervously closed her eyes, her face burning. She found herself half expecting something.

Nearly thirty seconds passed without a touch against her lips. She opened her eyes in confusion and met Xing Yue's mocking gaze.

"Teacher He, you'll sink lower than I thought." Xing Yue left her with that, walked back to the car through the rain, and drove off.

＊

Xing Yue had been gone less than forty minutes. As soon as she returned, she went to the bedside table, unlocked its drawer, and took out everything she had put away not long ago.

Bu Yao lay in bed watching television. Without even lifting her eyes, she took a fresh strawberry from the bowl on the bedside table and chewed it slowly. "What's this? Not safe enough in there? Going to lock it in a safe?"

She abruptly turned into an angel of helpful advice. "You could carve a space inside the wall, put your treasures in, then plaster it over with cement. Keeps out snakes, bugs, mice, and ants. Keeps out moisture, too. Everything but thieves! Though thieves wouldn't want your junk anyway."

Xing Yue hadn't even changed out of her wet clothes. She'd left the floor dripping, and Bu Yao's barbs only made her humiliation harder to bear.

Xing Yue stuffed the handmade house, paper stars, and pop-up book into a black trash bag. Rainwater streamed down her face as she stood beside the bed and said sternly, "If I hear you breathe again, I'll put you in there too."

Bu Yao had been holding in her anger since Xing Yue first stepped out of the room. Now Xing Yue had the nerve to threaten her. With a scornful laugh, she grabbed the comforter and hurled it over Xing Yue's head. "Xing Yue, have you no shame? Smell the comforter yourself! I wondered why you didn't turn on the night-light tonight. So you were... doing that! How dare you? Right in front of me, then off you go to see your ex-girlfriend!"

Snakes had a keen sense of smell, especially for their own kind. Though Xing Yue's tail had an ailment and she lacked a snake's scent, her sweat and blood smelled like anyone else's.

So the scent left by what Xing Yue had secretly done under the covers before going out was unmistakable.

Bu Yao had noticed as soon as she got into bed. That bastard Xing Yue had been thinking about her one moment and gone to see another woman the next.

Xing Yue remained composed in the face of the young mistress's accusation. "What are you angry about? I'm an adult and a lesbian through and through. Don't you have normal physical urges? So what if I did that? It doesn't prove I was thinking about you."

Ignoring Bu Yao, who looked ready to erupt, she put the comforter back on the bed and left with the trash bag.

She let out a long breath on the stairs. She had nearly lost that argument. That was close—otherwise Bu Yao would have mocked her all night.

Xing Yue threw the bag away at the neighborhood trash station.

As she wandered down the road, only one thought remained from those few dozen minutes with He Zhiwen: it must be nice to have money and power. Even an ex-girlfriend who hadn't answered a single message in three years would come back to ask for a favor and invite you to dinner.

The joke was that neither the money nor the power was hers. Bu Yao had given her both. Xing Yue could already imagine how smug that little viper would be when she found out. Bu Yao's tongue was more venomous than any snake's.

Xing Yue resented it so much. Bu Yao was going to turn her against the rich.

She had barely stepped inside, with the door still open, when Bu Yao threw herself into her arms. Strawberry-sweet lips kissed her hard, fierce and furious, as though Bu Yao wanted to swallow her whole.

Xing Yue tried to push her away, but Bu Yao's arms locked around her neck. Her warm, soft Snake Tongue swept between Xing Yue's lips, tasting every inch. The kiss went so deep that Xing Yue could trace the shape of it.

Both sides of its forked tip moved with nimble mischief, coaxing Xing Yue to answer, to suck on it...

Still embracing, they stumbled inside. The door had only just shut when Xing Yue pinned Bu Yao against it and kissed her again and again, as thirsty as a woman searching for water in the desert.

Bu Yao could barely breathe. She was the one who had forced the kiss, so why wasn't Xing Yue resisting? Had those first two shoves been just for show?

Xing Yue was such a good actress. All that desire hidden away.

Bu Yao kissed her back as best she could. Her cheeks flushed, and only when she'd had her fill did she ask, "Did you kiss her?"

"Who?" Xing Yue asked.

"Who else? Do you have another ex-girlfriend?" Bu Yao gripped her clothes. It was a question, but the sarcasm was unmistakable. "What were you doing out there with He Zhiwen? You came back fast. Couldn't find a hotel you liked?"

Xing Yue's mouth tasted a little sweet. She poured herself some water and said, "That's not right, young mistress. Can't you comfort me? Show me a little concern? Make me feel that even if someone else abandons me, I still have you? You keep mocking me and rubbing salt in my wounds. How am I supposed to be happy? How am I supposed to want to remarry you?"

Every time Xing Yue grew a little fonder of Bu Yao, Bu Yao drove a knife into her heart.

The gulf between their family backgrounds was already an obstacle she couldn't cross. If the young mistress kept looking down on her like this, it would wear her out.

Bu Yao stood before her. "So I'm your second choice?"

"Don't twist my words. I'm not choosing a wife from a lineup." Xing Yue explained more carefully, "I mean, can't you comfort me? I brought this on myself, but even the only other person in this house who breathes has to mock me... We don't even have the right atmosphere to date. How are we supposed to get back together?"

If remarriage meant spending the rest of her life like this, Xing Yue would rather stay single forever.

Xing Yue also knew why she could never bring herself to reject Bu Yao. Yes, she was a sucker for a pretty face and too softhearted, but more than that, Bu Yao's passionate feelings for her were real, and she felt them keenly.

Bu Yao's occasional sulks could be cute. But Xing Yue couldn't bear it when Bu Yao went on being unable to express her feelings properly.

At some point, Bu Yao's red snake tail had emerged and begun winding around Xing Yue of its own accord.

Of course Bu Yao knew how exhausted and miserable Xing Yue was tonight. Another woman had reduced her to this state.

"You went to see another woman, and you expect me to comfort you?" Bu Yao snapped. Hadn't she been hurt too, waiting at home alone for Xing Yue?

Xing Yue leaned back on the sofa, weariness plain on her face. "Then how does the young mistress want to punish me? Now that you know I've been dumped, do you want to kick me while I'm down? Will that make us look better suited to each other?"

The main light in the living room was off. Warm lamplight fell across Xing Yue, who looked so lonely she might have been a wanderer wherever she went.

Bu Yao brushed her tail against Xing Yue's palm. "What do you want me to do?"

"Hold me. Don't say anything."