The snake and the well

At the table, although they were sharing the same meal, Lin Zhishui was eating dinner, while She Xilu was eating breakfast.

After quickly finishing his dinner, Lin Zhishui wiped his mouth and took a sip of water. Instead of leaving the table right away, he turned, leaned close to She Xilu's ear, and said, "Don't go to bed too early tomorrow."

She Xilu had grown used to talking with Lin Zhishui at such close quarters. She also knew he had deliberately sat on her right so she could hear him clearly.

After all, she was deaf in her left ear, while her right ear merely had reduced hearing. She could still hear clearly if he came closer.

But she was still a little flustered, especially with his warm breath brushing her ear. It made her even less willing to turn and look at him. She could only lower her head and pretend to drink her porridge as she asked in a muffled voice, "Why?"

Watching her drink her porridge, Lin Zhishui didn't answer. He simply reached for her arm and slowly slid his hand along her cool, soft skin to her wrist.

She Xilu stiffened and struggled a little. "Wh-what are you doing...?" she asked softly.

Lin Zhishui chuckled, slipped a black hair tie off her wrist, then stood and walked behind her to gather her long hair into a high ponytail.

Then he bent down and said in her ear, "Look at you. You don't even tie your hair up when you eat. It's falling into your bowl."

She Xilu paused briefly, then whispered, "Thank you..."

Once the hair covering her ears and face had been tied up, her long neck, delicate ears, and lovely, serene profile were revealed again. Her fair skin was so fine and smooth that its pores were almost invisible.

She looked like an exquisitely carved jade statue touched with a natural blush, making her all the more captivating.

It wasn't Lin Zhishui's first time seeing her face, but his heart still stirred. He leaned over and kissed her bright red earlobe.

"You..."

She Xilu didn't know what to say. Her cheeks burned, and her heart pounded wildly. She stared at the little porridge left in her bowl, even more afraid to meet his eyes.

After a long while, she gave an awkward cough and stammered, "Y-you still haven't said why you don't want me to g-go to bed early..."

Lin Zhishui smiled and stopped teasing her. "I'm planning to take you to get a new hearing aid. They aren't open in the middle of the night."

She Xilu hurriedly waved her small hands. "I... I don't want one. The one I have is g-good enough, and when you're on my right, I can still h-hear you talking."

"What do you mean, good enough?"

Lin Zhishui gave her ear a punitive pinch before continuing, "Your hearing aid is far too outdated. You can't hear me clearly when I'm just half a meter away. I've wanted to get you a high-end one for ages, but we still owed money before. Now that things aren't so tight, of course we're getting a new one."

After a few seconds of silence, She Xilu blushed and said in a voice barely louder than a mosquito's hum, "Then just... just talk closer. I d-don't mind..."

Actually, she thought talking like this was rather nice. At least it gave them a perfectly good excuse to nuzzle close together. But she could hardly say something so embarrassingly sentimental aloud.

Lin Zhishui never guessed that this perpetually timid, shy girl could have such thoughts. He simply smiled and said, "Of course I don't mind coming closer to you. But you can't talk only to me, can you? Women are fine, but I couldn't stand another man leaning into your ear to talk."

She Xilu bit her lip and fought down her embarrassment, practically forcing herself to whisper, "Th-then I don't have to talk to anyone else..."

He was the only person she wanted to talk to anyway.

Lin Zhishui was taken aback. Then he rubbed her head and smiled. "Humans are social animals. I can't be the only person in your world. Besides, I can't sit beside you forever, can I?"

She Xilu froze, then couldn't help looking up at him. "Wh-where are you going?"

"Relax. I'm not going anywhere. Don't overthink everything like the heroines in your books. They tie themselves in knots..."

Smiling, Lin Zhishui flicked her smooth forehead. "You really are a little snake, always wanting to coil around me."

"Ow..."

She Xilu covered her forehead with both hands, looking aggrieved. "But isn't this too... too much of a waste of money...?" she asked weakly.

The corners of Lin Zhishui's mouth lifted. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and showed her the text message with his bank balance. "Here, see? I checked. The best high-end hearing aid costs about forty thousand yuan. I have a hundred and forty thousand in my account now. That's more than enough to replace your hearing aid. Maybe we'll even be able to buy a big house someday."

She Xilu stared blankly at the balance, her thoughts unreadable.

A few seconds later, she quietly whispered, "I'm sorry... I... I'm so useless... You still have to work so hard to earn money..."

"There you go again."

Lin Zhishui felt a headache coming on. This girl always thought so little of herself. Unable to help himself, he gave her leg a hard smack and said sternly, "Don't say that again, or I'll spank your bottom until it's swollen. And this time, I won't do it through your trousers."

"I... I won't say it again..." Frightened, She Xilu hurriedly grabbed her waistband, afraid he really would pull her trousers down.

"All right. Wash the dishes when you're done eating." Lin Zhishui stood and rubbed her head. "I'm going to shower. Want to join me? We'd be conserving water for the country."

"N-no, thank you."

She Xilu waved her hands frantically, then gathered the bowls and chopsticks from the table and fled straight into the kitchen. "I-I-I'm going to wash the dishes. You go ahead..."

Watching her retreating figure, Lin Zhishui couldn't help smiling.

He doted on the girl, but housework was still housework. They had to divide it up and work together.

If the man cooked, naturally the woman washed the dishes.

That was also a way of respecting her.

After all, her inferiority complex really was a little too severe. Treating her fairly and as an equal was the best thing he could do for her.

Only online would She Xilu put aside her feelings of inferiority and reveal the self hidden deeper in her heart.

"It's already been over three years."

Watching She Xilu's slender figure as she washed dishes in the kitchen, Lin Zhishui couldn't help reflecting quietly.

More than three years had passed since they first met.

At first, he had read She Xilu's novel online and become her first fan. That was how he had gotten to know her.

Back then, she hadn't set up a reader group. They had only chatted in the almost deserted review section. As they gradually grew more familiar, he asked many times before she finally added him on QQ, and they began talking in greater depth.

Even then, through their conversations and the traces of her reflected in her book, he had realized that She Xilu might be an entirely different person offline than she was online.

But that only made him more interested in this girl who seemed to have so many stories hidden within her.

The mingling of inner worlds might not be as immediately striking as physical beauty, but its influence was subtler and more profound.

So after several months of talking through the night, without any grand, dramatic story, two equally lonely people naturally slipped into a perfectly ordinary online romance.

Their online relationship lasted a full two and a half years, which was something of a miracle.

It wasn't until the beginning of spring last April that She Xilu, unable to withstand his repeated pleas, finally agreed to meet in person.

Of course, over those two years, Lin Zhishui had already sent her plenty of handsome photos of himself, and he had seen a few of her selfies. Although she looked rather ordinary in her enormous round glasses, with a somewhat dull hairstyle that hid her eyes, it wasn't as though meeting in person would kill their romance.

They lived in the same city to begin with, so they arranged to meet at a tourist attraction with few visitors.

On the day of their meeting, Lin Zhishui was quite excited. After all, he was finally going to meet his girlfriend of two years. While waiting for She Xilu, he wandered among the stalls near the tourist attraction and even picked up the writing brush he now treasured.

Unfortunately, no matter how long he waited, She Xilu never appeared. She didn't respond to his messages, either.

At the time, Lin Zhishui had even wondered whether he was so handsome that she felt too inferior to come out and meet him.

Eventually, he decided he had been stood up. Consoling himself that finding a new writing brush on the mountain meant the trip hadn't been wasted, he headed gloomily downhill, twirling the brush between his fingers. Suddenly, a sharp pain pierced his fingertips, his vision went black, and he tumbled off the mountain path. He struck his head, bleeding heavily, and lost consciousness on the spot.

When he woke, he found himself in a hospital room, with She Xilu dozing beside his bed.

Only later did he learn that She Xilu had reached their meeting place before he had. She hadn't dared approach him, instead secretly watching from a distance. That was why she had been able to rescue him right away when he fell off the path.

That was also when he finally confirmed that She Xilu really was two different people online and offline.

In reality, her circumstances were even more pitiful than he had imagined, and made his heart ache all the more.

Hearing loss, a stutter, severe nearsightedness, social anxiety, parents who had died young, frail health, unpaid debts, frequent unexplained headaches, and nightmares every night... Calling it miserable hardly began to cover it.

After two and a half years together, Lin Zhishui naturally couldn't leave her alone to neglect her meals and keep shutting herself away, steeped in feelings of inferiority.

So he took the initiative and moved in to look after her.

Only after much coaxing did She Xilu reluctantly agree, on the two conditions that they sleep in separate rooms and that he not pester her.

Although their year of living together had brought plenty of difficulties, things had turned out fairly well.

"Unfortunately, she's still afraid to meet people."

Lin Zhishui sighed helplessly. Watching She Xilu wash dishes in the kitchen, he walked silently up behind her and suddenly hugged her, wrapping both arms around her slim waist.

She Xilu was so startled that the bowl in her hands fell into the sink. Her body stiffened, but she didn't struggle or dare turn to look at him. She only asked in a trembling voice, "Wh-what is it?"

Although they had lived together for almost a year, they were still rarely this intimate.

"I just thought of something."

Resting his chin on her shoulder, Lin Zhishui said in her ear, "Besides getting a hearing aid tomorrow, how about I take you to see a therapist?"

"D-do we have to?" A look of resistance came over She Xilu's face.

"Don't you have nightmares all the time?" Lin Zhishui said with a smile. "That's a psychological issue. Talking to a therapist might help."

"It's fine. They've been much... much better lately."

She Xilu pretended not to mind and kept washing the dishes, letting Lin Zhishui hold her. Only her trembling voice and stiff movements gave her away. "As long as I don't d-dream about that snake, I... I'm not scared."

Lin Zhishui had heard her mention it before. The most frequent presence in her nightmares over the years was an enormous two-headed black snake. It had no tail, because even its tail end was a head.

What occupied the mind by day appeared in dreams at night.

Nightmares generally had something to do with a person's experiences. Strangely, though, while She Xilu's nickname was Little Snake, that was only because of her surname. She had never had any contact with snakes growing up, yet she often dreamed of a two-headed black snake that didn't even exist in reality.

"You're my little snake."

Lin Zhishui kissed her cheek, then asked gently, trying to comfort her, "Then what have you been dreaming about lately?"

Her pretty face flushed, She Xilu thought for a moment before whispering with a slightly bewildered look in her eyes:

"A well. A well that gushes black liquid."