She Is So Hard To Get - Chapter 2
Chapter 2: Sleeping
Regarding Last Night
[If you don’t show up by midnight tonight, I’m going to find someone, anyone. I’ve never forced you before, but today, I want to force you just once.]
A little after nine o’clock at night, Ming You sent this message on QQ to the white moonlight she had foolishly waited for for two years. Attached to the message were two photos: one of a bar sign with clear lettering, and the other of her hand holding a cocktail glass.
The verbal and literal threat was unbelievably direct. She was betting, betting on a sincere heart.
Dressed in a pure white polo shirt paired with loose black overalls, her hair was tied up in a high ponytail. She wore only light, unadorned foundation makeup, appearing like a lotus rising from clear water—naturally beautiful without artifice.
In a bar setting, a girl with such clear, delicate features was rare. Her looks were undeniable. Even when Ming You just sat silently, the people who came up to chat over the course of two hours were too many to count on two hands.
Nearing midnight, Ming You listlessly scrolled on her phone a few times, tapped her forehead, and then irritably flipped the phone onto the table. She looked around distractedly.
Nearly three hours. No reply to her message, and the person she yearned for was nowhere to be seen. The disappointment and despair in her heart grew deeper.
While feeling agitated, a tall woman with shoulder-length blue hair sat down in the empty seat next to her. She tapped her finger on the table: “Little sister, it’s not good to drink alone. What if you run into someone with ill intentions? Let’s be friends, I’ll take you home?”
Ming You sneered, swiftly chugging the drink in her glass. She held the empty glass upside down, tapped the bottom with her index finger, and said to the blue-haired woman: “No drink, no talk of friendship.”
“If the little sister wants a drink, what’s one glass? Ten is fine! Wait one minute for me.” The blue-haired woman laughed and left her seat.
Immediately after, another woman wearing a dark brown sleeveless knitted sweater swooped in and sat on the high stool the blue-haired woman had just vacated. She pressed right against Ming You and breathed softly: “Little darling, you’re still in school, right? How old are you?”
Startled by the sudden close-range teasing, Ming You instinctively recoiled. Unfortunately, the cold wall was on her right side, leaving her no escape.
Feigning calmness, she forced a vulgar smile unsuited to her age and caught the woman’s wrist draped over her shoulder, moving it away: “Beautiful lady, don’t worry, I’m legal. Flirting is fine, but freebies are not. The rules say you have to buy a drink, beautiful lady is no exception.”
“What do you need a drink for? Drinking is bad for your health. If you want, I’ll give you all the color on my body.” Experience prevailed; the woman’s unrestrained words and actions successfully left Ming You speechless and unable to laugh.
Just then, the returning blue-haired woman placed four cups one by one on the table.
She looked meaningfully at the sweater-wearing woman who had taken her seat and her silent companion behind her, and said: “Good thing I was prepared and grabbed a few extra cups. Do the two beauties want to join? I don’t mind.”
The sweater-wearing woman ignored her, saying to Ming You: “Little darling, you have to keep your eyes open in a place like this. Look at her, then look at me, and… my friend.”
She pointed to her silent companion, Yan Ningxi who was standing behind her with her head lowered, apparently thinking about something. She then pointed back at the blue-haired woman: “We are two curvy beauties. In terms of looks and body, which one of us isn’t more feminine than her?”
“???” The blue-haired woman’s eyes widened.
The sweater-wearing woman, however, picked up the cups on the table and drank two in a row. She only then realized one was alcohol and the other was not. How could they water down the drinks?
She possessively wrapped her arm around Ming You’s shoulder and gave the blue-haired woman a disdainful look: “Your liquor is good, and the plain water is nice, too. I’ll take them both, thank you. As for you, don’t force yourself in. Can’t you see? The little sister is in my arms.”
A wrench in the works, who lost both water and alcohol and was called unfeminine. The blue-haired woman was angry: “You…”
The silent Yan Ningxi suddenly snapped out of her thoughts and stepped between the two women who were arguing. She spoke seriously to the blue-haired woman: “Show me your QR code. I’ll transfer the money for the drinks.”
“Are you two nuts?!” The blue-haired woman immediately felt insulted and cursed under her breath.
“How can you not take a joke when you’re out having fun?” Seeing that the situation was escalating and to avoid unnecessary conflict, the sweater-wearing woman quickly stood up and jokingly pushed the blue-haired woman away, giving her a flirtatious glance: “I can tell you’re a seasoned player. What’s the fun in a little kid who hasn’t matured and a perpetually cold stick-in-the-mud? Let’s go have some adult fun.”
She then tilted her chin toward Yan Ningxi, clearly implying, “The pure little darling is all yours.”
Disturbed by the strangers, Ming You felt increasingly lightheaded, but she still drank the two remaining cups on the table… plain water?
“Hi, little beauty, still here.” A woman in red with a prominent bust and an off-the-shoulder top came to flirt. Leaning over the table, she showed Ming You the time on her wristwatch: “Look, it’s almost midnight. You’ve had enough to drink. How about I take you to the next party?”
“Don’t rush. What if the little sister isn’t into your type?” Another androgynous woman in a men’s shirt and suit pants, with short hair, squeezed in. The two women surrounded Ming You: “Let the little sister choose for herself: you or me?”
Ming You shook her groggy head. She vaguely remembered saying the same thing to quite a few people who offered her drinks.
—Come back to me after midnight, if I’m still here.
She desperately checked her phone again; still no new messages. Ming You leveraged herself up, softly hooking her arm around the red-dressed woman’s shoulder, ignoring the woman’s pungent perfume, and leaned her head to smile at the short-haired woman: “If I have to choose, I’ll choose… the mesmerizing and charming beautiful lady’s type.”
The red-dressed woman triumphantly wrapped her arm around Ming You’s waist: “Coincidentally, you’re exactly my favorite type, too.”
“Then, beautiful lady, wanna kiss?” Ming You’s eyes were slightly closed, her cheeks were flushed, and her temples throbbed. Her rationality was dissolving bit by bit.
“You sure about here?” The red-dressed woman was extremely excited.
Ming You nodded heavily twice. Her red lips parted, and the scent of alcohol wafted out: “Yeah, right here. Is that a problem?”
No sooner had the words left her mouth than Ming You was pulled away from the red-dressed woman’s enthusiastic restraint, falling into a new embrace. Her forehead happened to bump the latter’s chin. It was cool and didn’t hurt.
Perhaps it was the excess alcohol, compounded by the crowded, stuffy indoor atmosphere of the bar. The girl felt scorching hot, like she was in a large steam basket.
The body holding her was cool. The collision of ice and fire felt incredibly comfortable. Even the girl, who was usually resistant to physical contact, couldn’t help but gently rub her hot cheek against the woman’s exposed neck and jaw to cool down and seek physical comfort.
“Who are you?” The red-dressed woman glared at Yan Ningxi, her eyes full of provocation: “Are you trying to steal my date?”
Yan Ningxi didn’t respond to the woman’s challenge. She whispered in the girl’s ear: “You’re drunk. It’s too noisy and chaotic here. Are you coming with me?”
Ming You looked up at the sound.
She looked hazily at the stranger’s clear, clean eyes. A vast, pristine expanse of snow and ice seemed to appear before her. She hadn’t seen such clean eyes in a long time.
A pang of sadness hit Ming You’s heart, but a bright smile bloomed on her face. She lazily buried her head in the woman’s shoulder again: “Go where? Kiss first, then sleep?”
Yan Ningxi didn’t answer and moved to walk out, holding the girl.
Seeing the girl being taken away, the red-dressed woman and the short-haired woman, who were originally rivals, now stood united, blocking the path of the unscrupulous Yan Ningxi.
The red-dressed woman smiled: “I say, beautiful lady, everything has a first-come, first-served rule, right? Besides, the little sister explicitly said she wanted to go with me. It’s no fun for you to butt in like this.”
The smoky atmosphere and deafening music were hard for Yan Ningxi, who was visiting a bar for the first time, to adapt to. She only wanted to leave quickly.
“Please step aside.” Having been well-mannered since childhood, she couldn’t argue and wasn’t one for brute force. She even politely included “please” when dealing with troublemakers.
“Step aside? Heh, what if we don’t?”
The short-haired woman shifted her target, now interested in the cold, aloof, and austere beauty standing before her in a white shirt and black suit pants, with a low ponytail. How unusual.
She deliberately made things difficult: “Sister wants someone younger? I can do that, too. To be honest, I’m only twenty this year, and I definitely know better how to please you than this little sister in your arms… Sister, consider me, how about it?”
The short-haired woman raised her hand to touch Yan Ningxi, but Ming You grabbed her wrist and twisted it 180 degrees in the opposite direction, making her cry out in pain.
She immediately used her other hand to grab Ming You’s arm tightly and insisted aggressively: “The little sister has quite a grip. Considering your young age and the fact that you’ve been drinking, I can let this slide. Let go now, while you still can.”
“Still can what? Huh?” Ming You didn’t back down. With her fresh, clean face, she said the harshest things: “I’m the one who wants to go with the pretty lady. What business is it of yours? What, wanna fight?”
Her wrist was trapped by the little girl, and the increasing pressure made the short-haired woman completely furious: “Damn it, you think I’m a pushover?”
Ming You: “Being a pushover is boring. It just so happens that I don’t like being one either…”
Before Ming You completely lost control, Yan Ningxi reached out and covered her hand, grasping it in a silent reassurance.
With her other hand, she opened her phone and pressed “110” on the dial pad. She then spoke to the short-haired and red-dressed women: “If the two of you haven’t had enough fun, why don’t we find another place to continue our conversation?”
The coolness transferred to Ming You’s hand made the rapidly burning rage in her heart subside. The force in her grip gradually lessened, and she slowly released the short-haired woman’s wrist, her body weakly collapsing back into Yan Ningxi’s embrace.
She was so close—just a hair’s breadth away—from being manipulated by demonic emotions again, from becoming a stranger to herself.
She hadn’t experienced this feeling of being unable to control her emotions, of being scorched by a raging fire inside, ready to explode at any moment, for over three years.
It had been so long that she had almost forgotten that she was once a “psychiatric patient.”
After the false alarm, Yan Ningxi finally helped Ming You out of the bar: “Where do you live? I’ll take you back.”
The girl was irritable and kept silent.
Yan Ningxi continued: “You don’t have to say. Call a friend to pick you up. I’ll wait with you.” She didn’t suggest calling her family, sensing the girl in her current state wouldn’t want to be seen by them.
“Hey, Madam, do you have a problem?” The girl didn’t appreciate Yan Ningxi’s kindness. She pushed her away, hooked onto a roadside tree, and yelled at her impatiently: “I don’t have friends, and no one is coming to get me. Either you take me to a hotel or leave me on the street. Stop talking nonsense.”
No matter how annoyed she was, Yan Ningxi couldn’t just leave a drunk young girl on the street.
When they reached a hotel near the bar, as soon as they swiped the card and entered the room, the previously groggy girl roughly pinned her against the door. Before she could push back, she felt a bite on the side of her neck.
“It’s this late, stop pretending to be pure. The pretty lady probably brings girls to hotel rooms all the time, right? Tell me, how do you want to play tonight? Hmm?”
A sharp pain in her neck made Yan Ningxi realize what was happening. Her brows furrowed, and she pressed her lips together silently. It took immense effort for her to push away the girl who was constantly testing her patience and boundaries.
Unprepared, the girl was pushed to the floor. She simply gave up, falling onto her back and lying straight on the carpet.
“Do you think I’m cheap too?”
“Yeah, I’m cheap. I’ve been cheap for so long, but I still got nothing…”
Yan Ningxi covered her bitten neck, her chest heaving violently. She never judged people rashly, so she couldn’t answer the girl’s question.
The girl repeatedly mumbled “Why” before gradually falling silent.
The two remained in a standoff, one lying, one standing, for a long time. Eventually, Yan Ningxi calmed herself, swallowed her anger, and pulled the troublesome girl onto the bed.
…
Yan Ningxi clearly remembered everything that happened last night.
What did she mean, “pretend nothing happened just because you slept on it”? When had she slept? Did sitting on the sofa all night count as “sleeping”?
Seeing the woman walk away in anger, Ming You quickened her pace to catch up and walk beside the rapidly moving woman. Although she had been completely drunk last night, her memory of the parts involving Yan Ningxi was still fresh.
She remembered cursing and biting Yan Ningxi. She remembered Yan Ningxi pushing her, then helping her onto the bed. She also remembered having a “drunken tantrum,” sitting on the bed and clinging to Yan Ningxi, saying she smelled good, felt cool, looked beautiful, and was comfortable.
Later, Yan Ningxi gave her a pillow to hug, helped her take off her shoes, and covered her with a blanket.
Her last memory was of Yan Ningxi turning off the light and sitting on the sofa looking at her phone. No matter how much she tossed and turned or caused a fuss, Yan Ningxi didn’t say a single word the entire time.
She was sure that she and Yan Ningxi had not progressed to a deeper, intimate physical relationship. Yan Ningxi hadn’t even touched her intimately. No matter how inexperienced she was in love, she still had basic sexual knowledge.
She accepted the consequences of her gamble.
She had already gone all out last night. Even if she had genuinely slept with some random woman, she would have accepted it. Let alone with a woman of Yan Ningxi’s unique temperament—she didn’t lose anything.
Even though they didn’t sleep together, the fact that she had hugged, bit, and held her was enough reason to cling to Yan Ningxi.
So she continued heartlessly: “Is the pretty lady angry? But I was just telling the truth. Ugh, never mind. I didn’t think you’d be so sensitive to teasing. Okay, I won’t joke with you anymore. Can we talk about something else, then? You and Teacher He have such a good relationship. Are you friends or best friends?”
Glancing at the girl from the corner of her eye, Yan Ningxi was intimidating without raising her voice: “I teach the same grade as Teacher He now, and we share the same office. Since you are a former graduate of No. 3 High School, and were once Teacher He’s student, you should always remember to respect your teacher. Whether I taught you or not, you should politely address me as Teacher Yan. The ‘Yan’ as in ‘Yanxiao Yanyan’ (all smiles and laughter), you learned that in your textbooks.”