She Is So Hard To Get - Chapter 8
Chapter 8: Fear
Upon hearing the girl mention “death,” Yan Ningxi’s heart softened: “Get up. Come inside with me.”
She brought Ming You inside and took her temperature: 37.6°C, a low-grade fever.
Cold and fever medicine were standard household items. Yan Ningxi calmly took out the correct dosage of several pills, boiled water, and handed them all to Ming You: “Take these.”
“Thank you.” Ming You sat properly, obediently took the medicine: “I’ll just lie on the sofa for a bit.”
“As you wish.”
Her gaze swept over the girl’s wristwatch. The glass was foggy, and both hands had stopped at an earlier time.
Yan Ningxi hadn’t yet sorted out the girl’s words and actions. Coupled with her own physical exhaustion, she truly didn’t have the energy to engage with her. She grabbed a small blanket, covered Ming You with it, and returned to her room.
A thin chill silently crept in from the slightly ajar French window. The girl on the sofa pulled the edges of the fleece blanket with both hands, covering most of her face.
The scent in her breathing possessed the magical power of an incense, allowing the girl to fall into a long-awaited beautiful dream.
Ming You stayed put until six in the morning. She placed the handbag by the sofa onto the coffee table, retrieved a pre-written note from inside and pressed it under the bag. After turning off the spotlight on the TV wall, she left without saying goodbye.
Even with her gentle movements, Yan Ningxi was still woken by the sound of the door opening and closing.
She rushed to the living room but saw the girl wasn’t there. She immediately called Ming You’s voice number, but there was no answer. Her eyes landed on the paper bag. She picked up the note, which read: Sister Yan, this dress suits you better.
Inside the bag was a brand-new, pure white, mid-sleeve long dress with a V-neck lapel.
After parting ways with Jiang Lai at noon, Ming You had been trying to find a reason to see Yan Ningxi again. She wandered around the mall for a long time before buying this satisfactory dress.
Yan Ningxi folded the dress back into the paper bag, changed her clothes, and rushed out, but only saw Ming You hunching into a yellow taxi.
With no answer to her voice calls and no reply to her messages, Yan Ningxi worried about her health. Relying on the hotel room keycard information she remembered, she immediately took a taxi to the hotel.
Outside room 503, there was no answer to her knocking, and the front desk couldn’t reach the guest via the room phone or the reserved mobile number.
Yan Ningxi finally became so anxious that she used her ID as collateral: “I’ll leave my ID at the front desk. I just need you to accompany me upstairs, open the door, and confirm if she’s inside. If she’s not there, I won’t enter.”
“Alright.” The staff member, seeing her sincere attitude, not like a bad person, and also worried about the guest’s safety, agreed to accompany her up under the pretense of cleaning the room.
However, the girl was not in the room. Even standing just at the doorway, Yan Ningxi could see her luggage was all there, and the floral dress Yan Ningxi had given her was hanging on a drying rack by the entrance.
The staff member, committed to the privacy and property security of the guest, didn’t want to let Yan Ningxi enter the room. He walked in himself, glanced around, and said: “Miss Yan, there is indeed no one in the room. Perhaps you could try calling your friend again? Or contact her other friends or family, or wait in the lobby downstairs?”
“Okay, I’ll wait downstairs.”
Yan Ningxi waited anxiously in the lobby. An hour later, she finally saw Ming You return, her clothes stained with fresh bl00d. Worry instantly escalated into fear.
“Ming You.”
The girl, looking distraught, heard someone call her name.
The person approached her, grabbed her arm with one hand, and with the other, brushed aside the stray hair blocking her face, checking her from head to toe: “Are you hurt?”
The girl’s face was pale, and she was too weak to even shake her head, yet she managed to squeeze out a smile and make a pushing gesture: “Don’t dirty your hands, Sister Yan.”
Yan Ningxi’s heart ached fiercely.
The phone dropped from the girl’s hand, screen down, landing at their feet.
Just as Yan Ningxi moved to pick up the phone, Ming You, sensing her intention, grabbed her wrist: “Don’t bend down. It’s not worth it.” After speaking, she used Yan Ningxi’s strength to bend down herself, picked it up, and clenched it tightly in her hand.
Yan Ningxi understood the self-mockery in the girl’s words. Only after thoroughly checking and confirming that the bl00d was not hers did she help her upstairs and into the room.
The bed was messy, with a large and small towel draped over the edge. The bathroom was also messy; the clothes the girl wore when she came for dinner the evening before were on the shelf. The bathtub was full of water, and the floor hadn’t dried completely after the night.
After tidying the messy bathroom, Yan Ningxi retrieved the pajamas she had placed on the bed: “Do you have the energy to change and wash up?”
“I don’t have the energy. Is Sister Yan going to help me wash up then?” Ming You was only being glib and didn’t actually expect Yan Ningxi to bathe her.
“If you don’t mind, I can try.”
“…” Ming You had dug her own hole. She turned, hugged the clothes, and closed the bathroom door.
A simple shower drained all her energy, and she came out with wet hair. Yan Ningxi stopped her, guiding her to lean against the wall: “Dry your hair before you sleep.”
With a heavy head and eyelids, Ming You unconsciously grabbed the fabric around Yan Ningxi’s waist, and her body weight slowly shifted.
Her guard against Yan Ningxi was gradually dissolving with each embrace.
Yan Ningxi had never liked the scent of cheap shower gel and shampoo in hotels, but as the girl leaned into her, the ordinary scent on her body somehow smelled faintly of lemon.
Lemon, summer, sunlight.
Passionate.
Yet, the girl’s temperament had nothing to do with these words.
After drying her hair, Yan Ningxi patted the girl’s back: “You lie down on the bed first. I’ll go buy some medicine and food. If you’re still feeling bad after noon, we’re going to the hospital.”
The girl lifted her heavy eyelids: “Mhm, I’ll listen to Jiejie.”
Yan Ningxi paused at the door before leaving. She stared at the bed, seemingly judging whether the girl was sound asleep.
Where did the bl00d come from?
A massive question mark hung over Yan Ningxi’s head. She wanted to know, but she couldn’t force Ming You to answer her question right now. Even if her concern was benevolent, what right or position did she have to ask?
After all, only yesterday, she had angered Ming You into slamming the door shut with the phrases “It’s none of your business” and “That’s my personal privacy.” Was this a case of the tables turning?
By the time Yan Ningxi returned, the girl had shifted from facing the window, as she was when Yan Ningxi left, to facing the door. Both hands were exposed outside the blanket, the left holding her phone, which was connected to a charging cable.
It was obvious the girl had plugged it in herself after she left.
The girl was fast asleep.
Yan Ningxi turned up the room temperature by two degrees. Her gaze lingered on the cracked phone screen for a moment before she carefully placed the phone on the nightstand.
She then sat in the sofa, adjusting herself into a comfortable position, leaning on her head, and resting her eyes. Her sleep quality had been poor for a long time. On workdays, she usually only got six to seven hours of sleep, and that was only if she went to bed early.
After only a few seconds, she opened her eyes again.
She remembered that night at the bar; she had also stayed up on the sofa guarding the drunken girl the entire night. It wasn’t until dawn, after confirming the girl was fine and setting a wake-up call and breakfast for her just in case, that she had left feeling reassured.
In just a few short days, the unpredictable girl had consumed most of her time and thoughts, completely disrupting her routine, and always catching her off guard.
Due to her composed and reserved personality, Yan Ningxi’s life, from childhood, had been very ordinary, the rhythm very steady, and her social circle very narrow and singular.
Since she started teaching, it was even more so—she followed a strict routine, moving between the school and the apartment, with her only form of entertainment being watching TV. She didn’t watch variety shows or dramas; she watched the cartoon Tom and Jerry.
This was her secret, known only to Qi Xuexin.
Other than that, most of the fun in her life was “forced” upon her by Qi Xuexin.
Qi Xuexin came over to eat almost every week, telling her strange jokes and unreliable gossip flying around the school, and, of course, giving updates on their university classmates, some true and some false.
As for other outdoor activities like hiking and trips, in Qi Xuexin’s own words, she was afraid Yan Ningxi was repressing herself for too long, her emotions unrestrained, risking depression, so she had to use every trick to coax her out.
The bar was also a place Qi Xuexin had been egging her to go to for the past two years.
In Qi Xuexin’s vivid descriptions, the bar was a paradise. It had good wine, good food, beautiful people, and beautiful music. But none of these things were what she was passionate about, so they held no attraction for her.
She never thought that people who went to bars were necessarily immoral. Otherwise, she wouldn’t patiently listen to Qi Xuexin’s endless accounts of her various “adventures” at the bar every time.
On the contrary, she was somewhat envious. Envious of Qi Xuexin’s decisive view on relationships, and envious of Qi Xuexin’s unrestrained and exciting life.
She had been stifled for too long.
She thought she would never go to a bar, but after going once, she couldn’t extricate herself.
In those “adventures” Qi Xuexin spoke of, Yan Ningxi had heard similar stories. Stories that only had a passionate beginning, only a night of unspoken indulgence between her and him/her, with no details and no follow-up.
Goodbye at dawn was a final farewell, an established rule in the adult game. She hadn’t played this game, yet she was forced into becoming a player.
Closer to noon, Ming You’s fever hadn’t broken. Yan Ningxi woke her up: “Change your clothes. We’re going to the hospital. There’s no room for negotiation.”
The girl turned over, her voice weak but cold: “No.”
“I’m not kidding with you.”
Yan Ningxi grabbed the blanket to pull it off, but the girl flipped back, opened her eyes, tightly hugged the blanket, and pouted: “Sister Yan is so fierce. Didn’t you go out and buy medicine? I’ll take the medicine. Can we not go to the hospital?”
“Ming You,” The moment the girl acted spoiled, Yan Ningxi relented. She brought the prepared medicine and water to her: “Three o’clock this afternoon at the latest. If your temperature doesn’t go down, you must go to the hospital with me.”
“Okay.” After sitting up and obediently taking the medicine, Ming You saw the newly bought mercury thermometer on the cabinet and smiled at Yan Ningxi: “Sister Yan, you go take care of your business. I’ll be good and measure my temperature every hour. I’ll send you a picture as proof.”
Yan Ningxi didn’t have any specific plans for the day. She sat down on the edge of the bed, looking intently at the girl, and asked: “First, tell me, where did the bl00d come from?”
She couldn’t be at peace without figuring this out. So, even at the great risk of being rejected by the girl, she had to ask.
Looking out the window, Ming You said nonchalantly: “Just the bl00d of a stray cat. It died.”