The Little Bookworm Marked Her Ex-aunt - Chapter 40: Little Aunt, Do You Like Her?

Chapter 40: Little Aunt, Do You Like Her?

Meng Zhiyu had imagined many times how Shu Yue would react after learning about that matter, but it was definitely not like this, so calm when she asked, without any ripple.

When Meng Zhiyu looked at her, Shu Yue’s eyes, no longer blocked by glasses, appeared so indifferent, and the pure, angerless question in them startled Meng Zhiyu’s heart.

This was worse than she had imagined.

Compared to indifference, Meng Zhiyu would rather see Shu Yue’s anger.

She clenched her skirt and asked, “When did you know?”

Shu Yue said, “Last time I went to find you, your high school classmate was there too.”

Meng Zhiyu bit her lip, “So, you knew months ago?”

Shu Yue hummed.

Meng Zhiyu took a deep breath, “About this matter, don’t you have anything to say to me?”

Shu Yue genuinely looked confused.

Shiyi rested her head against Shu Yue’s chest, obedient like a child. Worried about the strong wind after opening the door, Shu Yue shielded Shiyi from the wind with her hand.

“We’ve already broken up.” Shu Yue could hardly remember how many times she had stated this fact to Meng Zhiyu.

Meng Zhiyu forcibly suppressed the emotions surging in her chest and said hoarsely, “But before, so many times, we broke up so many times, why is this time different?”

“When we broke up before, you came to find me, added me as a friend, didn’t I say the same thing? I said we broke up, but you acted like you didn’t hear. Why is it different when it comes to me?”

She spoke these words sharply, and after seeing the uncontrollable emotional flicker on Shu Yue’s face, a sense of vengeful satisfaction arose in Meng Zhiyu’s heart.

So she spoke even more openly, and toward the end, she couldn’t tell whether it was her mouth speaking or her emotions talking.

“I know, it’s because of Ji Shiyi, right? Because of my little aunt.”

“Shu Yue, you’ve fallen for someone else.”

“Tell me, how far have you two gone? Who made the first move? Doing this behind my back, Shu Yue, don’t you feel ashamed? Don’t you feel disgusted? You could’ve chosen anyone, why did it have to be her? She’s my little aunt!”

The sense of betrayal after discovering this matter fully erupted in Meng Zhiyu’s heart. The girl she liked most and the relative she liked most were entangled together. Meng Zhiyu couldn’t describe her feelings at this moment, as if something was stuck in her throat, neither spit out nor swallowed.

After holding it in all night, she couldn’t resist and came to talk to Shu Yue.

She waited for Shu Yue to argue fiercely with her, waiting for a confrontation to begin.

But Shu Yue didn’t retort.

She just silently covered Shiyi’s ears and turned away.

This action completely enraged Meng Zhiyu.

She stepped forward, reaching to grab Shu Yue’s hand.

Shu Yue resisted, shaking her off and stepping back, the rejection and pain in her eyes so intense that it stunned Meng Zhiyu.

She had never seen such an expression on Shu Yue’s face.

Shu Yue crouched down, set Shiyi down, rubbed its head, and signaled it to go play.

After the kitten walked a little away, Shu Yue stood up.

She turned around and looked at Meng Zhiyu.

“Come inside,” Shu Yue said. “If there’s anything, we’ll talk with the door closed.”

Meng Zhiyu couldn’t feel satisfied at all.

“You don’t want others to hear about this, right?” She pointed out sharply, “I talk about things between us, and you don’t care. But when it comes to her, you care.”

“Shu Yue, you’ve changed your heart.”

Shu Yue’s head felt like it was about to explode.

She tightly closed the door, using her last bit of reason to restrain her emotions, not slamming the door hard.

Her hand rested on the doorknob, and Shu Yue let out a long breath, trying not to lose control along with Meng Zhiyu.

“Yes,” Shu Yue said frankly, “Meng Zhiyu, I’m disgusting, I’m despicable, I absolutely shouldn’t have developed feelings for your little aunt. You’re right about everything, you’ve got it all correct, is that enough? Are you satisfied?”

“What could I be satisfied with! Shu Yue! How could you do such a thing!”

“And what about you—!”

Shu Yue couldn’t hold back anymore, her voice suddenly rising.

Anger made her chest heave.

She let go of the doorknob and paced anxiously in the room for two steps.

Meng Zhiyu, seeing her so angry for the first time, was stunned, her mind pausing for a moment, unable to speak.

After a suffocating silence, Shu Yue raised her hand to touch her forehead, sighed, brushed back her stray hair, and looked at Meng Zhiyu.

“Zhiyu, I don’t want to fight with you.” Almost as soon as she spoke, her eyes grew warm and wet. “From the moment we started dating, Meng Zhiyu, I never wanted to fight with you.”

“So every time you got angry, every time you nitpicked, every time you were dissatisfied, I always thought it was because I wasn’t good enough. Meng Zhiyu, it’s me, like you said, I don’t even know how to be in a relationship.”

Shu Yue paused for a long time, like a drowning person who, after struggling desperately, suddenly sank.

Meng Zhiyu’s fingertips grew cold. She stepped forward, just raising her hand, when Shu Yue instinctively stepped back, raising her right hand to signal her not to come closer.

“Just this once, Meng Zhiyu, let me finish.”

Shu Yue took a long breath.

“You were right just now, you said that to me before. You told me, Shu Yue, we’ve broken up. But I acted like I didn’t hear and still approached you. Meng Zhiyu, because I did this before, I know how it feels.”

“You’re such a proud person, there’s no need to act like me, putting your pride on the ground, right? Doing this doesn’t feel good at all.”

“Do you know? After breaking up for so long, no, not just this time. Chen Mi, Chu Yufei, every person who knew about our relationship asked, and I never said a single bad thing about you.”

“You didn’t want to go public with our relationship, I said you had your reasons. You suddenly joined a dating show, I still went to find you, wondering if you had your reasons for that too. Even that bet back then, Meng Zhiyu, I could accept it.”

Shu Yue wiped away the tears streaming down her face with the back of her hand, peeling open a heart wrapped layer by layer, raw and bloody, not a single part intact.

She desperately covered her face with her hand, calmed herself for a moment, and looked at the girl in front of her.

“Meng Zhiyu, I could accept it because I knew that even if it started with a bet, the kindness I felt from you wasn’t fake. And because for these two years, it was me who was with you, not anyone else.”

“I know your mother has high expectations of you, so you’re very proud and unwilling to bow to anyone. You seem to have many friends, but they’re not sincere. I know I was one of your few true friends.”

“Meng Zhiyu, I walked into your world.”

“But I’m exhausted.”

Her tears fell uncontrollably.

“I don’t have the strength to keep going forward, nor the strength to believe we’ll get better.”

“Do you know what’s different about this breakup compared to before?”

“Meng Zhiyu, it’s not that I don’t like you anymore, it’s that I’ve started to hate myself.”

Shu Yue looked at Meng Zhiyu.

Until today, she couldn’t understand how their relationship had come to this, how they had reached this point.

So messy, blaming each other, sparing no effort to hurt one another with the sharpest blade.

“I beg you,” Shu Yue said softly, “really, Meng Zhiyu, I’m begging you.”

“Can you not be so reckless and arrogant… I don’t want to hate you, I don’t want to feel like I was a fool for those two years, I don’t want to doubt that maybe what I believed and saw was just my imagination.”

“Meng Zhiyu, the you I felt was real, you’re not that bad, right? I didn’t see you wrong, right?”

Meng Zhiyu didn’t speak.

She lowered her head, looking at the girl who, while speaking, couldn’t help but crouch down, losing all strength, curling into a ball, only able to cry and choke.

Overwhelming pain pressed down on her.

In Meng Zhiyu’s memory, the last time she saw Shu Yue so broken was when her grandmother passed away.

For a long time, she couldn’t explain why she kept doing this, tormenting people like this, but today she understood.

Shu Yue was too accommodating in front of her, agreeing to everything, changing whatever Meng Zhiyu was dissatisfied with, never arguing with her. The more Shu Yue was like this, the more irritated Meng Zhiyu became.

Could someone really tolerate her like this? To what extent could they tolerate her? Or was it because they didn’t care, so they didn’t get angry?

Every time Shu Yue calmly asked her not to get angry first, Meng Zhiyu felt it was a belittlement.

As if in this relationship, she was the only crazy one.

As if in this relationship, she was the only one who cared about these things.

She kept pushing Shu Yue, wanting her to change, to make choices, to have all her actions meet her expectations.

Today, she got what she wanted.

After dating for so long, they finally had a fight. Not her one-sided venting or breakdown, but Shu Yue collapsing in front of her, sobbing uncontrollably.

She should’ve been satisfied, even imagining herself saying spitefully, “See, Shu Yue, you’re not as calm as you think.”

She had even rehearsed the curve of her lips, wanting Shu Yue to feel the pain, doubt, and discomfort she felt every time she got angry and Shu Yue just stood by helplessly.

She wanted to stab the knife in her heart into Shu Yue’s heart too.

But now, Meng Zhiyu couldn’t say that sentence, couldn’t smile, the knife stuck in her chest, and she didn’t even have the strength to pull it out.

It turned out that when facing overwhelming emotions, people really would instinctively freeze. In this moment, she suddenly understood Shu Yue. If someone saw a tsunami, how could they not run? But Shu Yue, knowing the tsunami would never stop, still stubbornly stepped onto that beach.

Meng Zhiyu wiped away her tears, her eyeshadow smudging, her fake eyelashes falling off. The beauty-conscious her didn’t even care about this small matter.

She crouched down too, looking at Shu Yue.

She had so many things to say but couldn’t say anything.

In the end, she could only say weakly, “I’m sorry.”

“Shu Yue,” she said, “I’m sorry.”

Shu Yue always thought she was very tolerant, able to bear Meng Zhiyu’s behaviors, those sharp, hurtful words, those sudden mood swings, those blurted-out breakups and accusations.

But at this moment.

At the moment Meng Zhiyu said “I’m sorry,” Shu Yue realized she was only pretending not to care.

She didn’t dare care, afraid that once she did, the wounds on her body could no longer be ignored, bleeding profusely, with cuts large and small left there, like black holes, shocking to the eye.

It turned out she was really hurt.

Meng Zhiyu’s kindness was real, but her wounds were real too.

Shu Yue cried bitterly, the one most skilled at enduring finally couldn’t hold back her tears.

Her explosive crying scared Meng Zhiyu.

Meng Zhiyu panicked, forgetting she was still crying, and said flusteredly, “What’s wrong? Are you feeling unwell?”

Shu Yue shook her head, avoiding Meng Zhiyu’s comforting gesture, casually wiping her tears, calming herself for a moment, and standing up.

“Meng Zhiyu, it’s late, go back.”

Meng Zhiyu bit her lip, instinctively wanting to say, “That’s it? You’re kicking me out?” But she held back.

“Okay,” she said, “I’ll come find you next time.”

Shu Yue, “…Huh?”

Meng Zhiyu said seriously, “Your first question, Shu Yue, I can answer it now.”

“This time, no one bet with me, I’m doing this because I want to.”

“You didn’t see wrong, Shu Yue, the current situation, I do have my reasons. When I handle these things—”

Shu Yue couldn’t help but interrupt her.

“Meng Zhiyu, are you misunderstanding something?”

Meng Zhiyu froze, “What?”

“I don’t hate you, but I don’t like you anymore,” Shu Yue said clearly. “You don’t need to waste time on me anymore. Those reasons, the reasons why you have to do these things, they’re not important to me, and I don’t want to know.”

“Is it because of Ji Shiyi?” Meng Zhiyu asked, holding back.

Shu Yue shook her head.

She said firmly, “Even if I didn’t know her, my answer wouldn’t change.”

Those wounds were so clear, so clear that Shu Yue couldn’t deceive herself again, pretending not to see.

“Just think I’m selfish,” Shu Yue said tiredly, her voice hoarse from crying, as if using her last bit of strength. “I don’t want to go back to how things were, I have things to do, studies to complete, I don’t want anything now, I just want to feel better emotionally.”

“Don’t come find me again.”

She stood straight, her gaze unwavering, her tone steady and calm, like giving a rational and clear statement.

“You know my personality, I can’t do things like kicking you out, leaving you outside, or sweeping you away with a broom. So if you come again, I’ll still see you, I’ll ask what’s wrong. But Meng Zhiyu, my answer will only be that one.”

“We’ve broken up,” Shu Yue looked at her, her gaze frank and calm. “We won’t get back together in the future.”

Meng Zhiyu blurted out, “Can’t you give me one more chance? Just one last time?”

After saying it, she was stunned herself.

Meng Zhiyu never thought such a tone, such words, would have anything to do with her.

But she realized saying such words wasn’t as hard as she thought.

“I’ll change,” Meng Zhiyu said urgently. “I’ll be careful too. Shu Yue, I won’t break up with you casually anymore, I’ll try to control my emotions, watch my words, I—”

“But I don’t want to,” Shu Yue’s gaze fell on Meng Zhiyu’s contorted face, suddenly seeing a bit of her own shadow in her. That posture of desperately changing oneself to hold onto something, she was too familiar with it.

Shu Yue gave a bitter smile.

She looked at Meng Zhiyu, pitying her, and pitying herself.

She knew best what words could make Meng Zhiyu give up completely at this moment.

“Meng Zhiyu, you weren’t wrong about that.”

Shu Yue lowered her eyes, as if finally giving up on maintaining any dignity, her fingertips rubbing slowly and uneasily, but she still said it.

“Yes, I’ve fallen for someone else.”

“But she doesn’t know about my feelings, and I don’t plan to let her know. You’re right, it’s disgusting, it’s immoral. On this matter, I owe you an apology. But I’m the one who’s wrong, I didn’t control my heart, don’t blame her.”

“She’s a good person, Meng Zhiyu, I can tell, you like her a lot too. You’re family, you’ll have many chances to get along in the future, there’s no need to fall out because of me.”

“It’s dark out,” Shu Yue found a flashlight and handed it to Meng Zhiyu. “If you don’t mind, I can ask my senior sister to take you, I won’t see you off.”

Meng Zhiyu refused Shu Yue.

“No need,” she said, lowering her head. “My assistant is waiting outside.”

“Okay,” Shu Yue said.

Meng Zhiyu still had things she wanted to say, she wasn’t willing, she didn’t want to lose, not even to Ji Shiyi. But saying those words would be too humiliating, she didn’t want to look that foolish.

She turned to walk out the door, and Shu Yue called her back.

Meng Zhiyu’s heart leapt, thinking she regretted it, but when she turned around, she saw Shu Yue holding the gift bag she had casually left behind.

“You forgot something.”

Six words.

Zero insult, maximum hurt.

A surge of impulse came over her, and Meng Zhiyu almost irrationally said, “You hate me that much? You can’t even accept a gift?”

Looking at Shu Yue’s calm eyes, Meng Zhiyu’s emotions softened, and she said regretfully, “Shu Yue, I didn’t mean that. I know we’ve broken up, but as friends, can’t you accept a friend’s gift? Besides, I broke your glasses before, I should compensate you.”

“I already have new glasses,” Shu Yue sighed. “And Meng Zhiyu, we can’t be friends anymore either.”

Shu Yue’s words left Meng Zhiyu feeling empty.

She suddenly felt a huge crack appear in her body, with a pair of hands reaching in, trying to take something away. She instinctively didn’t want to let go, but bound by pride, she couldn’t say anything more.

She could only silently walk out of the cabin.

In the night, she looked up.

The moon was still that moon, but the summer was no longer that summer.

Two years ago, what were she and Shu Yue doing? Just finished the college entrance exams, grieving a loss, on the island’s night, they always walked side by side. Back then, Shu Yue would stand up for her when others spoke ill of her, standing in front of her.

When she clashed with friends because of her personality, Shu Yue would secretly explain, telling them her intentions weren’t like that.

She would tell others, Zhiyu is actually a great girl, she’s just not good with words.

She was such a clumsy little bird, Meng Zhiyu knew from the start, her mouth couldn’t say anything pleasing to her, yet she was willing to cover her with her school uniform when her pheromones suddenly went out of control, standing far away, waiting for her to calm down.

That was the most reassuring scent Meng Zhiyu had ever smelled in her life.

After that day, she always subconsciously looked for her in the crowd.

Noticing her reciting books early in the morning on the field, panting while running, always sitting at the first desk in Class One during exams, and preferring the same window seat when eating.

They had such a pure, romantic, and unforgettable summer.

But summers always pass.

Even if the heat returned year after year, their summer had long disappeared.

Sometimes, Meng Zhiyu wondered if being a bird would be better than being Shu Yue’s girlfriend.

Because a bird wouldn’t fight with her, but a girlfriend would.

She really hated birds, hated how they occupied such an important place in Shu Yue’s life, so much so that Meng Zhiyu often felt birds were more important than her. But she forgot, the day she fell for Shu Yue, Shu Yue was standing under a cypress tree, looking up and murmuring to a bird.

She didn’t know what the bird chirped, but Shu Yue smiled.

Her usually stiff face suddenly came alive.

Later, being with Shu Yue, Meng Zhiyu learned that bird was a grey magpie. Its appearance often signaled good luck, fortune, and happiness.

An ungraspable happiness.

“Teacher Meng?” The assistant called cautiously, “Are we still leaving?”

Meng Zhiyu hmmed and opened the car door.

Along the way, the little assistant didn’t dare look back.

Because she heard the sound of tissues being pulled one by one, heard Meng Zhiyu’s uncontrollable crying from the back seat.

She asked, “Little Ling, do you think I have a bad temper?”

Little Ling quickly shook her head, “No way, Teacher Meng, you’re the kindest celebrity I’ve worked with. You always speak to us softly and never scold us.”

Meng Zhiyu tugged at her lips, mocking and speechless.

“I’m not willing,” she said softly.

“Little Teacher Meng?” Little Ling didn’t hear clearly and leaned forward to ask.

“It’s nothing.”

Meng Zhiyu composed herself, thought for a moment, took out her phone, and made a call.

When the call connected, she started without hesitation, “Little Aunt, do you like her? You know who I’m talking about.”

Ji Shiyi didn’t seem startled, only asking calmly, “Why ask this suddenly?”

Meng Zhiyu, “Because I’ve decided to keep pursuing her.”

Ji Shiyi paused and said, “You don’t need to report this to me.”

Meng Zhiyu, “So, we’re not rivals, right?”

Ji Shiyi stood by the window, looking at the hazy mountain scenery in the night, her thumb slowly rubbing the edge of her phone.

“Zhiyu, from the moment you made this call, didn’t you already have your answer?”

Meng Zhiyu slightly raised her brow.

“Little Aunt, do you remember? When I was little, during New Year, adults teased me, always asking what I wanted to be when I grew up. I said I wanted to be you. Because you were the most amazing omega I’d ever seen, and until today, I still thought so.”

“But Little Aunt, now I suddenly feel, if I became you, it’d be pretty boring, wouldn’t it?”

“If being an adult means answering a question with all this beating around the bush, then I don’t want to be an adult my whole life.”

Ji Shiyi wasn’t fazed at all.

“And then? Stay a kid forever, making decisions on impulse but refusing to bear the consequences?”

“If that’s the case, Zhiyu, then you really are still a kid.”