What's Wrong With Being Fifteen Years Older Than Me?! - Chapter 30.1

Ye Li! Ye Li! Are you okay?”

“Ye Li, what’s wrong? Can you hear us?”

…

The constant calling finally pulled the girl back from a state that felt like she had fallen into a frozen lake, losing all sensation. She pushed away everyone who was trying to comfort her. Clutching her phone, she stumbled out of the private room, her mind in a panic. The others left in the room were all confused. Even the people who were focused on singing stopped.

“What happened?” Cheng Muzhi followed her without looking back.

“Ye Li, are you okay? What’s wrong with you?” Cheng Muzhi followed her all the way out of the KTV. The girl in front of her seemed possessed as she stormed down the street.

“Don’t follow me…” Ye Li’s voice was low and hoarse. Her empty eyes contained an emotion no one could understand.

“Don’t be like this. You’re scaring me. Did something happen? Tell me, maybe I can help.” Cheng Muzhi tried to keep up with her and persuade her.

“You can’t help me. No one can help me…” The girl’s eyes were a little unfocused. She suddenly stopped and hailed a passing taxi.

“Ye Li!” Cheng Muzhi tried to say something, but the girl, who was about to get in the car, gave her a low warning.

“Don’t follow me.” The look in her eyes was chilling.

She was forced to stop and watch as Ye Li got into the taxi. The door closed, and the car sped away.

For an hour and a half, Ye Li was in a trance inside the car. Her phone screen was still on the message Auntie Tang had sent. The taxi stopped on the road across from the main entrance of Jingchuan High School. The girl was anxious to open the car door and get out, but the driver stopped her.

“Hey, miss, you haven’t paid yet!” Ye Li heard the driver mumbling, “Why are you trying to run away without paying?” She quickly scanned the code to pay and rushed out of the car.

In front of her was the familiar old apartment complex. On the early summer night, it was surrounded by green shadows, looking a little hazy and desolate. The old man downstairs was wearing a white undershirt and fanning himself with a palm fan, clearing the heat around him. But when Ye Li got there, she felt an inexplicable chill run up her spine.

“Hey, aren’t you the girl who lives on the second floor? The college entrance exam is over, right? How did you do?” the old man asked in a caring way.

The girl didn’t feel like talking. She forced a smile and said, “It was all alright.” Then, to avoid more endless conversation, she ran into the building without looking back.

She was the only one on the stairs. Every step she took felt incredibly heavy. She finally reached the second floor. The lights in the hallway turned on automatically. The girl’s eyes went to the tightly closed door. As she slowly walked toward it, she took out the key she always had with her.

Her slender fingers trembled as she put the key in the lock. Her heart also sped up at that moment, reaching its peak. The moment she opened the door, Ye Li took a deep breath. She reached out and turned on the living room light. The apartment was the same as when she left for her last exam. Nothing had changed. It still felt lived in, as if nothing had happened.

“Auntie Lu, are you still here?” The girl’s voice was slightly shaky, as if she were calling out to someone who would no longer answer. As she had expected, there was no answer. The entire apartment was eerily quiet. Ye Li could only hear her own breathing.

After a second of愣神, she suddenly remembered something and rushed into the other person’s room. She saw that the items on the bed had been packed up. Only the empty bed frame and mattress were left. Other than that, the books on the bookshelf behind her were still there. The black box was also there. The girl wasn’t giving up. She went to the closet and opened it. The rows were all neat and empty. Besides the blankets and pillows that had been put away, all the woman’s clothes were gone.

“So you really left.” A wave of sadness washed over her. She took a sharp breath, and a tear rolled out of the corner of her eye. Ye Li reached out to wipe it away in disbelief. It was wet. At that moment, all the strength in her body drained away. She suddenly felt weak and collapsed onto the empty mattress at the end of the bed.

The memories of the past six years started to attack her. Ye Li remembered the first time Auntie Lu learned how to cook for her. The woman had placed a cookbook next to the stove. She looked at it and tried to cook. She accidentally set the book on fire, shrieked, and put out the fire herself, all while telling Ye Li in the living room not to be scared. Who was the one who was scared?

Later, when the food was brought out, Ye Li could barely recognize what it was. But Auntie Lu comforted her and said, “It doesn’t look that good, but it tastes alright. Do you want to try it, Xiaoli?” Who was she comforting?

And that time. It was the only time in the past six years that Ye Li had run away to Changqing. She had just moved in with Auntie Lu. She had misunderstood something and had run away to her old house in the middle of the night, feeling angry. Without a key, she could only huddle on the stairs in front of her door, secretly crying and hating her dad for leaving her with someone else. Not long after, Auntie Lu found her. She hugged her and gently comforted her. Ye Li, without any backbone, followed her back.

And many, many other things. At this moment, they were like thorns in her heart, constantly reminding her that this woman was deeply rooted in her bones. But she left. Without a word.

Finally, Ye Li, who had been sitting at the end of the bed, raised her hand and rubbed her face hard, trying to get rid of the uncomfortable feeling. It didn’t work. The feelings that had been repressed for so long completely exploded. The girl buried her face in her hands and started to sob. Her shoulders trembled more and more, like a branch being thrashed by a storm.

Hot tears quickly soaked her palms and seeped between her fingers. Ye Li’s silent sobbing gradually turned into loud crying. This was only the second time in her life she had cried so miserably. The first was when she saw her father leave when she was twelve. The second was when she confirmed that Auntie Lu had left her.

While crying, Ye Li tried to figure out what her feelings were. She soon realized what it was. It was love. At first, she herself was surprised and couldn’t believe it. But if it wasn’t love, she couldn’t explain why she was so upset and why she had been so awkward these past few days. For the first time, a clear thought popped into her head: she wanted to live with the other person forever. She didn’t want Auntie Lu to disappear from her life. She wanted so much more…

Thinking about this, Ye Li felt helpless and slowly lay down. She curled up on the empty mattress at the end of the bed and cried until she had no more strength. She was so tired that she fell asleep. When she woke up again, it was already the next morning. She heard her phone ringing loudly. It seemed to have rung over and over again in her sleep. Finally, under another round of ringing, Ye Li, who had slept on the bare mattress all night, couldn’t help but grab her phone and answer.

In that instant, her ears were assaulted with a volume they weren’t prepared for.“Ye Li! Where did you spend the night? Why didn’t you come home last night?” Her dad rarely got mad at her, but when he did, he would use her full name. “I don’t care how you have fun, but as a girl, what’s most important is your chastity, your purity. You’re only eighteen and you’re already staying out all night?!”

Listening to the scolding so early in the morning, the girl on the bed didn’t even have the strength to sit up. Her brows were furrowed. “Who told you I stayed out all night?”

The man on the other end was furious. He took a deep breath and asked, “Then tell me, where did you go last night? You didn’t even call. Where did you spend the night? Who were you with?”

“Where else would I be? I’m at the apartment here in Jingchuan. If you don’t believe me, you can video call me right now.” Ye Li was annoyed, but she had a terrible headache from her hangover and couldn’t even raise her voice. The second after she said that, he hung up the phone and started a video call. The girl closed her eyes helplessly. Before answering, she forced herself to sit up and slowly walked out of Auntie Lu’s bedroom.

“See? Am I in the apartment?” Ye Li switched the camera and asked the man. After confirming she wasn’t lying, the man’s voice on the other end softened. He stopped using her full name. “Xiaoli, why didn’t you tell me you were staying there for the night? You had me so worried. I thought some guy with bad intentions had taken you home.”

“Dad, don’t worry. I’ll never go home with a boy in my life.” Ye Li said impatiently. Ye Deyou nodded in satisfaction. Then, he realized what she said and quickly added, “It’s not a good idea right now. You’re still too young. Maybe when you’re twenty, it’ll be okay.” Ye Li didn’t respond. She really would never go home with a boy in her life.

After a few more words, she suddenly remembered something more important and quickly hung up the phone. She checked the flight information from last night. If everything went as planned, they should have arrived by now, right? Thinking about this, Ye Li’s heart started to pound. After preparing herself, she entered 001 and Auntie Lu’s phone number. But the message on the other end said the phone was turned off.

Has she not gotten off the plane yet? Or has she arrived but hasn’t had time to turn on her phone yet? The girl’s heart sank. The courage she had just gathered disappeared in an instant.

Meanwhile, at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. Lu Zhiyun boarded the plane at night in China. After more than ten hours of flying, it was still night when she got off the plane. This sudden jet lag made her feel a little disoriented. She only had a small carry-on bag with her. The rest of her luggage had been shipped from China to her parents in Florida before she left.

After leaving the airport, Lu Zhiyun immediately got into a yellow taxi waiting outside. She had another important thing to do. The driver chatted with her for a bit, asking if she was a tourist. Lu Zhiyun said no and jokingly said she was in New York to catch her sister.

The taxi drove through the streets of Manhattan at night and finally stopped on a street with bars in the uptown area. The taxi fare, including tolls and a tip for the driver, was around seventy dollars, which was a little more expensive than in China. After taking some bills out of her wallet and handing them to the driver, Lu Zhiyun quickly dragged her suitcase toward one of the bars on the street.

Inside the bar, at a booth in the back, a young girl who looked six or seven parts like Lu Zhiyun had her hair in edgy dreadlocks and was wearing a sexy black tank top. There were five or six young men and women with her. One of them was an Asian-looking boy, and the rest were white and Black. They were all drinking, smoking, and having a good time.

The fun stopped when an exquisite-looking Asian woman entered.

“Hey, Judith, is that your sister?” the Asian-looking boy suddenly asked, shocked. Even though it wasn’t his first time seeing her, he was still stunned by her beauty.

“Come on! My sister can’t be here!” The girl who had just said that looked over and saw her sister standing there, looking cool and distant with her arms crossed. The smile on her face froze at that moment.

After leaving the bar, the girl, as if to please her, took the luggage from Lu Zhiyun, her tone both hesitant and affected. “Sis, why are you suddenly in New York? Is that little sister back home done with her college entrance exam already?”

“Lu Baozhu, don’t change the subject. Were you smoking that stuff?” Lu Zhiyun’s face was serious. Her beautiful face, without a smile, looked cold and aloof.

“No, I wasn’t. I swear. You can smell me if you don’t believe me!” The girl rushed toward her and opened her mouth.

**************