MTB - Chapter 45
Chapter 45: Wishing You a Long and Happy Marriage
The notification to pick up the custom T-shirts for the long-distance running event came through the group chat on Saturday morning. Yun Yang was still lazing in bed, unwilling to get up.
The court hearing for her case against Chen Hao had been the day before. Ouyang Jun had handled the entire process; Yun Yang herself had only made a brief appearance. In the end, Chen Hao paid a fine and, due to the severity of the offense, was detained for fifteen days. With that, the matter was concluded.
When she received the message, Yun Yang didn't immediately register what custom T-shirts it was referring to—not until Guan Yan sent her a photo. She shot bolt upright, knocking over the glass on her bedside table in the process.
Tang Yuelou had been up for a while, working in her study. Startled by the sound of shattering glass, she came into the room to check. As soon as she entered, she saw Yun Yang squatting on the floor, picking up the shards. Hearing her approach, Yun Yang looked up with a slightly guilty smile.
“Teacher, there’s something I want to tell you.”
“What is it? Get back in bed first, I’ll clean this up.” Seeing that Yun Yang wasn’t even wearing slippers, Tang Yuelou shooed her back onto the bed, then turned to get the tools to clean up the mess. She looked up and smiled. “It’s just a broken glass. Why do you look like you’ve done something terrible?”
“Do you remember signing up for our university’s marathon?” Yun Yang asked tentatively.
“Yes, I remember. A few of us teachers from the Chinese Department signed up together. We were just going for the atmosphere, really, not planning to actually compete.” Tang Yuelou paused. “Why do you ask?”
“Huh? You mean you’re not competing?”
“You seem a little disappointed?”
“No, of course not.” Yun Yang gave a sly smile. “Actually, I prepared a ‘gift’ for you.”
An hour later, Guan Yan was standing at Tang Yuelou’s front door.
Guan Yan was a bona fide slacker. As a second-generation rich kid, her life goal was to muddle through for a diploma and go home to inherit the family fortune. She had originally planned to pack up and go abroad, but then she had somehow managed to get into Z University—in her own words, it was because her “ancestors’ graves were smoking.” Since her GPA constantly hovered around the passing line, her closest contact with teachers during university consisted of spamming “Please, Teacher, give us a few more points” in the group chat after exams. This was the first time in her life she had ever paid a visit to a teacher’s home. After ringing the doorbell, she listened to the “ding-dong” echo in the hallway, swallowed hard, and felt a little nervous.
To be fair, she had been a little surprised when Yun Yang asked her to deliver the items directly to Tang Yuelou’s home. After all, just two months ago, the two of them were at each other’s throats from the moment they met. Then it transitioned to Yun Yang avoiding Tang Yuelou on sight, and now they had progressed by leaps and bounds to the point of living together. The pace was like a rocket launch—if it were anyone else, wouldn’t these conflicts have taken at least a year or so to resolve?
This must be the speed of adults, Guan Yan mused.
Just as she was lost in thought, the door opened. Tang Yuelou held the door and gave her a gentle smile. “You’re here?”
Her hair was casually clipped back, and the fair, delicate skin visible beneath her loose loungewear gave her an air of languor. She was completely different from the meticulous “elite” of weekdays. Guan Yan found herself staring, mesmerized by her smiling eyes, and in that moment, she felt a strange resonance with Yun Yang’s aesthetic tastes.
Tang Yuelou… is truly beautiful.
“Please, come in.”
Tang Yuelou stepped aside to let her in. Guan Yan stood awkwardly by the sofa, not daring to sit or speak, until Tang Yuelou raised her voice slightly to inform the person in the bedroom that a guest had arrived.
“Yun Yang isn’t up yet. You can go in and talk to her.” She pointed toward the bedroom.
It was almost eleven. Guan Yan couldn’t help but marvel that their “involution king,” Yun Yang, had completely adopted the lifestyle of “the sovereign who no longer holds morning court.”
She was about to go in when she hesitated for a moment and turned back to Tang Yuelou. “Teacher Tang, is it okay for me to go straight in? I won’t see anything I’m not supposed to, will I…?”
Tang Yuelou brought over two glasses of water, a faint smile playing on her lips. As if she hadn’t heard clearly, she asked again, “See ‘what’?”
Guan Yan shivered. “Nothing, nothing nothing nothing.”
Tang Yuelou handed her the glass of water. Guan Yan quickly thanked her, and as she lowered her head, she inadvertently saw the band on Tang Yuelou’s ring finger.
A wedding ring?
Guan Yan froze. She had never looked closely before. When had she started wearing this ring?
The human brain is a strange thing. Whenever you try your hardest to recall something, it becomes increasingly blurry and uncertain. The more Guan Yan thought about it, the more she felt that Tang Yuelou must have been wearing a ring for a long time. When she looked up again, her expression darkened.
Tang Yuelou… is already married?
“Guan Yan—”
Yun Yang shouted from the bedroom. As if granted a pardon, Guan Yan practically ran into the room.
In fact, there was nothing “inappropriate for children” in the bedroom. Teacher Tang’s home was decorated in a simple yet tasteful style. Guan Yan looked around and felt that only the pot of snake plant on the bedside table seemed a little out of place.
Yun Yang was lying in bed with her back to the door, watching a drama on her tablet. A glass of steaming water sat beside her. Guan Yan tiptoed in, walked up, and yanked off her blanket.
“What time is it, still sleeping… Ahhh, you you you—”
“Guan Yan!” Yun Yang snatched the blanket back. “Why did you pull off my blanket!”
Guan Yan covered her face. “Who knew you weren’t wearing any pants!”
“Who knew someone would come in and rip off a person’s blanket!” Yun Yang’s face was bright red.
Guan Yan peeked through a small gap between the fingers covering her eyes. “I didn’t see anything.”
In truth, she had seen everything—including the faint and dark kiss marks on her thighs, and the faded marks around her ankle… She recalled Yun Yang saying the bruises on her wrists were from “bumping into something,” and her mood instantly became complicated.
If Teacher Tang found out what she had seen, she wouldn’t silence her by killing her, would she? She thought about her final exams and suddenly felt a heavy weight.
“Alright, stop pretending. If you saw it, you saw it.” Yun Yang awkwardly pulled on her pants under the blanket and threatened, “If you dare say a word, I’ll have your head.”
Guan Yan nodded furiously.
Yun Yang said, “Thanks for making the trip. What’s the deal with that event you mentioned?”
“Sigh, it’s a long story.” Guan Yan felt unlucky just talking about it. “There was a huge problem with the event approval. The university scheduled it for finals month. I mean, who holds an event during finals month? The teachers said it was too much trouble to coordinate, so it’s been postponed until spring. We worked so hard to organize it—we went through twenty versions of the prize plan alone! And now, it’s all pretty much gone to waste.”
She sighed as she placed the custom T-shirt on the bed. “Anyway, just keep the shirt for now. Try not to get fat and not be able to fit into it, haha.”
Yun Yang: “Get lost.”
“Alrighty then.” Guan Yan was feeling uncomfortable staying there anyway. Just as she was about to leave, she suddenly remembered the ring on Tang Yuelou’s hand.
She was incredibly conflicted. On the one hand, a ring on the ring finger isn’t necessarily a wedding ring. What if Teacher Tang just thought that finger looked nice and wanted to wear a ring on it? What was wrong with that? On the other hand, this was her friend’s private life. The two of them were together day and night; what if this was something Yun Yang had willingly accepted?
But what if Yun Yang was being kept in the dark?
She agonized over it for a while and decided that even if she was being nosy, she had to tell Yun Yang.
“Yangyang, there’s something I think you absolutely have to know.”
Guan Yan sat in front of her, glanced at the closed bedroom door out of the corner of her eye, and spoke nervously.
Yun Yang was taken aback by her suddenly serious expression. She looked her up and down, then leaned in. “What’s wrong? Did someone bully you? I’ll go back you up.”
“It’s not that… It’s about Teacher Tang.”
Yun Yang frowned.
“I think Teacher Tang is already married,” Guan Yan said in a hushed voice. “I saw her wearing a wedding ring!”
Yun Yang froze, looking at her with a strange expression.
“What’s with that look? You… you don’t know, do you?” Guan Yan’s capacity for empathy was extremely strong. She was instantly filled with both pity and anger, pounding the bed indignantly. “That scumbag Tang Yuelou! I really misjudged her, thinking she was gentle and kind…”
“Is it a ring like this?”
Yun Yang held up her left hand, interrupting her tirade.
Guan Yan looked closely and slapped her thigh. “Yes! Exactly like that!”
The two stared at each other for a moment. It wasn’t until Yun Yang’s eyes filled with pity that Guan Yan’s own eyes slowly widened. “Holy shit.”
“You…” Yun Yang didn’t know how to comment on this behavior. She glanced at the doorway and patted Guan Yan’s shoulder sympathetically. “Good luck.”
Guan Yan turned her head stiffly, coming face to face with Tang Yuelou’s smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
Her face turned red as she held her breath, racking her brain for a blessing. “Wishing you… a long and happy marriage.”
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