BSS - Chapter 132

Chapter 132

Xu Wei raised an eyebrow at Deng Chuan, her eyes brimming with a smile. Her dark brows rippled, her eyes shimmering and bright, as if she had cast a spell on Deng Chuan that didn't require a wand, turning everything else in the room into a mere backdrop.

The Little Friend mimicked her, propping up her chin and watching her with single-minded focus. There was a particularly profound meaning in her gaze. Xu Wei felt a secret sense of satisfaction. She intentionally let her look for a while before extending a hand toward Deng Chuan.

-and snapped her fingers lightly.

The focused gaze suddenly returned to the present, yet it remained fixed on her.

Xu Wei smiled slyly, but her tone was very serious. Her voice dropped low as she said softly, "What are you looking at? Little Friend, don't let your eyes wander."

Deng Chuan tilted her head, but the earnestness in her eyes didn't waver in the slightest because of Xu Wei's jest. She looked at her, as focused as she had always been.

As Deng Chuan gradually grew up, Xu Wei could no longer see through her as easily as before. Just as now, she couldn't completely know all the thoughts in Deng Chuan's mind at this very moment.

But she could feel herself being enveloped by that gaze, like falling into a river, with the gentle sun warming her. She began to sense in Deng Chuan's eyes many things her Little Friend hadn't said aloud these past few days. And so, Xu Wei's heart also felt as if it had landed in the sunlight, softening wave after wave.

They talked for a while, the atmosphere growing more and more relaxed. Xu Wei could hear it getting livelier outside the balcony. Her room faced the street, and she could hear children cheering, laughing, and running off with a clatter of footsteps, as well as the roar of a motorcycle fading into the distance.

So she said to Deng Chuan, "I can finally start to feel a bit of the New Year's atmosphere."

The Little Friend smiled. "When I went to the supermarket a few days ago, I saw three times as many Chinese people as usual, all carrying big and small bags."

"So, do you have any plans for how you'll celebrate?"

"It'll be pretty much the same as the Mid-Autumn Festival or New Year's Day. But some classmates are going to make dumplings, so we'll eat dumplings tonight."

"Mm…" Xu Wei showed a slight smile. "That's not bad."

Deng Chuan turned the camera to face the bay window, where the curtains weren't drawn. Outside was a clear sky, brilliant sunshine, and not a cloud in sight. "The weather is especially good today. We'll be able to see the stars tonight."

Xu Wei, in turn, said, "That's nice. It rained a little in Chaoshan today. The ground is wet, and I almost stepped in a puddle on my way back."

As she said this, she leaned back against the headboard, her hair loose. She ran her hand through it casually. The light was bright, making the slight frown on her face exceptionally clear.

"Hold on," Xu Wei said, straightening up and looking around the side of the bed. "I'm going to tie my hair up."

Deng Chuan hummed in agreement. The camera now only showed the white bedsheets and pillows. Off-screen, Xu Wei was rummaging around for something, even opening the door and stepping outside.

She returned after a while, her hair loosely tied back, hanging behind her head. A few stray strands that couldn't be tied up fell beside her cheeks. Her lips were moist and glossy, as if she had just had a drink of water.

Xu Wei had also brought a cat back with her. The Ragdoll was quite large, and she struggled a bit to hold it, looking like she might drop it. Fortunately, the cat remained well-behaved, its paws draped over her neck as it settled onto the head of the bed with her.

She grabbed the Ragdoll's paw and waved it at Deng Chuan.

Deng Chuan recognized it as the flower-sniffing Ragdoll that had once been Xu Wei's profile picture. It had blue eyes, a symmetrical mask on its face, long fur all over, and a large frame. In Xu Wei's arms, it almost looked like a small dog.

Deng Chuan let out a "wow." "So cute…"

Xu Wei introduced it, "This is Luyu, my younger brother's cat."

Deng Chuan propped her chin on her hand and smiled. "Why is he called Luyu?"

"Because my brother bought him on the way back from fishing," Xu Wei said. "My brother is just like that, so impressionable. He hears the wind and thinks it's rain."

Luyu lay nestled in Xu Wei's arms, eyes narrowed, listening to them chat.

"What about Zhou Liu and Juzi?" Deng Chuan suddenly asked mid-conversation.

Xu Wei squeezed the cat's paw in her hand. "In the usual spot."

"Teacher Xu, you're so mean," Deng Chuan said. "Leaving them to spend the holiday all alone, while you're here playing with another cat."

Teacher Xu paused for a moment, then smiled triumphantly. "Are you talking about yourself?"

As she spoke, Luyu retracted his paw and rolled over in her arms. Xu Wei held him tighter, deliberately nuzzling his soft, furry back. "Mmm… smells so good."

Then she lowered her head and gave him a kiss. The movement was slow, as if she intentionally wanted Deng Chuan to see.

Luyu, with his lake-blue eyes, lay nestled in Xu Wei's arms. His fur was snow-white, his paw held in Xu Wei's hand, his expression the very picture of innocence. But Deng Chuan protested with dissatisfaction, "No, no… You can't do that."

Xu Wei glanced up at her, then her eyes curved into a smile as she buried her head in the cat's fluffy belly and nuzzled it.

The Little Friend was a bit dejected now. The corners of her mouth turned down, and she looked away from the camera.

"Oh, come on." Seeing her expression, Xu Wei lifted her head to coax her. "Don't be so petty."

Deng Chuan didn't speak, only raising her eyes to look at her.

"You're a person. Why are you getting worked up over a cat?" Xu Wei said.

The Little Friend was bathed in the afternoon sunlight, her hair falling on both sides. One side was tucked behind her ear, revealing a fair face. Her gaze held a considerable amount of gloom, which stripped away some of her usual sharpness and made her look soft and cuddly.

Xu Wei's heart softened. "Alright, I'll look at you." Her voice grew softer. She let go of the cat in her arms, then looked up at Deng Chuan and spread her hands. "There, happy now?"

The corners of Deng Chuan's mouth turned up slightly, but she tried hard to press them down. "It's okay. You can go play with him. I'm not angry."

Luyu jumped off the bed and scurried away. Now cat-less, Xu Wei leaned back fully against the headboard, crossing her arms and looking at Deng Chuan with a relaxed, lazy gaze. Hearing her words, she snorted but said nothing.

"Mm," Xu Wei thought for a long while before saying slowly, "You're not angry, but you're jealous of a cat."

Having her jealousy pointed out so clearly, even Deng Chuan, who was still feeling a bit sour, thought she was being a little childish. She smiled with embarrassment, her eyes curving, and then acted cute with Xu Wei. "Mmm…"

The moment Deng Chuan acted cute, Xu Wei seemed unable to hold back a laugh. She turned her head away and chuckled for a while before turning back with a serious expression, her words light and airy, "You're so spoiled."

Xu Wei's words sent a tingle through Deng Chuan. She opened her arms to the camera and mumbled, "Come on- I can let you hold me too."

Xu Wei looked at Deng Chuan, at the way she opened her arms to her, and felt an impulse to pull her into her own embrace.

As they were talking, there was a knock on Deng Chuan's door. She stood up to open it. Lao Lin and a few friends were standing outside, arms slung over each other's shoulders. Seeing her, they winked and called out, "Deng Chuan, what are you doing? It's New Year's Eve, no slacking off. Come out and chop the dumpling filling."

Deng Chuan looked very happy, and her friends noticed, teasing her with their words. Deng Chuan pretended not to understand and calmly agreed. She peeked out and saw that the kitchen was already bustling with activity, and the living room was lively too. It seemed the friends for the evening had gradually arrived. She returned to her desk, said a few words to Xu Wei, and then hung up the phone.

The Little Friend reluctantly ended the call and went to chop dumpling filling. The call screen flashed and turned into a timed entry in her and Xu Wei's chat history.

The house was quiet. Xu Wei couldn't think of anything she needed to do, so she simply went back to the chat interface after the call ended and scrolled through her entire conversation history with Deng Chuan from beginning to end.

Xu Wei had never had many regular chat partners, and being a cautious person, she generally didn't delete chat histories. This habit had fortunately preserved her high school conversations with Deng Chuan.

Xu Wei scrolled to Deng Chuan's very first message asking for leave, her finger gently stroking the screen.

Due to the change in her state of mind, it was now difficult for Xu Wei to empathize with her own feelings and choices from back then. She just felt a mix of satisfaction and wistfulness, grateful that these records still existed, allowing them both to remember those past clashes.

Xu Wei scrolled through this love letter co-authored by them and time. She savored it, reading from beginning to end again, only to find that Deng Chuan had managed to find a spare moment to send her a picture of the dumpling filling they had mixed.

It was a huge, full basin. A pair of chopsticks rested on the rim, and on the chopsticks was a beautiful hand.

The owner of the hand had excitedly written below the photo: "I learned how! I'll make you dumplings when I get back!"

Xu Wei looked at it and started to laugh.

---

Students studying abroad are often away from home for long periods, and many develop excellent cooking skills. After chopping the dumpling filling, Deng Chuan helped out in the kitchen but was soon shooed away by the real chefs.

At the dining table outside, many people were already sitting and making dumplings. Lao Lin stood nearby, rolling out dumpling wrappers, his hands covered in flour.

Deng Chuan smiled as she backed out of the kitchen, dodging Lao Lin's attempt to smear flour on her face. She brushed the flour off her shoulder. "Hey, hey, be careful. These are dumpling wrappers we're going to eat. Mind your hygiene."

Deng Chuan's smile was so dazzling that a few friends sitting nearby, who were partial to her, spoke up in her defense. "Exactly. Just do your job and don't bother others."

Lao Lin gripped his rolling pin. "???"

The group bustled about and finally managed to get the dumplings into the pot as darkness fell. On the dining table, there was soup made by the southerners, and red-braised pork knuckle and fried pork in scoop from the northerners.

Lao Lin pulled out bottle after bottle of cold beer from the refrigerator.

Amidst laughter and conversation, after several rounds of drinks, the Spring Festival Gala had already finished its countdown seven hours earlier. The table was a mess of empty plates and cups. The friends started watching a domestic variety show while holding their beer bottles. Deng Chuan held her phone, chatting with Xu Wei.

Xu Wei couldn't stay up late. After keeping Deng Chuan company for a while, she went to bed. Deng Chuan was reluctant to let her go. After savoring their time together today, she finally exited their chat and started browsing other messages.

By the time she had replied to all the group chats and snatched up the red envelopes in the family group, all social activities had come to an end. Deng Chuan looked up. A friend had already fallen asleep on the sofa. The rest were sitting on the carpet, cracking peanuts and chatting, looking like they were ready for a heart-to-heart talk all night long.

Her gaze met Lao Lin's. Deng Chuan couldn't avoid it, so she walked over and sat down beside them, and a can of beer was thrust into her hand.

"Finished chatting?" Lao Lin looked at her with a smile.

Deng Chuan pressed the cold beer can against his face, making him yelp. "Finished. What's up?"

Lao Lin waved his hands in surrender. Deng Chuan pulled her hand back, popped the tab, took a sip, and sat down on the carpet. "What are you guys talking about?"

"Life," one friend said.

"Romance and poetry," said another.

It all sounded very unreliable. Deng Chuan lowered her eyes, tilted her head back for another sip of beer, and mentally plotted an excuse to slip away.

As if he knew what she was thinking, Lao Lin grabbed her wrist. "Don't you dare leave. Whoever leaves is a wuss."

Deng Chuan pressed the beer can against his shoulder. "Got it."

Since she couldn't leave, Deng Chuan settled down comfortably next to Lao Lin, ready to listen to what her friends were talking about.

The first friend to speak was already half-drunk. His trouble was that he was already a junior and, due to his family's poor financial situation, was struggling to decide which country to pursue his master's degree in.

Everyone gave him suggestions. He sighed, tossing peanuts into his mouth.

The second friend to speak was about to graduate but disliked his undergraduate major and was preparing to switch fields for his master's. He was in a state of both excitement and anxiety.

Deng Chuan listened with wide eyes as he vented at length about how painful it was to study a major he disliked and the happiness he already felt just preparing to switch.

After this friend finished speaking, he sat down, swayed, and fell asleep on the floor.

The third to speak was Lao Lin. He was agonizing over whether to return to China or stay and work in the UK, and whether to work in a company or in academia.

After he finished, he didn't need comfort or advice. He just drank sullenly, then turned to Deng Chuan and asked, "You're going back in June, right?"

Deng Chuan hummed in agreement.

Lao Lin smiled. "It's great to be young. You still have choices."

This wasn't the first time Lao Lin had mentioned the issue of age and choices in front of Deng Chuan. Suddenly, she understood his feelings very well and silently clinked her can with his.

After that, the conversation covered everything: cultural differences, personality flaws, relationship troubles, childhood trauma. By the end, Deng Chuan could only marvel that the apartment's soundproofing was pretty good. If this were Su Mian's place, the neighbors would have come knocking long ago.

Thinking of Su Mian, after the party broke up and she had tidied up the living room and kitchen, Deng Chuan glanced at her phone before grabbing her clothes to take a shower. She thought about asking Su Mian if her own party had ended and how her New Year's Eve had been.

Unexpectedly, the small three-person group chat with Su Mian and Pei Qingyu was blowing up with messages for her.

Deng Chuan opened it and saw many messages tagging her. Scrolling up, she saw a long string of exclamation marks from Su Mian: Deng Chuan!!!!!! What kind of spell did you cast on Teacher Xu!!!!

Deng Chuan was confused and replied with a question mark.

Su Mian wrote: Go look at Teacher Xu's social media feed.

Deng Chuan's heart suddenly started beating very fast. But at a time like this, she still had the presence of mind to care about another issue.

Deng Chuan replied: How do you have her on WeChat?

Su Mian was furious: You don't need to worry about that!

Alright, alright. Deng Chuan admitted she had only asked that question to distract herself. But it seemed to have no effect; her heart was still pounding violently.

She placed the clothes she was holding on the sink, then reached out to steady herself, trying to calm her racing heart before she dared to open her social media feed.

Amidst the bright red tones of all the New Year's Eve posts, Deng Chuan quickly found Xu Wei's update.

Xu Wei had posted it after saying goodnight to her. She had posted two pictures. One showed the paws of Zhou Liu and Juzi, each held in one of Xu Wei's hands. The paws were snow-white, the nails translucent. The second picture was of Deng Chuan's hand holding the chopsticks over the dumpling filling.

The caption read: They're all my cats.

Deng Chuan stood under the bright yellow light of the bathroom. Her eyes widened slightly as she read the two pictures and the five-word caption over and over again. Then, as if remembering something, she went to check the likes below.

Deng Chuan saw a like from someone she had saved as "Senior 3 Chinese Teacher Zeng," which meant Xu Wei hadn't blocked her colleagues.

Between this fact and being called "her cat" by Xu Wei, Deng Chuan couldn't tell which was shaking her more. At this moment, all was silent, washing over her mind. Deng Chuan trembled all over, yet she felt an extreme sense of tranquility, as if a hand were steadily supporting her.

Deng Chuan took a while to recover. She let out a breath and felt a sharp pain on her lip. She touched it with her hand and saw a speck of blood on her fingertip, only then realizing she had been biting her lip for a long time without noticing.

Then, she liked the post and wanted to say something. In the end, she backed out. Messages from Su Mian and Pei Qingyu were still flashing in the group chat, but Deng Chuan had to go all the way back to her chat with Xu Wei. This was their own little world, with no friends, no colleagues, no prying eyes. Deng Chuan scrolled through their chat history, feeling a steadfast power in their back-and-forth conversation. It was this power that held her up.

Her fingertips paused on the nine-key keyboard, the cursor blinking. Words suddenly lost their magic at this moment. Deng Chuan knew that what she wanted most right now was to hold her, just as she had opened her arms to her today. But a calm voice in her mind still reminded her that reality did not permit it.

Perhaps she should have felt like crying, but Deng Chuan knew clearly that she didn't.

Deng Chuan thought of all the times she had cried for Xu Wei before. Knowing that her feelings for her had never changed from the very beginning, was not crying anymore a kind of transformation?

The current Deng Chuan still couldn't find the answer.

She just stared blankly at her phone until it automatically went dark. Then she looked up at her reflection in the mirror. The semi-circular mirror above the sink clearly reflected her upper body, her flushed face, and her sparkling eyes.

It was morning when Xu Wei saw Deng Chuan's message. She opened WeChat, wanting to wish her Little Friend a good morning, but saw many little red dots for notifications on her social media feed. She had a bit of a compulsion, so she clicked in to clear the red dots, then exited without looking at who had liked or commented.

In fact, Xu Wei hadn't blocked anyone from that post. Not just colleagues, but family, friends, classmates, and even the owner of the breakfast stall downstairs and the delivery guy could see it.

In private chats, everyone was an adult. On the surface, her colleagues didn't have much of a reaction, but a few male colleagues who had been constantly bothering her were finally quiet today, which made Xu Wei's eyes curve in amusement.

Before she even clicked into her chat with the Little Friend, she saw the last message she had sent: "Your cat misses you." Xu Wei clicked in to see. The message was from just an hour ago. It seemed the Little Friend had had a sleepless night.

Her eyes curved even more with delight.

How should she reply to this message from her sleepless Little Friend? Xu Wei bit her knuckle in thought. She quickly realized how childish the gesture was and let go with a laugh.

Did she miss her? Of course, there was no doubt about that. But Xu Wei understood the kind of impact her own thoughts would have on the Little Friend. Although feelings were always willful, between a couple, there could only be one willful person. Xu Wei hoped Deng Chuan would be that person.

A Little Friend needed some special treatment. This special treatment might come from life, or it might come from the person who loves you.

After a moment of consideration, Xu Wei ended up sending that cat-petting emoji again. She herself liked it very much; it contained the tenderness she had always wanted to show Deng Chuan.

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