Drifting on a String - Chapter 39

Chapter 39

Another reason?

"What is it?" Chen Piaopiao sat up straight, looking at Tao Jin from the sofa.

It was already very dark outside. A passerby walking their dog was calling their pet home. They had left the window open, and the sound of the community fountain could be faintly heard. Perhaps it was because of the many trivial noises, or perhaps because the lights in the house were too bright, but Tao Jin lifted her eyelids, then let them fall slightly shut. She pressed her lips together, moistened them with the tip of her tongue, and didn't speak.

She was nervous. Perhaps, she was also finding it hard to speak.

This kind of subtle emotion was like termites, rustling as they gnawed away at Tao Jin's perfect and robust mental fortitude. Through her exquisite, translucent eyes, Chen Piaopiao caught a glimpse of tiny helplessness, embarrassment, and vulnerability.

If truly loving someone begins with feeling heartache for them, then Chen Piaopiao thought that perhaps, from this moment on, she had truly confirmed that she was in love with Tao Jin.

Because even though she was at an age where she had nothing, having just crossed the threshold into adulthood, she was already thinking about the future.

She thought, if only I were a bit older, twenty-five? Thirty? I would protect Tao Jin well.

Even though the other person's circumstances were far superior to her own.

Chen Piaopiao thought for a moment, then asked, "Do you want to play a game?"

Hm? Tao Jin hadn't expected her to suddenly suggest this and was stunned.

Chen Piaopiao put on her slippers, took Tao Jin's hand, and led her into the bedroom. She tossed two cushions onto the rug by the bed, one for each of them. Then she pulled a deck of playing cards from a drawer, and they sat on the floor facing each other.

She leaned forward and deftly shuffled the cards with a rustle. Neither of them turned on the lights. The curtains were still parted as they had been in the afternoon, and moonlight seeped in through the gap.

Just this bit of moonlight was enough.

Tao Jin was afraid of the dark, but that was the sun-drenched Tao Jin. If she wanted to speak from the shadows, the night could instead become a safe house.

"What are we doing?" Tao Jin's eyelashes fluttered as she watched Chen Piaopiao, who had her head down, focused on her task.

Her curly hair was messy, and her straight bangs were parted to the sides, revealing a smooth forehead and defined brows. Tao Jin felt that the straight bangs were also a kind of disguise for her; if her eyebrows were fully revealed, her features looked much sharper, without the usual muted feeling from being hidden.

Slap. Chen Piaopiao placed the deck of cards face down between them.

The girl under the moonlight was luminous and cold. She maintained her usual gentle tone, "We'll draw cards, high versus low. Tell a secret. For each secret, take off one piece of clothing."

"When we're done, we'll do it."

A ripple went through Tao Jin's heart. She had never seen this side of Chen Piaopiao—assertive, direct, with a sharp, oppressive air that made goosebumps quickly spread across her back and her insides go numb.

She told a secret in her heart as an opening gambit—she liked this side of Chen Piaopiao.

"Why?" Tao Jin swallowed and asked softly.

Why play this game?

"Because I'm desperate to understand you," Chen Piaopiao looked back at her, her chest rising and falling, the light in her eyes flickering. "So desperate that I'm willing to trade things I've never told anyone."

She didn't want to see Tao Jin through a fog anymore. They both needed a chance to be honest with each other.

She licked her dry lips, reached out to draw a card, and laid it face up in front of her.

The two of spades.

Most likely a loss. Chen Piaopiao smiled.

Tao Jin reached out and flipped over a card. The eight of hearts.

Without a word, Chen Piaopiao tossed her jacket aside. Beneath her fair skin, her collarbones looked like a shallow river flowing across.

"My mom doesn't want me. My dad has never really cared about me. I grew up with my Grandma. I don't want to spend too much of my Grandma's money, so I'm… pretty poor."

She said in a low voice.

Tao Jin had actually guessed as much. Her brow furrowed, but an expression of heartache still uncontrollably filled her eyes. Chen Piaopiao didn't look at her and flipped another card. The three of spades.

Fuck. Chen Piaopiao laughed again.

Tao Jin let out a breath, tapped the deck with her index finger, and gently lifted a card. The four of diamonds.

Chen Piaopiao pulled her hair to the side of her neck, and her T-shirt was also placed by her feet.

Her exquisitely curved shoulders moved slightly, the moonlight pouring over them like dye.

She reached out and fiddled with the discarded T-shirt, then bent her legs to cover herself slightly. She took a breath as if smoking a cigarette, tilted her head back with a soft hiss, and then exhaled.

In a quiet tone, she said, "My mom remarried. She married a retired Vice Mayor. The Vice Mayor is also on his second marriage and had a daughter before, who's in the same grade as me. She said my mom was a mistress, and I was the mistress's daughter. 'Dragons beget dragons, phoenixes beget phoenixes, and the son of a mouse knows how to dig a hole'—what a mistress gives birth to is also a mistress."

"Actually, my mom isn't. She met the Vice Mayor after her divorce," Chen Piaopiao added nonchalantly.

She didn't explain back then. No one would have believed her.

The girl's mother's family was very rich, and she was very popular, a little princess in our class. Her hating Chen Piaopiao meant that a lot of people hated Chen Piaopiao.

Classmates who were close to the little princess made up jokes to mock Chen Piaopiao. Some guys with foul mouths took the chance to say Chen Piaopiao looked slutty just by looking at her. And some thugs from outside the school claimed they had slept with Chen Piaopiao.

"I told my mom that people were bullying me and I wanted to transfer schools. My mom told me to study hard and not to bother with pointless things. During the Lunar New Year at my Grandma's house, my mom was cooking in the kitchen with my aunt, and I heard her say, 'It's better not to get divorced if you can help it. It has a huge psychological impact on the child. Piaopiao's personality is just not good.'"

Her mother thought she was being bullied because of her withdrawn personality.

"Piaopiao." Tao Jin's voice was hoarse. She took her hand and gently squeezed her palm.

She didn't hug Chen Piaopiao. She knew that Chen Piaopiao wasn't saying these things for comfort; on the contrary, she was comforting herself, and she was yearning for Tao Jin. They didn't need physical closeness. This was meant to be a night for two souls to meet.

Tao Jin looked down, took the two of spades from in front of Chen Piaopiao, placed it on top of the deck, then flipped it over and laid it in front of herself. She looked into Chen Piaopiao's eyes. "The two of spades."

Chen Piaopiao's chest trembled slightly. She met her gaze for three or four seconds before blinking, hesitantly reaching for a card, and turning it over. "The jack of hearts."

Tao Jin smiled. "You won."

She sniffled, also bent her legs, and hugged them. "I don't know what to say. You can ask me."

She was willing to open up about anything Chen Piaopiao wanted to know; it was just hard to start the conversation. This was the first time she hoped Chen Piaopiao would take the lead.

"Did you… do it with her?" Chen Piaopiao bit her lower lip, her voice as faint as a mosquito's buzz.

Tao Jin blinked, then lifted her eyelids and looked directly at Chen Piaopiao.

Understood.

It wasn't surprising, but after getting confirmation, Chen Piaopiao still found it hard to breathe.

There was a faint sound. She looked at the rug. Tao Jin had only been wearing a tank top, and now that was gone too.

"That question doesn't count, because I didn't answer," Tao Jin said gently. "You can ask another one."

"Was the reason you broke up related to this?"

Chen Piaopiao was also a very smart girl, and her ability to read people had been honed during her upbringing. So when she saw Tao Jin's evasive expression, she had already focused her thoughts on this area. Therefore, she completely understood why Tao Jin found it difficult to speak and was willing to patiently bare her own soul first.

In the darkness, she saw a secret of Tao Jin's, like the flame of a candle, that had never been shown to anyone before.

"Mhm."

Tao Jin nodded. The skin of her neck dimpled, and the elegant tendons stood out.

After a pause, she said, "The other day, you asked me what I like about you. I actually only told you half of it."

She and Chen Piaopiao were both people who lived wearing masks; perhaps many people were. Chen Piaopiao's masks were for the internet, the dorm, and the classroom, but she was herself in front of her closest family. Tao Jin was the opposite.

"You're very cute, very interesting, and have many sides. You seem to be pretending, but pretending is also a kind of freedom in a sense."

Not everyone can freely release and enjoy every one of their states. Most people are like Rubik's Cubes, corrected, disciplined, and trained until every face is a neat, uniform color. But Chen Piaopiao's Rubik's Cube was scrambled. Its surface had all sorts of colors, jumbled and chaotic, and she had no intention of fixing it.

"This is one of the reasons you attract me."

"The second point," Tao Jin smiled slightly, "I don't know if you remember, but when you liked me and were trying to get close to me, you used your forum ID to secretly post a status on your personal page."

"I really want to sleep with her."

This sentence was whispered, sinking into the vast ocean of the deep night. With a flick of a whale's tail, the waves surged in.

"I like it. I like it when the person I like desires me." Tao Jin pressed her lips together. In her frank and clear eyes were tiny sparks, like burning straw, releasing desires that fell like drifting ash.

Chen Piaopiao's heart let out a groan, as if an invisible hand had reached in and grabbed it.

It started to pound—thump, thump, thump.

The flower under the moon in everyone's eyes was sitting on the rug, talking to her with naked honesty about desire.

This scene alone was enough to make one's head spin.

"So…" Chen Piaopiao's voice was hoarse as her gaze enveloped her.

"Actually, when we were together, she wasn't as bad as Xiao Ma said. Aside from being a bit self-centered, I felt at the time that it wasn't an irreconcilable problem. Especially since it was my first relationship, I really hoped for a good outcome."

Tao Jin raised her hand, resting her arm on the edge of the bed, her slender fingers tracing the pattern on the pillow. "The reason I felt I should end the relationship was that I discovered she didn't truly like me."

A blush spread across Tao Jin's neck. Her voice was as light as a sliver of moonlight, and that moonlight seemed to wander back and forth in her heart, coaxing out her true feelings.

"She was interested in my gentleness, but not in my body."

She liked that Tao Jin was beautiful, that Tao Jin was popular, that Tao Jin had superior circumstances, and that Tao Jin was good to her.

She could enjoy the pleasure of being the receptive partner, but when Tao Jin hooked her hand, she was very reluctant.

In an intimate relationship, it's all too easy to perceive whether the other person genuinely appreciates the parts of your body and soul that are stripped bare.

"She also didn't really respect my desires, as a woman myself."

She wasn't that enthusiastic, not that eager. When she touched Tao Jin, she didn't like her to moan out loud. And after getting it over with, she would go wash her hands with no emotional fluctuation.

It seemed she loved a girl's glamorous exterior but had not truly accepted the moments when a girl is vulnerable and dependent.

She had never even looked closely at Tao Jin's body. Once, when Tao Jin was helplessly pleasuring herself, she turned over and said—Aren't you done yet? I want to sleep.

The tolerance in her eyes at that moment told Tao Jin clearly that she believed the snow of the Tianshan Mountains—pursued and watched by all—should not have such secret thoughts.

In that moment, Tao Jin awoke from her infatuation. The next day, she calmly said, "Let's break up."

The whale dived into the depths of the sea, carrying a deep, lonely call that no one could hear.

Tao Jin looked at Chen Piaopiao. She had participated wholeheartedly in the game Chen Piaopiao had proposed; she had "taken off her clothes" from the inside out.

She was very unused to it and trembled a little. Even though the window wasn't open, she felt a breeze on her back.

She didn't know if this kind of openness was the result Chen Piaopiao wanted. For the first time, Tao Jin didn't use tactful phrasing, but bluntly scooped out the shadows from her depths for Chen Piaopiao. "I like you a lot. And, in the process of being pursued by you, I feel very comfortable."

"When you use your so-called schemes on me."

"When you try every possible way to get me."

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