A Time-Limited Romance with Movie Queen Ex - Chapter 11

“Senior Qingyao.”

Dew-like raindrops condensed on the library’s glass walls. The streetlights hung high in the distance as she tilted her head slightly, watching the rain fall like snow inside a crystal ball.

She saw Rong Qingyao’s jade-like face, flawless and cold, wearing a smile that hid an imperceptible loneliness in her eyes.

Hearing Luo Mijin call her that again, Rong Qingyao felt a wave of disorientation.

Luo Mijin would give her peppermint candies, but of course, she would also lend umbrellas and hand out band-aids to others.

She knew she should have just walked away, putting an end to this absurd encounter between them. Yet, against her better judgment, she found herself stepping closer to Luo Mijin, her voice icy as she spoke.

“Junior Luo, what a coincidence. I thought you didn’t see me.”

The moment the words left her lips, Rong Qingyao inwardly cringed. She sighed, covering her face in embarrassment. She was acting so unlike herself, it must be the exhaustion from job hunting and lab work lately.

Seeing Luo Mijin simply staring at her blankly, Rong Qingyao quickly composed herself, ready to bid a polite farewell. But then, Luo Mijin spoke in a serious tone.

“No, actually… I really wanted to talk to you, Senior Qingyao. But I was afraid of bothering you.” She paused, her large eyes glimmering faintly. “If you don’t find it troublesome… then that’s really great.”

“Mhm.” Rong Qingyao turned her head slightly, her voice soft and nasal. The raindrops clinging to her tear mole added a touch of cold allure.

“To be honest, I don’t really like talking to people. But my grandfather told me to be polite.” Luo Mijin tilted her head thoughtfully, her face hazy and beautiful in the misty rain. “He said I should be kind and helpful, so people would want to be friends with me.”

Her grandfather’s actual words were that people would only accept her if she acted that way. But Luo Mijin wanted to make herself sound a little better in front of Rong Qingyao.

Though she usually didn’t care about being misunderstood or disliked, she just wanted to seem… normal around her.

“You don’t like talking to people?” After the initial surprise and flutter in her chest, Rong Qingyao patiently picked out the key point in Luo Mijin’s words, subtly guiding the conversation.

“Yeah. It feels too noisy. So the friendliness earlier was just an act.”

Having navigated the whirlpools of human relationships for so long, Rong Qingyao had long mastered the art of reading people and maintaining just the right distance to get what she needed.

But this girl didn’t seem to need any deliberate coaxing, she laid everything out willingly.

It sent a faint, tingling warmth through Rong Qingyao, as if she were wrapped in a gentle stream of water.

“But you act very well. You could fool anyone.”

Almost as if she could sense the probing in Rong Qingyao’s words along with that innate wariness and insecurity, Luo Mijin obediently elaborated:

“But you’re different, Senior Qingyao. I really like talking to you.” Her eyes shone with the pure, unguarded light of a small animal.

When she spoke while being watched by Rong Qingyao, it made her feel  important.

“Senior, when I’m with you, I don’t have to pretend.” As she said this, she smiled bright, unreserved, and utterly guileless.

Rong Qingyao froze, her heartbeat stuttering. The rainy haze seemed to seep into her heart, blurring her thoughts.

She reminded herself over and over, she was only indulging Luo Mijin because the girl was obedient, answering whatever was asked without hiding or flattery.

That was all.

Many people filed out of the library, and Luo Mijin also felt she had revealed too much of herself tonight, as if crossing some invisible boundary.

“I’ll be going then.”

Perhaps due to exhaustion, Rong Qingyao unconsciously continued asking:

“Where are you going?”

“Just… back,” Luo Mijin replied vaguely, her words as disjointed as ever.

“Are you hungry?”

“Starving.”

Rong Qingyao couldn’t quite identify her current emotions. She didn’t want to return to the dorm, didn’t want to keep studying, didn’t want to face the endless income and expense calculations.

She needed to breathe.

So standing in the rain, she said to Luo Mijin: “Let’s go eat.”

The school cafeteria had long closed. As they exited the campus gates, they found nearly all shops closed except for a few smoky skewer stalls.

“Shall we get barbecue?” Luo Mijin’s voice brimmed with longing.

Surprised by the wealthy heiress suggesting street food, Rong Qingyao cautiously warned:

“The environment might not be great. Are you sure?”

“Mmm, I want to try it.”

This was Rong Qingyao’s first time eating barbecue on her own. She hesitated while reading the menu scrawled on the stall’s board.

Eventually choosing stir-fried pork with green peppers and a soda.

After counting the change in her backpack and checking her mobile payment balances, Luo Mijin only ordered a single grilled corn cob.

Rong Qingyao was surprised by Luo Mijin’s choice, but since the girl had always been eccentric, she didn’t pry.

They sat together in the farthest corner, instinctively distancing themselves from the growing noise of other customers.

Rong Qingyao sipped her soda slowly while Luo Mijin nibbled her corn like a little hamster.

“If you’re hungry, is this really enough?”

“Running low on funds,” Luo Mijin flashed a childish grin, explaining further: “Saved up for records, Legos, and concert tickets. This month’s budget is nearly gone.”

“This month?”

“I previously booked international flights that Grandpa discovered. Now my monthly allowance can’t exceed the price of that month’s airfare.”

“You’re not allowed to travel?”

“Nope. Grandpa forbids us from meeting.”

Rong Qingyao restrained herself from asking who exactly comprised this “us.”

“Here, have this fried rice. I’m not hungry.”

“Thanks.” Luo Mijin beamed. “Though fried chicken would be even better for my birthday.”

Clutching her soda can, Rong Qingyao noticed from the corner of her eye as Luo Mijin meticulously picked out every green pepper from the rice, piling them aside.

Caught in the act of picky eating, Luo Mijin admitted sheepishly:

“I hate peppers, but have to eat them at home. My tastes are weird, I dislike sugar but love fruit, especially fruit dishes like stewed pear soup.”

After their meal, they walked back along the roadside. When the rain intensified, they took shelter under a bluish-gray eave.

Luo Mijin didn’t try to define what she and Rong Qingyao were now.

She’d never been good at understanding human relationships anyway. Besides, her heart felt as free as snow drifting between pure white and pale blue.

It was an unprecedented happiness.

While waiting out the rain, Luo Mijin checked her phone. The notification tone echoed faintly, like mountain fruit dropping through rainfall.

Rong Qingyao saw the message from that fallen girl on Luo Mijin’s WeChat.

[Mijin, I’ve arrived at the dorm. Thank you. Could we have lunch together at the cafeteria tomorrow?]

“Senior Qingyao, I’ll transfer you the money for the fried rice tomorrow. I remember you added me on WeChat, right?” Luo Mijin put away her phone.

Somehow, Rong Qingyao’s previously good mood turned sour.

So Luo Mijin didn’t even remember whether they’d actually added each other on WeChat or perhaps she had too many friend requests daily to keep track.

Qingyao offered her habitual gentle smile, a perfectly measured rejection.

“No need.”

The woman’s tone was light, deliberate, carrying a composure beyond her years like morning mist in mountain forests, so faint it became inscrutable.

The drizzling rain grew heavier. Qingyao suddenly grabbed Mijin’s sleeve and pulled her closer.

The distance between them abruptly shrank. The world seemed to blur with moisture, breaths turning humid as the girl’s scent rose through their touching skin.

“Wh-what’s wrong?”

Qingyao rose on tiptoes, her snow-like fragrance enveloping Mijin, whose gaze involuntarily dropped to the woman’s glistening, flushed lips.

A sweet, decadent warmth permeated the space between them, spreading restless heat.

In this charged silence, Qingyao tilted her head slightly, biting her lower lip, the teardrop mole at her eye corner tinged red, wordless yearning made visible.

Those lips drew nearer, stopping just beside Mijin’s mouth.

“Luo Mijin,” she whispered, “next time we meet… buy me a soda.”

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