After Becoming a Spare Tire, I Got Together with My White Moonlight - Chapter 16.2

Jiang Xuehe stood a short distance behind her, watching. She clearly noticed Yan Guiqiu’s hand tremble slightly, and the handwriting that followed became noticeably messier.

It was the kind of remark that could easily have been brushed off as a “joke,” but neither of them thought to say so.

Jiang Xuehe touched her ear and shifted her gaze to the people coming and going at the elevator entrance across the way.

Yan Guiqiu signed the complaint letter with “A Customer of [Store Name] on [Date],” folded the paper in half, and stuffed it into the suggestion box nearby. She turned around and cleared her throat lightly. “Let’s go.”

Jiang Xuehe hummed in agreement.

After exchanging their tickets at the cinema entrance, the two still had about ten minutes before the movie started, so they found an empty seat in the lobby and sat down.

Since it was a weekday, the cinema wasn’t particularly crowded. At a glance, it seemed rather quiet, though the sound from the promotional clips on the wall was all the clearer. As they watched the trailers across the room, they chatted intermittently, and the atmosphere gradually eased.

After two grand, sweeping scenes from a sci-fi film, one of snow-capped mountains and the other of molten lava, the screen shifted to a serene, rustic mountain path.

“Is this the one we’re watching?” Jiang Xuehe recognized it.

“Huh? Is it?” Yan Guiqiu had to pull out the tickets to double-check. “Oh, I think it is.”

When selecting the movie, she had simply picked one based on ratings. After all, her real interest lay elsewhere. Once Jiang Xuehe agreed to the date, she had promptly forgotten minor details like the film’s title, only vaguely recalling it was a romantic drama. Normally, she wasn’t particularly interested in such films, but this one had the advantage of a short runtime and visually appealing promotional posters.

As for the movie’s plot, she only grasped the general idea after seeing the trailer in the cinema.

It was a romantic comedy set in a small mountain village.

The male lead travels to a remote village to conduct research for his graduation thesis, while the female lead is dragged along by a friend to attend a distant relative’s wedding in the same village. At the wedding banquet, they lock eyes across several tables, feeling an instant connection, yet neither musters the courage to approach the other.

Assuming it was just a fleeting encounter, they prepare to leave, only to be stranded by a sudden thunderstorm that triggers a mudslide, blocking the mountain road. Forced to extend their stay, they end up sharing the same roof by chance, leading to a series of amusing mishaps. Gradually, feelings begin to blossom between them.

The trailer ended on a cliffhanger: after the rain clears, the female lead boards a bus with her friend and returns to the city ahead of the male lead.

Jiang Xuehe watched intently. “It looks quite interesting.”

Yan Guiqiu remained largely indifferent but was content as long as Jiang Xuehe enjoyed it.

“Do you like watching movies, Xuehe-jie?” Yan Guiqiu asked.

“I rarely went to the cinema before,” Jiang Xuehe replied. “Sometimes, sitting alone in a theater feels a bit lonely.”

All around, there were either groups of girlfriends or young couples, always in pairs or clusters. Even if she didn’t feel anything was wrong herself, the contrast made her seem a bit lonely.

“If you ever want to watch a movie in the future, I can come with you,” Yan Guiqiu said.

Jiang Xuehe glanced at her, smiled, and replied, “Okay.”

Not long after, the announcement called for ticket checks. The two took their tickets and entered the theater at the end of the hall. The small screening room gradually filled about halfway.

Yan Guiqiu had initially thought the hour and a half would drag on, but once the movie started, she ended up watching it attentively from beginning to end.

The personalities of the male and female leads were quite likable, and their characterizations fit well with their age group energetic but not overly rowdy.

In the middle and later parts of the film, both the male and female leads confessed their feelings to each other once, but by a twist of fate, neither heard the other’s confession. Once, during a thunderstorm, the female lead’s words were drowned out by the thunder; another time, after the rain, while helping the homeowner repair a wooden fence, the male lead got a face full of a chicken that flew down from the hillside.

It seemed like it might end in regret, but in the final scene, the male and female leads reunited in front of the school library. After embracing, they bickered playfully, one saying, “I liked you first,” the other insisting, “No, it was me”, as the screen faded to black.

The movie’s premise wasn’t particularly novel, but it excelled in its brisk pacing, tasteful aesthetics, and a plot full of twists and turns without resorting to melodrama. It was sprinkled with humor born from the leads’ quirky ideas and coincidental mishaps, exuding a fresh, youthful vibe fitting for people in their twenties from start to finish.

Yan Guiqiu even heard Jiang Xuehe laugh several times during the film.

After the movie, Jiang Xuehe was clearly in a good mood, chatting with Yan Guiqiu about the plot as they left the cinema.

The film had high ratings, though not perfect scores.

Where some loved it, others were bound to be dissatisfied.

As they took the elevator down, a young man behind them was venting into his phone.

“This movie is so damn fake, how can there be that many coincidences?”

“Thunderstorms, running into the wrong room, and the most ridiculous part is love at first sight actually being mutual!”

“It’s all about looks! They make it sound so damn noble!”

“I treated her so well, walking to and from class with her every day, saving her seats, buying her breakfast, why didn’t she ever notice my efforts? Instead, she kept hanging around that jerk, just because he’s a bit better-looking.”

“What true love? Besides his face, what does he have that I don’t.”

The young man’s voice cracked with tears as he spoke, clearly showing that this sweet, happy-ending film had hit a sore spot.

By the end, he was even cursing the classmate who had recommended the movie.

People around them pricked up their ears to catch the gossip, while those in front awkwardly stepped aside to let him pass first.

Yan Guiqiu noticed someone in the corner secretly raising their phone to record. She tugged at Jiang Xuehe’s sleeve, signaling her to move to the side.

They paused on the floor below for a moment and saw a large crowd following not too far behind the young man, all there for the drama and gossip.

It was hard to say which was worse: the heartbreak or this spectacle.

Even as they circled around and went further down, they could still hear people discussing the incident in a nearby milk tea shop.

Yan Guiqiu turned to Jiang Xuehe and suddenly asked, “Xuehe-jie, do you believe it?”

Jiang Xuehe asked, “Believe what?”

Yan Guiqiu said, “Love at first sight, then mutual affection.”

Jiang Xuehe paused noticeably, then looked at her and said, “I believe that.”

Yan Guiqiu’s next words almost slipped out: “Then do you believe me?”

Author’s Note:

Next chapter will be the VIP release~ A 10,000-word update will be dropped on Thursday. I hope everyone can show their support~ Mwah mwah mwah.

And as usual, promoting my upcoming novel~ If you’re interested, you can click into the author’s page to bookmark it~ (If possible, I’d also appreciate a follow for the author’s collection qvq. This is quite important for the author, so thank you all in advance, mwah mwah mwah.)

Title: “The Self-Cultivation of a Stand-In [Transmigrated into a Book]”

Synopsis:

Hua Luoyue woke up to find a marriage contract in front of her.

The woman across from her looked at her with an infatuated expression.

Hua Luoyue twitched her stiff lips, but the woman’s face darkened as she pressed Hua Luoyue’s lips back down.

The woman said: Don’t smile like that. It doesn’t look like her anymore.

Hua Luoyue: …

Glancing at the familiar signatures on the marriage contract Yu Zhezhi, Hua Luoyue.

Oh dear, she had transmigrated.

In the book, “Hua Luoyue” was a pitiful stand-in. Born into poverty, she was fortunate enough to have a face similar to the white moonlight of the Yu family’s young lady. So, when she was drowning in debt with no way out, she signed a contractual marriage with Yu Zhezhi, obediently playing the role of a stand-in so the young lady could look at her and remember her lost love.

The contract was for five years, but “Hua Luoyue” ended up falling in love during that time. After the white moonlight returned, she kept causing trouble and was eventually eliminated as cannon fodder.

The transmigrated Hua Luoyue looked at the marriage contract in the middle and the half-cleared IOU next to it, then pulled down the corners of her lips.

So, it’s just a few years as a stand-in.

Actually, she’s really good at acting.

A fresh, innocent, kind, gentle, shy, and introverted white moonlight No. 2 was freshly produced. She acted for five years, acting so well that even Yu Zhezhi believed it.

On the day the contract ended, Yu Zhezhi hesitated.

Hua Luoyue, dressed in casual clothes and carrying a backpack, got out of the car. She turned back and gave President Yu a bold smile, hooked her neck, and planted a heavy kiss on the corner of her lips.

“A freebie, thanks for your patronage.” Hua Luoyue waved her hand casually and turned away. “Wishing you happiness, President Yu.”

In the countless sleepless nights that followed, Yu Zhezhi finally realized one thing.

Without Hua Luoyue, she could never be happy.

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