After Letting Go, I Ended Up Happily Ever After With My White Moonlight - Chapter 2

Jiang Yu stared blankly at the chat history on her phone.

Qi Yin had already left for a while. Cheng Yao took over the task of settling the dogs and looked at Jiang Yu, who was standing there like a wooden sculpture.

“Sigh, Little Fish, are you out of your mind?” Cheng Yao pulled a stool over from the side, sat down, and snatched the phone out of Jiang Yu’s hand. “What are you looking at so intently? Let me see.”

Oh.

It was her chat interface with Qi Yin.

However, it was truly monotonous, consisting of nothing more than a payment record and a group chat creation notice.

Cheng Yao casually shoved the phone back and said, “Little Fish, are you even trying? That’s not how you pursue someone. You need to start a conversation!”

Jiang Yu turned her head mechanically toward Cheng Yao, giving her the creeps. Just as Cheng Yao was about to speak, Jiang Yu randomly dropped a sentence out of nowhere.

“Don’t call me Little Fish anymore.”

“If I don’t call you Little Fish, what should I call you?” Cheng Yao asked, puzzled. “Ah, that’s not the point! She actually left her dog with you. What is this? This is an opportunity! You have to seize it! Oh right, what is your senior’s dog named?”

At the mention of Qi Yin’s dog, Jiang Yu’s face darkened again. She stuffed the phone from the counter back into her pocket and walked over to the Border Collie that had been settled in.

Mechanically, she grabbed a bowl, put some snacks inside, opened the Collie’s little door, squatted down, and placed it inside.

“Eat up… Little Fish.”

Cheng Yao: “………”

Ah, she understood now.

Ignoring the rampant laughter coming from behind her, Jiang Yu turned her head to look at the Ragdoll cat locked up right beside Little Fish.

While portioning out the snacks for Little Fish, Jiang Yu had noticed this annoying Ragdoll cat once again.

For no other reason than that the Ragdoll cat kept chattering away, repeating the exact same phrase over and over:

Give me some.

“Snowball, can you please quiet down? Look at Little Fish; ever since it arrived, it hasn’t made a single sound,” Jiang Yu said helplessly.

Snowball froze for two seconds, then stared wide-eyed at Jiang Yu.

Although it had been howling away in its mind the whole time, it hadn’t actually meowed out loud. Yet this human’s words were clearly directed right at it.

It probed cautiously: “Have I seen a ghost?”

Jiang Yu rolled her eyes: “If you really saw a ghost, would you still be here?”

As soon as her voice trailed off, it startled Snowball so badly that it fell right onto its bottom.

“You can hear me…”

Jiang Yu ignored it.

She looked at Little Fish and built up her mental resolve.

To be honest, calling a dog by her own nickname wasn’t something she was very comfortable with, nor did she find it particularly amusing.

“Little Fish… why don’t you say a word? Being too silent or talking too much are both bad.”

Little Fish was just as taciturn as its owner, completely ignoring Jiang Yu. Snowball, on the other hand, stubbornly kept broadcasting even though it had just been low-key insulted.

“I know you can hear my voice. Since you can hear me, can I strike a bargain with you?”

Jiang Yu coldly refused: “No.”

Undeterred, Snowball insisted, “Do you have any situational awareness at all? Can you move me to another room? Looking at a dog right next to me makes me uncomfortable. Don’t you know cats and dogs are natural enemies?”

Jiang Yu hadn’t actually considered that angle. Separated by a glass pane, what could a dog or a cat possibly do to each other?

However, giving it a bit more thought, Little Fish might also clash with it. After all, it was a dog raised by Qi Yin, so she should probably take a few extra factors into consideration.

Ultimately, though, she didn’t carry out the idea. Jiang Yu glanced at Snowball, who was looking at her with expectant eyes: “Just rest up. In a few days, you’ll be out of here. I couldn’t care less whether you’re next to a cat or a dog.”

For some reason, those words must have struck a nerve with Snowball, because it immediately stopped talking to her.

Jiang Yu didn’t mind at all; she was quite happy for the peace and quiet. She turned back around to fish for information from Little Fish.

“Little Fish, do you know what Qi Yin has been so busy with lately?”

As the saying goes, those who eat others’ food are soft-mouthed, and those who take others’ things are short-handed. Little Fish would have loved to tell her what Qi Yin was busy with, but unfortunately, it really had no idea.

Having no other choice, Jiang Yu straightened Little Fish’s food bowl and went back to find Cheng Yao.

Emerging from the back room, Jiang Yu found Cheng Yao curled up on the sofa and tapped her on the shoulder.

Cheng Yao was tapping away furiously at a game of Piano Tiles. Startled by the tap, she gave a violent shudder, her finger slipped, and the game-over screen popped up on her phone.

With mild annoyance, she turned off the screen.

“You walk without making a sound! You scared the life out of me.”

Jiang Yu bent Cheng Yao’s head, which had tilted forty-five degrees, back into place, used her thumb to gesture backward over her shoulder, and motioned for Cheng Yao to give up her seat: “It’s snowing today, so going outside is out of the question. Why don’t you take them upstairs to run around a bit?”

Refusing to budge, Cheng Yao pointed at herself and asked, “Me again?!!!”

“I’ll take the night shift.”

Cheng Yao had originally wanted to refuse, and the word “No” was already on the tip of her tongue. But upon hearing Jiang Yu’s offer, she turned around, flashed a smile, and changed the second half of her sentence to, “Deal.”

The two swapped places. Jiang Yu collapsed onto the sofa and instructed, “Remember to post photos in the client group… Oh, and take extra pictures of Little Fish.”

Cheng Yao had already walked out of the room when she suddenly seemed to remember something. She turned back and asked, “Hey, Fishy, I’m super curious about one thing: why is Qi Yin’s dog named Little Fish? What’s going on between the two of you?”

Staring at Cheng Yao’s wretchedly teasing smile, Jiang Yu raised a foot and kicked her right in the backside. “Get lost with that ‘Fishy’ business! Stop prying into things you shouldn’t. How would I even know why?”

How could she possibly know? She was still baffled herself.

“Alright, alright, I won’t pry. But hey, weren’t you the one who told me not to call you Little Fish?” Cheng Yao bolted like lightning the moment Jiang Yu’s second kick came flying. Before making her escape, she left her final words: “Oh, we made some money today. Don’t ride that piece-of-junk bicycle to the snack street to buy food; just order delivery.”

Jiang Yu glared sourly at the spot where Cheng Yao had disappeared, then reluctantly fished out her phone to open the delivery app.

Even if Cheng Yao hadn’t said anything, she wouldn’t be riding that broken bicycle out for a leisurely spin anytime soon.

The scene of being plowed into by a car was still fresh in her mind; Jiang Yu genuinely felt a bit spooked about riding a bike on the road.

To give the dogs and cats plenty of room to roam, Jiang Yu had purposely chosen a rather remote location for her shop, which also helped prevent any noise complaints from neighbors.

Consequently, public transit wasn’t exactly top-tier out here, and deliveries took a while to arrive.

By the time Cheng Yao finished rounding up and locking the small animals back into their enclosures, Jiang Yu was walking into the room carrying the takeout.

With a keen eye, Cheng Yao unfolded the small folding table standing off to the side.

“Done? Oh, grab two stools,” Jiang Yu remarked casually, tossing the takeout onto the table and pulling up the stool Cheng Yao had brought over.

“Yep. What did you get?” Cheng Yao asked curiously.

“See for yourself.” Jiang Yu fished a bottle of cola out of the bag and poured herself a glass.

Lowering her head to look, Cheng Yao pulled out a box of fried chicken. “Oho, looking good! We have the benevolent sponsor Lord Qi to thank for these golden coins.”

With that, Cheng Yao glanced at the cola in Jiang Yu’s hand for a couple of seconds. “You’re substituting cola for alcohol? It’s not like you can’t drink, what are you pretending for?”

“I can drink, as long as it’s not my shift tonight,” Jiang Yu replied with a huff, pulling a golden-brown piece of fried chicken from the box and tearing off a bite to chew.

Mmm, crispy on the outside, tender on the inside.

“Ah, forgot about that detail.” Cheng Yao nodded, stood up, and rummaged through the cabinet for a leftover beer from last time. “Such a pity. Since you can’t drink, I guess I will.”

Jiang Yu chugged the rest of her cola in one go and rolled her eyes.

Just as Jiang Yu was venting her frustration by gnawing on the fried chicken piece by piece, her phone on the table rang at the most inopportune moment.

Ding,

Jiang Yu glanced over at it.

Ah, a WeChat message.

She was about to ignore it, but upon closer inspection,

It was from Qi Yin!

Swiftly, she grabbed a tissue to wipe her hands, swiped open her phone, and tapped into WeChat.

Yu: Is Little Fish adjusting well?

Jiang Yu froze for a second upon seeing the message, then remembered that Qi Yin wasn’t talking about her, and offered a self-deprecating, casual smile.

Then she rapidly tapped out a whole string of text in reply.

Aaa: Little Fish’s condition is great, you can rest assured. It didn’t leave a single bit of dinner, ate it all up, no signs of discomfort, and even had some indoor playtime this afternoon.

Only after hitting send did Jiang Yu snap back to reality and give her own head a sharp thwack.

Accursed occupational habit.

She bit her finger, her heart churning with turbulent emotions.

Won’t Qi Yin think I’m just brushing her off with perfunctory customer service?

I didn’t mean to brush her off.

Well, even if she thinks I’m brushing her off, it’s fine anyway. Since I’m not pursuing her anymore, maintaining this distance is probably for the best…

Before she could delve any deeper into her thoughts, however, a new message popped right up.

Yu: Are there any photos?

This message left Jiang Yu a bit puzzled. Abandoning all thoughts of whether she sounded perfunctory or not, she turned to look at Cheng Yao, who was still stuffing her face.

“Didn’t I tell you to take a few extra pictures of Little Fish? Did you forget?” Jiang Yu asked.

For a moment, Cheng Yao didn’t register what was happening. After freezing for two seconds, she felt deeply aggrieved.

“No way!” she protested. “This concerns whether you can get married or not, so I was fully cooperative! Look here, I snapped a bunch of them, ‘click click click’. Anyone with eyes can tell there’s favoritism going on.” With that, she opened the group chat, showed Jiang Yu the photos she had taken, and asked, “What’s wrong?”

Jiang Yu nodded, equally baffled: “Nothing, Qi Yin is asking me for pictures of Little Fish.”

“Didn’t she see the ones I took?”

“Um, probably not. She’s pretty busy; she might have turned on message mute and missed them.” Saying this, Jiang Yu saved a few of those photos of Little Fish from the group chat and sent them directly to Qi Yin.

Once the photos were sent, silence fell from the other end.

Well, of course, once she got the info on her dog, that was the end of it.

Just as Jiang Yu was about to put her phone down, she spotted yet another new message from Qi Yin.

Yu: Did you get into a car accident a couple of days ago?

Jiang Yu was taken aback.

How does she know?

Aaa: How do you know?

Yu: You posted it on your Moments.

Ah, right. She completely forgot.

Aaa: I just posted it randomly. It was really nothing, just a minor scrape.

She never expected that Qi Yin would actually check her Moments. For a moment, a bittersweet ache bloomed in her chest, and she didn’t quite know what to make of it.

Noticing her pitiful expression, Cheng Yao leaned over at some point, swept a glance across the phone screen, and looked rather surprised: “Hey, your goddess is caring about you! And you said there’s no progress.”

Jiang Yu shoved Cheng Yao away and uncomfortably muttered, “There really isn’t. She was just asking casually.”

Yu: Mm, watch your safety walking out at night in the snow.

Jiang Yu froze, and Cheng Yao froze too.

After a quiet moment, Cheng Yao let out a shriek: “! And you call this not caring??? What is wrong with you????”

This…

Jiang Yu didn’t know either.

She felt a little flattered and overwhelmed.

In her moment of stupor, Jiang Yu ran through a myriad of reasons in her head, ultimately concluding that Qi Yin was simply being kind enough to offer a reminder.

Tremblingly, she tapped at the keyboard.

Aaa: Thanks. I’m on night shift today, so I won’t be walking out at night.

Cheng Yao: “…”

The exact second Jiang Yu sent that message, Cheng Yao brought her hand down squarely on the back of Jiang Yu’s head.

“Ow, what the hell?”

Shooting Jiang Yu a look of utter exasperation, Cheng Yao looked like she wanted to hit her again: “Can you even hold a conversation? With skills like this, trying to pursue someone? I finally understand why you haven’t succeeded in four years.”

Jiang Yu: “?”

Looking at Jiang Yu’s dazed expression, Cheng Yao knew the girl still hadn’t caught on. She waved a hand dismissively: “Open your phone first, let me see if this is still salvageable.”

Though she had no idea what Cheng Yao wanted to salvage, Jiang Yu obediently unlocked her screen.

Yu: I see.

Cheng Yao: “………”

She threw her hands up in defeat: “Forget it, no need to rescue it. Your goddess doesn’t want to chat with you anymore. Replying with ‘I see’, see what? There’s literally no way to continue the conversation after that.”

Jiang Yu uttered an “oh.”

She had no clue what Qi Yin “saw” either, but since she wasn’t planning on pursuing her anymore, keeping things restrained was probably for the best anyway.

She tucked her phone back into her pocket, cleared off the table, and began shooing the other person away: “All right, time for you to go. Stop blabbering nonsense.”

Standing up, Cheng Yao let out a cold laugh.

“Serves you right for being single.”