I Woke Up And My Girlfriend Was Gone - Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Shen Qingzi and Zhou Lin first settled Sun Yuqing into a guest room. After Zhou Lin returned to her own room to rest, Shen Qingzi pushed open the door to the room where Zuo Yin had been placed.

The room was filled with the faint, lingering scent of alcohol. Zuo Yin lay on her side on the bed, still wrapped in that small blanket. Her breathing was shallow and even, but her brow was slightly furrowed, as if she were trapped in a dream that wasn’t particularly pleasant.

Shen Qingzi walked to the bedside and looked down at the girl. Under the dim wall lamp, Zuo Yin’s cold, sharp features seemed to have softened significantly. Her thin lips were slightly parted, and a few strands of messy short hair clung to her forehead, damp with a light sweat.

“You really can’t drink at all, can you?” Shen Qingzi whispered, her voice like a sigh.

She reached out and gently brushed the hair away from Zuo Yin’s forehead. Her fingertips accidentally brushed against the girl’s skin, which was still radiating a feverish heat from the alcohol.

Suddenly, Zuo Yin’s hand moved. As if seeking a source of coolness, she instinctively reached out and grabbed Shen Qingzi’s wrist.

Shen Qingzi froze.

Zuo Yin didn’t wake up. She simply held onto that wrist tightly, pulling it toward herself until she could press her hot cheek against Shen Qingzi’s cool palm. A small, satisfied mumble escaped her lips, sounding like a kitten finding its way home.

Shen Qingzi’s heart skipped a beat. The skin where they touched felt like it was being scorched by a slow fire. She tried to pull her hand back, but Zuo Yin held on with surprising strength, her fingers curling around Shen Qingzi’s wrist like a drowning person clutching a liferaft.

“Don’t go…” Zuo Yin murmured in her sleep, her voice hoarse and laced with a vulnerability she would never show while awake.

Shen Qingzi’s gaze softened. The “lone wolf” image Zuo Yin projected to the world had completely shattered in this moment, leaving behind only a lonely, insecure nineteen-year-old girl.

Shen Qingzi sat on the edge of the bed and allowed her hand to remain as Zuo Yin’s “pillow.” She used her other hand to gently pat the girl’s shoulder through the blanket, a rhythmic, soothing motion.

“I’m not going,” Shen Qingzi replied softly, though she knew the girl couldn’t hear her. “I’m right here.”

Slowly, Zuo Yin’s furrowed brow smoothed out. Her grip on Shen Qingzi’s wrist relaxed slightly, but she didn’t let go.

In the quiet of the night, with the moonlight spilling across the floor and the sound of the lake lapping at the shore outside, the two of them remained in that silent, tethered embrace. Shen Qingzi looked at the half-butterfly tattoo on her own finger, then at the girl who had once touched her soul in the darkness of a bar.

Destiny was a strange thing. It had pulled them apart, only to weave them back together in a way neither of them could have anticipated.