My Idol Turns Out To Be My Ex-Girlfriend - Chapter 58

Her body acted with such natural familiarity that it didn’t even wait for its owner’s permission. She had walked into the study without feeling like she was being impolite at all.

Inside, there was a high-end desktop computer equipped with a mechanical keyboard and a professional drawing tablet, all top-of-the-line gear. It was on an entirely different level than the beat-up laptop Lin Sanyuan currently used. On the desk and cabinets surrounding the computer, several anime posters and character figurines were displayed.

It didn’t look like Tang Hengzhi’s style at all.

Oh, and then there was “Playing Dead,” the dog that had lunged at her the moment she entered the house and had been shadowing her every step since. It turned out the dog actually belonged to Tang Hengzhi. No wonder that first time at He Wenyu’s place, the dog had looked at her like a lonely foster child finally seeing its parent return.

How strange and eerie.

Even having experienced it firsthand, Sanyuan felt a sense of surreal absurdity. She couldn’t imagine herself living in this villa, and she understood even less how she could feel so relaxed and natural in someone else’s home. She had always been someone with a strong sense of social boundaries. Usually, she kept a respectful distance from things that highlighted a massive wealth gap because they made her feel stiff and uncomfortable.

What on earth had Tang Hengzhi fed her back then? How could she feel this comfortable and at ease here even with amnesia? She, who considered a sense of personal territory a survival rule, had somehow turned this place into her comfort zone. With no memories, relying entirely on physical instinct, her body didn’t feel like a guest here at all.

The feeling was… beyond creepy.

“Um… I called you this morning. He Wenyu picked up. She said you weren’t feeling well and that she had an emergency, so she asked me to come help. That’s why…”

Tang Hengzhi pulled out her phone and checked the call log. 4:30 AM. That was exactly when she had left the airport and got into He Wenyu’s car.

Her voice remained soft. “Why did you call me so early?”

She paused, then looked up at Sanyuan, frowning. “Did Editor Chen contact you?”

Do these manga editors have no sense of boundaries? Contacting an author regardless of the time, are they not afraid of disturbing people? Tang Hengzhi didn’t seem to reflect at all on the fact that she herself had replied to a work message at four in the morning.

Seeing her expression, Sanyuan knew exactly what she was annoyed about. She waved her hands quickly. “In our group, authors and editors chat all day and night. Everyone is a night owl, so private messages aren’t really a taboo. It was about the character illustrations. There was a mix-up on Editor Chen’s end, and she felt quite embarrassed and regretful, so she reached out to explain things to me.”

Regretful? Explaining?

Tang Hengzhi’s brow furrowed deeper. “Did she lecture you?”

Well…

“Not really…” Sanyuan didn’t know what to say. She could sense Tang Hengzhi was getting angry, but this kind of anger was… strangely touching.

Tang Hengzhi’s gaze fixed on her face. “She explained it to you, so you called me?”

Perhaps that was a trigger, but Tang Hengzhi didn’t believe that was enough to give Sanyuan the courage to call her at 4:00 AM. Sanyuan seemed to be avoiding the question. Instead of answering, she went to the kitchen and brought out a bowl of hot porridge, sweetened with melted brown sugar and whisked with egg ribbons.

“I made some porridge. Teacher Tang, why don’t you have something to eat?”

Tang Hengzhi leaned against the kitchen island, her movements reserved. She didn’t look at the hot porridge Sanyuan placed in front of her, despite the fact that her stomach was cramping painfully.

Sanyuan noticed the shift in her mood. After the topic of Editor Chen ended, Tang Hengzhi seemed to lose all interest in talking. Though she was usually aloof, Sanyuan now sensed a lukewarm distance between them. Tang Hengzhi’s silence made Sanyuan’s presence feel awkward, especially since she was an uninvited guest.

He Wenyu had sent her the location, but Tang Hengzhi was the master of this house. Sanyuan had intruded without permission, touched the food in the fridge, and used the kitchen tools. Looking back, she really lacked a sense of boundaries.

Sanyuan felt like a fool. Rushing to call her in the early morning, and then scurrying over here just because He Wenyu picked up. Was Tang Hengzhi really someone who lacked people to take care of her? She had a family doctor, lived in a luxury duplex, and clearly didn’t have to do her own cleaning. Hiring a nanny wouldn’t be hard.

He Ye was right: a proper ex should act like they’re dead. Her mindless intrusion into this home probably just stirred up bad memories. Sanyuan always defaulted to the worst-case scenario. Especially in front of people she cared about, even a slight coldness would trigger a spiral of self-doubt.

“Um… there are steamed shumai in the kitchen, and I made some meatball and winter melon soup. Teacher Tang, please remember to eat when you have an appetite. I won’t disturb you anymore.”

Tang Hengzhi, no matter how cold her mood, was someone who always responded. She looked up and said, “You’ve been here all morning, and I didn’t even know you arrived.”

“Huh?” Sanyuan didn’t catch her drift.

Tang Hengzhi’s long lashes lowered. Her face was so pale it was almost translucent, and her eyes, clouded by physiological tears from her illness, held a glimmer of exhaustion.

“I mean, you aren’t disturbing me.”

Was that a roundabout way of asking her to stay? Sanyuan couldn’t quite read her. Maybe it was because the house was so large, but the distance between them felt vast, and the atmosphere wasn’t great. Back during the New Year, they had played games together in the hotel. While they weren’t exactly intimate, they weren’t this estranged either.

But human hearts are complicated. Sanyuan knew her own emotions could run hot and cold. She couldn’t expect someone else to be perfectly considerate all the time, especially when that “someone else” was an ex.

Tang Hengzhi’s fingers curled against the counter. Her voice suddenly became very soft, almost a whisper. “Why are you wearing my clothes?”

The tone was light, but Sanyuan heard the underlying interrogation. Now she was certain: Tang Hengzhi was unhappy.

Going through someone’s closet and wearing their clothes without permission was indeed rude. Normally, Sanyuan would never do something so far beyond her own sense of boundaries. Even though there was a reason, she felt the sting of embarrassment, like a slap to the face.

“I’m sorry… I’ll wash them and return them to you. If you don’t like it, I can buy you a new set as compensation.”

Wash them? Compensate?

The irritation between Tang Hengzhi’s brows flared into agitation. “Why are you apologizing? I never said you couldn’t, and I never said I didn’t like it.”

Sanyuan was startled by the sudden outburst. “Outburst” might be an exaggeration, but Tang Hengzhi was usually so stable that even a small, uncontainable ripple of emotion seemed massive. To Sanyuan, however, this cryptic way of speaking felt like Tang Hengzhi was just being difficult for no reason. And when people were difficult with her, Sanyuan became very hard to communicate with.

She took a deep breath and met Tang Hengzhi’s eyes. “You’re angry, so all I can do is say I’m sorry.”

Sanyuan’s brand of “lukewarm” was different from Tang Hengzhi’s; it was more nonsensical, the kind that could frustrate someone to death with a single sentence. Tang Hengzhi bit her lip, her eyes suddenly going hollow. She was speechless.

Sanyuan’s temper flared quickly, but it settled quickly too. She chalked up all of Tang Hengzhi’s weirdness to her being sick. When the body is uncomfortable, it’s hard to control one’s temper. She also realized she had been a bit sharp herself; that feeling of being covered in thorns during a conversation was unpleasant.

She took a few more deep breaths, walked back into the kitchen, and familiarly pulled a sterilized plate from the cabinet. She plated three shumai and half a sweet potato, then brought them back to the island.

“It started pouring on my way here this morning. It was heavy. I took a shower at your place, and He Wenyu said I couldn’t wear soaked clothes, so she told me to find something new in your closet. If you feel I’ve offended you…”

“You didn’t offend me,” Tang Hengzhi interrupted. Her gaze was steady, but there was an uncontrollable sadness in her eyes. “How could I feel offended…?”

What a distant word to use.

Sanyuan’s heart twinged at that look, and her chest felt tight. “Then what is all this? Did I do something to upset you?”

Tang Hengzhi lowered her head, rubbing the base of her thumb. She said softly, “Why would you think to wear the clothes of someone you aren’t ‘close’ to?”

The question hit Sanyuan so hard her mind went blank. Her eyes glazed over. She suddenly thought Tang Hengzhi was being quite thick-skinned, and a wave of “abandoned child” resentment surged within her. When she started venting, she lost her filter.

“Do you have a conscience saying that? Even if we’re broken up, you still slept with me for three years, didn’t you? And now you’re saying… we aren’t close?”

If she hadn’t learned from Tang Hengzhi herself that they had shared a bed for three years, who would have dared to wear her clothes? What, did she have a germophobia or something? Was the clothing off-limits? Sanyuan wasn’t some kind of “messy” person, okay?

This was too much! That morning, Tang Hengzhi had even put on Sanyuan’s underwear by mistake, and Sanyuan had put it back on without even washing it. She hadn’t shown a hint of disgust then!

Now Sanyuan was truly angry. She raised her arms with grit, ready to strip the clothes off and hurl them onto the floor right then and there.

Tang Hengzhi was stunned by the reaction. “Didn’t you tell Editor Chen that you weren’t close to me, and that it wasn’t right to disturb me to rush the drafts?”

Sanyuan stopped mid-strip. “When did I ever say that?”

Tang Hengzhi: “…”

Sanyuan’s brain stuttered. “Wait… I think I actually did say that”

Back then, Editor Chen had been so persistent that Sanyuan had used “we aren’t close” just as a perfunctory excuse. But now, she had no defense. Because at that time, she really hadn’t intended to reach out to Tang Hengzhi to rush the work.

So… did she need to apologize? Because she hadn’t proactively reached out to her?

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