She Adopted Me After My Biological Mother Passed Away - Chapter 23.3

The grandmother stared at her blankly, then looked down at her own hands covered in age spots, as if waking from a long dream. Her tone was bewildered: “How did I end up like this? Am I sick? My mind is so muddled… Where is Xiao Yu? Where did your mother go?”

She seemed to be trying hard to piece together the chaotic fragments of memory in her mind. Past events from different years were jumbled together. She couldn’t wait for Shi Shuxue’s reply, she read the answer in the silence and in Shi Shuxue’s reddened eyes.

Without asking further, the old woman reached out her wrinkled hand, tremblingly stroking Shi Shuxue’s hair. Tears slid down the creases at the corners of her eyes as she sighed, “You’ve grown up.”

Shi Shuxue gazed at her in a daze, feeling the rough and warm touch of her grandmother’s palm. It felt as if she had traveled through those long, muddled years, landing accurately on her once again after all this time.

In the middle of the night, Shi Shuxue put on a long down jacket and went outside. She saw Chi Yeyu alone in the yard building a snowman. Snow had settled on her hat and shoulders. The thing she was building was hideously ugly, and she herself looked more like a snowman than the creation was.

“Why aren’t you sleeping?” Shi Shuxue asked.

Chi Yeyu patted the snowman’s head firm, her snow-dusted black gloves making a soft thump sound. “Work pressure is high at the end of the year. I’m letting off some steam.”

The light was dim. Shi Shuxue turned on a flashlight and aimed it at Chi Yeyu’s red nose. “Your nose is about to freeze off.”

Blinded by the light, Chi Yeyu grabbed the flashlight and shone it back at the girl’s porcelain-like face. With her sharp chin and skin as delicate as cold jade, she looked like a white porcelain doll.

“Then why aren’t you sleeping?” Chi Yeyu asked with a laugh, the clouds of white mist from her breath hitting the girl’s face.

Shi Shuxue stepped back to avoid it, her hands half-tucked into her sleeves. “I thought you were too noisy.”

“That’s a false accusation! I’m not a monkey entertaining itself; how am I noisy?”

Chi Yeyu grabbed her hand and tucked it into her own warm glove. Both of them shared one glove with their hands pressed together. Shi Shuxue felt a searing heat.

“Your hands are so cold. Go back inside,” Chi Yeyu urged.

Shi Shuxue’s other hand actively squeezed into Chi Yeyu’s right glove, and she said muffledly, “It’s not cold anymore.”

Hand in hand with her, Chi Yeyu curled the corner of her mouth helplessly and said, “We can’t stay like this forever.”

“Just for a little while.” Shi Shuxue lowered her head and suddenly started a conversation: “Grandmother called my name today during the day.”

“Grandmother? That’s good. She’ll get better and better,” Chi Yeyu said.

“She doesn’t know Shi Xianyu is dead, I didn’t tell her. Because I know she won’t stay lucid for long before getting muddled again. Her memory loops back and forth between the time Shi Xianyu was in high school and when she just started university. Sometimes she asks things I don’t know. I’m not the real Shi Xianyu. Actually, I don’t want her to keep treating me as Shi Xianyu, but sometimes I think it’s fine. At least she won’t ask me where Shi Xianyu went or how she died.”

Shi Shuxue spoke a long passage to herself. Chi Yeyu interlaced their fingers in comfort, listening quietly while looking up at the gray-black snowy night sky.

When Shi Shuxue fell completely silent, she finally said, “Then just keep hiding it. It’s better for both of you.”

“Chi Yeyu, you wouldn’t mistake me for Shi Xianyu, would you?” Shi Shuxue asked.

Chi Yeyu smiled. “How could I?”

Shi Shuxue asked again, “Then, did you ever like Shi Xianyu?”

Chi Yeyu’s eyes widened, as if she hadn’t expected such a question. Her shimmering light-colored eyes were filled with shock. “How could I!”

Shi Shuxue said, “I thought you liked her. Otherwise, I can’t imagine how big of a debt of gratitude you owed her to be this good to me.”

“…”

Chi Yeyu thought about the contents of the parenting manual. Children in their adolescence find it very hard to listen to adults. She had to carefully organize her words.

“Is it possible… that I’m good to you because I just like you personally? I’ve never had those kinds of feelings for Shi Xianyu.”

Furthermore, with Shi Xianyu as a negative example, Chi Yeyu had already developed a resistance to “internal digestion” among band members.

Firmly against workplace romance within the band!

“You like me personally?” Shi Shuxue asked, looking up, her small face cold and expressionless. From this angle, Chi Yeyu could see her high bridge and the sharp tip of her nose. The falling snow melted into water, leaving her skin glistening.

Chi Yeyu took off her gloves and gave them to her, then pulled the girl into a big hug and ruffled her hair, grinning. “Yeah, that’s why I especially like you and want to be especially good to you.”

Shi Shuxue’s heart thudded wildly. Hearing Chi Yeyu say this, she felt she was truly done for.

Her face flushed crimson, and she simply buried her face in Chi Yeyu’s embrace to hide her reaction. When Chi Yeyu let go, the heat in her cheeks still hadn’t faded. As soon as she found her footing, she resolutely turned away and slammed her face into the snowman Chi Yeyu had built.

the somewhat loose snow pile collapsed instantly, snowflakes splashing everywhere, covering her head and face and even frosting the hair at her temples. Her shoulders hunched, as if caught off guard by the cold; her nose was buried in the snowman’s head, and she couldn’t even let out a full muffled groan.

Chi Yeyu stood there dumbfounded. She rushed forward to pull the girl out of the snow, brushing the snow off her hair and rubbing her cheeks. “What are you doing?!”