To Get Married - Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Lu Yudong’s last visit to Not Old Acquaintance was a relatively quiet evening.

But that was a normal night. New Year’s Eve was completely different.

To attract new and old customers for a New Year’s Eve countdown, the bar needed to put in some effort to prepare lively New Year’s events, complete with corresponding buy-one-get-one-free offers.

By evening, all the screens facing the inner stage were folded back. A small activity area was cleared beneath the stage, and the stage was no longer reserved for the resident singer alone—anyone could go up and perform a talent.

The bar’s regular customers were already mostly acquainted. With the small events running, they quickly became uninhibited.

Soon, people on stage were singing the latest popular songs, and the crowd below was drunkenly watching or cheering loudly.

This atmosphere, which began to warm up around nine o’clock, surged into a small frenzy after eleven-thirty.

The sounds of New Year’s fireworks and firecrackers outside grew louder. The staff wheeled out the pre-ordered five-tier countdown cake from the kitchen. Everyone pushed Mu Chensan to the cake, urged the boss to make the first cut, and then promptly shoved him aside.

The cake was free—anyone who purchased a drink could freely take a piece.

Manzhu, seizing the opportunity before the cake was ruined, quickly grabbed two slices and took Lu Yudong to a corner to eat.

Sure enough, no group gathering with a cake is complete without smashing the cake and smearing cream. In the minutes leading up to the New Year’s countdown, the bar’s customers and staff went completely wild.

Everyone, regardless of acquaintance, sobriety, or intoxication, joined the New Year’s frenzy.

The strangers’ exuberance startled Lu Yudong, who had never witnessed such a lively scene. By the time Manzhu managed to protect her and slip her back to the bar counter, she looked like a little kitten, covered in cream.

Yan Zhaomu, seeing the state they were in, handed them two packets of wet wipes.

“Why are you here alone?” Manzhu asked Yan Zhaomu while wiping cream from Lu Yudong’s hair and face. “There aren’t any customers ordering drinks right now. Go and join everyone.”

Yan Zhaomu shook his head, clearly uninterested in that kind of gathering.

Manzhu added, “Several little beauties are clinging to Chensan. Aren’t you going to rescue him?”

Yan Zhaomu was silent for a few seconds. He dried his hands, stepped out from behind the bar, and walked inside.

Manzhu couldn’t help but stifle a laugh. She tossed the wet wipes aside and gently nudged Lu Yudong. “Come on, let’s go home.”

Lu Yudong gasped in surprise. “Elder Sister, you haven’t finished your shift yet…”

“I fooled the doormen into leaving, and they’re having so much fun, no one will notice,” Manzhu whispered, casually grabbing her coat from the rack. She draped it over Lu Yudong and ruffled her hair. “Let’s go.”

Manzhu was clearly skipping work early, but a faint smile played on the corners of her eyes. She carried the demeanor of someone whose justification was shaky but whose confidence was strong.

After the frenzy, Manzhu sheltered Lu Yudong within her coat. On the deserted streets, a dirty adult embraced a dirty child, walking slowly in the cold wind beneath the New Year’s lights.

It was nearly half an hour’s walk from Not Old Acquaintance to home.

The streetlights along the way constantly stretched and shortened their two closely linked shadows, silently accompanying them until they entered the narrow stairwell where the sensor light had been broken for a long time.

Back home, Manzhu changed out of her dirty clothes and brought Lu Yudong into the bathroom with her.

It was the first time in almost six months that Lu Yudong had bathed with Manzhu.

They were together in that small, glass-enclosed space.

It had been a long time since someone had washed her hair. Manzhu’s gentle yet firm massaging of her scalp relieved her recent stress.

As Manzhu was rinsing the shampoo from her hair, Lu Yudong stood quietly under the showerhead, holding a small comb, and gently ran it through Manzhu’s long, smooth hair under the stream of water.

After the hair was washed, Manzhu began to apply body wash to her.

Lu Yudong was ticklish. She didn’t feel it when she touched herself, but she did when others did.

Years ago, when her mother still bathed with her, she would always shrink away like a sensitive plant at every touch.

Every time she shrunk to the wall from being tickled, her mother would laugh and come to catch her. All these years later, this hadn’t changed.

The only thing that changed was the person bathing with her.

Finally, the two wrapped themselves in matching, though differently sized, bathrobes and walked out of the bathroom with bare feet.

Since it was a holiday, Manzhu didn’t rush Lu Yudong to sleep. Instead, she turned on the television and let Lu Yudong watch for a while.

She walked into the kitchen, cooked a plate of dumplings she had bought earlier in the day, poured a small dish of chili sauce, and placed it on the small coffee table in the living room. They began to eat together.

Eat dumplings for holidays, when you don’t know what else to eat.

That’s what the little yāo at the bar had told her.

Lu Yudong’s family used to eat dumplings for New Year’s, and after spending New Year’s Eve at the bar, she thought she would miss out this year.

Now, the steaming hot dumplings were on the table, and they were her favorite leek, egg, and pork filling. The tiny bit of disappointment in her heart was instantly filled with happiness.

Every New Year’s Day, since she was a small child, Lu Yudong had welcomed it with her parents in front of the TV, eating dumplings and watching the New Year’s Gala.

This twelfth birthday’s New Year’s was very different.

It was her first time not having the countdown at home, her first time not watching the TV Gala, and her first time in such a noisy, lively crowd of strangers.

She thought she wouldn’t like the feeling, but that wasn’t the case at all.

She thought she would remember this special New Year for a long, long time.

The end of the semester was approaching, and the study atmosphere became tense.

Subjects like P.E., Art, Music, Computer Science, and Technical Skills were all replaced by Chinese, Math, and English.

On the surface, the students were suffering and wailing under the torture of practice tests—looking listless in class and collapsing en masse during breaks. But in reality, their exhaustion was because the time they should have spent resting was instead spent playing.

Zhang Ziyun was the classic example of someone who had to play before sleeping, no matter how hard or tired she was.

Since Lu Yudong got a phone, Zhang Ziyun had dragged her to register for social accounts like Q.Q, Weibo, and Tieba. Every time they had spare time, she would pull Lu Yudong along to follow celebrities and gossip.

Lu Yudong never followed celebrities and had watched few TV dramas in the past six months, so she didn’t recognize many new stars. But Zhang Ziyun was so enthusiastic that she could only listen carefully, nodding and adding a sentence or two vaguely.

It wasn’t that she meant to be perfunctory; it was just that lately, she had been having persistent headaches and felt distracted doing everything.

The headaches had lasted for quite some time. At first, Lu Yudong thought it was due to lack of sleep, so she would collapse into bed immediately after washing up upon returning from school.

Later, she found that the pain not only didn’t abate but began to gradually intensify.

She visited the school clinic twice. The doctor told her she wasn’t ill and suggested it might be due to academic stress.

Since it wasn’t a serious ailment, she didn’t tell Manzhu.

But in recent days, her mental state had been deteriorating rapidly, and she would occasionally feel a sudden chill come over her, only to disappear moments later.

After enduring it for half a month, Lu Yudong finally fell ill.

During the first English class of the afternoon, Zhang Ziyun saw Lu Yudong suddenly drop her head onto the cold desk, her eyebrows tightly furrowed as if she was enduring deep pain. Zhang Ziyun was startled.

She reached out and touched Lu Yudong’s forehead. It was burning hot. Frightened, she immediately raised her hand, asked the teacher for a leave of absence, and helped Lu Yudong to the infirmary.

Lu Yudong didn’t have any money, so Zhang Ziyun paid for the intravenous drip before returning to class.

After school, Zhang Ziyun got an exit pass and a sick leave form signed by the homeroom teacher, then escorted the recently-finished-drip Lu Yudong home.

It was almost 4:50 PM when Lu Yudong arrived home. At this time, Manzhu would have already gone to the bar to prepare for work after eating dinner, so the house was empty.

Zhang Ziyun helped the weak Lu Yudong sit on the bed and looked around the small home—which was only slightly larger than her own bedroom—with surprise clearly written on her face.

Finally, realizing that her expression was somewhat impolite, she quickly stopped looking around. She sat by Lu Yudong’s bed and asked, “When will the Elder Sister be back? Do you want to call her?”

Lu Yudong shook her head. “She probably just left for work. I just need to rest for a bit.”

Zhang Ziyun asked again, “Then what will you eat this afternoon? Should I go buy something for you?”

Lu Yudong still shook her head. “I’m not hungry. You should go back. I feel much better after the drip. I want to sleep for a while.”

Zhang Ziyun considered it. “Alright, then I’ll leave?”

“Mhm.” Lu Yudong grabbed her pajamas, smiled faintly, and waved at Zhang Ziyun.

“If you feel unwell, you absolutely must call your Elder Sister!”

“Mhm mhm mhm!” Lu Yudong nodded repeatedly.

Zhang Ziyun left. Once the door closed, Lu Yudong was alone in the house.

Lu Yudong was long used to being home alone. A window by the bed offered a view of the outside—car horns, people talking. If she was willing to look out, the city was always lively.

She changed into her pajamas, wrapped herself in a down comforter and a fuzzy blanket, closed her eyes, and drifted off to sleep.

…

“Lu Zhengqing, how many times have I told you! If you’re so unhappy with me, let’s just divorce!”

“Can you stop arguing, arguing, arguing! It’s so annoying! Can you be quiet! We took annual leave to bring Yudong on a trip, and all you do is haggle over trivial things with me every day!”

“You’re impatient? Are you not ashamed! I’ve been with you for so long. I didn’t complain about the lack of a car or a house, did I? And you! You talk so happily and affectionately with that woman at work every day!”

“I told you it’s not what you think. I didn’t! What do I have to say for you to believe me!”

“I don’t want to believe you anymore. Go back. Go back now. Let’s divorce. I can’t bear to delay it for another day!”

“You said it! Fine, you said it!”

The rented sedan they were using for the road trip was driving on the mountain road in the thunderous, rainy night. The sound of the rain could not drown out the adults’ argument and the child’s crying.

“Cry, cry, cry! All you do is cry! Who do you want to follow? Tell me, who will you follow from now on?”

“Don’t yell at her! Why are you yelling at her!”

The piercing screams were nearly driving her insane.

She had forgotten so many things…

In her memory, that beautiful family was from many years ago.

She didn’t know which year it started, but her parents were constantly fighting, and every argument was about trivial matters.

The hardships of life had eventually caused the two people who once loved each other to slowly give up on the small details of their daily existence.

Finally, in a moment of impulse, an unresolvable argument, they drove off the cliff together on that rainy night.

Her mother held her tightly with all her strength, but she still felt so much pain.

Something was pressing on her, crushing her bones as if they were falling apart. Her internal organs felt like they were being burned by a raging fire. The pain was unbearable.

Until someone dragged her out from under that suffocating weight, the coldness of the rainwater enveloping her as she was gently embraced…

She forced her eyes open. A giant red python was coiling around her body, instantly terrifying her to her core.

…

When Manzhu burst into the apartment, a black shadow was pressing down on Lu Yudong, whose body was drenched in sweat and whose face was contorted in pain.

A surge of anger instantly overwhelmed Manzhu, causing her logic to nearly snap.

The moment a red light flared up, the black shadow screamed as it was ripped from Lu Yudong’s body. It fled frantically toward the window. Although it exited the window, it was unable to escape the area enveloped by the red spiritual light.

“You dare touch my person?”

The yāo before it had blood-red eyes and a human body with a snake tail, radiating intense killing intent.

The tiny Nightmare Ghost felt as if its soul was being pierced by a thousand needles. It struggled and begged for mercy with all its might, but it was all in vain.

At that very moment, the child, drenched in cold sweat, woke up from the nightmare. She suddenly sat upright. Before she could even catch her breath, disbelief and terror erupted in her confused eyes.

The black shadow outside the window, Manzhu’s panicked face by the bed…

No, it was Manzhu, with a dark-red snake tail swaying beneath her long skirt, who had been hissing at the black shadow just a second ago…

Lu Yudong’s body went cold, and she almost forgot how to breathe.

After a few seconds of petrified staring, her eyes rolled back. She fell back down exactly as she had sat up.

I must have woken up in the wrong position.