"What to do When the Pretty Woman I Kissed is My Best Friend's Professor" - Chapter 69

She loved her.

The simple feeling of love required no threshold, but wanting to spend a lifetime together with one’s beloved required far more effort. The mere arising of love was just the beginning of a romance, and it had two possible trajectories: it could fade away without issue, or it could lead to a lasting union.

Yàn Hé wanted the latter; she didn’t want this relationship to end prematurely, and she didn’t want this older woman to belong to anyone else. The mere thought that the person sitting beside her might one day fall into someone else’s arms made her heart begin to ache.

The screen in front of her was still playing a comedy movie, but Yàn Hé had removed her headphones and couldn’t hear what was being said. She could only see the characters laughing and shouting intermittently, feeling like an outsider quietly observing the life trajectory of others.

Her gaze shifted, and she saw the screen in front of Shěn Jǐnróng, which displayed the plane’s flight path. They had departed from Beijing, crossed the border between Eurasia, and were flying towards Europe, having completed less than half of the entire journey.

Yàn Hé felt the timing was perfect. There was no one in front of or behind them; the plane seemed to have spontaneously created a private space for them to communicate. In this isolated space, if they were lucky enough, no one would come to disturb them.

The air on the plane was not circulating well. Yàn Hé swallowed again to relieve the discomfort in her ears. She turned her head to look out the window again and placed her right hand on the porthole. The touch was cold, but enough to feel the thickness of the glass.

She wanted to pull the shade down, but she hesitated for a moment, looking at the night view outside and the massive wing, and made no move. She stared out the window, vaguely seeing the indistinct lights below. Flying at high altitude, those lights were scattered like stars, each point of light seemingly indicating the presence of human life.

Others had their lives; she and her older woman should have theirs too.

Yàn Hé suddenly yearned to go to Antarctica, where, amidst the ice and snow, and if they were lucky, they would meet a colony of penguins, and they would no longer have to consider what others thought. She even wanted time to stand still, but she was too greedy. She thought that God would not grant her such covetous requests.

“Are you really not going to sleep?” Shěn Jǐnróng shifted her body, her voice low and husky. Her gentle eyes looked at Yàn Hé, those eyes seeming to hide too many emotions that were held back from speaking.

Yàn Hé turned back and saw the reflection of the cabin lights in her eyes. She noticed that Shěn Jǐnróng had put down her chopsticks; the meal served on the plane was half-eaten, the rest neatly gathered together. She was methodical, just like her entire person.

“I don’t want to sleep.” Yàn Hé leaned her head onto Shěn Jǐnróng’s shoulder, a gesture of silent dependence.

Perhaps due to just waking up, Shěn Jǐnróng’s reaction was half a beat slower than usual. She allowed Yàn Hé to rest on her shoulder, and that not-so-heavy weight caused a ripple in her heart.

It was as if her heart, which had been floating in the sky, had gained the weight of love and settled into the ocean. It was sour, yet possessed a subtle sweetness.

She gently stroked Yàn Hé’s hair with one hand. The soft strands didn’t quite match the little one’s stubborn personality.

But Shěn Jǐnróng reconsidered: Wasn’t it precisely because of Yàn Hé’s stubbornness and persistence that they had their story today? What if they hadn’t met during the opera or at the bar in Vienna? What would things be like now?

Shěn Jǐnróng thought that she might have continued living the same way for over a decade, her life like a glass of plain boiled water, ancient and placid, never stirring up a ripple.

She didn’t need anyone to disrupt her life, nor did she need anyone to add any seasoning to her plain boiled water, but Yàn Hé had just appeared—fate was that strange. Effortlessly, she had tossed a stone into the calm pool of water Shěn Jǐnróng had maintained for years. The pool rippled, and then, everything became unmanageable.

“Go to sleep, good girl.” A wisp of Yàn Hé’s hair disobediently fell from behind her ear onto Shěn Jǐnróng’s shoulder. A faint itch at her fingertip felt like something was being provoked. Shěn Jǐnróng lowered her head to look, only to realize it was the little one’s hair acting up.

She lightly pinched a strand of Yàn Hé’s hair. The clean scent of the little one slowly calmed her own slightly quickened breathing. Yàn Hé, her eyes half-closed on her shoulder, softly said, “Jie-jie.”

“Hmm?”

“Jie-jie.”

It felt as though just calling her name without any particular reason was already happiness.

Shěn Jǐnróng gently “hmm’ed” again. She pressed her lips together, and the sound, coming from her nasal cavity, was soft, but to Yàn Hé’s ears, it sounded like deliberate, playful flirtation.

“Is there anywhere special you really want to go?” Yàn Hé asked her, her voice light, feather-like, brushing past Shěn Jǐnróng’s ear, giving her a strange, ticklish sensation. This itch came from nowhere in particular, yet it landed squarely in her heart.

Yàn Hé was subtly probing about the older woman’s past. She wanted to know if Shěn Jǐnróng had ever traveled here with someone else before her. Jealousy and sourness were certainly present, but she expressed them in a calm, restrained manner.

“Let’s go skiing,” Shěn Jǐnróng lowered her eyes, one hand resting lightly on the back of Yàn Hé’s hand, her thumb rubbing the back of it seemingly unconsciously. “We’ll go to Bolzano, at the foot of the Alps. If you like it… we can also go soak in a hot spring.”

Yàn Hé could not deny that her heart soared at her words.

“Okay.”

“When I was alone… I rarely truly traveled for fun,” Shěn Jǐnróng’s tone was very calm, so calm that it was like she was talking about something unrelated to herself, as if she were merely coolly narrating another person’s life. “A few years ago, I went to Rome for a business trip, just walked around casually, and saw most of the popular attractions.”

Yàn Hé had naturally been there too. But to increase the time she spent with the older woman, she pouted and intentionally said, “I’m not familiar with any other place besides the Trevi Fountain.”

The older woman shifted her neck, lowered her eyelids, and the hand resting on Yàn Hé’s began to rub gently.

“Oh… is that so? Why?” the older woman asked.

“The place where I used to live was very close to the Trevi Fountain, and sometimes I would go and sit there early in the morning,” Yàn Hé smiled. “Actually, if you go in the morning, there’s hardly anyone there, and you can even see many birds, either pigeons or seagulls, I can’t tell.”

Shěn Jǐnróng’s palm was pressed tightly against the back of her hand. As the older woman gently rubbed it, a tingling sensation rose from the back of her hand. Her mind instantly cleared, and her original grogginess vanished at that moment.

The strange feeling started from her left hand, accurately reached her brain, and then spread throughout her body. Her heartbeat began to accelerate again without reserve. Yàn Hé swallowed, and even her breathing became involuntarily lighter.

“I see,” the older woman smiled.

Her head was resting on the older woman’s shoulder, her ear very close to her lips. When the older woman chuckled, a faint flow of air passed by her earlobe as if unintentionally, yet it deliberately painted it a light crimson.

“Well, I’ve thought about it. The transportation in Rome is very convenient, so we won’t rent a car at first. When we’ve had enough fun, we’ll rent a car and drive all the way north to the Alps. What do you think?”

Yàn Hé thought: Everything is fine.

As long as I’m with you.

The little one secretly thought, pursing her lips.

“Just north of Bolzano is Austria,” Shěn Jǐnróng tried hard to recall. “If you want—or if time permits—maybe we can drive to Austria, to Innsbruck.”

Yàn Hé didn’t speak. She slowly raised her hand and held the older woman’s hand in return.

She remained still for a long time, and a prolonged silence fell between the two. It wasn’t until the flight attendant came to collect the meal trays, the lights overhead dimmed again, and the moonlight outside the window fell into the plane that Yàn Hé finally spoke—”If we have time after skiing, let’s go south, to Naples, to see Mount Vesuvius.” Her voice was very light, very airy. A good friend who studied archaeology had always recommended that she visit Vesuvius to see the ancient ruins.

“If you want, let’s go see the sea together,” Yàn Hé lifted her head from Shěn Jǐnróng’s shoulder and looked steadily at her.

By the sea, they could lean on each other and watch a crimson sun leap up from the horizon, its golden-red light spilling across the entire ocean surface.

The little one’s eyes were always gentle and indulging when she looked at her. Shěn Jǐnróng rarely felt this sense of being indulged. She involuntarily recalled the few remaining beautiful memories from her childhood. She instinctively leaned closer towards Yàn Hé, the seemingly unperturbed older woman wanting to be nearer to her little one.

“That sounds good,” Shěn Jǐnróng mused casually. “Then we’ll drive to Bolzano—return the car there, and then take a flight to Naples.”

She thought for a moment and then laughed: “Or how about we just go straight to Sicily, the southernmost part?” She then poked Yàn Hé’s hand. “Are you scared of the Mafia?”

The little one puffed out her cheeks: “I’m not scared!”

Shěn Jǐnróng laughed again.

Amidst the massive roar of the airplane, they had to be very, very close to clearly hear each other. Yàn Hé sat up straight, vaguely seeing Shěn Jǐnróng’s lips move, opening and closing, but she didn’t catch what she said.

So, she tilted her head and brought her ear close to the older woman’s lips: “What did you say?”

Shěn Jǐnróng leaned close to her ear, her voice, laced with laughter, sounded right next to it: “I said, are you going to protect me, little hero?”

The older woman’s voice carried a hint of teasing, and the air current produced by her speech entirely slipped into Yàn Hé’s ear. She felt a flush of heat near her ear, and her whole body tingled. She shivered, then stiffened her body.

“Aren’t you going to protect me?” the older woman pressed with a smile, close to her ear again.

Don’t… don’t ask again! If you keep talking next to my ear like this, it won’t be a question of who protects whom!

The little one thought angrily in her heart: Isn’t this cheating!

Just as she was about to speak, the older woman mischievously gave the soft cartilage of her ear a light bite. Then, she smiled triumphantly, her faint, fragmented laughter reaching Yàn Hé’s ear, carrying a strange heat.

“That was punishment.”

“Hmph, bad child.”

“You have to protect your Jie-jie, understand?”

Yàn Hé felt dizzy and thought, Okay—I’ll give you anything—I’ll give you my life—

Author’s Note: Yàn Hé: I report her! She cheated! She deliberately flirts with little girls!

Shěn Jǐnróng (languidly): Did I? I was just flirting with my little naughty dog.