"What to do When the Pretty Woman I Kissed is My Best Friend's Professor" - Chapter 84

They got into the car, each placing the unfinished coffee onto the two cup holders. Shen Jinrong started the engine. Yan He turned to look at her. Once back on the highway, Yan He suddenly felt a sense of doomsday revelry.

What would happen in the next second? What would happen later? The future seemed predetermined, yet everything that hadn’t arrived still had the possibility of being changed.

Shen Jinrong’s nose bridge was high and prominent, but Yan He found that she was not as sharp as she was in the classroom. The Shen Jinrong facing her was always gentle, having collected all her sharp edges, showing only her softest, warmest side.

It was strange. She had only filled in for Li Xiuxi for one class, yet she had kept the memory of Shen Jinrong’s appearance that day deep in her heart—the humorous and interesting Jiejie who silently controlled the whole situation, and whose eyes held a tender smile only when she saw Yan He herself.

Such favoritism was enough to make Yan He fall head over heels. At first, Yan He only remembered the tear mole at the corner of her eye, then she remembered her eyes, and finally, she completely fell the moment those eyes gently gazed at her.

Trees were planted on both sides of the not-so-wide highway. They seemed to have been recently trimmed. The branches on the far side were wildly overgrown, but the side near the highway was meticulously and neatly clipped. There was almost no traffic in their direction, though a few ordinary small cars occasionally passed by in the opposite lane.

Soothing music played in the car. Shen Jinrong relaxed a little and reached for the coffee in the cup holder. The two cups were placed side-by-side. Yan He watched, wide-eyed, as she mistakenly picked up Yan He’s coffee, watching Shen Jinrong’s lips touch the exact spot where Yan He had just drunk.

Then, she watched as Jiejie‘s throat rolled, and she put the coffee back in its place.

The music in her ears seemed to turn into a frantic dance tune, the rhythm joyful and rousing. Yan He couldn’t clearly remember how she watched Jiejie finish the sip and put the cup back. She could only hear a “boom” in her brain. Her breathing became heavier, and her face began to flush.

Shen Jinrong didn’t notice her unusual behavior and continued driving steadily. After a while, she seemed to feel that the person beside her was too quiet. When she glanced over, she saw the young woman staring intently at the two cups of coffee, a suspicious blush on her face.

She slightly raised an eyebrow and casually asked: “Why are you blushing?”

Yan He opened her mouth but failed to speak. The blush on her face intensified.

Shen Jinrong followed her gaze, finding the two cups of coffee sitting neatly there. It took a few turns of thought before she realized that she had seemingly picked up the wrong coffee just now.

“Did I drink the wrong one just now?”

Yan He quietly nodded.

Shen Jinrong found Yan He’s shyness very amusing: “We’ve already kissed…”

She drew out the final word, letting it swirl in the air and drill into Yan He’s ear, causing the shy young woman to shiver.

“Are you a little bothered by it?” Shen Jinrong asked again.

Yan He hurriedly said: “No! I—” She paused again, seemingly trying to figure out how to explain her behavior to Jiejie, but felt that any explanation would be wrong, only making things worse.

“I’m just teasing you,” Shen Jinrong had originally intended to pat her on the head, but turned her hand and only patted her shoulder instead.

A huge billboard stood by the side of the road, giving off a strange sense of pressure. Yan He looked in the direction of the billboard; it looked like a large shopping center, with a few cars scattered in the open-air parking lot next to it. A sign at the fork in the road read, “FIRENZE 250KM,” indicating that Florence was still 250 kilometers away.

This stretch of highway was mostly mountainous road, winding and curving. Half of the mountain not far away was hidden in the clouds and mist, hazy and indistinct. A strange, pale color appeared where it met the sky, as if intentionally distinguishing the sky from the mountains. A few white clouds drifted over the not-so-steep mountaintop, blending together in layers.

After rounding the curve, the entire road opened up. The left side of the road was separated by a dark green guardrail, and the right side was an open plain, planted with some yellowish flowers and grasses. Shen Jinrong thought they were rapeseed flowers, while Yan He thought they were just ordinary shrubs.

After driving for a minute, they could see a white, low bridge crossing the road directly ahead, and a train slowly passed over it. Yan He could even see the figures of people by the windows.

Looking at the distant mountains, Shen Jinrong said: “If we were going in a different direction, we should be able to see the lake right now.” Her right hand swiped the display screen, zoomed out the map, and pointed to a blue lake surrounded by green open land to their left: “Right here.”

“Lake Bracciano,” Shen Jinrong said with a smile: “Tom Cruise once held his wedding here.”

Shen Jinrong did not say the second half of the sentence, but Yan He knew that they chose to divorce six years after their marriage.

When the word “divorce” appeared before her again, Yan He was surprised to find that she no longer felt the initial sadness. Perhaps it was because she understood that the marriages and separations of celebrities had nothing to do with her, or perhaps because she had long gotten over that hurdle in her heart.

“There are many ancient castles around Lake Bracciano. Many people hold their weddings here,” Shen Jinrong’s tone was calm, yet Yan He felt like she was hinting at something.

“I lived in a small city next to Florence for a while, and there was an ancient castle near where I stayed,” Yan He shifted into a more comfortable position: “I went inside to visit. It hadn’t been renovated and no one lived there; it was already very dilapidated. There was a white replica of the Statue of David at the entrance, and some scattered marble sculptures.”

“Few people live in ancient castles now,” Shen Jinrong analyzed from a more practical perspective: “It’s difficult for a medieval building to be well preserved now. Installing water and electricity lines would damage the original structure.”

“Where did you live? If you want, maybe we could stay there for two days.”

Yan He straightened up: “Siena.”

Shen Jinrong tapped the steering wheel with her index finger: “The Palio horse race?”

“Yes, but I haven’t seen it yet.” Yan He smiled along. She opened a bottle of water and held it to Shen Jinrong’s lips. The latter took the bottle, took a sip of water, and returned it to Yan He.

“The timing doesn’t seem right,” Seen from the side, Shen Jinrong’s throat bobbed up and down once. Yan He retracted her gaze, screwed the cap back on the bottle, and set it aside.

Yan He shook her head: “Christmas is already perfect timing.”

Shen Jinrong smiled, echoing her words in agreement: “It is.”

She continued to look ahead. The young woman always seemed to worry about the future. What was there to worry about? The future would arrive sooner or later. For her in that future, the future was the present.

The car wasn’t driving fast. Outside the window, the brilliant sunlight gradually took on a red hue, turning into orange-red. The sun was still bright; when one squinted at it, it looked like a huge, dazzling, slightly dimmed golden orb. The faint gold-red fell on the rollercoaster at the amusement park not far away. The colors were no longer as vivid as at noon, but they became splendid because of the gold-red light behind them.

It was like the afterglow of the apocalypse. When the sun sets, it’s time for judgment.

The orange-red of the sunset fell on the clusters of withered wood by the fields, shrouding them in a faint purple, looking from a distance like large swathes of lavender scattered between the fields. However, upon closer inspection, they were merely ordinary, withered shrubs.

A faint melancholy also colored Yan He’s heart. She wondered, was her current happiness just a brief moment of delight, like when she mistook the withered shrubs for lavender? What would await her after this fleeting joy born of possession? Could she stay in this moment forever? If she and Shen Jinrong couldn’t be together, could they maintain their current state forever?

“Yan He.”

Shen Jinrong’s voice sounded in her ear, as if waking her from the confusion of nothingness. When Jiejie called her name, it was always gentle and doting, but now it was firm.

Hearing her voice gave her footing in reality. Yan He turned her head, silently gazing at her.

The sunlight quietly slipped in from somewhere, falling on her flawless profile. Yan He turned to look at her, noticing that her contours were imbued with a faint golden light by the sun. The outline was perfect and exquisite, like a well-preserved marble statue, plated with a faint gold-red glow in the sunset’s afterglow.

Yan He thought, if no one from ancient times to the present has been fortunate enough to glimpse the face of a legendary deity, then she thought that Shen Jinrong was one. From then on, the deity in her fantasies had a definite form, who would smile at her and say to her—it was she who chose me.

Yan He always wondered: Did Shen Jinrong choose her, or was she just lucky enough to have her?

Shen Jinrong never seemed to care about that question. She would give Yan He her unique tenderness, she would give her hugs. They could kiss, embrace tightly, and perhaps more things would happen in the future.

—These fantasies distracted Yan He, so much so that she forgot why Shen Jinrong had called her name in the first place.

Is she punishing me for not paying attention? Yan He wondered.

Shen Jinrong turned her head to look at Yan He. Her pupils were originally the color of obsidian, but under the sunlight, they looked like fine amber. She seemed completely unaware of the charm she possessed. When Yan He brought it up, she would only indifferently tuck a disobedient strand of hair behind her ear.

“Don’t overthink things.” Shen Jinrong spoke again.

Her lips parted and closed in the diffused sunlight. Yan He only felt hazy in her mind. She seemed to hear what Jiejie was saying, yet those sounds seemed to be thrown to the back of her mind like background music, and she only saw Shen Jinrong’s lips moving.

Her lips—lips slightly pale from just waking up in the morning, lips dazzling after lipstick was applied, lips intoxicatingly blurry when touched by wine.

Yan He thought, she might be wearing Mac lipstick. It had a faint chocolate scent, and when mixed with the citrus fragrance on her body, it smelled like sweet, citrus-flavored chocolate.

Was there such a chocolate? Yan He didn’t know. The feeling of kissing those lips began to surface in her mind, thinking of the slight lip texture she felt when she boldly dared to lick them.

She is hers.

She wanted Shen Jinrong to be hers.

Completely and forever.

She stopped thinking about those ethereal things, subconsciously pushing them aside. In the present moment, she only wanted to kiss the person she loved most—confession seemed to become an urgent necessity.

What after the confession? Yan He subconsciously felt that Jiejie would not refuse her. A certain confidence, coming from nowhere, told her that Jiejie would not bear to make her sad. But even knowing this, what difference did it make? She wouldn’t bear to make Jiejie do that either.

After the confession, could she completely and utterly own her—could she give her everything she possessed? Whether she would give her everything to Yan He was not important; Yan He thought she might not care too much.

Her love was like this: fiery and intense, total devotion—even if it meant being broken into a million pieces.