IP Chapter 57
Incurable Pain | Chapter 57
Inside the garden restaurant, the long-unseen Bai Xunyin and Mu Anping were equally surprised when they locked eyes.
What are the odds of meeting an acquaintance on a blind date?
How do you feel about it?
Others might not know, but for Bai Xunyin, it was a hundred percent probability.
It felt… quite ridiculous.
She had been inadvertently arranged for blind dates twice, and the result was one ex-boyfriend and one old acquaintance.
“Yin, Yinyin?”
Mu Anping, probably also forcibly arranged by his parents to meet someone, had a clear expression of surprise on his face when he saw Bai Xunyin. He couldn’t help but feel a little excited and even stood up.
“Long time no see, when did you return to Linlan?”
“Indeed, it’s been a long time.”
With things having come to this point, Bai Xunyin could only sit down and exchange pleasantries with Mu Anping with a smile.
“I just came back not long ago. How about you?”
After graduating from high school, Mu Anping had come to find her once, saying he was going abroad, but at that time, she was in the midst of chaos and naturally didn’t meet him.
“I came back six months ago.”
Mu Anping had matured a lot compared to six years ago. The greenness on his facial features had faded a lot, his black hair was slicked back, highlighting his handsome and straight features.
As he looked into Bai Xunyin’s tea-colored, soft eyes, he instantly felt like he was back in his youth — in countless memories, there were these beautiful eyes of Bai Xunyin.
As if all senses were brought back to the past, Mu Anping’s gaze involuntarily softened with nostalgia, murmuring to Bai Xunyin, “Yinyin, you’re still… so beautiful.”
Bai Xunyin seemed surprised by Mu Anping’s straightforward words, and after a slight pause, she only responded with a polite smile, “Thank you.”
“Yinyin, are you working at the research institute now?”
Mu Anping asked hesitantly, “Is it the intermediary who introduced me…?”
“Yes.”
Bai Xunyin nodded, casually spearing the salad on the table with the steel fork.
“It’s a job my teacher recommended.”
She hadn’t eaten breakfast, so she was quite hungry.
Mu Anping stared at Bai Xunyin opposite him, watching her eat with her eyes downcast, her cheeks puffing up and down. His expression unconsciously softened, and he couldn’t help but smile.
He had been forced to come on this blind date and hadn’t harbored any hopes of it leading anywhere. He had basically come to just go through the motions.
The endless stream of praises from the introducer about the “talented Ph.D.,” “working at a research institute,” and “exceptionally beautiful appearance” hadn’t affected Mu Anping at all.
But he hadn’t expected the blind date to be Bai Xunyin.
“Yinyin, it’s been six years since we last met.”
Gazing at the face that still looked youthful and vibrant, seemingly no different from high school, Mu Anping’s lips lifted a somewhat bitter smile, a hint of nostalgia in his voice.
“Six years… We’ve known each other for almost twenty years, right?”
Twenty years.
The hand holding the fork trembled slightly in Bai Xunyin’s hand, and a hint of complexity flashed through her clear eyes.
Indeed, they had known each other for twenty years, and they had been almost inseparable friends before graduating from junior high.
Even though there had been many unpleasant things afterward, Bai Xunyin could still be herself in front of him, without the need to be reserved or constrained like she was with strangers.
There wouldn’t be many twenty-year spans in life, but… what difference did it make?
Bai Xunyin lowered her gaze, giving a faint “Hmm.”
“After graduating from high school, I went to the UK. While I was there, I often dreamed of Linlan, and… of you.”
Mu Anping smiled bitterly, “I dreamed that we were still around ten years old, you, me, and Ah Mo, the three of us, no matter where we went, we were always together, in and out together…”
“Mu Anping.”
Bai Xunyin had finished eating. She put down her fork and looked steadily at the man in front of her, almost making him feel exposed.
“What do you want to say?”
She liked straightforwardness and disliked beating around the bush about feelings.
Mu Anping’s throat tightened, looking somewhat surprised at the expressionless girl in front of him. Only then did he realize…
Compared to when they reunited in high school, Bai Xunyin seemed to have changed a bit again.
Compared to the previously aloof but still somewhat affectionate young girl, she now seemed even more unyielding.
But it was also true that six years had passed.
Who could remain unchanged?
“I want to say… I’m single, and so are you.”
Mu Anping smiled, his eyes softened under the candlelight, and he gazed at Bai Xunyin intently.
“Fate brought us back to Linlan, and our first meeting after returning is a blind date. Why don’t we give it a try?”
He could never forget the little girl who had been willing to follow him and call him “Brother Anping.” In his midnight dreams, his heart felt like it was being squeezed by invisible hands.
Mu Anping knew he had made mistakes, but he was willing to take responsibility for his mistakes and then find that little girl back then.
The meal didn’t go very well. After hearing Mu Anping’s confession-like words, Bai Xunyin’s heart felt as heavy as a stone.
It kept sinking, continuously sinking.
Without a doubt, she decisively rejected Mu Anping’s proposal to “give it a try.”
She had never had any feelings resembling “admiration” for him, whether in the past or even further back, so how could she agree to give it a try with him?
But Bai Xunyin just didn’t expect that Mu Anping would actually want to give it a try.
And saying that he hadn’t had a girlfriend for so many years because he actually liked her was… ridiculous.
On the way back, Bai Xunyin’s expression was cold, but there was a hint of scornful arc in her eyes.
Did all these guys nowadays like to hurt girls under the guise of “liking” them? And then foolishly believe that a few sweet words, a few soft entreaties, would make everything forgiven?
Yu Luoyin was like that, and so was Mu Anping.
The difference was that there was actually more “affection” between her and Mu Anping.
As he said, they had known each other for twenty years.
From the time they could barely speak, Bai Xunyin felt that Mu Anping was a significant figure in her life.
Mu Anping’s father, Mu Shian, was Bai Hongsheng’s business partner and also a close friend with shared interests. The two families even lived in the same compound, with close neighborhood relationships.
Under this atmosphere, Bai Xunyin and Mu Anping’s relationship naturally grew strong.
Until she was fifteen, she had always regarded Mu Anping as a brother without blood ties.
Childhood friends, confidants.
But “no blood ties” meant just that, “no blood ties.”
When faced with difficulties, even a husband and wife can turn against each other, let alone friends?
During the period when the Bai family’s financial chain broke and they went bankrupt, people came knocking on the door every day, and the sounds of vandalism and robbery were endless, making people both irritated and fearful.
Bai Xunyin remembered that it was actually from that time onwards that Mu Anping had started to distance himself from her.
But she was too caught up in her surroundings, sensitive and fragile, to notice Mu Anping’s coldness at the time, and still sought refuge “shamelessly.”
Bai Xunyin remembered the day she stayed home, the sky was already darkening, when suddenly creditors came knocking, banging on the thick door of the Bai family, with foul language and insults filling her ears and mind.
Her fingers trembled as she held the pen, and after a long while, she threw it away and climbed out of the window.
The door would soon be broken down, but Bai Xunyin was terrified.
She couldn’t stay at home alone; she was afraid.
A fifteen-year-old girl with a slender figure, wearing only a pair of slippers, ran out. She tried to keep her body low and quietly ran to Mu Anping’s house next door, ringing the doorbell.
Soon she heard Mu Anping’s response, “Who is it?”
At that time, the clear voice of a boy was like a beacon of light.
Bai Xunyin choked up and said softly, “Brother Anping, it’s me.”
Mu Anping’s voice was somewhat surprised, “Yinyin?”
“Can you let me in?”
Bai Xunyin’s cold voice was blown away by the cold wind, trembling slightly out of cold or fear.
“Those people have come to knock on my door again, and I’m scared…”
She didn’t know when Bai Hongsheng and Ji Huiying would be back home. She really couldn’t stay alone.
But after ten years of getting along, the “Brother Anping” who had always been close became distant behind a door.
“Sorry.”
Mu Anping’s voice was somewhat awkward.
“Yinyin, my mom said if I help you, those people will come to bother us, will knock on our door.”
Bai Xunyin’s heart tightened for a moment, aching fiercely.
“Brother Anping, it won’t happen.”
But the weak girl at that time didn’t understand human nature. She still begged, “They don’t know I’m hiding in your house.”
But no matter how hard she knocked, Mu Anping didn’t open the door.
That day was also the last time Bai Xunyin showed any softness in front of her “childhood brother.”
Later, because Mu Anping’s family had close ties with the Bai family and had repaid some of their debts, they still didn’t want to risk trouble, so they moved next door as a family.
And then… it was when Mu Anping came back to see her in her third year of high school, and then it was now.
Actually, it wasn’t a big deal.
Mu Anping was only a year older than her, just a teenager at fifteen or sixteen.
It was just that the parents were overbearing, and the teenagers were weak.
But Bai Xunyin just couldn’t forget that feeling of “helplessness” back then.
It’s too easy to trust and rely on someone, and it’s easy to have your heart broken and be disappointed.
So after entering high school, she almost had a kind of “keep your distance” fear of boys, and all of this wasn’t entirely due to Mu Anping, but it had something to do with him.
Except… except for Yu Luoyin.
Walking all the way back home, many flashbacks of past scenes flashed through her mind. Finally, thinking of Yu Luoyin, this “troublemaker,” Bai Xunyin sighed softly.
First Mu Anping, then Yu Luoyin, it’s really enough to give a headache.
Having a stroke of bad luck, when she returned home, she found that the elevator was still broken.
In the lobby on the first floor, there were many people waiting for maintenance, all with angry and worried faces — there was no way around it. In today’s metropolitan high-rise living, not having an elevator was basically equivalent to losing half of one’s life.
But fortunately, her family’s floor wasn’t too high.
Bai Xunyin still didn’t like noise or crowds. Looking at the chaotic first floor, she furrowed her brows lightly, and decisively took the safe passage.
Slowly and leisurely walking up the thirteen floors, when she reached the safe passage on her floor, Bai Xunyin found an “unexpected guest.”
Yu Luoyin was sitting on the top step of the safe passage, with two cigarette butts beside him. Despite the sweltering summer day, the temperature in the safe passage was low, but the man, who seemed to have been here for a long time, looked desolate, with a cold demeanor.
Until he heard the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs, he seemed to automatically picture a girl climbing the stairs, panting and breathless.
Waiting too long… was too long.
Yu Luoyin raised his eyes and looked down at Bai Xunyin, watching as the woman’s ivory-white skin turned slightly crimson, her eyes somewhat surprised.
He raised the corner of his lips mockingly.
It was indeed unexpected for Bai Xunyin to see Yu Luoyin at her doorstep.
One was because today wasn’t supposed to be Lu Ye’s singles gathering, and second… how did he know where she lived?
Subconsciously, the woman raised her eyebrows slightly.
“Are you here to find me?”
“Otherwise?”
Yu Luoyin stood up, slowly walked down the stairs towards her, as if joking, but there was no laughter in his eyes.
“Am I taking a stroll in your building’s corridor?”
Watching Yu Luoyin approach step by step, Bai Xunyin felt inexplicably uneasy. She unconsciously stepped back.
Until her slender back leaned against the cold wall.
And Yu Luoyin had already walked over, his dark shadow enveloping Bai Xunyin’s petite body. The man leaned down slightly, and a faint smile appeared in her ear.
“Do you feel like this scene is familiar?”
Bai Xunyin was stunned.
“Doesn’t it look like…”
Yu Luoyin’s big hand had somehow clasped her chin, and his slender fingertips gently caressed her soft earlobe. The cold touch made Bai Xunyin’s scalp tingle, and tiny goosebumps appeared on her jawbone unconsciously.
Then she heard the man mutter softly, “Doesn’t it look like the safe passage where we used to date so often?”
Round and round, he was still sentimental, like a lunatic.
Yu Luoyin didn’t know why he had become so worthless.
But from the moment he saw Bai Xunyin and her childhood sweetheart dating, the jealousy disappeared and a certain “string” in his mind seemed to snap.
“Why did you go on a blind date?”
The man’s cold fingertips caressed the girl’s soft earlobe, and he smiled, “When I said I wanted to pursue you, did you think I was joking?”