Chapter 27

Jiang Yimiao put the two cups in her hand back on the coffee table, the coffee table in Zhao Shuming’s house was marble, and the ceramic mugs made a soft, crisp sound when they touched the tabletop.

“Oh, did you buy them together because you were also missing a cup?” Jiang Yimiao blinked her eyes, with a sincere look on her face.

Jiang Yimiao was also a fan of online shopping, so of course she knew that buying two of something was definitely cheaper than just buying one. So she took it for granted that Zhao Shuming had just bought an extra one by the way.

Although there were already a lot of cups for drinking water at home.

Zhao Shuming choked as he looked into her round eyes, Jiang Yimiao’s brain circuits from childhood could never be sidetracked by her.

Even when everyone else realized that her relationship with him wasn’t normal, she was still able to smile and grab his arm and say that this was her brother.

“I bought two because I wanted to use the same ones as you.” Zhao Shuming was honest, he liked to reveal his relationship with Jiang Yimiao in every aspect of his life.

When she was in middle school, Zhao Shuming had bought all of Jiang Yimiao’s clothes for her, and he had picked out some of her stationery for her.

When she was in middle school, she used to jump around a lot, and every morning she would either run or do morning exercises, and Jiang Yimiao loved to wear sneakers at that time. They even had several pairs of the same brand series of men and women’s sneakers.

Jiang Yimiao lowered her head to pick up the express foam that fell to the ground, pointing to her slippers, “Our slippers are also a couple’s model.”

Her slippers were white kittens, Zhao Shuming’s were black puppies.

Zhao Shuming looked down and couldn’t help but let out a laugh from his throat, not only the slippers, but their toothbrushes and mouthwash cups were also bought together, and the same model with different colors naturally meant couple’s model in Zhao Shuming’s eyes.

Jiang Yimiao laughed, suddenly remembered something, “I remember when I was a kid, I didn’t know how to use chopsticks yet, I saw you using those training chopsticks with that cute doll on top of them, so I had to grab yours. Later, Auntie Zhao bought me chopsticks and a bowl exactly like yours.”

Zhao Shuming had no recollection of this incident, it was more than twenty years ago.

In the nineteenth century, there were psychologists who studied childhood amnesia, and the vast majority of adults would forget the memories of the age of two to four.

So even if he had a good memory, and deliberately remembered everything about himself and Jiang Yimiao, Zhao Shuming could only guess and piece together those memories belonging to the two children through the family’s photo albums.

“How do you know about this?”

“My mom told me ah.” Jiang Yimiao frowned.

“You don’t think I still remember, do you, I even forgot all about kindergarten, it’s not like you don’t know that I don’t have a good memory.”

It was true that Jiang Yimiao’s memory from childhood to adulthood wasn’t very good, her short-term memory to cope with exams was okay, but her long-term memory ability wasn’t very good.

Although her grades in all subjects from childhood to adulthood are very even, but for her the liberal arts exams are a bit more strenuous than the science subjects, when the arts and science subjects were divided into different disciplines she didn’t even need to ask her mom and dad’s opinion to fill out the science subjects.

“I thought you could still remember things from so long ago.” Zhao Shuming laughed.

Jiang Yimiao picked up her cell phone and set a time to send an express delivery, when she turned back to WeChat’s page she coldly said, “By the way, Guan Zhengyu he still cares about you today.”

Zhao Shuming threw all the packaging of the express delivery into the trash can, and his movements stalled for half a second when he heard her words.

“It’s not like he knows me.” His tone was unconsciously a few points colder, and this was the tone he used when talking to other outsiders.

“Didn’t he recognize you last night, he knew it was you who was sick ah, he even asked if your fever had gone down.”

Jiang Yimiao didn’t realize that something was wrong with him and continued, “But I’m afraid that he’ll think you’ve recovered from your illness and ask me to go out tomorrow again, so I’ll just say that you’re still sick.”

Zhao Shuming slightly flexed his body, “It was still sick, you promised that you would stay home with me for the next two days.”

“You’re not going to leave me alone at home.” He arched an eyebrow, even though his fever had completely gone down, a bad night’s sleep made his face look less than good.

“Which is not true, didn’t I say I would be at home for the next two days?” Jiang Yimiao hurriedly retorted as she looked at his pressed brow expression.

In Jiang Yimiao’s impression, Zhao Shuming rarely got sick.

She didn’t have any major health problems, but there were quite a few minor ailments, especially during the change of season when she would catch a cold if she wasn’t careful.

Sometimes she would even get a fever for no reason, and it was rumored that it was because she was growing her body and lacked yin and fluids.

That’s why she was the one who was always taken care of.

Jiang Yimiao would rarely see Zhao Shuming in such a weak and uncomfortable state, although it was a bit weird to say it out loud, but his current appearance this made her inexplicably feel that Zhao Shuming had a pitiful aura about him.

Especially when she found him in bed yesterday with a fever, Jiang Yimiao had never seen Zhao Shuming so weak that he would fall into her arms.

“Alright, I know you’re the best person for me.” Zhao Shuming smiled, but Jiang Yimiao couldn’t see the smugness in his eyes at all.

It was true that Zhao Shuming couldn’t pretend to be cute like he was as a child with this appearance now, but he could pretend to be pitiful.

Pitiful and cute were just one word apart, but sometimes they were connected. Especially for someone like him, who usually looked as strong and dependable as he was, being soft would make him look even more pitiful.

Obviously Jiang Yimiao fell into his trap.

“And I really just want to lie at home lately, I don’t want to go out.” She twisted her head to look at the wall outside the balcony where the hot sun had dropped a beam of light.

She didn’t want to go out when it rained, and she was even more reluctant to go out when it was hot.

Sometimes Jiang Yimiao and Cheng Wenyao agreed to go out together on weekends, but as a result, the two social animals didn’t want to move once the weekend was over, and the two of them often did the kind of thing where they canceled their plans to go out together on Friday nights.

Even Cheng Wenyao and Jiang Yimiao sometimes have no energy to go out together, let alone with Guan Zhengyu, who has known her for less than a week.

“Miao Miao, you’ve really been working a little too hard lately, it’s more important to get some rest.”

Even though she usually got enough sleep, the fatigue in her eyes still couldn’t be hidden. Jiang Yimiao’s eyes were already tinted with the tiredness of a social animal.

Zhao Shuming’s words changed, “Has Guan Zhengyu still been chatting with you lately?”

“Yeah, but let me tell you, Guan Zhengyu, he’s kind of funny. Always telling some very cold humor jokes, and I don’t know where he learned it, he said he’s been learning Chinese lately.”

Jiang Yimiao lowered her head and scratched the screen of her cell phone, placing the jokes that Guan Zhengyu had told her before in front of Zhao Shuming, “See if it’s not funny.”

Zhao Shuming scanned the screen and realized that she had sent an emoticon back to Guan Zhengyu, the one she had also sent to him.

Looking at Jiang Yimiao’s smiling appearance, Zhao Shuming could only agree with her with a smile on his face.

While laughing, he brushed his head away and cleared his throat, looking a little uncomfortable.

“Right! You haven’t taken your medicine yet, quickly take it.” Jiang Yimiao remembered this matter and poured him a cup of warm water and pushed the medicine brought back from the hospital in front of him.

“Take a good nap and rest after taking the medicine.”

“Good.” Zhao Shuming followed the advice.

Zhao Shuming washed the pair of mugs with boiling water after taking the medicine, Jiang Yimiao didn’t mind at all that the two of them used the same type of objects, it seemed like he was still able to gradually intrude into the big and small of her life.

He was going to put his mug in the school office, while hers would naturally be taken to her workstation by Jiang Yimiao.

This way they could be considered to be using a couple’s cup in the true sense of the word.

He turned around to see Jiang Yimiao sitting on the sofa talking to the fried egg doll, and Zhao Shuming couldn’t help but feel soft at the bottom of his heart.

Zhao Shuming thought that he seemed to have a strange disease like Jiang Yimiao’s and wanted to bite her.

There would always be a chance later.

Jiang Yimiao had thought about helping Zhao Shuming cook dinner together in the evening as well.

As a result, she overslept herself, and her revenge sleep made her sleep until the sun set.

When Jiang Yimiao sat up from her bed in a bit of a trance, she picked up her phone and realized that she had slept until five o’clock.

“I obviously set an alarm clock to come ……” Jiang Yimiao lowered her head and knocked on her head which was still a little fuzzy in consciousness, and the fuzzy memories gradually surfaced in her mind. The alarm clock seemed to have gone off nearly ten times, and every time she pressed it off.

By the time she walked out of her room with her hair a little fluffy, the kitchen already had a strong aroma of dishes escaping.

“Didn’t you say I’d cook today?” Jiang Yimiao slumped in the doorway of the kitchen, her tone a little hazy because she had just woken up, even her eyes were a little hazy.

“I’ll just do it, I’m just sick, I still have the strength to cook a meal.” Zhao Shuming poured the last dish from the pot onto a plate.

It wasn’t until after taking a shower and washing her hair that Jiang Yimiao recovered from that state of having her soul drained.

There was only one hair dryer in the house, hanging on the wall of the large bathroom. Zhao Shuming happened to have just finished his shower as well, and the bathroom was filled with water mist, emitting a scent that was familiar to her.

The mirror in the bathroom condensed a layer of fog, Jiang Yimiao wiped off the water fog in the middle of the mirror, symbolically stared at the mirror for a couple of moments, and then closed her eyes and hummed the title of a song that she couldn’t remember, blowing her long hair haphazardly.

Only when she felt her hair in a half-dry state did she turn off the blow dryer.

The moment she opened her eyes and suddenly saw Zhao Shuming standing behind her, the unprepared Jiang Yimiao was startled, “Scared me to death.”

She subconsciously blurted out.

“I’m sorry Miao Miao, it’s me, don’t be afraid.” Zhao Shuming soothed.

Jiang Yimiao looked up at his somewhat wet hair, and she didn’t know if it was because the lighting in the bathroom wasn’t quite the same as the natural light, Zhao Shuming in the bathroom still looked white.

But there was a reddish color in the whiteness, especially since the pajamas that were larger than the neckline of his regular clothes exposed a piece of him in front of him, and one could faintly see the red marks in front of his chest.

“Did you wash your hair tonight too?” She asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“Then why don’t you blow-dry your hair, even though boys’ hair dries easily, you’re still sick, don’t make your cold worse.” Jiang Yimiao frowned and raised her hand to directly touch his hair.

But she had to admit that short hair just dried quickly, Zhao Shuming’s hair that hadn’t been blown out yet was already in the same semi-dry state as her hair that had been blown out for a while now.

She stood on her tiptoes and hooked her arm around his neck, “Lower your head, I’ll blow-dry it for you.”

Zhao Shuming’s words that he wanted to tell her that it was fine that his hair wasn’t blow-dried choked in the middle of his throat, and he obediently bent down to lower his head to a level that she could just blow-dry it.

Jiang Yimiao had never helped blow-dry someone’s hair before, so her hand ruffled his broken hair somewhat carefully, her hand becoming hot along with the top of his head.

The shampoo he used was also different from his own, and usually Zhao Shuming and her had a height difference, so much so that she couldn’t even smell his shampoo, or maybe it was the smell of his body lotion that covered the shampoo’s aroma.

This was the first time Jiang Yimiao had ever felt the fresh scent of his shampoo.

Jiang Yimiao glanced down and saw that Zhao Shuming’s neck was red, so she adjusted the temperature of the hair dryer again.

But it didn’t take long for Zhao Shuming’s hair to be completely dried.

It was Jiang Yimiao’s first time touching a boy’s hair, and the feel was completely different from touching her own hair, so she couldn’t help but touch the top of Zhao Shuming’s head again.

“Your hair is so much better, unlike me, I feel like my hair is getting less and less.”

Thinking about how there were a few old-timers in the group whose heads were balding, Jiang Yimiao became more and more worried about her own hairline. This was a fact she had to accept as a programmer ……

Thinking like this, Jiang Yimiao touched her head again somewhat uncomfortably.

Zhao Shuming straightened up and smiled, “Miao Miao’s hair still looks good.”

His hand that was hanging down the side of his leg couldn’t help but make a fist, and he finally raised his hand to touch her head.

He touched it very gently and restrainedly, when he was a child he also liked to touch her head like this.

But now Zhao Shuming was afraid that she would be disgusted, afraid that she would feel uncomfortable with this kind of overly intimate action, and in the countless times that he wanted to hold her hand, touch her head or want to embrace her like in the past, Zhao Shuming restrained himself.

Perhaps the night made people a little bolder, and he finally couldn’t restrain himself from touching the top of her hair, which still had a lingering warmth.

Jiang Yimiao scratched her own hair, and three strands of hair that had fallen out hung from her fingers, “You’re coaxing me again, look, they say that if you can touch more than three strands of hair loss like this, it means that the hair loss is serious .”

Zhao Shuming rolled up the blow dryer and put his hands on her shoulders to push her out of the bathroom, “It’s just natural metabolism, your hair has been black and plentiful since you were a kid, it’s really nice to look at, would I lie to you?”

Zhao Shuming’s words were indeed true, Jiang Yimiao stopped obsessing about her hair and was taken all the way to the living room by him and sat down.

The balcony door showed a gap, blowing the muslin curtains gently up, the height of the sixteenth floor was enough to see the world around, the city outside was filled with the colorful glow of neon lights.

From time to time, the sound of honking sirens on the road not far away could also be heard.

Jiang Yimiao and Zhao Shuming’s night life had always been simple, other than watching TV dramas, she didn’t have much entertainment.

And the weekend nights were not quite the same as the weekdays because she would go to bed a little bit later, usually she might go to bed at eleven o’clock, on the weekend nights she would quietly indulge herself and wait for twelve o’clock before going to bed.

Especially this afternoon she slept for several hours, the sleepiness that washed off after the shower made her extra awake now, and it just so happened that the actress she had a crush on had a new movie on this year that was also available on the video platform, and she decided to watch that movie tonight.

And Zhao Shuming’s night life was even more boring than hers, if his friend’s counseling office didn’t have any very important work, and no work had fallen on him yet on the school side, generally whatever Jiang Yimiao did at night, he was on the sidelines with her.

Once the title song passed, the first scene was the scene of the actress that Jiang Yimiao liked, and she was putting on her makeup in front of the mirror.

Zhao Shuming frowned, always feeling that the atmosphere was a bit strange, “Miao Miao, what subject is this?”

“Oh, it’s a horror movie.” Jiang Yimiao laughed dryly in a less than kind manner, “It was released on Qingming Festival this year, the actors are a bit muddled, they can only act in horror movies.” She touched the tip of her nose.

“Aren’t you afraid of watching a horror movie at night?” Zhao Shuming teased.

“Not afraid, how scary can a domestic horror movie that can pass scrutiny be? It must all be man-made.” Jiang Yimiao spat, “But the reputation is not bad, if you don’t want to watch it, you can change it.”

Zhao Shuming remembered that when she was a child, she loved to watch the zombie series of the last century, she was afraid and loved to watch it, and every time she watched it, she had to sit close to him, he smiled and shook his head, “If you like to watch it, I’ll watch it with you.”

Jiang Yimiao pursed her lips and nodded her head like a chicken pecking, “Hush, it’s starting.”

She was still like when she was a child, subconsciously sticking to his side, in the summer she liked to dress cool, even her pajamas were mostly short sleeves and shorts.

Jiang Yimiao curled her flowery white legs up, and the loose sleeves of her pajamas unconsciously touched Zhao Shuming’s arm, tickling him a little.

Jiang Yimiao had underestimated the horror of this movie, and as she watched she picked up the biggest doll on the sofa and held it in her arms, skimming her head every now and then to hide in Zhao Shuming’s direction.

“Don’t be afraid.” He looked down at Jiang Yimiao’s hand that was tugging on his arm, thinking that he should watch more horror movies with her in the future.

But Jiang Yimiao could never have imagined that she would cry watching a horror movie, not because she was scared, but because her empathy was too strong and she felt sad about what happened to the protagonist.

Contrary to Jiang Yimiao, Zhao Shuming almost hid his empathy, and because of his work, he would receive a lot of negative content.

All of his empathic abilities are simply used to understand his patients, and are not to be confused with those of ordinary people.

His job at first was actually as a psychiatrist in an outpatient psychiatric clinic, though he later worked more often in a psychotherapy department. And when working as a psychiatrist, one can’t actually have too much empathy, but of course, one can’t have no empathy at all.

That’s why he viewed many things perhaps from a different perspective than Jiang Yimiao and the others.

Zhao Shuming patted her back, “Crying too much at night will make your eyes swell in the morning oh.” He took a tissue and dried the tears at the corners of her eyes.

“I just can’t help it, it’s too tragic ……,” Jiang Yimiao choked as she said, she also wanted to stop, but she just couldn’t control her emotions.

It wasn’t until the movie was completely over and the LCD screen in front of her eyes turned black that Jiang Yimiao slowed down.

Having cried too hard, Jiang Yimiao felt like her brain was full of water bubbles, and the feeling of being blinded by the water mist made her a little sleepy.

When she brushed her teeth in the mirror she realized that her eyes were red.

The night was quiet, with the occasional sound of water coming from the plumbing pipes.

Zhao Shuming was in her room making up the bed sheets, when she suddenly heard the sound of her letting out a cry of surprise from Jiang Yimiao’s room.

“What’s wrong?”

“There seems to be a bug in the room that screams, it scared me!” Jiang Yimiao said with some panic.

Normally she wouldn’t be scared, but tonight she had just watched a horror movie, and her perceptions had become sensitive she was easily scared by the wind.

“It’s fine, it’s fine, I’ll take a look for you.”

Zhao Shuming quickly found the location of the bug, it was a cricket, he didn’t beat it to death but grabbed the bug and threw it out, “It’s okay.”

He patted his hands to wash them and drew a paper towel to dry them.

“The bug is gone, you can sleep in peace.” He looked at Jiang Yimiao who was hiding on the bed, she was holding a doll in one hand and her quilt in the other.

Jiang Yimiao raised her head, and in a rare moment, she noticed that Zhao Shuming’s eyes were a little shriveled, and at a glance, she could tell that he hadn’t slept well in the last two days.

“Did you take your temperature tonight, do you still have a fever?”

“I did, the fever has gone down, don’t worry.” Zhao Shuming helped her cover up and set the air conditioner to sleep mode again.

“Did you still have insomnia last night?”

Probably because Zhao Shuming had always done the quilt covering for her when she was a child, Jiang Yimiao naturally lay down and was wrapped all over by the quilt.

Zhao Shuming tucked in the corner of the quilt and raised his head, “Sort of.”

He let out a sigh.

The light from the roof reflected on Zhao Shuming’s body, making the fatigue on his face clear.

Jiang Yimiao pursed her lips and grabbed the corner of the quilt, “That ……”

“Do you want to try and sleep with me?”