Kiss

How should she put it? The moment Yan Yue saw Jiang Lan, there was nothing else in her eyes but her. What she had thought had faded away was only like a sleeping volcano; silent, but still searing hot.

She had truly been in love with this person for about two years. How could she possibly strip it away just because she wanted to?

"I almost forgot to ask; are you here for work?" Yan Yue asked.

Jiang Lan shook her head. "Zou Yun told me you’d be here. I got lucky and ran into you."

"You came looking for me... for something?" Yan Yue could only ask this, even though she understood what Jiang Lan meant.

"Nothing much. I just wanted to see you."

Yan Yue smiled. The Jiang Lan of the past would never have been this proactive, never spoken so bluntly. That kind of Jiang Lan was what the Yan Yue of the past had needed.

But people could not stay in the past forever.

"If you were in Nanjing City, and came to find me, I’d definitely treat you properly," Yan Yue said. "I came specially to look for someone this time, so I have to leave later."

"Who are you looking for? Maybe I can help."

"My girlfriend. No need for help; I know where she is." Yan Yue smiled.

Jiang Lan froze, speechless. After a long while, she finally managed, hoarse, "You have a girlfriend?"

Yan Yue ignored the strange feeling in her chest and nodded. "She’s filming nearby."

"She’s... an actress?"

"Mm."

"That’s nice."

They chatted a little longer about trivial things. After they parted, Jiang Lan watched Yan Yue’s familiar yet unfamiliar figure walk away until it disappeared from view. Her body trembled; she braced herself against the back of the chair and steadied her breathing. She had barely composed herself when her eyes grew wet again, the world before her blurring thickly.

She regretted it. She regretted letting the Yan family arrange everything and studying abroad as they wished. If she had insisted on staying back then, would she have kept Yan Yue too?

But now, it seemed she had completely lost her.

Yan Yue sent several messages, but Qin Qingyan still didn’t reply. When she called, no one picked up. Guessing Qin Qingyan might be in the middle of filming and inconveniently unable to answer, she asked Ye Bai for the shoot location and hailed a car over.

After Qin Qingyan returned, her whole mood had clearly darkened. Filming continued as normal, and before long, a private car stopped outside; a man hurried out of it.

He scanned the area, didn’t see the person he wanted, and went up to speak with the director. After introducing himself, he explained his identity. The director was surprised that this middle-aged man in a suit and tie turned out to be Qin Qingyan’s father, but he still agreed to his request.

The first time Qin Qingyan saw Qin Xun, she was stunned for a moment. She searched her memory for a long time before confirming that this man was indeed the father who had abandoned her when she was little. Compared with his scruffy, dispirited appearance back then, he now looked impeccably dressed and expensive.

She ought to be glad that he was living well, but instead a wave of sadness rose in her heart.

Before her mother died, he had doted on her, and the family had been warm and happy. After her mother was gone, he seemed like a different person; he drank every day and paid her no mind at all.

Over the years she had never once gone looking for him, because she didn’t know; if she saw her father again after so many years, would it be the man he had once been, or the man he had become later?

"Qingyan..." Qin Xun seemed at a loss for what to say. Father and daughter had grown distant after all. "Did I come so suddenly and disturb your work?"

Disturb... that word seemed to push the distance between them even farther.

Qin Qingyan looked at him, dazed for a long time.

"No," she said, glancing at the busy crew. "Let’s talk somewhere else."

The two of them walked a long way before sitting down on a flight of stone steps, completely out of sight of the filming set.

"Qingyan, now that you’re acting, is filming going well? Is it tiring?" Qin Xun asked awkwardly.

"It’s fine," Qin Qingyan said.

"Xiaoyu follows celebrities, and she really likes you. She told me filming is very tiring and hard; there’s winter scenes where you have to soak in cold water, being suspended on wires and flying around, and you’re always rushing from place to place." Qin Xun tried to find something to say.

Qin Qingyan’s expression changed slightly before she said, "That’s my job. Compared to how I used to live, filming is already pretty easy."

People always said she could endure hardship, but who would willingly seek out suffering? It was only that she had been worn down too much by the past. Once she had a chance, she could only clutch it desperately.

Maybe Qin Qingyan was only speaking the truth, but Qin Xun heard it as something else and let out a quiet sigh. As a father, he knew he was far from qualified.

A brief silence fell. Qin Qingyan smiled at him, the look in her eyes carrying a deliberately pointed sort of innocence. "Who’s Xiaoyu?"

Qin Xun froze. He didn’t dare look at her, and after a long pause said, "After I left Qingyi Village, I kept trying to get by. I had no money and had to borrow from everywhere just to scrape enough together. Your Auntie Xiao never looked down on me; she stayed with me and accompanied me through the hardest days. Xiaoyu is the daughter I have with her."

Afraid she might overthink it, he quickly added, "They both know about you now, and they’re very welcoming. If you’re willing, we can go home right now; I’ll take you to meet them. Our family can finally be together again."

Qin Qingyan let out a soft laugh, her eyes stinging. She forced herself not to show it. Since childhood, she had always been best at that.

"That’s your reunion, not mine," she said.

Whether he had treated her well or badly, he was still her father. But now he had a new family, and she had become the extra one.

She blinked and looked toward the distance. The weather was, as always, unusually good. What a fine day it was; the two people who had each been clinging to hope and loss had both ended up losing.

She didn’t go back with Qin Xun. After sending Su Yan a message, she turned off her phone. She had wanted to go for a walk by the sea, but just as the thought crossed her mind, what surfaced in her head was not clear blue water or pale yellow sand, but that blinding red-and-white scene.

She hailed a car to the airport and was back in Nanjing City in just over an hour. She had covered herself up tightly; this was the first time she had done so not just to avoid being recognized, but because she wanted to shrink herself into a tiny space and wrap herself up tightly.

Only then could she feel a sense of safety she had never felt before.

Her steps suddenly halted. Someone had recognized her after all.

The sky had darkened; soft light filled the living room. Qin Qingyan sat on the sofa without saying a word.

Yan Yue poured her a cup of hot tea and set it in front of her. Qin Qingyan’s eyelids lifted slightly; after a moment of hesitation, she still didn’t reach for it.

"What happened today? Why didn’t you answer your phone?" Yan Yue sat down beside her and looked at her.

When they met at the airport, Yan Yue saw the series of complicated emotions in Qin Qingyan’s eyes after the initial surprise; in the end, only grievance remained.

She knew something must have happened. On the way home, she asked nothing and waited for Qin Qingyan to speak.

But Qin Qingyan said nothing the entire time.

After a long while, she finally looked at Yan Yue. She wanted to ask so many things, but each one died on her tongue. If she could have asked them out loud at that moment, she wouldn’t have lost the courage to step forward at the seaside.

Back then she had backed away, and now it was the same.

"I saw my dad. He got married."

He doesn’t want me anymore; that was what Yan Yue could read in Qin Qingyan’s eyes.

"Was I abandoned?" Qin Qingyan asked again, staring at Yan Yue and waiting for her answer.

She thought Yan Yue should know what she was really asking.

Yan Yue understood. So that was it.

"No. You weren’t abandoned. You always have the right to choose; to choose to be Qin Xun’s daughter, or to choose to be Qin Qingyan herself. People should always live for themselves."

"I can’t bear it..." Qin Qingyan’s eyes shone with tears.

She couldn’t bear to lose her only relative, and she couldn’t bear to lose her only lover.

Yan Yue felt a pang in her heart. She suddenly found the proof to rebut Zou Yun; maybe she liked Qin Qingyan more than she had thought.

She leaned in and hugged her gently. "Didn’t you still have me?"

Qin Qingyan’s tightly held tears burst out all at once; she no longer held back her voice either, and she clung to Yan Yue, crying freely and sincerely.

When she had cried enough, she steadied herself. Ignoring her wet eyes, she leaned back and looked at Yan Yue. "Do you like someone else?"

What?

Yan Yue looked at her in surprise. How could she possibly think that?

"I saw you with a woman in red," Qin Qingyan said. "I sent you a message asking if you were in Nanjing City, and you lied to me and said you were..."

So that was it. Yan Yue finally understood why Qin Qingyan had suddenly stopped replying and didn’t answer her calls.

Had she spent the whole day just spiraling into those thoughts? And then Qin Xun had happened to find her too; with those two bad things piled together, the day must have been awful.

Yan Yue didn’t answer. She reached out to touch Qin Qingyan’s face and wiped away the damp tear tracks at the corners of her eyes. Then she suddenly leaned forward and kissed her.

The other’s lips were soft, carrying the salty taste of tears, and she kissed them away gently, one by one.

By the time Yan Yue pulled back, Qin Qingyan was still staring blankly, frozen in place. Her mind was empty. What had she been saying again? How had Yan Yue ended up kissing her?

Then she pressed her lips together, her face flushing red. Her fingers clutched tightly at the thin blanket on the sofa as she stared at Yan Yue with wide eyes, saying nothing.

"She’s Jiang Lan. She was someone I used to have a long-time crush on..." Yan Yue told Qin Qingyan everything in detail, all the way through. Qin Qingyan still sat there stiffly, but Yan Yue knew she was listening.

Then she explained that she had only wanted to give her a surprise and hadn’t wanted her to know, which was why she had told what Qin Qingyan considered a lie.

After hearing it all, Qin Qingyan’s mood instantly cleared like the clouds had parted; everything brightened at once.

Her gaze fell on Yan Yue’s rosy lips. She couldn’t remember exactly what it had felt like just now, but it had been wonderful; every part of her body was telling her how nervous and excited she had been.

She wanted to kiss her back. She wanted it very, very much.

"You must be hungry. I’ll go boil some noodles," Yan Yue said as she stood up, hiding the unnatural look on her face.

Qin Qingyan swallowed, her throat a little dry. After taking a deep breath, she finally felt as if her body belonged to her again.

When they ate the noodles, neither of them said much. They could both sense the subtle change in their relationship. Especially Qin Qingyan; after learning that things could move forward, the look she gave Yan Yue carried a hidden meaning.

No hurry. Taking it step by step and patiently was the wise thing to do.

This time Qin Qingyan didn’t ask to stay. When Yan Yue saw her to the door, she wrapped her arms around Yan Yue’s waist in a clingy embrace, and they looked at each other.

"Can I?" she asked softly.

Yan Yue didn’t answer. She only smiled, then lowered her gaze to Qin Qingyan’s lips. That was no different from a silent consent. Qin Qingyan slightly lowered her head and kissed her directly, light and gentle, stopping at a brief taste.

The feeling of their lips touching was too beautiful; this time she experienced it with utter clarity. Though she had watched plenty of videos, actually doing it still felt clumsy. She didn’t dare be too bold; she was afraid of giving Yan Yue a bad experience.

When they separated, Yan Yue’s eyes were bright and glistening. Qin Qingyan looked at her and only felt her whole body go strange, breathing hard; it took a long time before she could calm down.

"I’m going," she said hoarsely.

"Mm. Be careful on the way."