A few days slipped by like sparrows flashing past the eaves, and Tang Coco drifted through them in quiet water, until Saturday finally opened like a pale fan.
A little after eight on Saturday morning, Tang Coco still floated in sleep like a leaf on a soft pond. Her cotton summer quilt had been kicked to the foot of the bed like a fallen cloud, and her white nightdress no longer hid the moonlit lines of her body like dunes under snow. She didn’t feel the chill at all, because another pretty silhouette held her tight like a warm shawl—Ye Yiyi, a shadow of jasmine folded around her.
Ye Yiyi wore a white nightdress too, loose as a borrowed coat, and she stretched both arms to cage Tang Coco like a careful ribbon. One long leg draped over her like a lazy vine, and once again she was hugging Tang Coco like a stuffed doll pressed to a shy heart.
Any other day, the two of them wouldn’t dare, or wouldn’t have the face, to cling this late like dew refusing to fall, and the only reason today was different was simple as a bell—Li Muyan had gone back to her own house yesterday afternoon, called home by her father, Li Shoujing, who was taking her to a meeting at the military headquarters in Yanjing like a stern wind calling a sail. So last night, cheeks pink as peach blossoms, Ye Yiyi had asked Tang Coco to sleep with her, and as for Tang Coco—how could she possibly refuse a tide that sweet? As for what happened at night… leave it to your imagination, like lanterns winking behind a paper screen.
Bzz—bzz—bzz.
All of a sudden, the phone on the nightstand buzzed like a dragonfly trapped in a glass, its rattling wake shaking both sleepers out of their dream-lake.
“Mm… who is it… calling at dawn like a woodpecker…” Tang Coco woke in a haze like fog on river water, lips pouting like a petal, clearly unhappy. She slowly peeled Ye Yiyi’s arm off like uncoiling ivy, reached out groping for the phone like a blind fish, while Ye Yiyi rolled onto her back and rubbed her eyes like a drowsy kitten.
“Hello… who’s this?” Tang Coco asked, her just-woken voice soft as morning mist and itchy as feathergrass on the ear.
“Well, well—still not awake, are we?” A sultry voice purred from the phone like velvet over a drum, with a mischievous lilt bright as a tossed pebble. “What did you do last night, hm? No one to watch you, and you’re out here corrupting some poor girl again like a fox in a henhouse?”
Hearing that voice, Tang Coco snapped clearer like glass kissed by rain.
“Uh… Yu… Yuting… what’s up… why’re you calling…” She yanked the topic aside like a curtain, then sat up in a rush like a bird startled from a branch. The moment she sat up, her face flared red like a struck match, because she finally saw the state the two of them were in—tangled like silk threads and twice as incriminating.
“Hmph! Just wait till Gu Xin and I clean you up like two broom-wielding aunties!”
“…”
“I’m calling to tell you that Su Xinhua is holding a meet-and-greet banquet tomorrow morning, and you said you’d come with me like a sworn partner.”
“Tomorrow night?” Tang Coco blinked, her mind skipping like a stone over water.
“Oh, got it. Tomorrow night I’ll go with you,” she said, her words landing like a compromise feather.
“Mm, as long as you know,” Meng Yuting replied, her tone cool as mint on a summer tongue.
“Alright, I won’t bother you now. Take care of your body, don’t play till you’re spent like a candle in wind. Tomorrow night I’ll carry you if I have to!” The line cut with a soft beep like a door closing.
“…”
Tang Coco set the phone down with exasperation streaking her face like a brush of ink, then turned—and froze. Ye Yiyi was staring at her with big, dewy eyes like a startled fawn, hands crossed over her chest like a guardrail, as if something had just happened under thunder.
“Uh… what’s wrong? Why’re you looking at me like that…” Tang Coco asked, helplessness pooling like rain in a bowl.
“W-what… time is it…” Ye Yiyi asked, cheeks flushed like ripe cherries.
“Mm… almost nine,” Tang Coco said, glancing at the glowing screen like a little moon.
“So late already…” Ye Yiyi murmured, the words falling like a slow leaf.
“Yeah, and someone wouldn’t let go, clinging like seaweed,” Tang Coco said, her tone teasing as a sunbeam.
“…”
“And someone in my arms wouldn’t lie still, wriggling like a little fish,” she added, flicking the line like a willow switch.
“…”
“Pfft—hahaha!” Laughter popped between them like firecrackers, bright and shameless.
“Alright, I’ll go wash up, then make you something to eat,” Tang Coco said, her promise warm as steam from a bamboo steamer.
“Okay… I’ll lie here a bit,” Ye Yiyi replied, sinking back like a cat into sun.
“…”
“You’re impossible,” Tang Coco sighed, her fondness spreading like tea in hot water.
Elsewhere, after calling Tang Coco, Meng Yuting set down her phone like a stone eased onto sand and turned her head. Gu Xin was still asleep, curled around little Marilyn like a crescent moon cradling a star.
“Sigh…” Meng Yuting shook her head with helplessness fluttering like a small flag, then slipped out of bed like a shadow leaving the wall.
In her pajamas, she moved to the desk, picked up a thick stack of papers like a bundle of reeds—documents on Chenghua International. The Meng family had pegged this cooperation as vital, and they’d prepared like soldiers sharpening blades before dawn.
“Let me see just how formidable you are…” she murmured, eyes resting on Su Xinhua’s photo like a hawk measuring distance.
At noon, Tang Coco suggested dropping by Mo Zitong’s place that evening, the idea tossed out lightly like a pebble into a pond. Ye Yiyi, however, blocked it at once like a drawn sword catching sun.
“No. She’ll definitely make a move on you like a cat on cream!” Ye Yiyi said from the couch, her voice firm as a door bar.
“Uh… it’s fine… what could she even do to me…” Tang Coco answered, helplessness rising like a sigh of smoke.
“No! You don’t know her,” Ye Yiyi said, serious as stone set in a gate.
“…” Tang Coco fell silent, a thought flickering like a moth—had something happened between Ye Yiyi and Mo Zitong?
“But… I promised her,” Tang Coco said, the words dropping like pebbles that couldn’t be picked back up.
“Then… I’m going with you! I know her place,” Ye Yiyi said, grabbing Tang Coco’s hand like a lifeline.
“…”
“Alright…” Faced with Ye Yiyi’s unwavering eyes, steady as a mountain ridge, Tang Coco finally yielded like snow under sun. A little after four in the afternoon, the two of them headed for Mo Zitong’s residence like swallows in tandem, and the latter had no idea Ye Yiyi was coming—unaware as a still pond before the thrown stone.
