Incurable Chapter 23 Part 2

Chapter 23 (2/3)

Aunt Wu was, after all, a servant of the Mu family, living there all year round.

After dinner, Mu Wan walked her to the complex entrance and helped her into a taxi. The car sped away quickly and soon reached the west side of the city.

That area of Xiacheng still held many of the old residential compounds—courtyard homes with green tiles and white walls. The city had developed fast, but not in the west. That part had been left mostly untouched, and many old local families still resided there.

The Mu residence occupied its own separate courtyard.

Through the main gate was the principal hall. Behind it lay a small garden. On either side of the garden were two smaller courtyards.

When Aunt Wu returned, she happened to run into Mu Qing on her way out.

Mu Qing was wearing a dark blue qipao and carrying an oil-paper umbrella. Beside her, Shen Cheng wore a long blue traditional gown. The two of them were on their way to some Republic-era themed party.

The moment Aunt Wu saw them, she lowered her head and greeted them. “Miss. Mr. Shen.”

She herself was short and slight. Shen Cheng had not noticed her at first, and when he heard the greeting, he only gave a polite nod.

Mu Qing, however, noticed what Aunt Wu was carrying and smiled.

“You went to see Mu Wan?”

Ever since returning from overseas, Mu Qing had become noticeably gentler on the surface than before.

Aunt Wu still did not dare answer right away.

After all, the Mu family had always treated Mu Wan as something not to be spoken of. Every time Aunt Wu went to see her, it was only during her own free time. The family had always known, of course, but seemed to think a mere servant could not upset much of anything. And after so many years, they had simply grown used to keeping her on.

When Aunt Wu still did not answer, Mu Qing asked directly, “Did you tell her what I told you to say?”

“I did,” Aunt Wu replied.

“And what did she say?”

Mu Qing’s eyes gleamed.

Tall and slender even in something as proper as a qipao, she still managed to make the question sound almost like an interrogation.

“She said she has work now,” Aunt Wu answered.

“Did she?”

Something like a cold laugh escaped Mu Qing’s throat.

Aunt Wu looked up at her.

Mu Qing was already walking away.

Mu Wan did indeed have work.

For example, that very day.

She had been up filming since five in the morning, eaten a boxed lunch on set at midday, and kept going until seven in the evening. Only then did she finally wrap.

The studio base that day felt like the inside of a giant sealed cauldron, smothering, hot, and damp. When Mu Wan changed out of costume and stepped outside, she discovered that all of Xiacheng felt the same way.

The clouds that had gathered the day before had still not broken. Instead, they had thickened, pressing low over the sky in a dense, rolling mass that blocked everything out.

Just standing beneath that sky was enough to make a person irritable with the heat. Everyone passing by wore the same strained expression, hurrying off toward wherever they meant to be.

Mu Wan felt the same damp heat rising restlessly through her own body.

As she lifted her hand to hail a cab, she also called Liu Qianxiu.

At five-thirty, she had already texted him to say she would be coming over late that night. He had replied that he was working overtime anyway.

He picked up quickly.

His voice, like a breeze through a bamboo grove, carried that same cool green freshness as bamboo itself. It split straight through the heat clinging to her body, and Mu Wan’s eyes curved downward on their own.

“Are you still at the hospital?”

“No. I’m on my way home,” Liu Qianxiu said.

“Then I’ll go straight to your place.”

Mu Wan did not waste words. Just as she spotted a cab, she raised her hand and hurried toward it.

“I got one, I’m hanging up now~.”

She ended the call and ran the last few steps to the taxi. That short burst of movement made her feel as though she had just swum through hot water. But when the door opened, and a wave of cool air came out, her skin tightened, and she shivered.

“Nanfeng Apartments,” she told the driver.

He pressed the meter and glanced up at the dark rolling clouds.

“It’s typhoon weather tonight,” he said. “There’ll be a downpour.”

Leaning against the window, Mu Wan slowly cooled off and looked up at the sky, too.

It really did look dramatic now, like heavy storm clouds pressing down over a city before disaster.

“Then please drive a little faster,” she said. “I didn’t bring an umbrella.”

Outside, cars were not allowed into the Nanfeng complex. The gate was still a bit of a distance from Liu Qianxiu’s building. If the rain really came down, she would have to run for it and end up drenched.

“Got it,” the driver said and hit the accelerator.

By seven in the evening, most of Xiacheng’s worst traffic had already cleared, so the roads were moving well enough.

But no car could outrun the storm.

By the time they neared Nanfeng Apartments, fat drops had already begun to fall. The first drops before a true downpour were always huge—coin-like things striking the ground hard enough to bounce. By the time they reached the complex gate, half the pavement was already wet.

Listening to the drops pounding the roof of the taxi, the driver glanced back at Mu Wan.

“You should get someone to come pick you up. These drops are no joke—they actually hurt.”

Mu Wan was lovely enough, and slight enough, that even the driver could not help feeling a little protective.

But this was not her own home, and she could hardly ask someone to come fetch her.

Without explaining, Mu Wan handed over the fare and said with a smile, “When I was little, I got hit all the time. I’m not scared of a little pain.”

Then she thanked him and shut the door.

The moment she stepped out, the huge raindrops began striking her shoulders, face, and head with astonishing force. She lifted a hand to shield herself and prepared to sprint for Liu Qianxiu’s building.

She was still mapping the route in her head, ready to charge straight through it in one go, when she looked up—and froze.

A figure stood there.

A man held a black umbrella and stood tall and quiet at the entrance of the complex. His skin was cool white, all the more striking beneath the dark canopy. On that cold fair face, his features were calm and clean, and his eyes were like two black, clear pools too deep to see through.

He was simply standing there.

Detached. Pure. Removed from the dust of the world.

There were hardly any people at the entrance. The security booth was lit, silhouettes moving inside, but outside, there was only silence and rain.

Mu Wan’s heart seemed to open under a layer of soft gauze.

She ran toward him.

As she drew closer, his features came into sharper focus.

He was looking at her.

In his hand, he carried an off-white shopping bag from the supermarket. It was opaque, but Mu Wan could guess perfectly well what was inside.

That afternoon, she had asked for sweet-and-sour diced lotus root.

Like a drifting thing finally finding shore, Mu Wan collided into the shelter of his umbrella. The faint scent of sandalwood surrounded her at once. He drew the umbrella over her, protecting her, and the rain could no longer strike her.

Since her mother died, she had lost count of how many times she had been caught in the rain.

Tonight, at least, she would not be.

The distance from the cab to him had been short, but it had still dampened parts of her. There were raindrops on her pale little face, too. Smiling, she reached up and wiped at them, trying to make herself look less bedraggled.

Then she tipped her head back to look at him, eyes bright with light.

“Liu Qianxiu, were you waiting for me?”

Her voice was still sweet, full of that upward brightness, like ripples opening across water where rain had touched it.

Liu Qianxiu looked quietly down at her beneath the umbrella.

The streetlights had just come on. Her shadow stretched slightly and slipped beyond the edge of the umbrella, long and fine, like the tail of a cat.

“Mm,” Liu Qianxiu said.

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