Chapter 145: She Is Simply Herself
Meili rubbed the tattoo on her arm. “This is what I look like. There’s nothing to hide.”
Even if she could cover it up for tomorrow’s meeting, could she really hide it for the rest of her life?
Besides, she and Liang Zheng weren’t even at that stage yet!
Why should she hide anything?
At worst, she just wouldn’t kiss him anymore!
A girl like her might look carefree, drifting through a field of flowers without a care in the world. But when it came to love, she was cautious and afraid to give her heart.
She was afraid of being hurt, and afraid that after gaining something, she might lose it.
When you had too little, you were especially afraid of losing what you did have. So afraid, in fact, that you could barely summon the courage to possess anything at all.
Her face showed no emotion—no anger, no anxiety. She merely glanced casually at Liang Ye. “This is what I look like. Bring your mother to see me if you want. She can look all she likes. I don’t charge admission.”
She was rarely this cold, and Liang Ye instantly found himself at a loss for words.
He looked at He Huanhuan as if pleading for help, hoping she could smooth things over for him.
But then he noticed that He Huanhuan was looking at him with a complicated expression too. She asked, “Liang Ye, are we friends?”
Without hesitation, Liang Ye nodded. “Of course we are!”
He Huanhuan said, “Friends aren’t allowed to look down on each other.”
“I wasn’t looking down on you! I—”
Liang Ye wanted to say that he hadn’t looked down on Meili. He just... he just didn’t want Meili and his brother to end up breaking up.
But suddenly, he couldn’t bring himself to say any of it. How was that not looking down on her?
He had placed Meili in the position of someone who needed to be judged and approved. That was why he had wanted her to make a good impression—to cover up her tattoos, dye her hair back to its original color...
He Huanhuan looked at him seriously. “Liang Ye, Meili and I have always been this way. If you want to be friends with people like us, then you have to accept us as we are. If you can’t, don’t come to the shop to hang out with us tomorrow.”
She and Meili were best friends. She already had friends; she didn’t need any who weren’t sincere.
With that, He Huanhuan pulled Qi Meili upstairs and left Liang Ye behind.
Despondent, Liang Ye climbed onto his electric scooter, unsure where to go.
He Huanhuan’s words echoed madly in his mind. He couldn’t help asking himself: Did he really accept them as they were?
Had he truly thought of them as friends?
He rode around like a lost soul until he reached the supermarket he often visited. That supermarket started discounting its products at eight every evening.
Heavy-hearted, he made his way to the discount section and picked up an eight-percent-off box of duck legs, along with a buy-one-get-one-free combo pack.
He was carrying the items to the checkout when a crisp female voice suddenly came from beside him. “Are you planning to eat all that tonight?”
Surprised, he turned and saw a young woman about his age pointing at the combo pack in his hands.
He shook his head. “Not tonight. I’ll eat it tomorrow.”
“Then don’t buy this combo,” the girl immediately told him. “The tofu will expire tomorrow. If you don’t eat it tonight, it’ll go sour by tomorrow. Come back tomorrow morning—the supermarket will separate the combo and discount the items again.”
She pointed at the roast duck in the pack. “The duck will be half price tomorrow morning. You should just buy the duck then.”
She sounded so certain that Liang Ye put the combo pack back. “Thanks.”
The girl waved dismissively with a smile. “See you tomorrow morning!”
She came every morning to check the discounts again. If Liang Ye came too, they would see each other.
Liang Ye didn’t even realize it, but he had just made a promise with a complete stranger.
He was a serious, earnest sort of person. Since she had told him they would meet tomorrow, he absolutely had to come to the supermarket. Otherwise, he would be breaking his word.
The next morning, he arrived right when the supermarket opened. Sure enough, he saw the girl waiting outside.
She was at the front of the line, and when she saw him, she smiled and waved.
As soon as the supermarket opened, the crowd surged inside like a flood. Before he could react, everyone had disappeared into the aisles.
By the time he reached the discount counter, all the discounted products had already been snatched up.
“You came so late. Of course you couldn’t get anything!” the girl’s bright voice rang out behind him again.
Then a half-price box of roast duck was held out in front of him.
He turned around in surprise. The girl’s eyes were full of laughter. “Luckily, I’m quick. I grabbed one for you!”
His heart began pounding wildly. He stood there dumbfounded, unable to say a word.
Seeing how foolish he looked, the girl’s smile deepened. She stuffed the roast duck into his hands and turned to leave. “Enjoy it! Bye!”
By the time Liang Ye came to his senses, she had already vanished.
He hurriedly began searching through the supermarket. Fortunately, luck was on his side, and he found her at the checkout counters.
He ran over and noticed that her cart was filled with discounted prepared foods—at least twenty or thirty boxes.
“Why did you buy so much? You won’t be able to finish all that, will you?”
When the girl saw him, she immediately smiled. “Oh, it’s you.”
She glanced at the prepared foods in her cart, her eyes filling with even more amusement. “I’m afraid it still won’t be enough.”
Liang Ye was puzzled. Did she have a huge family?
After paying, he followed her without thinking. He kept following until they left the supermarket.
He watched as she loaded everything onto her electric scooter, then prepared to ride away.
He wanted to follow her, but he also felt that doing so was inappropriate.
He stood there hesitantly, unsure what he should do.
Unexpectedly, after putting on her helmet, the girl turned to him and asked, “Why did you stop following me?”
His face instantly flushed red. “I—I’m not a pervert...”
“Haha...”
The girl burst out laughing. “Come on. I’m going to deliver these things. You can help me!”
Liang Ye’s eyes lit up at once. “Okay!”
He rode his electric scooter behind her into an urban village. The farther they went, the narrower and darker the streets became, and he couldn’t help feeling uneasy.
It was all his big brother’s fault!
If not for his brother and Meili’s relationship, he wouldn’t have been so careless as to follow a stranger here...
Oh no... He wasn’t going to get kidnapped, was he?
Just as his imagination was running wild, the electric scooter in front of him suddenly stopped. The girl took two boxes of discounted prepared food from a bag and pushed open a small door.
Liang Ye cautiously peeked inside. The room was tiny. There was a single bed, and on it sat an elderly man, hunched over with cloudy eyes.
The girl placed the food on a little stool beside the bed and called out loudly, “This expires tonight. You can’t eat it after it expires, so don’t save it for later, do you hear me? I’ll come by tonight. If you don’t eat it, I won’t bring you anything next time!”
The old man mumbled, “I know, I know...”
After speaking with him for a few moments, the girl got up and went to the next house. She continued until she had delivered all the food.
Liang Ye counted carefully. There were seventeen households in total, and the girl had brought food to seventeen elderly people.
He looked at her, unable to hide his admiration. “You’re a really good person.”
Then, somewhat dejectedly, he added, “If Meili were more like you, my mother would definitely approve of her.”
The girl asked curiously, “Who’s Meili?”
With all his pent-up frustration finally finding an outlet, he told her about his brother and Meili. “Meili is a really good person, truly. But she has a lot of tattoos, and her hair is dyed a really outrageous color. My mother would never accept her.”
He glanced at the plainly dressed girl. “If beauty looked like you, my mom would definitely accept you.”
He could tell that the girl didn’t come from a particularly well-off family.
She was wearing cheap canvas shoes, and her T-shirt hung loosely on her. Everything about her gave off an air of poverty.
But she was so kind and unpretentious.
Thanks to the way his grandparents had raised him, he instinctively believed that a girl like her was a good girl. If his older brother was in love with someone like this, his mother would be more inclined to accept her.
Unexpectedly, the girl burst out laughing. “You think I’m a good girl? But I have tattoos too, you know~”
She lifted the hem of her T-shirt, revealing a string of cat tattoos along her waist.
A teasing smile flickered in her eyes. “Am I a good girl now, or a bad girl?”