[Second Chances After a Breakup / Younger Love]
Mu Ya is as cold and wooden as a block of ice. Work is all she ever thinks about.
People say she’ll grow old alone, that she’ll never figure out how to love. Only Mu Ya knows she once had someone.
Then, after a long time apart, she sees Li Xi again.
The woman is soaked through, her face streaked with what could be either tears or rain. She stands outside Mu Ya’s home like a miserable little stray dog. Moved by pity, Mu Ya takes her inside and treats her like an old friend.
Whatever she’s been through, she can’t stop crying, demanding over and over, “Why did you abandon me? Why?”
Li Xi wants to get back together. She begs Mu Ya to take her back, to have mercy on her. Mu Ya says nothing. She simply makes her some hot tea, wraps a blanket around her, and tells her to get some sleep.
They really can’t be together, okay?!
But Mu Ya never imagined that one moment of weakness would leave Li Xi clinging to her…
The heart that had been still for so many years seems to beat again in that moment.
Mu Ya thinks maybe this isn’t so bad after all. But fate has other plans. The obstacle they couldn’t overcome years ago has tripped her up once again. Is there really no way through?
*
When Li Xi gets word of Mu Ya, she rushes to Zhong City in the middle of the night. After finding out where Mu Ya lives, she comes through the rain and stands outside for a long time before finally summoning the courage to knock.
The door opens from within.
It really is her!
The woman she hasn’t seen in nine years has shed her youthful awkwardness. She’s grown mature and gentle.
Her attitude is so unfamiliar, as if they’d never been together. Even when Li Xi pins her down and kisses her, Mu Ya can just turn her head and push her away. What a block of wood.
Li Xi manages to stay, and her deteriorating health gets her wish: she falls ill. Unfortunately, she can’t keep Mu Ya by her side for long. Mu Ya still goes to work. After being bullied first thing that morning, Li Xi takes her off the blacklist and calls to ask for help.
But then she spots a photo of the two of them set as the wallpaper on Mu Ya’s laptop…
Content warnings: 1. This isn’t a feel-good power fantasy; traditional values are an obstacle. Happy ending.
2. Li Xi is ill.
3. A short story, likely under 200,000 characters.
Theme: May we all have the courage to escape.
Xiaoli was nestled on the sofa and turned her head when she heard her master come home and opened the door, as if she was raising a kitten. Well-behaved and cute