cold clothes

"His surname is Xu, his given name is Master Xu...who knows...nobody cares about his name, he's a pervert no matter what his name is."

As she spoke, Leng Yi began to gag again. After vomiting for a while, her internal organs were spasming. She bent over in discomfort, saliva dripping from the corner of her mouth. Leng Yi dared not swallow; even the act of swallowing made her feel nauseous.

The boy wiped her mouth with a cotton cloth, and Leng Yi felt a surge of inferiority, pushing him away. The words, "Xiao Yu's saliva is so sweet," echoed in her mind like a curse—Leng Yi was furious, the cub in her heart howling: Why should he despise her saliva because of just one sentence?!

Leng Yi raised her hand to the boy and said, "I can get through this... I can. He's just a pedophile, he can't defeat me!" Leng Yi suddenly understood and laughed, "Hahaha, I escaped! Nobody saved me! I escaped! Nobody saved me! I can save myself! I don't need to rely on anyone! Uh—"

As Leng Yi muttered to herself, "No one will save me," she walked unsteadily, her steps erratic like a drunkard. Finally, she lost her balance and fell backward, and the boy quickly helped her up.

Leng Yi leaned against the boy's chest, listless and devoid of all strength. She asked him, "Do you ever find yourself in a situation like mine, with no one to offer you salvation?"

The boy thought for a long time before saying to her, "Yes, but I won't be so sad about it anymore."

Upon hearing the boy's words, Leng Yi felt wronged and was about to cry. "Are you looking down on me by saying that? I'm so sensitive, I can't even get over this little hurdle!"

"Hey, don't cry. You can't shed tears right now."

"Can't I even cry when I'm sad? Waaaaah..."

Tears, breakdown, pain—all in an instant. What saddened Leng Yi the most was that she couldn't cry right now; she couldn't squeeze out a single tear. Her eyes hurt so much they felt like they were going to explode, and she feared that if anything did flow out later, it would only be blood.

Leng Yi thought in despair: What's the point of me if I can't even cry?

“You can call me by my name,” the boy suddenly hugged her tighter and said softly.

"Huh?" Leng Yi didn't react.

"You said no one saved you. If that makes you sad, call my name." Leng Yi couldn't discern the emotion in the boy's voice for a moment, but the boy's voice was like burning pine wood. Pine wood doesn't make a loud noise when it burns, but it is very warm.

“Yin Jiu, you can call me Yin Jiu.”

"Why? Aren't you called Xie Yin?"

"Yin Jiu is the name I chose for myself, without any surname. As for Xie Yin, I don't want to use that name if I could, nor do I want any other names."

"Could it be..." Leng Yi opened her mouth blankly, then reached out and grabbed the boy's collar, her voice revealing unexpected joy. "Do you also hate your own name? I mean, hate the name others gave you!"

"Hmm, uh-huh..." The boy turned his head away uncomfortably. "You're right. As far as I'm concerned, whatever name others give me and then impose on me is never a good thing."

That makes so much sense! I have to applaud! "Drinking...do you really enjoy drinking?" Leng Yi asked thoughtfully.

"No, 'yin' is the 'yin' in 'yinshi' (reciting poetry), and 'jiu' is the 'jiu' in 'jiujiu' (the ninth).

"Oh, Yin Jiu... So the Yin in Xie Yin is also the Yin in 'reciting poetry'..." Leng Yi felt that she was gradually understanding everything.

Then Leng Yi froze, stunned for a full three seconds. The excruciating pain in her head vanished, and everything seemed to give her three seconds of peace. After three seconds, Leng Yi tugged at the boy's clothes again and shouted, "No, no! Why did you tell me your name? Why did you make me call your name? This... this makes it sound like—you can save me!"

Leng Yi's face flushed red. Although her body was that of a ten-year-old girl, her soul belonged to a mature woman in her twenties who understood the ways of the world. Even though she'd never been in love, she still had a girlish heart, okay? "You can call me by my name"—that's the kind of line a male lead in an 8 PM soap opera would say, damnably, it made her feel safe. Damn it, she was actually a little charmed by this little brat.

"I just want you not to cry." The boy's voice softened.

"Huh? Does that mean I won't cry if I call your name?" Little brat, what kind of romance drama male lead are you playing?!

The boy paused for a moment and said, "It certainly seems so."

Leng Yi was speechless. Her entanglement with the boy's name had indeed made her forget to cry. Moreover, it made her feel like she had transformed into the heroine of a romance drama.

The boy silently smiled, feeling relieved that he had appeased the girl in his arms.

Nestled in the boy's arms, Leng Yi cast aside the shadows of the evening, yet a new turmoil stirred within her. She felt ashamed of her earlier erratic behavior, and even more so of how easily a ten-year-old could dismiss her claims of needing no one. Yin Jiu had seen through her; the ten-year-old had seen through her with effortless ease. Master Xu wasn't the root of her despair; it was the utter helplessness and loneliness of being completely alone.

Just as Leng Yi was pondering, she suddenly heard an increasingly loud, drum-like heartbeat, which pulled her back to reality. Before Leng Yi could distinguish whether it was Yin Jiu's heartbeat or her own, she heard Yin Jiu's voice coming from above her. "If you feel better, sit back on the bed. It's not good to sit on the floor for too long."

Only after Yin Jiu said this did Leng Yi realize her physical location, and she made two "oh" sounds.

Then Leng Yi was picked up by Yin Jiu. The sudden feeling of being lifted into the air startled Leng Yi's heart. After a while, Yin Jiu put her on the bed. Just when she thought her heart could finally land safely, Yin Jiu didn't let go of her and held her tightly.

Leng Yi felt as if she had been knocked down by this embrace, and she didn't know where she landed, or as if she had fallen from the void and this embrace had caught her.

Leng Yi clenched her fist nervously, only to realize that she hadn't loosened her grip on Yin Jiu's clothes.

"Oh, so it was because I hadn't let go of you yet," Leng Yi said apologetically. "I'm sorry I must have wrinkled your clothes."

"You still care about me wrinkling my clothes... But I don't mind if I hug you a little longer, so you won't cry later."

Leng Yi was about to explode when provoked, so she gently pushed Yin Jiu away. "I won't cry anymore, so don't give me that!"

"Then it's settled, you shouldn't cry anymore, at least not until your eyes are healed."

"Hmph, don't look down on me."

Leng Yi left his embrace, and Yin Jiu's outstretched arms hung limply at his sides. He mimicked Leng Yi's snort, his gaze remaining fixed on Leng Yi's face, his eyes holding a complexity beyond his years. He looked for a moment, then tried to look away, but Leng Yi suddenly leaned closer and said to him in a questioning tone, "Little brat, do you know what telling me your name means?"