When Bright Moon Encounter the Dark Clouds

Before coming to Li Xian, I checked on something: Tan Jiao’s missing membership card.

Xiao Hua said that there was no record of it, but I figured they must have been careless with it. As such, I went to check the records.

However, even though I had checked every page, there was no record of her making a membership card.

Xiao Hua said with confidence, “It’s really not written down? Well, what can I do? There were so many customers on the opening day…”

At that time, I felt that something was off. As for what exactly it was, I still could not tell. I looked at Xiao Hua’s baby face and knew that he liked to play pranks and tease Tan Jiao and I. However, sometimes I felt that he was not joking.

I had noticed something was off about him ever since I got back from Suzhou.

I did not point it out to him, only observing him. Before leaving the shop, I turned and saw that the guys were once again putting up the banner about the shop opening: grand opening offer, 100 Yuan membership card for 12 car washes.

When I got to Li Xian, it was already night. While I was on my way there, the professor called and invited me to stay at his place. I rejected his offer for no other reason. I knew Chen Ruying had feelings for me in the past. Now with the added emotional stress, I thought it might be best that I keep my distance from her.

The matter that I did not expect was Tan Jiao following me. She even followed me to the inn I was staying at.

……

After being discovered by me, she hid in her room as if she had seen a ghost and made no noise. At that moment, I felt as if my little hedgehog had found me again. Although she was prickly, I knew very well how soft her heart was.

Without a choice, I could only go through the balcony.

It was night already, and the room was poorly lit. She held onto her legs, lying on the bed with her flushed face. She was unwilling to look at me.

My heart had become cold and dead after experiencing all the pain life had thrown at me for the past year.

Yet at this moment, in this quiet room, with these soft lights. This woman, this moment, I felt all my troubles and heartaches disappear. A gentleness had risen to the surface of my heart.

I guess she was the one that could make me feel love and kindness again.

I brought her out for dinner.

Her mood gradually lightened up. Compared to her cold self, she seemed more open and talkative now. We sat at the restaurant, not feeling awkward at all. We started talking about the mysterious fate we shared.

She noticed that she did not have Shen Shiyan’s phone number saved. Scrolling a month back, there was no record of their conversations either. Yet, our work with Shen Shiyan on that abduction case was half a month ago.

Tan Jiao’s attention was on the celebration in the shop and did not notice it.

But soon, I noticed the thing that had been bugging me. Like a beam of light, I suddenly realized the truth.

I sat at the restaurant with my mind feeling somewhat dazed, realizing it was the 15th of July.

Xiao Hua used to call Tan Jiao ‘Miss Tan Jiao’ and even said that the two of us seemed to have something going on. Yet now, he addresses her as ‘Miss’ and ‘Lady’ as if he had never heard of her name at all.

Tan Jiao’s membership card went missing, and there was even no record of it. It was Xiao Hua who previously helped Tan Jiao with setting up the membership card, but now he had no idea about that as well.

They also hung up the promotion banner once more.

Not only that, but Tan Jiao had also lost Shen Shiyan’s contact and even all the call logs with him.

When I was in Suzhou looking at her Weibo posts every day: 1st of July, the 3rd, the 5th, the 8th, the 12th. At that time, I just felt that time was going extremely slowly. I had not noticed the difference in time at all.

……