"Miss Mei Niang, you must know who you are nervous about." Ao Qingmei and Bai Suzhen had been gone for a long time, but Hu Meiniang's ears kept repeating Ao Qingmei's words. Suddenly, she felt as if she had been caught doing something bad. She began to feel a little uncomfortable. Her hands unconsciously twisted her clothes. She glanced at Ao Ningshuang in front of her, and her eyes met hers. She was startled for a moment. Somehow, her face became hot. She turned her face away in panic, feeling her heart beating wildly. She couldn't help but feel a strange feeling in her heart - joy, nervousness, and confusion... She was distracted and suddenly heard a cough in her ear. Hu Meiniang was startled and immediately came to her senses -
"Sister Ningshuang, are you okay? Let me help you sit down and rest for a while." After spending many days together, Hu Meiniang already knew that Ao Ningshuang's body could not stand fatigue. Seeing her covering her lips and coughing lightly, her face slightly pale, she couldn't help but change color slightly and became extremely nervous. "Sister Ningshuang, please sit down for a while. I'll pour you a glass of water." Helping Ao Ningshuang to sit on the chair, Hu Meiniang glanced at the teapot on the table beside her. Just as she was about to turn around to pour tea, her wrist was suddenly gently pulled.
"I'm not thirsty, ahem, I'm just... just a little tired." Ao Ningshuang held Hu Meiniang's hand, shook her head, coughed slightly and said, "Meiniang, can you sit with me for a while?"
"Yeah." Hu Meiniang nodded and sat down obediently next to Ao Ningshuang.
Ao Ningshuang's gaze stayed on Hu Meiniang. There was an extremely complicated look in the depths of her eyes, full of pity and apology. After a while, she gently withdrew her hand from Hu Meiniang and was silent for a moment, as if she had made some kind of decision. She gently said, "Meiniang, let me tell you a story."
"...Okay." Hu Meiniang was slightly stunned and a little surprised. She couldn't guess what kind of story Ao Ningshuang was going to tell.
Ao Ningshuang looked up at the sky outside the house, with vague memories in her eyes. Hu Meiniang only heard her mumbling, "Many years ago, a woman was invited to visit her friend. When she passed a river not far from her friend's house, she suddenly heard someone calling for help. She rushed to the river and saw a girl struggling in the deep water. The woman jumped into the water to save her. Fortunately, she had learned martial arts and grew up by the sea. She was very good at swimming and saved the girl to shore without much trouble."
"That was a close call." Hu Meiniang patted her chest and breathed a sigh of relief, feeling lucky for the drowning girl. Fortunately, someone happened to pass by, otherwise who knows what the consequences might be. "Who is the drowning girl? How did she fall into the river?"
"The person the woman saved was her friend's sworn sister, named Yu'er." Ao Ningshuang glanced at Hu Meiniang. There was a look in her eyes that Hu Meiniang couldn't understand. After a pause, she continued, "Later, the woman found out that the other party was just trying to pick up a pebble she liked, but she accidentally stepped on empty air and fell into the river. She didn't know how to swim, so the more she struggled, the deeper she sank. She almost lost her life..."
"Yu'er's personality was clever and eccentric, which was very different from the girl's indifferent personality. However, the two of them got along inexplicably, and gradually became very good friends after getting to know each other. Yu'er liked new and strange things, so in the following days, whenever the girl visited her friend's house, she would bring some new and strange things to Yu'er, sometimes a rare flower, sometimes a rare piece of jade, and more often pebbles of various special shapes - the girl didn't want Yu'er to get into an accident again because of picking them up, so she collected the pebbles she liked for her."
"That girl Yu'er must be very happy. Someone is so kind to her." Hu Meiniang imagined how happy the girl named Yu'er would be when she received those gifts. She sighed and felt envious for a moment. She couldn't help but murmured, "If someone could be so kind to me, I think I would definitely like him."
Hearing Hu Meiniang's whisper, Ao Ningshuang's hand trembled slightly, as if something touched her, and her eyes became distant and empty in an instant.
"Sister Ningshuang, what happened later?" After a long time, Hu Meiniang's question brought Ao Ningshuang's thoughts back to her mind. She stared at Hu Meiniang, pondered for a moment, and said word by word: "Yu'er fell in love with the man who treated her well."
"She fell in love with that woman?" Hu Meiniang asked, wanting to confirm what she heard. Although as a demon, her ability to accept things was much stronger than that of ordinary mortals, this kind of same-sex love still shocked her heart.
"Yes." Ao Ningshuang pressed her fingers tightly against her chest, trying her best to calm her sudden cough, and nodded: "Yuer fell in love with the person who always brought her surprises, the person who was a woman like her... But when she plucked up the courage and confessed to the other party with trepidation, what she got was rejection." Ao Ningshuang's voice was strangely trembling. She lowered her head slightly, her long eyelashes covering her bright eyes, and she calmly concealed the pain and regret that suddenly emerged in her eyes, so that Hu Meiniang did not notice her strange expression...
"Was she rejected?" Somehow, when Hu Meiniang heard such an answer, her heart also felt inexplicably uncomfortable, and she couldn't help but feel sorry for the woman named Yu'er. It took a lot of courage for her to like a woman and confess her love to her, but she was rejected. How could she bear such a result? "Why did the woman reject Yu'er? Is it because Yu'er and she are both girls?" Hu Meiniang couldn't help but ask aloud. Although it had nothing to do with her, she still wanted to know why Yu'er was rejected. If it was because she didn't like her, she could accept it. If the woman also liked Yu'er, but just because of worldly prejudice, she didn't have the courage to face the world's pointing fingers with Yu'er and chose to retreat and reject, then, she didn't think that such a woman was worthy of Yu'er's liking and love.
"The woman didn't choose to refuse just because they were both girls." As if she had seen through Hu Meiniang's thoughts, Ao Ningshuang sighed, glanced at Hu Meiniang, and smiled bitterly, "She didn't want to take someone else's love away."
Hu Meiniang was startled, with a puzzled look in her eyes. Ao Ningshuang looked into her eyes for a while, then opened her red lips and said slowly: "Because the girl's friend has already fallen in love with Yu'er, so...how can she take someone else's love away?"