ATLAS TRANSLATES

Shu He didn’t realize that speaking in such a lazy, seductive manner with bedroom eyes made her look like she was trying to coax him.

This left Jing Yi confused: “What certificate?”

Shu He burst into laughter, tilting her head with her porcelain face showing a hint of playfulness: “What certificate do you think?”

“…”

Jing Yi finally realized what she meant. His throat tightened, and his grip on her waist became slightly firmer: “Really?”

“Mm-hmm.” Shu He’s smile deepened. “You don’t want to?”

He shook his head, then asked anxiously: “I want to, but why so suddenly…”

His dark eyes stared directly at her. Shu He caressed his face with one hand, extraordinarily gentle: “Anyway, besides you, I couldn’t possibly marry anyone else.”

As soon as she finished speaking, his hand pulled her firmly onto his lap. He rested his chin in the crook of her neck, his nose filled with her scent.

Shu He ruffled his hair. “Crying again?”

He shook his head, unwilling to admit it, but Shu He still heard him sniffling quietly.

“After we’re married…”

He stammered half a sentence, but Shu He understood what he wanted to say.

She also loved the feeling of being in his embrace. The intimacy of being held tightly by him, inseparable, gave her a sense of exceptional contentment.

“After we’re married, unless our relationship breaks down, no one can separate us anymore.”

She gently pushed him away, looking into his moist dark eyes, and asked seriously once more: “Jing Yi, will you marry me?”

Stay with me, have a legal status, so no one can separate us again.

His Adam’s apple bobbed, and he softly murmured “yes.” Warm tears seeped into their intertwined lips. “I will.”

“I want to marry you.”

Shu He gently stroked his wet eyes, her heart melting: “Little crybaby, why do you cry so much?”

He didn’t defend himself. His eyes were red, and so was his nose. She couldn’t help thinking of something else: “What if our future children cry as much as you do?”

“…They won’t.”

Shu He deliberately contradicted him: “Why not?”

“Children who grow up surrounded by love won’t be like me.”

Won’t be as terrible as me.

His words made Shu He’s heart skip a beat. He looked normal except for his still-reddened eyes, having already returned to his calm demeanor.

Shu He suddenly cupped his face, looking at him from different angles with mock seriousness, making him nervous: “…What’s wrong?”

“Then why does my Jing Yi still cry? Is it because I don’t love you enough?”

“No.” He denied it quickly, his lips moving as if he didn’t know how to explain.

After a moment of silence, he clung to her and said dejectedly: “It has nothing to do with you…”

“I’ll try not to cry in the future.”

Shu He couldn’t help but smile. “Don’t force yourself to change anything.”

“You cry beautifully.” She carefully looked at the man’s current pitiful, teary appearance and gently kissed his reddened eyelids. “I’m just worried your eyes will hurt if you cry too much.”

The way she pampered him, loving him unconditionally, made Jing Yi feel emotional again…

Being loved feels so good.

Being loved can make you happy to the point of tears.

He held back the tears welling up in his eyes and embraced her tightly, absorbing her warmth: “Sister… you have to love me for a lifetime.”

Shu He heard the nasal tone in his voice but didn’t point it out. She just playfully went along: “Is a lifetime enough? Don’t people usually say things like ‘three lives, three worlds’?”

The phrase sounded cheesy even to her as she said it.

But Jing Yi nodded. “I’m not greedy. A lifetime is enough.”

Right now, he didn’t want anything else—just her, to live well in the present. A lifetime was enough.

—

They stayed at the hotel for two days, planning to return to their previous apartment.

While checking out, a gentle female voice made Shu He look up.

The woman had delicate features, upturned clear eyes like bright moons, and red lips curved at just the right angle. Despite the two light blue shadows of fatigue under her eyelids, as she came closer, Shu He noticed a light pink scar at the end of her right eyebrow, like a cute crescent moon.

She finally remembered who the woman was, her gaze falling on the work badge she still wore—”Intern: Lin Xuemi”

“It’s you.”

She was the staff member who had stopped Shu He during the fire that day.

Lin Xuemi appeared to have just finished her shift. She smiled faintly and nodded. As they left the hotel, seeing her trying to get a taxi, Shu He was about to ask if she needed a ride when a black G-Class with hazard lights on slowly pulled up.

Lin Xuemi was visibly startled. The person inside seemed to look at her through the window. After a tense two seconds, she put away her phone but still politely nodded to Shu He before leaving.

Only after she got into the car did Jing Yi gently tug at Shu He’s hand: “You know her?”

Shu He came back to her senses as they walked to the parking lot and nodded: “When I worked part-time at the coffee shop in college, I often saw her. She went to our school.”

Lin Xuemi always sat in the same spot at the same time. She often stayed until the coffee shop closed.

Actually, there were many regular customers who came to the shop and sat in fixed places, but Shu He remembered her distinctly because one rainy day when she didn’t have an umbrella, this girl was just leaving and took an umbrella from her bag to give to her.

Shu He initially wanted to refuse, but the pretty-eyed girl smiled, “It’s okay, I brought two.”

Watching the slender figure disappear into the rain mist, Shu He felt grateful but also puzzled that someone would carry two umbrellas.

Later, Shu He returned the umbrella to her, and after that, she noticed this girl occasionally wrote with her left hand, but when she realized she was using her left hand, she seemed to hesitate momentarily before switching back to her right.

Jing Yi responded with a simple “Oh,” clearly not very interested in other people.

The apartment wasn’t far from the university town—a place both familiar and strange. The cleaning service had thoroughly cleaned it, making it spotless but somewhat empty.

“You never came back to look at it?” Shu He asked him.

Jing Yi gave a low affirmative sound. He had originally planned that once his leg healed, he would come to Litang to find her.

If she wouldn’t forgive him, if she hated him… then he could disappear completely.

“That means…” Shu He suddenly turned to look at him: “If I hadn’t returned to Qingyu, we would have only met again at this time?”

Her hypothesis made him pause… indeed.

“What about you?” This question had been on his mind for a long time. “Why did you return to Qingyu?”

Although he appeared calm, his dark eyes revealed undisguised expectation.

Shu He truly didn’t want to disappoint him, but…

She had originally planned to return to Qingyu to open a second coffee shop after the one in Litang was stable, and he knew about this plan.

But her decision to stay in Qingyu came on a rather strange evening.

“My parents always wanted me to get married early, and during that time they kept using my mom’s illness to trick me into going back.”

After graduation, she rarely went home, and Shu Hua and the others started inexplicably caring about her, but when she returned home, she found it was just a pretense.

That night, she suddenly wanted ice cream, so she went alone to a convenience store outside the community.

Late at night, she bought three, sitting outside the store eating them slowly while spacing out, until a small yellow dog suddenly appeared.

It was very small, pressing against her foot with its back to her, seemingly trembling.

When Shu He moved her foot, it clung to her again, and that’s when she noticed two large black dogs lurking in the darkness nearby.

She didn’t feel scared at all, just continued slowly eating her ice cream while talking to the little dog at her feet: “Are you looking for my help?”

“I can’t outrun them… and I can’t fight them either. I might even get bitten. You’ve found the wrong person.”

The little yellow dog said nothing, just silently stayed close to her.

Shu He rambled on, treating it as a confidante. “How old are you? Do you have a favorite dog?”

“You’re so clingy now… will you run away in a while? Are all you little dogs so heartless?”

At first they always act well-behaved, but later, they start taking advantage and being spoiled.

The woman and dog sat there for a long time, until the two big black dogs seemed to disappear. She gently kicked it, but the little one still wouldn’t leave.

Shu He was ready to go back, but it still wagged its tail, following her step by step. Its round, black eyes seemed to plead pitifully. She turned her head away, pretending to be cold: “I won’t take you home. Don’t follow me.”

The little dog couldn’t understand human language; it only knew she had protected it.

It obediently followed her for a long time. When they reached the community, it seemed to smell an unfamiliar place. It sat down, just quietly watching her, no longer following.

Shu He suddenly stopped and asked it: “You’re really not coming with me?”

The little dog remained silent until it heard something and quickly hid in the nearby bushes, disappearing completely.

Even after returning home, Shu He was still distracted, thinking about the dog, her parents’ marriage pressure, and strangely… about someone who had disappeared for a long time.

He was like that little yellow dog—clingy and impossible to drive away, yet leaving just before reaching home.

She knew he was also from Qingyu. That night, she impulsively canceled her ticket back to Litang.

She told herself it wasn’t because she wanted to wait for him that she stayed. Qingyu was so big; the chance of meeting in the vast sea of people was nearly impossible.

She couldn’t tell if she wanted to escape Litang, escape the city with memories of him, or something else.

But she had originally planned to return to Qingyu anyway; this plan was just moved up. She repeatedly told herself that none of this had anything to do with him.

After listening, Jing Yi slowly said, “Oh, so without that little dog, I might not be able to hold your hand right now.”

His unexplained resentment made Shu He laugh. He gave her a sidelong glance and lightly snorted: “Maybe I should go meet it and personally thank the little guy.”

“…” Shu He was speechless but amused. “I heard it was adopted by the community security guard. Don’t go bothering it.”

“…”

Since he couldn’t bother the dog, he started clinging to her instead.

Wherever Shu He went, he followed.

There wasn’t much in the house, so they decided to go to a nearby mall to buy some things.

He pushed the shopping cart, feeling like they were back in college days. Because this area was near the university town, most shoppers were college students.

Some couples held hands, or the boys intimately held their girlfriends.

Jing Yi looked at his girlfriend. Shu He was never one to overthink things. She directly grabbed several bottles of yogurt she liked, then carefully selected fruits. As for daily necessities, since he agreed to everything, she simply picked them up, glanced at them, and tossed them into the shopping cart.

She seemed like someone doing inventory, and he was there to help carry her goods.

Compared to the sweet little couples, they looked like an old married couple. Since entering the supermarket, Jing Yi hadn’t held her hand once.

Because they bought quite a lot, Shu He had no idea several boxes had been secretly slipped into the cart.

When they got home and unpacked together, she was surprised to see those boxes. Noticing his guilty expression as he touched his reddening ears, she was speechless: “You really…”

He defended himself righteously: “Didn’t we say we’d stay for a while?”

“But we don’t need this many…”

“Yes, we do.”

He seemed to still hold a grudge about her thinking he wasn’t capable, somewhat unreasonably accusing: “Do you not like me as much as before?”

Shu He felt completely wronged. “When did I ever?”

And when had she ever doubted him?

She was just concerned about his leg that had just healed and didn’t want him to get tired carrying her.

“In the supermarket, you didn’t hold my hand.”

“…” Shu He was speechless for a moment, then helplessly went to hold his hand. “Fine, fine, fine. Hold as long as you want, okay?”

He wished he could stick with her all the time.

Tonight they didn’t make love, just lay in the familiar large bed. Shu He nestled in his arms playing with her phone, occasionally turning the screen toward him so they could look together.

“Do you still listen to music at night?”

His sudden question caught her off guard: “What music?”

“My songs.”

The air seemed to freeze for two seconds. Shu He hadn’t expected him to discover this but didn’t feel too awkward about it.

“How did you know?”

He told her about the time she got drunk. Shu He realized belatedly, “No wonder Lan Ye said you seemed to cry that day… so that’s why?”

Knowing she still listened to his songs, knowing she perhaps hadn’t let him go.

He was somewhat unwilling to admit it, covering her teasing gaze with his hand, even burying himself in the crook of her neck to hide his embarrassment, his soft black hair brushing against her skin.

Shu He held back her laughter and explained: “With you here, I don’t need to anymore.”

She honestly told him: “After you left, my sleep became very poor.”

The person holding her seemed to tighten his grip. She comfortingly patted his back, feeling that those days of keeping company with the night were extremely lonely.

Sometimes, she slept less than four hours a day. This long-term lack of sound sleep affected her mental state, and even taking melatonin didn’t help much.

Until she played the few songs he had recorded for her, and that night she slept an extra two hours.

But the next day, she forced herself not to listen to the songs before sleep, without success.

She felt somewhat devastated. She thought his departure wouldn’t affect her much at all…

She thought everything would pass…

It wasn’t what she had expected.

These days of falling asleep to his voice lasted for a long time, until she met him again.

In the past, he didn’t often sing his own songs; most were covers of others’ songs.

There was one lyric he always kept on his lips, which even Shu He remembered deeply—

“You ask me / why I am stubborn and devoted”

Later, Shu He gradually understood the meaning of the lyrics. She simply couldn’t compromise or forget.

For Shu He, Jing Yi was also a stubborn, indispensable existence.

After she finished speaking so honestly, Jing Yi was silent for a moment, thinking back to his unreasonable behavior today…

“Was I too difficult today?”

His sudden self-reflection caught Shu He off guard. His voice sounded muffled: “I was being difficult again.”

“I don’t know why I’m always like this… I just, just…”

He just felt a bit insecure.

Shu He knew all along.

She gently kissed his ear, making him look up.

The man’s eyes drooped at the corners, his black eyes seemingly afraid to look at her, his whole person appearing dejected and genuinely disappointed in himself.

“Didn’t I say? I like you no matter how you are.” She patiently kissed him, reassuring his insecure heart again and again.

After a long while, his emotions seemed to calm somewhat, but he still remembered some things glumly and with a grudge—

“But the day before yesterday you told me to go sleep on the couch, not letting me on the bed.”

“…” Shu He paused for two seconds, then replied helplessly: “I was just saying that. Didn’t I let you come up later?”

“You also called me a bastard.”

“…”

Recalling the chaotic scene when she cursed him, Shu He didn’t comfort him this time: “In that situation, shouldn’t I have cursed you?”

“…”

Who told him to thrust deeper when he clearly sensed she was about to climax, and use an extremely obedient tone to say such provocative words—

“Sister, you’re really so sweet.”