Chapter 388 — Wishes from Long Ago

"Unintentional? Tell that to the ghosts!" Gu Mengyao's eyes went wide. "There's a lock on that box. If you hadn't opened it, how could you have seen anything?"

"Huh?!" Wei Zhao's eyes went wide as well. He looked at Gu Mengyao. "A box? You're talking about a box?"

"If it wasn't a box, then what did you think I meant?" Gu Mengyao was thoroughly displeased by Wei Zhao's playing dumb.

"I thought... I thought you meant I'd seen your thighs..." Wei Zhao said, dripping with sweat.

"Thighs?" Gu Mengyao's face flushed. "Don't change the subject. That was an accident. What I'm asking is why you broke the lock on the box. Don't you know that prying into other people's privacy is a deeply immoral thing to do?"

Had it been anyone else, Gu Mengyao might have stopped to wonder whether the lock had been broken by somebody else. But with Wei Zhao, she had seen with her own eyes how effortlessly he pulled open the iron grating of the storeroom in the villa's back courtyard and rescued Shen Yushu. To him, snapping a little lock was nothing at all.

Not thighs, then? Not thighs, thank goodness! Wei Zhao let out a long breath. It appeared Gu Mengyao was not going to pursue the earlier business after all, and the weight on his heart lifted at once. As for this lock on the box, he had not taken it seriously at all: "The lock on the box — I didn't break it. Years of corrosion had ruined it already; the box opens straight away..."

"Really?" Gu Mengyao was taken aback by his explanation.

"Really... if you don't believe me, go and look for yourself." Wei Zhao smiled bitterly.

"Ah?" At this explanation, Gu Mengyao felt a stir of panic — Wei Zhao had no reason to lie to her; after all, one glance outside would settle the matter.

Before Gu Mengyao could say anything, Shen Yushu had already run out. Before long she ran back in, a broken little lock in her hand, and said to Gu Mengyao: "Sister Yaoyao, look — the lock really did corrode away. Brother Arrowbrand didn't do it. I told you before, Brother Arrowbrand isn't that sort of person!"

"Xiaoshu! Whose side are you on?" Gu Mengyao grew angry at once at her words. "You found it, and instead of hiding it, you destroy the evidence?"

"Oh? Then should I throw it away now?" Shen Yushu asked in a small voice.

Gu Mengyao was too exasperated for words. The instant the words left her mouth, she realized Wei Zhao was still standing right there, and her face reddened in spite of herself. "I was only saying it offhand! Come on, let's go upstairs!"

"Uh, all right..." Shen Yushu nodded, flashed Wei Zhao a grin, and went upstairs with Gu Mengyao once more.

Wei Zhao was left utterly bewildered. The struggle session was over just like that? The young miss wasn't going to make trouble for him anymore? He had never expected the whole affair to be dismissed so easily — it really was a surprise!

"Xiaoshu, you made me lose face horribly! You brainless girl — tell me, were you deliberately helping Wei Zhao?" Gu Mengyao was furious. After all that back and forth, somehow it had turned into her fault. She wanted to give Wei Zhao a good scolding, yet for the life of her she could not get the words out.

"No, I was only telling the truth..." Shen Yushu said innocently. "Sister Yaoyao, do you want me to lie? When I was small, didn't you always scold me, saying that children who lie are bad..."

"..." Gu Mengyao saw Shen Yushu changing the subject and waved her hand in exasperation. "Never mind. Upstairs!"

"Okay! I still want to see what wish I wrote back then... I've forgotten it completely!" Shen Yushu, waving her hands and dancing with delight, raced up the stairs...

"These two brocade pouches — which one is yours?" Gu Mengyao looked at the two pouches in her hand, unable to tell which belonged to whom. Too many years had passed; otherwise she could not have forgotten where they had buried them.

"I don't know. Let's each open one and look — we wrote them so long ago, it's the perfect chance to see what we wished for back then," Shen Yushu said.

"Well, all right..." Gu Mengyao hesitated, then nodded. She was a little reluctant to let Shen Yushu discover her secret; the girl was unreliable, and no telling but the moment she learned it she would run off and broadcast it to Wei Zhao, and then she would be humiliated beyond repair.

But then again, it had all been so long ago, and she had forgotten what she had written. Even if Wei Zhao found out, it was only a childish fantasy; it hardly mattered.

So Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu each picked up a pouch and began to open it. The pouches had been stitched shut with fine thread — the two of them had been quite painstaking back then. Now, however, they had no patience to unpick the seams stitch by stitch. Shen Yushu, who had been waiting impatiently all along, simply took up the scissors, snipped every thread, and opened the pouch.

"Hehe, I got mine open first — let's see whose it is!" Shen Yushu unfolded the slip of wishes inside with a smile. The paper had yellowed somewhat and the writing was faded, yet still perfectly clear: "My wish is to live together with Xiaoshu all my life, always happy..."

That slip had plainly been written by Gu Mengyao. She listened in astonishment as Shen Yushu read it to the end, never imagining that she and Xiaoshu had been so close even as a child.

"Sister Yaoyao, I'm so moved..." Carefree and loud as Shen Yushu was, the words on that slip stirred her too; her eyes reddened and tears threatened to fall.

"Hmph, only now do you know how good I've been to you?" Gu Mengyao took the scissors and opened the pouch in her hand. Needless to say, this one had to be Shen Yushu's. "My wish is to marry Sister Yaoyao and be with her all my life... Huh?!"

When Gu Mengyao finished reading the slip, her eyes went wide. Shen Yushu wanted to marry her? Was there something wrong with that girl — a lesbian streak?

"Uh?" Shen Yushu was startled too; she had not expected her own wish to be quite so formidable. "Sister Yaoyao, could we have been a pair of lilies back then? Otherwise why are our wishes so much alike?"

"Lilies, my foot!" Gu Mengyao said, speechless. "Alike? They're worlds apart! If anyone here is a lily, it's you, not me! What I wrote was living together with you — sisters can live together too! But look at what you wrote. You want to marry me. You're the one with the problem!"

"Uh? Surely not?" Shen Yushu thought it over carefully, and it was indeed so. Could she really have had some abnormal tendency back then? But she had no memory of it... She didn't like men? No — she seemed to... When Brother Arrowbrand kissed her and touched her boobs, her heart had fluttered every time...

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