Chapter 12.2

A Woman’s Fragrance (12) – She Looks Like a Cat (2)

Lu Fei Yue sighed in an old-fashioned way, and sure enough, ‘love’ was the most difficult word, hard to judge and hard to break.

Compared with Lu Fei Yue’s uncertainty, Jiang Nian immediately believed it, probably because he felt the same way. In his eyes, Li Ruo Shui was like a friend in an unrequited love who needed to be enlightened.

“Look on the bright side, I’m the same, just get used to it.”

He shoved the baked steamed bun comfortingly into Li Ruo Shui’s hand and turned his head to start baking the flatbread.

Li Ruo Shui looked at the browned steamed bun in her hand and felt speechless. They were obviously fundamentally different.

She turned her head to look at Lu Zhi Yao, who had only eaten one steamed bun, and sighed quietly: “The steamed bun is baked, do you want to eat another one?”

“No need.”

Lu Zhi Yao not only had a small appetite but also had a low desire for food.

Sweet, salty, spicy, numb, he could eat them all, but none of them were his favourite.

In the past few days, they had eaten only dry food so they thought about having a big meal when they arrived in Cangzhou. While in the carriage, they were thinking about delicious food, but he was the only one who listened to everyone with a smile, not very interested.

It was hard for Li Ruo Shui to imagine that there were people who were not interested in food.

Li Ruo Shui got up and walked over to him, bending over with her hands on her knees to watch his fingertips tapping on the pillar with some curiosity.

“What are you doing?”

Feeling the long hair falling beside his ear, the seated Lu Zhi Yao’s lips curled up and he suddenly increased the force of his palm as he tapped on the pillar. During the vibration, a soft thing landed right on Li Ruo Shui’s head.

“Ah—”

Li Ruo Shui grabbed his collar violently. Lu Zhi Yao withdrew his hand and relaxed his shoulders, allowing her to pull him over.

He smiled. “I’m luring the cat over.”

An orange and white tail dangled in front of Li Ruo Shui’s eyes, and she suddenly sighed in relief, letting go of the hand clutching his collar.

“I was scared to death, I thought it was a mouse.”

The standing Lu Fei Yue and Jiang Nian sat back again, exchanging glances and  did not bother.

Thinking it was a mouse, Lu Zhi Yao became interested. He stretched out his hand and pulled Li Ruo Shui’s sleeve to sit in front of him, looking a little curious.

“It’s also an animal, why are you afraid of mice but not cats?”

Li Ruo Shui took the cat down from the top of her head and put it on her lap, and gently stroked its neck to calm it down.

“How are cats and mice the same? Cats are so cute.”

Lu Zhi Yao had a sudden realisation and chuckled: “As expected, appearance is still very important.”

Li Ruo Shui broke off a piece of steamed bun to the orange cat’s mouth. Seeing that the cat stretched out its pink tongue to curl the steamed bun into its mouth, she couldn’t help stroking the cat.

The depression of the past few days was instantly soothed.

“Who doesn’t like good looks?”

She stroked the cat’s smooth fur and its fleshy cat paws, relaxing as she spoke to Lu Zhi Yao.

“If you can see, look in the mirror every day when you are unhappy, your looks can definitely save you from being unhappy.”

Lu Zhi Yao lowered his eyebrows and smiled, as if the March apricot blossoms were blooming on the branches, and the flowers were prosperous and delicate, showing spring and tenderness.

Li Ruo Shui said this with a clear conscience. Looking at the way he smiled, she did have a feeling of being healed.

Lu Zhi Yao lified his left hand, the white jade Buddha beads swaying about on his wrist, the bright red silk ribbon draped over the bridge of his nose, one red and one white reflecting each other.

His fingertips were placed between his eyebrows, then slowly slid down.

“Under the skin, it’s just pus, blood and bones, dirty and ugly. The eyes, nose and mouth are just pieces of flesh piled up. I really don’t understand, where is the beauty?”

The room was quiet, his smile was no different from that of the loving Buddha, the same gentleness and compassion, but his words were shocking.

Jiang Nian silently took out the mirror and looked at himself, and suddenly felt that what Lu Zhi Yao said made some sense.

“What a joke.” Li Ruo Shui pulled his cold hand down, always feeling that the string of beads was a bit disturbing.

“Don’t impose your ideas on others. Everyone on the street has their own looks, if you look at the appearance, what else?”’

Feeling an inexplicably chill, Li Ruo Shui realised that she was too relaxed, how could she say such a thing to Lu Zhi Yao!

“Surely, there are people with high ideological awareness, like you, who don’t care about other people’s appearance, but pay attention to their hearts.”

Before he could open his mouth to say something shocking again, Li Ruo Shui hurriedly took his hand and placed it on the cat’s back. Fluffy heals everything!

“Why don’t you feel it too, isn’t it comfortable?”

The orange cat was much more relaxed after continuously petting, but as soon as Lu Zhi Yao’s hand touched it, the cat jumped up in alert as if its tail had been stepped on, hunched over and growled at Lu Zhi Yao.

Li Ruo Shui: ……

I have never seen such a person who was disliked by cats and dogs.

It seemed like this was not the first time that he had been treated like this. Lu Zhi Yao was not surprised at all, on the contrary, he felt that this was the right way.

“Look, cats won’t be tricked by my appearance.”

Lu Zhi Yao said it naturally, with a passing sense of pride that his opinion was the correct one.

Li Ruo Shui tossed the rest of the steamed bun to it, then rubbed her cold fingertips, “It’s just a cat, don’t force it.”

Lu Zhi Yao smiled but did not say anything. If he had to say something, he felt that Li Ruo Shui and the cat were very much alike, the same way they both tended to get agitated when they got too close to him.

However, Li Ruo Shui could control herself, but the cat could not.

It was getting dark outside and Li Ruo Shui felt the temperature had dropped so much that she rubbed her arms and got up to leave.

“I’ll go warm myself up by the fire.”

Hearing this, Lu Zhi Yao paused for a moment, rubbed his fingertips a few times, and then raised a smile on his lips.

“Maybe it’s warmer by my side than you staying beside the fire.”

Li Ruo Shui ignored his words and sat by the fire, rubbing her hands together to warm herself.

The dry firewood crackled in the blazing fire, and occasionally sparks spattered out, a sudden stinging pain rose in the palm of her hand.

She sucked in a deep breath, thinking that the ember hit her hand, so she retracted her hand reflexively to check.

Seeing this, Lu Fei Yue put down the scones, turned around and pulled out the ointment: “Did you get burned?”

“No……”

Li Ruo Shui’s palms were clean. Not only that, but her legs near the fire also felt a stinging pain like a knife. She stood up abruptly away from the fire and hesitated for a while.

“It should be the poison.”