Yisen reluctantly left Munni’s house after her repeated urging.
Shortly after he left, Munni received a call from Cheng Mo.
After a long silence, Cheng Mo slowly started speaking, "Having hotpot tonight?"
"Whoa, have you switched professions to fortune-telling? You even guessed that."
Hearing her cheerful teasing, Cheng Mo replied in the same playful tone, "It’s not just me, the entire nation probably knows you had hotpot tonight."
Munni then caught the oddity in his words. Sitting on the sofa in her room with Bruce in her arms, she gently stroked Bruce’s silky fur, raised an eyebrow, and asked, "Hm? What’s going on?"
"Check out the trending topics on Weibo yourself."
Munni leaned slightly forward, picked up the tablet from the coffee table, and placed the phone, now on speaker, beside her. As she opened Weibo on the tablet, she continued with her unserious jesting: "Has hotpot been banned in our country? How come secretly eating hotpot at home can be known by everyone?"
Cheng Mo casually mm-hmm’d, but Munni distinctly heard the schadenfreude in his simple ’mm-hmm’ response.
After logging into Weibo, numerous notifications of people mentioning her popped up, and Munni began to feel something ominous.
The hottest Weibo post within the past hour turned out to be Yisen’s hotpot dinner posted two hours ago.
Right after his post, the second most popular post on the trending list was from an official account of a celebrity gossip magazine, with accompanying photos of Munni and Yisen looking at each other while shopping at a supermarket, walking side by side, Yisen lovingly touching her head, and later exiting the supermarket, Yisen arm around her shoulders, both getting into a car heading to the apartment complex where Munni lives.
Clearly, they had just been followed and photographed by reporters.
Seeing Munni silent on the other end of the phone, Cheng Mo put away his joking demeanor and seriously asked, "Do you want to get back together with him?"
Munni didn’t answer immediately. She seriously thought about Cheng Mo’s question in her mind.
Do I want to get back together with Yisen?
That’s impossible; they never truly came together in the first place, and she no longer had the courage to dive headfirst into love the way she once did.
Moments later, she put down the tablet, picked up the phone she had set aside, turned off the speaker, and pressed the phone to her ear, quietly replying, "I don’t want to."
"Liar." On the other end, Cheng Mo mercilessly exposed Munni’s words.
"Senior, I’m not lying this time. I really don’t want to get back together with Yisen."
Unintentionally, her voice spilled out bitter and helpless emotions, causing Cheng Mo to furrow his brow.
"Munni, you should step out of your world and get some air. I wish you a beautiful encounter."
Cheng Mo felt that Munni trapped herself in a world that only held her and Yisen; even if she decided to push him out, his presence for so many years filled every corner with his memories, his breaths, and the lingering warmth he left behind.
"Pfft." His words made Munni chuckle, yet she knew his point was valid.
"By the way, any plans for Christmas? Want to go to Rongyun Town for Christmas together?"
Munni suddenly remembered Yisen’s proposal from two days ago to spend Christmas at Purple Clouds Mountain and soak in the hot springs.
After hesitating for a moment, she nodded and agreed, "Sure, okay."