HSS Chapter 22
Translated by Novice Translations
Proofread by Yserieh
Chapter 22: Bai Chuan Very Good
After taking a bath, Bai Chuan sat on the edge of the bed and slowly wiped his hair. His movements were very slow, as if counting the time. He stared at the door, waiting for Mu Xiaoya to return.
Just now he came back from the shower, Xiaoya said she would go out for a while and to have him wait here.
"Squeak ~~"
The wooden door was pushed open, and Mu Xiaoya came in with a medicinal scent, Bai Chuan's eyes brightened imperceptibly and his heart felt inexplicably relieved.
Returned! (#^.^#)
"Why haven’t you dried your hair yet?" Mu Xiaoya asked. When she went out just now, Bai Chuan was wiping his hair. She calculated the time and it had been about four or five minutes. How could Bai Chuan still be drying his hair?
Bai Chuan froze, and awkwardly stopped his movements. Then after a while, he remembered to answer Mu Xiaoya: "It’s dry."
Bai Chuan felt a little guilty. Just now, he was waiting for Mu Xiaoya to return. For a while, he forgot he was still wiping his hair.
Mu Xiaoya pulled out an ointment from a medicine box, then turned and said to Bai Chuan, who was sitting on the bed: "Take off your clothes and let me see your back." The road was too bumpy earlier. Mu Xiaoya was afraid that Bai Chuan was hurt, she wouldn’t feel relieve until she had a look.
Bai Chuan didn't hesitate. In front of Mu Xiaoya, he took off the white T-shirt that he just put on, exposing the white shiny skin under the clothes.
"Cough... turn around." Her eyes were dazzled by Bai Chuan's white skin. Mu Xiaoya ignored the embarrassment of her heart, walked to the bed and motioned to Bai Chuan to turn around. Bai Chuan turned his back, revealing the bruised skin on his back.
Sure enough, it was blue.
Mu Xiaoya frowned, and looked at the big bruises with distress. The bump was just a little more than ten minutes old. It was less than an hour since they left the car, how could it be bruised to this extent?
"Does it hurt?" Mu Xiaoya gently touched Bai Chuan's back with her fingertips.
"It hurts." Bai Chuan doesn't have the so-called male chauvinism of ordinary men. If you ask him, he will say it hurts.
Mu Xiaoya immediately blamed herself: "Then why did you still hold me? You wouldn’t be hurt like this."
The weight of the two had been borne by Bai Chuan alone, and the impact force on his back against the car’s baggage compartment doubled. In order to hold her, Bai Chuan could only use one hand to maintain the balance of her body, which will inevitably reduce the buffer. Therefore, most of the bruises on Bai Chuan’s back were caused by her.
"If I hold you, I will be the only one hurt." Bai Chuan replied.
With his heated eyes, Mu Xiaoya suddenly wanted to cry. Even after two lifetimes, Mu Xiaoya had never truly thought about it. That one day that he would hug her for a while because of the car, she was so moved she wanted to cry.
In fact, Professor Feng and Grandma Bai were both wrong. Whoever said that people with autism couldn’t express emotions-- Mu Xiaoya believed that Bai Chuan's emotions could reached other’s hearts directly.
"I ... I'll get you some ice." With red eyes, Mu Xiaoya turned and went out. When she turned to the kitchen to find ice, she met her friend Liang Nuonuo.
"Mu Mu, why are you crying?" Liang Nuonuo saw Mu Xiaoya's eyes reddened, and immediately asked nervously.
"It's all right, do you have an ice pack here?" Mu Xiaoya smiled and tried to adjust her emotions.
"There’s ice in the freezer. I'll wrap it in a towel for you." Liang Nuonuo didn't want to continue talking when she saw Mu Xiaoya’s eyes, so she didn't ask again, and made an ice bag for Mu Xiaoya with a towel.
"Thank you." Mu Xiaoya turned around with the ice pack and left, and Liang Nuonuo stood at the door of the kitchen, looking at the direction her friend left at, her eyes flashing with worry.
When Mu Xiaoya returned to the room, Bai Chuan had continued to sit with his back to her, as if he hadn't moved since she left. The bruise on his back seemed to have expanded a bit.
"Xiao Chuan, you lay on the bed." Mu Xiaoya walked over with the ice.
Bai Chuan laid down obediently.
"It's a bit of ice, but if you apply it, the bruises won't spread." Mu Xiaoya explained.
"En." Bai Chuan gave a soft hum.
Mu Xiaoya applied a towel wrapped with ice cubes to Bai Chuan's back. She gently carried the weight of the ice pack in her hands, for fear of loosening her hands, she would further hurt Bai Chuan's damaged skin.
After the ice was applied, Mu Xiaoya once again took out the ointment for promoting blood circulation and removing blood stasis and applied it on Bai Chuan. Her fingers gently stroked the back of Bai Chuan's back and lingered around the waist. The bruise on Bai Chuan's waist was the most severe. After applying the ice, a trace of purple appeared in the blue. Mu Xiaoya couldn't help but coat this area with the ointment several times.
"Xiaoya ~~" Bai Chuan suddenly made a sound.
"Huh?" Mu Xiaoya responded casually, her fingers still applying the ointment.
"Why don’t I itch when you touch me, but you itch when I touch you." Bai Chuan turned his head back and asked earnestly.
"!!!" What, you touch me, I touch you?
Mu Xiaoya's eyes looked at Bai Chuan’s curious eyes, then tried to warn herself to not be crooked, “Because…because my meat is itchy there, it just tickles.”
"Then why didn’t I grow up to be like that."
"Everyone's sensitivity aren’t the same. You don’t have a ticklish waist. Maybe you grew up to be ticklish somewhere else."
"Oh." Bai Chuan understood. He turned around and lay down quietly. "It turns out that Xiaoya’s sensitive spot is her waist."
"Spurt~~" Mu Xiaoya’s hand tightened and a good chunk of the ointment was squeeze out instantly by her grip.
Looking at the big lump of white ointment on the back of her hand, Mu Xiaoya applied it all on Bai Chuan's back fiercely. His back became so sticky and greasy that he would need another shower to get it off.
For dinner, there are only three people, Mu Xiaoya, Bai Chuan and the host, Liang Nuonuo.
"It’s only us, how about other people?" Mu Xiaoya asked strangely, such a large cherry orchard couldn’t only have Liang Nuonuo.
"Everyone else has gone home. They are all help from the village." Liang Nuonuo answered.
"What about uncle and aunt?"
"My parents went to see my sister. They won’t be back until two days later, but they won’t be returning here. They are used to living in the village." Liang Nuonuo said.
Mu Xiaoya nodded clearly: "Do you really plan to plant cherries here in the future?" This question, Mu Xiaoya knowingly asked, because in the next four years, Liang Nuonuo did stay in her hometown.
“I plan to open a Taobao* specialized shop that sells all kinds of fruits." Liang Nuonuo said with a smile. "We have good soil and water here. The fruits we grow are better than those outside. I plan to start with my cherry orchard first. If the benefits are good, we will mobilize the villagers to work together.”
(TN: think amazon prime/alibaba/etsy all combined)
“Do you want to make the whole village rich?”
"Yes ah. You have a high level of consciousness." Liang Nuonuo laughed.
"I’m sorry, I admire you."
"Come and try our cherries." Liang Nuonuo put a washed plate of cherries in front of Mu Xiaoya. “It's getting late today, and I can't show you around right now, but I’ll show you around tomorrow.”
Mu Xiaoya responded by taking a cherry and tasting it, and found that it was juicy and delicious. It was a lot sweeter than the cherries she usually eats, and her eyes brightened, and she picked another one up. A cherry was placed in front of Bai Chuan: "Xiao Chuan, taste it. This cherry is sweeter than the ones bought in Yuncheng."
Bai Chuan, who ate quietly, put down his chopsticks and swallowed the cherry in Mu Xiaoya’s hand.
"Is it delicious?" Mu Xiaoya asked immediately.
"It's delicious." Bai Chuan nodded, but instead of continuing to eat the cherries, he picked up the chopsticks again and continued his unfinished dinner.
"Tomorrow, we can go to the orchard and pick our own."
"En." Bai Chuan stopped eating again, and after his good response, he continued to eat.
Mu Xiaoya and Bai Chuan didn’t feel there was anything wrong with how they communicated, but Liang Nuonuo on the side was tired after watching for a while. Bai Chuan was so quiet, she even forgot his existence when chatting with Mu Xiaoya just now. Now that Bai Chuan had responded, but was like a mannequin talking, he would only give a small response when Mu Xiaoya asked him. Once Mu Xiaoya stopped talking, he was quiet as if she didn't exist...
‘Although I have known that autism was like this, now that I see it with my own eyes. I personally can see the difference between them and normal people.’ Liang Nuonuo was now deeply aware of the difficulty and felt powerless. Was this person really Mu Mu’s future husband? Will Mu Mu be able to guide him so patiently for the next few decades? Just thinking about it, Liang Nuonuo instantly understood the concerns that Fang Hui mentioned to her before.
Too tired, if Mu Mu lived like this, it would be really tiring.
"Why don't you eat?" Mu Xiaoya couldn’t help but remind Liang Nuonuo when she was deep in her thoughts.
"Hic, thinking about things." Liang Nuonuo returned to her senses.
"What were you thinking about?"
"I was wondering if you two would model for me tomorrow." Liang Nuonuo said with a smile. "I plan to take some good-looking photos and upload them to my Taobao store. You two should cooperate with me and take some photos."
"You want a model and you don’t even sell clothes." Mu Xiaoya didn’t understand.
"You don’t understand. These days, good-looking people always attract attention. If I put both of you on my page, when guests browse, they will stay for a few more seconds. Maybe they will buy after looking?”
“Then you should do it yourself ah. I will take the pictures for you. I was a design student; my technique will be better than yours.”
The two got lost in a heated argument. For the remaining time for dinner, it became lively, but the only interaction was between those two people. The third person, Bai Chuan, was like a quiet puppet, who never took the initiative to interject.
After having dinner, Mu Xiaoya was afraid that Bai Chuan was tired and asked him to go back to the room to rest first while she and Liang Nuonuo sat under the cherry tree to continue chatting.
"Bai Chuan, has he always been so quiet?" Bai Chuan wasn't here anymore, and Liang Nuonuo dared to bring up the topic about him.
"En, he's been quiet since he was a kid." Mu Xiaoya smiled, and probably guessed what Liang Nuonuo was going to say next.
"Before..." Liang Nuonuo paused, then asked in a different tone. "Is he better now?"
"It's much better. I used to ask him questions when I was young, but now he will occasionally take the initiative to speak." But it seems only when they were alone.
"That's good. I thought he would only respond when you took the initiative to talk to him." Liang Nuonuo breathed a sigh of relief once she found out he took the initiative to speak. At least it wasn’t a unilateral communication.
"Thank you ah." Mu Xiaoya thanked her suddenly.
"Why did you say thank you all of a sudden?" Liang Nuonuo was surprised.
"Thank you for worrying about me." Mu Xiaoya laughed. "But, Nuonuo, don't look at us with that look you just had."
"I ..." Liang Nuonuo was stunned, hesitated, then quickly reflected that it was strange that Mu Xiaoya noticed at the dining table, but she thought her change in topic was too sudden.
“You know, today, you sent a truck to pick us up and we couldn’t sit in front? Bai Chuan and I can only sit in the back of the van. When we enter the mountain, the road was very bumpy. In order for me to be stable, Bai Chuan protected me the entire time which caused his entire back to be bruised.” Mu Xiaoya looked up at the starry sky, "I asked him if it hurts, he said it hurts, but instead of two people being hurt, it was only him that was hurt instead."
"People with autism typically don’t lie. If Bai Chuan said it hurts, then it really hurts. Although I don't think it will hurt if I bumped against the truck, he still protected me." Mu Xiaoya's eyes became a little moist again. She wasn't moved because Bai Chuan suffered pain for her, she was moved because Bai Chuan was willing to protect her.
Autistic patients were sometimes viewed as one-dimensional personalities, that they either want to do it or don’t, but they never weigh the advantages or disadvantages. Mu Xiaoya knew that even if it hurts tens or thousands of times more than this, Bai Chuan will still be willing to protect her.
"It doesn't matter if he doesn't like to talk. Anyway, if I ask him, he will answer me, then I will just ask a little more." Mu Xiaoya optimistically said, "So don't look at us that way, Bai Chuan has a cognitive impairment. He can't understand the emotions in other people's eyes, but he can tell what kind of eyes are different. "
Liang Nuonuo listened blankly; her emotions were extremely complicated.
"I'm sorry." Liang Nuonuo's face was full of guilt.
"You mean, when you had a truck come pick us up?" Mu Xiaoya turned her head and asked in a relaxed tone.
"Yes ah. I only had a tractor and thought that you wouldn’t like that."
"Thank you, I wouldn’t like that."
...
"Mu Mu~"
"En?"
"Bai Chuan is very good. At that time, when he looks at you, his eyes are as bright as the stars. "
Mu Xiaoya looked up at the starry sky, how beautiful the starry sky is ah, so that’s why so many people goes to Tibet, to the polar regions, to all the places where they can see the stars.