Peach-Orange! – Chapter 235 – The Moonlight Shines Bright, But Only on the Roadside

Seeing the snack vendor about to pack up, and knowing Chi Xiaocheng might be preparing to sleep after 10 PM, Su Tao quickened her pace with light but rapid steps. Trying not to disturb other patients, she sped toward the entrance.

The elevator was too slow, so she took the stairs instead.

Once outside the hospital, she broke into a sprint.

“W-Wait… wait a second!”

Panting lightly, she finally managed to stop the auntie who had already packed up her stall and was about to ride off on her tricycle.

“W-Wait… I want… I want to buy something!”

The woman got off her tricycle and waited for Su Tao to catch up, smiling gently. “No need to rush, girl. Catch your breath first. What would you like? Though I don’t have much left, mind you.”

As she spoke, she started to unpack some of the items she had already put away, but Su Tao quickly shook her head. “No need to trouble yourself. Just the candied hawthorn will do.”

“Alright.” The auntie patted the back seat of her tricycle. “Xia Xia, pass that candied hawthorn down.”

Immediately, a little girl popped her head out from the vehicle. “Big sis, are you giving this to someone you like?”

She handed over the candied hawthorn, her innocent smile under the streetlight making Su Tao freeze for a moment.

Su Tao forced out an adorable smile. “Yeah, I had a fight with someone I like, so I’m buying this to cheer her up.”

“That’s so sweet!” The little girl stared at Su Tao’s cute face, full of admiration. “Mom never lets me eat candied hawthorn. She says it’ll make my teeth fall out.”

She opened her mouth wide when she laughed, revealing missing front teeth from her current tooth-shedding phase.

Reаⅾ on ΚаtRеαⅾіոɡCαfe

The auntie chimed in, “This girl’s a glutton. You can have this one for free. If it doesn’t sell, we’d just eat it at home anyway.”

“I can’t accept that!” Su Tao hurriedly pulled out her phone to scan the payment code.

But the auntie cut her off. “You rushed out of the hospital in such a hurry, so you must really care about that person. It reminds me of when my husband was still around. When I was hospitalized, he bought me candied hawthorn in the middle of the night just to make me happy.

“True love is priceless. Don’t hesitate when it comes to affection. Consider this my blessing.”

The little girl nodded beside her. “I’m so jealous of the person you like! When I grow up, I want to find someone as pretty as you!”

Then she added, “And he has to be willing to buy me candied hawthorn too!”

Su Tao chuckled, dismissing it as childish talk.

She didn’t notice the auntie’s increasingly stiff expression.

Perhaps sensing Su Tao’s urgency, the auntie didn’t keep her with small talk. After giving her blessing, she left with the little girl.

As Su Tao turned away, she overheard fragments like “so young and already thinking about dating,” “and a girl at that,” and “was it your brother who put these ideas in your head? I’ll break his legs when we get back.”

It made her sweat a little.

Had she accidentally given the little girl the wrong ideas?

She tightened her grip on the candied hawthorn stick, recalling the child’s innocent words.

Rеαⅾ oո КаtRеαdіոgCαfе

“Envious of the person I like?”

Su Tao looked up at the moon in the sky. Unobscured by clouds, its glow was dazzling.

Pedestrians walked by, bathed in the gentle moonlight that illuminated their path, their faint shadows dispelling loneliness.

Su Tao glanced down. She had a shadow too, but the ground was lit by the streetlamp’s yellowish glow.

After taking a few steps toward the hospital, she moved out of the streetlight’s range, only for sudden headlights from a passing car to flood her with brightness.

The high beams lit the road intensely but also blinded her, making it impossible to see the path ahead.

“If being liked by me is such a good thing, then why does it still hurt?”

‘Or rather, am I even someone worth being liked by?’

Unconsciously, Su Tao quickened her pace back to the hospital, taking the elevator to the eighth floor. She could only hope Chi Xiaocheng hadn’t gone to bed yet.

With every step forward, her heart grew more tangled.

‘Is she still upset with me? What if my apology makes her dislike me even more?’

‘Should I prepare an excuse in case the apology fails, so I won’t feel so awkward?’

Standing outside the hospital room, Su Tao took a deep breath, her hesitation solidifying into resolve.

Rеаⅾ οո КаtRеαⅾіnɡСαfe

If she couldn’t even apologize without fearing embarrassment, how could she prove her feelings for Xiaocheng?

The curtains were drawn over the viewing window, and the door was shut, but a sliver of light peeked through the gap.

Su Tao knocked. Softly at first, then firmer.

She expected to wait a while, but an indifferent voice answered almost immediately. “Come in.”

Heart pounding, Su Tao pushed the door open and stepped inside, gently closing it behind her. She didn’t dare look directly into Chi Xiaocheng’s eyes at first.

“You took too long. Any later and I would’ve fallen asleep.”

The voice was soft and pleasant, but carried a faint hint of rejection. Su Tao looked up in surprise to see Chi Xiaocheng turning her head toward her. “X-Xiaocheng… you knew I was coming?”

Chi Xiaocheng curled her lips slightly in mock annoyance. “Your shout of ‘I want to see Xiaocheng’ probably woke up the whole hospital. Of course I knew you were coming.”

Su Tao’s face flushed, and she scratched her head sheepishly. “Sorry….”

“Don’t bother with ‘sorry.'” Chi Xiaocheng cut her off. “So? What do you want this time? Didn’t I say I didn’t want to see you?”

The words made Su Tao bite her lower lip hard, her mood sinking further.

‘After all that anxiety, it still ends up like this?’

Her heart was heavy, a mess of emotions. She didn’t even notice that, compared to before, Chi Xiaocheng’s tone had softened considerably.

Rеаⅾ оո ΚatRеaԁiոɡСαfe

Now, it was more like someone who had been distant for too long and didn’t know how to restart a conversation, forcing herself to act like she was still upset, as if to say, If you just coax me a little more, I won’t ignore you.

With her Ultimate Acting skills, Chi Xiaocheng wouldn’t be exposed. Of course, she didn’t actually hate Su Tao.

She just needed to apply a bit of pressure.

Now that her “memory-disordered” self had been informed by Dongfang Yang about Ye Liang’s death and had been “counseled” into realizing her “hatred” was just a misunderstanding, it was time to raise the affection levels slightly.

The “carrot and stick” approach was universally effective.

Unfortunately, Su Tao was too straightforward and emotionally dense.

Chi Xiaocheng had even started faking a tiny bit of tsundere behavior, yet Su Tao was still hesitating with her head bowed, unsure what to say.

‘Just make your move already! Do it and I’ll forgive you!’

Yes, Chi Xiaocheng was getting a little impatient too.

She wanted to maintain some distance to stick to her cultivation plan—

But she also wanted to cling to Tao-Tao.

‘Honestly… it’s been so long since I last hugged Tao-Tao~’