Encountering That Person Again

The big day for the wedding arrived in a flash, rushing by as swiftly as a roaring locomotive. Before Du Yun realized it, amidst all her hustle and bustle, the calendar had already been flipped straight to the day before Du Zhi's wedding.

"Yun, are you all ready? We need to go make the bridal bed!" As Du Yun stared blankly at the calendar, her mother's voice rang in her ear.

"Huh? Oh, coming!" Startled out of her daze, Du Yun suddenly remembered what she was supposed to be doing.

In Lotus River, there was a custom for brides known as making the bridal bed. On the day before the wedding, the bride's family would bring the quilts, mattress pads, and bed curtains from the dowry to the groom's home to arrange the new matrimonial room. This served two purposes: first, delivering the bedding meant there would be no need to frantically rummage through chests for covers the day after the wedding; second, it allowed the bride's family to inspect the new quarters firsthand and gain peace of mind.

Du Yun's mother was the one designated to go make the bed, and Du Yun, as the bride's younger sister, naturally followed closely behind. This led directly to the scene just moments ago, as the group prepared to depart.

Since this was for the wedding bed, the Tang family naturally had to show their sincerity. Early that morning, Tang's second uncle had arrived at the Du household by Lotus River with a boat and several men. Because the Du house was small and rather stuffy, they were currently chatting noisily right in the courtyard.

Du Yun reached out to straighten the tight-cuffs of her white shirt adorned with blue flowers, gathered her ponytail at the nape of her neck, and feeling that everything was in order, turned back to Du Zhi with a cheeky grin and said, "Sister, I'll go check out your bridal chamber to see how it looks!"

"You cheeky girl!" With the wedding date drawing closer, Du Zhi was already on edge. Hearing Du Yun's teasing remark, her pretty face flushed a brilliant crimson, and she cast a reproachful, glaring look at her sister.

"Oh-ho-ho, big sister is blushing!" Seeing her sister's face glowing like a colorful sunset, Du Yun hopped joyfully across the threshold. The moment she raised her head, she caught sight of a military-green figure standing in the courtyard with a faint smile, a pair of dark, deep-set eyes fixed immovably upon her.

"Ah!" Du Yun felt a jolt run through her entire body, and her footing suddenly lost its agility. One of her feet caught against the threshold, and with an involuntary gasp, she pitched forward.

Already feeling nervous, Du Yun failed to coordinate her movements in time against this sudden scare. Her usually nimble reflexes felt as though they had been locked in place. After a dizzying spin of the world, she could only resign herself, closing her eyes tightly to await the pain and embarrassment of hitting the ground.

"Well, my health is robust enough; even if I fall, the worst that will happen is that my clothes get dirty," Du Yun comforted herself inwardly, desperately trying not to dwell on the humiliating prospect of wiping out in full view of a crowd.

Yet, after waiting for a long time, the anticipated pain never materialized, as if something had caught her in mid-air.

Still, Du Yun didn't dare open her eyes because the noisy clamor of the courtyard had erupted into an even louder chorus than before. If she opened her eyes now to face the ridicule of a whole yard full of people, the very thought made her scalp tingle with dread.

"Are you all right?" A low, magnetic voice sounded right beside her ear, a gentle, warm breath brushing against her skin and raising goosebumps all over her body.

"Xiao Yi?" Du Yun was intimately familiar with that voice—she heard it every day in the zombie wasteland. But this was Xiao Yi, not her Xiao Yi! Snapping fiercely back to her senses, Du Yun hastily snapped her eyes open, only to find herself half-clasped in Xiao Yi's embrace, causing her to instinctively want to struggle free.

"Yes, it's me. Are you okay?" Xiao Yi seemed quite surprised that Du Yun had recognized his voice, but possessing good manners, he didn't show it directly. Instead, a faint trace of amusement flickered across his brows, too subtle to notice without close observation.

Xiao Yi's facial features were practically carved from the same mold as Xiao Yi's. His handsome features were striking, framed by straight, resolute brows and dark, deep eyes. As Du Yun gazed at his lips, she inexplicably recalled the intimate moments she had shared with her Xiao Yi, making her throat instantly go dry.

For a split second, Du Yun felt as though she had mixed up the Xiao Yi standing before her with the Xiao Yi far away, damnably harboring covetous desires even toward this Xiao Yi.

"I—I'm fine! Thank you!" Du Yun blurted out in a flurry, reaching out to brush away nonexistent dust from her trousers as she thanked Xiao Yi in utter embarrassment.

At that moment, the chatter in the courtyard seemed to hush considerably, as if everyone was watching the unfolding scene between the two, making Du Yun's face burn with intense heat.

"It's getting late, let's get going!" At the peak of Du Yun's excruciating embarrassment, her eldest brother timely rescued her, calling out to the group to set off. Grabbing the brightly colored bundle she had prepared earlier, Du Yun kept her head down and marched closely behind her brother, her face burning so fiercely she didn't even dare raise her head.

It wasn't that Du Yun was particularly timid or lacking in confidence; the reason she kept her head down was because she had nearly confused Xiao Yi with Xiao Yi just moments ago. This left her feeling intensely guilty and self-conscious, burdened by the shameful sensation of having betrayed her beloved partner and having the whole world discover it.

Truth be told, Xiao Yi was simply too handsome. As she dazedly boarded the boat along with the others, Du Yun couldn't help dwelling on the thought. Taking advantage of the fact that no one was paying attention, she clutched the bright red bundle, bit her lip, and stole a secret, fleeting glance in Xiao Yi's direction.

"He's tall and stands so straight, that part is really..." Xiao Yi stood at the bow of the boat in his military uniform, tall and rigidly upright, making him appear even more towering and imposing than the rest. In this aspect, he was identical to Xiao Yi. Du Yun mentally compared the Xiao Yi she saw before her with the Xiao Yi etched in her mind.

No matter the time, whether standing, sitting, or even after enduring days with only a few hours of sleep, Xiao Yi always stood and sat just as straight. Was this simply how all soldiers were?

Suppressing the doubts in her heart, Du Yun looked toward Xiao Yi again. His hair was slightly longer than Xiao Yi's cropped buzz cut, appearing soft and well-groomed. His facial features were virtually identical to Xiao Yi's, though he seemed to lack that cold, stern expression, and his spoken words were slightly more numerous.

"Handsome is truly handsome! Can such coincidences really exist in this world? To encounter the exact same face in completely different worlds, or... is he just like her, a wanderer traversing different realms?"

As Du Yun stared skeptically at Xiao Yi while lost in her own thoughts, she failed to notice the people around her gazing at her with the knowing expressions typically reserved for a young girl experiencing her first awakening of love. Meanwhile, Xiao Yi, entirely unaware, had his earlobes flushed completely red.

Du Song stared at his younger sister, who was shamelessly drooling while staring straight at Xiao Yi, deeply conflicted over whether he should wake her up. By staring at a man so intently, was his little sister perhaps simply too impatient to get married?