If The Moon Won’t Hold You

Chapter 6: First Meeting

Regarding the love letters, it was one thing as to whether or not Yan Xingzhi accepted them, and it was another as to whether or not Cen Ning gave them to him.

In her understanding, it was very immoral to withhold someone else’s love letter, but there was a voice in her selfish mind that was quietly resisting this matter. The two beliefs were in opposition, so Cen Ning had been feeling a little restless before and after dinner.

“Hey, you’re blocking my way.” Cen Ning was standing at the entrance of the small courtyard, and suddenly a little boy’s voice came from behind her.

Cen Ning looked back and saw that it was Yan Xingzhi’s little cousin, Yan Xingyao. Yan Xingyao was the child of Yan Xingzhi’s little aunt. Because his uncle had married into their family, Yan Xingyao carried his mother’s surname.

Yan Xingyao was two years younger than Cen Ning. He was very fair and white, looking very cute. However, Cen Ning didn’t like him because she remembered the day when Xue Xiaoxiao had grabbed her camera, he had been beside her.

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Cen Ning moved to the side to make way for him.

Yan Xingyao went ‘hmph’ and and walked forward two steps pretentiously. He suddenly turned around in the middle of the walking, “Are you feeling smug?”

Cen Ning was taken aback for a moment, and looked at him somewhat puzzled.

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Zyd Dkdtuys pyke: “Dkysmkys byp clld pye qsa plhlayz eyup clnywpl sq usw, R vlzz usw, xu casvbla eke dsv blzr usw vbyv eyu clnywpl bl zkjlp usw, esd’v xkpwdelapvyde.”

Uld Lkdt eked’v oydv vs yatwl okvb bkx, pbl vokvnble vbl nsadlap sq bla zkrp, yde nypwyzzu tyhl y ayvbla qsanle pxkzl: “R esd’v jdso, obyv usw, yal vyzjkdt ycswv.”

“R’x pyukdt, usw zkvvzl pvwvvlala, esd’v shlavbkdj vbl pkvwyvksd. Ls sdl vawzu olznsxlp usw kd vbkp bsxl lmnlrv qsa taydery. Yu casvbla valyvp usw olzz clnywpl bl qllzp rkvu vsoyaep usw!”

Fsxlvkxlp, vbl alxyajp sq uswa rllap olal xsal bwavqwz.

Uld Lkdt zssjle yv Zyd Dkdtuys’p ydtau qynl, qllzkdt csvb lxcyaaypple yde bwav. Gv vbkp xsxldv, pbl byvle blaplzq qsa pvyxxlakdt, yde byvle blaplzq qsa ynvwyzzu kdewztkdt y ckv kd bla qydvypklp yp Zyd Dkdtuys bye pyke.

“Rv’p usw, obs kp shlavbkdjkdt.” Rv’p rascyczu clnywpl vbl svbla ryavu oyp uswdtla vbyd bla, Uld Lkdt’p ydtla eyale vs nsxl swv y zkvvzl.

“Yl? Tso nswze R cl shlavbkdjkdt?”

Uld Lkdt zssjle yv Zyd Dkdtuys kdekqqlaldvzu, yde eke dsv prlyj qsa y zsdt vkxl.

Yan Xingyao: “Hey, what are you doing? Why are you looking at me like that, where have I said something wrong? If you have the guts, then point it out.”

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“There is nothing, I have to say to you.”

After speaking, Cen Ning turned and walked out of the courtyard.

Yan Xingyao looked at her thin back, and shouted: “Why is there nothing to say! Who are you looking down on!”

“…………”

The other party didn’t answer, and Yan Xingyao stood there, rubbing his nose, feeling a little awkward: “You only know to leave, what sort of hero are you! If you have the guts then you should argue with me.”

Cen Ning came to the open clearing that was for training recruits in the compound. It was 7 o’clock in the evening. There wasn’t a small phalanx in the clearing this time, but there were three 18-year-olds doing some light training.

And the person who was instructing their training was Yan Guofeng.

Yan Guofeng grew up in the army. Although he no longer needed to go to battle or train anymore, he was still very strict with himself, so his body was very strong and healthy, being intrinsically different to other elderly people.

As a soldier, he had very high requirements for his grandson. Having grown up to this age, this sort of training was commonplace for Yan Xingzhi. The other two people were Tang Zheng and Xin Zechuan, they had all grown up in the same compound and were “partners-in-crime” with Yan Xingzhi, so the three of them had been training together since childhood.

At this time, the three of them were doing pull-ups on the horizontal bar. Cen Ning silently sat down on the stone steps beside them, watching Yan Xingzhi easily fighting against gravity.

After a while, the evening training was over. Yan Guofeng went home first, on the other hand, Yan Xingzhi walked over and stretched his muscles. He put one hand at the bottom of his shirt and suddenly lifted it up. However, when he saw a little girl sitting on the steps in his peripheral vision, he stopped his motions and put the lifted up shirt down again.

Cen Ning had seen it, and saw that the outline of the abdominal muscles under his clothes clearly, and also saw that he was drenched in sweat due to the large amount of exercise.

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She was embarrassed by him lifting and putting it down. As she was just about to get up, Yan Xingzhi walked over and sat down beside her.

He picked up the water bottle by the side and downed half of it with a gulp.

“What’s the matter?” He put down the water bottle and screwed up the cap.

Cen Ning hesitated, took a towel and handed it over to him: “Sweat.”

Yan Xingzhi took it and casually wiped his face, keeping his gaze on her. Cen Ning couldn’t bear to be stared at like this, so she reached into her pocket and held out a beautifully folded letter.

Heart shaped…

Yan Xingzhi looked down at her palm for a few seconds, and then looked up at her coldly. The two stared at each other, and the atmosphere was inexplicably awkward.

“Oh f*ck, why was it half an hour longer today? I’m so hot.” Tang Zheng said as he walked over here.

As other voices were heard, Yan Xingzhi finally retracted his gaze.

“Hey, little girl, you are here too.” While talking, Tang Zheng took off his short sleeves.

“Put it on.” Yan Xingzhi suddenly said.

Tang Zheng didn’t react for a while, his shirt had already been taken off and thrown to the side: “Huh?”

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Yan Xingzhi’s eyes deepened for a second. He picked up the water bottle next to him and threw it over: “Put your clothes on properly.”

Tang Zheng: “……”

Xin Zechuan gave Cen Ning a meaningful look, walked over to pick up Tang Zheng’s shirt that was strewn on the ground, and threw it to his face: “Put it on, there is a little girl here, what are you doing taking it off.”

“It was because I was hot, you know,” Tang Zheng put his shirt back on with an innocent look, “Little girl, do you mind if I take off my shirt?”

Cen Ning who had been cued blushed and said nothing.

“Do have any shame?” Yan Xingzhi glanced at Tang Zheng hostilely, and looked back at Cen Ning, continuing on with their previous topic, “You’re giving me this thing?”

Cen Ning’s thoughts were also pulled back to reality and she pushed her palm towards him: “Yes.”

Yan Xingzhi was silent for a moment, and suddenly felt that things had become tricky.

He had thought about it before, that the elders’ remarks about them being engaged would affect her, but he had also thought that she wouldn’t be able to comprehend these things at such a young age.

But this moment, she was actually giving him a love letter?

He didn’t have any interest in a child, but he clearly also didn’t want to hurt her.

“What is this, a love letter?” Xin Zechuan fanned the flames while watching the show, coming forward with a playful look.

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“Love letter?!” Tang Zheng pushed Xin Zechuan aside, “Incredible!”

Yan Xingzhi pushed Tang Zheng away with an expressionless face: “Go away.”

Tang Zheng was unwilling to let it go: “Giving a love letter-ah, little girl, you’re amazing, but is this really okay? Yan Xingzhi you are poisoning a primary school student–”

Cen Ning pursed her lips, and looked at Tang Zheng seriously: “I’m a middle school student, not a, primary school student.”

Yan Xingzhi: “……”

Tang Zheng was amused by Cen Ning’s solemn expression: “Pfft- ha ha ha ha, okay, okay, okay, middle school student.”

Yan Xingzhi cleared his throat, and for once, after careful deliberation, he said, “Cen Ning, you are still young, there are many things you probably don’t understand yet. Take this thing back.”

Yan Xingzhi didn’t know if it was a misperception, but he could see that once he finished saying these words, Cen Ning’s expression lit up, as if she was very happy.

Cen Ning was indeed a little happy, and this kind of happiness even offset the dejection brought upon by Yan Xingzhi’s words: “You, don’t want it?”

Yan Xingzhi was put in a difficult spot again, but he still insisted: “I don’t.”

Cen Ning was overjoyed, and quickly took out a pile of love letters, some folded into heart shapes, square shapes, and even into paper cranes.

“Then these, do you want them?”

Yan Xingzhi: “???”

Cen Ning stared at him intently: “You want them?”

Yan Xingzhi was stunned for a moment, and didn’t react in time: “So many?”

Cen Ning blinked her eyes: “There’s some from our class, also, also, some from the class next door, um…some from my seniors too.”

“……”

“…………”

“Hahahahahaha!”

Tang Zheng and Xin Zechuan laughed mockingly and frantically.

After the “presumptuous” Yan Xingzhi got a slap in the face, he was silent for a moment, and finally said icily: “Throw them all away.”

Cen Ning: “All of them?”

Yan Xingzhi twisted his eyebrows and glanced at her: “All of them.”

Later, Cen Ning ran away with the pile of love letters. Tang Zheng looked at her back figure and said with amusement, “I say, is this girl a bit dim-witted?”

He took a sip of water and said nothing.

“She even helped pass on love letters to her fiance from her rivals. It’s too funny, hahaha—” He laughed midway, because he was punched by Yan Xingzhi and ended up swallowing back his laughter.

The other person who had not been beaten up, Xin Zechuan, said: “Xingzhi, is there a feeling of being forced to cuckold your wife?”

Tang Zheng: “What the f*ck is this horrible metaphor, I strangely like it!”

Yan Xingzhi looked at the two of them incredulously: “Are you perverted? Don’t make jokes out of children.”

“Psh, it’s not like a middle school student doesn’t understand anything, Zechuan already had his fifth girlfriend in his first year of middle school.”

Yan Xingzhi: “Can he compare to her?”

Xin Zechuan rolled his eyes: “You talk amongst yourselves, don’t pull me into it.”

Tang Zheng smiled faintly: “But has this little girl grown up a bit? How come I feel like she looks better these days?”

Yan Xingzhi did not respond, he picked up the water bottle on the side and started to walk back home.

She looks better?

She seemed to have become more fair1TL’s note: I wanted to write a note here to reiterate that all skin tones/colors are beautiful!

**

Cen Ning joined the class in the middle of the semester. Compared with her previous school, there were too many outstanding students here, so the exams were much more difficult.

On this day, the marked papers for the monthly test were issued.

Cen Ning looked down at the shocking 58 points written on her maths paper, and her heart instantly sunk to the bottom of the depths.

“Stop pulling on it, can you pull out flowers from the test paper by doing that?” A casual voice suddenly echoed from the side. Cen Ning glanced at the boy and edged the test paper over to her side.

“I have seen it all, fifty-eight, what are you covering?”

The person who was currently talking was Cen Ning’s deskmate, he had a very artsy name, Song Ci. But he, himself, was not very artsy. He was pretty handsome, had single eyelids and a high nose bridge. While listening to Zhang Ziyi’s gossip, she had heard that several girls in the class also liked him. However, he always had a sort of devil-may-care attitude, and Cen Ning occasionally talked to him. However, he always liked to render her speechless with one or two unpleasant phrases.

To say this in a nice-sounding way: his personality was upright.

Cen Ning secretly glanced at this upright boy’s paper. It was ninety-seven points, which meant that he would have gotten a perfect score if he hadn’t gotten one of the multiple choice questions wrong.

Cen Ning felt a bit disheartened within, she had tried very hard to keep up with the progress of this class, but she still couldn’t keep up with them.

At this moment, she suddenly remembered the words Yan Xingyao had said earlier, that Yan Xingzhi only treated her well because he found her pitiful.

But how was she pitiful?

Was it because she really was too weak?

That’s true, she couldn’t even conquer a maths test paper, she really was weak and useless.

The author has something to say:

Ningning will get better and better, don’t worry aunties!

(Regarding the question of the female protagonist’s speech that has breaks in between, it’s because she stutters (at this stage) so that’s why it’s like this.)

[Translator’s Note: So funny, our ML is doing his absolute best to be a law-abiding, morally upright citizen who will not lead on a pre-teen girl, while also slapping his own ego because he thought she was giving him a love letter!! Hahaha]


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dian [Translator]

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3 Comments

  1. XXI
    XXI

    The secondhand embarrassment that I have for him thinking she was giving him a love letter lol

  2. BBIBBI
    BBIBBI

    I’m simply just a passing reader….but even I felt that embarrassment 🫣🫣