My Miao Sweetheart - Chapter 3

“Thank you, but I can’t return your feelings.

“You don’t have to be so…”

Before I could finish with “nice to me,” Lan An had casually taken my suitcase from my hand and started walking.

Then he said he knew.

“Sister, when we confess our feelings here, we’re prepared to be turned down.

“And the person we like has no obligation to like us back.

“What I do can only show you that I’m serious. Whether you accept is your choice.”

No one had ever taught me how to handle that kind of directness.

Lan An’s enthusiasm felt more like:

I like you this much, and I think you should know.

Rather than: I like you this much, so how could you possibly not like me?

I stood frozen for a long time before slowly coming to my senses, one hand over my pounding heart.

“Being straightforward really is unbeatable.”

Watching him walk away, I couldn’t help marveling,

“So this is what youthful energy and sincerity look like… Amazing.”

I settled on a guesthouse there.

And prepared to spend three thousand yuan on a “love gu.”

“Sister, that’s a scammer!”

Quick as a flash, Lan An covered my QR code with his hand and stepped in front of me.

The seller looked furious at the interruption.

But on getting a good look at the young man’s face, the seller fled in a hurry, abandoning even the merchandise.

I sighed, sounding a little forlorn.

“I know.”

Lan An looked puzzled.

Only then did I explain the real reason I’d come here.

“My overbearing tycoon of a boss is in an arranged engagement, but his intended doesn’t like him. So he sent me here to find the kind of gu that makes someone fall madly in love with a particular person.”

Rich people were all a little unhinged.

I thought my boss had lost his mind.

What he wanted wasn’t a love gu. It was a hex.

But the payment for this assignment was a million yuan. I had no reason to refuse.

“This is the job I came to the Miao village to do.

“Since I can’t find one, I’ll have to buy a fake and try to pass it off on him.”

Lan An tilted his head, thinking for a moment.

“Sister, love gu really do exist.

“But they don’t make people fall madly in love the way you think.”

He hummed and winked at me.

“I can find you someone who really knows how to make gu and can answer your questions. But there’s a condition.”

My brow twitched.

Sure enough, Lan An rubbed the tip of his nose guiltily. His face flushed as he leaned close to my ear and asked in a whisper,

“May I… touch your hand?

“Just once.”

I had no words.

I’d never encountered such polite extortion.

I murmured an assent, letting him know he could.

He took a deep breath and touched it, very gently, just once.

Talk about a tiny demand.

“Th-thank you for indulging me, Sister.”

Even his voice was trembling.

“You only touched my hand. Are you that nervous?”

It hadn’t even counted as holding hands.

He froze, his ears blazing red.

After a long moment, he slowly withdrew his hand and covered his face helplessly, his voice muffled.

“How could I not be nervous?

“And here, squeezing someone’s fingers is a way of confessing your feelings.

“I know you didn’t mean it like that. But you’ve accidentally flirted with me again.”

Again, I had no words.

It took him a while to recover, and his ears were still red afterward.

Even as he took me to meet his granny, he kept stealing glances at me.

I pretended not to notice and let him look.

I simply found an indirect way to ask the old woman about love gu.

“What’s wrong, Sister? It’s the twenty-first century. Believe in science and reject feudal superstition.”

His smile dazed me for a moment.

Damn him. What did he have to smile so beautifully for? It was blinding.

“Nothing.”

Gathering and recording the information went fairly smoothly.

“Love gu aren’t a means of forcing someone to fall in love by changing their will.

“They’re a tool for punishing men who make promises to their lovers, then go chasing other women.”

I relayed those words to my boss without changing a thing.

I also included my interview notes from speaking with Granny.

Finally, I drew a deep breath and put on a smile.

“So, Mr. Fu, they don’t have the kind of gu you’re looking for here—the kind that would make someone devoted to you, heart and soul.

“What would meet your needs is sorcery.”

He berated me from the other end for a full half hour.

Watching his face through the screen, I gauged his mood and responded at the right moments to absorb his anger.

After the call ended, I washed my face in the bathroom. Only when I looked up did I see how frighteningly pale I was.

The door blocked less sound than I’d thought. When I came out, I found myself facing a worried Lan An.

I tugged at the corners of my mouth, giving him a smile as though nothing were wrong.

“You heard all that?”

He hesitated, then said awkwardly,

“The door isn’t very soundproof. I wasn’t trying to listen.”

I nodded.

“Sorry you had to hear it.”

This stupid job. It really made me work for every bit of my pay.

I was in a rotten mood, but the worst was still to come.

My boss had told me to get back there at once, so I’d bought a ticket for that evening.

But the consultation about gu hadn’t been free.

Granny handed me a piece of paper with a hairy black spider drawn on it.

It had no markings. Its most striking feature was its plump, oval backside.

There were also a few oddly shaped little insects.

“You’ll need to find these things and bring them back.”

I gaped.

She wanted me to go up the mountain and collect everything, then try to get back before dark.

As she spoke, Granny began checking things herself, looking rather puzzled.

“They’re normally quiet. Other people have come to ask about gu before, but they’ve never been this restless.

“They only want things you’ve found.”

I caught a key word.

“They?”

Lan An looked surprised too.

From somewhere, he produced an earthenware jar with its lid firmly sealed.

“It’s mainly this little thing. It wants to eat.”

Holding the jar, he looked at a loss. “I’ve never come across this either.”

Granny stopped checking. She walked slowly over to Lan An, took the jar out of his arms, and gave him a look.

“Nonsense.”

In the Miao region, gu arts were passed to women, not men. I assumed Granny was warning Lan An not to mess with her things and didn’t think any further.

I hesitated, then declined.

“I’d like to, but I don’t think I can go up the mountain to look.

“My boss has just told me to come back as fast as possible. I’ve bought a ticket for tonight, so the timing doesn’t work.”

After some thought, I offered to compensate her with money instead.

Granny didn’t take it. Smiling, she said my boss would probably change his mind. I shouldn’t rush, or I’d end up traveling back and forth.

She sounded very sure, but I didn’t believe her.

As I packed to leave, Lan An lowered his eyes and spoke in an indifferent tone.

“Your boss really is awful, Sister.

“But if you don’t go and find them, they’ll come and find you.

“And I can’t guarantee what will turn up when they do.”