After summer arrived, Lin Zhexia and Chi Yao soon welcomed their twentieth birthdays.

Actually, Chi Yao’s birthday had already passed, but this year he planned to celebrate together with her.

Mainly because their birthdays were too close to each other, and celebrating separately would mean “going through the trouble” twice.

“Honestly, I’ve hit a bottleneck,” Lin Zhexia candidly confessed to him before his birthday. “I’ve celebrated your birthday so many times from childhood to now, and this year I’ve been scratching my head for several days, but I still can’t come up with any fresh birthday plans.”

Fortunately, Chi Yao himself didn’t have any particular thoughts about birthdays.

So the two quickly agreed to celebrate together.

Lin Zhexia tentatively asked: “Should we skip presents this year too?”

Chi Yao raised an eyebrow: “Why?”

Lin Zhexia: “…I’ve hit a bottleneck with gifts, too.”

She thought Chi Yao would agree.

However, unexpectedly, Chi Yao uttered two words:

“Not possible.”

“Why not,” she argued unreasonably, “do you just want to receive gifts that badly? Our feelings for each other don’t necessarily have to be expressed through gifts.”

Chi Yao glanced at her: “Because I want to give you something.”

So in the time leading up to their birthday, Lin Zhexia both looked forward to what birthday gift Chi Yao would give her, while continuing to worry about what she should give him.

It’s hard to say what difference there is between “twenty years old” and “eighteen years old.”

There seems to be some difference.

In these few years, she seemed to have unconsciously moved a little closer to the three words “adult.”

That evening, Lin Zhexia was scrolling through her phone in the dormitory, looking for gift inspiration online, while Lan Xiaoxue was on the phone with her family.

Lan Xiaoxue wasn’t from this city, and she spoke with a slight accent on the phone, but since they were all from the South, Lin Zhexia could roughly make out what she was saying: “Mom, you don’t need to send anything, my dorm room is only so big, there’s no space for it even if you send it.”

“My roommates don’t eat it, stop worrying unnecessarily, and even if they did eat it, a big box of fruit would be too much.”

“Alright, I know, I’ll take good care of myself.”

“…”

Lan Xiaoxue had been very busy these days and hadn’t been eating or sleeping well.

Their Arts Department was recently hosting a plaster exhibition, and she would return to the dorm every day with dark circles under her eyes, clothes covered in mess, looking extraordinarily haggard. Once when she came back, she couldn’t help complaining about her advisor: “They just want us to be free labor… Things that aren’t even our responsibility, they force us to do, and when we submit them, they don’t even count as our work.”

At that time, the other roommates indignantly took her side: “How can they do that? Can’t you file a complaint?”

“Forget it, forget it,” Lan Xiaoxue said, “it’s just helping out with some work. Once it’s done, it’s done.”

The sound from Lan Xiaoxue’s receiver was a bit loud, and Lan’s mother spoke loudly too. Lin Zhexia heard her ask: “How’s that plaster exhibition of yours going—”

Lin Zhexia’s hand stopped scrolling for a moment, followed by Lan Xiaoxue’s artificially cheerful voice: “It’s going well! The exhibition is huge, I’ll send you a video when it’s ready.”

Bad luck seems to be contagious.

Soon, Lin Zhexia’s department also had some activity; their department was going to hold a foreign language speech competition.

The professor, having heard about it from somewhere, called her to the office during a break and asked: “I heard you participated in a school speech competition before?”

“…”

Lin Zhexia thought of her glorious history of winning first place in high school and had to admit: “Yes, I did participate before.”

The professor used a coaxing tone: “Perfect, we’re short one person for this speech competition. Would you like to try?”

Lin Zhexia wasn’t afraid, but was purely concerned that her professional level might drag the class down: “Why don’t you give this valuable opportunity to someone else?”

The professor suddenly called her name loudly: “Lin Zhexia!”

“I’ll give you one more chance. Answer me again, do you want to try?”

“…”

Judging by this attitude.

There was probably no escaping it.

In the end, Lin Zhexia nodded: “I’ll try then.”

The university speech competition was different from high school, freer, without a clear topic—everything could be done freely, with no style restrictions. The only requirement was to use the language of one’s major.

The professor added all participants to the same group chat.

So Lin Zhexia began to be busy on two fronts, preparing for the birthday and working on her speech topic, writing a simple draft.

A week before the birthday, an unexpected small incident occurred.

They were to submit their initial drafts in the evening. Half a day before the submission, Lin Zhexia met a classmate who was also participating in the competition, a girl with short hair. The girl seemed very cheerful and proactively said, “I’ll help submit yours together with mine tonight. This way we won’t both have to make the trip later.”

Lin Zhexia had other urgent matters that evening, so she said: “Thank you for the trouble then.”

While handing over her draft, Lin Zhexia caught a glimpse of the paper in her hand; the short-haired girl’s speech topic was “Dreams.”

However, by evening, the professor tagged her in the group—

@Lin Zhexia—

Your topic overlaps with another student’s; please change it and submit again.

Lin Zhexia was stunned when she saw the message.

She didn’t ask in the group but privately messaged the professor: May I ask which student I overlapped with?

Professor Zhou Tong, didn’t you two submit your papers together? When I looked, your topics were the same.

…

Lin Zhexia’s mind conjured up the short-haired girl’s face.

She instinctively typed a string of words to explain: I accidentally saw her topic, and her subject was different from mine…

But halfway through, she deleted these explanations word by word.

This matter probably wouldn’t lead to any resolution. She couldn’t explain, and she had no concrete evidence. It seemed that as one grew up, there were more and more of these “unclear” situations.

Lin Zhexia thought.

Rather than spending time arguing, it would be better to write a new one.

After all, it was just a preliminary draft; she just needed to write a new topic.

That evening, she went to have dinner with Chi Yao.

She poked at her rice bowl, eager to return to the dorm to write her new topic, and quickly said: “I’m full.”

Chi Yao was surprised by her appetite today: “You’ve eaten so little today.”

Lin Zhexia: “What’s wrong?”

Chi Yao looked at her rice bowl without saying anything.

Lin Zhexia continued: “We girls have bird stomachs, that’s normal, right?”

Chi Yao laughed coldly but softly: “Usually, you almost eat two bowls of rice, now you’re talking about having a bird stomach.”

“…”

“Anyway, I’m already full,” Lin Zhexia put down her chopsticks. “If you can’t stand it, then you eat an extra bowl.”

She acted as if everything was normal.

But between her and Chi Yao, there was always some kind of unexpected mutual sensing.

Chi Yao shifted his gaze from the bowl of rice in front of her and asked: “Are you in a bad mood?”

Lin Zhexia: “…I’m perfectly fine.”

Chi Yao asked again: “Have you finished writing your speech?”

Lin Zhexia hesitated for a second.

She could have told him about “overlapping” topics with someone else.

But the difference between being twenty and eighteen was that she also knew she needed to truly grow up.

From a young age, Chi Yao had always been the person she could rely on unconditionally.

No matter what happened, she could tell him.

Things she couldn’t tell Lin He, she could tell him, regardless of whether what she did was right or wrong.

She had originally wanted to complain to Chi Yao about the short-haired girl called Zhou Tong, just like before. But at the moment when the words were about to leave her mouth, inexplicably, she thought of how Lan Xiaoxue had talked to her family on the phone that day.

Exhausted, yet still saying she was “fine.”

Perhaps harboring the same feelings as Lan Xiaoxue, in that brief second, she chose another option.

Lin Zhexia finally said, “I just submitted the first draft, I still need to continue writing, but there’s no major issue. You keep eating, I’ll head back first.”

Due to having to choose a new topic, Lin Zhexia was busy day and night for several whole days.

During those days, whenever Chi Yao asked to see her, she said she was busy.

When he sent her messages, her replies were also very perfunctory.

Boyfriend: Writing your speech?

Lin Zhexia: Mm

Boyfriend: I’ll finish class later

Lin Zhexia: Mmhmm

Just a few “mm”s.

Chi Yao quickly sensed something.

After a while, he sent another message.

Boyfriend: Lin Zhexia is an idiot

Lin Zhexia was already dizzy from writing; she didn’t even carefully look at what Chi Yao had replied, and casually sent back a few more “mm”s.

…

By the time she realized it, more than ten minutes had passed.

That conversation lay quietly in the message box.

Just as she was thinking about what to say to make up for it, two words appeared in the chat box: Come down.

These two words were familiar.

As if she had received them countless times before.

Lin Zhexia knew she couldn’t hide it anymore. She reluctantly changed out of her pajamas, then took her keys and ran downstairs.

At this time, it was the peak period after evening classes, and there were many people at the entrance of the girls’ dormitory.

She squeezed out from the crowd and immediately saw the person waiting at the intersection.

Chi Yao stood under the streetlight, handing her a bag of fruit he had casually bought for her at a fruit store on his way, and then said coolly, “Explain.”

“Let me explain,” Lin Zhexia said, taking the bag of fruit. “I was engrossed in studying just now, so I didn’t read clearly.”

“Do you think I’ll believe that?”

“…”

Probably not.

This person was even harder to deceive than Lin He.

Lin Zhexia cautiously said: “…I think my excuse is quite reasonable, you might believe it a little.”

After a while, Lin Zhexia voluntarily surrendered: “Alright, I’ll tell you the truth.”

Anyway, it wasn’t a big deal; there was nothing she couldn’t say.

“It’s just that the initial draft I submitted before had the same topic as someone else’s. She helped me submit it together, and on the day of submission, I saw her topic was different from mine.”

Lin Zhexia briefly explained the situation, “So recently I’ve been busy rewriting.”

As she spoke, she unconsciously held the bag of fruit tighter: “I think we’re all adults now, and you’ve been quite busy lately too, so I can handle this myself.”

Chi Yao looked at her without speaking for a long time.

Just as Lin Zhexia was guessing whether he was angry, Chi Yao lowered his eyes, raised his hand, and very lightly poked her forehead with his index finger, then called her an “idiot” again.

Lin Zhexia protested softly: “I’m not an idiot, and you’ve already called me that twice today.”

“If you’re not, who is?”

Chi Yao made a “tsk” sound, his voice mixing with the cicada calls surrounding them. A gust of wind blew through the sultry summer night, “…If you digest everything by yourself, what do you need me as a boyfriend for?”