Luo Sheng first met Ruan Yu when Teng Yi was present. It was Teng Yi who facilitated their meeting. However, at that time, she was still Teng Yi’s girlfriend, and he hadn’t harbored any inappropriate thoughts about her. He was merely curious about what kind of girl could conquer Teng Yi.
When he first saw her, she stood beside Teng Yi, tall and slim, with a fair and delicate face, like a small jasmine flower—not strikingly beautiful, but pleasant to look at.
That day, they shook hands.
What left the deepest impression on him was how she had glanced at Teng Yi before shaking his hand, only doing so after Teng Yi nodded.
Hah, that sickeningly sweet romance was so tiresome, yet somehow enviable.
The second time he saw her was at the domestic qualifier for the World Street Dance Cup, during the team captain battles. Teng Yi dominated the stage, earning thunderous applause, but when Luo Sheng happened to glance back, he saw her standing among the audience, brows furrowed with worry.
That expression inexplicably struck him.
He had thought only dancers could truly understand a dancer’s pain and injuries, but he hadn’t expected love could make someone just as empathetic.
Suddenly, he who had always found girls annoying wanted to fall in love.
In a way, Ruan Yu was his awakening to love.
After that, he dated many girlfriends. Some coveted his looks, some desired his money, and some wanted to ride on his father’s fame. Their feelings for him were all superficial. None were willing to truly feel his emotions, and none truly cared about the injuries he sustained on stage and in practice rooms.
Whenever he broke up and felt most dejected and empty, he would think of Ruan Yu, of that concerned look that pierced through the cheers and applause. She must have truly loved Teng Yi, right? Not just his looks, money, or family, but his very soul.
Luo Sheng hadn’t expected to see Ruan Yu again.
It was three years after Teng Yi’s brother’s accident when he attended TG Station’s New Year’s Eve show with his father. She was the host.
Meeting again, the girl he had once found merely pretty had become stunning—the kind that captivates at first sight. He didn’t know why she had become so beautiful, perhaps it was time’s polish, the tempering of hardship, or perhaps she had just put on makeup.
That evening, he had originally planned to leave after his performance, but somehow ended up staying until the end, just to catch glimpses of her between program segments.
Among the four hosts, Ruan Yu was the only newcomer, but her stage presence and ability to play off others were no less impressive than any veteran’s.
A gorgeous appearance didn’t conflict with her most dazzling and profound talent. What truly could be concealed was that which didn’t exist at all.
He suddenly understood why Teng Yi had been fascinated by her—because Teng Yi understood her hidden charm better than anyone else.
He had thought she would remain perfect until the end of the show.
But in the last five minutes before the show ended, she faltered. No, not exactly falter—just showed a slight abnormality. When she and the other hosts went on stage for the final bow and closing remarks, she stood under the lights, trying her best to joke with the others, but he saw the glistening tears in her eyes.
She seemed to have encountered something that saddened her, but as a host, her professional ethics prevented her from breaking down and ruining the show’s integrity, so she held back.
Luo Sheng was curious, but before he could investigate further, the show ended.
He had stayed until the end for her but eventually had to leave, which left him somewhat regretful. He thought this parting might mean not seeing her again for who knows how long.
Unexpectedly, he saw her again right outside.
As he drove past the venue’s main entrance, she happened to run out wearing the black formal dress from the closing ceremony, holding up her long skirt.
Like an escaping princess.
This romantic thought flashed through his mind, and his car slowed down. He just wanted to see where the princess was running to, but who would have thought she would trip on her dress and stumble straight toward his car? He jerked the steering wheel hard to avoid hitting her.
Still, she fell beside his car.
This looked exactly like an insurance scam scene!
If he hadn’t known about her prestigious job and that she wasn’t short of money, he would have thought she did it on purpose.
He quickly got out to help her up.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
She didn’t answer, her eyes still brimming with tears, whether leftover from before or from the pain of falling.
“Are you hurt? Should I take you to the hospital?” he continued asking.
“Take me to the hospital!” she suddenly came to her senses, “Please take me to the hospital!”
He was surprised she used the word “please” and politely replied, “You almost got hit by my car, taking you to the hospital is the right thing to do.”
Right thing? Right thing my foot!
Once in the car, he was about to search for nearby hospitals on the navigation system when she asked him to take her to the Sanmenxia hospital.
Sanmenxia?
For a minor injury that might not even have broken the skin, she wanted to go to a hospital four or five hundred kilometers away.
She must have been crazy to make such an absurd request, and he must have been crazy to agree.
Perhaps it was the night’s inherent magic, or perhaps it was how her running toward him with lifted skirts looked like a fairy tale, but he wanted to be the knight protecting the escaping princess, taking her far away, helping her disappear.
That was the only long-distance drive he’d ever made in his life. For five full hours, from Liao City to Sanmenxia, she sat beside him in complete silence, lost in thought. Worried she might be cold, he adjusted the air conditioning and gave her his jacket, but still she didn’t speak.
At the hospital, he finally learned that her grandfather had passed away.
The old man had been diagnosed with heart disease over three years ago but had kept it from her. Only when he died of cardiac paralysis, with grandfather and granddaughter separated by life and death, did she learn of his illness.
Grief, pain, self-reproach, guilt…
That night, he saw countless emotions in her eyes, but she never shed a tear. She knelt quietly in the hospital morgue, more like a wooden doll than when she arrived.
Later, outside the morgue, the neighbor who had brought her grandfather to the hospital came to comfort her, saying the dead were gone and the living must stay strong.
She nodded.
Seeing her so calm, the woman felt somewhat relieved and told Ruan Yu: “Your grandfather often told us that you had no parents, just him, an old man, raising you—that heaven had been unfair to you. But even though he pitied and loved you deeply in his heart, he didn’t dare be too kind to you. He was afraid that if he was too kind when he eventually passed, you would miss him too much and be too heartbroken. Ah Ruan, now that he’s gone, please don’t hold his past strictness against him. He was thinking of you, that’s why he remained stern.”
Ruan Yu suddenly broke down in violent sobs, crying so hard she hyperventilated right there in the hallway.
The tree desires stillness but the wind keeps blowing; the child wishes to care for their parents but they are already gone.
This kind of regret can’t be understood by those who haven’t experienced it.
How painful it must have been—now that she finally could repay his kindness, the old man who had raised her single-handedly and loved her so deeply had forever departed.
Luo Sheng accompanied her for an IV drip.
When she woke up, she had returned to being the calm Ruan Yu.
She stayed in Sanmenxia for two days to handle her grandfather’s funeral arrangements. Luo Sheng blended in with the mourners, keeping her company for those two days.
After two days, she collapsed from exhaustion.
Again, Luo Sheng accompanied her for an IV.
In the hospital, he received a call from a friend asking where he’d been, having disappeared after New Year’s. He said he was at a hospital in Sanmenxia, and his friend was shocked, hurriedly asking what illness had made him travel so far for treatment. He looked at the woman lying in the hospital bed and smiled self-mockingly: “Probably insanity.”
Yes, insanity.
Nothing else could reasonably explain his madness and deep feelings.
After the IV finished, she woke up.
Luo Sheng would never forget her first words upon opening her eyes and seeing him.
She said: “Oh, it’s you.”
Damn it!
So after he had driven her all this way and stayed by her side without rest, she hadn’t even properly looked at his face!
Damn it!
What an ungrateful little thing!
“Who did you think I was?” he asked her.
“A good Samaritan picked up along the way.”
“Sorry, but I’m not just any Samaritan, I’m Luo Sheng!”
She blinked her bloodshot eyes at him: “You aren’t a Samaritan—they do good deeds without leaving their names.”
He couldn’t help but laugh at her response.
From then on, they became friends, maintaining contact even after returning to Liao City.
She was someone who remembered kindness deeply. After he helped her in that crucial moment, she never forgot it. Not knowing how to repay his kindness, she used the simplest method—treating him to meals, again and again. No matter how much he took advantage of her generosity, she never complained, just quietly paid the bills, even though she wasn’t wealthy at the time.
The more he understood her, the deeper his feelings grew.
He began to feel unsatisfied with just being friends; he began to greedily want to have her.
Ruan Yu was such a perceptive woman that she noticed his intentions as soon as they emerged. She didn’t reject him directly but instead gently indicated that she was waiting for him.
That “him”—everyone knew who it was.
Teng Yi.
Luo Sheng felt that a man who had been silent for three years didn’t deserve her continued love, but she said: “I know he’s trying, trying to break through the darkness and come back to me.”
Foolish.
Bubbling with foolishness.
But it was precisely this foolishness and persistence that made him fall deeper.
Once things were out in the open, he held nothing back.
“Then you keep waiting, and I’ll keep pursuing,” he said.
“Why bother? You’ll exhaust yourself.”
“That’s my business!”
And so he pursued for three years, three fruitless years.
It was truly exhausting, absolutely fucking exhausting.
But he had no regrets.
He knew she was tired too, and she also had no regrets.
Now, Teng Yi had returned, and the two fools balanced on the scales would finally determine a winner. If the ending was destined to have one side fall hard, he hoped it wouldn’t be her.
This futile wait—he was willing to bear it in her place.