It wasn’t until Lu Xun finally lifted his head that Qian Wei felt she’d regained access to air.

The kiss might not have actually lasted very long, but to Qian Wei, it felt as though the two of them had kissed for an entire century…

Qian Wei felt almost drained of strength. She leaned against the wall, pressing a hand to her chest, looking up at Lu Xun helplessly, her breath coming in soft gasps.

Lu Xun seemed unable to bear that look on her face. He turned his head away, avoiding her gaze, his voice carrying a slight huskiness. “I don’t like Mo Zixin.”

Qian Wei’s mind felt sluggish. “You really don’t like her?”

“I don’t like her!” Lu Xun’s voice sounded irritated. He paused, then finally turned back, shooting her a quick glare. “I like you, idiot.”

A comet colliding with Earth, a water snake swallowing a cow whole, a dung beetle giving up on rolling dung balls forever — Qian Wei’s shock was on that scale. She just stared blankly at Lu Xun, feeling like her brain had completely crashed…

Seeing her dumbfounded reaction, Lu Xun seemed even more irritated. “Didn’t you already know? Why act so shocked? Did you have to push me this far before you were satisfied?”

“I didn’t…” Qian Wei instinctively shook her head.

Lu Xun kept his expression stony, looking even more unreadable under the ambiguous light. He glanced at Qian Wei, then turned his head away. “Don’t say anything else, Qian Wei, listen to me first. I feel like I need to formally state my position to you.”

“Huh?”

“You’ve gone too far.”

“Uh?”

“I really couldn’t take it anymore today.”

Lu Xun’s expression and mood both looked terrible, his handsome face completely darkened, as if shrouded in storm clouds. “Don’t think that just because I like you, you can do whatever you want with me.”

Qian Wei: ??? Before today, I didn’t even know you liked me…

Lu Xun seemed to have made up his mind about something, and without even looking at Qian Wei’s expression, he kept plowing forward. “I never used to understand it, but now I finally see what’s called a ‘three-no girl’ — no rejection, no initiative, no responsibility. That’s exactly the strategy you’ve been using on me.” His voice sounded rather venomous. “I’ve already seen through it! You buy me breakfast, but you also buy it for Li Chongwen; you bring me fruit, but you also bring it to Li Chongwen; you use pineapples to hint at your affection and admiration toward me, and you do the exact same thing to Li Chongwen! You’ve been trying to have it both ways this whole time, enjoying the best of both worlds — that’s why you neither responded to nor rejected my confession before, even acting like nothing had happened at all. But I’m telling you now, that plan of yours is a pipe dream, I won’t let you succeed.”

Qian Wei: “Wait a moment…”

But Lu Xun, as if summoning every ounce of courage he had left, refused to let Qian Wei interrupt at all. “I, Lu Xun, will not accept being someone without a proper title. I’m telling you, Qian Wei, even though I liked you before, I’ve decided as of today, I no longer like you. This is my pride, and it’s also my principle! So don’t try to control my emotions anymore! Don’t come looking for me again!”

Qian Wei’s heart was a swirl of shock and confusion. What was Lu Xun even talking about??? When had he ever confessed to her before this? But wait a second…

“That, um, I just want to ask — since you’ve already decided you don’t like me anymore, why did you, why did you just kiss me…”

“I couldn’t help myself.”

Qian Wei stared at Lu Xun, seeing for the first time someone able to deliver such a self-righteous answer with such conviction — it was so confidently stated that it almost seemed reasonable, nothing worth criticizing at all, since after all, anyone can have moments of weak self-control. Lu Xun had simply not been able to help himself, that’s all, perfectly normal.

Qian Wei felt like everything had gone completely off the rails since that kiss, her thoughts a tangled mess of yarn with no clear starting point. Yet somewhere in that chaotic tangle, she managed to grab hold of one small clue: “So, um, when exactly did I not respond, not reject, not initiate, not take responsibility?” Qian Wei was confused. “I feel like there’s a problem with this whole premise…” She continued, “I, before today, I didn’t even know you liked me…” She felt like she’d just taken a massive shock, her voice filled with disbelief, and to reassure herself once more, she murmured, “You like me? You really like me??? “

Bringing this up only seemed to make Lu Xun even angrier. “I, Lu Xun, have never in my life written a love letter to anyone before, never lowered myself like this, never once thought about changing myself to accommodate someone else. For you, I broke all my own rules — I even wrote you a confession letter — and now you’re telling me you didn’t even know I liked you??? What exactly would count as liking you, then, confessing in front of the whole school, or standing under your dorm window shouting at the top of my lungs in the middle of the night? Didn’t you say you liked subtle, old-fashioned confessions?!”

Facing Lu Xun’s accusations, Qian Wei was completely stunned. “A confession letter? What confession letter? I never received anything, when did you even give it to me…”

Lu Xun was still fuming. “That’s impossible. I ordered it together with the flowers, and the order status shows it was signed for.”

Flowers? A confession letter? The blurry pieces in Qian Wei’s mind slowly began to click into place, and she suddenly realized something. “Saturday’s flowers? You sent those, to my mother?”

“Who else would have sent them, did they just fall out of the sky?” Lu Xun said, gritting his teeth.

That letter — it wasn’t from Li Linlin to Qian Chuan at all, it was from Lu Xun, to her?!

Qian Wei felt like a car accident victim who’d just been run over by a truck, only to be hit by a series of follow-up vehicles right after. Her mind was in complete disarray; she could only stare blankly at Lu Xun.

Watching her expression, Lu Xun looked a bit awkward. He glanced at Qian Wei, seeming like he wanted to say something, hesitating, but ultimately unable to hold back, he raised his eyebrows at her. “Stop looking at me like that.”

Qian Wei was puzzled. “Huh? What’s wrong? Why can’t I look at you?”

Lu Xun turned his head away. “If you keep looking at me like that, I might not be able to hold back again.”

Qian Wei blinked, then finally caught on to what Lu Xun meant he might not be able to hold back from. Once the meaning sank in, it felt like all the blood in her body rushed to her face at once, her whole face burning hot. Normally quite quick-witted with words, she now stood there dumbly in front of Lu Xun, unable to say a single word, her fingers unconsciously twisting the hem of her shirt — a small habit Qian Wei only had when she was extremely nervous.

Lu Xun kept his head turned away, having already released the arms that had been pinning Qian Wei in place, his hands now tucked into his pockets, his gaze fixed on the depths of the alley, his handsome face wearing a mask of forced composure and calm. If Qian Wei hadn’t heard it with her own ears, she’d have started to doubt whether that whole conversation had just been some kind of hallucination.

Under the dim yellow light of the alley, a faint blush lingered on Lu Xun’s pale face. Qian Wei could clearly make out the slight rise and fall beneath his shirt from his rapid breathing. The air was filled with silence, and Qian Wei felt like every sound was being amplified by this soundless quiet — she thought she could hear the faint sound of both their breaths.

In that irritating silence, Lu Xun seemed to finally settle down and regain some of his usual composure and calm. He cleared his throat and smoothly returned to the topic at hand. “So, you’re saying you never received the letter?”

Qian Wei, still red-faced, kept nervously twisting the hem of her shirt. “I had absolutely no idea about any of this…”

Lu Xun’s expression eased slightly, though his tone still held some disbelief. He glanced at Qian Wei. “You received the flowers, so how could you not have gotten the letter? I specifically told the shop to make sure the letter was included, how could their service be this bad?”

“Well… Qian Chuan has been dealing with some girl who’s been pursuing him relentlessly lately, and he assumed the letter was from her…” Qian Wei could only carefully explain the whole sequence of events, and in the process, ended up confessing some of Qian Chuan’s guesses about Lu Xun too…

After hearing all this, Lu Xun finally showed some sign of accepting the explanation, trying to keep his voice level, though a trace of resentment still leaked through unmistakably. “What was Qian Chuan even thinking, being that full of himself! As if I’d ever like him!”

“But weren’t you the one who suddenly did a complete 180 in how you treated him recently? Given your personality, suddenly being warm toward someone really is kind of suspicious…”

Even though both of them were slightly flushed, their voices carrying an unsteady edge of breathlessness, they still kept up an act of composed, ordinary conversation, as if nothing were amiss. Despite the nervousness, shyness, and faint unease tangled up inside them both, this back-and-forth exchange still proceeded as methodically as if they were swapping study notes.

After a brief silence, Lu Xun glanced at Qian Wei. “Why do you think I was trying to win Qian Chuan over? Wasn’t it all for you?” He turned his head away. “Qian Wei, what’s going on in that head of yours, wasn’t what I did obvious enough?”

Qian Wei shook her head. “Not really that obvious…”

“…”

“And besides, it’s not really fair to blame Qian Chuan for mistaking the letter — after all, you didn’t even sign it,” Qian Wei muttered. “Does anyone confess without signing their name? You’re not exactly Lei Feng, doing good deeds anonymously.” Qian Wei really couldn’t understand it — Lu Xun was normally so meticulous about everything, how could he make such a fundamental mistake?

“…” Lu Xun held back, held back some more, but ultimately couldn’t hold it in any longer. He stiffened his neck and admitted, “It was my first time writing one, I had no experience, I was a little nervous.”

Being able to write a confession letter but forgetting to sign it — that probably wasn’t just “a little” nervous, more like extremely nervous…

Lu Xun coughed again to cover his embarrassment, then looked directly at Qian Wei. “Never mind that for now. Let me ask you again — what’s your answer?” Lu Xun turned his head aside, pretending to gaze off into the distance, though his face had gone slightly red. “I mean, what do you think of me, as a person?”

“Um…” Qian Wei blinked, answering carefully. “That, I just suddenly remembered, didn’t you just say you’d already seen through me? That you wouldn’t like me anymore?”

“You misheard. I never said anything like that.” Lu Xun’s response was remarkably decisive, leaving Qian Wei dumbfounded — he was just flatly denying it, as if the person who’d fiercely warned her not to go too far a few minutes ago had been someone else entirely.

“…” Qian Wei kindly reminded him, “Just ten minutes ago, you definitely said that, I remember it clearly…”

Lu Xun, embarrassed into anger, snapped, “Qian Wei!”

“Yes! Present!”

“Present what?!” Lu Xun’s ears had gone completely red now, his voice fierce. “I’m just asking you, do you agree or not?”

This felt uncomfortably like being coerced… Qian Wei found the whole thing utterly surreal — here she was, trying to play matchmaker for her future boss, and it turned out her future boss had fallen for her??

“Smack.”

“Ow, that really hurt!” Qian Wei had just swung her left hand and given herself a hard slap, and couldn’t help but cover her cheek with her right hand, groaning. “That really hurt…”

The crisp sound of the slap froze Lu Xun in place. “What are you doing?”

Qian Wei looked a bit sheepish. “That, um, I just wanted to slap myself to check whether this is real.”

Lu Xun’s expression turned complicated. “How did I end up falling for such a weirdo.” But though it sounded like a complaint, his tone was gentle. Qian Wei looked up and saw Lu Xun watching her with those beautiful dark eyes, his pupils holding nothing but her.

Qian Wei felt as if she were living in a dream, as if the ground beneath her feet were made of clouds, and the slightest wrong move might wake her from it, sending her tumbling from the sky. Everything felt unreal, everything left her caught completely off guard.

“Give me some time to process this.” Qian Wei tried hard to make her voice sound calm, though only she knew that the heart pounding in her chest felt as violent as that of a terminal patient — she had to press hard against her chest just to slightly suppress that terrifying, racing heartbeat.

Confusion, astonishment, disbelief, chaos — all these complicated emotions tangled together, along with her shyness, the flutter in her heart, the hazy surprise, and an emotion like a comet crashing into Earth, all hidden away quietly in the gaps between these tangled threads. Lu Xun — what did Lu Xun really mean to her?