The past was a source of shame for Yu Jianyan.
Every time he recalled it, he remembered Old Master Lu’s assessment of him – a humble family raising a spoiled child, how rarely nobility emerges from poverty. He had fought desperately to carve out his place in the world, just to prove him wrong, just to slap that judgment back in his face.
But Lu Xixiao’s words, though measured and emotionless, still pulled at his pride, threatening to tear it to pieces.
But Lu Xixiao was never one for patience. He’d only entertained this conversation because he was in a good mood, and now his patience had run out. Ignoring any further protests, he turned and left.
When he returned home, Zhou Wan had just finished making dinner.
She was still wearing an apron when she heard the door open. Poking her head out to look, she smiled, “You’re back! Perfect timing, dinner’s ready.”
“Mm.”
Lu Xixiao walked into the kitchen to help bring dishes to the table.
Though it was just the two of them, the meal was abundant. Zhou Wan had reduced the portion sizes but still prepared six dishes and a soup.
As she handed him his chopsticks, he noticed a mark on the back of her hand: “What happened to your hand?”
“Oh, just got splashed by some oil earlier.” It was a common occurrence when cooking, and Zhou Wan hadn’t thought much of it.
Lu Xixiao furrowed his brows, taking her hand for a closer look. Fortunately, it wasn’t serious – no blistering. He took out his phone and ordered some burn cream for delivery.
Zhou Wan found his concern excessive and had to suppress a smile. “It’s fine! It doesn’t even hurt, it’ll be gone in a few days.”
“I told you not to cook.”
Lu Xixiao reached out and pinched her cheek, “Did I ask you to move in so you could cook for me?”
“But I want to cook for you.”
Zhou Wan blinked, “You can’t always eat takeout or restaurant food. Those are often too oily and salty, they’re not good for your health.”
“Why?”
“Hm?”
Lu Xixiao lowered his gaze, looking into her eyes with quiet intensity, as if trying to extract some deeper truth from their depths.
“Why are you so good to me?” Lu Xixiao asked.
Zhou Wan found his question puzzling, and she laughed lightly: “Getting splashed by oil counts as being good to you?”
“What about before?”
“Before what?”
Lu Xixiao spoke a bit faster: “You celebrated my birthday with me, spent New Year’s with me, and went to see the snow with me. Why are you so good to me?”
Zhou Wan was slightly stunned, taking a moment before responding with an “Ah” and a smile: “Because you’re good to me too, and actually, you were the one who took me to see the snow, remember?”
Lu Xixiao’s expression stiffened slightly.
His thoughts drifted back to that summer night—
Drunk on alcohol, he’d finally mustered some reckless courage.
He called Zhou Wan repeatedly, and each time she hung up, he called again.
The room was pitch dark except for his phone screen’s glow. When the call finally connected, he was overwhelmed with impulses. He’d considered throwing away all pride and begging Zhou Wan to come back.
But he was still young, still holding onto that last bit of pride, further inflamed by alcohol. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he clung to his last shred of dignity, stubbornly saying:
“Zhou Wan, just say you love me once, and I’ll forgive everything.”
The air grew painfully still.
After a long while, Zhou Wan’s voice came through, cool and completely composed with her answer.
“Lu Xixiao, I don’t love you. I’ve been lying to you all along.”
…
Noticing something seemed off with him, Zhou Wan watched him for a moment before asking softly, “Is something wrong?”
Lu Xixiao snapped back to the present and smiled, “No, nothing.”
After dinner, the burn cream arrived.
Lu Xixiao went to get it, and returning to find Zhou Wan about to clear the table, said: “Leave it there, don’t touch anything.”
He came to her side, head bent low as he carefully applied the burn cream to the oil mark, his movements gentle to avoid causing any pain.
Zhou Wan pressed her lips together before asking, “Lu Xixiao, you actually knew how to dress wounds all along, didn’t you?”
“Hm?” He seemed distracted, not immediately understanding why Zhou Wan asked this. “Yeah, I usually took care of injuries myself before. I didn’t like going to the hospital.”
Zhou Wan made a small “oh” sound and leaned in slightly closer.
Likely sensing his odd mood, Zhou Wan deliberately hooked her finger with his, adding a touch of coquettishness as she said, “So you were lying back then, saying you didn’t know how making me bandage you up.”
Lu Xixiao finally caught her meaning and laughed, “Just figured that out?”
“No, I suspected it back then,” Zhou Wan said quietly. “I just wanted to confirm it now.”
Lu Xixiao smirked as he replaced the burn cream cap: “So you’ve been playing me all this time.”
“…”
He stood up and poured a glass of water: “I’ll have someone find a housekeeper to clean and cook in a few days.”
“That’s not necessary,” Zhou Wan hurried to say. “Cleaning doesn’t take much time, and we’re often working late or not home for dinner anyway.”
“We’ll work out the details later.”
Lu Xixiao handed her the water. The soft light fell on his hair as he looked down with a casual smile: “Those hard years I spent abroad weren’t so you’d have to work hard doing these things.”
Zhou Wan froze for a moment.
Lu Xixiao looked at her and said, “As long as you stay by my side, you’ll have everything. There’s nothing to fear.”
Over the next few days, two new interns arrived at the newspaper office. Zhou Wan had taken three days off at the end of the month, so she worked overtime to complete what she could and properly handed over what couldn’t be finished.
Time had flown since graduation.
It was already late April.
Pingchuan City was much warmer than B City in April. Zhou Wan had checked the weather forecast and only packed light clothing.
They arrived at Pingchuan Airport in the afternoon, first returning to the house to drop off their luggage before driving to the hotel where Jiang Fan was getting married.
On the way, Jiang Fan sent Lu Xixiao a voice message asking why he wasn’t there yet.
Lu Xixiao hadn’t seen his old friends in a long time, except for Jiang Fan. He’d pretty much-lost contact with everyone else since high school graduation.
While waiting at a red light, he lazily replied with a “Soon.”
Jiang Fan sent another voice message, which Lu Xixiao played directly—
“Everyone’s curious about what your girlfriend looks like.”
Zhou Wan, sitting in the passenger seat, froze and turned to look at him, somewhat stunned.
Lu Xixiao smirked. They were almost there, so he didn’t bother replying. He put his phone aside and drove into the hotel parking lot, taking the elevator to the banquet hall on the 8th floor.
Zhou Wan felt inexplicably nervous.
Although she’d met Lu Xixiao’s friends and classmates before, many years had passed, and she’d left school in such a hurry that she never properly said goodbye.
“Lu Xixiao.”
“Mm?”
Zhou Wan tugged at her hem: “Is what I’m wearing okay?”
For the wedding, Zhou Wan had dressed more formally than usual.
She wore a black velvet dress with a square neckline, fitted at the waist with the hem falling to mid-calf, perfectly accentuating her figure – slim waist, long legs, and excellent proportions.
Lu Xixiao raised an eyebrow: “Stay close to me.”
“Why?”
He said seriously: “Dressed like that, someone might try to steal you away.”
“…”
Zhou Wan belatedly caught his meaning and lowered her head, pressing her lips together in a smile.
Just then, a voice called out from ahead: “Young Master Xiao!”
Young Master Xiao.
It had been so long since she’d heard that nickname.
A man hurried over, bumping Lu Xixiao’s shoulder: “Haven’t seen you in years! Everyone’s been waiting for you, making bets about your girlfriend…”
As he spoke, his gaze shifted to Zhou Wan, and when their eyes met, he froze for a good five seconds, as if completely shocked. His voice began to stammer.
“Sis-Sister-in-law.”
“…”
Zhou Wan had met him before and politely smiled: “Hello.”
Lu Xixiao tilted his chin up, saying casually: “Let’s go in.”
Their table was full of high school friends, all chatting animatedly until they saw Zhou Wan beside Lu Xixiao when they collectively froze.
Of all Lu Xixiao’s past girlfriends, Zhou Wan had left the deepest impression.
Even after so many years, muscle memory hadn’t been forgotten, and they immediately stood to welcome her, calling her “Sister-in-law” one after another.
Zhou Wan felt somewhat embarrassed by this treatment and hadn’t thought to explain that she couldn’t quite be called “Sister-in-law” yet. She quickly said, “Please, sit down.”
The awkward atmosphere dissipated within two minutes, and soon someone caught Zhou Wan with questions.
“I knew only Sister-in-law could handle Young Master Xiao. After all these years, it still had to be our Sister-in-law.”
They continued their playful banter while Lu Xixiao sat to the side with a casual smile, letting them talk.
“Oh right, Sister-in-law, do you know how impressive Young Master Xiao was in his third year? After you transferred, he suddenly started studying hard and scared us all half to death – thought he was possessed! Guess what rank he got in the college entrance exam!”
This was a past she had never been part of, had never known about.
Zhou Wan’s grip on her glass tightened as she asked softly, “What rank?”
The person slapped the table enthusiastically: “Fifth!”
Someone immediately corrected: “Bullshit, it was third!”
“Really? Did I remember wrong?”
“With that brain of yours, better keep quiet.”
“Oh, I get it now. That wasn’t counting our Sister-in-law’s transfer, and that bookworm who always ranked first got early admission. My brain wasn’t keeping up.”
Third place.
Zhou Wan’s eyelashes trembled slightly.
She found it hard to imagine Lu Xixiao ranking third in the grade.
She had always known Lu Xixiao was intelligent – he’d had good grades as a child and even won math competition awards. But his wild and unrestrained demeanor was so deeply ingrained in her mind that it was difficult to picture him sitting quietly in a classroom.
She turned her head, leaning close to Lu Xixiao’s ear to ask softly, “Really?”
He leaned back in his chair, arm draped casually behind Zhou Wan, raising an eyebrow: “Don’t believe it?”
Zhou Wan shook her head, paused, and then couldn’t help asking, “Was it hard?”
Zhou Wan’s focus was always different from others.
While everyone else was teasing and joking, she thought about whether it had been difficult.
Lu Xixiao smiled, saying quietly: “The third year is always hard, but after spending time with you and getting used to seeing you study, reading didn’t seem like such a difficult thing anymore.”
But Zhou Wan knew that using that one year to go from bottom of the class to third in the school couldn’t have been easy.
Lu Xixiao had missed so many lessons back then. Although she’d made time to help him catch up on previous material, there was still so much she hadn’t gotten to teach him before she left.
No matter how intelligent Lu Xixiao was, climbing from zero to the pinnacle step by step must have required tremendous effort, and countless sleepless nights.
A hazy image formed in Zhou Wan’s mind.
A young man sitting at his desk in his bedroom, surrounded by complete silence, all alone, facing mountains of books and test papers.
He habitually kept the curtains drawn tight, perhaps with just a desk lamp lit, head bowed, quiet and focused, working through problems one by one, carefully calculating, writing down answers.
From starlit night until dawn’s first light.
…
The wedding ceremony officially began, with the bride entering in a pristine white wedding dress, its enormous skirt spreading across the floor.
The bride and groom exchanged their “I do’s” on stage.
After the ceremony, Jiang Fan came over with his bride to toast. He hadn’t been around earlier, and seeing Zhou Wan for the first time, he froze before recovering to say: “So it’s still you.”
Zhou Wan smiled slightly: “Mm.”
Still me.
While other tables were taking small sips, their table was drinking freely without any need for encouragement, one glass after another. Lu Xixiao, whom they hadn’t seen in so long, was especially targeted for drinks. All of it was baijiu, glass after glass.
His alcohol tolerance was high, but even he should have been showing some effects from drinking this much.
Yet even after drinking excess amounts, his face showed no trace of intoxication, appearing the same as before.
After drinking for a while, someone suddenly said: “The last time we drank like this was after the college entrance exam, right?”
“Seems like it. Damn, time flies so fast, I’m already 26.”
“That was probably the most we ever drank. Nearly emptied the whole place, everyone was blackout drunk, couldn’t even remember how we got home.”
Everyone laughed as they recalled the past events.
“Oh right, I think I still have the video from then in my cloud storage.”
Others cursed laughingly: “Don’t you dare bring that out, we all looked like ghosts, too embarrassing!”
“Hahahahaha, it’s fine, let’s watch it. We were all embarrassing ourselves together, and we won’t get chances like that anymore.”
He found the video from two years ago in his cloud storage.
It had been accidentally recorded when they were all nearly unconscious from drinking. After sobering up with a two-day hangover, he’d never opened it to watch, only remembering it now when it came up.
A three-and-a-half-minute video.
The camera was shaky and unsteady, clearly filmed by someone already drunk.
It seemed to be in a KTV, with noisy voices and music in the background.
The video was dimly lit, but Zhou Wan immediately spotted Lu Xixiao sitting in the corner.
It was the night after their college entrance exam, and they were still wearing their blue and white school uniforms.
He wasn’t playing dice with the others in the video, sitting alone to the side, his expression unclear in the dim light.
This was Lu Xixiao from his third year.
A Lu Xixiao she had never seen.
He was thinner than she remembered, his demeanor colder, making his bone structure appear even more sharp and defined, particularly striking, with an air of detachment surrounding him.
The video hadn’t played long before someone, unable to bear watching their foolishness, snatched the phone away, stopping the playback.
…
A while later, as the wedding banquet was ending.
Lu Xixiao leaned in close to Zhou Wan’s ear: “I’m going to the restroom.”
He was extremely close, his heated breath falling on her ear, warm with alcohol.
Zhou Wan turned to look at him. The man’s face wasn’t red, showing no signs of intoxication, but his eyes were hazed by alcohol, appearing particularly languid.
Zhou Wan thought Lu Xixiao must be somewhat drunk.
“Mm.”
“Wait here, don’t wander off.”
Zhou Wan nodded.
After Lu Xixiao left, the others at the table gradually got up to leave as well.
Zhou Wan finished the orange juice at the bottom of her glass, hesitated for a moment, then stood up and walked over to one of the men: “Excuse me, that video from earlier, could you send it to me?”
“Sure!” He immediately pulled out his phone, smiling, “Though, Sister-in-law, you probably won’t find any embarrassing moments of Young Master Xiao in there. He handles his alcohol well, doesn’t act up even when drunk.”
“No, I just…”
Zhou Wan paused, lowering her eyes and saying softly, “I just want to see what he looked like in his third year.”
Zhou Wan saved the video to her album.
Because of the noisy surroundings, she bent down slightly, bringing her ear closer to the phone as she pressed play.
She finally heard the song playing on the KTV.
No one was singing, the speakers were playing Rene Liu’s original voice – “Later.”
Later, I finally learned how to love
But you had already gone far away, disappeared into the sea of people
…
That eternal night
Summer at seventeen
The night you kissed me
Makes me think of the starlight
Whenever I feel sentimental in the time since
…
If only we hadn’t been
So stubborn then, we wouldn’t have such regrets now
How do you remember me
With a smile or in silence
…
It wasn’t the CD version, but a live recording, the voice carrying a hint of roughness and choked emotion, somewhat hoarse, quiet, and still, quickly drowning in the noise.
The dim KTV, tables, and floor were littered with empty bottles.
A group of young people gathered to play dice, all quite drunk, drinking another glass whenever they lost, one after another.
Lu Xixiao sat alone to the side.
Zhou Wan lowered her head further, watching intently.
The clamor from the video merged with the present noise.
In a daze, she felt as if she was being pulled into the scene in the video, truly seeing that third-year Lu Xixiao.
His gaze was flat and silent, fixed on the TV screen, the flickering light casting shadows across his face, making the high bridge of his nose appear even more distinguished.
Then he tilted his head back.
He sat lazily, back sunk into the sofa, head resting against the backrest, Adam’s apple prominent, staring fixedly at the ceiling.
Everyone around him was laughing.
Only he wasn’t.
Zhou Wan had rarely seen Lu Xixiao like this.
She understood that Lu Xixiao’s inner world was like a lonely island, rarely accessible to others, but he wasn’t a solitary boat – he could blend well into noisy crowds without seeming out of place.
He should have been noble and aloof yet unrestrained and willful.
Not like this.
Zhou Wan saw vulnerability and brokenness in him.
From decisive and resolute to utterly defenseless.
Seeing Lu Xixiao like this made her heartache.
Rene Liu’s voice still echoed in her ears, washed away by the noise, leaving only the most heartfelt parts.
“If only we hadn’t been
So stubborn then
We wouldn’t have such regrets now
How do you remember me
With a smile or in silence
…”
Suddenly, Zhou Wan’s eyelashes trembled, and she froze completely.
In the dim room, Lu Xixiao’s features remained as sharp as a drawn blade, touched with an inhuman detachment.
But his eyes were rimmed with blood-red, and in the shifting light, tears hung wet on his eyelashes, reflecting a painfully bright gleam.
The college entrance exam was over.
The grueling third year had finally ended.
Lu Xixiao had achieved what he wanted, performing well, and not wasting that year of hard work.
Everyone was celebrating, drinking and boasting, singing and shouting, creating a lively atmosphere with the unique abandon and boldness of youth.
While Lu Xixiao sat alone to the side.
Everyone was laughing.
Only he was crying.