Everything happened too suddenly.
So suddenly that her newly hatched feelings, her indulgent solitude, her brief courage, and what she thought was hidden all faded to pale in an instant.
From embarrassment, shock, helplessness, awkwardness, and sadness to reluctance, Yun Li realized how many emotions a person could experience in just one minute.
That gaze which usually made her heart race now felt like deep sea currents washing over dark reefs, intense and cold.
Yun Li stepped back with reddened eyes: “I’ll think about it before deciding whether to give up.”
She feigned composure, but her actions betrayed her distress.
Without him saying it, she knew he had noticed long ago.
He had noticed. He didn’t want to continue. He didn’t even have a thought of developing anything.
He just found a moment alone to tell her.
As she packed up her camera, she saw the towel roll cake. The wavy bag was covered in water droplets, reflecting a silent mockery.
She pressed her lips together, lowered her head, and placed the towel roll on the table, controlling the tremor in her voice: “This is for you. I’m leaving now.”
At this moment, she didn’t even dare to make eye contact.
Perhaps she should have been bolder, choosing to strive rather than retreat, choosing bravery over timidity.
Forgive her, for today’s courage had been completely exhausted in the moment of confession.
Fu Shize remained silent throughout, standing in place, looking down at the VR glasses in his hand, until the bang of the closing door echoed in the secret, damp night.
…
A sleepless night, the sound of rain pattering, but with no soporific effect. Fu Shize threw off the covers, got up, and took a glass to drink some water.
Drip, drip.
He looked down, deep red blood dripping from his palm.
The glass he had used for over a decade had chipped at one corner, but he hadn’t thrown it away. For more than a year, unless drunk, he had consciously avoided the chipped part. Just now, for some unknown reason, his mind had wandered, and he had forgotten about it.
From childhood, when things broke, ‘throw-away’ wasn’t in Fu Shize’s vocabulary. Instead, he chose to repair them.
To others, it was an obsessive attachment to old things.
Casually wrapping some tissue around his palm, Fu Shize pulled a chair onto the balcony. As usual, he looked out at the horizontal and vertical structures, a scene he had often seen over the past year and a half.
Fu Shize lit a cigarette, an orange-red light swaying in the darkness. In the gentle breeze, gray smoke swirled around him.
As if locking him in a safe circle.
Fu Shize smoked absent-mindedly, only noticing the chill when he realized the cigarette pack in his hand was empty.
He turned his head, thinking about what had happened that evening.
Opening his phone, he downloaded the E-station app, entered “Xian Yun Di Da Jiang,” and quickly found the two most popular recent posts. One was the nine-grid picture that had topped the hot list a while ago. Fu Shize swiped through them one by one; they were all of Yun Li secretly looking at him.
His finger hovered over the comment section.
The most-liked comment was Yun Li’s reply on the evening the post was made.
Xian Yun Di Da Jiang: [Wives, don’t spread rumors!! Don’t tarnish her innocence!!]
The second most-liked comment was also hers.
Xian Yun Di Da Jiang: [Typo, I meant his!!!]
Anyone who saw this would think she was an adorable girl.
The other post was a video she labeled as a DIY tech robot repair. Fu Shize opened it and watched it carefully from start to finish.
The girl seriously explained her process of repairing the robot to the camera, contrasting with the awkwardly moving little robot and the screen full of “hahaha” bullet comments.
He raised the corner of his lips, finding it somewhat funny, yet inexplicably bitter.
When he rewound the video to 37 seconds, a blue envelope with gold embossing appeared in a corner of the frame.
That was placed by Jiang Yuan.
Tracing back, it should have been when Yun Li finished her college entrance exams. For those two weeks, he and Jiang Yuan saw Yun Li riding a small bicycle to the West University of Science and Technology every day, stopping at Nanxi Square on campus.
Twice, she even had a little boy riding with her.
It wasn’t hard to recognize Yun Li; her appearance hadn’t changed much in a year or two, identical to the girl on the red track.
She probably didn’t know, but on the day of the robot soccer competition, they had secretly gone to watch her match.
At that time, the young girl was bent over the small soccer field, fully focused on operating the controller, completely unaware that they were right behind her.
When she won, Jiang Yuan attributed it to the small training soccer ball he had asked him to bring.
Nanxi Square was right next to the college.
For those two weeks in June, perhaps out of curiosity, he and Jiang Yuan would peek a few times every day, wondering why this young girl, who had just finished her college entrance exams, came to West University of Science and Technology every day.
It couldn’t be just to find a tree to sit under at the university, right?
They even made several bets about it.
At that time, Yun Li sat under an evergreen tree in front of the square, her hair in a ponytail, obediently sitting with two books all day, every day. They seemed to see that little girl who had trained robots on the field all day.
Until that day, when Unique held a drone demonstration in Nanxi Square.
He and Jiang Yuan were originally leaning on the railing of the second-floor open terrace, operating drones from upstairs, when they saw Yun Li suddenly jump up, and run to the Unique tent to queue for souvenirs, looking around as if searching for someone.
When it was her turn to get a souvenir, the student at the tent asked her to show her campus card.
She wasn’t a student of West University of Science and Technology, so according to the rules, she couldn’t get a souvenir. She might have tried to argue at the tent for a while, but the student handing out souvenirs didn’t agree. Then she turned around, walked a few steps, and started wiping her eyes before returning to the tree.
Jiang Yuan asked him: “Looks like she’s our little fan, shall we go give her one?”
He pushed Jiang Yuan: “You go.”
“You go.”
“You go.”
“You go.”
…
In the end, Jiang Yuan is lost in rock-paper-scissors, so he waves at him and, when Yun Li isn’t paying attention, places a Unique souvenir in her bicycle basket.
When they were having dinner that evening, they found she still hadn’t left. Her slender figure was guarding her bicycle, holding that souvenir.
Jiang Yuan laughed: “She probably thinks it’s someone else’s and doesn’t dare take it.”
That possibility was quite high.
At the time, they both thought the little girl was well-behaved, her appearance and demeanor very childlike, looking uneasy as she held the souvenir.
Jiang Yuan nudged him and said: “Ah Ze, I put the souvenir there, now it’s your turn to go.”
“Alright.” He also laughed and gave Jiang Yuan a push, just about to go downstairs to talk to her, when he saw her wrap the souvenir in a handkerchief as if it were a treasure, then put it in the inner compartment of her backpack.
After that, neither of them saw her again.
It was easy to deduce that for those two weeks, she had been waiting for ‘Unique’ to appear. But she hadn’t seen the person she wanted to see.
Fu Shize naturally assumed she was there to find Jiang Yuan, after all, on the field, he had always been sitting in the stands and hadn’t met Yun Li.
He teased Jiang Yuan: “She saw the team uniform on the field, and came to find you.”
Jiang Yuan: “Come on, you told me to give it to her.”
Neither of them had taken this to heart.
A pain in his abdomen reminded Fu Shize that he hadn’t eaten for a long time again, though he couldn’t remember exactly how long. Returning to his room, he remembered the matcha towel roll in the refrigerator. He took it out; the water on it hadn’t dried completely.
He could see the care taken by the maker. The packaging box was tightly sealed with several layers of plastic wrap as if fearing water seepage. The creased ribbon showed that she had tied the blue butterfly knot several times.
He scooped up a spoonful with a spoon.
It tasted sweet and bitter in his mouth.
He remembered her red eyes tonight.
Eating didn’t stop the pain in his abdomen. Fu Shize casually swallowed a couple of pills.
He took a new pack of cigarettes from the drawer, and rubbed the lighter a couple of times, but didn’t light it.
He stared at the cigarette butts and beer bottles scattered all over the balcony, a mess. Lowering his gaze to his thin wrists, the blood on his palm had dried.
Forget it.
…
In her apartment, Yun Li opened a package of frozen dumplings and tossed a few into boiling water. Honeycomb-like white foam rolled out, and she stared at it absent-mindedly for a while.
She slowly reached for her phone nearby and opened her chat history with Fu Shize. The nickname was still what she had changed it to in a moment of passion.
From that night until now, they hadn’t spoken again.
She wanted to ask him when he had noticed.
She wanted to ask him if he had asked her, yet rejected her, because he didn’t want to have any more contact with her.
Fu Zhengchu, unaware that they had already broken through this barrier, created a small group chat, asking if she and Fu Shize wanted to play badminton.
She had originally wanted to wait for Fu Shize to reply first.
But it seemed he had the same idea.
After an afternoon passed with no new messages in the group, Yun Li stared at Fu Zhengchu’s two lonely messages and sighed: [I’ve been quite busy recently, no time to go.]
Within fifteen minutes, Fu Shize also replied: [Caught a cold. Not going.]
Seeing this message, Yun Li wanted to ask if he had a cold and if she should bring him some medicine.
Her nose stung again.
He would refuse. He was such a well-mannered person, from the moment he noticed, he must have wanted to nip her feelings in the bud.
She had finally, tremblingly, bravely moved forward.
She didn’t want to give up.
She didn’t want to.
She couldn’t maintain her feelings for Fu Shize while remaining his friend for life.
Yun Li opened her WeChat friend list and counted.
This relationship was okay.
That one was fine too.
This person could also be considered a friend.
It seemed she wasn’t lacking in friends after all.
She knew that if Fu Shize appeared again, no matter when or where she would fall for him once more.
She couldn’t imagine having any relationship with him other than that of lovers.
…
Feeling gloomy, Yun Li opened the E-station and checked her fans’ messages.
She decided to chat with her fans for a while.
Without any warning, Yun Li started a livestream.
Perhaps because it was nearly 11 PM, the number of viewers skyrocketed, quickly surpassing ten thousand.
Yun Li adjusted the camera and greeted her audience. Without looking at the comments, she said, “Long time no see.”
“Good evening, everyone. Today, let’s start by reading some fan letters.”
“No, no, we won’t do Mandarin practice today.”
“Let’s read a few complimentary letters first.” Yun Li glanced at the comments. “Hm? Why am I cherry-picking? I’m not. Nine out of ten letters are compliments anyway.”
“Alright, time for the streamer to blow her own trumpet.”
After reading two letters, Yun Li felt a bit embarrassed and closed her email. “That’s all. What do you think?”
The comments were flooded with mixed reactions.
“Why haven’t you updated in so long? The streamer is still in school, studying for exams.”
Comments scrolled by rapidly, with a large portion asking about the secretly taken photo from last time. Yun Li wanted to ignore them, but they kept coming, even accusing her of deliberately avoiding the topic.
“Who’s the handsome guy from the coffee shop? I don’t know him well; you should ask him yourself.”
“Why were you secretly looking at him? How is that secret? I was… openly looking.”
“Is wifey going to become someone else’s wife? Only others can be the streamer’s wife, remember that.”
“Xianyu, your eyes look red today. Are you feeling down? They’re not red, and I’m feeling great.”
Suddenly, the comments shifted direction.
[They do look a bit red.]
[Did you fight with the coffee shop guy?]
“…”
“When will your brother and the handsome guy appear? You mean the coffee shop guy?” Yun Li awkwardly rushed through her response. “He probably won’t appear again.”
“But as for my brother—” Yun Li took out her phone and dialed Yun Ye’s number.
Meanwhile, Yun Ye, who had just gotten home, saw the notification about Yun Li’s livestream and opened the webpage, catching this moment.
“…”
Yun Ye’s voice came through the phone, feigning ignorance: “What is it?” His tone carried the unique clarity of youth.
“The family in the livestream wants to hear your voice.”
“…”
The comments suddenly became very enthusiastic and uniform, with large blocks of confessions to Yun Ye.
[I love you, little brother!!!!]
[You can have the streamer, but the little brother is mine!!!]
[Little brother, show your face, please!]
Yun Li was momentarily speechless: “So, do I have more fans, or does my brother?”
“No wonder I have more female followers on my account?”
Another wave of comments flooded in, and Yun Li read them out word by word.
“Don’t limit gender so strictly.”
“I’m a guy, but I like the little brother too.”
“…”
“Let him start his livestream. I’m logging off.”
With that, Yun Li unceremoniously turned off the camera.
However, her call with Yun Ye continued.
Seeing that Yun Li had ended the livestream, Yun Ye didn’t close the webpage. He left the computer idle, kicked the ground with one foot, spinning his chair around. He casually draped one leg over the other, leaning back. “Sis.”
Yun Li: “What?”
“When are you coming home?”
“…”
Realizing she had the option to go home, Yun Li remained silent for a while before answering, “Thursday, I guess.”
With the idea of going home in mind, and considering the exam week and winter semester internship schedule adjustments, Yun Li decided to rearrange her work hours with Fang Yuning, freeing up a week-long vacation. After informing He Jiameng, she booked a flight to Xifu for Thursday.
Still not fully recovered from her recent heartbreak, Yun Li desperately wanted to return to a place that felt safe.
Her undergraduate university wasn’t far from home, but this was the first time she had been away for so long.
The feeling of homesickness suddenly washed over her.
Yun Li stared blankly at her suitcase and sniffled.
The next day, Yun Li was awakened by Yun Ye’s phone call. She answered groggily, only to hear Yun Ye’s noisy voice: “Sis! If you don’t get up now, you’ll be late!”
Yun Li jolted awake in shock.
She scrambled out of bed, stumbling to wash up. Within five minutes, she hurriedly completed her morning routine from brushing her teeth to getting dressed.
Grabbing her phone and charger, Yun Li rushed out with her suitcase.
Exiting the elevator, Yun Li looked at the dark blue sky and belatedly thought to check the time.
6:16 AM.
Great.
Yun Li stood still and dialed Yun Ye’s number. After two rings, Yun Ye picked up.
“Are you sick, Yun Ye?”
“You woke me up this early telling me I’d be late.”
On the other end, Yun Ye paused for a good while, then responded confusedly, “What?” He continued, “Sis, hurry up and pack your things.”
“I’ll pack your—” Yun Li felt like she was hitting a wall of cotton. She sighed, “Never mind.”
“I’ll deal with you when I get back.”
Yun Li returned to her apartment unchanged.
She opened her chat with Fu Shize and stared at the word ‘wife’ in a daze.
Yun Li carefully considered her words, typing and deleting sentences repeatedly.
[I’m back in Xifu. Want me to bring you some local specialties?]
He would refuse.
[I’m back in Xifu. I’ll return next week.]
He probably doesn’t want to know.
[I won’t give up.]
A nightmare.
After much deliberation, having just been rejected, she feared that being too persistent might lead to the same fate as Lin Wanyin. Yun Li closed her phone. She decided to wait for an opportunity to send messages he might respond to.
When Yun Li got off the plane, Yun Yongchang was already waiting outside the airport.
Father and daughter tacitly avoided mentioning their previous conflict. Yun Yongchang took her luggage with a stern face, his voice gruff: “Always trying to look pretty, wearing so little. You’ll freeze your knees and end up with rheumatism like your old man.”
Usually, Yun Li would have argued back, but at this moment, she found herself missing her father’s voice.
Sitting in the family car, Yun Li finally felt the reality of being home.
She leaned against the window, watching the buildings pass by.
Xifu had fewer people than Nanwu, rarely bustling with activity, but the buildings were newer and neatly arranged, and the roads were wide and smooth.
The outline of Xifu University of Technology’s main building gradually came into view.
“Hey, Dad,” Yun Li sat up straight, suddenly alert, “I remember the road home doesn’t pass by Xifu Tech, does it?”
“They started road construction during the summer break,” Yun Yongchang glanced to his right while driving one-handed. “It was completed last month.”
“It’s about time,” Yun Yongchang grumbled. “We used to have to take a big detour every time we passed by. Now it’s fixed.”
“It’ll be convenient for your brother when he goes to university and comes home,” he added.