Zhou Jingze held the bookmark in his hand, staring at it for a long time until his phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out and saw it was a call from Xu Sui. He answered, his voice slightly hoarse:

“Hello.”

Xu Sui’s voice sounded a bit embarrassed on the other end: “When I was cooking noodles at lunch, I accidentally broke the pot. I happen to be going to the supermarket tonight to buy some daily necessities, could you—”

“Come help me carry things?”

“Sure, what do you want to eat tonight? I’ll cook it for you.” Zhou Jingze stood up, stuffing the bookmark into his pocket.

Xu Sui thought for a moment: “Crayfish, I haven’t had them in ages.”

“Mm, I’ll come pick you up in a bit.” Zhou Jingze replied.

After hanging up, Zhou Jingze threw all the gifts he had taken out back into the box. When his fingers touched that Mayday album, he paused, picked it out, and wiped the dust off it.

Zhou Jingze placed it on his record shelf, arranging it alongside his favorites.

In the evening, Zhou Jingze and Xu Sui went shopping at the supermarket together, buying some daily necessities.

In a city as big as Jingbei, the supermarket was still Xu Sui’s favorite place.

She always felt that supermarkets were full of the essence of life, giving people a sense of happiness.

Zhou Jingze pushed the cart while Xu Sui walked beside him. They arrived at the food section. Xu Sui picked up a carton of white peach milk from the shelf and was about to put it in the cart when she noticed a new sea salt flavored milk had been released.

Xu Sui held both cartons in her hands, looking at them indecisively.

She wanted to try the new sea salt flavor but couldn’t bear to give up the white peach milk she’d always been drinking.

The man was pushing the cart with one hand, walking ahead. When he noticed his little tail wasn’t following, he glanced back.

Her indecision was acting up again. Xu Sui was holding two cartons of milk, torn between choices.

A tall shadow fell over her, and a hand with prominent veins directly took both cartons from her hands and tossed them into the shopping cart.

He even reached over and grabbed all the milk of both flavors from the shelf, throwing them into the cart.

Zhou Jingze’s tone was casual: “Tsk, what a big deal, thinking about it for so long.”

Xu Sui didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, saying: “Don’t you know how to manage a household?”

Zhou Jingze raised an eyebrow, pinched her cheek, his tone carelessly flippant:

“Your man doesn’t know how to manage a household, but don’t I have you? I’ll hand over my salary card to you in the future.”

Xu Sui felt a bit embarrassed, not daring to look at him. She simply pushed him forward, muttering:

“Who said they’d marry you?”

After saying this, the corners of her mouth unconsciously turned up, like a cat that had stolen fish.

Zhou Jingze walked at the front, looking straight ahead, his tongue pushing against his left cheek as he chuckled:

“I know you’re smiling.”

After being called out, Xu Sui’s smile faded, her voice unconsciously drawing out: “You’re so annoying.”

In the end, they bought some daily necessities, a pot, a net bag of beer, and the crayfish that Xu Sui wanted to eat.

At eight o’clock in the evening, Zhou Jingze was preparing the crayfish in the kitchen while Xu Sui helped beside him.

After everything was ready, Xu Sui carried out the shrimp. She had originally intended to put the food on the dining table, but she casually glanced outside.

It had suddenly started snowing in the evening. Transparent five-petaled fluffy snowflakes drifted down through the pale yellow moonlight, occasionally making a “snap” sound as tree branches broke under the weight.

Xu Sui immediately decided to eat dinner by the floor-to-ceiling windows tonight.

Xu Sui moved a small round table by the window, turned on the TV, and the two sat on the thick carpet together, eating crayfish and drinking beer.

Zhou Jingze was tall with long limbs, and no matter how he sat in Xu Sui’s place, he looked cramped.

“It’s quite cramped here. Haven’t you considered moving somewhere else?” Zhou Jingze raised his eyebrows, his tone carrying an air of superiority.

Xu Sui understood his hint perfectly but deliberately joked: “Move where? Amber Lane? It would be nice to be your neighbor.”

Zhou Jingze chuckled and put the peeled shrimp in her bowl without saying anything.

After finishing the crayfish, Xu Sui was in a good mood and drank several cans of beer in succession. Finally, with a “crack,” she crushed the beer can flat.

Xu Sui was obviously drunk. Holding the flattened beer can, she waved it at him, propping her cheek with her other hand, her soft voice carrying a hint of provocation:

“Can you drink more than me?”

“No.” Zhou Jingze decided not to argue with a drunk person.

Seeing that she was drunk, Zhou Jingze walked around to the other side of the table, knelt on one knee, and was about to carry her back.

As soon as his hand touched her shoulder, Xu Sui shrank back, leaning against the wall.

Xu Sui suddenly looked up at him and spoke:

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Ask.”

“Why me?” Xu Sui looked up at him.

The unspoken meaning was why it had to be her after their reunion, why he hadn’t dated anyone all these years, waiting only for her.

She actually didn’t quite dare to believe it.

Xu Sui was wearing a pink-cedar colored knit sweater, her long hair falling over her shoulders. Because she was drunk, her eyes were misty with a layer of moisture, her lips red and teeth white.

It made one want to bully her.

Zhou Jingze leaned down closer, his warm breath brushing her ear, forehead pressed against forehead as he looked at her:

“No reason, I was just blind before.”

Not knowing how wonderful his Yiyi was.

“Yiyi, I agreed to join the aerial rescue team today, and the truth about Dongzhao has also come to light.” Zhou Jingze’s tone was slow and steady.

“Really? I knew you would definitely—”

Hearing this news, Xu Sui’s voice carried excitement, her bright eyes meeting his deep, dark gaze.

Her heart skipped a beat.

Zhou Jingze placed a very light kiss on her forehead and smiled:

“Now it’s my turn to ask you a question. When did you write that bookmark behind the Mayday album?”

Xu Sui was in a half-drunk, half-awake state. She knew Zhou Jingze was patiently waiting for her answer.

She blinked once, her tone coaxing: “I can’t remember.”

Zhou Jingze nodded and scooped her up in one motion, saying expressionlessly: “Fine, then let’s talk about it in bed.”

The night before, he had left her with soreness on the inside of her thighs that still ached faintly, and he actually wanted to do it again.

Hearing this, Xu Sui immediately jumped down from Zhou Jingze’s arms and confessed right away:

“I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you.”

“I wrote that bookmark because I happened to learn about what happened to you.” Xu Sui looked at him and confessed.

In high school, Xu Sui had always sat in the front row without fail, but because the boy she liked sat in the very back row.

So during morning study sessions, when turning in homework, and even when going to the bathroom, Xu Sui would deliberately take a detour through the back door.

Even if all she could catch in her peripheral vision was often just a black silhouette habitually lying on the desk sleeping, with prominent shoulder blades.

She was still satisfied.

But suddenly one day, that seat became persistently empty.

From that day on, Xu Sui rarely saw Zhou Jingze anymore. Previously, she could occasionally bump into him when going to the bathroom, but later she couldn’t see him for an entire week straight.

That seat was so empty, even the desktop was cleaned off, no longer piled with test papers.

Later, Xu Sui heard classmates gossiping, saying that Zhou Jingze’s family had trouble again, that his father had brought his stepbrother to Tianzhong Middle School too, that his father had attended the stepbrother’s graduation ceremony but forgotten his biological son’s parent-teacher conference.

Others said the family conflicts had escalated, that Zhou Jingze’s father had beaten him severely, and that he had now left that home.

There were all kinds of rumors.

When Xu Sui was collecting homework with her head down, she heard classmates discussing his family affairs.

“Hey, what’s the use of having money at home? Still nobody loves him.”

“But Zhou Jingze is pitiful enough, his mother committed suicide, and his father is a beast.”

“I saw Zhou Jingze at a bar yesterday, seemed to be with some vocational school kids. He won’t have gone bad too, will he?”

Xu Sui’s fingers tightened on the homework she was collecting, silently thinking:

No, he’s not that kind of person.

Xu Sui began to unconsciously create chance encounters with Zhou Jingze. She was just somewhat worried about him.

She knew he took the No. 29 bus to school every day, but this luck didn’t come often.

Because sometimes Zhou Jingze got up late and took a taxi directly to school, and sometimes she had no idea how he got to school.

He might not come at all, just like now.

But Xu Sui still wanted to try her luck.

Xu Sui was staying at her uncle’s house. Her uncle’s home was in the south of the city, while Zhou Jingze lived in the north.

North and south, completely opposite directions.

So before dawn, Xu Sui got up an hour earlier every day, shouldering her backpack and heading out under the misty sky.

Because she had to go through the trouble of transferring buses to catch the No. 29 to school.

But after getting up early for a whole week, she hadn’t even caught a glimpse of Zhou Jingze.

Until Monday morning, when she finally saw him.

Because Xu Sui had stayed up late doing practice problems the night before, she got up a bit late, which meant she encountered the morning rush hour when transferring to the No. 29 bus.

Xu Sui barely managed to squeeze onto the bus, standing sideways with one hand gripping the yellow handrail. As she struggled to pull out her transit card from her uniform pocket to tap it on the reader, there was no familiar “beep” sound—the display showed the card was invalid.

Xu Sui thought there was a problem with the machine and tried several more times, but it still showed invalid.

Maybe there was no money left on it.

The students packed behind her grew impatient, with complaints and urgent prompting sounds rising one after another.

Xu Sui felt somewhat flustered and embarrassed, a bashful heat creeping up from her neck to her face. Just as she was about to give up and step back.

“I’ll pay for both.” The boy’s voice was low and indifferent, with a grainy quality that resonated in Xu Sui’s ear.

Xu Sui froze completely.

Then someone leaned over from behind her, maintaining a certain distance. Xu Sui caught a faint tobacco scent from his clothes.

The bus interior was cramped, and his open uniform jacket accidentally brushed against Xu Sui’s hanging hand.

A wave of coolness.

Like a fierce wind in the stifling summer.

Xu Sui held her breath, not daring to move, catching a glimpse of the boy’s hand withdrawing after swiping his card, slipping back into his pocket.

He was much taller than her. When he pulled back his card, his elbow brushed through her hair in passing.

The mint scent slowly faded as more people squeezed onto the bus.

It’s no exaggeration to say that in that moment, Xu Sui felt like the top of her head was about to smoke.

Zhou Jingze sat in the blue seat by the window in the second-to-last row of the bus. Xu Sui walked over and sat in the row behind him, the two maintaining some distance.

On a summer morning, the sun was direct and intense. Xu Sui felt herself breaking into a sweat. She took out her vocabulary book from her backpack, fanning herself while silently memorizing words.

Xu Sui casually looked forward and saw Zhou Jingze leaning against the window, drowsy. His skin was a cold white color, his eyelashes drooping downward. Sunlight reflected through the glass window, creating a circle of shadow beneath his lower eyelids.

Zhou Jingze’s backpack was on the floor by his feet, his long legs slightly spread, the dark circles under his eyes clearly showing he was catching up on sleep.

Xu Sui couldn’t help but steal a few more glances at him.

When the next stop arrived, the driver braked suddenly, and most people were thrown forward by inertia.

Only Zhou Jingze remained unmoved, leaning against the window. Even when hearing the commotion, he only frowned very lightly, too lazy to even open his eyes.

Another batch of people poured onto the bus, everyone shouting “don’t push,” while those being pushed cursed irritably “don’t know how to wait for the next one, just have to fucking squeeze on.”

The noise was probably too loud. Zhou Jingze struggled to open his eyes and rubbed his face with his hand.

An elderly man in brown work clothes slowly shuffled onto the bus, carrying a large bag, looking somewhat flustered.

Xu Sui was memorizing vocabulary when she suddenly noticed a shadow moving forward, white sneakers shifting position.

A magnetic voice rang out: “Sir, please take this seat.”

It was Zhou Jingze.

He had never changed.

Xu Sui saw another side of Zhou Jingze that she never mentioned to anyone—it became a secret in her heart.

On Wednesday afternoon after school, Xu Sui was buying food outside school when she spotted Zhou Jingze with some vocational school students in the back alley behind school, smoking and laughing carelessly and wildly.

Familiar yet unfamiliar.

But Xu Sui now knew which side was the real Zhou Jingze, and which side was him wearing a mask of reckless abandon.

The one who unconsciously showed kindness on the bus was the real him.

When Xu Sui saw him smoking there, she remembered her classmates’ recent comments about him.

But she felt that someone as good as Zhou Jingze should be surrounded by love, walking his path openly and uprightly.

So she wrote a blessing on the back of the bookmark.

“Xu Sui, let me emphasize something—I’m not some fantasy,” Zhou Jingze turned her face toward him, forcing her to focus and meet his gaze, speaking each word clearly and seriously, “I am your man.”

You are the only one I want in this life.

After meeting you, all regrets have been filled.