She was still lost in her swirling thoughts when the car came to a stop right in front of her.

The window rolled down. The man inside looked her over with considerable curiosity, as if he were examining some rare specimen.

After a few seconds of being stared at, Su Man couldn’t take it anymore and bristled: “What are you looking at!”

Li Li pushed his glasses up and said with an appreciative laugh, “Not bad~ Who knew the tomboy could clean up this well? What’s the occasion — another charity gala?”

Su Man: “…”

…Tom…boy…

Fine!

The guilt, the unease — to hell with all of it!

Her expression went ice cold in an instant. Seeing her rideshare slowly pulling into the complex up ahead, she gathered her skirt, face stormy, and walked away.

She didn’t dignify Li Li with a single word.

Li Li called out after her, laughing loudly: “Hey! Take smaller steps — don’t terrify the guests at the gala!”

Su Man very much wanted to turn around and beat him senseless.

……

She got into the car, and it drove out of the gated community.

On either side of the road, tall streetlights stood in straight rows. As the car moved forward, the lights cast a continuous pattern of alternating brightness and shadow, as if the car were heading into a different era, a different world entirely.

And all the old feelings were pulled out and left behind.

The trace of irritation Su Man had been carrying was gone. What replaced it was a quiet, wistful melancholy.

So he really doesn’t care…

Even seeing her dressed up like this, his first assumption was that she must be heading to a banquet. He hadn’t even thought to ask. He wasn’t the least bit worried that she might meet other men there.

…He’d even called her a tomboy. He’d probably long since decided no man would ever find her appealing.

So this attachment — it was her one-sided illusion all along. All those things he’d said, about how no man would have her and he’d marry her himself — that was all just teasing, wasn’t it? And when the Li family’s parents brought up the childhood betrothal, that was a joke too, wasn’t it?

Everyone had just been saying it lightly. Only she had taken it seriously.

……

Su Man sat in the backseat with a heart full of tangled sorrow, unaware that back home, her mother was practically glowing with excitement.

Su Ma could not wait a moment longer. She called Su Ba at the hospital!

“Guess what I saw when I got home today!”

Su Ba: “…Did you see a thief?”

“Can’t you ever say something positive?!” Su Ma’s happiness was immediately deflated. “I saw Manman!”

Su Ba thought this was baffling. “Of course you saw Manman when you came home. Unless you went to your parents’ house by mistake.”

Su Ma: “Who said anything about my parents’ house?! Can’t you just ask me how Manman is doing?!”

His wife’s reaction was clearly not normal. Su Ba thought carefully for a moment, then ventured slowly, “Manman tonight… isn’t she going to dinner with young Lu?”

“Yes, exactly!” Su Ma said excitedly. “Young Lu bought her an outfit! And shoes! And a jewelry set! I kept telling you he has feelings for our daughter, and you wouldn’t believe me. Now look! Tsk tsk tsk…”

Su Ba listened, feeling both pleased and a little dismissive. “He has decent taste… but if the boy thinks a financial offensive is enough to win our daughter over, he’s being naïve.”

Su Ma couldn’t help rolling her eyes. “Never mind whether it’s a financial offensive — it’s still better than the one next door who has no offensive whatsoever! Over ten years and not a peep out of him!”

“Ah, don’t use language like that…” Su Ba said unhurriedly. “They’re still young, don’t be in such a hurry…”

“Still young?!” Su Ma’s voice shot up several notches. “Manman is twenty-three! Because of the one next door, she’s gone twenty-three years without a single boyfriend, and there’s still no word from them! I could maybe let it go if she were seventeen or eighteen, but she’s twenty-three! Twenty-three! Do I have to wait until she’s thirty-two to start worrying?!”

—