Chapter 2

I knew walking out like that was rude.

But I also knew Dad wouldn’t stop me.

Ever since he remarried, he’d worried I might resent him.

After all, my stepmother was his first love—the woman he’d never gotten over—while his marriage to my mother had been more of a proper match arranged by their parents.

Later, my mother died of illness. Around the same time, my stepmother got divorced and happened to run into Dad again, her daughter in tow.

A year later, they formed a new family, and Gu Xinlin and I became sisters with no blood between us at all.

Now I took a cab to the amusement park where we’d agreed to meet.

The moment I stepped out, another taxi pulled up right behind mine.

Jing Yan got out first, walked around to the other side, and opened the door.

Gu Xinlin climbed out, her timid gaze drifting toward me. “Sis…”

My brows drew together.

Jing Yan must have noticed my displeasure.

For once, he took the initiative and explained himself.

“Auntie asked me to. She is your sister, after all.”

“So?” I said. “Tonight is my birthday celebration with my friends. You brought her without asking. Are you trying to make things awkward?”

Jing Yan visibly froze.

I had never spoken to him that way before.

He lowered his eyes, lips pulled taut. After a while, he said, “She can stay with me. You don’t need to worry about her.”

Then, after a pause, he added stiffly, “…Just go have fun with your heart-and-liver.”

There was almost an aggrieved sulkiness in his voice.

“Fine.”

I nodded without argument, turned, and walked through the park gates.

“Over here! Birthday girl Gu!”

The instant Pei Zhaoyan saw me, his eyes lit up.

If he’d had a tail, I could practically picture it whipping back and forth hard enough to shake the sky.

Pei Zhaoyan thrust a huge, brilliant bouquet of sunflowers and a gift box into my arms.

“As promised—gift number one out of three!”

I opened the box. Inside was a blue crystal threaded onto a silver chain.

Pei Zhaoyan planted his hands on his hips, flashing both canine teeth. “This thing has been blessed. I washed it in holy water at a church, got a Daoist priest to perform a ritual over it, and finally had a tarot reader divine its fortune. It’s guaranteed to bring you wealth, treasure, and all the luck in the world.”

He paused. “Just no rotten romantic prospects.”

Laughing, I rolled my eyes and put on the necklace.

“Does it look good?” I asked.

Pei Zhaoyan gazed at me. His grin gradually softened into something quiet. “…It looks incredible.”

On the other side, Jing Yan and Gu Xinlin approached.

Gu Xinlin clutched the hem of Jing Yan’s shirt. Her eyes were red, as if she’d just finished crying.

At the sight of them, Pei Zhaoyan’s smile vanished. He bared his teeth.

“What’s your sister doing here? She doesn’t know a single person in our class. Either no one talks to her and we look like we’re freezing her out, or everyone has to look after her and nobody can relax. How are we supposed to have fun? What was that childhood friend of yours thinking?”

I shook my head and said nothing.

Jing Yan came closer.

His gaze landed first on the armful of sunflowers, then slid to the blue crystal.

The air around him abruptly turned glacial.

Pei Zhaoyan waved with a bright grin, his canines looking particularly sharp. “Well, well, Boss Jing. Brought the family along?”

Jing Yan ignored the jab.

His eyes fixed on my neck, and his voice came out cold and hard. “I thought anyone with a brain knew that naturally blue quartz doesn’t exist. This is white quartz coated with dye of unknown composition. In bad cases, it can even cause dermatitis.”

Pei Zhaoyan’s canines disappeared.

“What? The seller swore it was natural. I even picked the most expensive one!”

He whipped toward me in a panic. “Gu Li, take it off. Take it off! I’ll buy you another one!”

I stepped back half a pace.

“No. You can’t ask for a gift back after you’ve given it away.”

Closing my hand around the crystal, I said, “I like collecting rocks anyway. Even if you picked up a brick from a construction site, I’d like it as long as you meant it.”

Pei Zhaoyan rubbed his nose and muttered, wanting to laugh but not quite daring to, “Let’s skip the brick…”

Two meters away, Jing Yan stood without expression.

The others arrived one after another soon afterward.

Pei Zhaoyan checked the time and clapped his hands. “Perfect, everyone’s here. Let’s go! First stop, the Ferris wheel.”

While we waited in line, our class president squeezed to the front.

She cleared her throat and announced with a solemn face,

“Classmates, I have something to say.”

“Legend has it that two people who confess their love at the very top of the Ferris wheel will stay together forever.”

“To honor tradition and answer its call, everyone will pair up and take one cabin per couple.”

When she finished, she waggled her eyebrows at Pei Zhaoyan for good measure.

Pei Zhaoyan choked and pretended not to see her.

At last, a cabin descended slowly, and the attendant opened the door.

Pei Zhaoyan and I stepped inside one after the other.

We had barely sat down and set the sunflowers beside us when the cabin rocked again.

Without a word, Jing Yan cut in and stepped aboard. Gu Xinlin followed close behind, still gripping his shirt.

The four-seat cabin filled at once.

Pei Zhaoyan looked back with a raised brow.

Jing Yan met his gaze coolly. “There are four seats. Leaving two empty would waste space other visitors could use.”

I couldn’t help glancing at him.

Jing Yan’s voice grew even colder. Deliberately avoiding my eyes, he looked at Gu Xinlin instead.

“Besides, Xinlin doesn’t know anyone else. As her sister, you should look after her.”

I nodded. “Fine. You don’t have to explain so much. We’ll ride together. I don’t believe that legend anyway.”

Jing Yan turned toward the window.

His thin lips pressed into a flat line.

The Ferris wheel climbed at an unhurried pace as the sun sank to the horizon.

The sky looked torn in two.

Above was a deep navy blue; below, a blazing scarlet red.

When our cabin reached the highest point, I was pressed to the glass, lost in the view.

Pei Zhaoyan suddenly tapped my shoulder.

Across from us, Jing Yan tensed at once, staring hard at Pei Zhaoyan’s hand.

But Pei Zhaoyan only pointed below.

“Look. Your second present.”

I peered down through the glass.

At some point, a crowd had gathered beneath the Ferris wheel.

There were far more people than the classmates at my party—thirty, forty, fifty… and still more joining them.

Each held several electronic glow sticks. As the sky darkened, they looked like stars scattered over the ground, slowly arranging themselves into shape.

At last, against the amusement park’s blue-gray twilight, the glow sticks formed a message:

【HAPPY EIGHTEENTH BIRTHDAY, GU LI】

For a moment, I was truly stunned.

I even forgot to breathe.

I turned blankly to Pei Zhaoyan. “How… how did you do this?”

“Easy.”

Pei Zhaoyan grinned, a dimple sinking into his cheek. “I begged every last one of them.”

“The character for Li in your name has so many strokes, I nearly had to get down on my knees and kowtow.”

At last, a laugh burst out of me.

And tears fell with it.

Over Pei Zhaoyan’s shoulder, I saw Jing Yan.

He sat across from us, perfectly still.

His black eyes were frighteningly dark, filled with the heavy weight of dusk.

…Even if he missed his chance by accident, even if he lost the other person because of it,

would it truly not matter?

Jing Yan’s lips parted without thought. “Gu Li.”

“I…”

Time stretched unbearably long in that second.

The bright-yellow sunflowers leaned by the window, and the sunset seemed as if it would never fade.

In the end, Jing Yan still said nothing.

He closed his eyes. The cabin began to descend, and bars of light swept across his face one after another.

Night fell completely.

I thought

of the lightly regifted “L,” and the “Li” Pei Zhaoyan had nearly knelt and begged strangers to create.

I lowered my head and covered my face with both hands, damming the rest of my tears.

At the sight, Pei Zhaoyan’s imaginary tail began to droop. At a loss, he fumbled around for tissues.

“Hey, hey, come on. I know you’re crying because you’re touched, but don’t really cry. Making a girl cry is a crime I’d have to repay with my life.”

“Spit that out!” I lifted my head and cut him off. “Don’t say things like that. You’ll tempt fate.”

Pei Zhaoyan hurriedly spat three times with me, then joked as if the thought had just occurred to him, “But say someone really did confess at the top of the Ferris wheel. If the other person rejected them, what would they do for the second half of the ride?”

I sniffed. “Spend it begging them not to tell anyone after they get off.”

Pei Zhaoyan paused, then burst into laughter.

Jing Yan’s half-open mouth closed completely.

His lips were pressed so tight they had gone white.

When the Ferris wheel reached the ground, my classmates crowded around us with their glow sticks.

They proudly demanded to know whether I was surprised, whether it was romantic.

Pei had begged them to rehearse for ages, they said.

Every face shone with the satisfaction of accomplishing something monumental.

Only the class president leaned close to Jing Yan and whispered,

“Uh-oh. The girl you secretly love is about to fall for someone else.”

Jing Yan’s shoulders stiffened for a moment.

“…It has nothing to do with me.”

His jaw tightened as he said rigidly, “She’s not the person I like.”

The class president drew out an exaggerated “Oh?” Then she said, “So our top student does like someone. Who is it?”

Jing Yan turned and walked away.

Gu Xinlin followed obediently. She glanced back at the class president, the corner of her mouth curling up.

After that, our group went wild on several more rides until we all grew hungry.

I had reserved a table at the amusement park’s most famous themed restaurant a month in advance.

It was my way of thanking every friend who had come to celebrate my birthday.

But because Gu Xinlin had joined us at the last minute, the server had to bring over an extra stool and another set of tableware.

The limited-edition character meals posed a bigger problem.

The kitchen prepared everything fresh according to the reservation count, so they couldn’t add another serving on the spot.

Everyone else had a little cake shaped like a character. Only the space in front of Gu Xinlin was empty.

Her shoulders drew in tighter and tighter. In a tiny voice, she asked,

“Yan, should I… not have come? I feel like such an outsider…”

Jing Yan frowned slightly, then lifted his own cake and set it in front of her.

“Here. I don’t like sweets.”

Only then did Gu Xinlin smile through her tears.

Across the table, I watched it all.

If this had happened three days earlier, the scene would have become another ache for me to chew over again and again that night.

It would have ended as tears smothered into my pillow before I fell asleep.

But now I knew I would have to wait years for one belated confession from him.

All I could think was how cool and delicious the creamy ice cream tasted on my tongue.

I ate one spoonful after another. At the edge of my vision, Jing Yan’s gaze landed on me, then moved away.

Again and again, until I finished and raised my head.

This time, Jing Yan did not look away.

His dark eyes held mine for a long time.

What was he waiting for?

Was he waiting for me to shout at him through red-rimmed eyes,

“I’m over you! I don’t care about you anymore! Go die!”

I wouldn’t.

That was the cruelest thing about unrequited love.

You had no right to demand answers, no grounds for confrontation. It all began with a thought, offered willingly and entirely at your own risk.

Before the truth was ever spoken aloud, love arrived in silence.

And even when it left, it went just as quietly.