Chapter 5

In the end, I won the game.

Because Pei Zhaoyan poured the entire can of rice wine into my cup.

Then he declared that I had the most left, so I was the winner.

The class president slapped the table on the spot.

“It’s rigged! I object! Your favoritism reaches all the way across the Pacific!”

Pei Zhaoyan grinned wickedly, two dimples appearing. “Exactly. Welcome to the adult world.”

I cradled the black-silk-wrapped gift box and couldn’t bear to open it right away.

The last present of my eighteenth birthday.

On the way home, neither the class president nor Pei Zhaoyan was going in my direction. They each hailed a cab, and we agreed to message when we got home safely.

The Jing family’s driver was already waiting by the curb.

Out of habit, Gu Xinlin climbed into the back seat first.

Looking at the car, I remembered something from many years ago.

When we were little, I was the only one willing to play with Jing Yan.

The other children were frightened by his coldness, put off by his silence, and thought he was hard to get along with.

I alone must have been born without the sense to know better. The less he spoke, the more determined I became to crowd close.

I wanted to see what it would take to make the silent boy speak.

Later, coincidence kept putting us in the same schools and the same classes. Our families only grew close because of us.

Whenever Dad was busy with work, the Jing family’s driver would pick me up too.

I sat in the passenger seat, while Jing Yan sat in back.

Through the rearview mirror, I could see his quiet profile.

His long black lashes hung low, outlined in warmth by the morning light through the window.

For some reason, I wanted to become the sun in that moment.

Looking back now, perhaps that was where my innocent feelings began.

When Gu Xinlin moved in with my stepmother later, it only meant adding one more person.

I remembered the first time Gu Xinlin rode in the Jing family’s car. She couldn’t find the door handle and got so anxious that she burst into tears.

Jing Yan had gotten out, guided her hand to it, and then had her sit in the back.

At the time, I’d cheerfully praised him. “Jing Yan, if you had a little sister, you’d make a wonderful big brother!”

From that day on, the two of them always shared the back seat.

…

My thoughts drew back to the present.

I was about to open the passenger door

when someone caught my wrist.

Jing Yan’s ears were red, but his hand was icy.

“You…”

His voice was blurred when he asked,

“Are you angry?”

He repeated it, even more quietly this time.

“Gu Li, are you angry with me?”

I turned to look at him.

His eyes were wet, but his pupils were a dense black, like pools of ink.

I smiled. “No. Why would I be angry with you?”

I truly wasn’t. Anger was reserved for people you cared about.

Jing Yan only shook his head, then shook it again.

Bitterness seemed to rise from his chest like well water, flooding his eyes and spilling over his lips.

“Gu Li, I know you won’t believe me… but I saw the future. Your future and mine. Someday, we’ll… we’ll be good. We really will.”

I pulled my hand free. “What are you talking about? You’re drunk, aren’t you?”

Jing Yan’s hand hung suspended in midair, empty.

I finished what I had to say. “Besides, the future belongs to the future. I only believe what I can see now.”

Once I stripped away the dazzling halo of my crush, I could see clearly who met sincerity with sincerity.

But when a tear fell from those pitch-black eyes,

the crueler words on my tongue stopped short. For a moment, I went blank.

He… was crying?

In eighteen years, I had never seen Jing Yan cry.

Now he stood in the summer night breeze as though he were about to lose something.

But Jing Yan quickly lifted a hand and wiped the tear away.

Washed by tears, his black eyes were frighteningly clear. The drunkenness had receded too.

All that remained was a stubbornness bordering on obsession.

“Whether you believe me or not,” he said,

“I saw one last line at the end. It said—”

The night wind blew past, stirring the black hair over his forehead.

【NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS, THE FUTURE WILL NOT CHANGE】