Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Before junior high, Qin Yue and I were close childhood playmates.

Unfortunately, in my first year of junior high, my youngest uncle’s business went bankrupt and he jumped to his death. He was my maternal grandparents’ only son. All of the family’s assets were seized to pay off debts, and in the end my father stepped in and found them a place to live.

By then, my parents’ marriage was already falling apart. I only realized later that my father had a mistress who’d given birth to a sister three years younger than me. That sister was Lin Zhi. All the uncles and aunts in the Lin Family knew, and my paternal grandparents knew-only my mother and I didn’t.

They divorced soon after.

My mother didn’t want custody of me. She took my maternal grandparents and went back to their hometown in Jicheng. We’d agreed I could visit during school breaks, but not long after, both my maternal grandparents passed away.

My mother’s mental state wasn’t good. She often muttered to herself, and later, under my father’s arrangements, she moved into a nursing home in Jicheng.

Those years, my workload was heavy-school, tutors, extracurriculars. Every break, my aunt would hustle me over to the Jicheng nursing home to see her. I could never stay more than a few hours before I had to leave again.

My aunts often said that when I was little I was lively and always smiling, but the older I got, the quieter I became, hardly speaking at all.

They didn’t understand. A child who yearned to grow up only wanted one thing: to save her mother.

But she didn’t wait for me to grow up. One winter, she died in the nursing home.

The last time I saw her, I was a second-year in high school. She smiled at me, called me Weiwei, and fastened a pearl necklace around my neck.

She said it had been left to her by her mother.

Now, she was leaving it to me.

She could never have imagined that her daughter would later be forced to become a nun, unable to even wear that necklace.

…

In my senior year of high school, I ran into Qin Yue at school. He had just started his freshman year.

We hadn’t seen each other in six years. The delicate, pretty little boy from before had grown into a tall teenager.

He recognized me at once and flashed a bright, cocky smile. With his neat short hair and a sports headband under his thick brows, he looked every bit the swaggering youth.

He said, “Sister Weiwei, remember me? I’m Qin Yue.”

He held a basketball, moving with lazy ease, so good-looking he seemed like he’d stepped out of a comic. A few boys who’d been playing with him trailed after us, egging him on and deliberately dragging out the “Sister Weiwei.”

Qin Yue’s face darkened. He kicked at them a few times and shooed them off.

Then he turned back to me and let out an awkward laugh. “Sis, are you heading to the cafeteria? I’ll go with you.”

In my eyes, Qin Yue had always been the boy next door. As a child he was obedient and well-behaved; now he was all teenage bravado.

We ate together in the cafeteria. He told me that the year my maternal grandparents’ home was seized, we’d made plans to spend summer break reading the new Asui comics together. He’d rushed out to buy it, waited for me, and when I never showed, he left it on the shelf-still unopened to this day.

He said he’d seen me around campus a few days ago. I hadn’t changed much; he recognized me right away. He talked and talked, and finally leaned back, tapping the table in annoyance. “How come you’re like a mute now?”

It was true. I didn’t talk much-I just sat and listened.

Not only with him. With classmates, teachers, even the Lin Family, I kept to myself and was never good with words.

My father once suspected I’d gone mute and took me to the hospital for tests. When we walked out, backpack on my shoulders, I turned and said, “Dad, I’m fine. I’m not sick.”

Frankly, Lin Cheng doesn’t have the best temper. After years in the business world, there’s a sharpness about him. Everyone in the Lin Family is afraid of him-Aunt Chen and Lin Zhi included.

I wasn’t. I met his eyes and said, “Dad, I miss Mom.”

He was stunned for a moment, then patted my head. “No classes today. How about Dad takes you to the amusement park?”

No. A man that busy, taking me to an amusement park? Haha, forget it.

I wasn’t a child anymore. Besides, an amusement park is a place you go with both Mom and Dad.

After that, I didn’t cross paths with Qin Yue often.

But I heard plenty about him. The son of a real estate tycoon, he loved basketball and esports, and he was first in his grade. Proud by nature, yet teachers liked him-and so did the girls.

Once, I passed the basketball court on the school field and happened to see him playing. He spotted me and sent the ball arcing straight toward me.

In the end, it landed squarely on my face.

Back then, the college entrance exam was looming, the study atmosphere was tense, and I was already a bit anemic. The hit made me see stars; heat rushed through my nose, and I fainted on the spot.

I later heard that Qin Yue was stunned. He nearly tripped as he ran over, then hoisted me onto his back and sprinted to the infirmary.

My nosebleed stained his white T-shirt red.

At the school infirmary, once I came around, a teacher scolded him and made him apologize to me.

After apologizing, he rolled his eyes in annoyance and muttered, “It was just a light toss. You didn’t even try to dodge. So weak and stupid.”

He was disappointed.

In his childhood memories, that lively, smiling, interesting Sister Weiwei had turned into a scrawny bookworm.

From that day on, we never spoke at school again.

He stayed in the spotlight, and I stayed quiet.

Later, I got into a university in this city.

Later still, I met Zhang Zhiyuan.

As time’s gears grind forward, people and things change; none of us can resist it.

How wonderful Zhang Zhiyuan was back then.

He was the universally acknowledged department heartthrob of the Department of Science.

Refined and clean-cut, with handsome features, his bright smile felt like a warm spring breeze.

Our first meeting was actually at an exhibition.

An uncle who was on good terms with my father and dealt in wine organized a wine showcase at the Golden Gate Club.

My father couldn’t make it, so that day I went with my Eldest Aunt, and we placed an order for several million yuan worth of wine.

Then we ran into Uncle Zhang and his wife. They greeted my aunt and called her President Lin.

The Zhangs and our family had business dealings.

Zhang Zhiyuan was standing right in front of me, hands in his pockets, smiling, and then he reached out his hand-

“Hello, Lin Wei.”

His voice was lovely-clean and low. He wore a white shirt and black casual pants, tall and slim.

He looked fresh and neat too: clear skin, well-proportioned features, and eyes rippling under thick brows, always with a hint of a smile.

Even before I knew him, it seemed he already knew me.

He never deliberately pursued me.

But after the wine exhibition, I started noticing him around campus.

I saw him often-at the cafeteria, in the library, at club dinners.

In college, I lived on campus. Without the pressure of the entrance exam and my family, I was much more open than before.

I had friends in my dorm and close classmates in my major. Their bubbly energy rubbed off on me, and I began to feel that life still held all kinds of possibilities.

And Zhang Zhiyuan was, undoubtedly, another color that lit up my life.

I often saw him in the library; it seemed we both kept to the same hours for reading.

When we met, we’d say hello, chat briefly now and then, and then quietly find our own seats.

Sometimes, if I was late, I’d find he had saved me a spot and would wave me over with a smile.

Until one time, while I was reading, I felt a warm rush in my lower abdomen and knew my period had started, so I stood to head for the restroom.

Zhang Zhiyuan stopped me.

That day I was wearing a white dress. He slipped off his jacket, came over, and draped it around my shoulders, eyes smiling.

“Your skirt looks like it got stained. Go back to the dorm and change first.”

His voice was very soft. His jacket carried his unique scent-clean, and somehow very pleasant.

I flushed and murmured a thank-you.

When I returned to the dorm and had just changed, my roommate Sun Fan burst in, loud as ever, and thrust a bag into my hands.

“Well, well, Lin Weiwei, fess up. Since when have you been dating-and with Little Grass Zhang from the Department of Science, no less?”

Zhang Zhiyuan was the Deputy Minister of Arts in our Arts and Culture Department, and he was well known. The girls in our dorm loved giving famous people nicknames.

For example, the minister above him was a very pretty but aloof senior, and everyone privately called her He Kongque.

As for Little Grass Zhang, first because he was the department heartthrob, and second because peacocks like to eat grass.

Everyone knew He Kongque was chasing Little Grass Zhang.

The bag Sun Fan handed me contained brown sugar ginger tea and heating pads.

On the way back, Sun Fan said Little Grass Zhang had been downstairs and asked for the bag to be brought up to me.

Sun Fan had a big mouth, so I told them, “Don’t talk nonsense. There’s nothing between us.”

“Tch, and what if there is? You’re not a bit worse than He Kongque. Plenty of people ask about you, Lin Weiwei. If Little Grass Zhang manages to win you over, he should count himself lucky.”

He hadn’t pursued me-I knew that.

Maybe precisely because of that, there was a faint ache in my heart.