Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I wandered aimlessly down the street, my face stinging.

I knew full well none of this was my fault, but I still couldn’t stop myself from breaking down in tears.

Every tiny, insignificant moment from the past five years replayed in my mind, one after another.

Xie Qingyue was five years older than me. During my first year of graduate school, he returned to campus as an outstanding alumnus to give a talk.

When I found out he worked at the laboratory I’d dreamed of joining, I hurriedly scanned the QR code on the screen.

At first, I only wanted to learn more about the latest hiring information.

But whether by coincidence or by fate, we kept running into each other in public.

Sometimes it was at a professor’s lecture. Sometimes it was at an academic seminar…

After a while, we naturally started interacting more and more.

He was just as composed and rational as the rumors said. His extraordinary looks were the least remarkable thing about him.

When I was in the lab wailing over complicated data, he just happened to have finished an event at school and suddenly felt like visiting the lab building farthest from the campus gate.

When my roommates and I got into an argument with the next table while eating out, he and his friends just happened to be in the restaurant next door, and he casually helped us out of trouble.

When I was alone at the hospital for a checkup, clutching an ambiguous report and too afraid to see the doctor, he walked toward me from the end of the hallway, backlit by the light…

On Christmas Eve, he asked me out to dinner and confessed to me as naturally as breathing.

It was as if a box of luck had fallen from the sky and hit me senseless. I stood there in a daze.

He took a small step back, keeping a distance that made me feel safe.

“It’s okay if you reject me. What you want matters most.”

“Whenever you decide you want to be in a relationship, just tell me. I’ll be standing in the closest place to you, and I won’t go anywhere.”

I hurriedly shook my head, then felt like something was wrong and quickly nodded instead.

…

After we got together, even staying up late to run experiments felt fun.

Because there would always be his rambling messages on the other end of my phone.

[Lin Xiaoxi, I ordered seafood congee for you. Remember to drink it while it’s hot.]

[Lin Xiaoxi, you’re so dumb. The data in your paper is obviously missing a decimal point!]

[Lin Xiaoxi, don’t tire yourself out. It hurts me to see it.]

He would kiss me with the utmost care, and every time we parted, he would murmur “I love you” beside my ear.

He was no longer as steady as he had been when we first met. If I so much as glanced at an opposing player during a game he was in, he would get jealous.

He helped me discover a better version of myself when I felt most ordinary and hopeless.

But now, in this instant, all those seemingly beautiful memories were stained with doubt.

My phone suddenly began to vibrate.

It was a senior from my graduate program. She was also involved in this round of laboratory recruitment.

“Xiaoxi, did you… did you and Xie Qingyue have a fight?”

I lowered my eyes and tried to keep my voice calm. “No. Why?”

My senior clearly paused. After a long while, she stammered, “In previous years, our school basically had a one hundred percent acceptance rate. It was practically an unwritten rule.

“This year, the other two got in. Only you…

“But the girl who was accepted, even though she technically meets the hiring requirements, her resume and interview were obviously not as good as yours…”

Only me.

So I was the only one who hadn’t been accepted.

But I’d been preparing to enter Jiang University Laboratory since high school.

Through hellish studying with nothing but ordinary talent, I had stood out in that brutal battle and completed my undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral studies at Jiang University.

Today was supposed to be the day I finally achieved my dream.

But Xie Qingyue had actually taken more than ten years of my hard work as if it were only natural, and used it to make a wedding dress for his white moonlight.