Chapter 5

Chapter 5

My enthusiastic landlord insisted on driving me home.

Outside the entrance to my apartment complex, I shut the car door and said to Fan Ye, who had rolled down the window, “Thanks for bringing me back.”

His eyes curved with a smile. “No problem. See you around, Little Raindrop.”

He seemed to really enjoy smiling. Every time before he spoke, the corners of his lips would already be lifting, and it made people feel better without even realizing it.

He was the complete opposite of Qi Zheng.

That comparison had only just surfaced in my mind when I turned around and saw a familiar figure sitting beside the flowerbed. It was Qi Zheng.

There was some distance between us, and the streetlights were dim and yellow, so I couldn’t make out his expression.

I walked over to him. Seeing that his hands were empty, it didn’t look like he’d come downstairs to buy anything, and I found it a little strange. “What are you doing here?”

A long moment passed, but no answer came.

I didn’t want to keep embarrassing myself, so I lifted my foot and prepared to head straight home. But then my arm was suddenly yanked back. He raised his eyes. “Who was that guy?”

“My new landlord.”

Qi Zheng shot to his feet. “You’re really moving out?”

“Yeah.”

“Jiang Manyu, you’re something else. When Grandpa was still alive, you put on that act to make him happy. We only just sent him off today, and not only are you not sad at all, you’re breaking your promise too?!”

I had nothing to say. The old man who had loved me most had passed away. I was in more pain than anyone.

In my previous life, during the years I spent entangled with Qi Zheng afterward, whenever I felt wronged to the breaking point, I would run to Grandpa’s grave and have a one-sided conversation with him.

Little by little, I had accepted the fact that he was gone and begun to believe he was staying by my side in another way.

But Qi Zheng, separated from me by a four-year “time difference,” couldn’t understand any of those shifts in emotion.

I didn’t explain further. I only said, “It’s not appropriate for us to keep living together like this.”

“What’s inappropriate about it? You’ve lived in my home for so many years.”

“That’s different! Your parents were there at home. If it’s just the two of us… people will get the wrong idea.”

“The wrong idea.” Qi Zheng repeated the words, then let out a derisive laugh. “Jiang Manyu, weren’t you the one who caused everyone to get the wrong idea about us in the first place?”

I lowered my head. He was right.

Because I liked Qi Zheng, I had chased after his grades in high school, then followed him into theater academy in college.

I had chased him all the way into an acting department I wasn’t even interested in.

Plenty of people joked that Qi Zheng had brought his little wife to school with him.

He had probably never explicitly rejected me out of consideration for my pride.

But in his heart, he must have found me very annoying.

“I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. I’ll move out as soon as possible.”

Qi Zheng suddenly grabbed me by the shoulders and forced me to face him. “Jiang Manyu, playing hard to get doesn’t work on me!”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“I heard what Li Shuang said to you last week!”

“?” I had been reborn. How could I possibly remember what I’d said to a classmate four years ago?

“Still pretending?” Qi Zheng’s grip tightened. “Didn’t she give you advice and tell you to ignore me for a while so I’d realize how important you are to me?”

I tried hard to think back, but I still couldn’t remember.

Back then, between Qi Zheng and me, I had been the only one burning with one-sided enthusiasm.

Everyone saw it, and whenever they had the chance, they were all happy to tease me and toss me a few ideas.

It all went in one ear and out the other. I never took it seriously.

“Hiss… That hurts!” I struggled twice, and Qi Zheng let go.

I rubbed my shoulder and said seriously, “Qi Zheng, liking you is too exhausting. I give up.”

Although this lifetime might not necessarily repeat my previous one, the hurt I had truly, vividly experienced was something I couldn’t pretend had never existed.

With difficulty, I tugged up the corners of my mouth and smiled. “Really. From now on, you can…”

The person in front of me looked cold and forbidding. Before I could finish, he strode away.

Facing his retreating back, I finished the second half of my sentence. “From now on, you can marry the girl you actually like. And I’m going to live a truly happy life too.”