It was unclear whether she heard the distant, mournful cries first or saw the brilliant, kaleidoscopic tunnel of light right before her eyes. Lou Fan’s consciousness drifted in the air, and she felt an unprecedented sense of calm.
She watched time roll backward little by little, seeing her parents and younger brother rush to the hospital to demand compensation from the bar owner, and then watching Qin Peiran’s back as she dragged two suitcases away without looking back. Next came the first time Qin Peiran kissed her, grabbed Lou Fan’s hand as it tried to move lower, and asked, “Can we keep it platonic?”
After that came the very first time Lou Fan met Qin Peiran. The girl was wearing a waitressing uniform, squatting on the ground to pick up ceramic shards while soup splattered all over her.
Lou Fan squatted down in front of her, wrapped a paper napkin around Qin Peiran’s bleeding fingertips, and pulled her to her feet:
“I’ll support you from now on.”
“Use your 3,000-yuan salary? Let me support you instead, mine is 3,500!” Two colleagues ahead were bantering, and Lou Fan followed closely behind them with a splitting headache.
“Hey Lou Fan, why don’t we try that trendy thing online, taking turns going to work?” A colleague turned around, noticed Lou Fan had fallen behind by several meters, stopped to wait for her, and waved with a smile. “You know, the three of us each spending only 1,000 per month, hahahahaha.”
Lou Fan was about to instinctively reply to her colleague’s joke when a sudden sense of wrongness struck her.
Why was she even here?
She remembered going to the bar and then passing out, as if she had been taken to the hospital.
No, these two colleagues had clearly jumped ship four years ago and stopped keeping in touch with her. Why were they together with her today?
Lou Fan kept her expression neutral, simply smiled, and followed the two of them along the street. It was almost dinnertime, and the sounds of car horns, laughter and curses, and advertisements from street shops rose and fell in waves. Car bumpers crowded each other on the road, bicycles wove through the crowds on the sidewalk, and the bustling scene was lively beyond measure.
Lou Fan usually drove to work, and her route didn’t really align with theirs. She hurried forward a few steps, tapped one of them on the shoulder, and tentatively pointed ahead: “How much longer until we get there?”
“We’re here, we’re right in front, look!” One of the colleagues raised a finger to point at the Yunyun Game Meat Restaurant ahead while grabbing the other colleague’s hand. “This place is insanely good, seriously, trust me. Not only is it close to the company, but the prices are decent too. We practically want to prepay our memberships here.”
Yunyun Game Meat Restaurant.
An ominous premonition quietly surfaced. She pulled out her phone, and the moment she saw the model of the device, she felt a wave of suffocation.
“I am losing my mind,” she muttered to herself, refusing to accept reality as she lit up the screen.
Year, month, day.
Hour, minute, second.
It was undeniably four years ago, the very day she first met Qin Peiran.
Everything was completely identical to her memory.
If this was a kaleidoscopic vision before death, Lou Fan pinched her arm, watching the flushed skin flare with a burning ache.
It was far too realistic.
Could she actually have been reborn?
Lou Fan’s mind was in total chaos. She followed her two colleagues into the restaurant and ordered the signature dishes they recommended. Barely halfway through the meal, the two of them simultaneously received phone calls from home.
Just like in Lou Fan’s memory, both of their expressions turned icy as they exchanged glances and made excuses to leave together.
In the end, Lou Fan was left alone to deal with the remaining dishes.
If she remembered correctly, those two would submit their resignations together next week and even purge Lou Fan from their WeChat contacts. Though she didn’t know what had happened, as a rare friend made at the company, Lou Fan still felt a twinge of loss.
Right now, however, that wasn’t the most pressing matter.
Sitting alone in a booth, Lou Fan stared at a table full of food with zero appetite because she knew that in the next few minutes, Qin Peiran would appear.
She would arrive in an utterly disheveled, pitiful state.
The hands of the wall clock ticked in circles. Lou Fan didn’t know the exact minute Qin Peiran would show up, and every second felt like her heart was being squeezed a little tighter.
Did she have to meet her again? Did she really need to face this again? Lou Fan had certainly hesitated.
Yet when Qin Peiran genuinely appeared before her eyes, all other choices ceased to exist.
Crash!
A heavy ceramic basin filled with soup smashed onto the ground, countless shards instantly flying several meters away as soup splattered everywhere.
The surrounding diners were startled by the sudden accident, turning their gazes toward the scene. A potbellied, burly middle-aged man stood arrogantly pointing a yellowed, cigarette-holding finger down at a young girl who looked to be only seventeen or eighteen, dressed in a waitressing uniform.
Instead of showing the expected fear and panic, the girl remained remarkably calm as she squatted on the ground, picking up ceramic fragments and tossing them into a trash can.
Even though she was drenched in soup, the manager who rushed over was only busy apologizing to the customer, completely ignoring the fact that the girl’s thin acrylic shirt was soaked through.
After all, she looked far too composed.
Her thin, fair face featured slender eye slits, and her pale lips lacked color. She stood out incongruously in her Yunyun Game Meat Restaurant uniform as she squatted on the ground picking up the ceramic pieces of the boiling fish dish, her expression as calm as if she were handling petri dishes in a laboratory.
She seemed completely oblivious to everything around her.
Lou Fan stood up, walked over, and squatted down in front of her.
She draped her coat over the girl’s slender shoulders, and a tissue gently wrapped around Qin Peiran’s unnoticed fingertips, where a splash of bright red instantly spread across the white paper.
Qin Peiran lifted her eyes to look at Lou Fan, the trace of fleeting surprise in her gaze quickly suppressed.
Lou Fan helped Qin Peiran up, and the teasing remark her colleagues had joked about half an hour ago slipped naturally from her lips:
“I’ll support you from now on.”
In her past life, Lou Fan’s actions might have simply been driven by a white knight complex, or perhaps just attraction at first sight, since Qin Peiran genuinely and perfectly matched her aesthetic preferences.
In this life, Lou Fan did it purely because she was Qin Peiran.
She even despised herself for her hesitation just moments ago.
One person provides money, the other provides companionship. Once money is no longer needed, this absurd yet fair transaction should naturally come to an end. The logic was so simple, and it was a rule Lou Fan herself had set, so why was she hesitating all over again just because she got a second chance?
She was just looking for a partner, and the other person happened to be Qin Peiran, whom she knew inside and out. What was she afraid of?
Lou Fan felt like she had lived too long, overthinking every little thing she did.
While quietly cursing herself for lacking decisiveness, she pulled Qin Peiran out of the restaurant, walked along the road back to the company parking lot, found her car, and guided her into the passenger seat.
It wasn’t until they entered Lou Fan’s apartment that Qin Peiran finally spoke up, breaking their prolonged silence: “Excuse me, who are you?”
Oh no, Lou Fan only now felt a belated sense of awkwardness. In her past life, she had said a lot to Qin Peiran at the restaurant, including introducing herself and offering various reassurances to lower the girl’s guard, until the other person opened up and revealed she was a freshman at Haida University working to earn living and tuition expenses.
That was how it naturally led to bringing her home and smoothly proposing a kept relationship.
Back then, she had indeed been drinking a little and got carried away, never expecting the girl to actually agree. To her surprise, Qin Peiran had simply stared straight into her eyes, appraised her earnestly for a long time, nodded, and accepted.
They always say girls should be raised with luxury, and look where that got them! In her past life, Lou Fan had simultaneously felt like her behavior toward a college student was atrocious and appalling, while secretly lamenting how terribly weak modern college students’ safety awareness was, wishing she could immediately hang up a banner outside Haida University reading, “Improve Women’s Safety Awareness.”
And this life. Well, Lou Fan wanted to hang up a banner in this life too.
Though she would definitely need to avoid the route Qin Peiran usually took.
“Sorry about that. I forgot to introduce myself.” Lou Fan wasn’t drinking this time. She guided Qin Peiran to sit on the sofa and handed her a glass of water. “My name is Lou Fan, and I currently work at a listed Japanese enterprise as an executive assistant and translator. My salary isn’t massive, but supporting you alone won’t be a problem.”
With that, Lou Fan pulled a business card from her bag and slid it across the table.
“Support?” Qin Peiran’s expression turned slightly chilly. She glanced down at the card without taking it, then raised her eyebrows to look at Lou Fan, her tone detached. “What’s your angle?”
Lou Fan froze.
In her past life, fueled by alcohol, she hadn’t hidden her intention to keep a partner at all, framing it as tactful and positive: she, Lou Fan, was a kind-hearted modern philanthropist supporting a poor female college student; and she, Qin Peiran, was a grateful companion sticking close to a lonely corporate worker to build a new family together.
Should she really say that again this time? Lou Fan fell silent.
The other person didn’t like that kind of relationship, yet as for herself, over those four years, Lou Fan truly had been happy. Someone waited by the restaurant entrance to take a drunk her home, and that someone happened to be a gorgeous college student who fit her exact aesthetic preferences. Even if the girl wasn’t entirely willing, they still shared many intimate nights. Okay, she admitted the feeling wasn’t bad at all.
Yet when they truly cut ties, the withdrawal symptoms were brutal.
Youye was right. In four years, even raising a cat builds an emotional bond, let alone a human being. Since breaking up was so agonizing, she shouldn’t have started it in the first place.
“I don’t want anything from you.” Lou Fan sat down on the sofa, tilted her head slightly to look at Qin Peiran, and curved her cherry-like lips into a smile. “I can sponsor you until you graduate from college. Don’t worry, it won’t affect your daily life.”
Seeing the momentary, speechless surprise cross Qin Peiran’s face, Lou Fan knew she looked far too suspicious, so she quickly added, “I’宁 eaten at your shop a few times, and the owner mentioned you just got into Haida University and you’re the only one left in your family?”
“Yeah.” Without a trace of sorrow, calm like a tranquil lake, Lou Fan couldn’t tell what Qin Peiran was thinking.
“You can live in the dorms, or you can stay here. Anyway, I have a spare room, the lights stay on all night, there’s endless hot water for you to use whenever, and the kitchen is fully stocked with ingredients. You can cook whatever you want, and I’ll cook for you when I have time. This place is probably better than your dorm environment anyway.” Lou Fan really didn’t want anything from her anymore. “As for tuition and living expenses from now on, just say the word.”
Before Lou Fan could finish her sentence, Qin Peiran interrupted her: “I don’t believe you want nothing.”
When she asked this, she leaned in closer. Her cold, delicate facial features were distinct, and her narrow eyes locked onto Lou Fan like a feline predator, full of sharp vigilance.
That wasn’t right! Qin Peiran wasn’t like this in her past life! Where was that completely defenseless college student who could be tricked away by a stranger?
In her panic, Lou Fan hastily fabricated a lie: “Well, it’s like this. My financial luck hasn’t been great lately, and a few days ago I visited a temple. The high monk there said I needed to do some good deeds, like sponsoring a student around me. That’s why I thought of you. I originally planned to talk this over with you today, but who knew we’d run into this. Sigh. If you really don’t believe me, I won’t force you. I can just take you back to school right now, how’s that?”
Forget it. She could figure out other ways to help her later. Lou Fan felt a hint of regret. She had somehow landed back four years without any time to properly think things through. If she had just started out as friends, maybe Qin Peiran would have lowered her guard and accepted help with peace of mind.
Though Lou Fan thought back, Qin Peiran didn’t seem to have many friends in her past life either. Would she even accept help from friends? Lou Fan honestly couldn’t picture it.
Just as Lou Fan felt completely out of options and even started contemplating asking the game meat restaurant owner to secretly give her a raise, Qin Peiran spoke up:
“Fine. Take me back to school.”
“Oh. Alright then.”
“Help me pack my things. I’ll moving in tonight.”