Liang Yu lay on his bed clutching his phone.
His legs unconsciously tangled in the blanket beneath him.
The tips of his ears were flushed red with excitement, and his breathing had become uneven.
The roommate who had previously discovered his secret was still in the dormitory.
But at this moment, Liang Yu could not care less.
His gaze remained obsessively fixed on the profile picture displayed on the screen.
His fingers repeatedly hovered over it as he reread their conversation over and over again.
Although most of the messages had been sent by him alone, and the replies from the other side consisted of only a few brief responses, he was already completely satisfied.
Liang Yu had never imagined that he would actually cross paths with that person.
To him, Ming Jing had always been the moon hanging high in the sky.
Something to admire from afar.
Something forever beyond reach.
He was the first man Liang Yu had ever truly liked.
No—
The first man he had become infatuated with.
Whether online or in gay bars, the people Liang Yu pursued always carried a faint resemblance to him.
He sought out those who looked similar.
He took them to hotels.
As though doing so allowed him to briefly possess the person he truly wanted.
And everything that had happened recently felt like a dream.
That day in class, he had noticed Ming Jing looking at him.
After class, he had gathered his courage and added him on WeChat through the course group chat.
He had not dared hope for much.
Yet Ming Jing had actually accepted his request.
Nervous and anxious, Liang Yu introduced himself.
He had assumed the acceptance was merely an accidental tap.
He never dared ask for anything more.
Being allowed to remain on Ming Jing’s contact list would have been enough.
The Ming Family was one of those wealthy elite families ordinary people only saw in news reports.
Naturally, Ming Jing moved in social circles completely inaccessible to average students like them.
There were probably countless people trying to strike up conversations with him every day.
Any message Liang Yu sent should have immediately sunk to the very bottom of the chat list.
Yet Ming Jing replied.
Not only that—
He even said he remembered him.
The overwhelming joy instantly drowned out all rational thought.
Liang Yu felt like Cinderella from a fairy tale.
A dusty nobody who had somehow stumbled into a prince’s sight.
And now the noble prince had become captivated by him.
Excited beyond words, Liang Yu sent him countless messages.
Every one of them was long.
Very long.
He described how he had fallen for him.
How sincere his feelings were.
How deeply he cared.
He carefully painted himself as a humble admirer hopelessly in love.
Not once did he mention the fact that he had been sleeping with substitutes who resembled Ming Jing.
Ming Jing’s responses remained consistently indifferent.
Yet when Liang Yu finally gathered the courage to ask if they could meet over the weekend, the other party agreed almost immediately.
That only reinforced his belief.
By now, he had completely forgotten the anniversary he was supposed to celebrate with his girlfriend.
His entire heart was filled with anticipation for his upcoming meeting with Ming Jing.
Over the years, he had seen countless men.
But Ming Jing was different.
He was absolutely top-tier in every regard.
Combined with a face handsome enough to debut as a celebrity and a tall, long-legged physique, he was undoubtedly the dream lover of countless bottoms.
Blushing furiously, Liang Yu shyly whispered a “See you this weekend” to his phone.
Then he hurried out of bed to begin taking care of himself.
This meeting…
He intended to make Ming Jing unable to forget him.
After hearing everything Xiao Yao had told her, Moon’s first reaction was disbelief.
She had secretly loved Liang Yu for two years.
He had been the top student in their class.
Refined.
Clean-cut.
Always dressed in a school uniform that had faded from countless washes.
He would quietly sit in the corner, studying.
After the college entrance examinations, she had finally gathered enough courage to confess.
To her surprise, he had confessed that he liked her too.
After they got together, Liang Yu had always been gentle and considerate.
Their relationship was stable.
They almost never argued.
In the eyes of many people, they were the perfect couple.
Even after entering different universities and beginning a long-distance relationship, although there had been occasional conflicts, and although she had recently begun suspecting that his feelings might be changing…
She had never imagined that he had never loved her at all.
That agreeing to date her had simply been using her.
That even his sexual orientation had been a lie.
Nevertheless, Xiao Yao’s words had planted a seed of doubt.
As she carefully reviewed the past in her mind, many things suddenly seemed to make sense.
The messages sent to the wrong person.
The inexplicable emotional coldness.
The fact that he became completely unreachable every weekend.
The way he always replied only in the middle of the night.
He had claimed he was working part-time.
She had foolishly believed him.
Just to exchange a few words with him, she had deliberately stayed awake until midnight every single day.
Suddenly, Moon began to cry.
Staring at the wallpaper on her phone, tears streamed down her face.
It was her favorite photo of them together.
She hugged her knees and cried silently for a long time.
Her eyes became swollen.
Only then did she finally gather the courage to open their chat window.
The conversation still rested on the last message she had sent him.
Telling him not to work too hard.
Telling him to take care of himself.
He had never replied.
Moon felt ridiculous.
She wanted to ask him why.
Why had he treated her like this?
She had never done anything wrong to him.
What right did he have to hurt her this way?
But in the end, she silently deleted every word she had typed.
Then she changed her Sunday flight ticket to the following morning.
That night was destined to be sleepless for someone.
…
Maintaining her usual professional standards, Xiao Yao received the flight information Moon had sent on Saturday morning.
She expressionlessly closed her phone and pretended she had not seen it.
At noon.
Xiao Yao got out of bed with a cold expression.
After changing clothes, she headed straight for the airport.
Following the information Moon had provided, Xiao Yao found the designated arrival exit and casually picked a spot to wait.
The arrival time was approaching.
Many people had gathered there to greet arriving passengers.
Every face carried a smile.
Only Xiao Yao stood out from the crowd.
Today she was not wearing a mask.
Her beautiful face was fully exposed.
Although many people wanted to approach her, her cold expression discouraged them before they could gather the courage.
Xiao Yao looked down at her phone.
Occasionally she glanced toward the arrival gate.
Before boarding, Moon had described her outfit.
So after the plane landed, Xiao Yao spotted her immediately.
The young woman emerged from the crowd dragging a suitcase behind her.
She was beautiful.
Tall and slender.
The clothes she wore were clearly expensive.
Yet even makeup could not conceal the exhaustion on her face.
Xiao Yao raised her hand and waved.
She also lifted a sheet of white paper.
At that exact moment, Moon happened to look in her direction.
She immediately spotted the girl standing among the crowd.
The girl wore nothing more than a simple white T-shirt.
Yet her beauty was impossible to ignore.
Her skin seemed to glow.
The way she pressed her lips together appeared both cold and strangely alluring.
So beautiful!
Jiang Yue—Moon’s real name—stared in a daze.
From a distance, she noticed the white paper the girl was holding.
For a brief moment, she actually felt envious of whoever was being welcomed.
Then her gaze moved upward.
The amazement on her face abruptly froze.
The next second, her entire face turned bright red.
Her online username had been written across the paper.
Not only that, but it had been boldly traced over several times with a thick black marker.
Looking at the giant words—
“Stealing a Kiss from the Moon”
—Jiang Yue felt a wave of secondhand embarrassment powerful enough to kill her.
She wanted nothing more than to dig a hole and bury herself.
Seeing the girl running toward her, Xiao Yao lowered the sign.
Jiang Yue stopped in front of her.
Then she was hit by another wave of beauty-induced shock.
Tentatively, she asked,
“Xiao Yao?”
“Mm.”
Xiao Yao responded indifferently.
She noticed Jiang Yue’s swollen eyes.
After a brief pause, she said nothing.
Instead, she turned and began walking away.
“Let’s go.”
Jiang Yue hurried after her.
Although Xiao Yao appeared cold and difficult to approach, seeing her somehow eased much of the heaviness in Jiang Yue’s heart.
Perhaps it was because Xiao Yao was too beautiful.
Perhaps it was because she seemed to care about nothing.
For the first time, Jiang Yue felt that destroying herself over a man simply was not worth it.
Xiao Yao first took Jiang Yue to a hotel to drop off her luggage.
After everything was settled, Jiang Yue pulled out her phone and opened the location-sharing app she shared with Liang Yu.
If he logged in, he would discover that the two icons that were usually separated by great distances were now only a few thousand meters apart.
The app showed Liang Yu’s icon moving continuously in a certain direction.
His current location was not far from the hotel.
The two of them immediately made a decision.
They headed downstairs and took a taxi.
Then they instructed the system to follow the navigation route provided by the app.