In the dream, it was a dim cinema.
On the huge screen, the faces and voices of the male and female leads blurred into an indistinct background, while the couple kissing passionately in the bright red couple seats turned into him and Yu Yingying.
He cupped Yu Yingying’s fair, delicate face, lowered his head, and kissed her lips. Without any hesitation, he pried open her teeth, tangled with her tongue, savoring her sweetness. His heartbeat was impossibly fast, as if it were about to leap out of his chest.
Unable to get enough of her, he gripped Yu Yingying’s slender waist and pressed her down onto the bright red couple sofa. He bent over her, gazing at the vivid picture formed by her pale skin, inky black hair, and the red sofa beneath her, the blood in his body seeming to boil.
Meeting her dazed, misty gaze, he breathed heavily, cast aside morality and reason, and kissed her again. Feeling her response, he even pushed further, tugging open the clothes he had already messed up with his hands…
“Ring-ring-ring-ring!”
“Ring-ring-ring-ring!”
“Huff—damn it…”
Jiang He jolted upright in bed, panting, grabbing the phone by his pillow and glancing at it. Seven thirty in the morning. The complicated expression on his face finally eased a little.
Thank God it was a dream! Just a dream…
There were two classes in the morning, but he didn’t want to go—didn’t want to see anyone. If it weren’t for Yu Yingying, he wouldn’t have been so diligent in the first place, never missing a single class.
He turned off the alarm and flopped heavily back onto the bed. When he noticed something wrong with his underwear, his expression stiffened again, teeth clenching.
Damn it!
Damn it!
Damn it!
How could he… damn it!
……
For several days in a row, Yu Yingying didn’t see Jiang He.
The 520 gift she had promised to give him had been sitting in her backpack for almost a week now, still not delivered.
On the way back to the dorm after class, Yu Qing found it strange. “Yingying, you and Jiang He—after that date on 520, you haven’t seen each other again, have you?”
Yu Yingying nodded. “Yeah.”
“Has he messaged you or called you these past few days?”
Yu Yingying shook her head. “No.”
“Did you contact him?”
Yu Yingying shook her head again. “No.”
Yu Qing’s face changed. Worried, she said, “Oh no, what’s going on with you two? What exactly happened on 520?”
Yu Yingying was confused too, so she briefly recounted what had happened that day and asked Yu Qing to help analyze it.
After listening, Yu Qing slapped the table. “I knew it!”
“What is it?” Yu Yingying asked quickly.
“He’s unhappy!” Yu Qing said.
Yu Yingying didn’t understand. “…Huh? Why is he unhappy?”
That day, aside from feeling a bit off during the romance movie, everything else seemed fine. And when he walked her back to the dorm, Jiang He didn’t seem strange either.
Yu Qing said, “To sum it up in one sentence—you hurt his feelings.”
“Think about it. Before you lost your memory, even though he was your secret boyfriend and the relationship couldn’t be public, your feelings must’ve been really good.”
“Even if you hadn’t gone all the way, holding hands, kissing a little—surely that happened, right?”
“How normal is that? Who doesn’t kiss!”
“Back then, he could feel your love through that intimacy—that’s the foundation of a relationship!”
“But now?”
“Watching a romance movie—my god—you were completely unmoved, even sitting there stiff as a board! Forget kissing him, you guarded against him like he was a thief, sitting pressed up against the armrest!”
“Let me ask you, Yu Yingying—was the armrest your boyfriend, or was he your boyfriend?”
Yu Yingying was dumbfounded.
Faced with Yu Qing’s storm of analysis, she recalled the scene and said, “Not really… I felt like he was also pretty restrained, pretty awkward, pretty uncomfortable.”
Yu Qing said, “Of course he could only act like that. You were so guarded, so resistant—he has pride. All he could do was force himself to look like he didn’t care, even act just as resistant as you.”
Yu Yingying: “Ah…”
Yu Qing asked back, “Imagine this—if he had said he wanted to kiss you, what would your reaction have been?”
“I…” Yu Yingying actually imagined it, and instantly felt her scalp crawl. She blurted out her honest reaction, “I’d want to pull out the baton in my backpack and hit him, knock some sense into him.”
Yu Qing: “……”
Yu Yingying: “……”
The two stared at each other. After a moment, Yu Qing asked, “Now do you understand?”
Yu Yingying bit her lip and said gloomily, “I understand.”
As they spoke, they reached the dorm.
Yu Yingying poured herself a big cup of water and gulped down half of it, then casually turned on her laptop.
“So what are you going to do?” Yu Qing asked, then added, “I get that you can’t bring yourself to be intimate with him right now—you lost your memory, after all. But your past feelings were real, and he’s so hurt now. Maybe you should take the initiative, reach out to him, comfort him a bit.”
Yu Yingying’s head felt enormous.
Should she… contact him proactively?
If Jiang He didn’t answer, at least she’d tried—no guilt. If he did answer, going to the library together to study would be great. That feeling of doubled study efficiency was really hard to resist.
Yu Yingying thought it through and decided it was doable. She took out her phone and dialed Jiang He’s number.
But the pleasant ringtone sounded again and again, with no one answering.
Yu Qing asked, “No answer?”
Yu Yingying nodded. “Yeah.”
Yu Qing looked at her with pity. “Then you’re in trouble. Your arrogant guy is really angry this time—this won’t be easy to smooth over.”
Yu Yingying: “…?”
She sighed. How was she supposed to coax him? She had no experience at all.
She called Jiang He a few more times, but still no one answered. Yu Yingying checked the time—it was just a few minutes from 5:30. After some thought, she shut down her computer and began packing her bag again.
Yu Qing asked in surprise, “You’re going out to eat already?”
“No,” Yu Yingying said. “I can’t get through to Jiang He, so I’m going to his place to look for him.”
Yu Qing let out a “wow” and was about to say something else, but Yu Yingying had already grabbed her bag and headed out. Still, Yu Qing felt uncomfortable keeping it to herself, so after thinking for a moment, she called Jian Mei.
Jian Mei was practicing piano. When she suddenly got Yu Qing’s call, she assumed it was about going out to eat together and replied without thinking, “It’s still early. Let’s eat in half an hour.”
“No!” Yu Qing said worriedly. “Jiang He hasn’t been at school these past few days. Yingying just went to look for him, and she said she’s going to his place.”
“Isn’t that good?” Jian Mei said. “It’s rare for her to take the initiative.”
“That’s exactly why I’m worried!” Yu Qing said. “She’s already proactive, and I pushed her to go—it’s even scarier! They must have had a great relationship before, but now I seriously suspect she’s going there because Jiang He can help her with problem sets.”
Jian Mei said, “Oh, you think Yingying’s motives aren’t pure.”
“Yes.”
“So what?” Jian Mei asked in return. “Isn’t intelligence Jiang He’s own advantage? Or do you think Jiang He only likes Yingying’s soul and isn’t attracted to her body at all?”
Yu Qing thought about it. That actually made a lot of sense!
“So… we just don’t interfere?”
“Don’t interfere. What’s there to interfere with? Let them deal with their own relationship issues. Friends meddling too much only makes things worse.”
“Alright, alright. I’ll come find you later—we’ll go eat together.”
After hanging up, Yu Qing sent Yu Yingying a WeChat message:
【Yingying, good luck.】
……
Yu Yingying had a pretty good sense of direction. Following her memory from before, she soon arrived at Xingfu Garden Residential Complex. Last time she hadn’t gone to Jiang He’s place, but she’d remembered his apartment number when he’d threatened the dog owner, so after a bit of searching, she found it.
However, when she finally knocked on Jiang He’s door and it opened, the person standing there was a beautiful girl with sleepy eyes.
The girl was wearing an oversized men’s white shirt. It looked like she’d gotten up in a hurry and just grabbed something to throw on—the buttons were fastened crookedly. The wide-open collar revealed a patch of snow-white skin, and it couldn’t hide the ambiguous red marks on her body.
Yu Yingying instinctively took a step back and looked up at the apartment number above the door.
That was right.
Then she looked back at the girl in front of her, shock unmistakable in her eyes.
“Who are you?” the girl asked first, seemingly sensing something was off. She gathered her messy long hair and said, “You came knocking so boldly—don’t tell me you’re here to catch someone cheating?”
Trying to avoid a misunderstanding, Yu Yingying asked as calmly as she could, “Is this Jiang He’s apartment?”