“Getting sick wasn’t my fault either.”
Yu Huan muttered under her breath. If she could avoid getting sick, who would willingly choose to be ill?
She wasn’t a masochist.
“It was my fault,” Zhu Heqing said. “I didn’t take good enough care of you.”
“It’s okay.” Yu Huan patted Zhu Heqing on the shoulder. “I won’t blame you.”
As she said that, Yu Huan felt a little guilty.
When Zhu Heqing took care of her, he prepared nutritious and delicious meals every day and was almost as attentive as her mother.
This time, she had gotten sick mainly because she hadn’t gotten enough rest. The temperature difference between Moscow and Beijing had also been huge. Going from cold to hot and back again had made it easy for her to catch a cold.
Yu Huan was terrible at keeping things to herself.
She tried hard to turn her head and look at Zhu Heqing, who had his face buried against her neck, then asked casually,
“I think I awakened something strange when I had a fever… I kicked you?”
The topic change was so awkward that she might as well have announced exactly what she was thinking.
Zhu Heqing lifted his head. His gaze lingered on Yu Huan’s slightly dry lips. He poured her a glass of warm water and watched as she slowly drank it.
“It didn’t hurt at all. Don’t worry about it.”
Yu Huan took small sips until she finished half the glass.
She glanced at Zhu Heqing and then dropped a bombshell.
“Do you want to break up with me?”
Zhu Heqing wondered if he had heard her wrong.
“Baby, what did you say?”
Why on earth would his girlfriend want to break up with him?
“Do you want to break up with me?” Yu Huan continued on her own. “I’m so bad-tempered. I can’t do anything and always rely on you to do everything for me. It must be exhausting being with me, right?”
Those weren’t actually Yu Huan’s own thoughts.
They were words Zhu Heqing had supposedly said to her in the original storyline.
Yu Huan had figured it out.
Whether that dream was real or not, she needed to prepare herself.
The first step was to test Zhu Heqing’s current feelings toward her.
If he hesitated, it would mean that he really thought that way.
Then she could move on to the second step: ending things peacefully.
Although she would be reluctant to let him go, Yu Huan knew that her personality wasn’t something she could easily change. Rather than gradually becoming the resentful couple from her dream, it would be better to end the relationship while things were still good.
“Did someone say something to you?”
Zhu Heqing’s answer was completely outside Yu Huan’s expectations.
There was a smile on his face, but the warmth never reached his eyes.
“Baby, did someone whisper something in your ear? Tell me who it was.”
Who had been meddling in their business?
Their relationship had nothing to do with anyone else.
If he found out who had said those things, Zhu Heqing tightened his grip slightly.
He really wanted to know what kind of mouth those words had come from.
If someone didn’t know how to speak properly, perhaps they simply shouldn’t have a mouth at all.
“No one,” Yu Huan said. “That’s not how you’re supposed to answer.”
“I’m the one asking you. Why are you asking me?”
She put down the glass and asked again.
For some inexplicable reason, Yu Huan could be extremely stubborn about certain things.
Zhu Heqing knew that if he refused to answer, there was no way he would get anything out of her either.
“I won’t break up with you.”
Zhu Heqing reached over and smoothed down a stray strand of Yu Huan’s hair.
“You’re my first girlfriend, and you’ll also be my wife in the future. In my eyes, there’s nothing wrong with you. I’m honored that you need me.”
“Baby, whoever said those things to you is just jealous that I have such a wonderful girlfriend. They’re jealous of us and want to break us apart. They don’t have anyone who loves them, so that’s why they would say such vicious things.”
By the end, there was a dark edge to Zhu Heqing’s voice, and a hint of ruthlessness flashed in his eyes.
Yu Huan blinked.
Did Zhu Heqing realize that the person he was talking about—someone who had no one to love—was actually himself?
Since Zhu Heqing sounded so certain, Yu Huan temporarily believed him.
Still, she emphasized,
“I’m not going to change, though.”
Zhu Heqing laughed softly.
“You don’t have to change. You’re perfect just the way you are.”
……
Yu Huan stayed in the hospital for another two days.
Only after she had fully recovered did she finally return home.
During that time, He Zhiheng and Xu Yunshu came separately to visit her. Zhao Xun had gone to another city for something, but he asked He Zhiheng to bring Yu Huan a game cartridge as a get-well gift.
Yu Huan absolutely loved the gift.
She stopped playing with her phone and spent all day playing games on her Switch instead.
The first thing she did after returning home was take a bath.
She hadn’t been allowed to bathe during the several days she had been sick.
Although the air conditioning in the hospital room had been running constantly and the temperature was kept within a comfortable range, she had still sweated from the fever. The sticky feeling on her skin had been incredibly uncomfortable.
Yu Huan stayed in the bathroom for a full hour and a half.
She stayed in the bathtub for so long that Zhu Heqing eventually knocked on the door to ask whether something had happened to her.
Only then did she reluctantly climb out.
The moment she came out, Zhu Heqing scooped her up with one long arm and sat her down on the sofa.
He stood behind her with a hair dryer and carefully dried her hair.
Once it was about half-dry, Zhu Heqing fetched some hair oil.
He treated the process as seriously as if he were handling an important business deal, squeezing an appropriate amount of oil onto his palm before carefully working it through her hair.
Yu Huan closed her eyes comfortably and casually informed Zhu Heqing that she was going back to her parents’ house.
Zhu Heqing’s movements paused.
“Why do you suddenly want to go back?”
“It’s always been like this. I stayed with you in July, then I go home in August.”
“It’s not August yet. Are you in such a hurry?”
“Zhu Heqing, have you not looked at a calendar in ages?”
Yu Huan burst into laughter.
“Tomorrow is August 1st. My mom has already reminded me several times on WeChat today.”
Yu Huan’s home was quite far from her university.
Normally, she stayed at Zhu Heqing’s place on weekends. The only times she usually went home were during winter and summer vacation.
Thinking about it that way, ever since she started university, Yu Huan had actually spent more time with Zhu Heqing than with her own parents.
After applying the hair oil, Zhu Heqing continued drying her hair.
His voice was calm and steady.
“What time are you leaving tomorrow?”
“Around noon, I guess. My dad knows I can’t get up early, so he told me to message him when I wake up.”
“Having your dad come all the way here would be troublesome. I’ll take you there myself and visit your parents while I’m at it.”
Yu Huan shook her head.
“My dad said you still have to work. Besides, Zhou Muyang just got back from his trip, so he said Zhou Muyang could give me a ride home.”
At the mention of Zhou Muyang, Yu Huan’s tone was noticeably familiar.
Zhu Heqing hummed in response.
He dried the last bit of moisture from her hair, put away the hair dryer, and carried her to the bed.
“All dry. You just recovered from your cold, so don’t stay up late.”
Yu Huan’s intuition was sometimes surprisingly sharp.
Sitting against the headboard, she asked Zhu Heqing,
“Are you unhappy?”
Zhu Heqing looked at her steadily for several seconds before giving her a faint smile.
“There’s been a little problem with a business partnership recently. It’s affected my mood a little.”
“I’ll go pack your things. You get some sleep.”
He gently closed the door behind him, then leaned against the wall and let out a long breath.
As the older one in the relationship, Zhu Heqing always wanted to be the kind of boyfriend who could guide and take care of his girlfriend.
A lot of the time, he would silently swallow the uglier emotions inside him.
Like now.
He was shamefully jealous of a young man who was about the same age as his girlfriend.