When he asked that question, she had never seen such an expression on his face before—as if he had suffered a devastating blow, utterly disheartened.
Yet, as if bewitched, she replied, “Yes.”
Later, he truly left, traveling far overseas to study, and never returned—not even by the day she passed away.
“Shen Junxi! Shen Junxi!”
She ran all the way to the business school but didn’t catch a glimpse of him.
“Classmate, do you know where Shen Junxi is?”
“No idea.”
Could it be that he had already completed the withdrawal procedures and boarded a plane?
Just as Su Niansheng was about to pull out her phone, she turned and bumped into a male student, causing the chips in his hands to scatter all over the ground. “Are you blind—”
Halfway through his sentence, he looked up, and his eyes suddenly lit up. “Oh, the school belle!”
“Sorry, I was in a hurry to find Shen Junxi and didn’t see you.”
“You’re looking for Shen Shao? He’s at the gym right now, but I’d advise you not to go. He’s in a really… hey!”
Before he could finish, Su Niansheng dashed off like a gust of wind, leaving behind only a cheerful “thank you.”
Gymnasium.
A large crowd was bustling at the entrance of the boxing room.
“Ah, our Jing University only has two school hunks, and now one of them is leaving. There’ll be nothing beautiful left to cleanse my eyes and help me face the agony of 8 a.m. classes!”
“Exactly! I haven’t even managed to strike up a conversation with Shen Shao yet!”
“What? Are you still dreaming about the ‘Unattainable Fantasy’? Don’t even think about it!”
As soon as Su Niansheng ran in, she saw a large group of classmates gathered together, discussing “Shi Yubai, the Ideal of Humanity, and Shen Junxi, the Unattainable Fantasy.” She didn’t quite understand, but then she overheard, “Shi Yubai is the millennium-old ice, while Shen Junxi is the ten-thousand-year blazing sun.” She couldn’t agree more.
Yes.
His embrace was the last warmth she felt in this world, even more scorching than a ten-thousand-year sun.
She slowly pushed through the crowd and made her way inside.
From the spacious boxing room came a series of fierce, relentless thuds—bang, bang, bang—as if venting the owner’s current emotions.
The young man wore black boxing gloves, relentlessly punching the sandbag. Fine beads of sweat dripped from his jet-black short hair, tracing the sharp contours of his profile, flowing down his slender neck, and disappearing beneath his shirt, where faint yet powerful muscle lines hinted at explosive strength.
His back was straight and imposing, his posture tall and graceful, his movements swift and fierce. An aura of wild, untamed energy radiated from him, and every punch he landed on the sandbag elicited uncontrollable screams from the girls at the entrance.
“Ah, so handsome!”
“Shen Shao is so, so, so handsome!”
Watching him, Su Niansheng’s heart trembled slightly.
He hadn’t left.
Thank goodness!
But she completely failed to notice how low the pressure around the young man was.
“You’ve been at it for so long. Have some water.”
Duan Chengyu unscrewed a bottle of water and offered it to him.
The next second, the powerful vibrations from the sandbag nearly knocked it over. “Get lost.”
Zhong Zhe shook his head nearby. “Don’t provoke him. He’s in a terrible mood right now. Be careful not to get caught in the crossfire.”
Su Niansheng watched as the young man’s usually lazy and carefree brows furrowed tightly, his dark pupils burning with obvious anger. She couldn’t help but think of what she had said to him yesterday…
His bad mood was because of that, wasn’t it?
“Huh? The school belle is here?”
“Why did she come? Wasn’t she always chasing after Shi Yubai?”
A wave of commotion rippled through the surroundings.
In her previous life, because she was pursuing Shi Yubai, she kept a low profile and never associated with anyone at school who might expose her identity, including Shen Junxi, so no one knew about their relationship.
Shen Junxi turned at the sound, his deep eyes freezing for a moment when they landed on the girl’s figure, then he looked away as if he hadn’t seen anything.
Only the force with which he punched the sandbag grew heavier.
Su Niansheng walked forward with her head lowered, thinking about how to apologize to him, when she heard a mocking scoff, “What, Miss Su, afraid I won’t leave, so you came to send me off?”
Su Niansheng: “?”
Miss Su?
They had been childhood friends for over a decade, calling each other by every possible name—formal names, nicknames, even silly pet names—but never such a strange and sarcastic “Miss.”
It seemed he was truly angry.
And rightly so, after all, she had hurt him so deeply he didn’t even want to return to the country.
It seemed only the highest form of apology would earn his forgiveness.
Her mind raced, and she remembered they were almost born on the same day, month, and year. When they were little, she often forced him to call her “sister” because she was born two days earlier than his due date. But he stubbornly refused, even trying to bribe her with cotton candy, cheese sticks, and small cakes to call him “brother.” They had been deadlocked over this issue, and it remained unresolved to this day.
She raised her head again and glanced at the friends around him.
Thinking about how they usually…
She closed her eyes, steeled herself, and called out, “Jun-ge.”
After the girl’s sweet, soft, and slightly charmingly crisp voice rang out, everyone present gasped. Shen Junxi’s body jolted as if electrified, his fist hitting the sandbag suddenly veered off course, and he nearly crashed into it.
“Su Niansheng, are you possessed?”
After a long pause, he slowly turned to look at her, disbelief written all over his face.
His handsome brows were tightly furrowed, his dark eyes gleaming with an eerie light.
He seemed to be genuinely scrutinizing her, wondering if something was wrong.
But a faint smile crept into Su Niansheng’s eyes.
It worked. He had already switched from “Miss Su” to “Su Niansheng.”
“I’m sorry!”
She walked solemnly up to him and bowed at a forty-five-degree angle to apologize.
“I was out of my mind yesterday to say those things to you. Can you pretend I never said them, forgive me, and… not leave, please?”
As soon as her words of regret left her lips, they swept away like a gentle breeze, dispelling the thick gloom that had gathered in the young man’s heart over the past two days. His thin lips curved imperceptibly into a smile as he casually removed his boxing gloves and tossed them aside.
The proud little princess actually apologized.
A rare sight.
But then, the smile in his eyes faded as his thoughts shifted.
“Su Niansheng, don’t think I’ll help you chase after Shi Yubai…”
“I’m not chasing him anymore!”
Su Niansheng abruptly raised her head.
This time, Shen Junxi was genuinely stunned, as if doubting his own ears. “What did you say?”
“I’m not chasing him anymore, really!”
She repeated it, word by word, her expression utterly serious. But the next second, the boy reached out and touched her forehead. “Are you really okay? Do you have a fever?”
Su Niansheng: “…”
Not only did he not believe her, but none of the surrounding classmates believed her either.
How shamelessly and persistently Su Niansheng chased after Shi Yubai was common knowledge at Jing University.
“What’s she up to now?”
“Probably trying some new trick to get Shi Yubai’s attention.”
“But you can’t just use Shen Shao like that? That’s too much!”