Zhao Zhengnian said helplessly, “What can I do? The bracelet set is a pair; can’t buy just one. Take it or not—if not, I’ll give it to Fu Changpei.”
“I want it, I want it.”
“The cake delivery’s here; I’ll go grab it.”
Fang Qingyi casually stuffed the bracelet into her pocket. From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed Fu Changpei, who had been sitting quietly ever since he came in. Without thinking, she grabbed him along.
“You come with me.”
Zhao Zhengnian hurried to follow them out. “I’ll go too.”
“Come on, I only ordered an 8-inch cake. It’s not worth troubling you two.”
The private room suddenly felt spacious. In the enclosed space, only she and Liang Yuanjing remained.
Tao Shuran lowered her gaze. She could not stay alone in the same space with Liang Yuanjing.
She feared her heartbeat would give her away, so she quickly followed Fang Qingyi’s footsteps.
“I’ll go with you all too. I want to see what the cake looks like.”
Zhao Zhengnian clicked his tongue. “A Jing, it seems our classmate Tao doesn’t want to be alone with you at all.”
“Really?”
Liang Yuanjing lifted his chin slightly. As if to prove the point, his expression cooled a bit, and he walked toward the neighboring private room.
“Some friends are in there. I’ll go say hi.”
Just then, classmates from the neighboring Flight Class pushed the door open. Leading them, Xu Yanyang spotted Liang Yuanjing and greeted him calmly.
“Liang Yuanjing?”
“What a coincidence.”
“Want to join us?” Xu Yanyang pulled the door open. There were not many people inside, just over ten, all from Flight Class, and they all looked expectant.
“I heard you scored higher than even Fu the top student. That’s awesome. You guys aren’t many either—come join us?”
Flight Class had few people, but three years of intensive, militarized training together had forged a unique bond among them.
Liang Yuanjing was the pillar of their group. When it came to flying, he was undoubtedly one of the most talented.
Outstanding people shone wherever they went.
Tao Shuran lowered her head slightly, feeling stifled inside. She worried her earlier words had caused him offense.
She did not really not want to be alone with him.
She just truly did not know how to get along with him.
Xu Yanyang came over and asked the girls if they wanted to join. Since it was graduation, it was a good chance to get to know each other.
Fang Qingyi shrugged. “I’m fine either way.”
Zhao Zhengnian excitedly leaned in. “You’re Xu Yanyang? The one who’s super good at games?”
Everyone’s excited attention shifted once more. In the midst of the lively clamor, Fu Changpei still remembered to get the cake for her.
As they went out, he softly asked, “Do you want to go?”
Tao Shuran was stunned. She had not expected him to remember to ask her opinion.
She thought for a moment and said, “If everyone wants to go, then let’s go.”
She did not want to dampen everyone’s excitement. She turned her head and asked Fu Changpei, “What about you? Do you want to go?”
Fu Changpei said, “If everyone wants to go, I’ll go too.”
His serene face, still as the moon’s surface, tilted up slightly. The gaze he directed at her brimmed with gentleness, and he spoke in an intimate tone:
“Tao Shuran, actually, you and I are a lot alike.”
……
The birthday cake’s design was the one Fang Qingyi had chosen. The double-layer 8-inch cake sat right in the center of the private room’s round table.
Tao Shuran was ushered to the center seat.
Unaccustomed to being the center of attention, she instinctively wanted to step back.
In the crowd pressing forward, Liang Yuanjing clenched his hand into a fist. His straight arm hovered slightly behind her waist without touching, as if just to prevent her from falling.
His cool breath instantly enveloped her entirely. The cramped space made her heart race.
Amid a burst of exuberant cheers, Tao Shuran lowered her head and blew out the birthday candles for her eighteenth year.
“Happy birthday!”
“Who’s that?”
“You don’t know? This year’s top in liberal arts.”
“Oh oh, that Tao Shuran, right? Top in liberal arts and top in sciences—kinda matches our Captain Liang, doesn’t it?”
They were all seventeen or eighteen, full of youthful vigor. When the gossip reached this point, Xu Yanyang clearly perked up.
He deliberately sidled up to Liang Yuanjing and asked, “A Jing, back when you turned down those girls, you said no dating until after high school. What now?”
He asked curiously, “Do you have a girl you like?”
Liang Yuanjing’s ideal type was a hot topic with all sorts of opinions.
He was cold to all girls, leaving everyone unable to guess his preferences.
At this age of youthful heart-flutters, did he truly feel no ripples of emotion?
Not a single guy in Flight Class believed it. Privately, they all agreed Liang Yuanjing must have a girl he liked immensely in his heart—someone who made all other girls invisible to him.
Liang Yuanjing sat on a high stool, studying the array of liquors on the bar counter.
He did not even look up as he responded perfunctorily.
Later, tired of asking indirectly, Xu Yanyang got straightforward. “Anyone here?”
Liang Yuanjing held a square glass, dropping ice cubes into it. At those words, he let out a scoff, as if finding it amusing.
He tilted his head back slightly, smiling carelessly.
“No.”
Xu Yanyang could not stand it. “You know your handsome face smiling like that is criminal?”
Liang Yuanjing did not curb his smile. He lazily turned his head toward him and teased, “Is it? I only smile like this at you.”
Just then, Fang Qingyi let out a cry and wheedled to Tao Shuran, “Ranran, I told you I don’t like mango. Why’d you give me the slice with mango?”
Tao Shuran’s hand paused in cutting the cake. Her gaze slowly withdrew, and she looked down at the cake she had unconsciously cut all crooked.
She said softly, “Sorry.”
She gave Fang Qingyi a fresh slice from beside it.
After that, she was a bit distracted in everything she did. The slice she had cut with the most care was left on the edge of the table.
Everyone gathered to sing together. The atmosphere soon loosened up amid toasting and chatting. Even Tao Shuran was egged on by Fang Qingyi to try a few glasses of mixed fruit wine.
Midway, she slipped out to the balcony for some air while no one noticed.
The stagnant air in the private room kept Liang Yuanjing’s “no” echoing in her mind for a long time.
Though she knew it was a foregone conclusion, hearing him say it still made her utterly heartbroken.
Tao Shuran tilted her head up slightly and squinted at the hazy moon. She quietly waited for the evening breeze to scatter all her sadness.
Inside the room, Fang Qingyi’s singing stopped. She tossed the microphone to Zhao Zhengnian and leaned to Fu Changpei’s ear to whisper:
“Why’d Ranran suddenly get unhappy?”
“It feels like she just got dumped.”
Fu Changpei said softly, “Maybe she’s just not used to this kind of scene and wants to be alone for a bit.”
Liang Yuanjing raised a brow and turned his head toward the small figure on the balcony.
She was bent slightly at the waist, her whole body pressed against the railing. Even from the back, that aura of melancholy and loneliness was obvious.
She had been radiant blowing out the candles moments ago. Who had made her so downcast?
Could it be the person she liked?
Liang Yuanjing had no habit of prying into others’ feelings, but since he had noticed, he could not help overthinking.
He took a sip of water. From the corner of his eye, he caught Xu Yanyang holding the mic and crooning a love song.
Flight Class.
Was the person she liked Xu Yanyang?
It all suddenly made sense. So that slice of cake with her name on the table—was it for Xu Yanyang?
When she was cutting the cake, Xu Yanyang had waved it off. “No need to save me any. I don’t like cake.”
She said nothing, and her mood sank from then on.
So that was it.
Liang Yuanjing calmly withdrew his gaze and propped his chin, looking into the distance.
Tao Shuran stayed on the balcony a while, and her mood improved a lot.
It was nothing. At least his “no” meant he had no one he liked.
She still had a chance to get closer to him.
Perhaps the talent of those who loved in secret was self-consolation. The faint moon outside gradually sank westward, and the sky grew dim.
Tao Shuran rubbed her faintly aching forehead and slowly made her way back, holding the railing.
“Where is everyone?”
She rubbed her eyes. She did not know when the lively gathering had dispersed. The private room was empty, with only scattered drink bottles left behind.
It was as if the world had forgotten her.
A wave of emptiness washed over her, churning with uncomfortable emotions. Tao Shuran stumbled back and half-squatted to search for her phone.
It must have slipped into a sofa crevice when she set it down.
As soon as she bent down, dizziness hit her hard, as if the whole world was spinning.
So when Liang Yuanjing appeared before her, she thought it was a time warp.
Tao Shuran shook her head, ignored him, and kept bending over to painstakingly search for her phone.
Her phone rang with its ditty-ditty tune. Liang Yuanjing stood against the wall, arms folded, watching her.
Finally unable to watch, he handed her the phone.
Tao Shuran asked softly, “Where’d everyone go?”
“They all left. Xu Yanyang went to settle the bill. Fang Qingyi drank too much, so Fu Changpei and Zhao Zhengnian took her back.”
“What about you?”
“Me?”
Liang Yuanjing had one hand in his pocket. He walked to the sofa, bent down, picked up the phone she had been straining for, and dangled it before her.
“Same as you—forgot my phone.”
“Let’s go. I’ll drop you off on the way.”
Liang Yuanjing grabbed his jacket, then paused. He leaned in to sniff, catching sight from the corner of his eye of the empty bottle in her hand.
Casually, he said, “How much did you drink?”
“550ml.” Tao Shuran blinked and honestly told him, “The alcohol content is low. It won’t get me drunk.”
Liang Yuanjing said, “People’s tolerance for alcohol varies.”
Tao Shuran let out an “oh” and stood in place without moving.
Her expression was dazed, as if the alcohol really had addled her brain.
Liang Yuanjing thought this version of her was a bit special. He smiled where he stood, reached out, and easily grabbed the collar at the back of her neck to lead her forward.
“Tao Shuran, you really are naughty—drowning your sorrows over a guy.”
From the neighboring room came wailing singing. It was clearly a tender love song, yet sung with gut-wrenching anguish.
Liang Yuanjing recognized it as Mercury Record.
He scoffed and could not help complaining, “This guy must’ve just been dumped—singing so badly.”
As soon as he said it, he recalled Tao Shuran and Xu Yanyang, and felt it was inappropriate.
Liang Yuanjing looked away and said no more.
In the quiet atmosphere, Tao Shuran peered at his brows through the dizzying lights.
She smiled lightly, though her eyes showed little joy.
She just asked him, “Do you think I like someone else?”
It was not just liking someone else.
He even knew who that someone was.
Liang Yuanjing responded with a sound, neither affirming nor denying. He had always been indifferent about matters of the heart.
Tao Shuran tilted her head up and gazed at him quietly.
After a moment, she lowered her head and silently followed behind him.
“I’m drunk.”
Liang Yuanjing had recently been staying at Fu Changpei’s house. They lived in the same direction.
At those words, his footsteps, which had been ahead, halted.
From a friend’s perspective, he really wanted to turn around and give the girl a good scolding.
She was a Gaokao top scorer, after all—pining so miserably over a boy she liked.
But when he turned back, he saw her teary eyes brimming with hurt.
Tao Shuran tilted her head up. Behind her, hazy moonlight intertwined with the lights.
The boy she loved stood right before her.
Yet she had to pretend to look past him at someone else, expressing all her sorrow that way.
“I’m so sad, and I like you so much.”