Fu Fu: Got it, they look so pretty!
Fu Fu: But actually no need to buy so many, because I only have one head [Cat curling into a ball.jpg]
Lu Yan Zhi watched the little cat curled into a ball in the chat box and quirked up the corners of his mouth. This sticker was one he had sent to Song Fu back then; he had not found it cute at the time.
Lu: I couldn’t help buying them when I saw them.
A lie. He had specifically searched for them because he wanted Song Fu to wear the hairbands he bought.
Not just hairbands—from head to toe, Lu Yan Zhi hoped to handle all of Song Fu’s food, clothing, housing, and daily travel. Of course, realizing that now was still very difficult; he still needed to spend large chunks of time at school.
“Did you start running a parcel station or something?” His childhood friend struggled to weave through the large and small packages on the road and noticed the brand paper bags placed together. “What did you even buy?” He remembered that the deep blue bag was from a brand specializing in women’s clothing. He picked one up casually. “A skirt? Bought for that sister?”
Lu Yan Zhi lifted his eyelashes. “Why do you keep calling her ‘sister’? Are you two close?”
His childhood friend paused blankly. “It’s precisely because we’re not close that I call her ‘sister.’ I don’t even know her name. You’re getting jealous over that? Then what should I call her?”
Lu Yan Zhi frowned and pondered for a moment. “Keep calling her ‘sister.'”
His childhood friend felt gratified. “That’s more like it.”
Then he heard—
“Anyway, she doesn’t like younger guys.”
His childhood friend nearly choked on that one sentence. If he remembered correctly, “Aren’t we the same age?”
Lu Yan Zhi: “…” So he would not call her ‘sister’ anymore. “What are you here for?”
“I was planning to hit the horse ranch for a bit and stopped by to ask if you wanted to come along.” His childhood friend mulled over what kind of love potion his good brother had been fed. “You two aren’t even officially together yet. Why are you spending so much on her?”
Lu Yan Zhi emphasized unwillingly, “We will be together sooner or later.”
They did not lack money, so his childhood friend just mentioned it offhand before bringing up the game. “That Ququ who posted the thread quit the game—deleted his account entirely. But what’s the deal with you and your Romance partner? Did you two just break it off so cleanly?”
He did not mean for his brother to two-time anyone. After all, in the current situation, Brother Lu had not even set foot on one boat. He was just surprised. Back then, it had seemed so genuine, but turning ruthless was truly cold-blooded. “I saw she melted down everything on her game account. What did you say?”
Lu Yan Zhi summed it up concisely. “She wanted to quit. I suggested it, and she agreed.”
She.
An utterly ordinary, neutral term. But after hearing it, his childhood friend’s sluggish brain turned a couple times before he suddenly realized something. His eyes widened. “Don’t tell me your in-game Romance partner is the same person as that university sister!”
Lu Yan Zhi gave a faint “Mm” and had no intention of elaborating.
His childhood friend could not hold back and cursed explosively. After the shock, he harbored deep suspicions. “Brother Lu, you didn’t fall for one of those carefully orchestrated pig-butchering scams, did you?!” Otherwise, how could there be such a coincidence in the world? “How much money have you spent already?”
“Don’t know.”
Lu Yan Zhi had no habit of keeping accounts when spending on his future girlfriend. More importantly, “She’s not a scammer. I discovered her first.”
“Really? For real?”
His childhood friend had seen plenty of social news and now looked at him with the heartbroken gaze reserved for the lovestruck. Especially after hearing Lu Yan Zhi say, “It’s normal to like money. Liking a broke loser? Might want to get that brain checked,” he could not hide his frustration at the iron not forging into steel.
“I bet you two…” His childhood friend stopped mid-sentence under the dangerous gaze. He had no doubt Lu Yan Zhi would interpret his words as a curse. But then he thought better of it. “Actually, yeah. Even if a pig-butchering scam targeted you, it’d definitely be aiming for marriage.”
A target with both looks and money was hard to find even with a lantern. “Just be careful she doesn’t drag you off to get married the moment you turn twenty-two.”
“I’m already twenty-two.”
Lu Yan Zhi calculated. “That’s over three more years.”
So long.
His childhood friend had never realized before how expressive his brother’s face was. He was speechless for a moment.
Whatever. It was the honeymoon phase. Once the excitement faded, he might even feel embarrassed remembering this mindset.
Then.
That excitement showed no signs of waning even on the day of the College Entrance Exam.
His childhood friend also spotted the girl from the student ID again at the school gate.
The College Entrance Exam was the most critical moment for most high school students. Many parents and friends dressed up specially to see them off solemnly, so the gate was crowded.
The girl was one of them. Her light linen-colored hair draped casually over her shoulders, and a matcha-green dress accentuated her fair skin. When she spotted him, her gaze paused briefly before she nodded lightly in greeting. Her amber eyes were like translucent beads. Standing in front of Lu Yan Zhi, she was half a head shorter—not like a sister, more like a little sister. After all, they were not that far apart in age to begin with.
“Have you checked all your stuff? Nothing forgotten?”
Song Fu did a final confirmation, even though she had packed everything in that materials bag herself the day before. “Maybe it’s to prevent university students from impersonating examinees. They’ve been cracking down hard on skipping classes these past couple days—no leaves allowed either. I won’t be able to pick you up at the school gate after the exam. You’ll probably have to head back to class to regroup for the afternoon tests, right?”
Lu Yan Zhi: “That’s what the homeroom teacher said.”
“Then see you tonight.”
Song Fu saw him through the school gate and then answered her phone. She noticed Lu Yan Zhi’s friend, whom she had met once before, looking back at her and waved.
His childhood friend waved back too. He took two steps away before blurting out a remark that sounded utterly baffling to Lu Yan Zhi. “Looks like I have potential to get ‘pig-butcher-ed’ too.”
After noticing Lu Yan Zhi glance at him, he hurriedly backpedaled guiltily. “I mean, that sister is pretty good-looking.”
Since she looked better every time he saw her—the type that grew on you—his childhood friend decided to extend the shelf life of Lu Yan Zhi and that sister’s relationship by a few years in his mind.
Fortunately, on the last day of the College Entrance Exam, Song Fu only had an eight a.m. class. She learned from the others waiting at the gate and bought a bouquet of flowers.
She had studied flower arranging before, but she truly did not know what flowers were suitable for sending off an exam-taker. The florist employee told her she could choose between sunflowers and lilies. Sunflowers symbolized coming in first place, while lilies represented the wish for dreams to come true. In the end, she went with sunflowers as the main flowers and added some other colors as accents.
“Brother Lu, who’s that? A relative?” The classmate walking ahead could not resist gossiping.
He had noticed the girl’s closeness to Lu Yan Zhi on the first day but had been too focused on the exam to ask. Now that he had relaxed, and seeing someone chatting with the girl, he asked casually.
Then he saw Lu Yan Zhi’s face darken, looking for all the world like his wife had been stolen. He gritted his teeth. “My girlfriend.”
It was the first time the classmate had heard this; his jaw nearly dropped. “A girlfriend from outside school? Figures you’d ignore all the girls chasing you. When did you start dating?”
“Just now.”
The classmate was baffled. “Huh? Just now?”
He got no answer to his confusion because Lu Yan Zhi quickened his pace and appeared at Song Fu’s side in an instant.
Song Fu had just answered the man striking up a conversation. “I’m not waiting for my little brother. I’m waiting for…”
“For me.” Lu Yan Zhi completed the hesitant words. He said nothing more to the man and shifted his gaze to the bouquet in Song Fu’s arms. “For me?”
Song Fu nodded.
Lu Yan Zhi took the flowers into his arms, said he liked them, and used his free hand to take Song Fu’s hand and give it a squeeze as he led her to the roadside. “Too hot. You could’ve waited in the apartment just the same. How long have you been standing?”
“Just about ten minutes.” Song Fu was no fool. “How’d you think the questions were? Did you write everything down?”
“So-so.” Lu Yan Zhi’s tone was lazy. The College Entrance Exam was not something he needed to stress over; he had enough confidence.
In comparison, what actually made him nervous was—
“I’m your boyfriend now, right?”
Song Fu looked up and met the eyes of Lu Yan Zhi, who had his lips pursed. Then she smiled and nodded. “Yes.”
Lu Yan Zhi visibly relaxed, gripping Song Fu’s hand a bit tighter. “Good.”
“Good that I didn’t run off?”
Song Fu tilted her head. “So this is why you dumped all sorts of keys and random documents on me at once?”
Lu Yan Zhi: “…” Ah, busted.
He decisively changed the subject. “Want to catch a movie first?”
“Anything you want to see?” Plenty of films were coming out in the summer blockbusters, but Song Fu had not kept up.
Of course, after noticing Lu Yan Zhi’s utterly casual attitude toward picking the movie and how his attention was not on the film at all, Song Fu quickly realized this was a case of the monk wanting something other than the wine.
More than the activity of watching a movie, what Lu Yan Zhi cared about was doing it together with her—or more precisely, watching a movie like any other little couple.
Lu Yan Zhi picked a horror movie.
His little scheme was not hidden at all.
But he was too inexperienced and did not understand the tropes of domestic horror films: mental illness, dreams, or drug-induced hallucinations. The ending fell flat, and the process was so boring there was not even a scene of someone getting scared into shrinking into their partner’s arms.
Just yawns from boredom.
Lu Yan Zhi yawned first.
It was contagious to Song Fu.
Halfway through the movie, the two exchanged a glance and slipped out, heading to the theater lobby to play a couple rounds of the claw machine. And it really was just two plays—one each. Neither caught anything. That shaky claw could not grab even in the next life, so they gave up decisively.
Then Song Fu noticed Lu Yan Zhi searching for “couple date” ideas.
She leaned her head over. “Amusement parks and outdoor stuff? Nah, too hot. How about skiing sometime? That new ski resort. My roommate and her boyfriend went; she said it was fun.”
They were too close; she could even see his thick eyelashes clearly. Lu Yan Zhi’s heart skipped a beat. His gaze shifted uncontrollably downward to those rosy lips, parting and closing with her words. Lips perfect for kissing… The description popped into his head.
Song Fu stared at the phone for a bit with no response, then looked up. “Don’t want to?”
Lu Yan Zhi snapped back. “I do.”
I want to kiss.