“I regretted it.”
Liang Yuanjing pushed open the door and walked in. He took a dry towel from the room and handed it to her, then turned on the air conditioner.
He found a long-idle electric kettle with some rust around the spout and silently wiped the dust off it alone.
Tao Shuran had never seen him look so dejected.
She turned her head away unwillingly, her gaze not landing on him.
“Words once spoken are like rain that has fallen—they can’t be taken back.”
“And my feelings too. Once abandoned, I won’t want them a second time.”
Liang Yuanjing let out an “Mm.”
In fact, he understood her feelings all too well. When someone had accumulated enough disappointment and hurt in a one-sided affection that went unreturned for so long, they rarely wanted to go through it again.
It was somewhat like PTSD symptoms.
“I understand everything you said.”
Liang Yuanjing lifted his eyelids slightly, his tone slow. “Time and again, you can keep ignoring me, pushing me away, rejecting me.”
“I will always choose you, Tao Shuran.”
In a daze, Tao Shuran seemed to hear the rain outside the window stop.
All the storms in the world ceased, the skies cleared, and his unchanging arrogant brows and eyes became the eternal constant.
The sound of the window being pulled open shattered the entire atmosphere.
The person outside seemed annoyed and, upon meeting their gazes, quickly said:
“Sorry about this, Teacher Tao. We wanted to ask if there’s any hot water we can use.”
“Sorry, sorry, we’re really disturbing you.”
The lingering romantic atmosphere between the pair was thus broken. Qiao Yanxin hated herself for being too quick to yank open the window.
Just now in the car, she had noticed something off between Tao Shuran and Liang Yuanjing—the way they gazed at each other without wanting to look away, laced with a mix of love and hate.
Qiao Yanxin felt that if she hadn’t acted fast, given the stormy night and their drenched state, the two would have almost kissed.
The colleague’s appearance snapped Tao Shuran back to full alertness. She patted her head, stood up from her seat, and backed away to put a long distance between her and Liang Yuanjing.
“It’s fine, no disturbance.”
She replied indifferently: “He and I are just friends.”
Qiao Yanxin smiled awkwardly.
She thought, ‘A friend who rushes into the rainstorm and princess-carries someone back? Even Old Man Yuan, the easiest to fool, wouldn’t believe this excuse.’
“The hot water is ready. You take it first.”
The first pot bubbled and boiled. Liang Yuanjing unplugged it and handed it over.
His black T-shirt, soaked by the rain, clung tightly to his chest, the slightly rolled-up hem revealing a glimpse of his lean waist.
Qiao Yanxin glanced casually but couldn’t help swallowing.
No wonder her group of besties had recently rated Liang Yuanjing as the top catch among industry men—it was well-deserved.
She said politely: “Don’t you need any? Otherwise, I’ll wait for the next pot.”
Liang Yuanjing said: “You use it first. I’ll boil some for her.”
Qiao Yanxin got it this time.
She said “Thanks” and, without hesitation, dragged her bestie away from the scene.
The rain outside started up again, pattering against the window. Though it was still midsummer, the night sky felt distinctly cold.
Tao Shuran took off her jacket and sat cross-legged on the stool, her body dripping wet and looking utterly disheveled.
Liang Yuanjing said nothing, probably angered by her cold attitude.
He had always been so arrogant, able to grab love with an outstretched hand.
How could he tolerate rejection after rejection?
“The clothes are new. Change into them first.”
After a while, Liang Yuanjing opened the wardrobe, pulled out a brand-new short-sleeved shirt, shook off the dust in his hand, and tossed it into her lap.
The motion wasn’t gentle, his expression a bit cold. He shoved his hands in his pockets and left without looking back.
Tao Shuran froze for a moment. She looked up at the room’s furnishings and belatedly realized this might have been his old training dorm.
The wet clothes sticking to her skin felt awful. Tao Shuran wiped her face with the towel. No matter how much she wanted to keep distance, she couldn’t refuse a clean shirt at a time like this.
When Liang Yuanjing came back in with water, he saw Tao Shuran wearing the oversized short-sleeved shirt.
She had clipped the collar shut with a hair clip, and the hem reached down to her calves.
Liang Yuanjing’s gaze dropped naturally to her fair, slender calves.
Tao Shuran was barefoot, her legs propped up in front of the electric fan, her pearly toes curling up slightly—adorably like little pearls.
His throat tightened suddenly. He quickly looked away and handed her the thermos cup.
It contained freshly brewed ginger tea, perfect since her lower abdomen ached faintly.
She said “Thanks.”
“No problem.”
Liang Yuanjing was equally polite and distant: “It’s what a friend should do.”
She opened her mouth but seemed to have nothing to say.
It was like punching cotton—one moment close, the next cold—which left her with no temper to vent.
After a whole night of ordeal, Tao Shuran grew drowsy, slumped over the desk.
Liang Yuanjing gave her one last look, took off his jacket, and draped it over her.
He walked out slowly and closed the door behind him.
The moment he stepped out, he looked up at the sky with melancholy.
Rain that fell washed the city’s filth clean. But what about him?
The harsh words he had flung out, the feelings he had lost—how was he supposed to take them back?
The old base served as a logistics recovery spot for some pilots who had retired from the skies.
Liang Yuanjing had come back this time and stopped by to see a few old friends.
He had just changed clothes when he heard his friends outside mocking him mercilessly.
“I heard about our Captain Liang’s love story when I went out just now. Ran around all night for a girl without closing his eyes?”
“Hey? Liang Yuanjing, where’s that thick jacket you brought? You didn’t toss it into some girl’s room, did you?”
Liang Yuanjing walked out and rubbed his hair dry.
He dragged over a stool and sat by the window, silent as he fished a cigarette from his pocket and tried to light it.
After half a day with no luck, he figured the lighter had gotten soaked too.
Irritated, he tossed the lighter onto the windowsill—clack clack—and watched the rain outside grow more chaotic.
His friend sat on the bed edge, chatting idly with him.
“What’s wrong? Not going well chasing the girl?”
“Totally normal in our line. Looks glamorous, but we’re flying 300 days a year. Even the best romance has to land eventually, right?”
“Or do you want to give up?” His friend’s tone shifted, chuckling. “Liang Yuanjing, that’s not your style.”
Liang Yuanjing asked leisurely: “What’s my style?”
“Arrogant, unyielding through a hundred setbacks.”
“Back in training, when the coach asked if you could do it, you said life has only ‘want’ or ‘don’t want,’ no ‘can’ or ‘can’t.’”
“You want it, so you can do it.”
He had been so cocky back then. No matter how grueling the training, nothing seemed impossible for him.
Among that batch of trainee pilots, no one didn’t admire Liang Yuanjing.
“Romance isn’t working out.”
Liang Yuanjing scoffed, speaking in the seasoned tone of someone who had been there.
“One cry from her and you toss your principles. No logic left.”
“Is the girl still hung up on you leaving without a word back then? Why not tell her it was because you beat up Xu Yanyang, broke discipline, got harshly punished with three months confinement?”
“Because of that, you nearly got a formal reprimand and grounded for good.”
“No need.”
Liang Yuanjing smiled: “A hundred times over, I’d choose the same.”
There was an old desktop computer in the room.
Bored on this long night, Liang Yuanjing logged into his long-unused QQ account during the interminable boot-up.
A couple days ago, he had seen a post on his feed: What tool holds your deepest memory of secret crushes from youth?
The top-liked answer was surprisingly QQ.
“Back then, to catch my crush’s eye, I changed my signature daily, sometimes hinting at subtle melancholy.”
“The one above is too subtle. I got Yellow Diamond membership to check my crush’s space every day, deleted the visit log after—five years now, and he still doesn’t know.”
“That’s too painful. I feel for you.”
“Senior year of uni, I confessed to my crush via QQ email, haha. He probably took it for spam and never read it.”
Liang Yuanjing slowly logged into his own long-dormant account.
A flood of messages poured in. He skimmed them quickly—Tao Shuran’s account remained silent.
Her ID across platforms hadn’t changed in all these years; it was still “Banyue Xing.”
At some point in these five years, Liang Yuanjing had specially called a friend at the observatory.
The friend explained a bunch in professional terms.
After listening, Liang Yuanjing asked: “Do you think it’s possible for the moon to actively approach a star?”
“Can this technology make it happen?”
Zhou Jiasu was setting up equipment at the National Astronomical Observatory Base. Hearing this, he jumped down from the high platform.
He scoffed: “I’m talking pro stuff with you, and you’re chatting romance?”
A bit of youthful sentiment welled up in Liang Yuanjing, and he sighed in a melancholic tone.
“You wouldn’t understand.”
The next day, the story spread through their whole circle—one to ten, ten to a hundred—until everyone knew Liang Yuanjing had played a love game with a girl and ended up falling in himself.
Zhou Jiasu gazed at the stars, mocking lazily.
“Liang Yuanjing, your comeuppance has arrived.”
All retribution.
Liang Yuanjing sighed and clicked into his email to slowly clear out the junk.
By the end, only some old competition registration emails remained in the inbox.
He suddenly remembered someone.
He opened the email—familiar number, simply an “r,” everything matching his guess.
Liang Yuanjing scrolled back through them one by one, growing more shocked the further back he went.
Finally, he couldn’t help standing up, feeling his heartbeat thunder in his chest.
So, this was the true origin of the story.
Her affection ran deeper and longer than he had ever imagined.
Liang Yuanjing took a deep breath, realizing he needed to treat this precious emotion of hers with greater care.
His fingers moved slightly as he slowly typed out the first reply to her in five years, uniquely hers.
Just as he finished the email, Fu Changpei called.
These years, they had been busy separately, keeping sporadic contact. Liang Yuanjing only knew Fu Changpei was doing well.
“Saw Tao Shuran’s Moments saying she came to North City. You met up?”
Liang Yuanjing “Mm”ed: “I’m not on her Moments.”
“What’d she post? Show me.”
Fu Changpei chuckled lowly: “Young Master Liang, fallen this low now?”
Yeah, chasing someone and failing this badly was a first for him.
The girl hadn’t even added his contact yet.
Liang Yuanjing looked down at the screen. She had posted a night sky photo—the bright, shining moon must have been from that night they played together.
“I’ve always liked her. You noticed long ago, right?”
On the phone, Fu Changpei suddenly said this. His voice was soft, tone steady and calm, but the suppressed emotion unmistakable.
Liang Yuanjing went silent for a beat.
Of course he had noticed. Back in school days, those glances he stole toward her.
That was when he understood liking meant favoritism—the aloof Fu Changpei showed gentleness only to her.
But he hadn’t expected Fu Changpei to hide it so well—from high school through uni graduation to now at work, suppressing his feelings and heading to Shanghai without ever confessing.
Fu Changpei teased: “If you don’t step up, I might just chase her.”
Liang Yuanjing’s brow arched as he scoffed—
“Don’t even think about it.”
…
After a night’s sleep, the rain had lightened a bit.
Early in the morning, Tao Shuran took a shuttle back to her dorm.
She planned to check the site once the rain stopped but, while it still fell, turned on her computer to finish the half-written site report.
The moment she opened her email, a new message popped up.
The familiar name made Tao Shuran’s pupils contract sharply.
“Dear Classmate Banyue Xing:”
May I ask, am I still your moon now?
—from Y.