The scent of orange-blossom laundry detergent.
This should have been the embrace she felt most attached to, the one that gave her the greatest sense of security.
Yun Li’s nose stung, and her vision blurred.
She couldn’t understand why Yun Yongchang had to be so domineering and unreasonable, giving Fu Shize a hard time right to his face without even basic respect.
Nor could she understand why Fu Shize had been so blunt about his leave of absence from school when he could have easily glossed over it.
The way he said it made it seem like he didn’t care at all about Yun Yongchang’s opinion.
As if he didn’t care about his disapproval.
Fu Shize’s voice was hoarse: “Lili…”
“My dad has a bad temper and is pretty old-fashioned. He’s always wanted me to stay in West Fuling.” Yun Li wasn’t trying to defend Yun Yongchang. She sniffled. “He shouldn’t have acted like that. He doesn’t know you—it was so rude.”
Hesitantly, she added, “You didn’t have to mention the leave of absence…” Not wanting him to think she was blaming him, she forced a light tone. “Because a lot of people don’t understand you, but I think you’re amazing.”
Fu Shize looked at her and nodded.
“Back in my first year of high school, I saw a video of you winning a competition. After the college entrance exams, I even went to West Science and Technology University to look for you.” Recalling her embarrassing past, Yun Li felt a little awkward. “But I didn’t get to see you.”
Back then, he had been the most brilliant young man.
The one who had carried her through the hardest days of high school, the future she had once dreamed of.
“Wait a second.” Feeling a little better, Yun Li fetched her notebook and played the video she had saved for so long.
After their reunion, she had watched it over and over again.
The video had been filmed years ago, the resolution low, but it wasn’t hard to recognize his former teammates.
Fu Shize stared at the footage, his mind suddenly emptied.
He was back on that stage, the crowd below surging, voices clamoring, the lights blinding—then, in an instant, the scene shattered into fragments.
When he saw the person who had hugged him from behind, he abruptly looked away.
“Stop watching.”
Yun Li froze, then closed the video.
She thought his mood might have soured because of Yun Yongchang’s opposition.
Flustered, she said, “I admired you for a long time back then. I even hung your photo on my wall and did my homework facing it every day…”
She was determined to tell him that their connection went way back.
Seven years ago, she had idolized him. Seven years later, she had fallen for him.
She didn’t want their hard-won relationship to fall apart just because Yun Yongchang objected.
Fu Shize clenched his jaw slightly, showing no sign of being moved as he half-heartedly listened to her words.
It was as if he didn’t care at all.
He wouldn’t be moved just because she had admired him seven years ago.
Like someone who didn’t like her would act.
Yun Li’s enthusiasm waned. After a long silence, she said, “Let’s go back to South River Garden.”
Neither spoke the entire way.
The prolonged tension had bred frustration. Once they arrived at South River Garden, with clear purpose, Yun Li went straight to his room and picked up the photo album again, flipping through it.
All the way to the last photo.
She hadn’t taken in a single image.
He was so smart, always in control of everything—he knew exactly what she wanted to understand. Weakly clenching her fist, she asked softly, “Aren’t you going to tell me anything?”
Fu Shize turned his head slightly. “Tell you what?”
“…”
Fu Shize replied flatly, “Do you want me to go back to school? To become who I was before?”Admittedly, Yun Li did want him to return to school. She didn’t want him to drown in endless darkness, his once radiant brilliance now dimmed beyond recognition. But clearly, that wasn’t what she wanted to ask about right now.
Yun Li’s tone was stiff. “Right.”
Fu Shize crossed his arms, leaning against the wall as he silently watched her. After a long pause, he neither agreed nor disagreed, merely stating indifferently, “I see.”
His tone and gaze were just like when they first met—filled with detachment.
Yun Li waited for him to continue, to tell her what had happened.
But he remained by the wall, neither approaching nor showing any intention to speak.
The buried time bomb exploded.
Yun Li’s sense of helplessness grew stronger. The rift between them seemed like it would never disappear.
Why was she always shut out by him? No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t reach his heart, as if she were utterly dispensable.
He didn’t need her to share or partake in anything.
She couldn’t feel his regard for their relationship.
Yun Li forcefully snapped the photo album shut and slammed it back into its original place.
She had never known she could be so rough in front of Fu Shize. Without hesitation, her eyes red, she turned and walked out.
Fu Shize grabbed her wrist.
Fuming, Yun Li didn’t say a word and simply pried his hand off.
After returning to her room, it took Yun Li a long time to calm down. She sat dejectedly on the edge of the bed, staring at her door.
...
The sound of running water stopped. The bathroom was filled with steam as Fu Shize draped a towel over his hair, droplets falling as he slowly dried it.
Yun Li was already asleep.
He took a taxi to a nearby bar, where Xu Qingsong had been waiting for a while. Seeing him, Xu Qingsong scoffed, “Why didn’t you bring Yun Li?”
Ever since Fu Shize started dating, Xu Qingsong couldn’t remember how many times he’d invited him out, only to be turned down.
Fu Shize didn’t respond, removing his black trench coat and leaving only a white shirt, sleeves rolled halfway up.
Xu Qingsong glanced up. “Did you two fight?”
When Fu Shize remained silent, Xu Qingsong tried to imagine the scene of two blocks of wood arguing and couldn’t help but say, “Hard to picture.”
“...”
Fu Shize lowered his gaze to the whiskey in his glass, downing several drinks without a word.
After he joined EAW, Xu Qingsong had interacted with him a bit more. He knew about the leave of absence and had heard from others that his personality had changed quite a bit.
In Xu Qingsong’s memory, Fu Shize never cared about others’ opinions of him.
As if how he lived was entirely his own business.
The man beside him stared at his empty glass, his tone bitter. “The old me was better.”
“She liked the old me too.”
With just those two sentences, Xu Qingsong could already guess the gist of it.
Xu Qingsong wasn’t close to Yun Li, but he figured this was just human nature.
Anyone who had seen him in his prime would only find the current shadows jarringly out of place.
After a pause, Xu Qingsong asked, “So you’re disappointed now?”
“...”
“Not exactly disappointed. Just feel like I’ve let her down.” Fu Shize smiled self-deprecatingly, swirling his glass. “I’m not the person she liked.”
Fu Shize had considered this possibility before.
After all, what was good about him now?
...
Yun Li woke up around six or seven. She rolled out of bed and slipped her feet into the slippers.
The couple slippers Fu Shize had bought.
After wrestling with her emotions for a while, she walked out to wash up.In the past, the greatest hope when going to sleep each day was waking up to see Fu Shize.
To catch a glimpse of his figure in the living room.
He would stand by the kitchen door, holding breakfast, and ask her, "Awake?"
When she went to the bathroom to freshen up, she saw two messages from Fu Shize, sent after four in the morning.
[Breakfast is in the microwave, keeping warm. Heat it for one minute before eating.]
[Grandma is seriously ill. I’m going back to stay with her.]
What a coincidence?
To Yun Li, it seemed they had quarreled the night before, their relationship hanging by a thread.
She couldn’t tell if this was Fu Shize’s excuse to avoid her, nor could she press for answers.
Perhaps he had never liked her that much to begin with. After witnessing Yun Yongchang’s behavior yesterday, maybe he didn’t have a particularly strong desire to continue with her either.
The barely healed wound tore open once more.
Dejectedly, she set the microwave for one minute. The ding echoed through the empty house.
Her heart felt hollow. Sitting at the dining table, Yun Li stared blankly at the breakfast before her.
Eggs, toast, and a glass of milk.
Accustomed to sharing the space with another, she ate the toast as overwhelming loneliness washed over her.
Without notifying Fu Shize, Yun Li took a taxi back to Seven Mile Fragrant Capital.
It wasn’t until the afternoon that she remembered to reply to Fu Shize: [Okay. Take care of yourself.]
She avoided thinking about the issues between them, as if burying her head would prevent things from getting worse.
Her laptop still held the drone footage and audio recordings. Yun Li spent several days editing before uploading the final product to E-Station.
Fu Shize would text her, mostly updating her about his day.
She would reply to each of his messages with one of her own.
Sometimes, late at night, emotions would surge, and Yun Li would desperately want to pour out her inner struggles and doubts about their relationship to Fu Shize. But every time she typed out a long message, she would end up deleting it.
She didn’t want to go through it again—forcing herself to repeatedly confirm that he didn’t actually like or care about her that much.
When Fu Shize called her, they would often lapse into long silences.
Both wanted to say something, yet neither spoke.
Love isn’t just sweet.
Love comes with friction, sadness, suspicion, and worry.
And not everyone learns how to love while in a relationship.
……
The room was silent except for the occasional beep of medical equipment.
Fu Shize gazed at the elderly woman on the bed—her temples streaked with white, her face lined with the marks of time, her spotted hand gripping his weakly.
He sat there until the monitor flatlined.
Fu Shize straightened the blanket over her.
"I don’t want to attend the funeral."
With those words, he walked out. Outside, the temperature was three degrees. Fu Shize had forgotten his coat. The people passing by seemed like walking corpses—himself included.
His grandmother’s passing had been long anticipated, her life artificially prolonged by machines.
But now, there was no one left who had watched him grow up.
Fu Shize had no memory of his parents from birth. As he grew older and became more aware, he learned they taught at West Science and Technology University, spending almost all their time in the school’s labs, except to sleep.
Unable to provide companionship, they left him to be raised by his grandparents.
Jiang Yuan and Chen Jinping were born on the same day—a coincidence that led Chen Jinping to believe their families were fated to be connected.His earliest memory was from when he was three years old. At that time, Jiang Yuan was seven and worried he might stumble, so he held his hand to buy pomegranates from a roadside stall.
Jiang Yuan bought two and gave him one.
Fu Shize had never been a well-behaved child—mischievous by nature, burdened with too many cram classes. Whenever he had free time, he would drag Jiang Yuan around, causing trouble wherever they went.
When their grandparents found out, the older Jiang Yuan would take all the blame.
Gentle by nature, Jiang Yuan knew how to sweet-talk their grandparents, often smiling as he told Fu Shize to study harder.
They attended the same elementary and middle schools. Though Fu Shize was four years younger, after skipping grades to enter middle school, he was much smaller than his peers—both in age and height.
The two had always been inseparable. That day, Jiang Yuan had family matters to attend to, so Fu Shize walked home alone. Some older students, resentful after being compared to a ten-year-old who had skipped grades, decided to take it out on him.
Fu Shize had never been one to back down from a fight. Ignoring the fact that there were four of them, he strode forward with his schoolbag in hand.
The students beat him up, emptied his bag, and threw everything into the nearby ditch.
Truthfully, he didn’t care much.
After all, once Jiang Yuan returned, two against four would be better odds than one against four.
That was the only time Fu Shize had ever been bullied, and he didn’t tell Jiang Yuan right away.
Someone else texted Jiang Yuan about it. He immediately ran back from home to the school and shoved those students into the same ditch.
It was one of the rare times Jiang Yuan lost his temper, coldly scolding him, "A-Ze, you’re grown now. Are you really keeping things from me?"
After that, Fu Shize never hid anything from him again.
When his parents wanted to transfer him to West Fuling Experimental High School, he refused.
The only reason he stayed in Nanwu was to attend the same high school as Jiang Yuan.
Later, they went to the same university, studying the same major.
He had grown up under Jiang Yuan’s protection.
Jiang Yuan taught him how to interact with people, how to love, and how it felt to be loved.
Over time, he became more and more like Jiang Yuan—his brother, his playmate, his closest friend.
Before the college entrance exams, their grandfather passed away.
Two years ago, Jiang Yuan said goodbye to him.
After Jiang Yuan left, those two years felt like they never existed.
Fu Shize wished they truly hadn’t.
Today, his grandmother was gone too.
Every time someone he loved left, it was raining.
Nanwu—why was there always so much rain?
Numbly, he started the car. The streets blurred around him, rain violently splattering against the windshield.
He couldn’t—and didn’t want to—lose anyone else.
He wanted to be by her side.
He didn’t want to make empty promises.
He just needed Yun Li to give him a little time. He would become the Fu Shize he used to be.
After parking, drenched and panting, he walked to the entrance of Seven Mile Fragrant Capital. The moment he raised his hand, it suddenly struck him—
Oh. She didn’t like seeing him like this.
He shouldn’t come to her in such a wretched state.
Leaving Seven Mile Fragrant Capital, Fu Shize drove to the Nanwu City Cemetery. Dark clouds loomed overhead, turning the afternoon as dark as night.
The pitch-black path held no one but him.
Following the familiar route, he stopped at the spot he often visited. The person in the photo smiled just as warmly as ever.
"Grandma’s gone."
Jiang Yuan wouldn’t answer him.
"But I still have Lili."He remembered the day he went to West Fuling. After a year and a half, he returned to the experimental building of the Control College and went to Jiang Yuan's office, only to find that his workstation had been replaced.
Neatly arranged on the desk were someone else's computer, pen holder, notebook, and coat.
Countless times before, when he had entered, it was Jiang Yuan's coat he had seen.
No one remembered him anymore.
The void in his heart grew wider.
Dazed, he walked downstairs. His vision blurred, and all he could see was an endless stretch of darkness—until, in an instant, he glimpsed the end.
Her face was flushed from the cold, her eyes bright, as she handed him the cardholder.
The void in his heart was filled.
Fu Shize repeated, "I still have Lili."
After saying it, he let out a self-deprecating laugh. "Lili saw me seven years ago."
He lowered his gaze, leaning against the stone tablet, curling into himself. "What she wants, what she likes, is that Fu Shize."
"I don’t dare tell her."
"That Fu Shize… can’t go back."
"I don’t dare tell her."
He murmured to himself as rain seeped into his eyes. The night remained unbroken, and wrapped in its embrace, he lost track of time.
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