A few seconds later—
F: [Downstairs.]
Half an hour had passed since Yun Li went upstairs. Without replying to the message, she slipped on her sandals and headed downstairs.
Fu Shize was still in the same spot. Hearing footsteps, he looked up, and their eyes met.
She slowly moved to stand before him.
Beneath the tree, she lowered her gaze and noticed two bottles of chocolate milk in Fu Shize’s hands—her favorite brand.
He casually unwrapped a straw for her: “I went to the supermarket earlier.”
Yun Li instinctively took it, only to realize the milk was warm, the packaging damp. She wondered where he’d found hot water to heat it.
“How did you warm it up?” she asked, cradling the milk. Drinking it warm was better, but she’d always been too lazy to heat it herself.
Yet Fu Shize remembered every time.
“I ordered soup at a restaurant across the street,” Fu Shize glanced toward the entrance of the complex, “and asked them for hot water.”
The familiar sweetness—she hadn’t tasted it in a year.
“Um…”
Leaning against him, Yun Li clenched her palms, gathering courage to ask: “Were you waiting for me at the gym today?”
Fu Shize: “Yes.”
He turned his head, pondering for a long while. When he’d walked her back to her building earlier, he’d initially planned to return to his dorm. But passing by a store, he’d seen the chocolate milk displayed at the entrance.
As if everything was connected to her, he’d unconsciously walked in.
Fiddling with the two cartons of milk, he’d been wondering when to bring it up. Before tonight, he’d still been hesitant. But after spending that quiet time together on the rooftop, he felt there shouldn’t be another moment of hesitation—not another second of waiting.
Just as Yun Li was about to speak again, Fu Shize’s gaze returned to her face, lingering for several seconds as if steeling himself: “Lili.”
He spoke slowly, word by word: “Can we get back together?”
The words Yun Li had been preparing remained unspoken. She hadn’t expected Fu Shize to be so direct.
Staring at him blankly for a while, the cicadas’ chirping above finally snapped her out of her daze.
In the darkness, Yun Li could hear their breathing. Unconsciously squeezing her palms, she asked: “Can I ask you something first?”
Before laying everything out, there was one thing she needed to understand.
Every detail in her memory pointed to Fu Shize genuinely caring for her. During her solitary days wandering Cambridge, she’d revisited those memories countless times to confirm it.
Only this one thing had remained unclear.
Yun Li brought up what happened when they broke up: “When Yun Ye was sick, you didn’t reply to my messages for two or three days.”
“I wasn’t honest last time,” Fu Shize paused, his eyes darkening. “I’d just had surgery for a perforated gastric ulcer that day. Before that, I was running a high fever and woke up in the hospital.”
“I didn’t want you to worry. I planned to come to West Fuling after being discharged.”
She’d never imagined this was the reason. Yun Li even wanted to ask Fu Zhengchu if Fu Shize had fallen so seriously ill because he was heartbroken over their breakup.
She still vividly remembered that day in the hospital—the glaring white lights, the dozen missed calls from him she’d ignored, her emotional breakdown, and the breakup blurted out in frustration.
She remembered thinking Fu Shize didn’t care enough about her because he hadn’t come to West Fuling.
It never occurred to her that he might have been suffering too.Yun Li's throat tightened. "Then why didn't you say anything when I brought up breaking up..."
"This is what you gave me." Fu Shize took out the origami moon from his wallet. He often took it out to look at, and the edges had begun to fray.
—When I see you, it's like seeing the moon.
Under the light, his face appeared gaunt and desolate, with faint shadows of exhaustion around his eyes.
"But when you saw me, I was no longer the moon."
"At that time, I wasn't in a position to ask you to stay."
So he went back to graduate school, wanting to become the person she had once loved again.
This was what he could do for her—and what he was willing to do for her.
For Fu Shize, before those two years happened, he never imagined his life could become so aimless and disoriented.
He didn’t care about degrees or diplomas himself, but he had no right to ask Yun Li to stay with someone as broken as he was.
Yun Yongchang’s objections weren’t unfounded. His daughter was ambitious in her studies, and he wanted her to be with someone who matched her—or at the very least, someone who took life seriously.
Fu Shize pulled out the moon-shaped badge of the Unique Team from his pocket and handed it to her. In the darkness, Yun Li could sense his unease.
"I’ve returned to who I was before."
Yun Li stared blankly at the badge, her eyes stinging.
She hadn’t forgotten how, after Yun Yongchang came to Nanwu, their relationship had reached a boiling point. She hadn’t forgotten how, the moment he arrived at Seven Mile Fragrant Capital, his first instinct was to pull her into his arms. Then the memories shifted to the painful phase—the two of them stiffly staring at each other, the atmosphere suffocatingly heavy.
—"You want me to go back to school and become who I was before?"
—"Yes."
—"I understand."
So he agreed to the breakup and returned to school alone, fulfilling the promise he had made.
This was a reason Yun Li had never considered.
She hadn’t thought that everything would be fine if Fu Shize just "went back to how he was." Nor had she imagined that the same insecurities and sensitivities she projected onto herself would also exist within him.
"Did you think… I broke up with you because of what my dad said? Is that why you agreed to it?" Yun Li murmured, lowering her gaze, her lips parting slightly.
"I never told you this, but when we were together, I felt really insecure. That’s why I was always so anxious—if you didn’t do or say something, I’d immediately think you didn’t like me that much."
For so long, Yun Li had found these words impossible to voice.
"Back then, I couldn’t reach you at all. I thought you didn’t want to be with me anymore because of my dad," Yun Li said softly. "And then Yun Ye had his surgery… I wanted you there with me."
"Yin Yunyi flew over and sat in the hospital hallway waiting for Yun Ye to finish surgery. When I saw that, I just… broke down."
"I didn’t know you were sick. At the time, I just thought… you didn’t really like me."
"After we broke up, you never reached out, so I thought maybe you had wanted to end things all along." Her thoughts drifted back to the countless days and nights before she went abroad, staring at her phone, wondering if Fu Shize would ever contact her.
"Later, when I went on that exchange program… it wasn’t like I told you last time. I didn’t have a great time overseas. I wasn’t good at socializing, my spoken English was terrible, and the first place I rented—the landlord tried to scam me.""I called the police, but my English wasn't good enough to argue. In the end, I didn't have to pay much, but the landlord said some really harsh things. At that time, I didn't know who I could talk to about it."
"I was living there alone, and only then did I start remembering all the little details of our time together. Only then did I realize how much you really loved me."
"I wanted to reach out to you, but... I felt like I wasn't good enough."
Up to this point, Yun Li had managed to keep her voice steady.
After a year and a half of stubbornness, she finally spoke those words at this moment—"I didn't want to break up."
"I was just saying it out of anger back then. I never truly wanted to be apart from you." Yun Li's voice caught in her throat.
"I've regretted it for so long."
"But I was also so afraid that if I reached out to you and we got back together, my personality would just drive us apart again."
Her last words came out barely above a whisper: "This past year, I've really tried to change. I've pushed myself to socialize, to fit in with others, to learn how to communicate better. I've gotten better."
"I've tried so hard. I don't want to be apart again."
Fu Shize closed his eyes briefly before pulling her into his arms.
"Lili."
Fu Shize had thought that since she was the one who initiated the breakup, it wouldn't have hurt her as much. He assumed she wouldn't be so deeply affected.
But this past year, she had been struggling alone overseas. He watched her livestreams, where even when she was unhappy, she forced smiles and chatted cheerfully with her fans.
He couldn't bear to imagine—someone naturally introverted like her, pushed to call the police in a foreign country, only to endure verbal abuse afterward.
He couldn't bear to imagine her blaming herself for things that weren't her fault, forcing herself to do all sorts of things just to alleviate her guilt.
If only he had asked one more question back then.
But at that time, he hadn't even had the courage to ask.
"I'm sorry... If I had just talked to you about these things back then, instead of letting my thoughts spiral..." Yun Li hadn't shed a single tear this entire year, forcing herself to stay strong through everything.
But now, overwhelming remorse consumed her. Her eyes reddened, her voice trembling.
"We wouldn't have had to be apart."
They wouldn't have spent a year and a half separately nursing their wounds.
If she hadn't been so impulsive and contradictory back then, if she had listened to Xu Qingsong's advice, if she had asked others about Fu Shize's situation instead of stubbornly believing he didn't love her—they wouldn't have hurt each other so deeply.
Fu Shize wouldn't have had to spend those freezing nights alone during his illness, wouldn't have returned to West Science and Technology University by himself—all because she said she wanted him to be like his old self.
She never imagined her rash decisions would make both of them suffer for a year and a half.
"Lili." Fu Shize wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes. "I don't blame you."
Through countless trembling nights, he had never once blamed her.
During their time together, his feelings for Yun Li had been simple and fervent, just as her feelings for him had been sincere and pure.
That kind of beauty would never allow Fu Shize to hold any resentment toward their relationship—or toward her within it.
Fu Shize gently kissed the corner of her lips.
Just as he had done countless times before, Fu Shize leaned close to her right ear and told her firmly, word by word:
"Lili."
"We won't be apart again."Yun Li heard the incessant chirping of cicadas in the night, along with his words. She detected the promise in his voice, like gentle waves pushing her onto the shore. When she looked up, those familiar eyes so close to hers revealed emotions she recognized all too well.
That gloomy year and a half had vanished like smoke.
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