CH 106

Miaomiao was pulled out of the train by Zhou Yuan. The strange atmosphere between the two of them returned. Just a moment ago, they were indubitably talking and joking with each other via text messages.

Now that they were alone, they were fraught with embarrassment once again.

Zhou Yuan asked, “Would you like to drink some water? There’s a vending machine over there; I’ll buy you a bottle.”

Miaomiao: “…” She wasn’t the only one who lacked experience with love. She wasn’t the only one who didn’t know what to do when you’re alone with your lover.

Miaomiao followed alongside Zhou Yuan, “We just made a deal, didn’t we?”

“Then, could I become your boyfriend who lurks in the shadows? Kind of like an underground boyfriend I guess,” Zhou Yuan mused as he turned his head back to look at her.

Miaomiao tried to wheedle him away from the idea, “We’re high school students now. We should focus on studying, and…I’m the class president. The school forbids any sort of love…you know this. We must be prudent and judicious about this. If I go ahead and fall in love, the school will definitely call my parents and invite them for a meeting. Everyone would find out, which wouldn’t be good.”

Zhou Yuan looked at her seriously. The gentleness of his eyes was too much for Miaomiao, so she averted her gaze, “Don’t look at me like that.”

Zhou Yuan replied, “How can I not look at you when you speak?”

Miaomiao: “Let’s walk and look at the road while we converse.”

People were coming and going, rushing towards different destinations. They both threaded their way through the crowd.

They didn’t know whose hand touched the other person’s hand first, but the hands of the two quickly interlocked.

Neither one of them spoke, but both of their faces were wreathed in identical smiles.

In reality, Zhou Yuan didn’t forget anything at all. He merely just wanted to find an excuse to be alone.

They naturally desired to be alone. They had just begun a relationship, and although Zhou Yuan displayed some maturity, he was still, at the end of the day, a teenage boy with his lover.

He had no idea what to do next. He had never gone through anything like this before. Even in the worst-case scenarios, he had an idea of what to do, but this situation was too unpredictable for him.

He didn’t know that this tender moment was slowly etching itself into his heart so that he would recollect it forever. A wave of emotion surged through him, which made him understand why love had been celebrated since ancient times. The feeling was just so wonderful.

It was a very insatiable feeling.

Miaomiao wasn’t pondering too much about him, as she was thinking about holding Zhou Yuan’s hand. Her heart only thought of one thing. She wanted to travel back to time to listen to that one confession song that he had sung. She wondered if she could find it online somewhere.

Miaomiao initially deduced that his performance was going to be hard to find, but…good-looking people were scarce, and good-looking boys were even rarer.

As a result, a recording of Zhou Yuan’s singing performance filled the top search results, and Miaomiao’s hands trembled when she clicked on it.

She missed the live version; therefore, she had to watch the recording, but she still felt her heart racing.

In the video, there were many noises from the audience because this wasn’t an official recording but one taken by a spectator.

At the end of the video, Miaomiao saw that he was shocked that she wasn’t present for his performance; then, he left the stage in sadness and despair, for she wasn’t present at that time. She realized this, and guilt overwhelmed her heart.

Miaomiao was lying on the bed and could not resist the urge to text Zhou Yuan.

“Are you asleep?”

“Not yet. I can’t sleep.”

Since he wasn’t asleep, Miaomiao decided to cease texting and call him instead.

There was a beeping sound, and then the call was connected. She heard his pleasant voice streaming out of the phone. He merely said, “Yeah.”

He clearly only said a single word, but he said it with a deep voice.

Miaomiao’s face turned red all of a sudden, “I just listened to the song you sang.”

“Does it sound good?”

“I’ll say this. I like you; I certainly won’t make you cry in the future,” Miaomiao said very carefully.

There was a line at the end of the song, which stated, “’It wasn’t until I met you that I realized that if my tears wouldn’t fall for you, then they would never flow for anyone else.’”

Miaomiao thought that she would shed tears much more easily. In the past, she would break out in tears over every little thing, but she was much better at controlling her tears now. As a child, every word she said would have led to rills of tears spilling out of her eyes. But now, she felt the urge to cry.

They met ten years ago. No one would’ve ever imagined that they would be back together ten years later.

For a long time, the name ‘Zhou Yuan’ had disappeared from her life.

Miaomiao listened to Zhou Yuan on the other side of the phone. Listening to his soothing voice, she remembered how he made no mention that he had confessed on stage by himself and had to leave the scene despondent and forlorn…

Suddenly, Miaomiao couldn’t suppress her own tears, for her thoughts still focused on Zhou Yuan vanishing from her life completely. She found out but did nothing to stop him from leaving.

Mother Hua usually laughed away Miaomiao’s questions about her childhood. She usually said that she was just busy at school. This explanation was different from their reality.

Miaomiao suddenly realized the importance of Zhou Yuan’s influence on her life from elementary school to high school…

She believed that she had forgotten about her tablemate, but within the recesses of her mind, she had always regarded him as her role model. She had always been learning from him.

On the other end of the phone, Zhou Yuan felt her voice had sounded strange, “Are you crying?”

Although he used a questioning tone, he soon got his answer.

“What’s wrong?” he asked again anxiously.

“Nothing. I just remembered something from the past. I suddenly realized that I had been working very hard just like you did. I now know that you were my role model when I was a kid.” Miaomiao said, wiping her tears. 

She wasn’t sad, but it was actually a kind of inexpressible shock.

“…” He didn’t understand.

However, Zhou Yuan was relieved to learn that she wasn’t sad.

“From role model to your boyfriend, but you’re not willing to give me the position of being your boyfriend yet. Are you sure I’m your role model?” Zhou Yuan said with a smile.

This conversation reconstituted the air between the two.

The following morning, Miaomiao received a deluge of text messages, which were asking about Zhou Yuan. After all, Zhou Yuan literally mentioned her name on stage.

Miaomiao: “…” Zhou Yuan really didn’t consider giving her a way out of this predicament, did he?

Zhou Yuan: “I never considered that. It was at the spur of the moment.”