I like gentle and approachable people.

And I discovered that the Wen family brother was just this kind of person. He didn’t talk too much, and didn’t like to make mischief like us. He was as steady as an adult, but never censured us like an adult.

However, I still didn’t like playing with him. But he wasn’t angry with me, and just silently watched me playing with Mingyi.

He was very good, with no dissatisfaction or complaints. Like a quiet and beautiful shadow, he wasn’t noisy at all.

I didn’t mind having a shadow as a friend.

The days passed like this, until one year our families celebrated New Year’s Eve together. I couldn’t stand vigil, and fell asleep.

In the middle of the night, I was woken up by the sound of firecrackers. When I saw it was not New Year’s Eve yet, I went to go find some water to drink, but found someone in the living room. It was the figure of a teenager.

The young man had a slender neck, and the contours of his shoulders and back were neat and smooth. When sitting, his posture was upright and his waist was straight, like an exquisitely meticulous painting.

And when I found him, he was lowering his head slightly to play with the remaining window decorations that me and Mingyi had cut.

I rubbed my eyes and looked carefully, only to find that it was Wen Mingcheng. With his head slightly lowered, the vibrant lights outside reflected on his face, making the teenager appear to have deep features and thick eyelashes.

He was facing out the window with his face lowered. The tall bridge of his nose left a small shadow on his profile, and the shadow of his eyelashes gave a sense of natural-looking cosmetics.

He trimmed my half-cut rabbit window decoration bit by bit, and his expression looked very serious and careful.

The adults were playing mahjong upstairs, and Mingyi and I had already had several dreams on this lively night. But he was here alone, and didn’t even know that someone had come.

That was when I realized that he wanted to play with us.

It was just that I didn’t want to play with him, and he was too embarrassed to say anything.

I felt a little guilty.

He protected me like an older brother, but I ignored him.

He was good, and I was bad.

He was so pitiful.

. . . . . . .

I began to actively invite him to join in mine and Mingyi’s games. He was new to our games, but learned them very quickly. I was very patient with him due to my conscience, and Mingyi didn’t mind her brother joining.

We gradually became one whole, but later on in adolescence, I began to get closer to Mingcheng, who was a boy like me.

He was only one year older than me, but his path of growth had been very smooth, and he could even look back to teach and console me.

He grew up with me and tolerated my simplicity and ignorance. He tolerated my escapades during adolescence and was more gentle, considerate, and patient than a dear older brother.

I had several friends in our circle at that time, but I thought he was the best in the world.

We rarely quarreled, and only had one fight in high school.

At that time, I was determined to learn oil painting and did not want to inherit my father’s calligraphy. My father was greatly disappointed.

I didn’t understand his persistence. Wasn’t it enough for my brother to inherit his calligraphy?

After I said this to him, what I got was a slap in the face and a scolding. “Why did I create a son like you?!”

My face burned and my eyes were filled with tears, but I stubbornly refused to cry out or even let my tears fall. I endured the grievance and refused to give in. “Don’t you already have my older brother?! Just think of me as an accident.”

He locked me in the house and didn’t allow me to go out.

It rained continuously for the next few days, as if heaven felt sorry for me.

I was still a child at that time, and deliberately stood under the eaves and got wet in order to get back at my father.

But I was mistaken. My father was not distressed.

I was very cold and too embarrassed to go back, huddling under the eaves like a blanched quail.

My mindless act of self-harm did not move my father. He watched me from upstairs for a while, and perhaps because he was hungry, he asked the auntie to stew quail for dinner.

But I was moved by Mingcheng.

After I sneezed for the nth time, the drenching rain above my head suddenly stopped. I thought I had moved the heavens, but there was a high school uniform wrapped around me.

Mingcheng’s body always smelled good, and his school uniform also carried his scent and warm body temperature. The moment it was wrapped around me, some of the coldness vanished.

He probably found me soaking foolishly in the rain by accident after school was over. I saw his school bag tossed casually on the ground. Wearing his school uniform trousers, he knelt on one knee in front of me, holding an umbrella with one hand.

Because the umbrella was leaning toward me, the rain fell on him. It flowed in clear lines down his face, like dewdrops on fine, cold white porcelain. 

He frowned slightly, his face full of heartache and confusion: “What are you doing? Why do you want to hurt yourself for no reason?”

I wanted to ask that too.

I would never do anything so stupid again.

With his help, I would be able to get out of an embarrassing situation, go to his house with him to take a hot bath, and ask Auntie Wen to give me a warm bed.

I sneezed and hugged him like a lifeline, saying pitifully: “My dad disowned me, please let me go to your house.”

The skin texture of this boy who was about to enter adulthood was very firm and warm. He wiped the rain off my face. Not easily deceived by me, he asked: “What happened?”

I told him of my unfortunate experience, and accused my dad of being heartless and turning a blind eye to my misery.

Tears flowed down my face as I spoke, immersed in feelings of grievance and indignation.

I should look pathetic, so that he would sympathize with me and join me in accusing my dad. Or so I thought.

But in fact, he looked down at me for a moment and said: “A-Zhen, Uncle shouldn’t have hit you, but he is doing this for your own good. Inheriting the family business is what we as children should do, and you shouldn’t hurt yourself.”

He had always been very tolerant of me and supportive of my ideas. I didn’t expect that he actually had thoughts in this regard, just like my dad and older brother.

When I was denied by my dad and brother, I wasn’t sad. But I very much was when Mingcheng denied me.

He instructed me mildly.

I pushed him away and went back to my room in tears.

“A-Zhen!”

He called out to me from behind, but I ignored him.

I ignored him for several days after that.

I would rather get up half an hour early and leave early than go with him to school, and even refused to talk to him there.

Fortunately, he was in the class next door. As long as I didn’t leave the classroom, I wouldn’t have many chances to meet him. 

I was depressed like this for nearly a week. At first, he came to me frequently to try to apologize, but I ignored him with a cold face.

Over the next few days, he gradually disappeared and seemed to want nothing to do with me.

From the classroom window upstairs, I saw him walking downstairs with a few classmates, talking and laughing, as if he had forgotten about me.

This realization gave me a sudden sense of crisis. 

I felt even more sad, and there was a moment of helpless panic.

I comforted myself that it was all in my head, but after two days, he still hadn’t come to see me.

I was really a little panicked. I had only wanted to be angry with him, not lose him.

Probably because my expression was so obvious, my condition fell into the eyes of my deskmate.

During class, he poked my face with the cap of his pen. Seeing that I was startled due to my distraction, he laughed at me: “You seem like my lovelorn sister. Did somebody dump you?”

His parents were both in the entertainment industry, and he had obviously inherited the appearance of his parents, because he was quite handsome. But he always said things I didn’t like. I rolled my eyes at him, not in the mood to talk.

He didn’t care whether or not I wanted to talk to him. He looked at me silently for a while, then leaned over and said: “They say in private that you’re more beautiful than the school belle. I think they’re right. How are you so white?”

His eyes were practically glued to my face. I rolled up the chemistry paper he had almost completed to beat him away with.

When I was going through puberty, my facial bones hadn’t grown yet, and it was indeed difficult to tell whether I was male or female. People always mistook me for a girl, so this was my inverse scale.

I was about to get angry, but suddenly remembered something. My deskmate and Mingcheng were in the same department of the student association.

This seemed to let a bit of light come through the haze of depression I had been in for several days.

I began to give him favorable looks and eagerly share my snacks with him.

He was confused and flattered.

He insisted on taking me to his parents’ concerts, and also took me to meet many celebrity idols.

I was actually not interested in celebrities, but I complied with him.

Because I planned to fool my innocent deskmate for a few days and then ask him to put in a good word for me with Mingcheng to help me win him back.

But to my surprise, I saw my deskmate and Mingcheng talking that evening.

It seemed they had met by chance on the way home from school. The Wen family car stopped in front of him. Holding his school bag, he lowered his head and spoke to the person inside, looking a little reserved and at a loss. 

I saw that the person in the car had a beautifully sculpted figure.

It was Mingcheng.

I almost thought my intentions had been revealed. Guilty, I followed them secretly and watched them for a long time.

I was very curious about what they were saying, and also wanted to know what the relationship between him and my deskmate was. Were they saying anything about me?

When I went home to do my homework, I wrote it messily because I kept thinking about this matter.

After pondering it for a long time with no results, I planned to ask my deskmate directly the next day.

But he didn’t come that day.

I heard from my classmates that it seemed his celebrity parents were sending him to South Korea, and he left in a hurry.

My deskmate changed.

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Chapter 18 << Table of Contents >> Chapter 20