"Excuse me, can I ask for your contact information?"

The girl with bangs across from them, encouraged by her roommate, mustered up the courage to ask Cheng Ye, who was sitting two tables away, for his contact information.

Cheng Ye, who was eating rice noodles, looked up with her glasses fogged up by the steam and politely declined the offer without hesitation.

"Sorry, I have a boyfriend."

The guy was already taken, so the girl could only go home with regret.

After the girl left, Cheng Ye resumed eating her rice noodles by herself.

The person involved remained calm, but their roommate was quite agitated.

He reached out and snatched Cheng Ye's chopsticks, demanding, "Ye, when did you get a boyfriend? How come I didn't know?!"

People tend to lose their voice when they're surprised, so Cheng Ye quickly nudged his roommate's chest with his elbow and whispered, "Hiss, it's just an excuse. Keep your voice down, they haven't left yet. Do you want to expose me in public?"

After saying that, Cheng Ye snatched the chopsticks back.

This left his roommate completely bewildered. He shoveled a couple of mouthfuls of rice into his mouth, utterly confused, and then asked, "What? Doesn't your family want you to find a partner? You're already in your mid-twenties, surely not?"

Cheng Ye nodded, "My family has no objections, it's just that I don't want to look for someone yet."

My roommates don't understand why I don't want to find a partner in my twenties.

He stopped eating, turned his head to stare at Cheng Ye, and after a long while slowly said, "Ye, you don't dislike women, do you?"

"puff!"

That one short sentence left Cheng Ye speechless with shock.

He choked on the soup from the rice noodles, coughing so hard he felt like he was going to choke, and it took him a long time to recover.

Cheng Ye put down his chopsticks and pushed his roommate's serious face back at him. "Dude, can you not have such a vivid imagination? Is the experiment going too smoothly, or are there not enough reports? I'm just not considering it for now, it doesn't mean I'm gay."

My roommate blinked, clasped her hands together in apology, and said, "I'm sorry, I was just daydreaming."

The meal didn't go well. In the end, Cheng Ye hastily ate a couple of bites, and the two of them finished their dinner and prepared to go back to their dormitory.

It was already quite cold in the spring of December, and the two of them couldn't help but bury their faces in their scarves as they walked back to their dormitory.

My roommate watched a young couple walking ahead, snuggling together, and couldn't help but sigh, "You may not want it, but I do! I also want a warm embrace..."

Cheng Ye said with a smile, "I suggest you buy a hot water bottle. It works just as well, and it might even be warmer and hotter."

"..."

This kid is really stubborn.

My roommate sighed, "Yezi, with you always like this, I really can't imagine what kind of girl you'll like in the future. A sweet girl? A mature woman? It all sounds so strange. I can only say that she's definitely not an ordinary person."

His roommate's words made Cheng Ye think, and his gaze drifted to the withered tree outside the wall in the distance.

What kind of girl will he fall for?

Anyway, if it's not like Cheng Zhi, then what would it be like?

Just as a figure faintly surfaced in my mind, a gust of cold wind blew in, lifting the scarf that was hanging down his chest.

Cheng Ye quickly reached out and grabbed it. Looking at the dark gray wool scarf in his hand, the faint figure in his mind became clearer and clearer. He was so surprised that his hands trembled a little.

Cheng Ye quickly pulled off the scarf and clutched it in his hand. The cold wind, now unobstructed, rushed in along his neck.

Once she felt a bit cold, she became slightly more lucid. Cheng Ye sighed softly and muttered, "Am I going crazy?"

The little incident that day was overshadowed by the busyness of the final exams, and Cheng Ye didn't think about it again until the last exam was over.

But as Cheng Ye sat on the bus back to Jiufeng Mountain, looking at the scarf in her arms, she fell into thought again.

Strictly speaking, it wasn't really thinking; he was internally criticizing himself.

You can have feelings for anyone, so why her of all people?

Just as I was thinking about it, my roommate, who was going the same way, woke up.

He forced his eyes open, yawned, and said, "Why that expression? Did the big physicist get some good results? Did you fail?"

This roommate is so good with words. Cheng Ye couldn't help but roll her eyes. "You've already hung up, so there's no way I can hang up either."

Her roommate quickly spat three times, then patted Cheng Ye's shoulder apologetically, "I'm sorry, I was just worried about you~"

He sat up straight and shook his slightly dizzy head. "What's wrong? We're about to go home, and you still look so miserable."

Cheng Ye closed her eyes, feeling a headache coming on, and after a while said, "I just suddenly realized that I seem to have fallen for someone I shouldn't like."

These words were like a bolt from the blue; even his roommate thought he was hallucinating.

He pressed his finger right up to Cheng Ye's chest. "Hey! Didn't you consider it a few days ago? How come you suddenly like him today?! How can you be so fickle!"

Cheng Ye slapped her roommate's hand away in disgust. "It's all your fault. If you hadn't brought it up that day, I would never have thought of it."

My roommate clicked her tongue, crossed her arms, and said, "I helped you find out you have a crush, and you're still criticizing me? You're no good!"

Upon hearing the words "my sweetheart," Cheng Ye felt as if she had been burned.

He couldn't help but frown. "That's the crux of the problem. She...she can't be...I can't fall for her, I shouldn't..."

His roommate didn't know the specifics either. He pursed his lips and thought for a moment, "In the old TV dramas, you could be with your father's killer. As long as your situation isn't that serious, why can't you? Don't put too much pressure on yourself."

Cheng Ye looked at the gray object in her arms and gently stroked it with her hand, as if she was thinking.

When the car was halfway there, her roommate arrived home, leaving Cheng Ye to spend the rest of the journey alone.

However, he wasn't alone for long. When the car arrived at Hefeng Valley, Cheng Ye got out.

He had just unloaded his things when a man got out of a black SUV on the other side of the road and started waving at him frantically.

Cheng Ye walked quickly to the car. Xiao Feiran was shivering from the cold, but he still smiled at him through the car.

Seeing the scarf around Cheng Ye's neck, Xiao Feiran suddenly felt very satisfied. "I knew this color would make her look clean. I'm good at picking colors!"

Seeing Xiao Feiran trembling involuntarily, Cheng Ye quickly went over, opened the car door, and shoved her inside, saying, "We'll talk in the car."