Chapter 100 Doomsday "I love you".

The Mayan prophecy that 2012 would be the end of the world caused quite a stir among a group of high school students. Confined to school all day with rules like "no lateness, no leaving early," "no wearing outlandish clothes," and "no dating," they were forced to think about how they would survive the apocalypse. This distant and grand question, ironically, carried a hint of rebellion.

"I don't care about anything else, whatever doomsday scenario, can't we just finish winter break first?" This was Han Jiang's only plea. He was counting on a two-week or two-week break during winter break to prolong his life. Now that the world is ending, what's the point of taking a break? He'll only be concerned with escaping.

"Alright, get on with the math problems." Jiang Yueming frowned at the math problems, thinking this guy had no ambition at all. "The predicted date is December 21st, there's still a year to go."

"Oh no, please!" Han Jiang cried, "I haven't even gone to college yet! Please, please, don't let me suffer through my senior year of high school, finally get my acceptance letter, and then bang, the world is gone! At least let it end before my senior year, please, don't let me suffer for half a year and then the world ends."

Jiang Yueming chuckled beside him, though he didn't really believe it. The end of the world and all that was just ridiculous. Besides, it didn't feel as terrifying as senior year of high school.

"Lele," Jiang Yueming nudged Li Leshan's arm, "I improved my ranking by seven places in this monthly exam, isn't that amazing? Hmm? Isn't that amazing?"

“You’re lucky you’re not a dog,” Han Jiang said, feeling goosebumps on his arms as he looked at his obsequious expression. “Otherwise, your tail would be wagging so high that you could see it from miles away.”

"Tch," Jiang Yueming rolled her eyes at him, completely ignoring him, and turned to Li Leshan, whispering, "You haven't praised me yet."

“Impressive,” Li Leshan’s lips curled up. He paused slightly, hesitated for a moment, and continued to sign, “I’ll kiss you later.”

"Holy crap." Jiang Yueming was stunned, thinking: How dare I say this? When did Li Leshan become so bold? In broad daylight, under the clear sky, how can I say this?

He then turned to look at Han Jiang, who looked completely bewildered. He had been so overwhelmed by joy, excitement, and shock that he had momentarily forgotten that Han Jiang couldn't understand sign language at all and couldn't guess what it meant.

"Now then." Jiang Yueming couldn't wait, not even a second longer. He couldn't miss this opportunity; who knew when the next one would come? He pointed at Han Jiang, "Han Jiang, get out."

"What's going on?" Han Jiang was bewildered by this sudden expulsion order. Everything was fine just now; what had he done to provoke Jiang Yueming? "Am I wrong? Are you any different from that dog?"

"There's no difference." Jiang Yueming didn't hesitate at all, her face calm and composed. If you're going to be a dog, then be a dog; it doesn't matter who you are, and you can't be one anyway.

"My God," Han Jiang felt he couldn't stay in this place any longer. What were these guys up to? "Jiang Yueming, you son of a bitch."

"Hurry up and pack your things and get out of here." Jiang Yueming propped her chin up with one hand and held a textbook in the other, pretending to smash it. "Are you willing to let Xu Qing wait for you in the cold wind?"

"What? Her tutoring class isn't over yet." Han Jiang muttered, glancing at his watch. He quickly shoved his textbooks, homework, and practice problems into his bag, forgetting all about arguing. "Oh no, get out of class's over. Thank goodness you reminded me..."

Jiang Yueming stared speechlessly at him as he sprinted away, a sight comparable to Su Bingtian's 100-meter sprint. "Does he have the nerve to talk about me like that?"

After finally seeing Han Jiang off, Jiang Yueming immediately sat down facing Li Leshan, staring expectantly at Li Leshan who was working on his homework.

Li Leshan stopped writing. Even without looking up, he knew that a pair of eyes were staring intently at him. He had no choice but to look up helplessly. "No, it's in your house."

"It's closed," Jiang Yueming whispered, moving his face closer to Li Leshan.

Li Leshan couldn't refuse him, and since he had indeed agreed to it earlier, he glanced towards the door and quickly kissed him on the cheek.

They separated in an instant, so fast it was almost an illusion.

"So, my face?" Jiang Yueming touched his face.

"Where else do you want to kiss?" Li Leshan turned his head to look at him.

“At least a kiss…” Jiang Yueming pointed to his own mouth, smiling somewhat roguishly, “Here.”

"No, I won't kiss you." Li Leshan looked away, refusing to fall for the trick, and continued writing his homework.

"Alright, alright, alright." Jiang Yueming knew when to stop. He wasn't about to feign indifference after getting the better deal; he was already satisfied. He leaned in and put his arm around Li Leshan's waist, whispering in his ear, "Am I really that much better than Han Jiang?"

Why is Han Jiang still so vocal about him? Just like that, he might work hard his whole life, but who knows if he'll ever achieve his goal.

Li Leshan felt a tickle in his ear. He silently wrote on the test paper: "Have you finished your test paper?"

Jiang Yueming looked closely and felt a little guilty. "No, no."

Li Leshan wrote again: Then why don't you write it?

"I've been writing for half a day, maybe two hours at most," Jiang Yueming buried her face in Li Leshan's shoulder. "My head hurts, my hands hurt, my eyes hurt..."

Li Leshan was used to his appearance; he always seemed to be in pain while doing practice problems. To be honest, it was rather strange that Jiang Yueming would actually sit there and complete two full sets of exam papers.

“Lele,” Jiang Yueming sat beside him, “do you think that prophecy is true or false?”

Li Leshan shook his head; he didn't know either. There were all sorts of opinions online and in magazines, and whether you believed it or not didn't really matter. What could they do if the apocalypse came? Natural disasters and man-made calamities were beyond their control.

“I haven’t lived enough yet,” Jiang Yueming leaned on his shoulder, drawing circles in his palm, one after another, like an intricate thread of fate. “We finally got together, and I haven’t even spent my whole life with you yet.”

His voice was soft, carrying the stubbornness of a young man who would not give up until he achieved his goal and who would never turn back once he set his mind on something.

Li Leshan felt a slight warmth in his heart from those words. He put down his pen, leaned against Jiang Yueming, and slowly closed his eyes.

The end of the world was no longer on his mind. If that day ever came, it would probably be a relief for him. Every day he opened his eyes to studying and working, and closed them to worry about when Li Yong might appear, his grandmother's health, and the uncertainty of the future... He'd had enough.

only……

Li Leshan looked up at Jiang Yueming, his gaze tracing his face again and again before he lowered his head, suppressing his surging emotions.

Thinking of Jiang Yueming makes me want to hold on a little longer. At least until that legendary doomsday.

The days quietly bid farewell to 2011, and time, carried by the winds of the years, brought us to 2012.

Somehow, it feels like 10 years later, time has flown by like a Dongfeng rocket, and in the blink of an eye, several days and months have passed. It's not just them who are changing; Shengping is changing, and the times are changing, all rushing forward at an unprecedented speed. Everything is happening too fast, so fast that it's almost unbelievable.

Jiang Yueming sometimes looks through childhood photos and feels emotional. He would pull Li Leshan to look at them together. They were so young back then, didn't understand anything, and lived a carefree life. They never thought they would become like this today.

He didn't take many photos when he was a child, and even fewer photos with Li Leshan. Ultimately, it was because he couldn't think that far ahead back then. At twelve or thirteen, he felt that the future was as distant as the stars in the sky. Who would want to deliberately leave anything behind? Who would have thought that when he was seventeen or eighteen, he would want to turn around and look back at the past.

No one can say for sure what the future holds. Those everyday routines we thought would last forever are quietly saying goodbye. The torrent of time carries everyone along, without reporting or obtaining permission, rushing towards that seemingly distant yet fleeting future.

As usual, Shishi High School's holiday still didn't extend to the Lantern Festival; they weren't obligated to give such a long break. A group of students spent the Lantern Festival miserably at Shishi High School. If this happened now, they'd be reported ten or eight times over. Jiang Yueming was already waiting at the school gate, eagerly anticipating Li Leshan's arrival.

"Congratulations on winning first prize in the city's math competition and receiving a Lantern Festival gift," Jiang Yueming said, handing a bouquet of flowers to Li Leshan. "Isn't that romantic?"

Before Li Leshan even left the school gate, he saw Jiang Yueming holding a bouquet of flowers. Anyone who didn't know better would think that a wedding procession had arrived.

He looked around and saw that few people were paying attention to them, which calmed him down a little. "What do you want? The math competition was last week. The Lantern Festival was also a while ago."

"I didn't know last week, and you didn't tell me either." Jiang Yueming pretended to be angry. He only found out from Cao Fan's mouth. It was something to be happy about. Li Leshan didn't tell him either. Couldn't he share in the joy?

“I wanted to give you a surprise,” Li Leshan said, pulling out several sets of test papers from his bag. “These are for you.”

"Stop—" Jiang Yueming raised his hand to signal.

"Wait a minute." He flipped through a page or two, looking shocked. "What is this?"

"Title." Li Leshan felt that the words on it were already quite obvious, and there was no need for him to say anything more.

"You used your prize money to buy me practice questions?" Jiang Yueming's lips twitched. "Is this a surprise?"

That must have been absolutely terrifying.

He was genuinely terrified.

“I didn’t buy all the questions,” Li Leshan said honestly. “I want to save some money for my grandma.”

"Why don't you just save it all for Grandma? Why are you wasting money? I don't know how to make it, and I can't make it right either. Isn't this a waste for me?" Jiang Yueming threw out a series of questions. Good heavens, if Li Leshan had bought anything else, he wouldn't be so puzzled.

“If you don’t know something, you can ask the teacher. Circle it and ask me later.” Li Leshan stuffed it into Jiang Yueming’s arms without saying a word, regardless of whether he wanted to accept it or not. “I don’t know what else you need.”

“I don’t need anything,” Jiang Yueming said honestly. He still stuffed the pile of test papers that Li Leshan had bought for him into his bag. They were already heavy, and now they felt like they weighed a ton. “Don’t buy me anything in the future.”

Li Leshan shook his head and quoted Jiang Yueming's words, "Then how can I show that I like you? How can I show that I want to be good to you?"

Jiang Yueming was speechless when asked the question. He choked for a moment. Li Leshan was holding a bouquet of flowers, and he was holding a pile of books. The two of them were silent for a short while, probably because they both felt it was quite heavy.

"You're not happy that I bought books?" Li Leshan asked after a long pause.

"No," Jiang Yueming said, taking the flowers from him as he was holding them and struggling to sign them. She just smiled sheepishly. "I just felt... I didn't need them."

He really doesn't need to. He didn't expect to be able to answer the second or third part of those challenging questions. He also didn't expect to get four or five correct in English fill-in-the-blank and error correction exercises. He'd be perfectly content with getting two or three right.

“You have that money, treat yourself better, buy yourself more things, and Grandma too…” Jiang Yueming stammered, looking at Li Leshan and straightening his collar. “You don’t know how much weight you’ve lost if you don’t look in the mirror.”

"No, I don't think so." Li Leshan was still looking in the mirror because he needed to see if Li Yong had any wounds on his face. He couldn't see anything from looking back and forth, but he hadn't weighed himself. "I eat three meals a day."

"How much do you eat in one meal?" Jiang Yueming asked. "Do you eat as much as Xu Qing?"

Li Leshan thought about it seriously for a while and nodded.

Xu Qing only ate so little; it's a miracle she could maintain vital signs in some ways. Even so, she felt it wasn't enough and wanted to lose even more weight.

“I know you care about me,” Li Leshan patted his shoulder, gesturing for him to look at him, “but I’m fine. I’m probably just a little tired from studying.”

“Yeah,” Jiang Yueming smirked, “Your whole class is really pushing yourselves to get into Tsinghua or Peking University.”

“I didn’t want to get into all of them,” Li Leshan explained to him. If he really wanted to get into every one of them, Shengping would have already made a name for itself in China, instead of being so unknown. Its prestige is comparable to Hengshui High School in Hebei Province today.

"In short," Jiang Yueming ordered, "I'm not in the same school as you, so I have no way of knowing how you are doing. I'll have to go through a lot of trouble to find out. You absolutely have to take good care of yourself. Even if you don't think about me, you should at least think about Grandma. She's so old, how can she possibly worry about you every day?"

Jiang Yueming kept rambling in his ear, thinking that maybe he was a radio station in his past life, which was why he had so much to say in this life. He felt that the more he talked, the more Li Leshan would listen. As long as Li Leshan listened to even a little, then his words wouldn't have been in vain.

Li Leshan quickly made a "yes" gesture.

“I definitely will,” Li Leshan signified, “and you have to know that too, right?”

“I know for sure,” Jiang Yueming blurted out without thinking, her tone slightly sarcastic, “but you can’t care about me either. If I don’t think about myself, who will think about me?”

As soon as he finished speaking, both of them fell silent. This past event had been buried for half a year, but Jiang Yueming still remembered it. He would occasionally toss and turn at night, so much so that he hadn't had time to think about what he had said.

"..."

Jiang Yueming gasped and hurriedly looked at Li Leshan's reaction. His eyes were lowered and his lips were tightly pursed.

"I," Jiang Yueming quickly explained. He wasn't trying to cause trouble. He admitted that this matter was a thorn in his side, but so much time had passed that even the thorn had been worn down somewhat. He didn't want to dredge up old grievances now; if he really did, he wouldn't have the confidence to face Li Leshan, and he himself had quite a few old grievances to bring up. "I'm not trying to cause trouble, I just... I don't know why..."

"Even now, you still think I can't take care of you?" Li Leshan finally looked up at him, meeting his gaze directly. Jiang Yueming was deeply stung by that look.

Lately, he's been taking care of this, enduring that, considering this, and making do with that. Isn't that enough?

"I didn't..." Jiang Yueming wanted to explain, but for a moment she felt like she had a fishbone stuck in her throat.

Was he wrong to stop Jiang Yueming from coming to the school gate to find him in that situation? He was always on guard against this and that, and that was all he could do! He had already tried his best to protect Jiang Yueming, and he had clearly explained it later, so why did Jiang Yueming still feel that way?

“It’s my fault,” Li Leshan slowly loosened his clenched hands, took a deep breath, and frowned. “I didn’t care about you enough, I didn’t take good care of you enough, and I didn’t understand you enough. I was wrong.”

Seeing Jiang Yueming's injured expression, he felt bad for her too. He admitted that he had been completely exhausted lately because of Li Yong and the constant work and school. But he had done everything he could.

“Lele, I didn’t mean it that way!” Jiang Yueming quickly spoke up, tugging at Li Leshan’s sleeve. “Can we pretend I didn’t say anything? Just pretend I didn’t mention it.”

He knew that Li Leshan had to go to school, take care of his grandmother, and be wary of Li Yong, so even if he couldn't take care of him, Jiang Yueming accepted it all. But on the contrary, despite this, Li Leshan did a very good job.

Li Leshan suddenly felt a sharp pain in his brain. He stood there for a moment, then slowly the person in front of him became clear.

"I haven't been good enough to you either." Li Leshan felt weak, and he truly believed it. He felt that compared to Jiang Yueming, he had done far too little. It seemed that even with all his might, he had only done a tiny bit; their love was unequal and mismatched.

His life was surrounded by a bunch of trivial matters, leaving him no time to care about anything else.

"Don't...don't say that." Jiang Yueming choked up a little. He suddenly stepped forward and hugged Li Leshan, his hands trembling uncontrollably. "I was so afraid of you saying that. You've been so incredibly good to me."

His voice carried a hint of suppressed sobbing, and Li Leshan buried his face in his shoulder, but he bit his lower lip, trying hard not to let the tears spill out.

After an unknown amount of time, Li Leshan slowly released him. Looking at the tears in Jiang Yueming's eyes, he felt a pang of sadness and gently wiped away the tear stains.

“I love you,” Li Leshan said, emphasizing each word, as if afraid that he might not see clearly or not be able to process it, and repeated, “I love you.”

Jiang Yueming felt his heart hit a heavy blow. This was the first time he had ever seen Li Leshan use the word "love" like this. His memory was briefly pulled back to seven years ago, back to that tattered, yellowed sign language book. He could even clearly remember which line and which word "love" appeared in.

Seven years ago, Jiang Yueming could never have imagined that he would see Li Leshan say such things, let alone that the person he was talking to was him.

"You can understand it, right?" Li Leshan asked in sign language, seeing the confusion in his eyes.

Jiang Yueming nodded vigorously. The scene he had just witnessed had such a strong impact on him that he couldn't utter a sound for a moment. He hurriedly tried to respond to Li Leshan, but his throat felt like it was blocked by something, and he couldn't make a single syllable.

In desperation, Jiang Yueming could only use sign language. At that moment, he could no longer control his tears, which welled up in his eyes instantly.

“I…” Jiang Yueming’s hand trembled as she pointed at Li Leshan, “I love you.”

He spoke as if it were the first time he had ever spoken, his voice trembling as he struggled to utter a few syllables.

The surrounding wind howled, the biting wind stinging their faces. But at this moment, no one could feel the cold. This love, this night, this burning passion between them—these might never be experienced again in the years to come, but these memories, these moments of love that brought tears to their eyes, would forever remain in their seventeen-year-old selves.

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Author's Note: Ta-da! At the start of December, let's congratulate "The Puppy" on reaching its 100th chapter! [fireworks] It feels like the ending is just around the corner! hhh

It feels like I just started writing this story (oh hehe, actually it's spanned three seasons: summer, autumn, and winter TT).

This chapter features a double update, and it should be quite sweet, right? (smug smile)