Chapter 3 He refuses to admit defeat

The airport clocks were set to midnight.

The ride-hailing driver was two minutes late and kept apologizing.

"Sorry, there was a rear-end collision between two cars on Airport Avenue, which caused a traffic jam for a long time."

The young passenger, dressed in black casual clothes, said nothing, only nodded. The air conditioning coolness emanating from Anjing Airport seemed to have not yet dissipated. He was really tall. In the gap between taking the luggage, the driver couldn't help but turn his head to take a peek, only to see the outline of a straight nose and jaw.

"What a handsome young man," the driver thought to himself.

He looked down again and glanced at the person's phone screen.

It's a WeChat interface, and it looks like someone is chatting with someone.

The driver didn't think much of it and helped put the luggage in the car.

"Are you going to the Peninsula Apartments next to Anhui University?" the driver asked, confirming.

"Um."

"OK."

The car drove away from the airport exit.

The car was unusually quiet. Another red light appeared, and the driver, bored out of his mind, glanced into the rearview mirror with his exceptional eyesight.

The person was looking out the window with their face turned to the side.

His phone was still lit up, and the driver glanced at the screen again.

It's still the same chat interface.

The driver recognized the cat's head.

When I picked up the luggage earlier, this young and handsome guy's phone screen was stuck on this cat avatar.

That clingy feeling... it's definitely your boyfriend.

"Where did this late-night flight come from?" the driver asked casually, breaking the silence.

The person in the back seat remained silent for a few seconds.

"Germany."

The driver paused for a moment.

He thought it was somewhere else, but it turned out to be a foreign country.

"...That's really far."

So it's a long-distance relationship. No wonder I never left the WeChat interface.

"Someone's waiting at home, right?" the driver chuckled. "If the traffic is good, it'll probably take another hour to get to the apartment. You can call or video chat, it's up to you..."

The driver stopped abruptly as his gaze followed his words.

In the last glance he gave, he saw a red exclamation mark at the bottom of the handsome young man's WeChat interface.

The driver suddenly swallowed all his words.

Time ticked by, until the red light turned green, and the car behind honked its horn impatiently.

The driver pressed the accelerator again—

Oh, so it wasn't that the partner didn't leave, but rather... the partner left.

-

"knew."

Gu Lin hung up the phone.

It was already past midnight when I got back to the apartment.

He didn't pack his luggage, just grabbed his pajamas and went into the bathroom.

When he came out again, a thick fog had rolled in outside the window. The highly saturated patches of light from the distant high-rise buildings flickered in and out of the fog, falling on Gu Lin's expressionless face.

He took out his phone, habitually opened WeChat, and tapped the familiar cat avatar pinned to the top.

The information was frozen six months ago.

Gu Lin just watched without any purpose or action until the phone screen automatically turned off due to prolonged inactivity. Only then did he take out a Sinuosi pill from his bag and swallow it with cold water.

-

The cold air was more powerful than expected; although the sky had cleared up, the chill was still noticeable.

Ji Tong had no classes on Wednesday morning, so she stayed in bed until 9:30 before getting up. When she went out, she put on a light yellow sweatshirt.

He always loved brightly colored clothes. His white clothes, set against this warm color, were more than just eye-catching; almost everyone was looking at him.

Except for the three people around him.

Ji Tong's gaze swept from left to right.

"Shall we go?" Ji Tong suddenly asked.

Li Yuan felt like he was dreaming.

"Huh? Oh, okay, let's go."

"Where...where are we going?" Li Yuan turned his head and asked, "Tongtong, what did you just say?"

Ji Tong slowly, very slowly, stopped walking.

"This is the third time."

Li Yuan straightened up: "W-what, the third time?"

Ji Tong: "This is the third time you've asked me 'What did you just say?'"

After speaking, Ji Tong turned to look at Cui Mingying and Zhou Tian.

"You two, too, haven't said a word since you got up, and your expressions are weird. You also don't dare to look at me."

"What exactly happened?"

With each word Ji Tong uttered, the three of them grew more tense, eventually turning their faces away as if they had "guilty" written all over their foreheads.

"Still not going to talk?" Ji Tong wasn't going to waste time with them.

"I'll count to three."

"one."

"two."

“s…”

"I'm going to die sooner or later anyway, and even if I die, it'll be Brother Lin who dies first." Li Yuan couldn't take it anymore. He suddenly took out his phone, unlocked it, and opened a chat window labeled "Yang Ping, Assistant Counselor of Class 9, Computer Science".

"Tongtong, this morning during a casual chat in the class group, didn't the class monitor mention that there's someone in our department who can't report on time this year due to special circumstances? It's in Computer Science Class 9. Just now, Yang Ping from Computer Science Class 9 sent me a message saying that person seems to really be a latecomer..."

"Brother Lin!"

The sudden shout interrupted Li Yuan's voice and cut off everyone's train of thought.

Li Yuan was completely puzzled.

He hasn't even shouted yet, so who is?!

Li Yuan quickly looked in the direction of the sound.

However, someone was faster than him.

The instant he heard those two words, all of Ji Tong's senses seemed to trigger an automatic command, and he abruptly turned around—

The person who called out was a tanned, rather large boy.

I don't know him.

Ji Tong couldn't quite describe the feeling in her heart; she only felt a void.

He's obsessed.

What Brother Lin?

It's not a unique syllable.

Brother Lin, Brother Lin, Brother Lin, it all sounds the same.

Just like Gu Lin's "common face," he also has a common voice.

Just as Ji Tong was about to look away, the boy suddenly raised his hand and waved it forcefully in a certain direction, this time making an even louder sound.

"Brother Lin! Over here!"

Ji Tong: "..."

During the twenty years that Ji Tong was favored by fate, everything proceeded smoothly according to the rule of "he gets what he wants," and he almost never showed any "hostility" towards anyone.

But today, perhaps something touched a nerve, as if determined to challenge this Xiaomai classmate, with the thought, "I want to see which 'Lin-ge' you're talking about," Ji Tong looked in the direction the person was waving—

Just one glance.

A figure so familiar it could not be more so, stood beneath the sycamore tree at Anhui University, a tree that was said to have been growing for fifty years.

The two were separated by a sidewalk, and the wind seemed to carry someone's scent from all directions, blowing over the treetops, over the crowds, and over the traffic, all of it pouring into Ji Tong's body.

The moment their eyes met, Ji Tong felt herself sinking.

He stood quietly watching that bastard in Anjing as the sun shone after the rain.

Five seconds.

Ten seconds.

Ji Tong's expression gradually darkened, becoming colder than ever before.

He didn't say a word, and turned away.

Behind them were hurried footsteps and exclamations from Li Yuan and the others.

Ji Tong didn't turn around; he left everything behind.

-

Ji Tong didn't go back to his dormitory, nor did he go to the cafeteria he was supposed to go to. He didn't even know where he was going. He walked around in silence for a while, and finally sat down on a bench in the small park outside the school gate.

Ji Tong's heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was going to explode. She didn't know if it was from anger or from the rapid blood circulation after exercise.

The phone kept buzzing, not just with messages from Li Yuan and his classmates, but also from the high school class group, Tu Jing, and even Yang Ping from Class 9 of Computer Science.

Ji Tong glanced around quickly and saw everyone's names, but he couldn't see that one person's.

Until a new notification pops up in the contacts section at the bottom.

[“l” requests to add you as a friend]

oh.

I forgot.

He deleted the person six months ago.

Now that the person is back, why not add them back... my ass.

Ji Tong pressed the mute button with a "whoosh," locked the screen, and threw the phone onto the grass at his feet.

Who does he think he is?

Ji Tong closed his eyes, his chest heaving violently. He tilted his head back and sank into the bench.

The moment the sunlight fell on his face, he suddenly remembered that it was probably this kind of weather when he deleted Gu Lin.

Because he was furious, he deleted everything cleanly and decisively, without even keeping the chat history.

Text code is always very obedient; with just one "delete," no matter how many traces there are, they can't be found. But memory is beyond our control.

Ji Tong even clearly remembered the last time he chatted with Gu Lin, what punctuation he used, what he said, and what tone he used.

Six months ago, during the winter break of his senior year of high school, after a routine conversation, Gu Lin suddenly sent him a voice message on WeChat.

"Ji Tong, what do you take me for?"

The voice on the other end of the phone was both soft and deep.

Ji Tong was puzzled, but didn't even think about it.

"My best deskmate, my best friend, my best brother."

There was no reply from that side for a long time.

Gu Lin has always been difficult to appease, and Ji Tong thought for a moment.

"Do you remember the essay 'Letter to Zijian' that the teacher analyzed in Chinese class a while ago?"

"You're the kind of brother who I'd entrust my wife and children to before I die, and who you could entrust your wife and children to before you die—a true brother for life!"

Ji Tong's level of self-awareness is already quite high.

Entrusting his son to someone on his deathbed means that he could even include Gu Lin in his "will".

But there was still no reply.

Ji Tong: "?"

Just as Ji Tong angrily typed "If you dare say you want to be my dad, you're dead," there was finally a response on the other end.

Another voice message.

Ji Tong clicked the receiver, and Gu Lin's cold voice came through.

"Ji Tong, where's your brain?"

Ji Tong: "???"

Gu Lin may be difficult to coax, but he has never spoken harshly to Ji Tong.

This is the first time.

Moreover, this happened when Ji Tong decided to include Gu Lin in his "will".

Did he know how valuable his "will" was?

Ji Tong was so angry that she slammed her phone keyboard, causing sparks to fly.

"Gu Lin, you're finished. After school starts, whoever speaks to whom first loses!"

Ji Tong refrained from opening their chat window for a week. Even on the first day of school, he was still thinking that once he got to school, he would definitely wait for Gu Lin to speak to him first.

But he didn't wait for Gu Lin.

All that came was a message from the homeroom teacher: "Tongtong... Gu Lin signed a commitment to voluntarily give up his guaranteed admission qualification and went abroad."

That day, Ji Tong was unusually calm, so calm that even now, when he thinks back on it, it feels like a stranger to him.

He didn't ask Gu Lin when he signed the commitment letter, when he left the country, or where he went. He just said "Oh," and returned to his seat under everyone's gaze. He then opened the person's WeChat and phone number one by one, and deleted all the contact information he could find.

He refuses to admit defeat.

He wasn't going to admit defeat to some damn bastard.

...

Ji Tong sat on the bench for almost an hour until her face got hot from the sun before returning to her dormitory.

He knew Gu Lin wasn't there, and Li Yuan and the others wouldn't let anyone in without his permission.

When Ji Tong pushed open the dormitory door, she saw the three roommates standing in a row.

"Turn yourself in," Li Yuan, who was leading the group, spoke first.

He pulled out three documents that were stapled together from behind his back.

"What is this?" Ji Tong asked, sounding annoyed.

Seeing that the person was still willing to talk, Li Yuan immediately seized the opportunity.

"Our chat history has been organized."

“We only found out about your return from Yang Ping in Class 9 of Computer Science a couple of days ago,” Li Yuan automatically skipped the words “Brother Lin”. “Yang Ping also saw the list from the counselor and didn’t dare to confirm it completely. No one intended to… hide it from you. Lin… cough, no one contacted any of us in advance.”

"I've actually been wanting to tell you this for the past couple of days, but..."

Li Yuan didn't say "but," but Ji Tong understood.

He forbade me to mention it.

It's not their fault.

Seeing that Ji Tong's expression had improved, Li Yuan immediately pledged his loyalty: "Don't be angry, you know we were all sentenced to you."

"Yes, you just left, and after we stopped you... cough, we immediately followed without saying a word."

Ji Tong took the chat history and flipped through it symbolically.

Li Yuan and the others dared not even breathe loudly.

"Didn't say a word?" Ji Tong asked.

Several people nodded vigorously.

Ji Tong continued scrolling through the chat history, but couldn't concentrate on reading a single word.

Why don't you say a word?

I thought they would know more.

Ji Tong remained silent for a moment, his expression unintentionally calm.

"Who is that person?"

Which class are you in?

In public, people shouted "Brother Lin".

He was still waving.

They seem to know each other quite well.

Li Yuan was completely confused: "Who? Who?"

Ji Tong: "..."

"Nobody!" Ji Tong snapped the chat history shut.

I'm so angry.