Chapter 1-4
4
Qiao Ruo chose a spot with dry sand to sit down, put her shoes back on, took off her gray-blue short coat, folded it, and placed it on her knees.
He Yajun sat down next to her. From his angle, he could see the mature and graceful curves of her body, which was wearing a white sweater. When the wind lifted her hair, her equally graceful profile was fully revealed to him.
She turned to look at him, smiling, her eyes sparkling: "When I used to go to the beach, I liked to sit on the beach like this for two or three hours at a time, doing nothing but daydreaming."
He avoided her gaze and looked ahead: "So, are you planning to just space out all day today too?"
"No, I have something I want to say to you today."
He remained silent.
Do you have a girlfriend?
He shook his head.
Are you married?
"No."
“Alright, since you’re still single, what I’m about to say will only cause you trouble and won’t hurt anyone else.” She gazed into his eyes and said softly but firmly, “That’s right, I want to go to America. For so many years, I’ve been working hard to save money so that one day I can afford to go to America.”
He Yajun showed no surprise whatsoever. He smiled slightly and said, "We're old classmates. If you really want to go to America for a trip, I don't mind treating you to a good time. You don't need to worry about the cost at all."
“Not just America, I want to go to all the places you want to go or where you are right now.” She also turned her gaze to the sea ahead. “At first, it was a goal, even though I knew that even if I achieved it, it wouldn’t mean much, but I still had this greed. Later, it probably became an obsession.”
She continued clearly and explicitly, "Back in freshman year, I lied to you online, chatting with you every day, and later said my real name was Qiao Ruo. You probably had a pretty good idea back then that I liked you, right?"
He Yajun remained silent.
“I tried to let go of my feelings for you, and even dated someone else and considered marriage. But when it came to meeting each other’s parents, I backed down and started thinking about you more often. That’s when I realized I still couldn’t let go.”
She turned her head to look at him, her eyes filled with helplessness and tenderness. Faced with her sincere eyes, He Yajun was speechless for the first time when he heard a girl confess her feelings.
Of course, as a normal man approaching twenty-eight, he couldn't possibly have never had a romantic relationship, and he'd been confessed to by girls more than once. If the girl was someone he found attractive, and he happened to be interested in dating, he usually wouldn't mind trying to get to know her; if she wasn't his type, he would clearly reject her without hesitation.
But Qiao Ruo was clearly different from those girls. Her feelings had lasted for far too long, something he couldn't deny or dismiss. Even though he didn't understand why someone could spend so much time liking someone who didn't care about them, he had seen such relationships before and knew that she must have experienced pain and torment in the process.
“Qiao Ruo,” he finally responded, “I have no plans to get married in this life. I’m not against dating, but only if the other person is like me, only enjoying the relationship itself, and won’t make any promises to me or ask me for any promises.”
Qiao Ruo opened her mouth and looked at him in surprise.
“You’re very beautiful. If we had only met yesterday, I think I wouldn’t mind giving it a try and seeing if we could be boyfriend and girlfriend. But you definitely have more expectations of me than that, right? The kind of relationship I want is simple and easy, one that won’t leave the other person resentful when it ends. To put it bluntly, it’s the kind where we can part amicably and not get entangled.” He Yajun turned her head to face the sea. “Besides, I don’t like complicated relationships. I think you know very well that we’re more than just schoolmates. If we were really together, you would have a hard time facing your sister and parents, and I would have a hard time facing my mother. Unless we can both completely disregard our families, but I can’t do that, and neither can you.”
This was something Qiao Ruo couldn't deny, a fact she had long known. However, she had restrained herself for too long over the years, and she was exhausted, no longer wanting to carry this burden in her heart. She needed an answer to put an end to this matter, even if she knew it wasn't the answer she wanted, she still wanted to hear it from his own lips.
She smiled wistfully: "I know we can't be together, but I can't help but hold onto hope, especially since you promised to meet me today. If I don't say anything, I'd be doing myself a disservice. But I'm a little curious. I'm the sister of someone you hate. You shouldn't pay any attention to me, let alone speak to me so kindly. What made you change your attitude towards me?"
"Many years ago, someone told me not to blame you for the mistakes my father and your sister made, because that would be unfair to you."
Qiao Ruo was stunned. After a long while, she forced a smile and said, "Bai Qing told you, right?"
“Hmm,” He Yajun stretched out her legs, “It seems like it was during my freshman year. One day, she called me and said that she ran into you during the holidays, but you were in a bad mood. She told me not to give you a hard time if I ran into you in the future. In the end, it has nothing to do with you. Being dissatisfied or mean to you can't change what has already happened, and it's meaningless.”
Bai Qing was He Yajun's childhood friend and Qiao Ruo's classmate in high school. During high school, Qiao Ruo saw He Yajun and Bai Qing walking home together after evening self-study sessions several times. They didn't engage in overly intimate behavior, but the way He Yajun walked beside Bai Qing and the way he listened to her speak with his head slightly bowed clearly told others that he cared deeply for his childhood sweetheart. Moreover, when Bai Qing was injured during the sports meet in her second year of high school, he was the first to rush to her side and take her to the infirmary for a checkup. His worried gaze at that time remained etched in Qiao Ruo's mind, causing her to suffer from insomnia for several nights in a row. And then there was that winter in their senior year of high school, when he held Bai Qing's hand as they walked down the narrow stairs of a restaurant, passing by Qiao Ruo, his cold expression causing Qiao Ruo's heart to crumble, never to be whole again.
Qiao Ruo once thought that it was only a matter of time before He Yajun and Bai Qing got together, but unexpectedly, Bai Qing ended up falling in love with and marrying another boy in her class.
Qiao Ruo wasn't surprised that Bai Qing would say those words to He Yajun to defend her. In high school, she and Bai Qing sat at desks next to each other; they weren't exactly best friends, but because of Bai Qing's relationship with He Yajun, she couldn't help but be curious about Bai Qing. After interacting with her a few times, she found Bai Qing to be a very easy girl to get along with. She had always carefully kept her crush on He Yajun hidden in her heart, afraid to let anyone know, but she confessed to Bai Qing during her first year of university winter break. To this day, Bai Qing is the only person she has ever openly confessed to.
"During the second year of high school sports meet, Bai Qing, like you, signed up for the long jump. When she competed, our homeroom teacher took a picture of her. Later, the homeroom teacher developed all the photos he took of everyone competing and posted them at the back of the classroom. We all ran over to look, and then I saw you and me in Bai Qing's picture." Qiao Ruo was lost in memories. "I secretly tore off that photo and kept it. After you deleted me from your QQ, I couldn't find you at all. I really wanted to know how you were doing, so I contacted Bai Qing near the end of my first year of university winter break and asked her to meet me. I used the excuse of returning the photo to ask about you. I didn't expect that she had already discovered that I liked you before that. She's very kind. She must have seen how sad I was to speak up for me in front of you."
He Yajun twitched the corner of her mouth but didn't laugh. She said calmly, "Even if she didn't say it, I knew that this matter had nothing to do with you. It's just that I was young back then and acted according to my own feelings. I didn't care much about people who had nothing to do with me."
"So I can understand it this way: your willingness to see me now, and to sit here with me to kill time, is purely out of politeness," Qiao Ruo concluded.
He Yajun stared silently at the beach ahead, lost in thought.
Qiao Ruo followed his example and looked ahead.
The bright sunlight streamed down, making the sea shimmer and sparkle. The shimmering points of light resembled the backdrop of a dream, creating a sense of disorientation if gazed upon for too long. If it weren't for the endless waves crashing against the shore, gently lapping and then receding with a soft, lapping sound; if it weren't for the tourists strolling by, their laughter and whispers carried on the breeze; if it weren't for the man sitting beside her occasionally shifting his feet and adjusting his posture, causing his clothes to rustle softly against the sand, she would have thought she was truly dreaming.
But none of this was a dream. She thought to herself with a touch of self-deprecation, at least fate had given her a chance. Now she had her answer, and there was no need to regret not having tried. Perhaps she would never fall in love with another person again, but at least she had deeply experienced the feeling of being moved, and that was enough. She told herself: You just need to get through this period, and you can start over.
She tried to convince herself to accept the reality and smiled at him: "Anyway, I still want to thank you for giving me this opportunity to confess in person."
He Yajun finally looked away and turned to her: "I'm sorry, Qiao Ruo."
"Why are you saying that? It's my own business that I like you, you don't need to apologize to me." Qiao Ruo brushed her wind-blown hair behind her ears. "Now that we've laid it all out, can you tell me why you're not going to get married in this lifetime?"
He Yajun seemed stumped by the question, and it took her a while to speak: "Marriage only brings constraints, but strangely enough, it only constrains the good things. It can't constrain the bad things at all, such as endless arguments, accusations, resentment, self-torture, and emotional betrayal. If you expect to protect your love through marriage, you might as well not have marriage at all. You might be happier together then."
Qiao Ruo couldn't refute his point of view. She thought that if it were her parents who got divorced, even if it wasn't due to a third party, she probably wouldn't have a good view on marriage either.
Just then, He Yajun's phone rang. He took it out to answer, briefly replied "Okay," and hung up.
He stood up, supporting himself on the sand with his hands, clapped his hands, and looked down at her, saying, "My classmate invited me to have lunch with us. Do you mind if he comes with us?"
"I don't mind." Qiao Ru shook her head and stood up as well.
He Yajun was afraid that she would lose her balance, so she raised her hand to support her arm until they reached a flat surface before letting go.
Qiao Ruo remained silent, preoccupied with her own thoughts. He Yajun, clearly having no intention of continuing the conversation, simply walked quietly beside her.
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