Chapter 26 Love Letters: Have you ever been in a relationship?
Speak of the devil and he appears.
Chen Jingchi's phone rang, the cheerful rhythm breaking the delicate atmosphere. Zhou Yu pulled herself out of her reverie and went back to washing clothes. She heard Xu Yue's voice coming from the receiver; he was already downstairs and asked them to come down and help carry things.
Chen Jingchi replied with an "okay" and finally turned to leave the bathroom.
Zhou Yu heard them say a few words in the living room, followed by footsteps. The soiled sleeve wasn't very big; after washing it and wringing it dry, she had just reached the door when she bumped into Chen Jingchi coming out of the bedroom.
He held a black and white baseball jacket in his hand and draped it over Zhou Yu's arm: "Wear mine first, hang the jacket on the balcony."
After saying that, he left the apartment with the three of them.
Zhou wanted to hang the washed clothes on the clothesline on the balcony, but then hesitated, looking at the coat in her hand.
Wearing someone else's clothes is a very private matter, especially since that person is Chen Jingchi. But not wearing one would be cold; she has a weak constitution and is prone to catching colds, and being sick for several days is really frustrating. After weighing the options, Zhou Yu put on her coat.
Chen Jingchi has a large frame, and his clothes were several sizes too big for Zhou Yu, as if he were encircling her in his arms, her whole body enveloped in his scent. Zhou Yu stood there blankly for a long time before slowly rolling up her overly long sleeves, turning around and closing the balcony door.
She inexplicably remembered that in high school, her deskmate and the person behind her were secretly dating. In the summer, when the classroom was cold due to the air conditioning, her deskmate would always wear her boyfriend's school uniform loosely on her body, subtly showing off their affection.
At that time, she couldn't understand it. It wasn't until now, when she was also wearing Chen Jingchi's clothes, that she realized the special intimacy hidden in this behavior.
Voices came from outside; they had returned, each carrying several takeout containers. Xu Yue, walking at the back, was carrying a two-compartment electric hot pot. He placed the pot on the dining table, noticed Zhou Yu standing in the living room, looked him over for a couple of seconds, and laughed: "Hey? Zhou Yu, your clothes look familiar."
Zhuo Wencheng also looked over and nodded: "That's right, Brother Chi has something similar."
Tan Bei stepped forward to explain, "Oh dear, I accidentally spilled the juice on her. Please stop talking about it."
Xu Yue then stopped, but Zhuo Wencheng honestly added, "It's too big for you."
Zhan Li chimed in: "Don't girls always wear men's clothes like this, in an oversized style?"
Zhou Yu was not used to being the center of attention, and his expression only became more natural after everyone sat down at the table and started talking about hot pot.
Tan Bei pulled out the chair next to her: "Zhou Yu, let's sit together."
“Okay.” Zhou Yu sat down next to her.
While waiting for the hot pot to cook, the group chatted idly.
"Didn't Brother Chi mention in his last interview that he used a karaoke app? Netizens even dug up his account." Zhuo Wencheng exclaimed in surprise, "Is there any privacy left on the internet?"
“His account already had a lot of followers before.” Xu Yue poured drinks for the group and said, “Don’t talk about now, it was completely exposed a few years ago. That’s the price of fame.”
“Oh, I know,” Tan Bei said. “I thought your name was fake.”
“There aren’t many real users on that app,” Chen Jingchi explained. “The private messages are mostly ads or local dating ads.”
Zhan Li asked, "Why don't you cancel the account?"
"I posted my old songs on there, and I couldn't bear to part with them," Chen Jingchi said. "If I cancel my account, they'll be gone."
It seems that his published works have all been made visible to only individuals, and have not been completely deleted, Zhou Yu thought.
“You still have our old band songs, right?” Xu Yue said. “It’ll be nice to listen to them again later and feel nostalgic.”
Zhuo Wencheng asked curiously, "That variety show about hearing sounds, did Brother Yue really sign you up?"
Speaking of this, Xu Yue looked at Chen Jingchi and said, "To be honest, I really didn't know at the time. Signing up was a complete accident."
"Thank you," Chen Jingchi chuckled, "for not signing me up for a dating reality show."
"What do you mean?" Zhan Li asked.
“During the summer vacation, there were two audition registrations in our area. One was for the music variety show he was on, and the other was a challenge to win a refrigerator.” Xu Yue couldn’t help but laugh as he explained, “Back then, our phone numbers were all publicly shared in the class group, and some unscrupulous people signed up for the male and female challenges for others. I also received a registration text message and thought it was him playing a prank on me, so I helped him register for the music variety show.”
"I'm just so bored." Chen Jingchi laughed in exasperation.
"Later I found out it wasn't him, so I called the organizer to cancel my registration, but I still got registered." Xu Yue added, "It turns out that some things really are destined."
Even though he withdrew from the competition later, this music variety show brought him a lot of popularity. If he hadn't registered at the time, Chen Jingchi might have had to take many more detours.
However, Zhou Yu believed that with his abilities, it was only a matter of time before he became famous; the goddess of fate never fails those who work hard.
Zhou Yu didn't talk much, mostly listening to their idle chatter, occasionally chiming in when her name was called upon. Tan Bei seemed afraid that she would be left out, so she would frequently try to start a conversation with her, and quietly thanked her: "It's good that you came, I rarely eat with them usually."
She seemed more like An Kejia—an outgoing and talkative person. Zhou Yu knew she was just saying that to comfort herself, and couldn't help but feel a little touched.
"Shall we go together after we finish eating?" Tan Bei asked. "Are you going back to school?"
"Yes." Zhou Yu nodded. "You too?"
“Yes, we came by bike. I’ll give you a ride later,” she said.
“Okay,” Zhou Yu replied.
Remembering something, Tan Bei said to Zhan Li, "Brother, can you get my phone for me? I need to add Zhou Yu on WeChat."
Upon hearing this, Zhuo Wencheng said, "That's right, we've known each other for so long but we've never added each other on WeChat. I'll add you too."
Zhou wanted to show them a QR code to scan, but Tan Bei suggested, "How about we create a group chat? We're all acquaintances, so it'll be easier to chat later."
Zhuo Wencheng: "Okay, I'll build one."
After creating the group chat, Zhuo Wencheng looked at the WeChat interface and suddenly remembered something, saying, "By the way, do you guys know Zhu Qi?"
"Yes, I know her. She's the most famous female celebrity in our year," Tan Bei said. "Doesn't she have a modern romance drama that's about to premiere?"
“I haven’t seen any of her shows.” Zhuo Wencheng said, puzzled. “A few days ago, a woman added me from the freshman group, saying she was Zhu Qi’s friend and asked if I could introduce her to Brother Chi.”
"Is that so?" Zhan Li asked curiously. "What did you say back?"
"I definitely declined," Zhuo Wencheng said, "but I don't know if it's true or not."
"It's probably fake," Tan Bei guessed. "Zhu Qi debuted as a child star and is quite famous, with over 30 million followers on Weibo. I guess that girl herself wanted to get to know Brother Chi and lied to you that you were friends."
Hearing this name, Zhou Yu was not unfamiliar with it at all. At the beginning of the semester, there were two very similar trending topics on Weibo, one was #Chen Jingchi Jiangchuan freshman report#, and the other was #Zhu Qi Jiangchuan freshman report#.
Zhuo Wencheng agreed with her statement: "I think so too, and after seeing Zhu Qi's photo, I realized she's not Chi Ge's type."
"How so?" Xu Yue's curiosity was piqued by his question.
"His beauty is aggressive." Zhuo Wencheng had his own opinion. "Brother Chi is handsome in an aggressive way. Two people with such strong aggression together are bound to explode."
Zhan Li didn't recognize Zhu Qi either, so Tan Bei searched for her photos on her phone and showed them to him. Zhou Yu, who was sitting next to her, also glanced at her; she was indeed a strikingly beautiful woman with striking features, making a strong visual impact at first glance.
Hearing this, Chen Jingchi finally raised his head. He glanced at Zhuo Wencheng and asked, "How am I being aggressive?"
"Brother, I didn't mean it that way," Zhuo Wencheng said with a pleading expression. "I was just saying you're incredibly handsome."
Tan Bei's phone was passed all the way to Xu Yue. Upon hearing this, Xu Yue turned the screen towards him and asked, "I also think you probably wouldn't like this kind of thing. What do you think?"
Chen Jingchi didn't even look at the phone screen, clearly uninterested: "I'm not interested."
Xu Yue handed his phone to Zhou Yu, who was closest to him, and joked, "Dating will only affect my creative speed."
Zhou Yu took the phone and returned it to Tan Bei. Zhuo Wencheng, upon hearing Xu Yue's words, suddenly had an idea and asked her, "Zhou Yu, have you ever been in a relationship?"
Love gossip is always a popular topic. Seeing that everyone at the table was looking at her, including Chen Jingchi, Zhou Yu said succinctly, "No."
Not to mention that before graduating from high school she was always well-behaved and obedient, and would never do anything that violated school rules, even now, romance is a very distant thing for her.
Zhou Yu doesn't believe she can build an intimate relationship with anyone else. She lacks self-confidence and can't open up to anyone or reveal her true self.
She doesn't believe anyone can accept her as she is, and even she herself often wants to change but is powerless to do so.
Zhan Li looked speechless: "She's a top student, she doesn't have time to date."
"Didn't there used to be news reports about boyfriends and girlfriends who agreed to take the entrance exams for Tsinghua and Peking University together?" Zhuo Wencheng retorted.
The two started arguing, and the focus of the conversation shifted from Zhou Yu, allowing her to return to her comfort zone.
The group ate and chatted until almost nine o'clock. As they cleared the table, Zhou Yu gradually became restless. They had been talking for so long without getting to the point she wanted to hear, and now that they had to leave, she was anxious.
But he couldn't show it, and Zhou Yu was afraid he would really miss the opportunity, so his mind raced as he hurriedly thought of a contingency plan.
After tidying up the dining table and coffee table, Xu Yue said, "That's about it, shall we go?"
"Let's go." Zhan Li pulled Tan Bei along. "Have you got your things?"
Seeing that Zhou Yu had glanced at him several times, intentionally or unintentionally, Chen Jingchi said, "You can keep the clothes."
Zhou Yu wasn't troubled by that. When she heard Tan Bei call her to come along, in a moment of desperation, she gritted her teeth and made a decision: "You all go down first, I have something to say to him."
Hearing this, the people at the door turned around, all with expressions of anticipation. Zhuo Wencheng smiled mischievously: "Is there anything we can't hear together?"
Xu Yue gave him a push: "Don't waste your curiosity on this. Hurry up and leave, don't block the doorway."
Tan Bei waved to her: "Then we'll wait for you downstairs!"
Zhou Yu nodded to her: "Okay."
The group entered the elevator, and Tan Bei looked at the three of them and asked, "What's going on? Did one of you let something slip?"
"That's a real injustice," Zhan Li said innocently. "Didn't she talk to you the most?"
Tan Bei fell into deep thought: "It seems so, but I didn't mention my birthday."
The four people looked at each other in bewilderment.
The door was closed by the last person who left. Zhou Yu turned around and saw Chen Jingchi looking at her leisurely, waiting for her to speak. Thinking she couldn't keep them waiting too long, she decided to get straight to the point and said directly, "Happy birthday."
I wanted to say this as soon as I saw him today. I've been holding back for so long, and I can finally say it.
She noticed that Chen Jingchi didn't show any surprise on his face, as if he had already anticipated her purpose in staying behind alone.
My suspicions were confirmed; today's gathering was indeed to celebrate his birthday. I just didn't know why there was no birthday cake, and no one else wished him a happy birthday.
Chen Jingchi recalled those few furtive glances at him earlier, wondering how much she had mentally prepared herself for saying those words. He smiled and said, "How did you know it was my birthday today?"
I saw it on Weibo.
I had already thought of the reason last night, and I answered fluently.
At midnight today, fans on Chen Jingchi's Weibo supertopic were changing their profile pictures and posting messages to wish him a happy 19th birthday.
Chen Jingchi had no doubts, and the smile on his lips grew even wider: "So why did you block me on Weibo?"
"..."
An unexpected question came up, one that wasn't within Zhou Yu's predicted questions. Her emergency response wasn't great, and she couldn't tell the truth, so she avoided eye contact and lowered her voice: "I accidentally pressed it."
In fact, blocking an account requires several clicks, so this "accident" explanation is simply not convincing at all.
Fearing that Chen Jingchi would question the authenticity of the gift, Zhou Yu quickly took out the birthday present she had prepared for him from her bag.
It was a black box, and Chen Jingchi's gaze fell on the few white letters printed on it:
BEATLES.
the Beatles.
Zhou Yu handed over the box and said softly, "This is a band I used to like listening to. I bought a few of their vinyl records. I don't know if you'll like them."
After slowly opening her tightly closed heart, Zhou Yu still retained the sensitivity and strong self-esteem stemming from that experience; she wouldn't do anything to embarrass herself. She knew he would accept the gift she gave him tonight.
Chen Jingchi's smile faded slightly. He reached out and took the cover, looking at the four people on it in silence for a moment.
Finally, she looked up at her and said, "Thank you, I like them too."
His tone was unusually solemn. It was the first time Zhou Yu had seen him look at her without any of the tense emotions such as inquiry or aloofness. Only sincerity remained, as if he had shed his adult disguise, let down his guard, and returned to the simplest and most sincere boy she remembered.
Zhou Yu smiled gently at him and picked up her bag again: "Then I'm leaving, they're still waiting for me."
Chen Jingchi watched her bend down to put on her shoes, open the door, and look back at him one last time before disappearing outside.
He opened the heavy box, inside which were five vinyl records stacked.
Abbey Road
Now and Then
"Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"
Revolver
Let It Be
He picked up the record at the bottom, looked at the song title, stood there for a long time, and didn't move.
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Author's note: There will be another chapter at 9 PM~
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