Chapter 76 Old Love Letters: His love was so insignificant.
This private album contains a total of 83 videos, sorted from newest to oldest. The top video was uploaded eight years ago on November 8th, his 19th birthday.
After clicking, a WeChat chat interface appeared. Chen Jingchi's profile picture was on the left, and he had sent two voice messages, each lasting a minute. A few seconds later, the voice messages started playing, and his voice singing "Run Away" came on.
Chen Jingchi clearly remembers that this happened after Zhou Yu gave him a vinyl record as a birthday gift. He asked her if she had ever heard him sing before, and she replied with "Run Away." So he pressed the call button and sent her two voice messages on WeChat, singing it to her right then and there.
He didn't think much of it at the time; he only did it to thank her for the gift. He never expected that Zhou Yu would upload the two voice recordings to her album, which shows how much she valued them.
I don't know if it was the song "Run Away" or his singing that moved her.
Chen Jingchi vaguely sensed that he had only seen the tip of the iceberg.
He exited before the video finished playing. Scrolling down, the second video spanned an even longer period, dating back to November 13th, nine years ago.
The screen displayed a very familiar image; it was the karaoke app's music playback interface.
At the time, this app that allowed users to sing on their phones was all the rage among students. Chen Jingchi registered an account when he was in junior high school. In order to check his pitch and breath control, he recorded many cover songs and posted them on the app. Back then, there was no good equipment; he used headphones and microphones, which had poor sound quality and leaked electricity.
Later, as the band was formed and their popularity gradually increased on campus, someone dug up his account, leading to a lot of people harassing him with messages. Chen Jingchi then set all his previous works to be visible only to himself. After graduating from high school, his career began to take off, and he no longer needed to record songs on his phone, so he never logged into the app again.
The work in the video in front of us, titled "Prisoner Wolf," was the last song Chen Jingchi released before uninstalling the software.
During the early part of his senior year of high school, the disbandment of his band, the loss of his opportunity to perform on CCTV, and his parents' divorce, which left him with no money to attend art exam training, felt like three heavy mountains crushing his strong will. In despair, he wrote "Prisoner Wolf," a song of protest against the injustice of fate.
Originally, Chen Jingchi wanted to use this song as his choice for the art exam, but his teacher said the style was too extreme and suggested he cover a popular song instead. With no use for the song, Chen Jingchi wanted to record it, so he simply composed an instrumental version and posted it on a karaoke app.
Because the lyrics were full of his recent misfortunes and were too negative, Chen Jingchi didn't want to make them public and hid them a few minutes after posting them.
He never expected to see this work again in Zhou Yu's photo album.
The only plausible explanation was that she saw and recorded "The Wolf in the City" as soon as it was released.
Some long-standing doubts seem to have been confirmed. When he and Xu Yue first saw "Invitation to the Night" in the email, they were shocked by how similar and interlocking the lyrics of the two songs were. They had suspected that Zhou Yu had imitated "Prisoner Wolf", but due to a lack of evidence, Chen Jingchi ultimately believed it was a coincidence.
It turns out that what he called a "coincidence" was indeed because Zhou Yu had heard the original version of "Prisoner Wolf".
Chen Jingchi felt a chill run down his spine, his heart a jumble of emotions, and his mind began to buzz. He didn't even dare to continue reading.
Every video that followed further deepened Chen Jingchi's shock. Zhou Yu recorded every single one of the covers he uploaded to KTV.
Not just during high school.
Even junior high school students are included.
Scroll to the very bottom of the album. The second to last video is a screen recording of the last song. It was the first cover of "Let It Be" that he released on KTV when he was 13 years old in the first semester of his second year of junior high school. The release date was September 19, and the screen recording date was September 25.
He stared intently at the video, forgetting even to breathe properly. His mind went blank, and his blood ran cold.
The last video was very blurry. It was already dark in the video, and there were a few passersby standing on the street. In the middle were two slightly immature faces. Xu Yue was playing the guitar seriously, and Chen Jingchi was standing in front of the microphone, singing Mayday's "Stubborn" line by line in a youthful but energetic voice.
Despite the song's upbeat rhythm and energetic lyrics, Chen Jingchi felt as if a heavy stone was pressing on his chest, making even breathing incredibly difficult.
He had always thought that Zhou Yu had known him since high school, but he never imagined it could be traced back to such an early period. If he remembered correctly, it was shortly after her father went to prison, when she transferred from Quanshan to Xianhai.
She had known him since she was 13 and had heard all his songs, but when she first met him in her freshman year of college, she acted as if they were complete strangers.
She hid it so well and so perfectly that he never noticed it during their two-year relationship.
Was he just too slow to realize it?
The sound of water in the bathroom stopped just then. Chen Jingchi was unable to recover from his extreme shock for a long time. He exited the photo album and returned to the computer desktop.
He was still unable to process the large amount of information he received in a short period of time; his mind was in chaos, and he even felt dizzy.
The person in the bathroom didn't come out, and soon the sound of a hairdryer started again.
Zhou Yu has long hair, and it takes her more than ten minutes to dry it each time. Chen Jingchi put the computer aside and picked up his phone from the side.
He noticed his fingers were trembling slightly, uncontrollably.
After redownloading the karaoke app, he logged into his QQ account.
In recent years, karaoke has made many changes to cater to the younger market, with more flashy graphics, so many pop-up ads that they can't be closed, and most of the listeners have left, with a large number of bots appearing.
After being automatically redirected to the shopping app two or three times, Chen Jingchi finally found the song's homepage. He scrolled down and found his earliest cover song.
Clicking on the details page, he could still see messages from his classmates from many years ago in the comments section. He couldn't quite remember many of their names, but among all the people with names, an English name caught his eye.
Egeria: [Feels good]
He even replied with: "Thank you."
"What did they call you?"
——"English name."
On the day I accompanied her to the infirmary for an IV drip, two girls called out "Egeria" to her.
Further back, Liang Shuchen had also used this English name for her.
Chen Jingchi's heart was racing. He clicked on the user's profile picture, which looked very familiar—a cluster of stars. It was Zhou Yu's WeChat and QQ profile picture.
No wonder he felt the name was familiar, but couldn't quite place where he had seen it before.
In that instant, countless images flooded in, crowding his thoughts.
He recalled the night their relationship broke down, when he refused to accept reality and stubbornly asked, "Why did you agree to be with me?"
He recalled the long phone call he received after the breakup, and in utter despair, he asked, "You really don't love me?"
He recalled sitting face-to-face with her yesterday, and he tentatively asked, "You really never liked me?"
...
So many times, she denied that she loved him.
He couldn't imagine how she would feel on her birthday night, hearing that arrogant joke from someone she cared about.
She knew his motives were impure, but she still accepted his advances without hesitation.
Those two years were clearly a dream she kindly shared with him, yet he confidently believed she would never leave.
He was just being clever for his own good.
At this moment, Chen Jingchi could no longer suppress the surging emotions and got up to walk quickly out of the bedroom.
He opened the bathroom door, turned off the hairdryer in Zhou Yu's hand and threw it aside, then hugged her tightly from behind.
He was incredibly strong, pinning her against the sink. Zhou Yu was startled, bracing herself against the countertop, and asked, bewildered, "What are you doing?"
My hair isn't even completely dry yet.
She subconsciously looked up and saw Chen Jingchi in the mirror, his brows furrowed and his eyes tightly closed. He leaned his head against her neck, breathing rapidly, his chest heaving noticeably.
“Zhou Yu…”
He opened his mouth and called her name, his voice hoarse and trembling almost imperceptibly.
Something's wrong with him.
Zhou couldn't understand why, and guessed, "I washed a pair of your pants and you're this touched?"
Before she could finish speaking, she was turned around and a passionate kiss landed on her. Chen Jingchi lost all reason and kissed her haphazardly, just like their first kiss. Their teeth clashed, their lips were cut, and a little blood was visible.
Zhou Yu gasped in pain and pushed him away with all her might: "What's wrong with you now?"
She froze the next second.
Chen Jingchi looked absent-minded, his eyes were red, and an unknown emotion was about to overflow from them.
She rarely saw him so out of control, and her heart pounded with panic. She opened her mouth to apologize, "I..."
“Zhou Yu,” he forced a bitter smile, “you should become an actor.”
She clearly loves him, yet she manages to show it in the slightest, deceiving him and everyone else.
She didn't understand what he was saying and looked confused: "What?"
His voice was strained, and his tone was so low it was almost inaudible: "Was the first birthday present you ever gave me the first song I ever sang?"
Zhou Yu's heart skipped a beat. She stared at him in disbelief, a sense of fear creeping into her heart.
Sure enough, he said the name of the song: "Let It Be".
Of the five vinyl records stacked together, "Let It Be" was at the very bottom. The four on top were just a pretext; what she truly wanted to give him was his musical aspirations from when he was 13.
Zhou Yu gripped the edge of the sink tightly, her knuckles turning white. The secret she had kept hidden for so many years had finally been discovered by him, and she was forced to face the scene that terrified her most.
She shifted her gaze slightly, passed through the bedroom door, and saw the laptop placed beside the bed. In the midst of the utter chaos, she suddenly realized something.
She logged into QQ on his computer yesterday, received a file, and then was busy preparing lessons, forgetting to log out of her account. Chen Jingchi must have seen her photo album.
It contains nearly a hundred videos about him, hiding her most secret girlish thoughts, the vibrant background that runs through her youth, and recording all her heartbeats and growth.
Zhou looked at him again and asked with difficulty, "How could you look at other people's privacy without permission?"
"How long are you going to keep this from me?" His voice was hoarse. "Is it so hard to admit that you like me?"
Her throat felt like it was being choked by an invisible hand, both stuffy and swollen. She lowered her head to hide her burning eyes.
He hugged her again. He regretted his question as soon as it left his mouth, realizing it was unreasonable. How could he have asked her such a question?
She heard him choke up slightly: "Zhou Yu, I'm sorry."
Zhou Yu's eyes welled up with tears. She tried to tilt her head back and, in the gaps between the lack of response, listened to him say those three words one after another, his voice trembling more and more each time.
A dull pain shot through her heart, and she stopped him, saying, "Stop talking."
She gripped the back of his shirt, placed her right hand on the back of his neck, and pressed her lips to his. Chen Jingchi responded, this time with much gentler touch, but after only a few kisses, she tasted a slightly salty flavor, and their lips became moist.
"Don't do this." Zhou Yu moved away, her voice trembling with tears. "Don't do this, Chen Jingchi, I can't take it."
He was such a proud person, how could she bear to see him cry?
Chen Jingchi lowered his head and buried it in her neck and shoulder, letting the neckline of her pajamas get soaked.
Compared to her, his love seemed so insignificant.
He is the one who finds it difficult to speak out.
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Author's Note: Thank you to Huayan-chan for the grenade and to Yvonne for the landmine! Thank you to all the babies for the nutrient solution!
Reader "", irrigate with nutrient solution +10
Reader "Yvonne :)" irrigated with nutrient solution +10
Reader "Aurora" irrigated with nutrient solution +10
Reader "Eat your fill before sleeping.", watered with nutrient solution +7
Reader "Lz" irrigated with nutrient solution +6
Reader "A", irrigate with nutrient solution +1
Reader "A", irrigate with nutrient solution +1
Reader "Lily" watered with nutrient solution +1
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