Thud!
A muffled sound.
Cheng Mengxue’s face smashed into the king crab shell. Her breathing turned into soft little snores, and she sank into sleep.
“...” “...”
Jiang Ran and Qin Feng both hesitated, wanting to speak but stopping short.
“She... got drunk?” Qin Feng asked cautiously.
“Obviously.”
“No wonder! I thought something felt off just now!”
Qin Feng let out a breath of relief.
“I’ve never seen Xiaoxue be that bold before! With that atmosphere, I thought she was about to confess to you! I didn’t even know where I should hide!”
“But her tolerance is way too...”
He looked at Cheng Mengxue’s red wine glass. It had only been filled one-third to begin with, and from the looks of it, she had drunk less than half of that.
For someone to black out after two sips of red wine, with its alcohol content so low, could only be called biodiversity.
“This was probably her first time drinking.”
Jiang Ran shook his head.
“At least in all these years, I’ve never seen her drink.”
“I didn’t know her tolerance was this bad either... The amount of alcohol she drank probably isn’t even as much as what’s in a liquor-filled chocolate.”
“Then has she ever eaten a liquor-filled chocolate?” Qin Feng asked curiously.
“...I don’t think so.”
...
Jiang Ran carried Cheng Mengxue into her own room and placed her on the bed.
Then he left, closed the door, and checked with several clicks to make sure it was locked and couldn’t be opened before returning to the observation deck.
The fireworks show had long since ended.
The DJ dance party on the deck had also dispersed in twos and threes.
Qin Feng was leaning over the railing of the observation deck, gazing into the distance, no one knew what he was thinking about.
Hearing footsteps,
he turned around and looked at Jiang Ran.
“If Xiaoxue could’ve held on for just two more seconds, maybe she would’ve said she liked you.”
“She wouldn’t have.” Jiang Ran shook his head.
“Why wouldn’t she?”
Qin Feng leaned back against the railing.
“You seem like you’ve always been avoiding this matter. Since it’s a private matter between you two, I’ve never asked.”
“But... we’re not in high school anymore. There’s nothing wrong with dating, right?”
Seeing Jiang Ran also walk over and lean silently against the railing, Qin Feng sighed.
“Could it be that the childhood-sweetheart curse really exists?”
“It really is a pretty strange pattern. In real life, the probability of childhood sweethearts ending up together is very, very low.”
“Is it because they know each other too well? Like family, relatives, a little sister—that sort of feeling?”
He turned around again, leaning on the railing together with Jiang Ran, looking at him in the sea breeze.
“It’s obvious. Xiaoxue really likes you. Especially after you jumped into the river to save someone this time... In her eyes, you’re an invincible hero under the heavens.”
“Maybe that incident had a huge impact on her. That’s why, with alcohol giving her courage, she said those true thoughts from deep inside.”
Jiang Ran remained silent.
“Hey, say something.”
Qin Feng nudged him with his elbow.
“I don’t know.”
Jiang Ran looked at the foam on the surface of the sea and said softly,
“I’m not a genius who can solve every problem... This problem, I don’t know the answer to it either.”
“...”
Qin Feng quietly looked at him.
In the end,
as if he had made up his mind,
“Jiang Ran, let me tell you a [secret].”
?
Jiang Ran raised his head.
“You still have something you’ve been hiding from me?”
“Xiaoxue wouldn’t let me say it.”
Qin Feng shrugged.
“But look, aren’t I still going to tell you now? It’s just a few days late.”
“Don’t worry, it’s nothing major. I know what matters and what doesn’t.”
Jiang Ran looked at him.
Then nodded.
“Go ahead.”
...
Qin Feng licked his lips, took a deep breath through his nose, and slowly exhaled.
“For you, this is something that happened on this world line. So after the spacetime shift and world-line jump, you have absolutely no memory of it, and we didn’t tell you either.”
“That day, after you grabbed Senior Xu Yan and flipped yourself over the bridge into the river... Cheng Mengxue was like she suddenly had a stress reaction. She screamed and shouted, and went crazy trying to jump into the river after you.”
“I’ve never seen her lose control like that. To put it bluntly, she really was like a mad dog... Senior Xu Yan and I had to force her down, pin her down, and even then we almost couldn’t hold her back.”
“She really went insane. The instant you jumped into the river, tears just burst out of her eyes. To break free from us, she nearly bit Senior Xu Yan’s arm until it bled. Of course, Xu Yan definitely wouldn’t let you see the wound on her arm.”
He habitually touched his left arm.
It seemed that although that bite had landed on Xu Yan, it had hurt Qin Feng’s heart at the same time.
After a pause,
he continued,
“It wasn’t until she saw from afar that you had gotten ashore that Xiaoxue returned to normal. Her face was truly pale, without a trace of color.”
“After that, we sent you to the hospital. Everything was chaotic the whole way, and there wasn’t any time to mention it.”
“But after we got back to school, Xiaoxue secretly came to me and Xu Yan and begged us not to tell you about it no matter what. Oh, I mean about how she lost control then—crying, screaming, biting people, and trying to jump into the river to save you.”
“I can understand how she felt too. In that situation, who wouldn’t panic? So don’t take it to heart. She didn’t mean to hide it from you either. She definitely just felt that she’d lost control too badly and embarrassed herself.”
Jiang Ran listened silently.
He thought back to after that spacetime shift, when he had woken up in the hospital. The first person he had seen was Cheng Mengxue.
At the time, she had just come back with takeout, smiling brightly. There had been no sign at all that she had ever been so frantic and out of control.
“She didn’t want us to tell you, probably because she was afraid you’d worry too.”
Qin Feng kept patching things up, defending Cheng Mengxue.
“But! What I’m trying to say is, from your perspective, maybe you don’t understand why Xiaoxue would say such bold things after drinking just now.”
“But I understand. It’s because the incident of you jumping into the river shook her too much. Maybe it was precisely because of that incident that she decided to face her feelings and prepare to tell you how she felt.”
“It’s just a pity her tolerance is way too low. If she’d lasted a few more seconds, maybe the matter between you two would’ve been settled.”
Heh.
Unexpectedly,
faced with such a moving story, Jiang Ran actually chuckled and shook his head.
“Qin Feng, you really are good at solving problems. But I’m sorry. You got this one wrong.”
“Do you even have a conscience?”
Qin Feng was very angry.
“I’m not saying you have to do anything, but with that kind of attitude, are you being fair to Xiaoxue?”
“Then do you know why Xiaoxue went so crazy and lost control when she saw me jump into the river?” Jiang Ran asked in return.
“Wasn’t it because she was worried about you?”
“Not entirely.”
Jiang Ran shook his head.
“She knows I’m a very good swimmer. We took swimming lessons together when we were kids. By middle school, I had already won city-level medals.”
As he spoke, he pointed at the four-meter diving platform by the pool.
“That diving platform you didn’t dare jump from—other than making a big splash, Xiaoxue could still enter the water perfectly. As for me, I even dared to jump down backward while lying flat. Is that something an ordinary person who can swim would dare to do?”
“Not to mention, I was wearing a buoyancy life jacket at the time. With that thing on, even if you threw me into the ocean, I wouldn’t drown. Even if I died, I’d still float on the surface... With my swimming ability, plus a buoyancy life jacket, do you think there was any need to worry?”
“Taking ten thousand steps back, of course there would be worry. You were definitely worried about me then too. But would you be so worried that you’d lose control to such an exaggerated extent?”
...
After this logical and well-founded barrage, Qin Feng was stunned too.
“The three of us have been together for so many years. There’s nothing we don’t say to each other, nothing we can’t talk about. Even something as bug-like as spacetime text messages, I never thought about hiding it from you guys.”
“But there are still some things—things between me and Xiaoxue—that you truly don’t know.”
Jiang Ran straightened up.
“You still told me about the thing Xiaoxue wouldn’t let you say. I’m very touched.”
“So, Qin Feng.”
He turned his head.
Looking into the other’s eyes,
“I’ll also tell you... a [secret].”