TFS | Chapter 24

At once, it was as if a bucket of ice water had been dumped over his head.

Qi Yue’s face went white in an instant. He could feel Xu Linruan easily pry her hand free from his, her gaze calm as she took a step back.

On reflex, he tightened his grip around her fingers again, his lips pressed hard together. In a low voice, he said, “I don’t believe you. You’re lying to me. If you don’t like me, then why were you so good to me? Why did you say such nice things to comfort me? Why did you kiss my eyes when I was upset, and smile at me so gently?”

Xu Linruan glanced at him. For a moment, she actually regretted provoking this guy. She had no idea when he’d become so stubborn, like sticky taffy that just wouldn’t let go, annoying to the extreme. “I was just playing with you.”

“Then why aren’t you playing now?” The boy’s voice suddenly rose. His reddened eyes looked at her, wet with tears, a hard-to-name emotion flashing across his face.

He just thought that if they were going to play, why couldn’t they keep going a little longer?

“If you want to play, wouldn’t it be better to have me with you? Don’t look for anyone else, just me, okay? As long as you’re willing to be with me, you can play however you want.” He felt like he was going crazy, saying something so submissive.

But when he thought about her standing shoulder to shoulder with other boys, when he thought about her smiling at someone else, and in the future having to watch her kiss another boy… just imagining that scene made him feel like he was suffocating.

So…

“Can we not break up? It’s okay if you don’t like the current me. I’ll work hard to become better. I won’t smoke, I won’t fight, and I won’t hang around bars anymore. Whatever kind of boy you like, I’ll try my best to become that kind of person… so, can we not break up?”

He was ripping at his own wound to expose the most sincere feelings he had, hoping only that she would give him a chance, a chance to make up for his mistake.

At this moment, the boy was already in a state where she could twist him into any shape she wanted.

Xu Linruan lifted her eyes slightly.

To be honest, a boy like this really was hard to refuse.

The scattered lights from the roadside fell across that slightly bruised face. The boy’s features were undeniably handsome, and he unconsciously tightened his hand, fine beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead as he waited nervously and hopefully for her answer.

In both attitude and feeling, the young master was undoubtedly serious. There was a kind of stubbornness in his eyes that people couldn’t quite understand, and with that pitiful expression on his face, he did look a little miserable.

Xu Linruan only felt that something was off. Had this guy been played so much by her that he’d gone stupid? Where was that domineering, willful little wolfdog he was supposed to be? What was with all this sticky, clingy nonsense?

How was she supposed to be ruthless now?

Xu Linruan looked at him lazily. She couldn’t deny that she had been a little moved, but only for an instant.

After all, once the old one was gone, how was the new one supposed to come along?

She wasn’t the softhearted type. She liked tormenting ex-boyfriends who came crawling back after their wild days were over the most.

She just didn’t quite understand where this guy’s stubbornness was coming from. But if they kept dragging this out, things would only get more troublesome.

She slowly loosened their joined hands. In her dark, glistening eyes, his current disheveled state was reflected clearly. Then she heard her own voice say, “Qi Yue, this isn’t about whether something is good or bad. It’s that I simply don’t like you, understand?”

She reached out and brushed his cheek, her pale fingers gently pushing aside the stray hair falling over his forehead. Her tone was as soft as ever. “So stop clinging to me, okay?”

Wouldn’t it be better to leave yourself some dignity?

The boy’s body stiffened, and his eyes instantly turned red.

He reflexively rubbed at his eyes with his fingers, but accidentally brushed the wound. It hurt.

It hurt so much that he almost wanted to cry.

For a split second, Xu Linruan even saw tears about to spill out of his eyes, but the boy turned his face away quickly. She couldn’t make out his expression, only heard his hoarse voice at her ear.

“If… if you hadn’t heard that recording back then, if you hadn’t known about the bet…”

“Would you still have broken up with me?”

The boy stood against the light, his black hair falling over his eyes so she couldn’t clearly see his face, but the bitterness and sadness in his voice were unmistakable.

Xu Linruan lifted her eyes slightly. Her crimson lips moved before she uttered something difficult to accept.

“Even though it’s a little harsh to say this, I still have to tell you, yes, I would.”

So…

This had been a trap from the very beginning. She had been playing with him all along, never liked him at all. Only he had stupidly walked into the snare and trapped himself inside it.

She must think he was ridiculous.

The boy pulled at the corner of his mouth, forcing back the sourness in his heart. “Heh, I understand.”

“Then that’s it for today.”

Xu Linruan easily brushed his hand aside and turned to leave.

Qi Yue could only stand there and watch her walk away, her slim figure gradually disappearing at the street corner, that utterly unconcerned posture never glancing back even once.

He clenched his hand hard, his nails digging into his palm, and stared at the back that was about to vanish. In the end, he still couldn’t help shouting after her, “Xu Linruan… don’t you ever regret this, because I won’t forgive you. No matter how you beg me in the future, I won’t pay attention to you again. Did you hear me?”

No matter how you looked at it, he seemed like a loser making his final struggle.

Xu Linruan’s steps only paused slightly before she continued walking.

The boy behind her shouted again, his voice even hoarser now, with a heavy nasal tone.

“…Did you hear me? I’ll find a girlfriend who’s prettier than you, then forget you, and never like you again. Xu Linruan, don’t you regret it. Once you leave, don’t come back.” Even though they were clearly threats, there was a trace of helplessness in them.

The scene made her feel like she was a total scumbag, the kind who grew tired of the old and loved the new, a heartless bastard who abandoned his wife and children. But in someone’s eyes, that was probably exactly what she was.

The girl’s back slowly disappeared around the corner…

Qi Yue was even more despairing now. He leaned against the tree trunk behind him and slowly slid to the ground, his clothes in disarray and his face pale, like a drowning man who had lost his last straw. The feeling in his chest was impossible to describe, suffocating and miserable.

Even the last scraps of his pride had been trampled to pieces by her. At his age, this was the first time he understood what it felt like for one’s heart to turn to ash.

…………

After that breakup finally came to an end, Qi Yue waited a full three days before returning to school.

The young master who came back again was no different from before. He had returned to the same arrogant, willful school tyrant he used to be.

However, lately the young master’s aversion to school had been especially high. He didn’t come to class much, and even when he did show up at school, it was only as a formality.

The teachers couldn’t do anything about him and simply stopped trying. As long as he didn’t cause trouble, didn’t make a scene, and didn’t interfere with other students’ studies, that was enough. After all, his father had donated quite a bit of money to the school. They still had to show some respect.

As soon as the bell rang, Qi Yue slipped out the back door again.

When he got to the leisure club he often went to, he had just pushed open the door when several familiar friends gathered around to greet him. “Qi-ge, you’re here!”

Qi Yue answered perfunctorily with a few lazy words. Too bothered to deal with them, he went straight in, flopped onto the sofa, and put on his headphones, looking like he wanted no one near him.

The others tacitly avoided bothering him. After all, this brother had just been dumped. If they hit a sore spot and made him angry, that would be troublesome. So the few of them whispered across the table board about the new group of pretty junior girls across from them.

Recently there hadn’t been many people at the club, and since Xu Zhou had something to do in the afternoon and didn’t come, it gave a few especially eager lackeys a chance to curry favor.

The yellow-haired guy sitting beside him nudged Qi Yue’s arm and waggled his eyebrows with an increasingly sleazy grin. “Boss, there’s a pretty girl across the way who wants your number. You giving it or not?”

Qi Yue lazily lifted his eyelids, not the least bit interested. “Hm? Which one?”

The yellow-haired guy pointed to the right. A few unfamiliar girls were sitting on the sofa.

One of them, a pure-looking girl in a green dress, stood out the most. She looked a little like a popular sweet-faced actress on TV lately.

The girl probably noticed Qi Yue’s scrutinizing gaze. A little shy, she pretended not to care and chatted with the friends beside her, glancing this way from time to time.

The yellow-haired guy grinned lewdly and asked in a low voice, “Boss, what do you think of her?”

“Mm, not much.”

Qi Yue withdrew his gaze carelessly and leaned back on the sofa to clean out his phone. He had a locked album in his phone, and inside it were quite a few candid photos of Xu Linruan. Since they had already broken up, there was no need to keep those photos anymore.

He planned to delete them all one by one.

The yellow-haired guy beside him scratched his head with some difficulty, looking torn. “No way, bro, you don’t even like a pretty girl like that?”

He felt that Boss’s standards were way too high, on a completely different level from ordinary people like them. If a pretty girl like that asked him for his number, he would definitely hand it over with both hands without saying a word.

Seeing that Qi Yue wasn’t interested, the yellow-haired guy leaned over again and asked, “Then what kind do you like, Boss? Should I keep an eye out for you?”

What kind did he like?

Qi Yue looked at his phone. He had just deleted the last photo, and in it the girl was resting one hand against her head while working through a problem, her long black hair wrapped around her shoulders. The scene was beautiful. He had secretly taken it when she wasn’t paying attention…

Seeing him space out, the yellow-haired guy couldn’t help calling, “Boss?”

Qi Yue gave a low “Mm,” turned off the screen, then answered lazily, “…Tall legs, a slim waist, and a very gentle voice. The kind who knows how to coax people. She should be very pretty when she smiles, and when she looks at people, she should unconsciously raise her brows, with a really flirtatious feel. Most importantly, her lips should be softer, because that would be very suitable for kissing…”

The more the yellow-haired guy listened, the more wrong it felt. After hesitating for a long time, he tactfully offered his opinion. “Boss, do you mean you like a… uh, more mature older sister type?”

What he really wanted to say was… Xu Linruan, of course. The description was just too damn accurate. It would have been hard not to know who he was talking about. Wasn’t that basically their school belle, Xu Linruan?

Not only was she pretty, she was stunning, the kind of campus goddess you wanted to chase but didn’t dare. And her grades were good too, completely on a different world from a bunch of slackers like them.

Most importantly, hadn’t Boss just broken up with her?

If that was the case, where was he supposed to find another school belle for Boss? She wasn’t a cabbage, after all. You couldn’t mass-produce someone like that.

The yellow-haired guy rubbed his forehead. After listening for quite a while, he finally asked with some difficulty, “Uh… Boss, so you actually like this kind?”

The boy glanced at him, lazily poured himself a glass of wine, and then said offhandedly, “When did I ever say I liked her? You heard wrong. Everything I just said was the type I hate most.”

The lackey: “…”

The yellow-haired guy beside him let out several awkward “uh-uh” sounds, thinking, Boss, can’t you just be honest? You remember all of her traits so clearly even though you hate her, isn’t that just slapping your own face?

But he didn’t dare say that. He only asked tactfully, “Alright then… so what kind do you actually like, bro?”

“…The opposite of what I just said.” Qi Yue was silent for a moment, took a sip of wine, then curled his lips. “The bigger the difference, the better.”