Inside and out, she was completely different from the once silly, carefree, happy version of herself.

Even Little Mahua had been downhearted for several days because of this.

She didn’t dare mention Big Beauty in front of Yan Luqing, nor did she dare to ask whether Big Beauty had really left—after all, they weren’t familiar enough for that.

She could only each night, before bed in the dormitory, check the CP gossip threads, call her boyfriend, and barely keep up with life that way.

This morning, when she woke up, the first thought in her head was that Big Beauty had moved out yesterday. She wondered just how sad Yan Luqing would be today.

Yet when she arrived in the classroom, she found Yan Luqing completely changed from her previous depressed state. The corners of her eyes and brows were once again filled with their usual liveliness. Even though she was just sitting there looking at her phone, the whole person was clearly different from the past few days.

Little Mahua was delighted in her heart. Running up to Yan Luqing, she cautiously probed: “Baby, what’s making you so happy?”

“Ah? Am I very happy?” Yan Luqing froze, touched her own face, and asked doubtfully, “Where do I look happy?”

“It’s just…” Little Mahua couldn’t explain it, “Even though you’re not smiling, you can see it at a glance anyway.”

“……”

Yan Luqing hadn’t spoken yet when Little Mahua carefully tried probing again: “Could it be Big Beauty…”

“Mm, he didn’t leave.” Yan Luqing said. Then, after a pause, corrected herself: “Not that he didn’t leave—more accurately, he never planned to leave at all. It’s just that a bunch of coincidences piled up together and made me misunderstand.”

“!!!” Little Mahua slapped the desk: “Great!”

She knew it—Big Beauty wouldn’t leave! Her CP was still real!!!

……

Yan Luqing herself hadn’t felt that she was much different from before.

After all, in the villa and in the car, she and Gu Ci had even fewer conversations than before. Their way of getting along was about the same as always—they had even had a little quarrel in the morning.

But after Little Mahua said that, she also became a little aware of it.

The classes that used to annoy her the moment she saw a PPT—she now found she could actually take in a bit;

During class, even if she didn’t understand the overall theory, when she understood the joke the professor cracked, she could actually laugh along for quite a while.

Only then did Yan Luqing belatedly feel a sense of puzzlement—

About Gu Ci not leaving.

She was actually… this happy?

On Friday, Yan Luqing and Gu Ci’s last class of the day were nearly an hour apart, so usually by the time she got home, Gu Ci would already be in the living room, petting the border collie while watching television.

That afternoon, when she returned home and stepped inside, she habitually looked toward the sofa.

There was only the wolf that had just come back from a walk, and Big Black, panting heavily after being dragged along by the border collie. No one was sitting on the sofa.

Yan Luqing looked at Big Black: “When did Gu Ci leave?”

Big Black calculated the time and panted heavily as he answered: “Half an hour before you came back, Mr. Kang picked him up.”

Yan Luqing nodded: “Oh… got it.”

As she spoke, she walked over, tossed her bag onto the single sofa, and sat herself down on the long sofa she usually occupied. The border collie came over, rubbing its head against her hand.

Yan Luqing stroked its warm fur, her mind wandering.

In these kinds of moments, when one suddenly realizes something, it seems especially easy to give rise to deeper emotions.

Yan Luqing had first experienced this feeling when she was just over ten years old.

That was the first time she had gone to play at the home of the dean and his wife. The moment she entered, she saw on the wall opposite the door a family portrait of three—between the dean and his wife stood a little boy about the same age as herself.

Those two were the people whom, at the time, she felt she loved the most, and who loved her the most in return.

But in that instant, shallow-eyed and still a little child, what she felt was only one thing—no matter how close they were, they really were not her family. They had their own child; they were each other’s true family.

She had no family.

Like a sudden jolt of realization, Yan Luqing felt unbearably upset, but she told no one. She forcibly held it in, and only when she was alone did she burst into tears.

Looking back as an adult, Yan Luqing felt it was both bittersweet and childish, but she still understood her feelings at that time.

And now, it seemed rather similar to that feeling.

This whole day, Yan Luqing had been especially happy.

At noon she had played games with Little Mahua, she had listened attentively in class, and when the physics professor told a cold joke about physics, she laughed for half the class, remembering it clearly. On the car ride she was even thinking that once she got home she would tell it to Gu Ci, to see what his reaction would be.

Until just now, when she saw that no one was on the sofa, and remembered that he was no longer in this villa.

That feeling, as if something in her heart was missing, hollowed out for a moment—Yan Luqing was experiencing it for the first time.

She thought again.

If yesterday Gu Ci had followed the original plot and “escaped” with his uncle, then in every day afterward, would she always feel like this?

…Would she miss him?

Yan Luqing recalled yesterday, when Gu Ci responded to her half-joking words, “Congratulations, you’re free now,” and when he smiled and said, he didn’t want freedom.

At that time, she had indeed been more shocked.

But afterward, she should have been very happy.

The day before yesterday, Yan Luqing had been taken out by him to watch a movie, and she felt that she was thinking of this person more and more frequently—it was beginning to overly affect her life.

Yet still she had not taken any actual measures.

That night, when she learned from Makka Pakka that there would indeed be punishment for him not leaving—although the punishment was still unknown at present—she still did nothing.

For example, the most straightforward approach would have been to find some excuse to drive him away, but she never once thought in that direction.

When Yan Luqing was little, she had once read a story.

The story said that in love, every person’s heart is very fragile, so people build many high walls around their hearts to protect them. The less secure one feels, the higher and more numerous the walls.

At that time, she didn’t understand the meaning of the word “love” at all, but after reading it, because the metaphor was so novel, she remembered it.

After she grew up, she understood. But she felt that she was somewhat similar to the story, yet not completely so—the story spoke of building walls, whereas she was not merely building walls, but building houses.

She built many houses, layering them around the very center, like a fortress city, not allowing anyone inside, shutting out every possibility.

Yet she never thought that at the age of eighteen, she would encounter such an adventure.

To meet such a person.

From the very first moment she had read about him in the book, she had liked this character, all the way until she saw him with her own eyes, discovering many small details that had never been described in the book…

How could such a person exist.

It seemed that every moment he was alive, he was someone captivating.

She was like a fortress city, but Gu Ci seemed never to have been outside the gates from the very beginning.

He had already walked inside long ago.

At the time she paid no attention, casually finding all kinds of reasons to comfort herself—“Princess Ci is just a paper figure, how could a paper figure fall into this category? Impossible.” So whenever anyone asked her, she refused, she denied—not only denying others, but saying it to herself.

And now, he was already about to reach the very core of the city.

The many little houses she had always built seemed about to be completely conquered; some princess had already been living inside comfortably for quite some time now—not only redecorating and remodeling, but probably also planting bamboo and raising pandas, enjoying himself thoroughly.

……

Yan Luqing lowered her gaze, unused to such a quiet environment.

She wanted to find the remote control to turn on the television first before continuing, but her eyes unintentionally swept across two blocks of abrupt color on the tabletop.

They were two square, beige sticky notes.

Yan Luqing remembered those sticky notes—at the time when Gu Ci was tutoring her, this kind of sticky note had covered her exercise books and textbooks.

She fixed her gaze on the one to the left, the one placed right beside the remote control.

Slender and sharp handwriting, slightly careless—after so many tutoring sessions, Yan Luqing recognized at a glance that it was Gu Ci’s script.

The channel you like to watch:

Variety 34, Saturday at eight; Melodramatic Drama 52, every night at eight; Skit Channel 13, broadcast all day.

Family head, don’t flip through the channels one by one, save the remote some battery.

And then, the one on the right—

When I’m not here, no alcohol.

“……”

So there really was someone who would observe you with such meticulous care.

So even just two sheets of paper, so small and thin, could let you taste what it finally felt like to have a home.

So, how could she not like him?

Yan Luqing stared at those two tiny pieces of paper, again and again, without blinking, looking at them many times over, when suddenly, a rush of sourness surged sharply into her nose, her vision blurring.

…What was this.

Wasn’t he the one who said it was only thirty hours?

If he said it was so little time, then why still do all this?

Sensing footsteps nearby, Yan Luqing quickly raised her hand to wipe her eyes. Fortunately, not many tears had fallen, so there were no traces left to see.

She turned her head—it was Little Black. He had probably just returned from the back garden, a dead leaf stuck to him, standing out starkly against his black suit.

When their eyes met, his own lit up. He hurriedly walked to her side, asking with excitement in his tone: “Miss Yan, did you see Gu Ci’s message? Stuck on the table.”

“I saw it.” Yan Luqing’s voice carried no nasal tone, as if nothing had happened, and she casually asked in return, “When did he write it?”

Little Black replied: “Before he left this afternoon.”

When Gu Ci wrote them, he had not kept people from seeing, so Little Black had read them over several times, until he felt embarrassed, and had just been waiting for Miss Yan to return so he could tell her quickly.

Hearing this, Yan Luqing nodded.

Yes, after all, in the morning the two of them had set out together, so he certainly hadn’t had time then to write them.

Yan Luqing looked again at the two notes, reached out her hand to gently lift one, wanting to tear it off and keep it for herself.

But unexpectedly, what should have been easy to peel away seemed as if it had grown into the tabletop itself. With that tug, it wouldn’t come off.

Yan Luqing used a bit more strength, yet the sticky note still did not budge an inch.

“???”

She turned back, puzzled: “What’s wrong with this sticky note? Why won’t it come off?”

“Ah…” Little Black scratched his head. Facing such direct dog food, he still felt a little embarrassed, and shyly explained: “When you weren’t back yet, it was already starting to fall off a little, and I was afraid it would drop to the ground before you returned, so I glued it down with 502.”

Yan Luqing: “…………”

You really are mama’s good son!!!

Using superglue 502 to stick down a piece of paper—of course it would never come off.

In the end, Yan Luqing only dismissed Little Black, and then secretly used her phone to take a picture.

At dinner, in the dining room, there was only her alone, and only one set of tableware on the table.

She ate while scrolling through short videos, but in her mind, Gu Ci’s face kept appearing, those two sticky notes kept appearing. The more she scrolled, the more she wanted to switch back to her photo album to look at those two little yellow papers.

…Truly hopeless.

A strange impulse took hold of her.

Yan Luqing opened Gu Ci’s WeChat, calculated how long it had been since he left the villa, and then sent him a message.

【Runaway Saintess】: It’s been three hours.

——I’ve started to miss you.

____

TL: FINALLY! WHY IS SHE SUCH A BLOCKHEAD WHEN IT COMES TO FEELINGS? IT WAS SERIOUSLY STARTING TO PISS ME OFF