Chapter 49

Bai Wei took a sip of water. “What do you think?”

As soon as he said this, Bai Wei regretted it… He was worried that Lu Sen would give an extremely absurd answer, once again provoking his killing intent.

“I think it’s someone who really wants us to leave the school, and also has the ability to know about us,” Lu Sen’s answer was unexpected. “It’s not Ren Junyao. If he wanted to spread rumors, he would have done so back in the hospital when we embarrassed him. So, it must be someone we’ve met since coming to school.”

“Which means one of the Longxia or Longchun.”

Such a simple deduction. But Bai Wei stood there holding his cup, staring blankly at Lu Sen.

“What’s wrong?”

“You’re really smart,” Bai Wei said. He meant that just the fact that Lu Sen could speak sensibly was already clever.

Lu Sen froze for a moment. Then, he adjusted his shirt collar, looked around at the nearby crowd, and glanced at them in a way that seemed to say, “My status has changed now.”

… At that moment, Bai Wei looked at his foolish expression and really wanted to take back what he had just said.

“Longxia or Longchun?” Bai Wei asked again.

“It doesn’t matter. One swing of the stick, none of them are innocent… except maybe Longdong,” Lu Sen lowered his voice and said, “Darling, leave this matter to me.”

“What are you going to do?”

Lu Sen: “One swing of the stick.”

Bai Wei: …

“No physical attacks,” Bai Wei warned him. “Before I allow you to do that, you have to listen to me.”

Lu Sen: “Oh…”

Seeing Lu Sen’s dejected head, Bai Wei felt a strange sense of satisfaction, as if he had raised a vicious dog that obeyed his every command.

Although to raise this vicious dog, he had to sacrifice himself.

Just as Bai Wei was putting the lunchbox back to the washing area, a new problem arrived.

“Bai Wei, Lu Sen, I heard you went skydiving in Santiago,” a physics teacher greeted them kindly. “My nephew is going to Santiago next month. Do you have any recommended places to visit?”

“Oh right! How high did you jump from?” another person asked.

“Do you have any photos?”

Bai Wei gave Lu Sen a death glare, and Lu Sen scratched his head, starting to laugh awkwardly.

—-

“Holiday, leave, various schedules… What do you need all of these for?” Bai Wei asked, his expression darkening.

Lu Sen turned the computer screen towards Bai Wei.

“Darling, I’m editing photos. I want to create evidence of all the places we’ve visited together,” Lu Sen said. “Though we could go out now and take those photos, in our previous conversation, we said we’d done those things before. While I can do almost anything, I still can’t travel through time.”

Bai Wei: “……”

This is absurd!

“Was it not possible to start from when we were in Beidu?” Bai Wei said.

Lu Sen: “I even told our colleagues about the dating records from when we were in Beidu. And there were so many activities, not enough time. I’ve mentioned going to Alaska to see the aurora three times already.”

Bai Wei was completely speechless. He said: “But we didn’t even know each other back in Black Harbor City.”

Lu Sen: “We could have met at that time. For example, you picked me up on the street when I was lost. But we both used fake names back then…”

Bai Wei: “Why would we use fake names??” His eyes suddenly flashed, “Were you doing something dangerous, or involved in a risky job?”

Lu Sen: “Because I often skipped school in France and came back to see you. I didn’t want my parents to know that I secretly went abroad…”

Bai Wei: …

That’s a dumb excuse. But Bai Wei didn’t want to ask any more about Lu Sen’s past; who knows what even dumber reasons Lu Sen would come up with.

After all, he’s a French spy.

Lu Sen: “Besides, this means we can celebrate our golden wedding two years early. Darling, don’t you think that’s amazing?”

Bai Wei couldn’t hold back anymore and threw the book at his face: “A golden wedding starts from the day of the wedding!”

He suddenly realized that since they eloped, they never had a wedding.

“Since we never had a wedding, we can start counting from the day we first met,” Lu Sen said earnestly.

Bai Wei: …

Evening should have been a good time to read. But tonight, Bai Wei had to sit here with Lu Sen, helping him fabricate lies, creating fake evidence that they had once loved each other and traveled the world.

How could there be such ridiculous things in this world?

“So, you graduated in May 2025…”

“Yes.”

“And in June 2025, you started working. In the half month before that, you went back to your hometown, and no one could prove where you went at that time.”

“Yes.”

“Do you have graduation photos?”

“They’re in the album.”

Lu Sen flipped through the thick album. In the photos, Bai Wei was wearing a black dress, his face cold and distant, looking even more unapproachable than ever.

His fingers caressed Bai Wei’s sharp chin.

“Do you see it?” Bai Wei was initially a bit impatient, but when he saw Lu Sen touch his face in the photo, he felt a chill down his spine.

Lu Sen’s action looked more terrifying than that of a perverted maniac.

“Darling, you looked so young back then,” Lu Sen said.

… Even creepier!

Bai Wei’s face grew a bit sour. He folded his legs and moved a bit to the side. Lu Sen, however, acted as if he didn’t notice, continuing to flip through the album.

“Why are there only these few photos? No group photos with anyone else?”

“I don’t like taking group photos,” Bai Wei said coldly.

Lu Sen felt a subtle sense of joy and relief. Thankfully, he wasn’t human.

“End of June 2025, we arrived in Black Harbor City. It was a sunny summer day, and it also happened to be Lu Sen’s summer vacation… This is when we met, right? What do you think?” Lu Sen said. “This way, we can align it with the first cruise trip we’ve talked about with others.”

“Fine,” Bai Wei said.

“We met on the cruise, but we didn’t see each other at first. Until the cruise reached a port, we went to the beach to play, and I got stuck on the beach due to dehydration…”

Bai Wei: “How could you get stuck on the beach due to dehydration??”

Lu Sen: “I was diving in the sea and played for too long…”

“Any normal person would realize your story is made up.” Bai Wei rejected.

“Then after the cruise trip, I went surfing in the sea, fell in, and was pushed onto the beach by the waves, stuck there due to dehydration…”

What is this, a fantasy journey? Why must you always be dehydrated and stranded? Bai Wei was speechless. “Forget it, let’s go with the first one.”

Whatever, it’s Lu Sen’s face he’s losing.

“Alright. You rescued me, gave me water, took care of me, and that’s when we started our first relationship,” Lu Sen said. “I told you my name was Vincent, and you only said your last name was Bai.”

—–

Bai Wei sat in the chair, watching him fabricate the story.

“Was this photo taken when you first arrived in Black Harbor City?” Lu Sen said.

In the photo, Bai Wei was wearing a light blue striped shirt, with a work badge, standing in front of the Black Harbor City TV station building, his demeanor still cold.

“It was taken by a colleague when I first joined.”

“Why did you decide to work in Black Harbor City?” Lu Sen asked.

Because my grandfather wanted me to. Bai Wei thought.

“My grandfather wanted me to work at a TV station in Beidu, professional, stable, and prestigious. He arranged connections for me, but after my first month on the job, I applied to be transferred to Black Harbor City,” Bai Wei said. “I gave the reason that Black Harbor City was full of crises and had great news value. People at the station all knew that if you worked in Black Harbor City for three years, you could accumulate enough merit to rise up when you returned.”

“What’s the real reason?” Lu Sen pressed.

“The real reason…” Bai Wei stared at the wall. “When I was young, my mother and I lived in Black Harbor City for a few years.”

Lu Sen said he was asking these questions to fabricate their past for the lies he had made up with their colleagues.

But suddenly, Bai Wei had a feeling: Lu Sen’s real purpose was to learn more about his past, and somehow find a way to fill the gaps in it.

“Why did you live in Black Harbor City?”

Bai Wei suddenly became angry. He felt like his private space was being violated.

“What does that have to do with you?” he questioned. “Next question.”

“Alright, I just wanted to get to know you better…”

“Next!”

“Alright.” Lu Sen scratched his nose. “How did you spend that year and a half in Black Harbor City? Did you have weekends off? Where did you go on your annual leave?”

This was another topic that caused Bai Wei some pain. He didn’t have many friends in Black Harbor City, nor did he have the intention to make any.

On most weekends, he would often go to the library or art gallery, occasionally wandering the streets, observing this city that had become unfamiliar to him, a city where he once lived as a child.

It had become dirty and chaotic. The streets were filled with gangs and thugs, and an ineffective city government had ruined it. The presence of large corporations had made it financially active, full of misleading opportunities, and the gap between the rich and the poor was huge. Bai Wei saw many people committing crimes here; they were like leeches, clinging to the city, draining its life.

It was so different from the city he remembered.

Or perhaps, in Bai Wei’s memory, this city hadn’t left him with many lasting impressions. Back then, he lived with his mother, and most of the time they simply stayed at home. He remembered the wind chimes in the room, the yellowed wallpaper, the small street downstairs, and the harbor his mother had taken him to. He knew nothing about the rest of the city.

He only remembered cleanliness, warmth, and coziness.

Maybe, from the very beginning, he hadn’t wanted to return to the city itself, but rather to the room in that city from his memories. Maybe Black Harbor City had always been dirty and chaotic, and all his memories of cleanliness and order came from the room that had once held his mother.

Even though, that room no longer had anyone in it.

It was a strong feeling of… loneliness, knowing that he could never go back to the past.

This was Bai Wei’s first time confronting his memories directly. Before this, he had never spoken to anyone about these things, so naturally, he had kept all the memories buried in his heart. He told Lu Sen, “I spent most of my weekends alone. You can make up whatever you want and stuff it into each weekend. I never took any annual leave or used vacation time in Black Harbor City…”

“Wait…”

“Is there anything else you want to know?”

“Wait.” Lu Sen wiped the corner of his eye with his finger.

“You… you’re crying.”