Seeing Yang Yue’s concerned expression, Jing Tian suddenly realized that his own expression might not be quite right.

He placed the closed notebook on the inner side of the bed, pressing it down with a pillow, then got out of bed and went downstairs.

“It’s nothing,” he kept his head down as he spoke, “I’ll go take a shower first.”

Before entering the bathroom, he glanced back and saw Yang Yue still looking at him suspiciously, with a worried expression.

He forced a smile at Yang Yue. “Really, it’s nothing. I’ll tell you when I come out after showering.”

Yang Yue didn’t say anything, just looked up at the position of the pillow on his bed.

Jing Tian felt awkward. “Don’t look at it!”

“Am I that kind of person?” Yang Yue sighed helplessly. “Alright, hurry up and shower.”

Jing Tian took a long time in the shower. With his eyes closed under the shower head, the words he had seen in the notebook naturally floated into his mind.

The latter part of the notebook contained many surprising contents.

He finally understood the meaning behind the tattoo on his back and why Zheng Xunqian had that design.

As someone without talent in drawing, he tried to sketch the pattern from the notebook. The result looked childish and ridiculous, barely recognizable, but there was a sense of seriousness in his strokes.

Underneath the pattern, he wrote, “This design is really great, symbolizing breaking out of the cocoon and soaring. It suits the new me very well. I’m considering getting it inked on my skin, just don’t know where.”

He added at the end, “He would probably like it too.”

Without guessing, he knew who “he” referred to.

Seeing these, Jing Tian felt extremely embarrassed, even feeling a bit helpless towards his past self, and almost wanted to laugh.

In the following pages, he recorded his feelings when he kissed Zheng Xunqian in the study room that day.

Confusion, anxiety, strong regret afterward, but also a sense of gain.

“Anyway, it won’t lead to anything. What’s wrong with taking advantage a bit?” After writing this sentence, leaving only two blank lines, he wrote again, “Why am I so shameless?”

Later on, he avoided Zheng Xunqian for a long time because he couldn’t face him.

Until Zheng Xunqian took the initiative to talk to him and said, “It seems like I haven’t seen you in a long time.”

Deciding to give up required countless nights of psychological struggle and endless hesitation, but rekindling hope only needed a moment.

The words he left that day should be the happiest part of the entire diary.

“Is he a bit concerned about me?”

This line was written a bit messily, slanting and drifting.

“Are you alright?” Yang Yue knocked on the door from outside. “Still not done?”

He spent much longer in the bathroom than usual, worrying Yang Yue.

Jing Tian quickly turned off the faucet and shook his head. “I’ll be done soon!”

When he stepped out of the bathroom, Yang Yue was already sitting on the bed, looking down at him with concern.

“You didn’t have another argument with Zheng Xunqian, did you?” Yang Yue asked. “Weren’t you just fine, all lovey-dovey moments ago?”

“No argument,” Jing Tian climbed onto his bed, facing Yang Yue, but feeling embarrassed to meet his gaze. “I… I just saw some things I wrote before.”

“A diary?” Yang Yue was surprised. “Is that your diary? You still keep a diary?”

Jing Tian’s face blushed slightly. He had been a quiet and reserved person for over a decade, never having the habit of keeping a diary. Suddenly having such an interest undoubtedly stemmed from being unable to confide in anyone about his love affairs, feeling extremely stifled and needing an outlet.

“Not really…” he defended himself, “just some random stuff, nothing as serious as a diary.”

“It must all be related to Zheng Xunqian, right?” Yang Yue mercilessly exposed him. “You didn’t even tell me!”

Jing Tian awkwardly scratched his chin. “…I’m telling you now, aren’t I?”

“What did you write that’s making you so conflicted?” Yang Yue pressed on.

“Some… strange things,” Jing Tian said. “I used to have some… one-sided feelings for him, that’s all.”

“Oh, I see, you had a crush on him?” Yang Yue cleverly guessed, making Jing Tian feel even more embarrassed.

“Ahem,” Jing Tian coughed. “But, he was quite cold towards me at first… He never really wanted to talk to me, and even seemed… disgusted.”

“That’s normal. Didn’t I tell you? He’s like that with everyone,” Yang Yue said. “Is that why you’re upset? You don’t need to take it to heart. He’s treating you well now, isn’t that enough?”

“It’s not because of that,” Jing Tian shook his head, “He’s just… really strange. He ignored me all the time, and just when I felt disheartened and decided to give up, he would suddenly start talking to me…”

Yang Yue tilted his head for a moment, then slapped the bed forcefully. “I get it now! They say men fear getting stuck with a clingy woman, but it seems like it goes both ways. He must have been used to you always seeking him out. When he suddenly sensed you backing off, he started feeling uneasy! And then you two got together?”

“No,” Jing Tian frowned, looking troubled, “I thought there was hope, so… I took a bit of initiative.”

Yang Yue scooted closer, his face full of curiosity. “And then what happened?”

Jing Tian’s face turned red. “Then he started being cold to me again…”

“Um…” Yang Yue frowned, “Why does it sound like Zheng Xunqian is a bit… playing games?”

“I was not in a good mood during that time, right?” Jing Tian asked. “It was probably a couple of months before the amnesia.”

Yang Yue recalled for a moment, suddenly enlightened. “Indeed, your emotions were very unstable during that period. You often cursed at him, and quite harshly too. Listening to you, it’s like you were a goddess and a spare tire, as if you were being strung along by him.”

Jing Tian couldn’t deny it, sighing with a pained expression.

“So, how did you two end up together?” Yang Yue asked.

“I don’t know,” Jing Tian said, “I’m starting to doubt now, it seems like something was off between us in the past…”

Yang Yue looked at him puzzled.

Jing Tian sighed heavily, lay down, and took out the notebook from under the pillow.

Most of the emotions he recorded on it were just a few simple sentences, without dates. Only a few were more serious, with detailed dates marked.

“I wanted to give up every day during that time, but couldn’t bring myself to do it, couldn’t bear to, kept hesitating,” Jing Tian said, “and then finally made up my mind to confess seriously, if it didn’t work out, then forget it and never think about it again.”

“And then you got together?”

“No,” Jing Tian shook his head, “the day after making that decision, what I wrote was: ‘Go to hell, scum.'”

Yang Yue was stunned.

“I wrote it with such force, the paper was torn,” Jing Tian looked at his handwriting at the time, “I also wrote, ‘If I bother with him again, I’m worse than a pig or a dog.”

Yang Yue opened his mouth, hesitated for a while, and then asked, “When approximately did this happen?”

“It was the day before and the day of my memory loss,” Jing Tian said, looking at the dates in the corner.

Yang Yue fell into silence.

“…Isn’t it strange?” Jing Tian asked.

He finished speaking and looked at Yang Yue, who indeed had a puzzled look on his face.

In this notebook, he had written many similar things before, how much he hated him, how much he detested him, how he didn’t want to see him again, but soon after he would record every little detail about Zheng Xunqian as if nothing had happened.

But the weight of that last sentence was different. It was something he had written himself, even though he had lost his memory, his personality was quite different, he could still feel his emotions at that time from the words.

“Why not ask him in person?” Yang Yue suggested, “He must know what happened that day.”

Jing Tian shook his head slightly.

He could be sure that Zheng Xunqian would never mention anything that made him so angry and disappointed. Since he lost his memory, Zheng Xunqian had always been like this, keeping unfavorable information to himself, occasionally even deliberately beautifying past experiences.

If you only listened to him, the two of them had always had a sweet relationship like in idol dramas, at most some minor quarrels, never any major obstacles.

“You really can’t remember anything yourself,” Yang Yue said, “I didn’t say much about Mr. Chu before and you remembered a lot.”

“I was seriously trying to remember before you came,” Jing Tian said.

“Damn,” Yang Yue frowned, “then should I blame myself for disturbing you?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Jing Tian shook his head, “I tried really hard to remember, thought for a while, but only remembered some unrelated things.”

Things unrelated to the breakdown of those last two days, but related to Zheng Xunqian.

Back then, when Jing Tian was extremely disheartened and desperately persuading himself to give up, Zheng Xunqian took the initiative to call him by his name and ask him why he hadn’t come to class the day before.

Just because of such a simple thing, he couldn’t sleep all night out of happiness.

That day when they came out of the spicy hot pot restaurant, Zheng Xunqian saw that his eyes and lips were still red, and gave him a pack of tissues. He didn’t want to use them, carefully keeping them in his pocket like a weirdo, wiping his face with his sleeve.

But unfortunately, he forgot about it afterwards, and in a fit of absent-mindedness, he threw his pants directly into the washing machine, turning everything into shreds, leaving only a messy plastic shell, which left him depressed for a long time.

Zheng Xunqian occasionally initiated conversations with him, after the study session, when he found it hard to persist in wanting to give up.

He must have had some malicious intentions.

What did Zheng Xunqian, who acted like this, do to make him so angry and desperate?

As Jing Tian was confused, he remembered some things. That day at the hotel, Zheng Xunqian had said that they were together on the night before he lost his memory.

He had drunk too much and called Zheng Xunqian to come for him. In his blurry memory, he had cried uncontrollably.

After that, they had sex.

“Could it be that he forced you that night?” Yang Yue guessed.

Jing Tian thought, it was unlikely. Knowing himself, the reverse possibility was more likely.

At this moment, his phone vibrated.

As he expected and hoped in his heart, it was a message from Zheng Xunqian. The content was very simple, just three words.

—Are you asleep?

At this time, it was far from Jing Tian’s usual bedtime. Obviously, it was just idle talk.

Jing Tian stared at the words for a long time, tentatively typing a reply.

—I remembered some things.

Zheng Xunqian probably hadn’t put down his phone, as he immediately replied.

“What did you remember?”

Jing Tian took a deep breath, licked his lips, and continued typing.

“Did we have conflicts before?”

Zheng Xunqian took a while to respond, giving him a vague answer.

“I guess so, you always found fault with me.”

Trying to outsmart someone much smarter than oneself was indeed a difficult task.

Jing Tian wasn’t willing to give up and asked again.

“Do you know why I found fault with you?”

This time, Zheng Xunqian responded quickly.

“Probably because you were too shy, clearly liked me but felt embarrassed, so you had to act tough.”

Jing Tian blushed, unable to respond.

Next to him, Yang Yue saw him smiling and chimed in again, “all these things are all in the past now. Anyway, you two are getting along well now, right?”

Jing Tian nodded, “Hmm.”

“Maybe after a while, you’ll naturally remember and realize it wasn’t a big deal at all,” Yang Yue said, “so don’t worry about it now.”

Jing Tian thought for a moment, then nodded again, “Yeah, maybe you’re right.”