Damn (2)

After a few seconds of silence.

Yue Qianling suddenly heard Lin Xun say to his roommate with a hint of smile, “I’ll treat you to dinner tonight.”

Then another man’s voice chimed in: “Great! I won’t hold back!”

Gu Xun turned to Jiang Junnan and smiled, “Whatever you want.”

Jiang Junnan felt that his expression was a bit odd and teased, “What’s the big occasion?”

Gu Xun was about to speak when he heard the girl’s crying voice in his headphones again.

“I’m fucking heartbroken, and you’re treating someone else to dinner? Are you even human?!!!”

Gu Xun raised an eyebrow and continued running towards the safe zone. “What does your heartbreak have to do with me?”

Yue Qianling’s already collapsed emotions became even more uncontrollable. Her crying was so pitiful that even Luo Tuo couldn’t bear it anymore.

Only Xiao Mai was heartless enough to ask, “Damn! Did you really confess today?! No way! Didn’t you say you’re the campus belle! How could you possibly fail? No man would reject a beautiful girl unless he’s not a man!”

“I’m the campus belle, but he’s the campus heartthrob!” Yue Qianling cried out, “It’s just that he doesn’t like me, what can I do!”

Gu Xun’s fingers suddenly stopped, and a certain scene from a few hours ago inexplicably popped into his mind.

Far away in another city, Luo Tuo seemed to have some absurd speculations.

“Ah? Campus heartthrob?” Luo Tuo asked tentatively, “Is it true? Which university in Jiangcheng are you from?”

Yue Qianling didn’t know why Luo Tuo suddenly asked this, but she indeed had a lot of grievances to vent.

“What, are you going to avenge me?”

Luo Tuo dryly laughed, “Yeah, let me see which idiot was blind enough to reject our little cutie. I’ll go to Jiangcheng with a knife tomorrow!”

Xiao Mai also joined in, “Exactly! We’re comrades-in-arms who have been through life and death. How can we allow you to suffer such grievances? You give us his name, and we’ll immediately go and beat the shit out of that damn idiot!”

Although the language used by these online friends was quite rough, Yue Qianling did feel comforted.

She sniffed and said with a hoarse voice, “Go to Jiangbin Campus of Nanjing University. Find a guy named Gu Xun. You hack him to death for me!!!”

“Gu Xun, huh? Okay, I’ll remember that idiot’s name—”

Xiao Mai was speaking halfway when suddenly, his voice stopped.

The headphones suddenly fell silent, as if someone had pressed the pause button.

Although the game was still going on, the three of them had stopped talking, creating a strange silence.

Dead silence.

But Yue Qianling didn’t have the heart to ponder their behavior.

A few seconds later, she saw Lin Xun, who hadn’t moved, also die in the poisonous gas. This game had ended in a complete failure.

Once Yue Qianling’s emotions, which had been suppressed for hours, exploded, they flowed like a torrent, and she took off her headphones, burying her face on the table, crying without restraint.

Over an hour later, when Yue Qianling cried until she had no more tears, she finally raised her head.

She opened her phone and saw that the other three people in the game had already disconnected.

And in the group chat, no one spoke. It was quiet, not at all as noisy as usual, as if they had forgotten about her.

Yue Qianling wiped her eyes, took a deep breath, and looked up.

She didn’t know if the water in her brain had drained, but she finally figured it out.

What tormented her was not Gu Xun’s indifference, but her own expectations and fantasies that she had fabricated out of thin air.

Fueled by the excitement of their first meeting, she had lit a fire herself, turning a small spark into an uncontrollable blaze.

Then, she willingly fell into her own trap, willingly jumping into the pit she had already crawled out of.

Because of his coldness, she was always self-doubting. She was already tired from work, but she forced herself to wake up early and put on makeup, suspecting that she wasn’t pretty enough. She was completely unaware that her confidence was silently being worn away.

The growing inferiority complex overflowed, and it turned into the gentleness and artificiality she feigned in front of Gu Xun.

Gu Xun didn’t like it, and she didn’t like it either, and she even forgot that she was also someone with numerous admirers.

Even at today’s exchange meeting, she subconsciously felt that Gu Xun was more important, but in the end, reality slapped her real hard.

He didn’t do anything at all, but all her emotions were controlled by him. She was happy because he was happy, and she was sad because he was sad. She didn’t realize that she had already lost herself in her own self-pity.

Those past scenes replayed in Yue Qianling’s mind over and over again, and she could finally see how foolish she had been from a third-person perspective.

Instead of saying that she had decided to completely give up on Gu Xun, it was more accurate to say that she decided to discard the Yue Qianling who liked Gu Xun.

She really didn’t like that version of herself.

As if shedding a layer of cocoon, Yue Qianling rubbed her swollen eyes and stood up.

The people in the dormitory had already left. She had packed up her things neatly. She cleaned the dorm one last time to make sure there were no regrets. Then, she faced the setting sun and quickly left the school.

The journey to her new rented apartment was only a little over half an hour by car. Upon reaching the residential complex, Yue Qianling walked towards the building where her apartment was located.

While waiting for the elevator, she intended to check the time on her phone but found several new messages instead.

It was strange that Xiao Mai, Luo Tuo, and Lin Xun had all sent her private messages.

【Xiao Mai】: Are you… okay?

【Luo Tuo】: Are you alright? When are you free to chat?

Her online friends were quite good, still thinking about her.

Yue Qianling replied briefly to both of them and scrolled down to read Lin Xun’s message.

[“School Grass” patted your peach blossom and said no need to open it]

【School Grass】: ?

【School Grass】: ……

What a nutcase.

Seeing his inexplicable messages, Yue Qianling felt a surge of anger.

【Glutinous Rice Twist】: Burn incense when there’s something, kowtow when there’s nothing, such a bother!

【School Grass】: Oh……

After sending the message, she put away her phone and entered the elevator.

Looking at this unfamiliar environment, Yue Qianling took a deep breath and was filled with a sense of new beginnings.

The left turn of the elevator was Yue Qianling’s rented apartment. She entered the password, and the door automatically opened.

Yue Qianling dragged her suitcase inside, and just as she was about to close the door, she heard the door of the opposite unit suddenly open, accompanied by a male voice.

“Aren’t we going out to eat? Why are you suddenly coming back to school?”

Yue Qianling subconsciously turned her head and locked eyes with Gu Xun, who was just stepping out of the door.

Yue Qianling: “…”

Gu Xun: “…”

Yue Qianling didn’t know how to describe her feelings at that moment.

Simply put, if this was the first floor, she could have jumped off on the spot.

Having failed to confess in the morning, she moved to the apartment next door in the afternoon.

Without Gu Xun saying anything, she could already imagine that he was probably using words like “obsessive” and “persistent” to describe her at that moment.

And Gu Xun was indeed looking at her, his eyes filled with complexity.

Yue Qianling was even more certain of her thoughts.

Meanwhile, without knowing anything, Jiang Junnan stood behind Gu Xun. After changing his shoes, he looked up and saw Gu Xun suddenly standing still. He turned his body to look over, and exclaimed in surprise, “Holy shit! Yue Qianling? You live here too? What a coincidence! You’ll be neighbors from now on!”

Yue Qianling: “……”

She saw Gu Xun’s expression becoming increasingly strange, as if it was about to crack, and he was even walking towards her, seemingly wanting to say something.

Really?

I haven’t said anything yet!

Yue Qianling immediately grabbed the doorknob and said in one breath, “This is just a coincidence. I didn’t follow you and won’t bother you. You don’t have to look at me with that kind of expression. If you’re really not at ease, then you can move out.”

The distance between the two doors was very close. Gu Xun took three steps and was about to speak, but he saw Yue Qianling subconsciously take a half-step back.

“I—”

The door in front of him suddenly slammed shut with a “bang,” causing some dust to fly in the lamplight.

Gu Xun: “……”

“Damn.”