Jing Tian fled in confusion.

Before leaving, he stammered a few excuses, but what exactly he said became blurry in his memory as soon as he ran down the stairs.

He guessed that the other two at the scene probably didn’t hear clearly either because he spoke too softly and too vaguely.

As he rushed out of the cafeteria, a cold wind hit his face, finally clearing his mind a bit.

It seemed like he had said something like “just asking casually,” “nothing important,” and “goodbye” as he left.

He hurried forward, subconsciously raising his hand and pinching his earlobe.

The soft touch from his fingertips felt strange to him.

After a few more steps, he suddenly came to his senses. Maybe it was because this touch was different from what he assumed in his mind.

His subconscious still thought he should feel something hard, metallic, like how he sometimes raised his hand to adjust nonexistent glasses.

His severely shaken brain was too confused to make sense of the situation.

Walking with his head down silently for less than half a minute, he heard Chu Chen Tao calling out to him from behind.

Chu Chen Tao’s voice carried a hint of panting, quickly getting closer, and although Jing Tian resisted in his heart, he obediently stopped in his tracks.

When he turned around, Chu Chen Tao had already caught up to him.

“I’ll walk you back,” Chu Chen Tao said with a smile as he spoke, “and we can chat for a while on the way.”

Jing Tian thought that the so-called “on the way” was probably the main purpose.

Chu Chen Tao obviously wasn’t in a good mood; although he was smiling, there was no joy in his eyes, and his brows were furrowed.

Jing Tian smiled back at him for a moment, then quickly lowered his head and walked silently ahead.

The two of them walked shoulder to shoulder quietly for half a minute, and Chu Chen Tao finally spoke up, “I know you’ve forgotten everything, can’t recall what happened, and don’t understand what’s going on.”

Jing Tian pursed his lips and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing?” Chu Chen Tao asked, “Because you don’t remember, or because… because of Zheng Xunqian?”

Jing Tian couldn’t say for sure, maybe both.

Although the former wasn’t his fault, and he completely didn’t remember the latter.

He didn’t reply, and Chu Chen Tao sighed again after a while.

“I’m trying hard to understand you,” Chu Chen Tao spoke slowly while shaking his head, “You’re not used to our relationship, and I can give you time to adjust. If you want to focus on studying, I’ll try not to disturb you. Whatever you did in the past… since you don’t remember, then I…”

He didn’t finish his sentence.

Perhaps his rationality wouldn’t allow him to easily accept such betrayal.

Affected by his emotions, Jing Tian felt sad and repeated, “I’m sorry.”

“Why were you with him just now?” Chu Chen Tao asked.

“He helped me a lot with my studies, so I wanted to thank him by having a meal,” Jing Tian answered honestly.

“…But last time, you clearly said he wasn’t responsible for teaching you.”

Jing Tian didn’t know how to explain, so he stammered, “It’s, it’s different… there’s someone else, but, but Zheng Xunqian… he helped me voluntarily, so… I felt embarrassed…”

Chu Chen Tao listened quietly with a furrowed brow, not saying anything.

Jing Tian bit his lip, lowered his head, took a few more steps, and then gathered the courage to ask, “Senior, are we really… really together, in a romantic relationship?”

Chu Chen Tao sighed helplessly. “How can you joke about something like this?”

Jing Tian’s real question was, according to what Chu Chen Tao said last time, they confessed to each other right after he graduated from high school, which was two and a half years ago.

If he became so casual and frivolous that he cheated behind his partner’s back, then he should have had intimate contact with Chu Chen Tao.

Why didn’t Chu Chen Tao know about the tattoo on his body?

…Could it be that Chu Chen Tao had some issues in this regard?!

An irrational explanation suddenly appeared for his past confusion.

Could it be that Chu Chen Tao was a bit frigid, and after two and a half years of being in love, he had become so sexually liberated that he couldn’t stand being alone and did something wrong?

This thought was too impolite, and Jing Tian raised his hand to scratch his cheek to conceal his expression.

He also realized that there seemed to be something more active in his brain now, which he wouldn’t have thought of in the past.

Chu Chen Tao keenly noticed that something was wrong. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing, nothing!” Jing Tian felt guilty and waved his hand vigorously, cleared his throat, and asked, “So, we’ve been together for a long time, right?”

Chu Chen Tao was silent for a few seconds before replying, “Not that long.”

“Didn’t I confess to you right after getting into University A?” Jing Tian asked.

Chu Chen Tao opened his mouth, but didn’t say anything. His steps slowed down involuntarily, as if there was something difficult to express.

Jing Tian blinked, trying to guess, “Weren’t we together at that time?”

“Some things happened,” Chu Chen Tao turned his head away from him as if avoiding his gaze, and looked in the other direction, “At first, I just had very… very ordinary care for you, as a senior to a junior. I didn’t think about it in that way before you confessed.”

Jing Tian tilted his head, pondered for a moment, and was about to ask again when Chu Chen Tao looked at him again.

“All that doesn’t matter now,” he stopped walking, grabbed Jing Tian’s hand, “I’m serious about you now.”

Jing Tian was taken aback, his eyes widened, and he didn’t dare to move.

“All those things… I don’t want to blame you. I know you’re innocent now,” he continued, “But I did feel hurt.”

“I’m very upset,” he said to Jing Tian.

Jing Tian swallowed hard and repeated for the third time, “I’m sorry.”

As he spoke, he withdrew his hand and placed it behind his back, clasping both hands tightly together.

“Stop apologizing,” Chu Chen Tao said, “try to remember quickly.”

Jing Tian lowered his gaze and nodded slightly again.

“I’ll wait for you,” Chu Chen Tao said.

Jing Tian nodded once more.

Just as he was feeling extremely remorseful and conflicted, Chu Chen Tao spoke again, “You asked me about my birthday, so you must still care about me, right?”

Without lifting his head, Jing Tian blinked rapidly a few times.

He felt even more guilty.

Back in the dormitory, Jing Tian felt utterly exhausted.

Everything about University A was fine, except for the poorly designed dormitory layout.

When you’re extremely tired and want to lie down immediately, you still have to climb stairs, which is very torturous.

Jing Tian was too lazy to climb, so he simply lay on the desk.

After letting out a long sigh, he opened his eyes again, and the first thing he saw was the tablet borrowed from him by Zheng Xunqian.

He immediately sat up.

Fatigue didn’t affect his curiosity.

He quickly woke up the device and activated the browser.

After logging back into his email and entering the inbox, soon, the whole row of emails appeared on the screen.

Jing Tian clicked on the top one, and the screen refreshed.

The first sentence in the body of the email read: “Hahaha, don’t bother explaining, you can’t go three sentences without mentioning this person.”

Jing Tian was stunned for a moment before continuing to read.

The rest of the content had nothing to do with Zheng Xunqian; it was about meeting up for dinner later.

Scrolling down, he could see the previous communication history between the two.

Jing Tian read through it backward, only understanding half of it.

He did curse at Zheng Xunqian, not too harshly, but it still involved personal attacks.

He said, “This idiot really has no shame, thinks he’s something special, so narcissistic to the extreme. I really doubt what he’s made of, it’s a miracle he hasn’t been beaten to death yet, shameless, really want to knock his head off.”

Amid the continuous reassurance from the other party, he also gave a few examples.

One of them made Jing Tian suddenly realize.

“Can you believe it, we’ve been classmates for a year and a half, and when I approached him he actually asked me ‘who are you?’ Does he have face recognition issues? Can’t recognize my face, at least my hair color is unique in the whole class! Colorblind!”

In addition to this, he also complained about Zheng Xunqian’s arrogance, intentionally standing him up, being indifferent to him, and not being able to fulfill promises.

He titled the email like this initially because he passed a note to Zheng Xunqian in class, but Zheng Xunqian didn’t even bother to open it, just picked it up and threw it directly into the trash, which made him furious.

The person who emailed him asked if he was always bothering Zheng Xunqian, and he stubbornly denied it.

“I just don’t want to give up easily,” he said.

Frowning and hugging himself, Jing Tian seriously reviewed the entire conversation several times, trying to analyze it.

From his initial remarks, he couldn’t see any ambiguous relationship with Zheng Xunqian.

As for his criticisms and curses, they were also difficult to match with Zheng Xunqian.

Initially in the cafeteria, it was understandable that Zheng Xunqian asked “who are you?” after hearing his unreasonable request, but the subsequent events were strange.

Zheng Xunqian was not particularly enthusiastic towards him, but he was definitely not cold either, and he never put on airs.

He seemed indifferent, but deep down, he was very warm-hearted, volunteering to accompany him for experiments, and spending a lot of time and effort organizing study materials for him.

…And he smiled at him, such a gentle and beautiful smile.

Really strange.

Just as he was thinking, his phone, which was in his pocket, vibrated.

Zheng Xunqian had sent him a message.

—Did you see it? What did you curse? Share it with me.