Chapter 111: Falling in Love with You Is My Destiny

“Seven o’clock. It has only just begun to get light, and she goes out alone before dawn. How dangerous.” Ren Jiaxuan frowned and muttered to himself.

“Jiaxuan, what did you say?” Grandma turned sideways and asked in confusion.

“I was talking about that little girl who delivers the newspapers. She has to leave before daylight every morning, doesn’t she? A girl running around among the apartment buildings in the pitch dark—what if she runs into some bad person?”

“I asked her about it once. She has company; they’re all her classmates.” Grandma walked to the window and glanced down with a smile. “Today it’s that tall boy! A few days ago it was the one with the long face. That young man was nice. Every time, he came upstairs with her, smiling at everyone he met. He even helped me carry my shopping basket once! This one never comes upstairs.” She shook her head, looking thoroughly dissatisfied.

Ren Jiaxuan went to the window and saw Dong Yanyan say a few words to Song Mingcheng downstairs. Then the two of them rode away on their bicycles, one following the other.

“Grandma, what would you think if this girl were my girlfriend?” he asked tentatively.

The old woman answered without hesitation. “That would be wonderful! When she renews the newspaper subscription next year, she might even give me another rice cooker.”

*

Dong Yanyan returned to school after delivering the newspapers. It was already past eight, and she hurriedly took her lunch tin to the cafeteria for breakfast.

When she returned to the dormitory, only four of the eight girls remained. She knew that Xiaohan and Tiantian had gone to Tiantian’s home that morning, but where were the other two?

“Fourth Sister, where are Third Sister and Xinran?” she asked curiously, sitting across from Leng Yue with her lunch tin in hand.

Leng Yue widened her eyes in surprise. “Fifth Sister, you didn’t know? Song Mingcheng and Jiang Fan came by just now and called them upstairs to eat with them. I thought you would be going too.”

Dong Yanyan was stunned, then suddenly understood. No wonder. As long as she did not deliberately change anything, everything here could be traced back to a shadow in her memories. Whenever something differed from those memories, it was either because she had changed it unintentionally—or because Song Mingcheng had.

He was so eager to bring Jiang Fan and Xinran together. Was he trying to prevent trouble before it arose? Back then, she had only wanted to bring him and Xinran together because she felt sorry for his loneliness. Yet he always seemed determined to take her good intentions for malicious ones. Hmph!

After breakfast, she no longer felt like going back to sleep, so she went out to take a shower. When she returned, she and Leng Yue spent the entire morning washing clothes in the washroom. By the time they finished, her arms ached with exhaustion. In the afternoon, she went alone to the reading room with her books. It was warm and quiet there, a place where one could think in peace.

Only a few people were in the reading room. After signing in, she found a corner near the radiator and sat down. She rested her hands over the heat, warming them while memorizing vocabulary.

Before long, Teacher Zhao, who was in charge of the reading room, received a phone call. She hurriedly put on her coat, walked over to Dong Yanyan, and said softly, “Dong Yanyan, do you have anything else to do this afternoon? I need to go out for a while. Could you look after the room for me?”

“All right.” Dong Yanyan smiled and nodded. She gathered her things and moved them beside the teacher’s desk.

From time to time, a few students came in to read or borrow books. All she had to do was watch them sign in and make the necessary records.

The rest of the time was spent doing homework and letting her thoughts drift. After Teacher Zhao floated away like a passing cloud, she never returned. The reading room closed at three-thirty on weekends. Dong Yanyan lowered her head and glanced at her watch. There was still an hour left.

The door opened quietly, and Ren Jiaxuan walked in. He came straight to her, reached out, and took her hand. Dong Yanyan tried to pull away, but to her surprise, he gripped her even more tightly. His hand was slightly cool, and his body still carried the chill of the outdoors. He had probably just come in from outside.

“Classmate, this is a public place.” Dong Yanyan looked at his hand and spoke softly, her face expressionless.

Ren Jiaxuan smiled. “Then let’s go outside.”

Dong Yanyan tapped her fingers lightly against the desk. “The teacher hasn’t returned. I can’t leave.”

“Then I’ll wait here.” Ren Jiaxuan glanced at the students around them and lowered his voice.

Dong Yanyan pushed the sign-in book toward him. He picked up the pen, signed his class, name, and the date, then found a nearby seat.

Dong Yanyan lowered her eyes to his name. His handwriting was delicate and beautiful, without the slightest trace of sharpness. They said a person’s handwriting reflected his character, but apparently that was not always true.

Ren Jiaxuan picked up a book at random and leafed through it. Every so often, he raised his head to look at her. She remained in the same position, head lowered and chin propped on one hand, her short hair falling beside her cheeks and covering her eyes.

Dong Yanyan had never liked being watched. It made her uncomfortable. She simply lowered her head and read, pretending he did not exist.

When the reading room was about to close, Ren Jiaxuan came over and patted her shoulder. He placed an envelope on the desk before her, then left without a word.

The envelope was unsealed. Dong Yanyan drew out the letter, unfolded it, and found the page filled from top to bottom with writing.

Yanyan,

After thinking about it for a long time, I decided to write you a letter first. Perhaps this way, we can communicate calmly. You have always regretted that no one ever wrote you a love letter, so for now, consider this the first love letter I have written to you. Don’t throw it away yet. Read it first, then you can throw it away.

I remember the first time we met. You were coming out of the library when I knocked your books to the ground. When you looked up at me, there was a momentary flash of astonishment in your eyes. In that instant, I was stunned too. The familiarity and understanding in your gaze gave me the strange feeling that I had seen you somewhere before, as though we had met long ago. I don’t know why your eyes made me feel so familiar with you, so close to you, as if you could see straight through my thoughts.

I fell for you in that very moment. I felt that all these years had been leading me toward meeting you then. Perhaps this was what people meant by love at first sight. Even though I knew nothing about you, I could not stop myself from becoming fascinated by you. They say that five hundred glances exchanged before one’s birth are what allow two people to brush past each other in this life. I believe we must have met in a former existence. We must have been bound by fate, or we would never have collided so precisely at that exact moment.

After that day, I began to notice you. I watched you make mischief, watched you bask in your triumphs, and watched you grieve. You were so different from the other girls. You were capable, ambitious, and yet so sensitive and prone to sorrow. I felt that you needed someone to cherish you, love you, and keep you company in all your wildness—and that person had to be me.

I never imagined it would be anyone else.

That night, after hearing that you had left with Song Mingcheng, I searched from the first floor to the sixth and still couldn’t find you. Later, I saw a light in the laboratory on the fourth floor. The door was unlocked. The lights inside were off, and the door stood slightly ajar, but the moonlight was bright enough for me to see you leaning against him, whispering to him. I saw him lower his head and wipe away your tears, comforting you in a low voice.

I stood at the doorway for a long time, watching the two of you, until I could bear it no longer. Truly, even now, the feeling of being deceived and made a fool of still chills me to the bone. I couldn’t understand why you could promise to be with me and still be so intimate with him without the slightest embarrassment. Why could you cry in his arms, yet reject my touch so fiercely?

No man could endure a scene like that.

Yanyan, put yourself in my place. You would be angry if you saw me walking together with Dudu. What I saw was the two of you embracing. If you were me, how would you feel?

This morning, when I saw you delivering newspapers door to door, and saw him waiting for you downstairs, I watched from above as the two of you rode away. Suddenly, I felt relieved. Perhaps your friendship really did exist—not only with Song Mingcheng.

I misunderstood you about some things. Our classmates had seen you and him returning from outside together, laughing and talking, more than once. But I had never witnessed it myself, and I would rather not believe them. I had doubts and suspicions. I had even imagined the worst possible explanations. I never thought the truth would be so simple.

If only I had asked one more question, shown a little more concern for you. Tiantian, Xiaohan, and even the boys in your class all knew that you were working part-time. Some of them had even helped you. The only person who hadn’t was me—your boyfriend.

I should have been the person closest to you, yet I never knew. You mentioned that you were working part-time, but I didn’t take it to heart. I had always thought I treated you well. But this morning, when you stood before me, somewhat disheveled and covered in wind and snow, my heart filled with guilt and pain.

My girlfriend should be cherished, protected, and envied—not forced to read other people’s moods, and certainly not made to struggle through the freezing snow before dawn.

Forgive me for never taking the initiative to enter your world, for never truly understanding your heart. And I hope you can understand how I feel as well. I can accept that you have friends, but at the very least, the boundaries of friendship must not cross those of love. You are young; perhaps you do not understand yet. Some actions and privileges belong exclusively to lovers. On that point, I cannot give way.

Li Zhe called me last night and told me that you had cried. I slept badly all night, so I was more short-tempered than usual this morning. I never expected to run into you. Isn’t that fate?

Since the two of us came together for happiness, wouldn’t it betray both our hearts if we continued making each other unhappy? Don’t you think so?

I bought you a necklace. There’s no other meaning behind it. I just thought it would look good on you. Don’t throw it away again. Throwing things away will not solve the problem. Besides, the necklace is innocent, isn’t it?

I’m holding you.

Jiaxuan

Dong Yanyan turned the envelope upside down, and a slender platinum necklace slipped into her palm. The tiny gemstone pendant caught the faint light and rolled gently across her hand.

She remembered that evening. The books she had been carrying had been knocked all over the ground by him. That sentence and that look had merely been instinctive reactions on her part. To her, he was a schoolmate with whom she had once spent two years in the same class. He had always been so flamboyant and outstanding, so of course she had been familiar with him and understood him. But to him, that look had become an unsolvable mystery, even though the answer was actually so simple.

She also remembered the first time she had seen Lin Feng. She, too, had felt that strange sense of familiarity. Perhaps they really had met somewhere, in some other time and place. If so, had the sudden stirring of her heart back then also been destined by forces beyond her knowing?

Perhaps what people called fate was merely an illusion caused by the dislocation of time and space. In this distorted world, you fall in love with me, and I fall in love with him. Those who have not seen through it can never know why.

And those who do know have no way to explain it—and do not wish to explain it.