Back Then, I Adored You

Out of the corner of his eye, he clearly saw how her eyes widened the moment she saw him. It was as if she was seeing a remarkable celebrity.

In the next instant, her cheeks flushed red. Dragging her friend with her, they both quickly ran off like the wind.

Seeing her embarrassment, Gu Yusheng suddenly felt a thrill, something he hadn’t experienced since before his mother had long begun having an affair and his father had become an alcoholic.

His happiness lasted for exactly three days, until the day of Xu Wennuan’s birthday.

Everyone had gone off to dance, and only the two of them were left in the room. While Gu Yusheng pretended to be preoccupied with his phone, his attention was in fact fully focused on Qin Zhi’ai as she ate mouthfuls of cake and snuck glances at him from time to time.

He had always been immune to girls, and this was the first time that he couldn’t maintain his composure under a girl’s watchful eyes. So as not to lose himself, he set his phone down and shut his eyes to rest, but as he did she became emboldened with her stares.

He could clearly feel his heart pounding unusually fast, a feeling he had never experienced before. It was truly unfamiliar and made him nervous.

“Hey,” he said finally, attempting to initiate a conversation with her in a single word.

Looking up, she replied, “Mm?”

When he didn’t respond to her, she asked, “Is something wrong?”

Gu Yusheng replied honestly, “Nothing’s wrong. It’s just that I’ve noticed you’ve been sneaking glances at me, so I decided to respond to them.”

Upon hearing this, her face turned red instantaneously, which he found adorable.

Because she didn’t know how to respond to him, the room quickly fell silent again. Despite his reticence, though, Gu Yusheng suddenly felt the urge to chat with her, but his lack of experience with girls made it difficult for him to know how to begin. After thinking for some time, he eventually asked a lame question. “What’s your name?”

“My name is Qin Zhi’ai…” Of course he knew that her name was Qin Zhi’ai, but he hadn’t expected her to elaborate further. “You can call me Xiao’ai—It’s the same ‘ai’ as in the word ‘lovely.’”

Xiao’ai… So many others addressed her as Xiao’ai that he definitely wanted to address her differently, yet rather than come across as her being special he instead sounded arrogant when he replied, “The same ‘ai’ as in the word ‘lovely’? Wouldn’t it be more like the ‘ai’ in the word ‘lover’?”

Her face burned scarlet once more. Holding her fork up, her gaze bore into the slice of cake on the end of it, and she seemed uncertain about whether or not she should eat it.

Gu Yusheng was pleased by her troubled look and, if he hadn’t forced himself to hold it in, he would have erupted into laughter, like how he had the other day when he had heard her boast shamelessly that “a slightly perverted girl is cuter.”

Back then, he had been such a horrible boy. He had obviously liked her, and yet he had constantly acted otherwise and enjoyed watching her embarrass herself. Even when he had rendered her speechless on that day, he had continued to rattle on endlessly. “Well, if you don’t like that, then I’ll change it to something else,” he said.

After pondering for some time, he recalled how she had flirted with his friend on Wu Hao’s birthday. In a moment of impulse, he said, “How about ‘ai’ as in the word ‘lovemaking’?”

This time, both her face and her eyes turned red, and she pointed at him angrily. “You…” she said, as if she wanted to curse at him but, after a prolonged period of time, she hadn’t managed to say a single word. Eventually, she threw her fork down and ran off.