Chapter 31: The Ex-Boyfriend

[Page 1 of 3]

Jiang Ying instinctively lowered her head and pulled the scarf wrapped around her neck higher, covering half her face.

Seeing that Lu Zhixi, standing beneath the tree, had not looked over, she began to hesitate.

Should she turn around and go back to the dormitory?

Or cover her face, avoid him, and take the narrow path around the right side of the bicycle shed to the library?

Thinking of Yu Siyan waiting for her in the library, having even brought her candy and a hand warmer, Jiang Ying simply could not bring herself to tell him she was not coming after all and that he should return to campus.

After a moment's thought, she turned the canvas bag hanging at her side around so that the back faced outward, then put on her hat and bundled herself up as tightly as possible. She hurried toward the narrow, dilapidated passage on the right side of the bicycle shed.

But she had taken no more than two steps when Lu Zhixi raised his head as if sensing her presence.

A down jacket, a thick scarf, snow boots—all were the most common winter attire for girls. Yet he knew it was her.

At the very least, he could recognize that cartoon canvas bag, the one she valued above Chanel, even if it were reduced to ashes.

As Jiang Ying walked on, she sensed someone approaching quickly from behind. Her heart gave a jolt, and without turning around, she broke into a run.

But the difference in their heights was too great. In three strides, Lu Zhixi overtook her and stepped directly in front of her. Jiang Ying, rushing forward at full speed, crashed straight into his arms, her face striking his chest.

He was wearing far too little clothing; beneath the hoodie, there was probably only a short-sleeved shirt. His body heat passed through the fabric and struck her face.

Startled, Jiang Ying tried to retreat, but he gripped her shoulders firmly.

The hood of her down jacket, which had been covering her head, was pulled down, revealing her tense face. Her dark eyes had widened into round circles with fright.

Lu Zhixi knew she had deliberately been avoiding him. He was unhappy, yet did not want to vent his emotions on her. He merely looked down at her, unable to say a word for a long while.

Perhaps because of the cold weather, his complexion was unusually pale. In the daylight, his eyes resembled translucent glass beads; the tip of his straight, elegant nose was touched with a faint red, and his lips were like faded petals.

He looked exactly like an expensive, exquisite doll made of white porcelain, abandoned in a world of ice and snow.

"You're gripping a little too hard," Jiang Ying said stiffly.

The hand clasping her shoulder immediately relaxed by more than half, but he still did not let go.

"Have you been well these past few days?"

There was a faint nasal quality to his voice, while his tone had returned to its former gentleness, as though no conflict had ever taken place.

Jiang Ying tightened her grip on the strap of the bag slung over her shoulder and said nothing.

"Talk to me, Yingying. I want to talk to you," he said softly.

Jiang Ying lowered her head while Lu Zhixi watched her. The two stood facing each other in a rigid standoff.

After a long silence, she finally spoke slowly. "Aren't you cold, wearing so little in winter?"

Lu Zhixi was slightly taken aback. His tone suddenly became a little lighter. "A lot of people where I come from wear short sleeves even when it snows."

The moment he finished speaking, Jiang Ying finally looked up at him.

The previous winter, before they had ever been together, she had asked him the same question on a snowy day.

And he had given her the same answer.

Neither of them had expected the other to remember.

An ordinary memory rose to the surface, yet because everything had changed, it now carried an indescribable bitterness.

Jiang Ying sniffed and kept her voice even. "We are not getting back together. And you should stop coming to find me. I don't need you to apologize or make amends for what happened before. If you insist on doing something, then go apologize to Siyan."

[Page 2 of 3]

"I will not apologize to him."

Lu Zhixi spoke without expression. "I still remember him kissing you last time. He had better not appear in front of me again."

"He's my boyfriend. You're the one who's gone too far," Jiang Ying emphasized.

She also remembered Lu Zhixi secretly looking through her private account. Anger and embarrassment surged up again, but she was too easily embarrassed to say what she wanted to accuse him of. The words hovered at her lips for a long time, yet she could not bring herself to speak them.

Lu Zhixi was still comparing Yu Siyan with himself.

"What does he have that's better than me? Today is the second day of your period, isn't it? He let you walk outside alone in heavy snow without preparing anything for you."

"He doesn't even know that I..."

Before Jiang Ying could finish, Lu Zhixi gave a mocking laugh. "He doesn't even know about that."

Jiang Ying suddenly realized that there was no point discussing this with him. She simply said bluntly, "Even if my boyfriend isn't as good in other people's eyes, he is the best in mine. You don't need to speak about him that way. It won't change how I see him."

Lu Zhixi fell silent, just as she had expected. He looked as though he wanted to ask something, and Jiang Ying knew exactly what it was. She answered him with complete honesty.

"If we were still together, and you were willing to tell me about your problems, I would treat you the same way. I would support you unconditionally."

In that instant, Lu Zhixi's composed expression finally changed.

His breathing grew heavy, and a faint flush spread from the corners of his eyes.

Jiang Ying felt she had made herself clear enough. She lowered her head again and looked at the snow beneath her feet, no longer meeting his gaze.

When it came to love, once the right moment had passed, it was impossible to restore things to exactly the way they had been.

Everything had changed.

"I'm going to the library," she said softly. "Really, don't come looking for me again. Other than your apologizing to Siyan, I don't want to hear anything else."

At that moment, snow began to fall from the sky again. Just as on the day Lu Zhixi had suddenly appeared on campus, the flakes drifted thickly through the air, merging into a vast white expanse.

Like a curtain slowly descending between them.

"Tell me, Yingying."

Lu Zhixi's voice was like a thin veil of mist, gentle and unhurried as it passed through the snowflakes and floated into her ears.

"How can I make the two of you break up?"

Hearing the determination hidden beneath his airy tone, Jiang Ying looked up abruptly and stared at him in stunned disbelief.

The fragile emotion that had appeared between Lu Zhixi's brows had completely vanished. He now spoke to her with extraordinary calm.

"As long as it can make you two separate, I will do anything."

"This is not something you can bargain over."

Lu Zhixi gazed at her and spoke slowly.

"Yu Siyan's sister, Yu Shan, is preparing to appear on a talent competition show. His parents, Yu Cheng and Lin Jingxiu, teach at a university in Shanghai and are preparing an application to establish a biotechnology research project. And your boyfriend, Yu Siyan, is planning to apply for a remote research assistant position at a psychology laboratory at Harvard..."

Jiang Ying's face changed instantly. It was as though lightning had struck her. Almost without thinking, she raised her hand and slapped him hard across the face.

She had used nearly all her strength. Lu Zhixi's face was knocked to the side, his long lashes trembling faintly, while a vivid red mark rose on his porcelain-pale cheek.

Even Jiang Ying's palm went numb with pain.

But Lu Zhixi did not become angry. He even smiled faintly. Then he took the hand that had slapped him and gently enclosed it in his palm.

[Page 3 of 3]

"Does it hurt? Your hand is freezing. Come with me to the car. We can talk while we eat at the apartment."

Lu Zhixi's voice was gentle.

*

The car was parked just outside the nearest campus gate. Lu Zhixi insisted on carrying her bag for her. When they reached a black sedan, he told the driver waiting there to move aside and stepped forward first to open the door for her.

As soon as they got in, the driver silently started the engine and drove toward the apartment.

Neither of them spoke along the way. They arrived at precisely noon.

Every corner of the apartment had been cleaned anew. Green plants had even been placed around the rooms, lending the place a faint trace of life.

Jiang Ying and Lu Zhixi had spent many happy days in this apartment. It was also where they had endured a farewell that, for her, had been devastating.

Jiang Ying disliked this place.

Several medicine boxes were stacked on the low table beside the living-room sofa. They appeared to contain fever reducers.

She glanced at them, then looked away without saying anything.

Noticing her reaction, Lu Zhixi silently hung her bag by the entrance.

"Today is the second day of your period, isn't it? I made you some brown-sugar water. You can drink it after resting for a while following the meal."

A servant who had been waiting in the kitchen immediately brought the food to the table. Every dish was something Jiang Ying liked. After setting the table, the servant quietly left the apartment.

Everything seemed to have returned to the days when they had been together, but Jiang Ying knew it was deliberate on Lu Zhixi's part.

She sat at the table without touching her knife or fork and said stiffly, "You're despicable."

"Eat first." He portioned the dishes onto her plate.

"I can't eat."

Seeing how resistant she was, Lu Zhixi finally stopped what he was doing.

"Yingying, do you think I intend to ruin everything for them? If so, you really should have waited until I finished speaking. Then you wouldn't have been tricked into coming here."

"What do you mean?"

"The talent competition your boyfriend's sister plans to enter has already been filled with contestants backed by other investors. She is destined to lose. His parents' project does not fall within the fields currently receiving support, so it is highly unlikely to receive funding approval. As for your boyfriend's application—his competitors are from other Ivy League universities. A background from Tsinghua gives him no advantage in front of those schools.

"Yingying, break up with him. I can make all these things happen for him. Isn't he going to the United States afterward? I can give him a house, a car—whatever he needs. If you can't make the decision for him, I will go and speak with him myself. As far as I know, his sister hasn't worked in the entertainment industry for a year, and his parents' academic evaluations will also be affected if they fail to get their project approved..."

Lu Zhixi laid out his conditions methodically, watching her with a tender gaze.

"You should understand how I feel about him. If I could, I would beat him until he cried. But I don't want you to be afraid of me the way you were that day. I want you to be happy. He will thank you now. Because of you, his entire family will live far better than before."

The games of the wealthy.

Jiang Ying thought pale-faced.

This was even more despicable than offering someone five million to leave.

To give an extreme example, it was like a rich man approaching a beggar on the verge of starvation, taking out a check for one hundred million dollars, and telling him that the check would be his if he knelt by the roadside and barked like a dog for a day.

Jiang Ying suddenly understood that people like Lu Zhixi were wealthy not because they were kind or noble, but because they knew how to seize the right moment and create favorable conditions for themselves. Threats or temptations—it made no difference. They would exhaust every possible means to defeat their opponents.