Epilogue
The lunch the guide arranged was a barbecue.
Xu Heng played the warm gentleman the whole time, attentive in every detail to his female companion, or maybe his new girlfriend.
Even the sauce that accidentally touched her mouth, he wiped away himself.
It felt like he was proving how cheap I had once been, unworthy of his care.
Such a childish act.
Chu Lin lightly bumped my shoulder, winked, and said,
"Want to outdo them?"
I glanced at Chu Lin. He looked eager, and utterly carefree.
Xu Heng had thrown a cold face at him in public before, and I had not seen him get angry.
Only later did I come to believe Chu Lin had simply not cared enough to answer him.
I stuffed a piece of meat into his mouth.
"Even meat can't block that gossipy heart of yours?"
Chu Lin shrugged and chewed it down without much care.
He asked slowly, "You really don't care anymore?"
In that moment, Chu Lin's eyes looked deep and unreadable. I could not tell what was in them.
I smiled calmly and said nothing. I only stared quietly into his eyes.
His pupils trembled once. Then he stared back at me just as hard.
I had heard people say that meeting eyes was a kiss of the spirit.
I did not know if that was true.
But in that moment, I felt a thread of something ambiguous.
A huge bang came, along with a scream.
I turned and saw a patch of skin on Xu Heng's companion's thigh burned red, and a fallen cup.
The guide came over at the sound. "It's a bit serious. She needs to be sent to a nearby clinic."
The companion's mouth trembled slightly. She looked like she was fighting tears about to spill.
She looked at Xu Heng. "Brother Heng, you take me."
Xu Heng's tone was ugly. "It didn't even hit the bone. Drive yourself."
The whole time, he did not look at the injured companion. He only stared at me.
The companion looked a little helpless. People around us seemed unable to keep watching, and they quietly blamed Xu Heng one after another.
He ignored what they said. The look he turned on me seemed lost, as if he wanted me to tell him what he should do.
In the end, under my indifference, he went to take her, unwilling.
In the afternoon, the guide organized everyone to pitch tents.
After we collected ours, Chu Lin and I just stared at each other.
One tent for every two people.
The ones who came in pairs were either close friends or couples. We were nothing. How were we supposed to sleep in one tent?
I had never thought that pairing up meant we had to stay together.
Chu Lin teased, "You've got your eye on me, and you're using this trick to lure me in?"
His joke broke the awkward air.
I rolled my eyes at him. "Keep dreaming. Get to work."
If I got one thing wrong in front of Xu Heng, all that waited was blame.
Two people in one tent was already settled. Neither of us was the fussy type. Wrap up in a quilt, and who cared if the person beside you was a man or a woman.
Chu Lin put up the tent with practiced hands, clean and sharp, fast and good.
Quite a few people pulled him over to teach them.
I went into the tent to straighten things. Before long, the tent shook, and someone came in.
I did not turn around. "One sleeping bag each. Don't say I'm taking advantage of you."
The person behind me did not answer.
I turned, suspicious.
The one before my eyes was Xu Heng.
His face was iron-blue. Those cold eyes were full of anger.
"Who are you planning to sleep with?"
"Tian Yue! How long has it even been since we broke up."
"Did you get involved with Chu Lin long ago."
I frowned hard. Someone who should have been familiar felt like a stranger.
"Are you crazy? What are you saying."
Something struck me, and a cold little sneer curved on my face.
"Can you stop filling your head with nothing but that business between men and women."
"And does any of this have anything to do with you?"
All the color drained from Xu Heng's face. He suddenly lunged and grabbed me.
"I was wrong, Tian Yue. Can we not break up."
"I've already reflected. Can you give me one chance?"
I could not stand physical contact with him.
I pushed him away without hesitation.
"Xu Heng, I am not you. When I say it's a breakup, it is a breakup."
"I gave you countless chances back when I still loved you."
"Now I'll say it only once. Get out!"
Xu Heng's lips trembled. His breathing was heavy, but he still acted as if he were deaf.
He did not leave. He even raised a hand and hooked the back of my neck hard.
He ignored my struggle and came in for a kiss.
A slap rang out.
One slap knocked his head to the side.
My voice was ice.
"You thought that because I fought while I was in school and opened a Bar in college, I was a soft little sheep?"
"My temper stinks. I faked it in front of you for a year, and that let you push your luck?"
"If you want that little company of yours to stay open, don't come provoke me. I'm a Delinquent Girl. How would I know whether I know some unsavory people."
Xu Heng's whole body jolted. The frenzy slowly drained from his eyes.
He looked at me once and left with a pained face.
I had not thought Xu Heng would be this hard to shake off.
That night, after everyone finished eating, they went back to their own tents.
Xu Heng stopped me and said that if I would not share a tent with him, he would wait outside until I agreed.
I looked at the night and its cold wind, then crawled into my own tent without hesitation.
When I pulled the door flap shut, I saw Xu Heng under the moonlight, his face deathly pale.
Chu Lin was already lying down, propped on one hand, looking at his phone.
"You're here?"
"Didn't expect Little Tabby to be such a hard-hearted Little Tabby too."
Little Wildcat had turned into Little Tabby?
Chu Lin had never been a proper sort to begin with, so I could not be bothered to ask.
As for Xu Heng, from another angle, he no longer seemed like the warm, lofty person in my memory. With the filter gone, he was only a man.
Chu Lin, who looked arrogant, actually held his boundaries extremely well.
In that instant, I was exhausted beyond words.
I lay in the sleeping bag and said nothing.
A long time passed, and Chu Lin was still on his phone.
I had recovered a little, so I asked him.
"Back in high school, why did you hit Xu Heng."
Chu Lin went quiet, as if he had not expected me to ask. After a moment, he set the phone down and lay flat.
"Don't get upset when I say it."
What did I have to be upset about. I turned my head and glared at him.
He went on. "Because that guy was especially petty, an especially fake gentleman. Back then he had a secret crush on a girl, and that girl was close with me."
"He couldn't stand the sight of it. He kept reporting me. Every few days a teacher yelled at me, and then the teacher called my parents."
"Just beating him once was already me being decent. With the temper I have now, he should have been expelled."
Those words were arrogant.
People said the longer you lived, the better your temper got. He had gone the other way.
I could not help it. I smiled.
"All over one girl? As expected, there's nothing decent in a man's head."
He turned to look at me. "Weren't you the same, taking a heroic beating for one boy."
That line pulled my memory up.
Back then, not long after Xu Heng had saved me, I often paid attention to him.
I heard people at school were going to corner Xu Heng.
They said a lot of people could not stand his aloof attitude.
I called the police ahead of time, had someone stop Xu Heng first, then put on a hat, dressed as a boy, and walked onto the path Xu Heng had to take.
A blunt strike hit my back without warning. I dropped to my knees.
I hurriedly pulled out pepper spray and sprayed it behind me.
Four or five boys instantly surrounded me. Fists and feet landed on my body.
"Stop!" A wild male voice rang out. "It's a girl. You can't see that?"
I forced my head up through the pain.
I saw a boy in a school uniform standing not far away.
His face was especially flashy, his air cocky. He walked over, crouched down, and pinched my chin.
"Xu Heng sent you? Heh. What a coward."
"Get up and go to the hospital. Treatment fees, compensation, name your price. Hiss—"
I bit down hard on the web of his thumb.
He flung his hand away. "You're Little Wildcat, huh. Bite anyone you see."
That was my first meeting with Chu Lin.
I still found it ridiculous.
Remembering how ignorant we had been back then, Chu Lin and I laughed at the same time.
The laughter lasted a few minutes. I had no energy left.
Chu Lin still carried a boyish air. After he had laughed enough, he poked me with a finger.
"You still owe me money. Do you know that."
I froze.
"What money?"
Chu Lin sat up in a flash, his tone carrying a thread of exaggerated surprise.
"I watched you clutch that stack of cash and pay your Tuition. No way. I did a good thing and the person it happened to still doesn't know?"
A strong thought drilled into my head.
My face went a little blank. "You mean that three thousand in Tuition?"
"Yeah."
My thoughts stalled for a brief moment.
My heartbeat sped up on its own, and my breathing went a little short.
"You're saying you were the one who gave that money?"
Seeing how serious I looked, Chu Lin grew a bit more serious too.
"This is that important to you?"
"It is."
He paused a moment. "I gave it. I saw you crying by the road, telling Xu Heng you were going to drop out. I looked into it and only then found out you were short on Tuition."
"Otherwise I wouldn't have called you that. I had already seen you cry twice."
"I also left a small note. It was my contact information."
I could no longer answer him.
In my head, it kept replaying that he was the one who had left the money. I tried to understand and take in the shock that had come out of nowhere.
The feeling was not as violent as a storm.
It was quieter than that, but I could not settle for a long time.
Seven years of holding on had turned out to be a misunderstanding.
Why had Xu Heng not corrected me back when I said the Tuition was from him.
I closed my eyes. I had to admit that my own obsession had made me see the wrong person.
Everything with Xu Heng turned to poison, stuck in my throat.
The next day.
I returned to the city with Chu Lin ahead of the others.
I listed every expense from my time with Xu Heng and told him to return the money I had paid back for him.
Xu Heng looked like a successful man, but his ready cash was not even as much as mine back when I ran the Bar.
He had no money, so I found people to block him at his company.
As time went on, his business declined, and he had to sell his shares.
Once the shares were sold, he paid the money back to me with that.
In the end, starting a company had turned into working for someone else.
This time, I could tell Xu Heng was afraid. He did not dare talk romance with me. Whenever he saw me, he took the long way around.
After I let that spite out, I was much calmer too.
I had the money back, and I was done carrying Xu Heng with me.
Looking forward was a kind of courage.