Jing Yi sat at the gravestone. He opened the small cake and placed it under the young man’s photo.
“I specially chose one with extra cream.”
In the cold, desolate cemetery, he sat alone, talking to himself for a long while.
Until his wound seemed to reopen again. He lowered his eyes to look at his drooping arm. His pale face had not a hint of colour, yet the air was filled with the faint smell of blood.
This time, he’d pressed a bit too hard.
“I’m sorry…”
He didn’t dare look up at the person in the photo. His voice was terribly hoarse as he apologised quietly: “I used your identity again.”
But only endless silence answered him.
After Shu He made her twenty-eighth call, she finally saw the figure slowly returning.
She looked him up and down, brows furrowed: “Where did you go?”
He appeared somewhat uneasy and handed her the small cake he was carrying in his left hand: “I fancied something sweet.”
Shu He looked at his tightly curled hand. When she looked up again, the person before her was staring at her in silence. His lips were pressed into a straight line, extremely obedient, but his clear black and white eyes held a trace of anxiety.
Her anxious mood deflated like a punctured balloon. Her tone softened as she let him in.
“Why didn’t you answer your phone? Why didn’t you order takeaway?”
He approached the dining table and somewhat sluggishly took out the cake.
“My phone ran out of battery,” he said quietly with downcast eyes, answering her question: “I couldn’t find the cake I wanted to buy, so I went out myself.”
After speaking, he scooped up a piece of cream with a fork and tentatively offered it to her.
Shu He caught his cautious dark eyes and felt a roughness in her heart, somewhat uncomfortable.
She accepted it. The sweet, sticky taste of cream immediately clung to her lips and teeth. She looked up and saw him quietly eating cake, his long, dense eyelashes casting a small shadow, looking quite normal.
“Were you upset yesterday because you saw the trending topic?”
He sluggishly raised his eyes, hesitated for two seconds, and nodded.
Shu He casually scooped up a small piece of cake and explained: “It was Xu Yichi.”
He mumbled an “Mm”: “I know.”
Shu He watched him eating cake and couldn’t help but recall his first meeting with Xu Yichi.
At that time, she had finished her part-time job, and Xu Yichi was escorting her out of the villa when they spotted Jing Yi waiting early.
“Sister Shu He, is that your boyfriend?”
Shu He had nodded. She didn’t linger, said goodbye to him, and walked straight towards the person waiting for her.
When Jing Yi pulled her into his arms, his gaze casually swept over the person not far away.
Sitting in the car, he leaned over to help her fasten her seatbelt.
Shu He asked puzzled: “I can do it myself.”
Jing Yi gave her a light glance, dragging his tone with the tail of his voice hooked with a strange possessiveness: “That kid is watching. I need to assert my ownership.”
Shu He curiously peered out, but he grabbed her chin and turned her back.
“Stop looking at him.”
She chided him helplessly, “You already said he’s just a kid.”
Xu Yichi was only in Year 11, indeed several years younger than them.
Shu He smiled and ruffled his hair. “You’re younger than me too.”
Back then, he just smiled lazily and, before leaving, cast a challenging glance at the boy outside the window, so childish.
“I see, big sister likes younger men.”
Shu He was used to his unreasonable jealousy. She lowered her head and said perfunctorily: “Yes, especially one called Jing Yi, two years younger, just perfect.”
With that casual placation, he stopped being difficult, though he would still pick her up after each part-time shift and then get jealous.
Regarding the gossip, she had contacted Xu Yichi last night, and the trending topic had already been taken down.
After she finished explaining everything, he nodded and made an acknowledging sound.
“…..”
After a moment of silence, Shu He suddenly asked: “In high school, did you have a crush on me?”
His cake-eating motion froze. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. After a long while, he asked mildly: “How did you… know?”
Shu He didn’t answer him but calmly met his gaze: “So we met that early.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He blinked and smiled casually: “Is it important?”
Shu He could sense something was off with his mood, as if it had knotted up again, but she still nodded and earnestly told him: “Since it’s about you and me, of course it’s important.”
“……”
He lowered his head and aimlessly poked at the small cherry on the cake, mumbling: “I was afraid if you knew, you’d dislike me.”
Shu He froze: “What?”
“I don’t think anyone would like the feeling of being watched.”
In an instant, Shu He understood what he meant.
Because he had been watched by Ren Yinyue and others from a young age, his every move under their control, he hated that feeling, so he thought she would hate it too.
As if something was lodged in her throat, she swallowed with difficulty, trying to keep her voice normal: “Then why did you never appear before me in high school?”
He just curved his lips slightly: “By the time I transferred there, you were already in Year 12, such an important stage. How could I disturb you?”
He liked her but couldn’t disturb her.
Shu He felt something was still off, especially his overly calm state, which she couldn’t quite grasp.
She suddenly got up and went to her room. When she came out again, she was holding a bottle of perfume.
Before he could react, his sleeve was suddenly pushed back. He wanted to hide it but it was too late—
Shu He’s eyes constricted sharply. Her breath stalled for two seconds as she looked at the faded scars, her voice somewhat trembling: “Did they do this too?”
On his pale arm, without a hint of colour, were several sharp, dark scars, as if carved forcefully with a knife.
He snatched his hand back and pulled down his sleeve without answering her question.
“You don’t have to answer that question.” Shu He stopped him as he was about to flee. His cold hand clenched tightly as he kept his head down, not looking at her.
Shu He took his hand but didn’t pull up his sleeve again. Instead, her thumb entered gently, controlling her strength, softly caressing that patch of skin where she could still feel his wildly beating pulse.
“Why did you get this tattoo?”
On his cold, pale wrist was clearly tattooed the mint leaf she had once drawn.
Jing Yi’s throat moved up and down. He answered her question softly: “It was the only thing you left for me.”
Shu He’s heart skipped a beat, and she unconsciously tightened her grip on his hand.
They had thrown away his phone.
When they brought him back, he had nothing.
Except for the mint leaf she had drawn and the blue sweater.
Shu He didn’t say anything more. She subdued her emotions and didn’t push the sleeve up again. Instead, she sprayed perfume on the back of his pale hand.
He looked at her actions bewilderedly, not understanding. But Shu He put the perfume into his palm.
“I need to leave a mark on you.”
He sluggishly realised what she was doing. Shu He raised her hand and slowly stroked his soft black hair.
“I’m really afraid that one day, I won’t be able to find you again.”
“That won’t happen again, right?”
Hearing her gentle voice, his dead heart suddenly skipped a heavy beat. He didn’t speak but instinctively lowered his head, allowing her to stroke him, utterly obedient.
These few days, Jing Yi’s state has improved. Although he still shut himself in at home and wouldn’t go out, he would reply to her messages now.
Every day when she came back, he would silently emerge from his room to eat with her.
The short film shooting was about to end in a couple of days. Xu Yichi wanted to invite her to dinner, but Shu He refused.
“We’re not close, so there’s no need.”
Xu Yichi looked somewhat disappointed. “Is it because of the gossip before, so it’s inconvenient?”
Shu He shook her head. Sometimes she was indeed as cold as others said: “I don’t like getting entangled with people I’m not familiar with, sorry.”
Xu Yichi stared at her steadily: “What if I said I want to pursue you?”
Shu He replied calmly without a ripple: “I don’t like you.”
“That’s so ruthless. What if I could move you?”
Shu He said coolly: “I won’t like someone just because I’m moved by them.”
“Alright then.” He seemed to compromise, but a determined light flashed behind his glasses: “But I think I still want to try. What if?”
Shu He wasn’t someone who liked being pestered. She held back her temper: “You’d better not get so close to me. I don’t want to be troubled by any more strange gossip.”
Xu Yichi wanted to say something more, but a staff member came running over, so he had to leave.
Shu He casually scrolled through her phone. The plagiarism incident between Qi Shanjing and Shan Zhou had already made progress. It seemed they hadn’t expected Liang Xu to get serious. Shan Zhou had posted a handwritten apology letter.
She switched back to WeChat and saw a general message in her high school group.
In a few days, there would be a high school alumni meeting. The class monitor was calling in the group: [Come if you can, let me know in advance if you can’t!]
Previously, Shu He would probably have found an excuse not to go.
But now, she really wanted to go back to school. She wanted to try to find traces of Jing Yi.
Before going to school, Shu He asked Jing Yi if he was going. As expected, he shook his head.
Back at high school, Shu He went with several classmates to visit their form teacher first.
Several teachers were in the office. After chatting for a while, Shu He gave her seat to other classmates. She got up and walked to the window, glimpsing that group photo on the bookshelf.
Her eyes immediately fell on Jing Yi’s familiar yet youthful face.
The young man wore a blue and white school uniform with the collar pulled up to his jaw. He lifted his chin, his deep black eyes looking coolly at the camera, his lips pressed into a straight line, his handsome features sharp and distinct.
The other students around him were all smiling brightly. Only he, though standing in the sunshine, was wrapped in a lonely, isolated feeling that seemed untouchable.
Shu He composed herself and politely asked: “Teacher, was he your student?”
The female teacher, surnamed Tao, looked particularly young. Hearing her sudden question, she answered gently: “Yes, they were the first class I taught, so I’ve kept their graduation photo.”
Seeing her gaze fixed on a certain spot, Teacher Tao smiled, “Do you know someone there?”
Shu He nodded. She thought for a moment and uttered a somewhat unfamiliar name: “What kind of person was Jing Lin…?”
Teacher Tao was stunned. She asked puzzled: “Jing Lin? We don’t have such a person in our class.”
Shu He froze as well. She pointed at the young man’s youthful face: “Isn’t he Jing Lin?”
Teacher Tao shook her head, “You must have mistaken the person. I remember him clearly. His name is Jing Yi, and he skipped a grade to join us.”
Shu He could confirm that the person in the photo was definitely Jing Yi, but he wasn’t Jing Lin…
Her confusion deepened. Just then, a male teacher sitting in front of Teacher Yao turned around. He repeated: “Jing Lin?”
“The ‘Jing’ from scenery, the ‘Lin’ from rugged?”
Shu He instinctively nodded. The male teacher then said to Teacher Tao: “Our school did have such a student, but you hadn’t arrived then.”
Teacher Tao was curious: “Which year was he from?”
The male teacher answered her. Shu He’s heart skipped a beat, as if a thin layer of deliberately concealed truth had cracked.
The male teacher suddenly sighed: “It’s a pity though.”
“What’s pitiful?”
“He might have been our school’s second top achiever, but fate was cruel. The boy was kidnapped in Year 12 and disappeared.”
In that moment, Shu He completely remembered.
Back then, when she was in Year 11, she did hear surrounding classmates discussing that Year 12 top student.
But she was busy studying at the time and didn’t pay attention to other matters.
Thinking back now, both teachers and students had found it regrettable.
So that person was Jing Lin.
The confusion in her heart suddenly had a clear answer.
No wonder when he talked about Jing Lin, he mixed in strange guilt, pain, and struggle.
Jing Yi was not Jing Lin at all.
He had been lying to her.
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