Yanyan’s car slowly approached the giant Maxwell billboard. Finally, I saw Qinyan standing under the streetlight. He was wearing a backpack, a brown jacket, and a pair of cropped trousers that paired well with his high-top Martin boots, giving him a stylish look. At first glance, one might mistake him for a model from an online store doing a street fashion show.
Yanyan might not have seen Qinyan’s photo before, so she asked me uncertainly, “Is that him standing under the light?”
“Yeah, that’s him.”
Yanyan slowed down even more while watching Qinyan anxiously looking around. As we approached, a girl dragging a suitcase came from the opposite direction and seemed to be asking Qinyan for his contact information. He shook his head and made an apologetic gesture. Apparently, they had chatted on the train, and the girl, unable to forget his handsomeness, had finally gathered the courage to ask for his contact details… Unfortunately, she was rejected. The girl left with an embarrassed expression, while Qinyan resumed looking around. At this moment, our car finally stopped beside him. However, Yanyan sat motionless in the driver’s seat, clearly regarding Qinyan as an unwelcome guest.
I rolled down the window and said to Qinyan, “Get in, sit at the back.”
Upon noticing our arrival, Qinyan’s face immediately showed a mix of nervousness and anticipation. However, he didn’t immediately get into the car because the dark tinted windows prevented him from seeing inside. He walked to the front of the car and locked eyes with Yanyan, who was sitting in the driver’s seat. To be precise, he was staring at her. Yanyan’s expression was unreadable, but this already proved that she hadn’t disappointed him—she was even better than he had imagined!
Eventually, Qinyan circled from the front of the car to the side but didn’t follow my instruction. Without hesitation, he sat in the front passenger seat—the same seat that Jian Wei had vacated just over ten minutes earlier. Despite his boldness, he was extremely nervous, and his hand instinctively trembled slightly as he pulled down the seatbelt.
Yanyan glanced at him and said, “Comrade, your seatbelt buckle is on my side. May I ask where I should fasten mine?”
Qinyan looked down, his face showing slight embarrassment. Whether intentionally or genuinely nervous, he smiled at Yanyan and said, “There’s a slot on my side. Fasten it there.”
However, Yanyan ignored him. She unfastened the seatbelt buckle from his side and reinserted it into his own seat, then fastened her own seatbelt before starting the car. Obviously, she considered Qinyan’s clearly purposeful and sudden visit to be impolite. I could understand this. At this moment, she was still in deep pain, unable to find her true self. She couldn’t possibly start any romantic relationship—at least not now!
…
After leaving the train station, we arrived at a nearby multi-functional coffee shop. Before entering, Yanyan said to Qinyan, “You’ve seen me now. After dinner, you should go back with Zhaoyang. Don’t come looking for me again!”
“You’re treating me to dinner?”
Yanyan turned her head and looked at Qinyan. Her shoulder-length hair reflected the flowing lights from the neighboring bridal shop’s window, like a waterfall flowing down. Her inner prison suppressed her emotions, and she replied coldly, “No problem. I’ll treat you two to dinner.”
Yanyan had an underlying meaning in her words, so she was treating both of us, not just Qinyan alone. If Qinyan were a smart man, he should have understood this. However, at this moment, he was overwhelmed by love, and he shouldn’t have come to look for Yanyan at a time like this.
Suddenly, Qinyan changed his mind and said, “Never mind. I’ll go back to Xuzhou.”
Yanyan looked at him somewhat surprised and asked after a while, “Do you have something against me, or are you just being difficult with yourself?”
Qinyan was no longer nervous. He took out a train ticket from his pocket and showed it to Yanyan, “This is my ticket from Suzhou to Xuzhou at 11 o’clock. I bought it before I left. I came here just to see you once. I didn’t want to stay too long because I know it would make you unhappy…” He continued, taking out several more tickets from another pocket, “These are tickets from Xuzhou to Suzhou in three days, and the return ticket. I’ve already bought them all. You can think of it as me being difficult with myself! Anyway, I’ll come back in three days. At that time, I hope you’ll tell me, ‘Let’s have a meal together,’ without any ‘us,’ and no Zhaoyang or Caijie!”
Yanyan looked at him wordlessly, but her mind was in turmoil because Qinyan had already revealed his feelings.
Qinyan took off his backpack, carefully opened it, and gently pulled out a bouquet of pink roses and a heart-shaped thermos. He handed the flowers to Yanyan first and said, “This bouquet of pink roses is for you. It symbolizes warmth and happiness. Although it’s only symbolic and may not truly bring you happiness and warmth, I will keep trying until one day you tell me that these are no longer just symbols, and that you have genuinely experienced happiness and warmth from me!”
Yanyan didn’t reach out to take the flowers, so Qinyan opened the car door, placed the bouquet on the front passenger seat, and then handed the thermos to Yanyan, saying, “This thermos contains the milk tea I made for you personally. It has many ingredients, all of which I ground by hand. However, I haven’t named it yet because I hope you can give it a name… Oh, and remember to finish drinking it before ten o’clock, or it won’t taste the same anymore!”
Yanyan still didn’t take it. Qinyan then placed the thermos into the car’s storage compartment, closed the door, put his backpack back on, and without saying anything else, walked toward the roadside to wait for a taxi…
Watching his back, I felt somewhat stunned because it was the first time I had seen a man pursuing a woman in such a way. In just a few minutes, he had created many expectations for Yanyan based on waiting, although Yanyan might not necessarily need these expectations…
Qinyan had already hailed a taxi. He opened the door, smiled at Yanyan again, and shouted, “I hope you don’t mind me doing this. Just like spring brings flowers, winter brings snow, and autumn brings fallen leaves, everything I want to do for you comes from instinct… See you in three days. By then, be sure to name this cup of milk tea for me!”
Yanyan stood silently in place for a long time before finally asking me, “Zhaoyang, how far is it from Xuzhou to Suzhou?”
“More than 500 kilometers. Why?”
“He ran all the way here, just to see me once? Then he gave me these two random things?”
I couldn’t understand Yanyan’s true feelings, nor did I want to hastily judge Qinyan’s seemingly absurd behavior, which was essentially driven by love. After a while, I replied, “If you don’t like them, you can give these two things to me…”
“You can take them.”
Considering these items as a burden for Yanyan, I silently opened the car door and took out the bouquet and the milk tea, saying to Yanyan, “I’m sorry for causing you trouble with this. When I return to Xuzhou, I’ll talk to him and advise him not to keep traveling between Xuzhou and Suzhou doing meaningless things, treating the 500 kilometers as if it were nothing, and coming here to bother you every few days.”
Yanyan’s expression was complex. As I was pulling Mi Cai, who had been silent the entire time, to say goodbye to Yanyan, she suddenly called out to me, “Zhaoyang… wait!”
“Is there anything else you need to say?”
Yanyan paused slightly before softly replying, “Take the flowers with you, but… leave the milk tea here!”
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