Chapter 162

Su Jin had never told Gu Chen about her secret crush on him.

She always felt it was a bit shameful, and also a little silly.

During the Qingming Festival, Su Jin's mother asked Su Jin to take her and Su Jin's father back to their hometown to pay respects to their ancestors. After Gu Chen found out, he put aside his work and volunteered to be the driver.

The house in their hometown was a small building with a courtyard, where Su Jin had lived from childhood until she left in her second year of high school.

It was almost noon when they arrived; Su Jin's mother instructed Su Jin to take Gu Chen for a walk before heading into the kitchen to get busy.

The two stood in the courtyard staring at each other; it was just an ordinary house, and Su Jin had no idea what there was to look at.

"Take me to see your room?" Gu Chen took her hand.

Although Su Jin muttered, "What's there to see?", her body honestly led him upstairs.

When she pushed open the bedroom door, she suddenly felt a bit nervous. This room was her secret space during her student days; the walls were still covered with posters from that time, and the bookshelf held the novels she had been obsessed with back then.

She used to think nothing of it, but the thought of Gu Chen seeing it made her feel a bit uncomfortable.

Gu Chen, however, was not reserved; he pushed the door open and walked in, his gaze calmly sweeping over every corner of the room and every single item.

He curled the corners of his lips and paced over to the desk, where a stack of textbooks still lay. He picked one up and flipped through it, seeing the dense, neat notes written inside.

He looked at the other books, and every single one was the same.

"You were this diligent?" he asked.

Su Jin walked over, snatched the textbook from his hand, and said huffily, "How else would I have gotten into Jingda if I wasn't diligent?"

Gu Chen looked at her, the corners of his mouth curving, but he didn't speak; his gaze landed on the bookshelf. On the top shelf stood a photo frame containing a picture.

Su Jin followed his gaze, and her heart suddenly began to race.

It was a photo of her at seven or eight years old, wearing a princess dress, her hair in a ponytail, smiling mindlessly at the camera and revealing two little canine teeth.

It looked silly no matter how you looked at it.

Gu Chen reached out to take the photo frame.

Su Jin panicked and lunged to stop him: "No! You can't look at that!"

With his long arms and legs, he blocked her at his side with a gentle movement, while his other hand had already picked up the frame. He looked at the little girl in the photo and chuckled: "Very cute."

Su Jin blushed and reached out to grab it: "Give it back to me!"

He raised his hand, holding the frame high. She couldn't reach it, so she stood on tiptoe to try.

The man deliberately took a step back, and Su Jin fell right into his arms.

Gu Chen took the opportunity to wrap his arms around her waist, looking down at her with eyes full of laughter.

She felt completely uneasy under his gaze and pushed against his chest: "Give it back to me—"

The rest of her words were blocked off; Gu Chen lowered his head and kissed her.

He deliberately kissed her slowly, savoring her taste bit by bit, while his other hand placed the photo frame back on the shelf.

Su Jin heard the soft sound of the frame landing back on the wooden board, and then his hand cupped the back of her head, deepening the kiss.

"Mmm... Mom and Dad are still downstairs..." she said vaguely.

He ignored her and kissed her for a while longer before letting go. She panted, her face bright red, glaring at him, and didn't forget to kick him.

Gu Chen accepted her annoyance, gave a low laugh, and continued to ignore her protests as he picked up a photo album from the shelf.

"A-Jin, do you two want to eat some fruit first?" Su Jin's mother's voice came from the doorway.

Su Jin missed the chance to snatch back the album and had to pull her hand back.

Su Jin's mother pushed the door open and, seeing the album in Gu Chen's hand, smiled: "Looking at A-Jin's photos?"

"Yes, quite cute," Gu Chen replied.

Su Jin's mother was even happier upon hearing this; she set down the fruit platter, sat on the edge of the bed, and began to recount everything to Gu Chen like a treasure.

"This one is from when she was a month old, this one is her first time walking, this one is her first day of kindergarten, crying her eyes out..."

Su Jin stood to the side, her face hot enough to fry an egg: "Mom, stop talking."

Her mother ignored her and kept flipping: "This one is her elementary school graduation, this one is middle school, and this one is high school."

Gu Chen looked at those photos, his heart softening completely. Watching her grow slowly from a young child into a graceful young woman, he felt a strange sense of regret; this was a past he hadn't been a part of.

Fortunately, in the future, they would always be together.

Su Jin's mother had completely opened the floodgates, talking through each photo, each with its own story. Su Jin gave up struggling and turned to go downstairs to help in the kitchen.

Once she left, her mother spoke even more unreservedly, revealing all her old secrets.

Gu Chen listened quietly, his gaze falling on the photos, when he suddenly paused. A corner of a yellowed page was peeking out from under the photos, looking like an old-fashioned lined notebook.

He glanced at Su Jin's mother, but she didn't notice, as she was busy flipping to the next album.

He pulled it out gently; the cover of the notebook was already very old, with curled corners. Opening the first page, delicate handwriting appeared, just like Su Jin herself.

It was a diary.

Gu Chen originally intended to close it to protect Su Jin's privacy, but his eyes suddenly caught a familiar word.

On a page full of writing, his name had been highlighted and bolded.

He had never imagined that his name would appear in Su Jin's diary, which piqued his curiosity.

He read on slowly, the smile on his face fading bit by bit. Su Jin's mother was still talking beside him, and he responded occasionally, his voice no different from usual, but his fingers holding the diary slowly tightened.

Those delicate strokes, written one by one, contained the secret thoughts she hadn't dared to speak aloud all those years.

"My luck was so bad today; I was blocked behind the teaching building by those upperclassmen bullies. They were so fierce and so strong; it hurt so much when they pushed me... But a kind senior helped me. White shirt, very tall, very handsome. I don't know who he is."

The second page, a few days later.

"His name is Gu Chen; what a nice-sounding name."

She wrote his name three times. Each time it was larger than the last, and the final stroke of the character "Chen" was dragged out very long, like her lingering thoughts.

"Passed by their classroom door today, pretending to look for a classmate, but actually, I was looking at him. He was sitting by the window, doing problems; his profile is very handsome. The wind blew the curtain, and he looked up at the window; I wonder if he saw me."

"What should I do? I think I've fallen for someone who is very far away from me."

"The mock exam results are out. I'm still forty points away from Jingda; I need to work even harder."

"The first mock exam results are out. I'm still fifteen points away. The teacher says if I keep up this momentum, there's hope for Jingda. I say to myself in my heart, it's not hope, it's a certainty. I want to be a little closer to him."

"School has started. Jingda is so big; I've walked for three days and still haven't finished. I went to look at his former college; the ginkgo leaves haven't turned yellow yet. Imagining him walking here makes even the wind feel gentle."

"I saw someone in the library today whose back looked just like his. I followed them for three floors, but when they turned around, it wasn't him. I felt a bit disappointed, yet I also felt ridiculous."

"I heard from a senior student that he started his own company and rarely returns to school anymore. I probably won't really see him again in the future."

On the bottom right corner of this page, there is a very small pencil inscription, written extremely lightly, as if afraid of being discovered.

"Miss him."

Gu Chen looked at those two words for a long time.

Wind blew in from outside the window, flipping the paper pages. He held them down and turned to the last page. The date was the summer she graduated, and the handwriting was much more mature than the preceding pages.

"I'm going abroad. Before I leave, I want to go look at his company building one last time. Actually, I don't even know where it is; I just heard it's in the Technology Park. I took the subway for three stops and wandered around the area, but I didn't find it. I stood by the side of the road and drank a cup of milk tea; it was very sweet, sweet enough to be a little bitter."

"I probably won't really see him again in the future. This is fine, too; we were people from two different worlds to begin with."

"It doesn't matter. It's enough that I remember."

The diary ends here.

Gu Chen remained motionless for a long time; he recalled the scene of their first meeting, and in truth, everything was not without a trace.

Every time she saw him, she seemed somewhat nervous, and although she hid it extremely well, the slightly reddened tips of her ears would betray her.

She would always lower her eyelashes when he looked over, shielding her shimmering, watery eyes.

He could perceive her affection for him, but he did not know that this affection had begun in her green, youthful years, enduring through the long passage of time, before it finally reached his side.

What right did he have to be liked by her like this?

Mother Su finished flipping through the photo album, looked up, and saw him lost in thought: "What's wrong? Are you mesmerized?"

He snapped back to reality, closed the diary, and said in a calm tone: "Yes, she was very cute when she was little."

Mother Su laughed: "Isn't that the truth? She was so endearing when she was little. By the way, there's one more—"

"Mom." He interrupted her, his voice very soft, "Can I take this photo album back to look at slowly?"

Mother Su was stunned for a moment, then smiled and waved her hand: "Take it, take it; it was meant for you to look at anyway."

Gu Chen tucked the diary into the middle of the photo album and put them away together.

——

Su Jin felt that Gu Chen was a bit strange today; he kept looking at her.

It was the same gentle gaze, the same warm smile. But she just felt something was wrong; beneath his pitch-black eyes, it seemed as if something was about to surge forth.

Returning to Jingzhou, Gu Chen dropped her off downstairs.

Su Jin was just about to pull the car door open to get out when her wrist was suddenly gripped.

"What's wrong?" she turned her head to ask.

His face was hidden in the night, making it unclear, and his voice was somewhat low, with a sexiness like sand grinding over it: "Don't go back, okay?"

Su Jin's face flushed; they had already done everything they should and shouldn't have, so she immediately understood what he meant.

"Stay at my place tonight?"

Hearing no answer from her, Gu Chen leaned over and asked again.

Su Jin feigned composure: "Mm."

It wasn't the first time she had stayed over, anyway; her shadow was everywhere in the apartment. Half of her change of clothes were in the closet, her skincare products were in the bathroom, and there were flowers she liked in every corner.

Su Jin came out after showering, wearing a camisole nightdress. Her hair was already more than half dry, so she put away the hairdryer and wiped it with a towel.

Gu Chen came out of the study holding something. She didn't see clearly what it was before he had already placed it into the bedside drawer.

"What did you take?"

"Nothing."

She said "Oh" and didn't press him.

Gu Chen walked over, took the towel from her hands, and wiped her hair for her. His movements were very light, wiping through it strand by strand.

"Gu Chen." Su Jin tilted her head to look at him.

"Hmm?"

"You seem a bit different today."

His hand paused: "How am I different?"

"I can't put my finger on it." She thought for a moment, "You're just different."

Gu Chen chuckled softly and continued his movements. When her hair was completely dry, he draped the towel over the back of the chair, leaned down, and picked her up from the chair.

"Eh... what are you doing?" Su Jin was startled and wrapped her arms around his neck.

He didn't speak, placed her on the bed, and leaned down to press over her.

This kiss was different from usual.

The usual Gu Chen was gentle and restrained, even in bed. But today he wasn't; he kissed her deeply and heavily, as if he wanted to knead her into his very bones and blood.

……

Su Jin was so tired she couldn't even open her eyes; she curled up in his arms, letting him clean her up, wrap her in a bath towel, and carry her back to bed.

In her daze, she felt him kiss the corner of her eye.

"Su Jin."

"Mm..."

"From now on, let me be the one to pursue you."

She didn't hear it clearly, having already fallen into a deep sleep.