The wound was too painful. Jiang Wei took a deep breath before answering Jiang Jie’s question. “It has been a while.”


  “Why are you guys secretly dating? What era is it now? It’s not a big deal to be in a relationship at a young age.” Jiang Jie found this unbelievable. The entire situation was strange.

  “This…” Jiang Wei’s eyes shifted, and he casually lied. “You know that my relationship with Yuqing was not good in the past. I even quarreled with her whenever we met. Later on, we got together, and I felt quite embarrassed. So, I didn’t tell everyone.”


  Jiang Wei and Fang Yuqing liked to argue with each other the moment they met. They were frenemies, and Jiang Jie knew that.

  She thought about what had recently happened and frowned. “Then Brother, what do you guys plan to do? After Xie Rujiao’s big mouth, everyone in the school knows about Fang Yuqing’s affair. How is she going to face the world in the future?”


  Xie Rujiao could not keep her mouth shut. Moreover, she had been on bad terms with Fang Yuqing ever since they were young. If something ugly happened to Fang Yuqing, Xie Rujiao would be just short of shouting with the loudspeaker. Now that the entire school knew about Fang Yuqing’s abortion, how was Fang Yuqing going to study in the future? How was she going to live?

  Jiang Wei did not say anything.

  His mother said after being silent for a while, “Your father wants to let Jiang Wei and Yuqing get engaged first. After they graduate from university, they will get married.”


  Jiang Jie opened her mouth. Jiang Wei seemed to have expected this, and his expression was calm.

  ***

  The next day, Qiao Jiusheng brought the old duck soup Aunt Jin had personally made to the hospital to visit Fang Yuqing.

  Fang Yuqing’s wrist was still wrapped in a bandage. Sitting in a wheelchair, she leaned against the window and looked out. Her expression was calm. Qiao Jiusheng walked to her side and stared at the laboratory building opposite the hospital. She suddenly said, “That man is not Young Master Jiang, right?”


  Fang Yuqing’s eyes gleamed, and she nodded.

  Qiao Jiusheng asked again, “Why won’t you say that person’s name?”


  Fang Yuqing remained silent.

  “You still love him?” Qiao Jiusheng became a bit gloomy.

  Fang Yuqing shook her head.

  “Then why?”


  Fang Yuqing finally looked up at Qiao Jiusheng and asked her, “Sister Yunsheng, is Brother Yusheng your first love?”


  Qiao Jiusheng shook her head.

  “How old were you when you first dated?”


  Qiao Jiusheng said, “Not 18.”


  “Did you love that person when you first dated?”


  Qiao Jiusheng was stunned.

  ?Qiao Jiusheng had even thought that she would be with Fang Mu for a long time and be in love with him for the rest of their lives. Any sincere relationship yearned to last until the end of time. It was just that the changes in one’s life were unpredictable. Before the end of time, a relationship could collapse.

  Seeing Qiao Jiusheng fall silent, Fang Yuqing weakly smiled. She said, “When I was in love with that person, I also thought that it would last forever.

  “His family is quite ordinary. I was in a secret relationship with him because my father wouldn’t have allowed me to date a child from an ordinary family. After we fell in love, he even brought me to his house to meet his mother.”


  Fang Yuqing’s gaze shifted from Qiao Jiusheng to the building opposite her. She said, “His mother was an honest ordinary worker. His father had been a firefighter. During a fire rescue mission, he had given his life to save a little girl.

  “The first time I went to his house, he cried when he introduced me to his father’s photo.” Fang Yuqing chuckled and self-deprecatingly said, “I thought that it was a show of his love; a boy was willing to cry in front of a girl. At that time, I thought that he really loved me.”