Translator: Paperplane Editor: DarkGem

  It was not until Qiao Anhao drew closer did she see that he was holding a cigarette in one hand and something that looked like a pen in his other hand. His eyes stared directly at it. Who knew what he was thinking about……

  Qiao Anhao bit her bottom lip, walking a little closer to where Lu Jinnian stood.

  Lu Jinnian, who was stuck in a daze all this time, suddenly felt that someone was coming closer to him. He quickly turned his head and swept his cold eyes over Qiao Anhao. He hurriedly shoved the pen back into his trouser pocket and asked in a frosty voice, "Who let you in?"

  A long time had passed since Lu Jinnian last spoke to Qiao Anhao in such a deathly cold tone.

  Qiao Anhao didn’t quite know how to react, trembling a little. She timidly looked over at him to see that he wore a frighteningly intense look on his face. To her own disappointment, she started to get nervous and scared again.

  She instinctively gripped tighter the gift box in her hands, and gulped. Then she shut her eyes and pushed the thing in her hands in front of him, saying in a gentle, low voice, "It’s for you."

  After saying these three words, Qiao Anhao realized that her heart was racing at an alarming rate.

  In that moment in time, the feeling she had was exactly the same as the time when she held her carefully written love letter in her arms and traveled all the way to Hangzhou to find him. Apprehensive, uneasy, nervous, impulsive…… In that short breath, the sweat in her palms soaked into the wrapping.

  Lu Jinnian callously turned around and stared at the blue gift box in Qiao Anhao’s small, delicate hands. His brows furrowed and his eyes looked confusedly at her. Yet, in the end, he showed no intention of reaching out to take it.

  Qiao Anhao didn’t know how much time had passed, but her hands were a little sore from holding up the gift box. She became even more helplessly uneasy, and she couldn’t help but secretly lift her eyelids. She glanced up at him, meeting his cold, deep eyes They were like snow that hadn’t melted for a thousand years, staring right at her.

  Qiao Anhao’s fingers trembled a little, holding the gift box, and she took a step back, saying in low voice, "Happy Birthday." But lthough her voice was low, her words clearly reached Lu Jinnian’s ears.

  His exquisite, cold complexion instantly froze, and he stared into Qiao Anhao’s eyes. Brushing away his astonishment, he seemed like he wasn’t sure of what she had just said. After a while, he asked in flat tone, "What did you say?"

  Since the time he got home till now, those were the first words he said. Even though it was just four words, they let Qiao Anhao’s entire body loosen up.

  She got slightly braver as she looked up at Lu Jinnian with his usual cold expression on his face. She repeated the words she had just said one more time, "Happy Birthday."

  She paused, then added two more words, "Happy Birthday to you!"

  Qiao Anhao said "Happy Birthday" twice, which finally confirmed for Lu Jinnian that he hadn’t heard wrong.

  Happy Birthday…… They were two simple words, but to him, they felt so foreign.

  To think about it, the last time he’d heard those two words were as long as, perhaps, seventeen or eighteen years ago?

  Lu Jinnian wanted to say something, but it was like something was stuck in his throat. He opened his mouth to speak, but he couldn’t make a sound.