Translator: Paperplane Editor: DarkGem

  That night, he walked mindlessly around in the rain for a very long time. The next day, he had a fever and locked himself in a hotel room. He spent seven days and seven nights in bewilderment before completely waking up.

  His phone had many missed calls, mostly from the media. One of the messages he received was from Qiao Anhao, congratulating him in receiving the best supporting male award at the Golden Film Festival.

  As he saw her message, he instinctively wanted to reply, but just as he typed the two words, "Thank you", the memory of what happened on the night of her birthday came over him like a rushing tide. His fingers stopped typing for quite a long time, then he ended up slowly deleting the letters, one-by-one. He put his phone done, stood up, and walked over to the hotel’s floor-to-ceiling window. There, he stared at the bustling city under the sun’s rays with a pitch-black heart.

  Actually, he was even more hurt by the fresh flowers and cake that Qiao Anhao threw out than Han Ruchu’s words.

  All along, he only worked hard to better himself so he could love her. He never thought about whether she loved him or not.

  After that, Qiao Anhao went to Hangzhou about three times. She even invited him to eat with her. Before, her messages would be like a surprise from the skies, but for him back then, they were torture.

  Crushes in your youth mostly end in failure. He told himself to leave it at that, but who knows if it was his heart playing tricks on him, but the less he saw her, the more he missed her. There was even one time when he went back to the hotel to get some rest after filming and he saw a woman who wore the same clothes as Qiao Anhao. In spite of everything, he stupidly stood on the spot and stared for a long time. It was only after his assistant had called him a few times that he snapped back to reality. Later, his mood became extremely low for no reason.

  Later, two months after graduation, he went to Beijing for an event, where he unexpectedly bumped into Xu Jiamu.

  During their free time, he and Xu Jiamu stood on the balcony smoking. He thought about what Han Ruchu had said to him and pretended to casually ask, "I hear the Xu family and Qiao family have an arranged marriage?"

  When he heard arranged marriage, Xu Jiamu furrowed his brows. Then he took a deep drag of his cigarette. He gently made a "mmm" sound.

  The hand with which he held his cigarette trembled gently. Then he took a longer drag than Xu Jiamu. After a while, he asked, "Da Qiao or Xiao Qiao?"

  For Xu Jiamu, when he found out that his own engagement had nothing to do with love but to bring the Xu family some benefits, it didn’t matter who he married…… At that time, when Xu Jiamu knew about the arranged marriage, but still didn’t know who he was going to marry, he didn’t know that Lu Jinnian had fallen for Qiao Anhao. If he knew, he would have definitely not have answered like he did He only assumed that Lu Jinnian was asking who he preferred out of the two, and so he answered, "Of course, it’s Qiao Qiao."

  With such a very simple, very casual answer, he forcibly transformed Lu Jinnian’s deep love into a forbidden love.

  Actually, when he heard the answer, his expression was stiff. Perhaps it was because the light was dim, but Xu Jiamu didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. He even patted his shoulder and said that he’d be treating the night after. He was going to treat him and friends that he hadn’t seen for a long time to play.

  Lu Jinnian didn’t hear what Xu Jiamu said, but he nodded awkwardly.