Embedded Files
Psst! We're moving!
The first time Qiu Ruru met Gu Minghui was the summer after she graduated from elementary school.
Her personality as a child was completely different from what it was as an adult. She was very introverted. Later, Qiu Ruru sometimes thought that her change in personality was probably inseparable from Shen Yihuan.
Shen Yihuan was so boisterous. She became good friends with her in high school, and her personality changed without her even realizing it.
Or perhaps it was a conscious change.
After she discovered that Gu Minghui liked a certain type of girl.
But that was all for later.
________________________________________
That summer, Qiu Ruru was only 12 years old. Her parents had invited Gu Minghui’s family over for dinner.
The little boy was pretty cool. He was on a skateboard and didn’t eat much before going outside to the open space in the garden to skate.
After Qiu Ruru finished eating, she also went outside and saw Gu Minghui push off with one foot, gliding for a distance before jumping up with the board and landing steadily on a nearby step.
He turned his head and looked at the little girl standing in the doorway, showing off to her.
Qiu Ruru clapped for him.
“Can you do it?” he asked.
Qiu Ruru looked at him and shook her head.
Gu Minghui pouted, then jumped down with his skateboard and went back to playing by himself.
The Gu family left soon after dinner.
She saw him again in middle school. They weren’t in the same class. Qiu Ruru was in the top-scoring Class 3, and Gu Minghui was in Class 9, the one with the best sports results but the worst academic performance.
Gu Minghui started growing taller in middle school. He grew very fast, and his flirtatious eyes easily captivated people’s hearts and attracted a lot of romantic attention.
He started dating girls.
They were all the tall, thin, and beautiful type.
Qiu Ruru ran into them a few times and quickly hid. Only once, when she was the class’s discipline monitor checking for truancy, did she run into Gu Minghui and his new girlfriend on the school’s rooftop.
Qiu Ruru hadn’t seen her before.
She paused with her hand on the door, her first reaction being to run back.
But Gu Minghui had already seen her, and she had the red discipline monitor armband on her sleeve.
“...It’s a lunchtime study hall. You can’t be on the rooftop,” she said, her voice quite soft.
“Oh,” Gu Minghui replied, his temper quite good. “I know. We’ll be down in a minute. Don’t write our names down.”
Qiu Ruru nodded. Just as she was about to leave, she heard Gu Minghui call out to her. “—Wait a minute.”
She turned around.
Gu Minghui was leaning against the railing.
His hair was a little messy from the wind, with some strands sticking up. He raised an eyebrow and looked at the girl in front of him.
He asked, “Have we met before?”
As soon as he said it, Gu Minghui almost bit his own tongue. What a terrible pickup line. Sure enough, the girlfriend standing next to him was already displeased.
She frowned and asked accusingly, “Who is this?”
Gu Minghui glanced at her nonchalantly. “I’m asking her.”
Qiu Ruru looked at the two of them and said, “I’m from Class 3. We’ve met before. Our parents know each other.”
“Ah,” Gu Minghui remembered. He smiled at her. “I knew it. You looked familiar.”
They were from two completely different worlds and never interacted. Their only interaction in middle school was this one time.
Qiu Ruru sometimes thought that she and Gu Minghui were probably meant to be, as they ended up in the same class in high school.
She didn’t know when exactly she fell for Gu Minghui, but it couldn’t have been that early in middle school. Back then, she avoided Gu Minghui purely out of awkwardness.
The first time her heart fluttered was when her grandfather was rushed to the hospital in her first year of high school.
Gu Minghui gave her a ride to the hospital on his bicycle.
The warm breeze, his white shirt, their blue and white school uniforms, and the clean scent of laundry detergent on him.
The boy grabbed her wrist and pulled her to sit next to him. He reached out and patted the top of her head, his voice incredibly gentle. “It’s okay. Don’t cry. I’ll have your back from now on, really. I mean it.”
Time continued to move forward.
They gradually became closer.
They started teasing each other, laughing so hard that their stomachs hurt.
It was quite incredible that she had slowly entered Gu Minghui’s inner circle of friends.
She also gradually discovered that Gu Minghui was actually a very gentle person. Of course, this gentleness didn’t apply to his ever-changing girlfriends, but he was indeed gentle with his friends and strangers.
Every evening, he would walk out of school with a basketball, occasionally getting some minor bumps and bruises. His school uniform was never worn properly. The zipper was either pulled low or all the way up, which was pretty “chuunibyou.”
But his looks were undeniable. Gu Minghui was indeed popular in both middle and high school.
But he never took his relationships seriously.
Qiu Ruru watched him go through one girlfriend after another, and she and Shen Yihuan would mock him for being a player. Then, the three of them would burst out laughing.
To be honest, she didn’t have any special feelings, nor was she sad.
She had been watching him change girlfriends frequently since she was in middle school and didn’t know any better. Perhaps she was just used to it.
...
The first time Qiu Ruru went to a bar was when Gu Minghui threw a party.
Gu Minghui had just been dumped that day. It was his first time being dumped. He had always been the one to break up with others. This time, the girl broke up with him, and Shen Yihuan relentlessly mocked him for it.
She pointed at him and laughed. “See? Karma’s a bitch. Now you’ve fallen, haven’t you?”
Gu Minghui waved his hand dismissively. “Fallen my ass. Let’s go out tonight. It’s a celebration for me returning to being single, and once again becoming the common property of all the women out there.”
Shen Yihuan immediately scoffed at him.
He was the one who got dumped, but the young master insisted on calling it a celebration of being single.
“It’s so noisy, Yingtao,” Qiu Ruru said as she stepped into the bar that night. She was startled by the loud, chaotic sounds and had to shout to be heard.
Sometimes, even shouting wasn’t enough.
Shen Yihuan turned her head. “Huh? What did you say?”
She was also shouting.
Qiu Ruru shook her head and didn’t say anything.
“Let’s go. Don’t be scared. I’m here. See who dares to do anything to you,” Shen Yihuan said with a smile, leading her inside.
Qiu Ruru was still reserved. Shen Yihuan noticed her discomfort and didn’t go off to have fun with others. She sat next to her the whole time and chatted.
Qiu Ruru felt a little bad.
She said, “You go have fun, Yingtao. I’ll be fine by myself.”
Shen Yihuan glanced at the crowd next to them. “It’s fine. I’m already tired of it.”
Later, Qiu Ruru went to the restroom. The heavy smell of smoke and alcohol inside gave her a headache, so she decided to go outside for some fresh air.
The wind on the street was cool. Qiu Ruru stood there and took a few deep breaths, as if trying to exhale the polluted air she had just inhaled.
The streetlights formed a straight line stretching into the distance.
Suddenly, a hand patted her shoulder.
Qiu Ruru turned around and saw a man who was clearly drunk.
She frowned and took a step back.
The man squinted and moved closer to her. Just as Qiu Ruru’s heart trembled, a voice came from behind her.
“Do you need something?”
Gu Minghui grabbed the man’s collar and threw him back. The man was already drunk and couldn’t stand steadily. He stumbled a few steps and fell to the ground.
The boy had a faint smell of alcohol and cigarettes on him. He lowered his eyes, his expression completely different from his usual self. There was a hint of coldness and ruthlessness in his eyes.
The man on the ground, who had an angry look on his face, was about to get up and fight back. But when he saw Gu Minghui’s face, he stopped. He tried hard to open his eyes and put on a fawning expression.
He pushed his crooked glasses up his nose. “You’re President Gu’s son, aren’t you?”
Gu Minghui frowned, still looking annoyed. “Who are you?”
“I’m a business friend of your dad’s. I’ve even been to your house. Did you forget?”
Qiu Ruru thought this man was quite strange. He suddenly changed his demeanor. It seemed he wasn’t completely out of it yet.
Gu Minghui held Qiu Ruru’s wrist tightly, standing in front of her, not saying a word.
The man glanced at the girl behind him, put his hands together, and bowed. “I’m so sorry, so sorry. This must be your girlfriend. Look at me, I thought I recognized her as a friend of mine!”
“Don’t give me that bullshit about a friend!” Gu Minghui swore without giving him any face. “She’s 16. What kind of friends like that do you have?”
The man was speechless.
Gu Minghui glanced at the man, the coldness in his eyes unconcealed. He put his arm around Qiu Ruru’s shoulder and pulled her closer to him.
“Look closely. This is my sister.”
“If you mistake her for someone else again, it won’t just be a simple beating.”
________________________________________
It was rare for Gu Minghui to be this serious. Even when he was fighting, he would make jokes, his words so provocative that it made the person he was fighting even more angry.
This was the first time Qiu Ruru had seen this side of Gu Minghui.
After chasing the man away, Gu Minghui didn’t go back inside right away. He leaned against a tree and lit a cigarette. The white smoke shrouded his features.
“Why did you come out by yourself?”
“It was too smelly inside.”
“Oh,” Gu Minghui was stunned for a moment. He turned around and put out his cigarette. “I used to smoke in front of you all the time.”
Qiu Ruru looked up at him. “It’s fine when one person smokes, but it was almost a fairyland in there.”
Gu Minghui chuckled. “Yeah, I guess. It’s like everyone’s becoming an immortal.”
“Why did you call me your sister just now?” Qiu Ruru still asked the question.
“Huh?” Gu Minghui didn’t think it was a question worth asking. “Aren’t you younger than me? Besides, with scum like that, you have to be related to me so they won’t dare to do anything.”
“Oh,” Qiu Ruru nodded.
Gu Minghui straightened up, stomped his feet, and tugged at his collar. “Let’s go. I’ll take you home.”
“There are so many people inside.”
“Let them play. It’ll save me from having to drag a bunch of drunks back later.”
“What about Yingtao? She’s in there too.”
“When I came out, she was on the phone with Lu Zhou. She’ll leave when Lu Zhou gets here,” Gu Minghui said, twitching his lips into an unnatural smile. “She’s much better at handling stuff at bars than you are. Don’t worry.”
Gu Minghui called a taxi and took Qiu Ruru home first.
He sent Shen Yihuan a text message from the taxi, and she replied that she had already left with Lu Zhou.
The taxi stopped in front of Qiu Ruru’s house.
Gu Minghui looked at the villa outside and pointed. “Why does this look a little familiar?”
Qiu Ruru nodded, her face straight. “It should look familiar. You loser, you came to my house when you were a kid. Around 12 years old, I think.”
“Ah,” Gu Minghui seemed to remember, but he was still a little hesitant.
“You even brought your skateboard to my house,” Qiu Ruru added, gesturing with her fingers. “You skated from here to there and looked at me so arrogantly.”
“Damn,” Gu Minghui laughed. “Seriously?”
“Why would I lie to you?” Qiu Ruru rolled her eyes.
Gu Minghui looked at her. “I’ve noticed you have a very good memory.”
Qiu Ruru slapped him on the back and then sighed. “Yeah, I do.”
Google Sites
Report abuse