That's quite a lot now.

Time flew by.

More than a month had passed.

There was less than a month left until Gu Yue's birthday.

But the birthday gift Lin Yu had prepared for her had already been accepted by her ahead of schedule.

The reason was that the college entrance exam was drawing closer and closer.

The atmosphere of studying in class was growing more tense and oppressive by the day.

A total slacker like Gu Yue, stuck in such a class, was like a silly moose that had wandered into a herd of elk by mistake.

She was the epitome of clueless and sweetly naive.

If she were just dumb enough to blend in with the elk herd and nibble on grass, that would be fine.

But once she tried to keep up with the elk's pace of migration—

Lin Yu could hardly imagine the kind of pressure she was under.

After all, lacking a solid foundation,

that silly moose Gu Yue had to take several quick steps with her short little legs just to match one easy stride from those tall, elegant elk.

So how could she possibly keep up with the progress of the elk herd?

Seeing Gu Yue's academic stress mounting,

sometimes, in the span of just one meal, she would lose three or four strands of hair.

Like a dandelion.

Classic telogen effluvium triggered by excessive pressure.

To prevent Gu Yue from turning into a baldy,

Lin Yu had no choice but to give her the birthday gift he had only just prepared a few days earlier.

A guaranteed admission spot to a top-tier university.

The origin of this gift was a long story.

Lin Yu had initially thought getting such a spot would be no big deal for him.

After all, with Qing Mo—that super-rich sugar mommy—around,

a university admission spot was nothing but a drop in the bucket for her, right?

But to Lin Yu's complete surprise,

when he made this request to Qing Mo,

she reacted like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.

She was so angry she practically bent the silver fork she was using to stab her steak out of shape.

Lin Yu had no idea why she reacted so strongly.

Wasn't he just asking her to pull some strings

to ensure he and Gu Yue could attend the same university?

Why was she so furious?

So much so that she wouldn't even give him face for saving her life back then.

She got up in a huff and stormed away from the table,

and didn't even bother to pay the damn bill!

Lin Yu still remembered how much that meal cost.

Over twenty thousand!

That was enough for him to drink cheap sodas for twenty years.

Unbelievable.

With Qing Mo refusing to help,

Lin Yu had to pin his hopes on Zhao She instead.

Fortunately, Zhao She was reliable.

Within a few days, good news came through.

Everything was settled.

Gu Yue's guaranteed admission spot was secure.

Lin Yu finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Fast forward to the present.

With the guaranteed admission spot secured and no more academic pressure,

Gu Yue was more like a silly moose than ever.

Every day at school,

while others studied, she doodled.

While others took exams, she played dumb.

Watching her, Lin Yu felt a mixture of frustration and grudging resentment.

People were so strange that way.

A while ago, seeing her in that pathetic state, he couldn't help but feel sorry for her.

But once she was doing better, he found himself grinding his teeth with jealousy.

Still, Gu Yue's guaranteed admission brought Lin Yu some tangible benefits.

Since she no longer needed to attend classes,

she could leave the classroom before the last class in the morning ended.

She had a head start on all the other students in getting to the cafeteria,

where she could grab the most popular dishes before they ran out.

When Lin Yu's class was over,

the two of them would feast together!

Day after day slipped by like this.

Amid the slightly tense senior-year routine,

Lin Yu managed to live quite comfortably.

Every time exam results were posted,

Lin Yu would take an extra look at Tang Manman's scores.

Like a worried old father, double-checking that his daughter hadn't gone astray.

And what reassured Lin Yu was that

Tang Manman seemed to have truly come around.

Her grades soared straight upward.

Throughout several mock exams,

she consistently placed in the top five of the entire school.

With results like hers,

every single university in the country would likely open its doors to her.

Her fate would be completely transformed because of this.

But unbeknownst to Lin Yu,

the person he thought had moved on was actually still silently competing with him.

She threw herself into studying,

driven solely by a stubborn need to prove one thing:

That she was better than her.

Much, much better!

First mock exam.

Second mock exam.

Third mock exam.

College entrance exam.

The exam was over.

Lin Yu walked out of the exam hall in a pair of black shorts and a plain white T-shirt, swaggering casually.

Outside the exam hall,

the leaves were a vibrant green.

A cool breeze was blowing.

Gusts of wind, carrying the damp coolness from the river, swept across the exam grounds.

Countless leaves rustled in the wind, producing a kind of white noise that was oddly comforting.

Lin Yu stood outside the exam hall and took a deep breath of fresh air.

It really was a wonderful summer, he thought.

But something seemed to be missing.

Lin Yu looked around, left and right.

At the school gate,

there was an open area cordoned off by a safety line.

Outside the line, parents had crowded in, all waiting to pick up their kids.

Women in high-slit cheongsam dresses that ran down to their calves,

holding little paper fans.

At this age, to bring some good luck,

they went out of their way to dress up nicely for once.

The men had put away their phones,

standing in the shade of the trees outside the exam hall, standing on tiptoe as they searched among the crowd streaming out for their little treasures.

Lin Yu took all of this in.

After a moment,

he suddenly remembered what was missing.

The cicadas?

Where were the cicadas?

In such hot summer weather, shouldn't they be chirping their lungs out?

Lin Yu was a little curious.

Why were the cicadas so quiet today?

Then he remembered.

A few days before the exam, to ensure students weren't disturbed by any noise during the test,

someone had apparently sprayed something on those lush green trees.

Now that he thought about it,

that spray was probably some kind of cicada-killer potion.

Ah well.

When humans take their exams,

those poor creatures sure suffer.

How pitiful.

Mingling with the crowd and walking out of the exam hall,

Lin Yu was considering whether to head home and lie down for a while,

or go to the internet café for a game or two,

when a clear shout rang out from the crowd beyond the safety line.

"Longge!"

Lin Yu lifted his eyes and looked over.

Among that cluster of middle-aged women,

a girl bursting with youthful vitality suddenly squeezed her way out.

But her outfit was no different from those middle-aged women's—

she was also wearing a cheongsam with a slit running down to her calf.

Yet, as Gu Yue stood in the crowd, waving her fair and slender hand,

she seemed to practically glow.

Looking at Gu Yue in that cheongsam dress,

a faint smile crept across Lin Yu's lips.

The loneliness in his eyes was shattered and swept away by his genuine delight.

But as Gu Yue happily ran up to him,

Lin Yu, true to form, couldn't say anything nice and teased her:

"That outfit makes you look pretty mature."

"Yeah?"

Gu Yue, thinking she was being complimented, happily twisted side to side,

showing off her slim waist, and said excitedly:

"I picked this dress out for such a long time!"

"Look at this."

She turned sideways, pointing at the bun she had piled up at the back of her head, held by a wooden hairpin, and boasted:

"My mom spent days learning how to do this from videos online!"

"Oh~~~"

Lin Yu nodded deeply, dragging the sound out meaningfully.

Then a mischievous smirk curled at the corner of his mouth, and with his cards on the table, he said:

“No wonder she looks so obviously old!”

Gu Yue: ???

Gu Yue: “Lin Yu!”