What's the Big Deal.

“Ah?”

“That amazing?”

The corners of Lin Yu’s mouth stretched into an exaggerated grin. He let out a sigh of relief and said,

“So it’s just a healthy liver then.”

“For a second there, I thought you were faking being drunk and actually confessing to me.”

As it turned out.

“Leave some leeway in life, and you’ll always meet again”—that saying held true.

Lin Yu clearly didn’t grasp that principle.

As he pressed his teasing further,

Gu Yue’s ears burned red, as if they might drip blood. She looked like a rabbit cornered by a hunter.

Suddenly dropping her hands, she raised her face to Lin Yu, bared her teeth like she was about to bite him, and snapped,

“Fine!”

“I was faking being drunk just now, and I was confessing to you!”

“So what!”

Mutual secret crushes were a strange thing.

Just moments ago, Lin Yu had the upper hand, practically riding Gu Yue’s neck with his teasing.

But the moment she came clean,

Lin Yu’s cocky demeanor shrank dramatically, transforming him into the weaker party.

Staring at Gu Yue’s flushed, pouty face in the lamplight, Lin Yu was momentarily stunned.

Even so, the reins of control between them still rested firmly in Lin Yu’s hands.

Unable to endure Gu Yue’s fixed gaze, he gently pushed her wheelchair, guiding her through a world of bright green leaves and encroaching darkness as they moved slowly forward.

“So you confessed, huh.”

“What’s with all the fierceness?”

Lin Yu pushed Gu Yue, and though his words still carried a teasing tone,

his voice had softened.

Soft, like an intangible mist of water, lingering in the quiet shade of the trees.

Gu Yue broke her gaze away from Lin Yu.

Being pushed like this, looking up made her feel insecure.

So instinctively, she dropped her eyes.

Staring ahead at the darkness dispelled by the streetlamps and the green illuminated by their glow,

Gu Yue, who had just delivered a kill-or-be-killed strike, was nervous.

Her heart pounded with anxiety, but her mind was blank.

Only tension remained.

“If you confess, I’ll say yes.”

“What’s the big deal?”

Lin Yu said it lightly,

like a soft, happiness-filled goodnight kiss.

Gu Yue jerked her head up.

The light in her beautiful eyes seemed to freeze—

unmoving, unblinking.

She stared fixedly at Lin Yu.

Lin Yu just smiled faintly.

Bright light fell from above his head, illuminating his gently mischievous, tender face.

Suddenly.

The bright light in Gu Yue’s eyes wavered.

Then,

An apocalypse seemed to erupt within them,

as if everything in her world was shattering.

Tears took the opportunity to riot, spilling from those glowing cracks.

Lin Yu froze for a moment, watching the tears squeeze from the corners of Gu Yue’s eyes.

This was the first time he had ever so clearly witnessed what it meant to cry tears of joy.

“Wah...”

Gu Yue’s delicate little face wrinkled pitifully.

Tears slid down the corners of her eyes.

Sniffling, she raised her arms high, like a child begging for a hug.

Lin Yu bent down at the right moment,

offering his neck within her reach, and wrapped his arms around her from behind.

In the silent night,

the chirping of insects was clearly audible.

The two of them—one tall, one short, embracing—were frozen forever in a tiny frame by an almost inaudible mechanical click.

The man, who had been nothing more than a passerby all along, slipped the small camera into his pocket.

Gazing at the delicate leaf veins glowing under the streetlights,

he, too, felt this was a fine evening.

A cool breeze.

Lush greenery.

Though, perhaps not in someone’s eyes...

“Wah...”

“Wah...”

“Wah......”

Gu Yue kept sobbing.

Her soft, whimpery sniffles drifted like ripples through the silent road.

Lin Yu let her hold him. His back was starting to ache, and there was no sign of Gu Yue stopping. Exasperated, he said,

“Hey.”

“Are you serious?”

“Do you dislike me that much?”

“You can’t even stop crying.”

“Wah...”

“It’s not that I dislike you.”

“I like you...”

“It’s because I like you that I’m crying.”

Gu Yue choked out between sobs, hugging Lin Yu’s neck even tighter. Her wet, warm cheek pressed firmly against his.

“Then give me some air.”

“You’re about to choke me to death.”

Lin Yu patted Gu Yue’s arm.

She finally snapped out of it, quickly loosening her grip around his neck. She wrinkled her nose adorably, sniffling back the snot threatening to spill.

“You scared me.”

“I thought you hated me that much.”

“When I confessed.”

“So mad you wanted to strangle me.”

Lin Yu rubbed the tears on his neck from Gu Yue’s face, reciting ill-timed, cheesy jokes with a hint of lingering unease.

Truth be told, Lin Yu had wondered.

Whether he should say something more fitting for the moment—sweet, romantic words.

But lines like “I love you” and “you’re my everything”—

he had never spoken a single one in his life.

Just thinking about forcing those words out of his throat made his whole body break out in an allergic reaction.

A weird, prickly, creeping sensation.

So Lin Yu could only fall back on what he did best: cheesy jokes to lighten the mood.

Gu Yue sat in the wheelchair, rubbing her pale hands clumsily over her face, her voice nasally from crying.

“How could I hate you?”

“I don’t hate you.”

“Alright.”

“As long as you don’t hate me, that’s fine.”

“Let’s go.”

“I’ll push you around a bit.”

Lin Yu pushed Gu Yue, strolling leisurely along the asphalt road bathed in lamplight.

Like many newly-confirmed couples,

Lin Yu and Gu Yue didn’t quite know what to say.

Especially since they had gone from being buddies to being lovers—

it felt a bit awkward.

In the end, Lin Yu took the lead like a man and broke the silence.

He picked a few wildflowers from the overgrown roadside.

After carefully cleaning the dirt off the stems, he arranged them neatly, placing them one by one, then turned and offered them to Gu Yue, who was sitting in the wheelchair.

“Come on.”

“Today’s our engagement day, so to speak.”

“Let’s take a photo.”

“To remember it by.”

Lin Yu smiled warmly and gently.

Gu Yue took the small bouquet of wildflowers he had neatly arranged.

Looking at the bunch in her hands, her cheeks flushed. Her heart felt so sweet, like it had been drowned in honey.

But in that instant, another feeling arose.

Curiosity about why Lin Yu had suddenly become so proactive—

like some kind of seasoned romantic.

Yet even that faint doubt couldn’t raise a single wave in her mind.

It quickly sank to the bottom beneath her overwhelming happiness.

She sniffled hard.

Facing the phone camera Lin Yu had aimed at her, she tried earnestly to put on a bright, sunny smile.

Gu Yue thought Lin Yu was right.

This was their engagement day.

She had been waiting for this day for a very, very long time.

So she had to put on the brightest, most beautiful smile today, as a keepsake.

“All done.”

After a brief photo shoot,

Lin Yu put down his phone.

He looked down at the photo on the screen, a strange twist to his smile for some reason.

Gu Yue didn’t notice anything unusual. She just eagerly reached out her hand toward Lin Yu and said impatiently:

“Let me see.”

“Hang on.”

“Let me save it first.”

After carefully saving the photo, Lin Yu handed his phone to Gu Yue.

Gu Yue looked at it expectantly.

There on the phone screen was

a girl with her eyeliner and makeup slightly smeared, holding a small bouquet of flowers, smiling brightly at the camera with an especially goofy grin.

She looked a little silly.

Endearingly ugly, but in a cute sort of way.

The kind of embarrassing photo that, if seen by a girlfriend, would definitely earn a couple of playful punches from her.

But truth be told,

in Lin Yu’s eyes,

the girl in this photo was still adorable above all else.