I Miss You So Much (12/32)

When Lin Wanwan pushed open the front door, she was still humming the song Not Yet Lovers that she had just been singing.

The TV in the living room was playing the evening news. Her dad, Lin Shuxian, held a teacup; though his eyes were fixed on the screen, his peripheral vision had long since taken in his daughter's radiant, beaming appearance.

"Mom, Dad, I'm home," Lin Wanwan said, changing into her slippers, her voice crisp and cheerful.

Lin Shuxian blew on the tea leaves floating on the surface of his water. Unable to hold back, he asked, "Are you and Chen Zhi together now?"

Lin Wanwan, who was bending over to straighten her shoes, paused. Her back visibly stiffened.

She turned around, blinking her big eyes, trying to play cute to get away with it. "Huh? Dad, how did you know? Who's spreading rumors to you?"

"Rumors?" Lin Shuxian set down his teacup, sighed, and pointed at the mirror in the entryway. "Take a look at yourself. Your smile is practically stretching to your ears. It's a good thing it's that boy Chen Zhi. If it were anyone else, see if I wouldn't break his legs."

Lin Wanwan subconsciously touched her cheeks. They were indeed a bit hot.

Since she was seen through, she simply stopped pretending. With a cheeky laugh, she went over, hugged Lin Shuxian's arm, and swayed it back and forth. "Dad, I've graduated, and the college entrance exams are over. This doesn't count as puppy love anymore, right?"

"Whether it counts as puppy love depends on when you first started having those feelings." Lin Shuxian snorted, though there wasn't much blame in his tone. "If I truly opposed it, our family would have moved away a long time ago. Why do you think I insisted on staying cooped up in this old neighborhood when our family's financial situation improved?"

Lin Wanwan was stunned for a moment, then her eyes sparkled. "Dad! So you already..."

"Alright, alright." Lin Shuxian pulled his arm out in mock disgust. "Girls always leave the nest eventually. Hurry up and go back to your room. Stop swaying in front of me, it's annoying to look at."

"Thanks, Dad! You're the best! You're the most open-minded dad in the whole world!"

Lin Wanwan handed her own father a verbal good guy card, then skipped happily into her bedroom.

Once the door closed, the world went quiet.

Lin Wanwan took a two-step running start and threw herself directly onto her large, soft bed.

The mattress bounced twice.

Hugging her giant body pillow, she buried her face in it, rubbed against it, and then started rolling around frantically on the bed.

Three rolls to the left, three rolls to the right.

Wiggling on the bed like a little grub.

Finally, having vented most of her excitement, she lay on her stomach, her two slender white legs kicking gently in the air.

She took out her phone and opened WeChat.

Chen Zhi's chat was pinned to the top.

The alias was set to: [Bad Guy].

Biting her lower lip, Lin Wanwan tapped on the screen.

She deleted [Bad Guy] and typed [Hubby].

Looking at those two words, her face instantly flushed bright red.

"No, no, that's too embarrassing..." Lin Wanwan buried her face in her pillow and whimpered a couple of times.

Lifting her head again, she deleted it.

She changed it to [Darling].

Staring at it for two seconds, she still felt it was a bit too cheesy.

Change again.

[Boyfriend].

"That's too distant, not special at all." Lin Wanwan furrowed her pretty brows.

After changing it back and forth, her fingers paused, and she ultimately changed the alias back to [Bad Guy].

This one was still the most pleasing to the eye.

Even though he was a Bad Guy, he was a Bad Guy who belonged to her alone.

Holding her phone, Lin Wanwan hovered her fingertips over the input box, hesitated for a long time, and typed out four words:

[I miss you so much.]

Send.

Then came the long wait.

One second, two seconds, three seconds...

Lin Wanwan stared at the screen without even blinking.

Thirty seconds passed.

Still no reply.

Lin Wanwan's legs stopped kicking, and she pouted.

"What is he doing... taking a shower? Or chatting with someone else?"

"He couldn't be chatting with Pei Ningxue, could he?"

The mind of a girl in love was always so erratic.

Just then, the WeChat notification chime finally rang.

Lin Wanwan's eyes lit up, and she quickly unlocked her screen.

However, the message that popped up wasn't from Chen Zhi, but from someone named [Lin Zixuan].

That was her cousin, the Blondie.

[Lin Zixuan: Sis, isn't it time to settle the final payment?]

[Lin Zixuan: To cooperate with you in acting out this play, I took a hard hit from my brother-in-law. My wrist is still bruised even now.]

[Lin Zixuan: Sis, you wouldn't want my brother-in-law to know that the Blondie who harassed you tonight was hired by you to force him to confess his feelings, right?]

Lin Wanwan's expression instantly changed.

She sneered and tapped rapidly on the screen.

Transfer: 666 yuan.

Send.

Then she tapped on his profile picture, hit the three dots in the top right corner, and added him to the block list.

After destroying the evidence, Lin Wanwan gave a soft hmph and tossed her phone back onto the bed.

If Chen Zhi knew that she had arranged a whole hero saving the beauty script just to force him to confess, who knows how much that guy would laugh at her.

This secret had to be taken to the grave.

Having dealt with her dirty work, Lin Wanwan reverted to being an anxious little girl in love.

She picked up her phone again and stared at the chat box with Chen Zhi.

Why hasn't he replied yet?

Every second felt like a year.

Just as she was about to bomb him with meme stickers, the top of the screen finally displayed "User is typing...".

[Bad Guy: We've been apart for less than twenty minutes, and you're already missing me before you even reached your front door?]

Seeing this sentence, the gloom on Lin Wanwan's face instantly vanished, and the corners of her mouth curled up uncontrollably.

[Wanwan: I just miss you. I want to be with you every second of every minute now.]

[Wanwan: One minute apart feels like three autumns. We've been apart for sixty autumns already!]

Right after the message was sent, Chen Zhi's call came in.

Lin Wanwan answered in a second.

"Hello~"

During this phone call, the two chatted about everything from the riverside earlier, to who stole whose lollipop when they were kids, and from lollipops to what kind of apartment they would rent off-campus when they went to college.

"We need to get a dog, and a cat too," Lin Wanwan said, lying on her bed and looking at the ceiling, dreaming of the future. "The dog has to be a Golden Retriever, and the cat has to be a Ragdoll."

"Sure, whatever you say. But you'll be the one scooping the poop," Chen Zhi's lazy voice came through the receiver.

"Chen Zhi!"

"Okay, okay, I'll scoop it, I'll scoop it, alright?"

"That's more like it... What should we name our future kids? If it's a girl, how about Chen Wanwan?"

"Student Lin Wanwan, we've been official for less than an hour. Aren't you thinking a bit too far ahead?"

"Not far! Not far at all!"

The two of them chatted until their phones grew hot and their batteries ran low.

"It's getting late, you should go to sleep," Chen Zhi said, checking the time. It was almost midnight.

"Ah... I have to sleep already?" Lin Wanwan rolled over in bed, her voice full of reluctance.

"Be a good girl. Hanging up now. See you tomorrow."

"Then... give me a kiss."

"Muah."

After hanging up, the room fell quiet once more.

Lin Wanwan pressed the phone to her chest, listening to the thump-thump of her own heartbeat.

No good.

She couldn't sleep at all.

Hanging up only made her miss him even more. The agonizing, restless feeling was like a cat scratching at her heart.

She sat up, ran barefoot to the window, and pulled back a corner of the curtain.

The lights next door were still on.

That was Chen Zhi's room.

The two families lived in an old-fashioned residential complex with very narrow spacing between the buildings. The balconies were the old, open-air style, and the gap between their two balconies was less than a meter wide.

A bold idea began to grow wildly in her mind.

Lin Wanwan bit her lip, picked up her phone, and sent a message.

[Wanwan: Are your parents asleep yet?]

A few seconds later, a reply came.

[Bad Guy: They're asleep. What's up?]

Asleep, huh...

A sly smile curled at the corners of Lin Wanwan's lips.

She shoved her phone into her pocket, tiptoed to the balcony door, and gently slid it open.

The summer night breeze was a bit cool and felt incredibly comfortable against her skin.

She looked at the distance between the two balconies, then down at the loose, pure cotton pajamas she was wearing.

"I shouldn't have... lost my touch, right?"

Lin Wanwan took a deep breath, braced one hand against the railing, and nimbly vaulted onto the concrete ledge of the balcony.

Under the moonlight, the young girl's silhouette looked weightless and graceful.

...

Chen Zhi had just finished a long phone call with Lin Wanwan and felt his mouth go dry.

He walked into the living room, poured a glass of cold water, and drank it while reminiscing about how clingy the girl had been on the phone just moments ago.

This whole dating thing was definitely going to his head.

Just as he tilted his head back to drink, a sudden, muffled thud came from the direction of the balcony.

This was immediately followed by a suppressed, delicate gasp.

"Ouch..."

Chen Zhi almost dropped the glass in his hand.

A burglar?

Are there really thieves these days brave enough to scale a third-floor balcony?

He set down the glass, grabbed the broom from behind the door, and walked cautiously toward the balcony.

"Who's there?"

Chen Zhi yanked open the balcony's screen door.

By the light spilling out from the living room, he got a clear view of the scene before him.

Lin Wanwan was sitting on her heels on his balcony tiles, clutching her knee with one hand.

Seeing Chen Zhi come out, she looked up at him with a pitiful expression.

Her large eyes were shimmering with unshed tears.

The broom in Chen Zhi's hand clattered to the floor.

He was completely dumbfounded.

"Lin Wanwan?"

Chen Zhi crossed the distance in a few strides and crouched down in front of her, feeling a mix of exasperation and amusement. "What are you doing? Why not use the perfectly good front door instead of playing the cat burglar?"

"It hurts..." Lin Wanwan sniffled, showing him her scraped knee. "I didn't land right and bumped into your flowerpot."

Chen Zhi took a look. It was just a minor scrape with no bleeding, though it would probably leave a bruise.

He sighed helplessly and reached out to flick her on the forehead. "Serves you right. What are you doing scaling balconies in the middle of the night instead of sleeping?"

Lin Wanwan didn't dodge, letting him flick her.

She reached out both hands, wrapped them around Chen Zhi's neck, hung her entire body weight on him, and said with absolute self-righteousness:

"I missed you."

"Saying I miss you over the phone isn't enough. It only counts if I see you."

The fresh scent of the girl's body wash, mixed with the coolness of the summer night, drifted straight into Chen Zhi's nose.

Chen Zhi felt his heart skip a beat.

He slipped one arm under the crook of her knees and the other around her back, lifting her right off the ground into his arms.

"Don't climb over anymore."

Chen Zhi carried her into the house. Though his tone was stern, his movements were incredibly gentle.

"Why?" Lin Wanwan nuzzled into his embrace.

Chen Zhi placed her on the living room sofa and turned to get the first-aid kit.

"Because it's too dangerous."

He walked back with iodine cotton swabs, crouched down in front of Lin Wanwan, and looked at her with a deep, intense gaze. "Now that you're here, do you still think you're leaving tonight?"