Wrapping a towel around her damp hair, Jiang Yao decided she’d blow-dry it later. She had already changed into the shirt—the legendary boyfriend shirt was indeed very large, just like that windbreaker, big enough to cover her butt.
Jiang Yao lifted the sleeve and took a few sniffs of Chen Yuan’s unique scent, then opened the closet to find the so-called "shorts."
All she found was a pair of shorts that resembled swim trunks. They were bright yellow with a SpongeBob pattern and looked quite cute.
Jiang Yao put them on right away and examined herself in the mirror.
’Not bad,’ she thought. ’It’s a pretty interesting mix-and-match look.’
Jiang Yao playfully posed in front of the mirror for a long time. Then, on a whim, she tucked one corner of the shirt into her shorts, leaving the left side hanging out. It actually looked pretty good!
Once she was done, she flopped comfortably onto the sofa.
’I’m so happy.’ Jiang Yao stared up at the ceiling, secretly looking forward to sharing a room with him tonight... To be honest, every girl fantasizes about her boyfriend. Whether during their innocent school days or after they’ve fully grown up, they always hope for a perfect romance so sweet it takes their breath away.
Chen Yuan’s appearance had undoubtedly let Jiang Yao experience that very feeling.
She found it incredible herself. Fate was just that strange. Just when you thought so-called love would never come—that even if it existed, it would never happen to you—that person appears without a sound.
Here in Lanjing, of all places, she met her online love, and he met her expectations in every way.
She began to look forward to their future together more and more.
Jiang Yao picked up her phone and opened the notes app she used for journaling. It was filled with all sorts of things: sheet music for songs she was playing, lyrics for songs she needed to learn, and the model numbers for the streaming equipment she’d already bought.
She created a new note, her fingers dancing nimbly across the screen.
She recalled the approximate times of their "first time holding hands," "first time in the rain," "first kiss," and "first sleepover," and wrote them down.
It didn’t take much effort at all, but when Jiang Yao finished and looked it over, her heart swelled with sweetness. In the future, so many more things would be recorded in this note.
Looking back on this a year, or even several years from now, would surely bring so much happiness.
’So what exactly will happen tonight?’ Jiang Yao’s face felt a little hot.
Or would it just be an uneventful, peaceful night’s sleep, waking up to a gentle new morning?
BUZZ—
BUZZ—
She was lost in her sweet thoughts when a phone on the coffee table vibrated a few times, pulling her back to reality.
She looked over, puzzled, and saw it was Chen Yuan’s phone.
She picked it up and saw someone was sending Green Bubble messages.
The screen wasn’t off; it was set to never auto-lock. So, without needing a password, Jiang Yao just tapped the chat box, and the incoming messages appeared before her eyes.
The contact name was "Senior Liu Tingyue."
The messages read:
"The rain is so heavy today! Some parts of campus have turned into little rivers, did you see, Chen Yuan?"
"Eee... I’m a little scared."
"The thunder just now made me jump. I was putting on makeup and it made my eyeliner all crooked."
[Video]
Jiang Yao hadn’t even opened the video yet, but just from those few messages, a giant "!" might as well have appeared over her head like a triggered quest in a video game. She was instantly on high alert.
Jiang Yao’s brow furrowed, and she wrinkled her nose.
’Wow, the stench of green tea is so strong! It’s practically wafting right up my nose!’
With a grave expression, she tapped the video. The scene that began to play was a view of the heavy rain outside, filmed through a dorm window. Everything seemed normal... until the camera suddenly flipped, revealing half of a girl’s delicate face, with a clear focus on her eye.
The focus was on the slightly winged black eyeliner.
Hiss...
If the previous messages had a hint of "green tea," this video made Jiang Yao absolutely certain: this girl was a total green tea!
There were three reasons. First, normal girls don’t go around making cutesy whiny noises. Jiang Yao knew what kind of person Chen Yuan was. Since he had her saved as "Senior," it meant their relationship wasn’t that close. And if you’re not close, why make those noises? It was a deliberate attempt to act cute and adorable, a form of flirting to imply intimacy and a way to signal interest.
Second, this Liu Tingyue girl, with both her first and third messages, had left room for a "sustainable conversation." Both messages were clearly bait. If he replied about the rain, even a clueless guy would have taken the hook, and the conversation could go on forever, branching off into endless topics.
And if he didn’t take the bait? No problem. The girl threw out a second topic—"crooked eyeliner"—and even sent a video to go with it. She deliberately showed only half of her delicate face, and her eyeliner wasn’t crooked at all! It was just slightly winged! You couldn’t even call it unattractive!
’Huh? Isn’t sending a video a pretty flirty thing to do?’
’What kind of relationship do you have that you’re just sending videos?’ A normal person would reply, "It doesn’t look crooked," and just like that, the conversation would be back on.
It was one link after another in a chain. Seemingly casual, but in reality, so manipulative it was chilling.
Jiang Yao was instantly repulsed.
She trusted Chen Yuan completely, but a woman’s intuition set off alarm bells in her mind, screaming that she was in danger. This Liu Tingyue definitely had ulterior motives!
Jiang Yao peeked cautiously toward the bathroom, torn. It was true she was head-over-heels in love, but her values were still straight. Snooping through her boyfriend’s phone without permission... that was the kind of thing a "cringey girl" would do! But if she didn’t look and just left the phone on the coffee table, the anxiety would eat her up inside.