Growing Fond of You, Mr Nian

She found her phone and she hurriedly called Mo Liuxi.

“Who’s this?” Mo Liuxi sounded impatient.

“It’s me,” Yan Su said with a low voice.

“Su?” Mo Liuxi gasped and said, “Where have you been? You didn’t answer my call, and you’re not home. I called Jiaojiao, but she couldn’t reach you either. I’m was so worried. I’m at the school looking for you. I was going to call the police.”

Yan Su was touched. It was the first time someone worried so much about her safety.

“I’m… I’m fine. I’m at a hot spring hotel with my friends, so I’ll be back tomorrow. I lost my phone.”

“Why are you so careless?” said Mo Liuxi with a low voice. “Anyway, as long as you’re okay.”

Yan Su bit her lip to keep herself from crying.

She wanted very much to tell him about what happened tonight, but if she did and if Jin Youlan got caught, people would know what happened to Shi Xiang.

“I’ll buy you a new phone when you get back,” said Mo Liuxi, “When will you come back? Do you need me to pick you up?”

“No, I’ll come back tomorrow,” said Yan Su with a gentle voice. “Just go home. Go to sleep early.”

“How am I gonna sleep while you’re not there?” Mo Liuxi snorted. “We’ll go to a hot spring hotel together next time.”

“Hm.” Yan Su responded. “I gotta go.”

“Aren’t we gonna talk a little longer?”

“I’m busy.”

“All right, bye. Don’t miss me at night.”

After ending the call, Yan Su spent a while sitting on the bed. Then she looked at the time and found that Shi Xiang had been in the bathroom for an hour.

“Shi Xiang, come out.” She hurriedly knocked on the bathroom door and tried to persuade Shi Xiang to come out.

At midnight, Shi Xiang had a fever.

Chen Chen went out again for medicine. Yan Su spent the whole night taking care of him, giving him cold compresses, and wiping his body. At dawn, his fever finally broke.

At 10:00 a.m. he slowly woke up.

Shi Xiang laid on the bed as Yan Su sat beside him. Looking at him in the eyes, Yan Su suddenly felt things had become different. After a while, she gathered the courage to start talking. “Shi Xiang, it’s over. I don’t even remember what happened last night…”

“How can you possibly forget something like that?” Shi Xiang clenched his fists under the quilt. “I brought you into this. Jin Youlan has always been sick. I underestimated how sick she could be.”

He swore to himself that he would do whatever he could to make Jin Youlan pay for that she did.

“Forget about it,” Yan Su said. “She dare not to leak the video unless she admitted that she has broken the law.”

Shi Xiang covered his head with the quilt and said, “Su, I’m not good enough for you. I wish you the best.”

Yan Su understood that he liked her. No matter how awful a man might be, he would always want to have his dignity and pride in front of the girl he cared about.

She had witnessed the worst of Shi Xiang. Seeing her would remind him of the most painful experience in his life.

They couldn’t be together.

She couldn’t tell how she felt. They were once a boy and a girl leaving home together with a vision for the future, but their story didn’t end well.

“You… take care too.” Her voice was very low.

…

At 11:00 a.m. they took a ride down the mountain.