Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Seven

When Xue Ling left in a hurry, she took nothing with her from this small home.

There were signs that the place had been rummaged through, but it wasn’t too messy. At least the bedroom still mostly looked as it had three years ago.

Xue Ling opened the wardrobe and checked each drawer. She looked at the study materials, books, her water cup, desk ornaments given by friends, and a dead succulent in a small pot.

Looking around, she didn’t know what to take. She wanted to take everything, but nothing seemed necessary.

Xue Ling pulled out the chair and sat down on the dusty seat. Dust floated in the air as she looked out the window at the green trees and the school buildings in the distance.

She had spent many days and nights here, studying or just staring into space.

“Knock knock.”

Xue Ling turned her head, and Wen Jiuzhe was just standing at the bedroom door. He tapped with two fingers and said, “I thought you were packing. So you’re just slacking off? Nothing you want to take with you?”

“Nothing, really. None of it’s needed anymore.” Xue Ling wrote on the dusty desk in response.

She decided to leave these things here.

Wen Jiuzhe read her note, then walked to the wardrobe and opened the top door, easily pulling down a suitcase. He then pushed open the bottom wardrobe door and began selecting clothes.

He brought along the clothes she often wore; wearing her own clothes was always more comfortable than wearing someone else’s.

Xue Ling liked to keep the visible areas tidy, but the inside of the wardrobe was often messy. Once the door was shut, she didn’t have to think about it.

It was already summer, but the winter clothes hadn’t been cleared out from the wardrobe yet, jumbled together with the summer clothes.

The wardrobe itself wasn’t very big, and Xue Ling’s habit of tossing things inside meant it was often so full that the door wouldn’t close properly.

When Wen Jiuzhe moved in, he needed a corner of the wardrobe, making it even more cramped.

The last time Wen Jiuzhe was here was before they broke up. Back then, his clothes were mixed in with Xue Ling’s pile of clothes in the wardrobe.

Now, with a casual sweep, his clothes were gone. Instead, there was a black package in the corner of the wardrobe. Judging from the sleeve peeking out of the bag, it looked like his clothes.

Xue Ling hadn’t even bothered to tidy her own clothes but had helped him organize his. How could this not be considered caring?

Wen Jiuzhe selectively ignored the large cross of tape stuck on the black package.

After selecting a few pieces of clothing for Xue Ling, Wen Jiuzhe opened the suitcase and fell silent again.

The suitcase was the one they had used during their trip before, and there were still quite a few things inside that hadn’t been sorted out.

Wen Jiuzhe pulled out a dress from the suitcase. “Isn’t this the dress you couldn’t find before?”

Xue Ling stood up immediately. “Oh my! It really is! How did it end up here!”

She had rummaged through the entire wardrobe in search of this dress, with clothes piled high on the bed.

Back then, Wen Jiuzhe had been sitting on the bed, half-heartedly folding his own clothes, listening to her muttering, “Where on earth is it?” as she searched left and right, almost diving into the wardrobe.

It turned out to have been in this suitcase.

“Oh, and here’s the nail clipper you couldn’t find and insisted that I had lost.” Wen Jiuzhe pulled out a multi-function nail clipper from the inner pocket of the suitcase.

In the suitcase, there were still items like train tickets, plane tickets, attraction tickets, travel toiletry kits, facial cream samples, and more.

Wen Jiuzhe removed the unnecessary items from the suitcase and started packing Xue Ling's clothes.

Xue Ling, unsure of what to take, suddenly wanted to bring many things when she saw Wen Jiuzhe packing her clothes.

She also squeezed in front of the wardrobe and found her favorite scarf, throwing it into the open suitcase. After struggling to choose between her several backpacks, she finally picked two of the most commonly used, one large and one small.

She grabbed a gold bracelet her cousin had given her from the drawer and put it on.

She also brought her ID card to keep as a memento.

She also threw in a brand-new notebook and a box of unused pens.

She also threw in her usual comb and hairpins.

When all the miscellaneous items were added up, they didn’t fit in the suitcase. She packed two more large bags, while Xue Ling held a sky-blue checkered blanket in her arms.

"Is this what you meant by saying you had nothing to bring?" Wen Jiuzhe lightly kicked the several sizeable packages at his feet; this was basically a whole move.

Xue Ling: “……”

You started it first.

Feeling a bit guilty, she plopped the blanket on her head.

After transporting everything downstairs, Wen Jiuzhe found all the available space and stuffed the items into every empty spot in the car, suddenly noticing the black bag containing her clothes. He hadn’t noticed when she had stuffed it inside.

Once she was in the car, Xue Ling raised her writing board: "You came all the way to Yu City just to help me move?"

Wen Jiuzhe started the car and sidestepped the question: "How about a tour around the school?"

They went to Xue Ling’s school.

Since it was during the school holidays, there weren’t many people, and as a result, not many zombies on the school grounds. Compared to the bustling streets filled with dense hordes of zombies, this place was pretty empty.

The car passed the teaching building, the cafeteria, and the artificial lake, made a loop, and stopped on the street in front of the girls' dormitory.

After starting college, Xue Ling had been living alone outside, but sometimes it got too lonely, and it wasn’t very convenient for classes. So during terms with heavy coursework, she still stayed in the dormitory.

She had originally planned to live in the dormitory in her sophomore year too, but after someone confessed their feelings to her underneath the dormitory, she moved out.

“You remember when someone confessed their feelings here?” Wen Jiuzhe brought up the incident as well.

“That’s right, you said yes to dating me, right here.”

That’s not all there is to it. Not only did she agree to date him here, but she also broke up with him on this street.

As Xue Ling recalled that incident, she smiled wryly and pushed the car door open to get out.

Many camphor and Chinese mahogany trees were planted along the street. No one had cleaned it for over three years, so the entire street was covered in fallen leaves. Each step made a rustling sound.

Yusi University planted deciduous trees along its roads, and in autumn, especially when the wind blew, leaves flew everywhere.

Many students found the scene romantic and would pull out their phones to take videos.

But at that moment, a cold breeze blew. The two of them stood on the road, watching the leaves fall. In the distance, a lone zombie hurried over, letting out excited roars. There was no nostalgic atmosphere.

“It’s been over three years…” Wen Jiuzhe leaned against the railing by the road and asked, “Can we get back together again?”

After asking, he stood up, took care of the zombie that was getting closer and yelling, then came back like nothing happened and continued, “You’re not still mad about what happened back then, right?”

Xue Ling: ...

She used her foot to scrape the leaves in front of her, drawing out the character “okay.” She waited until Wen Jiuzhe smiled and was about to hug her before swatting his hand away. She then scraped out the character “no” in front of “okay.”

Do you want to get back with me?

— No way.

Their relationship started by sheer chance. Wen Jiuzhe thought that she had only agreed to date him because she felt bad about rejecting someone.

Anyway, when two guys had confessed to her on the same day, she would agree to one of them, whether it was him or the other.

She didn’t want to choose, so she randomly picked one to end the awkwardness of being pursued.

She was the type of person who, even if she didn’t want to go to a gathering, would give in if someone persuaded her a bit more. She would go, and if there were no dishes she liked, she would feel too embarrassed to ask for more, too shy to suggest leaving early even if she was hungry, and end up tired and hungry, still tagging along for a second round of karaoke.

Her relationship with him had been the same. She impulsively agreed to be with him, adding a lot of obligations and responsibilities for herself, and even though she didn’t like him, she still took care of him, often getting angry without daring to break up...

Wen Jiuzhe had never figured out whether she had gradually fallen for him over the year they dated or if she had just gotten used to having him around and thought it was fine to continue like that.

Even though she had made some progress during their year together and had finally learned to turn people down, she still couldn’t say no to him.

Oh, now she could.

Wen Jiuzhe: ...

But I hope you learned to say no, just not when I don’t want you to.

Xue Ling used her foot to scrape out two characters in the fallen leaves and stood next to them with her hand outstretched, as if afraid he wouldn’t see.

Wen Jiuzhe stepped over and used his foot to smear the “no” character.

“Do over,” he said, “That didn’t count just now.”

How ridiculous, you think it doesn’t count just because you say so?!

Xue Ling scraped the “no” character out again and stood in the middle, looking at him defiantly.

Wen Jiuzhe: “Fine, I’ll make you erase that ‘no’ yourself in a bit.”

He said, “My question this time is, can we break up?”

Xue Ling: ...

Sly man.

As she charged forward, intending to headbutt him in anger, Wen Jiuzhe deftly scooped her up, turning it into a mutual embrace.

“Why not agree? You’re the type who doesn’t like changing things once you’re used to them, right?”

You use the same brand and type of body wash, shampoo, and toothpaste for years;

When your shoes wear out, you buy the exact same pair from the same online store;

Once you get used to eating breakfast at one shop, you keep going there, and when that shop closed, every time you eat breakfast somewhere else, you reminisce about the original shop...

“You don’t like new things, and there’s no new one for you, so how about picking up your old one again, okay?”

Held in his arms and swaying, her toes barely touching the ground, Xue Ling really wanted to poke a few holes in him.

Talking about picking up the old one, making it sound so pitiful, anyone who didn’t know better would think she had been the one to break up with him.

Wen Jiuzhe suddenly put her down and said thoughtfully, “You’re not still hung up on that woman I had a meal with back then, are you? Did you misunderstand her identity?”

Of course not! There was no misunderstanding! That incident wasn’t even a catalyst. The main issue was Wen Jiuzhe himself.

That jerk still hadn’t figured out why she was mad after three years!

To Xue Ling, their breakup had been sudden.

The night before, Wen Jiuzhe had been like usual, lying on her bed, using her pillow, and casually flipping through the account book she had left by the bedside while teasing her a bit.

The next noon, she and a classmate had bumped into Wen Jiuzhe having lunch with a pretty woman at a nearby restaurant.

The two of them were almost done with their meal, got up to settle the bill, and then went straight into the six-story mall to buy clothes. Wen Jiuzhe followed behind the pretty lady, helping her carry the bags.

Wen Jiuzhe usually didn’t pay attention to others at school. Whether it was boys or girls, he’d barely respond if they spoke to him. But today, he was surprisingly attentive, tagging along with her for a meal and shopping trip.

Xue Ling had been the only one to get this kind of treatment before.

At that time, Xue Ling’s friends gave her hesitant looks. You could see what they were thinking in their eyes.

—“Is your boyfriend cheating on you?”

But Xue Ling wasn’t suspicious at first. Although it did look like the scene of a rich older woman with her boy toy, she found it hard to believe she would encounter something so cliché.

She snapped a photo and used her connections to quickly figure out who this older sister was. As it turned out, she was his older sister.

She had appeared in Wen Xuan’s friend circle before, working on her Ph.D. in the neighboring Andong City, and was rumored to be quite impressive.

That afternoon, she bought a couple of milk teas and met Wen Jiuzhe on campus.

Wen Jiuzhe seemed distracted, and she was the one who brought it up first. “Today I saw you having a meal and shopping with a girl in the mall…”

What she really wanted to ask was, were you being put in a difficult spot?

But before she could finish, Wen Jiuzhe suddenly said, “We need to break up.”