Chapter 15

“Why… why were you paying attention to me?”

“Because I like you.”

Ji Shu nearly choked on her own saliva.

She jumped up, hit her head on the umbrella, and stumbled backward. Lin Qingyu caught her before she lost her balance.

For an instant, they were close enough to see the pores on each other's faces.

## Chapter 20

Ji Shu's heart raced.

Lin Qingyu liked her?

They were practically strangers.

“If you hadn't suddenly agreed to come to Britain, I wouldn't have come either. When I heard you'd turned the professor down, I did the same. Then he told me you'd accepted, and I accepted at once.”

His gaze held hers, intense and commanding.

She bit her lip and pushed him away.

“I'm sorry. My head's a mess right now.”

“I know. I'm not telling you this to force an answer. I just don't want you thinking about Jiang Zhixu all the time. Look around. There are plenty of decent men.”

“Do you mean you?”

She laughed again.

“I'd heard you were cold. I didn't expect…”

“I'm only warm toward someone I like. Never cold.”

There was an intensity of affection in his eyes she had never seen before. They had always seemed so cold, without a trace of warmth. Today, it was as though sunlight had melted that ice into a clear pool.

She felt she was about to sink into it.

“I should go!”

She fled.

Watching her retreat, Lin Qingyu smiled gently.

Still a little rabbit, easily startled.

Back in China. A hospital ward.

The first thing Wen Ran did on waking was touch her stomach.

“My baby? Is my baby still here?”

Jiang Zhixu shook his head.

“No.”

“You killed our baby! How could you be so cruel?”

She lost control, beating his chest again and again.

He didn't dodge. He simply took out a check for two hundred thousand yuan and placed it beside her bed.

“I've hired a caregiver and paid your hospital bills. This is the two hundred thousand I promised. Once you take it, there's nothing between us anymore.”

Those words again.

Even at the height of her grief and despair, he could say something so cruel.

She bit her lip, her whole body shaking with sobs.

“You're not human. I wish I'd never lowered myself to love you!”

“It's not too late to regret it. We're young. We can both start again.”

His phone chimed.

He opened a message from the airline, reminding him of his flight to Britain that afternoon.

Wen Ran saw it all.

She was in this state, and he was still thinking of Ji Shu.

Her fingers tightened around the blanket.

“Do you really love her that much? Did you never like me at all? Not even a little?”

“Never.”

His answer was blunt.

“From beginning to end, all I felt for you was sympathy. Not love. Not even affection.”

“All right. Now I see what you really are. If you walk out today, Jiang Zhixu, you'll regret it!”

“I said I'm leaving.”

He set the check on her bedside table.

“Take the money or don't. It's up to you.”

He left without so much as looking back.

Wen Ran touched her now-flat stomach and laughed through her tears.

“You love Ji Shu so much? Then I'll destroy her.”

## Chapter 21

London, England.

Over the following days, Ji Shu and Lin Qingyu grew closer.

They went to class together, ate together, walked together afterward. Eventually, they began meeting on their days off to explore the city, visiting Big Ben and London Bridge.

Ji Shu's spirits lifted. She seemed to have put Jiang Zhixu entirely out of her mind.

Then one day, they were feeding pigeons in a music square.

A pigeon landed on Lin Qingyu's head. Ji Shu laughed and reached for it.

“Don't move! There's a pigeon on your head. It's so cute!”

“Is it? How cute?”

He didn't dare move, letting her stroke the bird for a long time.

When it flew away, she was laughing happily.

Looking at her face so close to his, he smiled too.

“Ji Shu, will you be my girlfriend?”

In that romantic moment, she couldn't deny it: she was falling for him.

He was already so handsome, and there was an elegance about him that could draw her in with a single glance.

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