The people around me were cheering, some were joking, and some were raising their glasses.
Only Lin Qianliu, Luo Qubai and Qin Shu were tightly surrounded by the silent haze at the same time in the same space and time. They all had their own thoughts but remained calm.
Luo Qubai raised his glass and sipped his beer, while Qin Shu picked up some food absentmindedly. Both of them looked at Lin Qianliu, and from time to time they looked at each other, each with their own unclear meanings in their eyes.
Lin Qianliu knew nothing about the "communication" between the two boys around her. As early as after Luo Qubai said "Long time no see", her memories locked in the box had become restless. At this moment, the lock on the box had fallen off, and the chaotic memories were rampant in her mind.
Lin Qianliu was unable to break free, and everything in front of him seemed to be quietly wiped out, leaving only a figure in the darkness.
That was Lin Qianliu two years ago.
She saw Lin Qianliu dialing Luo Qubai's phone number over and over again. She seemed to hear a mechanical female voice repeating in her ear: "Hello, the number you dialed is not in service..."
The voice was familiar and hollow.
Lin Qianliu remembered that she hated this voice at that time, or, more precisely, she was afraid of it. But she was always stubborn and didn't believe it, convincing herself over and over again, "I must have dialed the wrong number" or "I must have heard it wrong", but the same voice and the same words always lingered in her ears.
Although I am afraid, because of another kind of fear, I become fearless.
Yes, compared to the repetitive and empty reply, she was more afraid of never seeing Luo Qubai again.
Lin Qianliu could no longer remember how many days and nights she had persisted. She only remembered that when she was about to give up, the number responded.
She thought she had finally found Luo Qubai.
Surprised, Lin Qianliu burst into tears of joy, holding onto the phone and crying, she said to the person on the other end of the line, "Luo Qubai, where are you? I've been looking for you for a long, long time..."
Her voice was choked with sobs, and all her grievances were expressed in this one sentence.
The person on the other end of the phone paused, then said awkwardly: "Sorry, you dialed the wrong number, I'm not Luo Qubai."
Lin Qianliu was stunned, and repeatedly confirmed that it was the right number, so he hurriedly said to the other party: "I called this number, this is Luo Qubai's number! Don't lie to me! Did you hide Luo Qubai?"
The person on the other end said awkwardly: "I don't know the person you are talking about. Maybe he is the previous owner of this phone number..."
"The previous owner..." Lin Qianliu felt empty in his heart. As he murmured, tears welled up in his eyes. "Then what should I do? I can't find Luo Qubai. Can you help me find him? Wuuwuwu..."
At that time, asking a stranger for help might be the only thing she could do when she was desperate and helpless.
Perhaps her sadness frightened the other party, and he hung up the phone before he finished listening to her words.
Lin Qianliu was still crying loudly, and she didn't seem to care whether the other party could help her or not. Her request for help was just a last-ditch struggle.
She knew clearly that she had completely lost Luo Qubai. The sadness and despair of losing someone before having him was even more painful than having him in the past.
She finally came to her senses and realized there was nothing she could do except give up.
However, it was not so easy to give up. After all, he was the boy who had been with her throughout her youth, a man who had long been engraved in her heart. Every day in her life was meant to be with him. Therefore, she could not help but think of him over and over again, trapped by longing, and confused by memories again and again. She remembered every little detail of their time together, every word he said, when and where he had given her a nonchalant smile or a moment of tenderness, all of which she remembered clearly.
When I think of him, I fall into a sweet whirlpool; when I wake up, I fall into a desolate desert.
During that time, Lin Qianliu was like a madman, crying and laughing alone, missing him silently with memories , and went to Luo Qubai's house to find him over and over again. She counted how many steps it took to get from her home to Luo Qubai's home. However, every time she pressed the doorbell, there was a long silence, without any response. But she embraced a hope that was fainter than the starlight, and went to the door again and again, called again and again, and waited again and again. In the end, other residents nearby were so annoyed that they thought she was a madman and called the police. Lin Qianliu was also confined by her father since then.
Although he was under house arrest, Lin Qianliu did not give up and secretly ran to the Luo family again and again.
She didn't dare yell or scream anymore. After ringing the doorbell once, she curled up obediently at the door of Luo Qubai's house and waited.
Lin Qianliu had a deep memory of the feeling of waiting alone in the dead of night . Even two years later, when she thought of those nights again, she could still feel that the temperature of the wind on that summer night was as cold as winter.
Because Lin Qianliu was too abnormal, Lin's father was very worried. After much hesitation, he decided to take her to see a psychologist.
After being tricked by her father into going to the hospital, Lin Qianliu refused to see a psychiatrist. That time, the father and daughter talked a lot under the camphor tree in front of the hospital.
Lin Qianliu still remembers that the last words she said during that conversation were: "Dad, I'm good at everything except letting him go."
I can't let it go.
I don’t dare to let go.
I am even more unwilling to feel at ease.
Father Lin knew what she was thinking. From childhood to adulthood, he tried his best to meet Lin Qianliu's requests. She was the apple of his eye and the flesh of his heart. However, he never thought that his little girl would one day fall madly in love with someone, cry for him, laugh for him, and waste her life for him.
Lin Qianliu didn't know how much her father hated himself when he saw her in such a state that she was living a life worse than death. He felt that he was incapable of protecting his daughter. Just as Lin Qianliu was trapped by Luo Qubai, Lin's father was also trapped by his depressed daughter.
Neither he nor Lin Qianliu knew that some people are so important that we will target them when we are powerless.
Lin Qianliu still knows nothing about his father's guilt.
She only remembered that when she was tossing and turning because of Luo Qubai, it was her father who accompanied her every day. In order to make her smile, her elderly father turned himself into a clown in the playground. After a long, long time, Lin Qianliu realized her father's good intentions and finally began to force herself to forget. However, her attachment to Luo Qubai was deeply rooted, and no matter how hard she tried, she could not forget that past.
Later, Lin Qianliu, who couldn't forget, simply pretended to have forgotten. He forced himself to smile during the day and felt sad alone at night.
To her, Luo Qubai was not a tattoo that could be washed off after being engraved on her heart. Luo Qubai, whom she had been thinking about all the time, had become a part of her heart and she could not let him go.
Lin Qianliu knew better than anyone that she would never love someone so recklessly again. Luo Qubai was her entire youth, her breath, and her heartbeat.
Memories are like onions, once you peel them, tears will flow.
Feeling tears welling up in his eyes, Lin Qianliu silently lowered his head, picked up the glass, and took a big gulp of beer without saying a word.
Luo Qubai, do you know how long I have been waiting for you?
Have you ever thought of me in these two years?
After a glass of beer, the memories came to an end.
Although he tried hard to suppress the myriad thoughts in his mind, Lin Qianliu still felt mixed emotions.
No one around her noticed that something was wrong with her, and no one knew that she had just emerged from a memory that was nearly suffocating.
She lowered her head, said nothing , and used chopsticks to put white rice into her mouth bit by bit.
On the left was Luo Qubai, who didn't say anything after saying "Long time no see". He was never talkative, and at this moment he didn't know what to say, so there was a slight awkwardness between the two of them.
On the right was Qin Shu. Although he didn't know that Lin Qianliu had just come out of her memories, he knew that her heart had been moved by Luo Qubai. He pretended to be calm, stretched out his chopsticks, and accurately landed on the plate of sweet and sour pork in the middle of the table, then smiled and picked up a piece of meat and put it in Lin Qianliu's bowl.
Just as Lin Qianliu was about to put more rice into his mouth, his chopsticks were pushed down by the golden sweet and sour pork.
"Here, your favorite sweet and sour pork." She was slightly startled, and when she looked up, she saw the bright smile on Qin Shu's face, "Don't tell me you want to lose weight. Even if you want to lose weight, you have to eat a full stomach to have the energy to lose weight."
"Yeah." Lin Qianliu, who always liked to argue with him, looked sick at the moment and was too weak to even speak a word.
"Why are you so depressed?" Qin Shu put his palm on her forehead half out of concern and half intentionally, "You don't have a fever."
Lin Qianliu felt a little uncomfortable, blushed, and stepped back slightly.
Someone nearby caught a glimpse of this scene and immediately started to make a noise: "Wow, what a passionate young man! I say, Lin Qianliu, Qin Shu has been pursuing you for two years, why don't you give in to him? He is very popular, if you keep ignoring him like this, be careful that he will be snatched away by those new junior sisters !"
"What nonsense are you talking about? Qianliu and I are just good friends." Before Lin Qianliu could get disgusted, Qin Shu pretended to give Liang Caiming, the classmate who was causing the trouble, a cold look.
"Good friends are not as close as you are, don't fool us!" Liang Caiming listed the evidence in detail, not knowing whether it was because of the alcohol, "Last time, Lin Qianliu went back to his hometown during the holiday and brought you some local specialties. Why do you have them and none of us have them? Isn't there something fishy? Also, you were unwilling to give me just a little bit when I didn't ask you for it. Isn't it because it was given by Lin Qianliu? If it was given to you by Zou Minmin, would you refuse if I asked you for some? Maybe you would even give me a little more!"
"Yes, yes, yes! Speaking of which, I want to complain too!" Liang Caiming coaxed, and Zou Minmin, who was implicated, also spoke up, "Senior Qin, didn't I give you a box of Ferrero chocolates last time, and you gave it to Senior Sister Lin Qianliu. Do you think I didn't know? I was just pretending not to know."
"What truth are you talking about? They said they were good friends, but you exposed them. How mean of you!"
“We are helping them!”
“That’s right!”
"They are inseparable every day, thinking we are all fools!"
"Honestly, Lin Qianliu, do you like Qin Shu or not?"
Everyone kept joking with each other. It was clearly a celebration banquet, but in the end, Lin Qianliu and Qin Shu became the protagonists. In the seemingly lively atmosphere, someone directly touched on the topic, and everyone suddenly fell silent tacitly, with their eyes fixed on Lin Qianliu.
Lin Qianliu, who became the focus of everyone's attention, remained silent in awkward silence, feeling somewhat at a loss as to what to do.
As one of the parties involved, Qin Shu had no intention of stopping it and just enthusiastically picked up food for Lin Qianliu.
"actually, I……"
Lin Qianliu felt uncomfortable being stared at. She looked at Luo Qubai and saw that he remained silent with an expressionless face. The words she wanted to explain were suddenly stuck in her throat.
She didn't know how to explain it, and she deliberately didn't explain it.
After all, she already had a grudge against Luo Qubai for leaving without saying goodbye, and now that Luo Qubai didn't say a word, she became even angrier for some reason.
"Thank you for worrying about me and Qianliu." Seeing that Lin Qianliu was hesitant to speak, Qin Shu smiled and raised a glass of beer high, "I toast to everyone, and I hope everyone will stop teasing me and Qianliu. At this moment, we are really just friends. As for the future, no one can guarantee it. The only thing I can guarantee is that when Qianliu needs me, I will definitely be there."
After Qin Shu finished speaking, he raised his head and drank the whole glass of beer.
The next second, applause and whistles sounded sporadically.
No one noticed that when Qin Shu lowered his head to put down the wine glass, his eyes swept over Luo Qubai with provocation and complacency.
Luo Qubai looked up and met his eyes, and for the first time, he felt the hostility from his love rival. However, he still didn't say much, and continued to eat quietly, seemingly indifferent to everything.
The celebration banquet didn't end until ten o'clock in the evening.
Watching everyone leaving the restaurant one after another, Qin Shu said to Lin Qianliu, "Qianliu, let me take you back to the dormitory."
Lin Qianliu was still hesitating whether to accept or refuse. Unexpectedly, after Qin Shu finished speaking, Luo Qubai beside him said calmly, "Let me do it."
This was the second sentence he said tonight, and it touched Lin Qianliu's heart as soon as he opened his mouth.
"No need. You're not feeling well. I'll do it." Before Lin Qianliu could say anything, Qin Shu had already stepped forward, facing Luo Qubai, and said with a smile, "Besides, I've been accompanying Qianliu for the past two years, almost every day. You can say that I'm her only companion, and no one else can replace me."
His words hit Luo Qubai's sore spot. Luo Qubai's face suddenly turned pale and he was speechless for a moment.
During the confrontation, Lin Qianliu coughed , pulled Qin Shu, and said, "It's better for Luo Qubai to send me off."
Her heart still protected him.
Qin Shu was not convinced and frowned and called her: "Qian Liu..."
Lin Qianliu also frowned, and resolutely answered him after he called out, saying: "You are too noisy, I can't stand it, everyone is too excited and too noisy tonight, and I still have a headache now."
After saying this, Lin Qianliu walked out of the restaurant. After several steps, he stopped and waited for Luo Qubai.
Looking at the gradually receding backs of Lin Qianliu and Luo Qubai, Qin Shu looked very hurt.
He knew that the person that Lin Qianliu had been thinking about for so many years was not so easy to defeat, so he did not continue to fight.
He took a deep breath and left alone.
For him, since he abandoned Lin Qianliu, Luo Qubai had lost the qualification to protect her. He could make this step now, as long as Lin Qianliu could belong to him in the future.