Translator: Lonelytree Editor: Millman97
All the cards he had written that year, as few as they might be, were all there in the box.
If Tang Nuan truly did gift them to Song Song, she wouldn’t have given her everything. So, there is only one logical explanation…
Qin Yinan had settled on the answer, and his fingers that held the card had started to shake.
He was suddenly reminded of the ‘apology lunch’ that Tang Nuan had asked him to invite Song Qingchun to at Beijing restaurant. During the meal, Tang Nuan had even brought up the story of how they supposedly met with a bright smile.
At the time, there was even tears in Tang Nuan’s eyes. Pulled along by the emotions, he had added with sentiments that the most beautiful line she had ever written was: I wish the greatest happiness for the ones who love me, and I wish the one who I love, loves me back.
He remembered that after he said that, Song Qingchun, who had been unusually quiet throughout the meal, suddenly chimed in.
Then what about you, Brother Yinan? Of the many stanzas that you’ve written, which one is your favorite?
He remembered feeling embarrassed about exposing his youthful attempt at poetry. However, in the end, he had recited seriously,
May you hold my hand in love and companionship, but may good fortune hold yours in parting and solitude.
When he finished, the chopsticks in her hand had fallen onto the table with a thud. Then, the girl had jumped up from her seat like she was shocked.
He, too, had stood up then and enquired about her condition. She had given an excuse and escaped to the bathroom. He’d offered to accompany her but was firmly rejected.
He remembered being worried because she spent inordinate amount of time in the bathroom. When he went to look for her, she was walking out of it. By then, she had returned to her usual self.
Thinking back, he realized there were many similarities between the way she was acting that day and the way she was at the Song Empire’s event. She’d looked like she had many things she wanted to tell him, but she couldn’t bring herself to.
At Song Empire’s event, he had finally picked up the signals Song Qingchun had been trying so hard to send his way, namely her warnings about Tang Nuan, and that was only because he, by then, had been disillusioned with Tang Nuan. However, at Beijing restaurant, he still hadn’t escaped Tang Nuan’s charm, and he had never once suspected Tang Nuan.
But now… now, he finally understood everything.
He understood why Song Qingchun would react so out of place at Beijing restaurant, and he understood why the girl behind the poems, the girl that represented, to him, an image of purity and kindness would use him as a weapon to hurt other people.
So, it was all a lie…
The poems that had touched his young heart had not been written by Tang Nuan at all.
In other words, the girl that he, Qin Yinan, had been protecting, cherishing, loving, and caring for was not even the girl who he had fallen in love with in the first place.
He had thought Tang Nuan’s accidental confession at Eldorado was going to be the biggest blow he would receive, but holding the cards in his hands, he realized… how wrong he was!
The situation was so absurd that Qin Yinan didn’t know how to react other than to laugh, and laugh he did. Qin Yinan stared at the poems, and he started to chuckle. Then he raised his hands to cover his face as if to stop himself from laughing too hard.
Eventually, glistening liquid seeped through his bandage and flowed through his fingers.
