Back Then, I Adored You

Xu Wennuan stared at Lu Bancheng’s back while holding the milk tea. She was momentarily taken aback before she lifted her heels and started following him. He had smoked during their meal; she had personally witnessed him taking out a newly opened cigarette pack from his pocket earlier. He had only smoked once since then but, when she had accidentally seen the contents inside the pack, she had seen more than 10 cigarettes left. There was no need for him to buy more cigarettes even if he had needed to smoke.

Moreover, the pack of cigarettes he had just opened was the exact same brand as the old one in his pocket. Evidently, his goal was not to buy cigarettes, but to get her the milk tea she was holding. The only problem was that she didn’t have enough room in her stomach for this treat, as she had just eaten dinner.

Just as Xu Wennuan was thinking about this, Lu Bancheng had already pulled open the car door. As she got closer to him, he glanced at the milk tea in her hands and inexplicably said, “Why don’t you throw it away if you can’t finish it?”

Throw it away?

Xu Wennuan gazed at Lu Bancheng, stunned. He didn’t say another word and resorted to taking the milk tea from her and casually tossing it into an adjacent trash can before gesturing for her to enter the vehicle. Xu Wennuan shot a few glances at the trash can before she bent over and entered the car.

When Lu Bancheng shut the door, she discovered that her initially frozen hands had been warmed up by the heat from the milk tea. Xu Wennuan turned around and glanced at the trash can again and suddenly realized what was going on.

Lu Bancheng’s real motive was to buy me the milk tea when he went to buy cigarettes, and the milk tea was not for me to drink but for me to warm my hands…

Everything he did, he did with deliberation, and it was sometimes difficult to detect. If not for what happened in Lijiang when she had unintentionally overheard his conversation between him and Wu Hao, perhaps Xu Wennuan would never have realized the deep significance behind his actions today.

The car had already started cruising along, but Xu Wennuan kept her eyes fixed on the trash can. The two of them had experienced many things. She thought that she had understood him, but at this moment she realized that she knew too little about him.

So, everything that he told Wu Hao that night was true. Even though he had left me, he had kept guard by my side all this while. He really did care about me very much.

He was not like Wu Hao, who had really broken all ties with me after our breakup. Lu Bancheng could not let go of me, but he didn’t harass me and instead chose to stay by my side silently…

Xu Wennuan’s chest started heaving slightly. She moved her lips gently and retracted her gaze. When she caught sight of him in the rearview mirror through her peripheral vision, her eyes narrowed.

In Xu Wennuan’s memory, this was the very first time she had ever seen him like this in all the years that she had known him. In all honesty, he was very attractive, and he always made people feel comfortable just by looking at him. As Xu Wennuan stared at him, her gaze involuntarily became fixed on him.

The car drove smoothly along the road. The lingering warmth from the milk tea on her fingertips followed the blood coursing through her veins and flowed right into her heart, causing an indescribable feeling to surface in her chest. It felt like a block of ice was gradually melting and turning into water droplets, dripping, and then trickling from her heart and into her body.

……

After they parted that night, Lu Bancheng and Xu Wennuan ceased all contact, as if everything that had happened in Lijiang and the dinner they had together that night had just been a dream between the two of them.