Back Then, I Adored You

“He would call out your name whenever he would slip into a coma… Nuannuan… Nuannuan… Over and over again…”

More tears began to flow out from the corners of Xu Wennuan’s eyes. Guoguo paused and pulled out a tissue to pass to Xu Wennuan. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. Please continue,” Xu Wennuan replied after sniffling. She was so overwhelmed with grief that she was tongue-tied, and her voice quivered and sounded out of tune.

“Brother Bancheng had always enjoyed socializing and singing in the past. He also had liked meeting up with his many friends at restaurants and bars. But once he became paralyzed, he hardly went out unless it was especially important.”

“He would wake up at 3:00 a.m. every morning and stare fixedly at his phone but he’d never touch it.”

“I found it odd at the beginning and wondered what he was thinking about. Only later did I realize that he had contact with you in the game and that he was always looking for you there. But then he became terrified that he wouldn’t be able to suppress his feelings and eventually you would find out and feel guilty. This is why he stayed away from everyone. That’s why he tried so hard to suppress himself.”

“Oh, right. Wait for me for a moment…” Guoguo suddenly stood up and dashed into the study as if she remembered something.

Three minutes later, she walked out of the study with a thick stack of papers, which she handed over to Xu Wennuan before she returned to where she had been sitting on the sofa. Having spoken so much, she lifted her glass of water and drank half of it before she continued speaking.

“As you can see, those papers have all his handwritten jokes all over them. They were all written for you…”

Xu Wennuan had looked forward to his jokes every single day during that period of time, but once he had stopped sending them she had become distracted as a result.

She had thought that he no longer felt the chemistry that had unintentionally but so genuinely developed between them, but it turned out that was not the case. He had always thought about her and merely used another means that she wasn’t aware of to satisfy his longing for her.

Xu Wennuan had cried all night and now her tears were overflowing, trickling then crashing onto the paper like fragile pearls.

“Do you remember the time when we met in the cake shop not long ago?”

“I was completely stunned when I saw you because I recognized you in an instant as my cousin-in-law.”

“I recognized you because I’ve witnessed Brother Bancheng staring at your photo on his phone for hours on end. Sometimes I’d see his fingers caressing the screen of the phone as his gaze became peaceful.”

“Look at me. I’m speaking so incoherently. There are other things that I want to give to you…” Guoguo stood up again but this time, she went to the master bedroom instead of the study. When she came out, she was carrying a few gift boxes in her arms.

“These are all he presents that Brother Bancheng has gotten for you. These are for Valentine’s Days… These for Chinese New Year… Obviously, he didn’t send them…”

“Also…” As Guoguo spoke, she scanned the room and, when she saw a paper out on the balcony from the night below, she walked over, bent down, and picked it up to pass to Xu Wennuan. “This was what he wrote yesterday afternoon.”

“Nuannuan” had been written in large, medium, and small sizes all over the paper on both the front and the back. Sometimes it was written neatly and sometimes sloppily. Xu Wennuan bit the corner of her lips and began to cry out.

“Actually, I’ve always wanted to look for you and tell you everything, but Brother Bancheng wouldn’t allow me to. I’ve asked him repeatedly why he’s so foolish. He said that when he had committed to backing out of your world a long time ago, his feelings for you had become his own personal matter.”