Chapter 7: I Left Something in the Bag

After Weng Jilin got busy, Chen Ye finally had some free time to open QQ and take a look.

His phone was a PHS—a basic handset with few functions beyond texts, calls, and Snake. It definitely couldn't log into QQ. Usually, he would briefly borrow Weng Jilin's phone just to update his status or change his signature. This was his first time logging in on a computer.

Looking at the unusually crude but highly nostalgic QQ interface, Chen Ye couldn't help but exhale a heavy breath. The reality of his rebirth hadn't fully sunk in yet. Even while he was scrubbing the jars earlier, he had been wondering if he had truly traveled back in time. But at this moment, he could tell himself with absolute certainty: "You really have been reborn!"

An unbridled smile gradually spread across his face. Except for the lack of actual laughter, he felt no different from Master Xing throwing his head back and roaring with mirth in a movie. Being eighteen again felt incredible.

As he reminisced and scrolled through QQ, he noticed his current signature: [The most tacit understanding between us is this: if I ignore you, you will ignore me too!]

The corner of his eye twitched. Fighting back a wave of visceral cringe, he dug up his historical signatures.

[Unrequited love makes one humble to the dust. When loving someone becomes a habit, you will never know how happy I am! I love you, and it has nothing to do with you!]

[I don't want to set a signature anymore, it's too pretentious and complicated!]

"Fuck, this is too embarrassing!"

Chen Ye couldn't help but blush for his past self. His toes curled so hard they could have dug through the soles of his shoes, and he wished he could punch straight through the computer screen. He hurriedly scrambled to delete all of it. Opening his friends list, he found the very top group was named [Her]. He didn't even have to think to know who was in it.

He quickly moved Su Siyun's QQ account to the "High School Classmates" group, then deleted the [Her] group altogether.

But as he moved Su Siyun to the new group, Chen Ye suddenly remembered something. Inside the gift he had originally prepared to confess to Su Siyun... there seemed to be a love letter!

He couldn't remember exactly what he had written, but he knew his true feelings had poured out. He had practically shed tears while writing it. The critical issue now was that he had given that love letter—along with the gift—to Jiang Xin!

"Oh no! This is going to be a disaster!"

He had told Jiang Xin that he never confessed to Su Siyun, claiming the gift was merely to thank her for helping him study. But if Jiang Xin found that love letter and read his confession to Su Siyun, she would definitely misunderstand. She would think he had been rejected, flown into a humiliating rage, and then tossed the gift to her like it was trash.

No matter how good-tempered Jiang Xin was, and no matter how close their relationship was, he doubted she would not be angry upon reaching that conclusion.

However, the most crucial point was his understanding of Jiang Xin's temperament. Not only would she never open such a gift, she would even think about returning it to him. After all, the girl was genuinely kind-hearted. She wouldn't want to—nor could she bear to—accept a gift from him, knowing he was an impoverished orphan.

He could only hope that Jiang Xin hadn't opened the letter, or that the letter didn't explicitly mention Su Siyun by name.

But the latter was obviously impossible. Who confesses without including the girl's name? Even the most innocent and clueless virgin would add the name of the person they like right before "I like you."

Finding Jiang Xin's QQ, he immediately sent a message.

[Are you home?]

[I left something in that bag. If you're home, I'll come over and pick it up later.]

Half an hour earlier, in a high-end residential complex in Lu District, Luzhou City.

"Did you get enough to eat tonight? Do you want something else? I can have your mom heat something up for you," Su Hongshan asked warmly as he entered the house first. He grabbed a pair of slippers for his daughter, placed them on the floor, and looked up at her with concern.

Jiang Xin slipped her small feet, which were clad in bright yellow cotton ankle socks, into the slippers. Looking at her father, she smiled and shook her head. Since she was mute, she didn't interact much with others. During the graduation dinner, she had simply kept her head down and focused on eating, consuming almost twice as much as her stepsister, Su Siyun.

"As long as you're not hungry. Play on the computer for a bit, then take a shower and go to sleep. I'll go pick up your sister later; it's almost nine o'clock now." Su Hongshan nodded, relieved, and headed to the sofa to continue watching his TV drama. Just as he turned away, he suddenly remembered something and quickly asked, "Did your sister drink any alcohol?"

Jiang Xin shook her head again.

"Don't you cover for her to fool me. I'm asking for your own good," Su Hongshan pressed, still a bit worried.

Jiang Xin pursed her lips into a smile and then nodded earnestly.

Seeing this, Su Hongshan finally let his guard down. Although Jiang Xin couldn't speak, she never lied. As long as he asked, she would basically tell him everything.

At that moment, a tall figure stepped out from the balcony, holding two sets of blue-and-white school uniforms. Upon seeing Jiang Xin at the door, the woman merely said, "You're back," before carrying the uniforms into Jiang Xin's bedroom.

The smile on the young girl's face visibly faded, and a trace of loneliness flashed in her eyes. That woman was her biological mother, Liu Tinglan, who currently worked at the community health clinic.

Ever since her biological parents divorced, her mother rarely smiled at her. After marrying her current husband, Liu Tinglan's attitude had softened slightly out of respect for how well Su Hongshan treated her daughter, but she still didn't act the way a biological mother should.

Sometimes, Jiang Xin wondered if her stepfather and biological mother had swapped roles—as if her biological mother was the evil stepmother, and her stepfather was her real dad. But over the past four or five years, she had long since learned to hide her innermost thoughts.

Noticing this, Su Hongshan looked as if he wanted to say something, but upon seeing the look in Jiang Xin's eyes, he chose to remain silent. This girl was far too mature for her own good.

After putting away her keys, Jiang Xin signed to Su Hongshan, "I'm going to take a shower." She then placed the gift bag she was carrying on the dining table and went to grab her clothes.

Su Hongshan's gaze immediately glued itself to the pink, stiff-paper gift bag. Seeing that the bag was open, he pretended to casually stroll over, craning his neck to take a very careful look inside.

Instantly, alarm bells rang wildly in his head.

A graduation dinner after the college entrance exams, a pink gift bag, a letter inside... and his daughter had brought it home! What else could this be?!

Although Jiang Xin wasn't his biological daughter, he cared for this sensible, obedient, and heartbreakingly sweet girl just as much as he did for Su Siyun. In fact, because of her disability, he tended to look after her even more. Looking at this letter—which he didn't even need to read to know was a love letter—the universal fatherly instinct flared up in his chest.

He thought, "Some wild pig is trying to root up my precious cabbage!"

If Jiang Xin had rejected the boy, she wouldn't have brought this home at all. Moreover, she had never brought anything like this home before. To bring it into the house so casually... could his youngest daughter have already accepted the confession?!

Su Hongshan couldn't hold back anymore. He was about to speak up immediately, but instead of interrogating her loudly, he looked at Jiang Xin, who was just grabbing her change of clothes to head to the bathroom, and asked with feigned surprise, "Jiang Xin, there's a letter inside the gift your classmate gave you. Judging by the packaging, which female classmate gave this to you?"

Hearing her father's question, Jiang Xin immediately turned around and looked at the bag on the dining table, a flash of surprise in her eyes.

"There's an envelope?" she wondered.