Volume 9: The Acidity of the Setting Sun
Chapter 21: A Fate in This Life Comes to an End
The old-fashioned breakup fee never materialized. Perhaps it was because Lu Li hadn’t truly had a falling out with Chu Xiaodong, so there was no need for him to humiliate Lu Li with a breakup fee. His relationship with Chu Jingyi had also been severed in this calm conversation between men.
He didn’t have to wait until the New Year; he had already lost Chu Jingyi.
Their argument before was just a catalyst, merely bringing forward what was supposed to happen two months later.
After classes resumed, news of Lu Li and Chu Jingyi’s breakup began to circulate among the students. The only consequence of this news was that the students’ public address for Lu Li changed from “Young Master Lu” to “Lu Li,” and he no longer entered the field of vision of this group of children from powerful families. Everything returned to how it was in their first year of high school. He became a transparent person again, taking Hupo and Baili with him.
Chu Jingyi’s seat was moved to the front row. She had always belonged in the spacious, bright front row, not condescending to squeeze into the back for someone. He never thought the distance between the front and back of a classroom could be so vast, so vast that after a day of studying, he didn’t even have a chance to see Chu Jingyi’s face.
They no longer ate lunch together, no longer went to and from school together, and even their daily communication was now zero.
The sweetness of the past few days was like a phantom dream.
Only this time, Lu Li was no longer lost and dejected. He already had a goal he had to achieve.
The only piece of good news was that as the end of the term approached, the academic workload became heavier. Students were often writing furiously even after class, leaving no time for idle chat. Looking at it this way, perhaps the loss of breaking up with Jingyi had been partially offset… which could be considered a good thing.
In December, Lu Li, An Baili, and Wen Hupo’s Character Evaluation Books were distributed one by one. Lu Li’s grade was Superior-Superior, An Baili’s was Superior-Inferior, and Wen Hupo’s was Superior-Middle. The grades were all set too high, abnormally high. Lu Li guessed that this was perhaps with the help of the Chu family behind the scenes.
With a Character Evaluation Book in the upper three grades, it meant that An Baili only needed to pass the written exam to be guaranteed to pass the interview. The pressure on this girl was instantly reduced by more than half.
In mid-December, an entertainment company contacted Lu Li, hoping to acquire the copyright for his Evening Collection to release Evening Collection Online. Lu Li took a day off to negotiate with them, and they finally reached a consensus at an appropriate price. According to their plan, Evening Collection Online would be a 2D gacha game. The ghosts and spirits from the original Evening Collection would all be anthropomorphized into cute girls, and players would collect these various anthropomorphized ghosts through the gacha system, while also retaining some of the plot from the original Evening Collection. This type of adapted online game was often a money-making machine. If Lu Li wanted to further accumulate his initial capital, the sales from Evening Collection alone wouldn’t be enough.
The final days of the first semester of his third year of high school were not as dramatic as he had imagined. They were so plain they could be called perfunctory, like a third-rate ending written by a second-rate author.
At the end of December, the last Saturday before New Year’s Day. An Baili sat at the table cutting paper window decorations. This year’s Spring Festival would be about half a month earlier than last year, and she had already started preparing for the new year. Lu Li came back with a bag of sunflower seeds and peanuts and saw that only An Baili was at home. “Baili, why are you the only one here? Where’s Hupo?” As he spoke, a misty cloud of cold air puffed from his mouth.
“She went downstairs.” An Baili suddenly pouted. “Lu Li, I miss Jingyi.”
Lu Li’s heart skipped half a beat, like a stress reaction to a wound being reopened, but his face still held a warm smile. “What’s wrong? You miss her helping you with your homework?”
“Jingyi told me before that she would teach me how to cut window decorations this year. I can’t do it well by myself at all.” An Baili put down the scissors dejectedly. Only then did Lu Li notice that the window decorations the girl had cut were a messy disaster.
Lu Li opened the cabinet, and as he was about to hang his coat inside, he suddenly noticed a scarf folded at the bottom of the wardrobe—the one Chu Jingyi had given him last year. At that time, the Mulan epidemic was at its peak, and the entire city was like a den of poison. Lu Li was trapped in it, and it was that silly goose who had foolishly rushed in to find him and take the initiative to express her feelings. This scarf, she had once put it on for him with her own hands…
The world is so strange. Once you lose something, you often get salt rubbed in the wound when you least expect it.
“This year… are we spending the New Year at our own home?” An Baili turned her head to look at him.
Lu Li grunted in agreement and walked over to kiss Baili on the forehead. “I’ll go get Hupo. It’s too cold outside.”
He went downstairs and saw Hupo at the corner. She was hugging Miss Lu, squatting by the wall. It was only when Lu Li got closer that he saw several stray kittens by her feet. Hupo’s golden hair had grown much longer; the ends of her hair now touched the ground when she squatted.
Lu Li’s hands passed under her arms from behind, and he covered her hands with his, smiling as he asked, “Are your hands cold?” Thanks to Baili’s “training,” Hupo was now used to Lu Li’s groping hands. Hupo was anemic, and her hands turned as cold as iron as soon as winter arrived.
Wen Hupo breathed out a puff of hot air. “Outstanding Representative, look at these cats. They probably won’t survive this winter.” Lu Li followed her gaze and looked down. The pitiful stray kittens were huddled together for warmth, not even having the strength to meow.
In truth, these stray cats were not popular in the summer. They would always howl like babies with broken voices in the middle of the night. If any family’s window wasn’t shut tight, they would enter uninvited and wreak havoc in the house.
Lu Li hugged her from behind. “Do you want to take them back and raise them?”
Wen Hupo’s eyes flickered; it seemed she did have this idea. Lu Li prided himself on having many similarities with Wen Hupo, but they were more like the top and bottom of a single playing card. Wen Hupo was cold on the surface, but her heart was actually full of gentleness and kindness; Lu Li was easygoing on the surface, but his heart was like an iron wall. Lu Li wouldn’t sympathize with these stray cats. They were different from the unweaned Miss Lu; this was their fate.
But if Hupo’s heart was moved with compassion, he was also happy to be an animal protector for once.
Wen Hupo didn’t answer for a long time, as if she were thinking about something.
“Lu Li, am I too idealistic?” Wen Hupo rarely showed her confusion to Lu Li, and the name she used was no longer “Outstanding Representative” but “Lu Li.” Lu Li didn’t notice this subtle change. “In what way?”
“Seeing these cats, I just feel they are very pitiful and want to help them,” Wen Hupo murmured. “But, in the summer, these cats will disturb people and hurt them. Even I won’t get any benefit. Is it worth it?”
Lu Li thought for a moment and answered, “There’s no such thing as worth it or not. Your emotional value cannot be measured. If it were me, although I wouldn’t go out of my way to rescue these stray cats, I would still help out if I passed by.”
“Is that so…” Wen Hupo seemed to have figured something out. “Outstanding Representative, aren’t you hugging me a bit too tightly?”
Lu Li gave an awkward laugh. “Let’s go. Let’s go home.”
“Mm… home.” Wen Hupo’s eyes sparkled as she seriously repeated the word “home.”
