Chapter 6

The next time I saw Duan Chen was at Shao Lingchuan’s gathering.

Duan Chen and I shared a lot of mutual friends. Everyone around him knew me, and everyone around me knew him.

But no one knew that we had already broken up.

When Duan Chen arrived, looking travel-worn, the only seat left was the one next to me.

Because of an incident when Duan Chen got drunk once-he made a scene, forcibly pushing away the man sitting next to me and clinging to my waist, insisting that it was his seat-since then, everyone had tacitly arranged for us to sit together.

When I met Duan Chen’s gaze, my first thought was that he had lost weight.

His jawline was sharper, carrying a faint air of desolation.

As he sat down beside me, I caught the familiar, faint scent on him.

The conversation briefly turned to him, with a few teasing remarks, before quickly shifting away.

“Long time no see.”

Duan Chen’s voice was slightly hoarse. He cleared his throat, an uneasy reaction to the distant atmosphere. “How have you been lately?”

Such a cliché greeting-I never thought it would happen between us.

“It hasn’t been that long. I’ve been fine.”

“It’s been 36 days already…” Duan Chen started to say, but seemed to realize something and stopped.

The atmosphere fell into an indescribable silence again.

Shao Lingchuan slapped the table and suggested we play a game.

The group, already tipsy, cheered enthusiastically.

The game was finger-guessing; losers had to either drink or accept a punishment.

I’d always been terrible at this game and avoided it whenever possible.

But Duan Chen was quick-witted-almost no one could beat him.

Tonight, however, something was off. He didn’t win a single round, seeming distracted. Every time he lost, he drank as if punishing himself, as if determined to drink himself into oblivion.

I snatched the beer bottle from his hand and slammed it onto the table with force, the sound echoing loudly. “Duan Chen, this isn’t how you drink.”

The tension between us seemed to catch everyone’s attention; no one said a word.

Duan Chen leaned back in his chair, tilting his head to look at me. His gaze was slightly unfocused. “Didn’t you say you wouldn’t care about me anymore?”

Suppressing my irritation, I drank all the beer he owed. “I’ll play for him.”

I lost the first round, as expected, but I wasn’t keen on drinking, so I chose a punishment.

The punishment I drew was to let someone nearby check my phone.

Perhaps trying to ease the tension between Duan Chen and me, Shao Lingchuan deliberately paired us up, designating Duan Chen to check my phone.

I tossed my phone to Duan Chen. He knew my lock screen password, and there was nothing I needed to hide from him.

Duan Chen tapped a few times on the screen, and then his expression subtly changed.

He looked up at me.

A sudden sense of foreboding washed over me, and I glanced at the screen.

The screen was paused on the photo album-a picture of someone sleeping.

Duan Chen’s sleeping face.

On the night I decided to leave no retreat for myself, I had secretly taken a photo of Duan Chen while he was asleep.

I thought I should at least keep one photo. If we never saw each other again, it would be something to remember him by.

I had assumed Duan Chen would check my social media and never expected him to look through my photo album.

I hoped he wouldn’t understand the emotions behind the photo, but his expression made it clear.

The single photo was enough to seal my fate.

When the moment finally came, I felt strangely calm.

I took the phone back, my fingers brushing against Duan Chen’s. His hand was icy cold.

I couldn’t tell if it was his hand or mine that was colder.

The people around us noticed something was off and tried to lighten the mood with a joke. “What’s wrong? Didn’t find anything scandalous, did you?”

“No!” Duan Chen’s voice was unusually loud, losing its usual composure. His agitation was obvious.

Shao Lingchuan seemed to pick up on something and laughed it off, steering the group back to the game.

The party’s atmosphere returned to its lively buzz, but the corner where Duan Chen and I sat remained steeped in silence.

Since our reunion, he had been the one trying to keep the conversation going.

Now that the last shred of pretense had been stripped away, I understood his reluctance to continue reminiscing.

In truth, everything had been obvious all along. My feelings for him were never subtle, and it was a miracle they had gone unnoticed for so long.

Perhaps it was fortunate that we might never meet again. Ignoring the pain twisting in my chest, I prepared to say something to give this meeting a dignified conclusion. But Duan Chen spoke first.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just… surprised.” His expression was uncharacteristically bewildered, like a newborn lamb helpless in the face of unfamiliar chaos.

Although I was two months older than Duan Chen, in our relationship, he had always been the one taking care of me.

Maybe it was because I was reckless by nature, with nothing to hold me back, always causing trouble.

And Duan Chen, most of the time, quietly cleaned up my messes-until the day I landed myself in the hospital.

When I was hobbling out of the hospital in a cast, I ran into Duan Chen being wheeled in.

There was still blood on his forehead, and the gauze in the nurse’s hands was soaked red. In that instant, my mind spun, my body trembled, and the blood phobia I had never experienced in over a decade hit me like a tidal wave.

Duan Chen didn’t stop me. His gaze was cold, his voice even colder. He said only one sentence: “Li Yucheng, if you want to mess around, I’ll mess around with you.”

Duan Chen didn’t hold a leash in his hand, nor did he want to put too many restraints on me. But I was like a toy puppy, circling around him.

The switch was Duan Chen’s wounds, Duan Chen’s sorrow, Duan Chen’s worry.

Once triggered, I would obediently return to his side and never leave again.

But now, it seemed the battery was running out.