LHKE Ch26

As they emerged from the auditorium, from the cramped space under the piano, and the ambiguous atmosphere of solitude, both Lu Changting and Shen Li felt a sense of relief, though tinged with a bit of melancholy. They exchanged a glance and couldn’t help but laugh.

“Who would’ve thought, after so many years since graduation, we almost had another run-in with the duty teacher,” Lu Changting remarked.

“Sometimes it’s better to avoid unnecessary trouble,” Shen Li chuckled. “Let’s go; we’ve pretty much seen everything.”

They walked slowly while strolling around the school, taking their time. When it was time to leave, they walked just as slowly, unconsciously trying to prolong their time together.

Eventually, they reached the school gate. Lu Changting naturally offered, “Let me give you a ride.”

“I drove here…” Shen Li hesitated for a moment. “I have something for you, wait here.”

His car wasn’t parked far away, just in a nearby roadside parking spot. Shen Li walked to the car, opened the passenger door, and took out a paper bag that had been sitting on the seat.

“Chocolate?” Lu Changting accepted it and looked inside. It was a heavy box of chocolate, pressing down on his heart.

“Yeah,” Shen Li pressed his lips together. “I told you—I’d buy you lots of chocolate.”

Recalling the lie he had told, Lu Changting let out a low laugh. “Is there no limit to how many times you’ll say that, or for how long?”

Last time, he had already received a lot of chocolate from Shen Li.

“No limit,” the younger man replied with a faint smile, his bright eyes shining in the warm sunlight. “It’s always valid.”

Lu Changting looked at him, his emotions surging, his heart growing warmer.

Shen Li was always so well-behaved in front of him, his gaze pure, serious, and gentle. His posture was upright, and at his core, he was still the same Shen Li who understood the ways of the world but remained untouched by its harshness. It seemed that only in front of him did Shen Li hide all his sharp edges, leaving only his full-hearted tenderness.

This person was like the summer breeze, the winter sun, the gentle moonlight, the begonia flowers at 4 a.m.… Like all the beautiful things in the world, just thinking of him made Lu Changting feel that everything before had been dull and unremarkable. If meeting such a person was like encountering a rainbow, then it was only after meeting him that one knew such beauty existed.

Lu Changting smiled too.

A gentle smile first appeared at the corners of his eyes and eyebrows, then spread to his lips, like fresh snow melting, with a plum blossom standing tall amidst the wind and snow—both handsome and proud.

“Boss Shen, if you keep treating me like this, you’ll spoil me,” he said. “People’s hearts are insatiable, you know.”

It was just a playful remark, but it made Shen Li’s heart skip a beat, the more intense pounding tinged with a bit of bitterness.

He lowered his eyes to hide his emotions and replied softly, “President Lu, you’re teasing me.”

He knew he didn’t have the ability to spoil the president of the Lu Corporation, but if Lu Changting wanted it… what was wrong with giving everything he had?

“I’m not joking.” Lu Changting was still smiling, but his tone was serious. “I’m not made of stone; I can feel how good you are to me.”

In Shen Li’s mind, something seemed to explode, leaving it in chaos and finally going blank.

It was as if the bomb that had been buried deep in his heart for years was ignited by Lu Changting’s casual words. There was no visible fire or smoke, but it blew him to pieces.

What should he do? Did Lu Changting know…

Unconsciously, he tightened his grip, his fingers turning white from the pressure.

Had he really been too obvious?

“What about me?” Lu Changting asked. “Shen Li, do you know how I feel about you?”

Shen Li stared at him blankly, only seeing his lips move. But with his thoughts in disarray and a slight ringing in his ears, he couldn’t hear what he was saying at all.

Was it a rejection?

Seeing his bewildered, lost expression, Lu Changting couldn’t bring himself to say anything more.

After a brief silence, he sighed. “Forget it.”

Such a sudden confession was probably too poorly timed… he had been too impatient.

It didn’t matter if there was no response.

There was still plenty of time; he could slowly warm Shen Li’s heart.

…

Shen Li didn’t know how he made it home. The entire way, his mind was blank, his thoughts tangled like a mess of threads that he couldn’t unravel.

Thinking it over again and again, Shen Li still couldn’t figure out what Lu Changting meant by his words. Did he know about his secret crush? Or was he just thanking him as a friend for his kindness?

Cheng Zhao saw him walking by with vacant eyes, like a wandering soul, and frowned as she called out to him, “Shen Li.”

“Mm?” He responded instinctively but was still lost in thought.

“Where have you been?” Cheng Zhao had just returned home not long ago, having finished unpacking. She was exhausted, and seeing Shen Li looking so out of it made her even more worried and tired.

“I went back to school,” he replied, coming back to reality, but still puzzled by Lu Changting’s words, a look of weariness crossing his face. “With Lu Changting.”

Cheng Zhao’s frown relaxed a little as she sighed, “Is everything okay?”

Shen Li shook his head. “Nothing’s wrong.”

Even if his feelings were discovered and he was rejected, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

Maybe it would even help him give up completely, to stop this hidden, hopeless love…

But his heart hurt.

It hurt a lot.

So much that it was hard to breathe.

He forced a smile. “I’m going to rest in my room for a bit.”

Back in his room, Shen Li lay down on the bed to relax for a while. Then he turned over, reached under the bed to pull out a multi-purpose drawer, and took out a glass jar filled with folded stars.

A thousand of them.

From the time he started liking Lu Changting until graduation, whenever he was happy, sad, wanted to confess, or wanted to give up, he would write down those hidden thoughts and feelings on colorful slips of paper, fold them into stars, and toss them into the glass jar.

By the time he had folded a thousand stars, they had graduated.

He had carefully stored all his feelings away, using them to remember and commemorate.

He opened the jar and picked out the only black star, carefully unfolding it.

It was the last star he made, written on the day he finished the college entrance exam.

His high school handwriting still had a bit of childishness to it, and he had used a silver pen, the strokes neat and straight.

“I saw you today. After the exam, I waited at the school gate on purpose. There were a lot of people, some crying, some laughing. I waited a long time before I saw you come out with her. You were talking to her with a smile, so you must have done well. Congratulations on graduating.”

Everything should have ended with graduation, but now he and Lu Changting were reconnecting.

They had meals together, drank together, could laugh and chat together. He became greedy, wanting to stay by Lu Changting’s side like this forever.

But he was also scared.

Scared that he couldn’t hide his feelings anymore, that something like this couldn’t be hidden.

Every time he saw him, he wanted to smile. The bright joy and affection showed in his lips, his eyebrows, the blush on his face, the pounding of his heart, and the smile in his eyes—none of it could be hidden.

All the tenderness and special attention were like the little tail of a beast called love. Normally, the tail was quite well-behaved, only daring to sneak out occasionally. But when it was happy, the tail would wag, announcing to the whole world, “I like you.”

Shen Li sighed, folded the star back up, placed it in the glass jar, and put the jar back in the drawer.

He took out his phone and sent a WeChat message to Jiang Chifeng.

“He seems to know.”

Jiang Chifeng replied quickly, first sending a question mark, then adding, “Lu Changting?”

Shen Li let out another deep sigh and replied with a simple “Mm.”

Jiang Chifeng called him immediately, and the first thing he asked was, “Did you confess, darling?”

Shen Li’s frustration and anxiety eased a little at his teasing, though his voice still sounded a bit down. “No.”

“Tell me what happened,” Jiang Chifeng said, his tone turning serious. “If you’re comfortable sharing.”

Shen Li briefly recounted what had happened that day, only skipping over the part about hiding under the piano.

His mind was really in chaos, and when he got upset, he couldn’t help but imagine the worst-case scenarios: he’d been found out, he was going to be hated… All sorts of messy thoughts filled his head, driving him into a corner.

Jiang Chifeng was silent for a moment after listening.

It was clear to him as an outsider that Shen Li was overthinking things. But when it came to matters of the heart, no amount of analysis or reasoning would help. What Shen Li needed was someone to either pull or push him in the right direction.

“If you want to know for sure whether he knows how you feel or whether he’s rejecting you, it’s actually pretty simple,” Jiang Chifeng said. “Since he gave you that ‘anytime you want to hang out’ promise, just ask him out for a meal or a movie in a few days. If he refuses, then that’s that. You’ll know it’s time to let go.”

“But if he agrees, it means that whether he knows about your feelings or not, he’s still willing to spend time with you.”

“And whether you want to continue or not, that’s up to you. If you want to keep staying by his side as a friend, then just carry on as before. If not, try to let go.”

Jiang Chifeng thought to himself that if Lu Changting knew about Shen Li’s feelings and still didn’t reject him, then things could get interesting.

As Shen Li’s friend, he naturally hoped it was the latter…

Calming down, Shen Li realized that Jiang Chifeng’s words made a lot of sense.

He pushed down the worry of what might happen if he got rejected and felt a brief moment of relief. “I’ll try asking him out in a few days.”

“Go for a movie,” Jiang Chifeng suggested, holding back a laugh. “Or go to an amusement park—something a bit more intimate, so you can better gauge his attitude.”