You're my wife, don't doubt it!

During the morning exercise break, the entertainment committee member found Xiao Yu and Xiao Yu.

"Can you two still participate in the Top Ten Singers competition?" the entertainment committee member said. "Let's confirm."

"Of course you'll participate! Why wouldn't you?" Xiao Yao was taken aback. "But shouldn't the competition time have already passed?"

Chapter 399 The Age of Believing in Love

2023-12-04

Life is like our first meeting; why does the autumn wind bring sorrow to the painted fan?

At noon, the three little ones secretly met again on the rooftop.

Yu Luying didn't make lunchboxes today. The two girls ate boxed lunches that Xiao Yao had personally brought from outside the cafeteria. Xiao Yao himself sat four or five meters away—cross-legged—quietly watching the two pretty girls eat their boxed lunches face to face.

This truly is a place where one can hear the gentle breeze whispering and gaze upon a beautiful woman as if in a dream.

Shen Jie and Yu Luying were wearing the same school uniform today—a coffee-colored suit and trousers. Unlike the uniforms worn by migrant workers, these were the new styles for the first-year high school students, with a significantly better fit, fabric, and design than the second-year uniforms; it seemed the price had gone up again. However, she wore white sneakers and white socks, emphasizing a casual and carefree style.

Xiao Yao looked down at himself. He was also wearing a brown suit, but his lower body was made up of summer sports school uniform trousers, making his clothes look like they were picked up from the street, making him even more mismatched than Shen Jie.

Thinking back to when I first met Shen Jie, it wasn't that long ago. Back then, even if she was just going downstairs to empty the spittoon after dinner, she would always pay attention to her outfit, otherwise she would never leave the house. In just a few months, she has learned to be so carefree, which is truly commendable.

However, Xiao Yao wasn't sitting so far away today to admire the beauty.

He needs some space to think about problems independently.

He couldn't help but let his mind wander all morning, but since Yu Luying was sitting right next to him, he had no choice but to focus all his attention on the intense and exciting study life.

The life of a good student is simple and unpretentious, yet not boring.

If things continue like this, when classes are divided next semester, I might actually be able to become the class monitor, just like in my dream.

Hehe, class monitor...

What trivial things have I been thinking about?

In the morning, Xiao Yao tried to invade his deskmate's territory, probing her thoughts and memories.

An invisible barrier blocked his way, which made Xiao Yao even more uneasy.

It's unclear whether Yu Luying realized her attempt to intrude; in any case, she didn't say anything.

At this moment, Yu Luying was eating her meal while glancing at her out of the corner of her eye.

A half-smile lingered at the corner of his mouth.

She must have known that I was sitting so far away because I was secretly thinking about something, but she just didn't say anything.

Xiao Yao disliked Yu Luying's scheming and calculating nature.

He missed the clear-headed, innocent little apple he knew back then, like a middle school student.

Originally, in that dream, Yu Luying secretly cooperated with Zhang Zhengkai—this was certainly a betrayal, but it was still within the scope of Xiao Yao's forgiveness and understanding.

He was even somewhat pleased that Yu Luying cared about him so much.

To think that she would be willing to forever indulge in this delusion with me just to get him and have him all to herself—oh wait, she'll wake up in a month, right? And after she wakes up, she'll never love Shen Jie again, right? Her heart is truly despicable.

But in any case, at least she knew to emphasize to the butcher not to hurt herself or Shen Jie, and at the last moment she did indeed turn the gun on herself—to help Shen Jie.

Overall, although he was a comrade who made a fundamental mistake, he was still a comrade with a bottom line and worth saving.

However, if one is too clever for one's own good, deceives the organization, and thinks that one can manipulate the leader at will, then one's mistake is compounded and the crime is compounded.

As the undisputed male protagonist, Xiao Yao hates being fooled and manipulated.

Life is like our first meeting; why does the autumn wind bring sorrow to the painted fan?

Actually, when I first met Yu Luying, I didn't really have any strong feelings or thoughts. I simply regarded her as a classmate—a slightly conspicuous classmate.

Later, at some school arts performance, Yu Luying, dressed in a black dress, played a cello piece called Moses or something similar. It was at that moment that Xiao Yao suddenly fell in love with her.

I have already described this matter in detail to my readers before, so I will not repeat it here. What I want to express is that love often arises from a single moment, a single profile, in a certain scene or atmosphere, and a spark suddenly ignites.

Later, Xiao Yao was rejected after confessing his feelings. What you can't have always seems more alluring, and what you can't have always seems the most desirable. Once he got stuck in a rut, he "loved" her even more, so there's no need to say more.

Now let's go back and continue talking about Shen Jie.

Xiao Yao first met Shen Jie at the gate of the girls' high school in the city. Since he went there with the expectation of meeting his "future wife", his first reaction upon seeing Shen Jie was to "breathe a sigh of relief" and even "secretly delighted".

Although he was satisfied with the house, it didn't seem to be the same thing as "love"—and to be honest, she also made him feel somewhat distant.

What truly made him fall for her was their first date at Gongqing Forest Park. Her personality and character were more refreshing to him than her looks.

A person's libido is limited. As Xiao Yao's attention and interest gradually—actually, rapidly—shifted to Shen Jie, his obsession and feelings for Yu Luying naturally faded away until she became just a backdrop to a white moonlight.

Here is the point.

Logically speaking, given that Xiao Yao currently has some issues with Yu Luying and is not communicating with her, the gap and estrangement should be gradually increasing.

As a result, Xiao Yao liked her even more.

Specifically, ever since leaving that damned dream, these days when Xiao Yao is with her—in fact, almost always together, well, especially when they're alone—he always feels nervous and his heart races, and he can't help but secretly turn his head to look at her profile.

He longed to be alone with her, cherishing every moment they spent together, yearning for a date just the two of them, and even wanting to write "Yu Luying" aimlessly on his notebook.

He missed her smile, her coat, her white socks, and her scent—even though she was sitting right next to him.

Yes, it tastes like first love.

Life is like our first meeting; why does the autumn wind bring sorrow to the painted fan?

However, the lack of any reasonable foreshadowing or plot twist is suspicious and suggests something is amiss.

If it were just this unfounded infatuation growing, that would be fine. What's more frightening is that, as one thing grows stronger, the other weakens, and his love for Shen Jie dissipates by more than half without any reason.

Perhaps two-thirds, just as 19 days is two-thirds of a month.

For example, ever since he woke up from that dream, every time he had any contact or exchange of oral soft tissues with Shen Jie, he felt bored and listless, thinking, "Why isn't it over yet?"

He started to pay less attention to Shen Jie's clothes and almost stopped talking to her.

This manifests in the fact that when his fiancée starts to become clingy, he sometimes finds her a bit annoying, and he feels that he needs more and more personal space.

This is also reflected in the fact that, even without the obstruction of factors such as symbiosis, when he feels a little restless, his first reaction is to watch some Japanese romance films rather than tease his young fiancée.

To put it bluntly, it's "boring".

The real reason he rejected her yesterday wasn't because he was worried about symbiotic distance; he simply didn't want to. He didn't know why he didn't want to—but he just didn't want to.

Holding Shen Jie's hand was like that cheesy old joke—like holding your own left hand with your right.

Don't misunderstand, he still loves her very much, values ​​her highly, and depends on her a lot. He regards her as the light in his life, his closest family member, and his most beloved lover.

At least his brain hasn't changed at all, and I can vouch for that on his behalf.

But the brain doesn't actually have real power over the body. Often, your body has its own ideas and doesn't communicate with you at all.

When Xiao Yao first became aware of this change, he instinctively denied it.

He believed it was just a kind of illusion, or a side effect of having a big dream, or a negative psychological suggestion caused by what Zhang Zhengkai told him in the dream, or perhaps it was a normal feeling of novelty fading and the love beginning to settle into a mundane phase.

However, a week later, he realized he couldn't fool himself.

This is absolutely unreasonable.

She should have been like Shen Jie, loving and cherishing the other person even more after this dream ended.

As a result, not only did it not happen, but the hormones... *snap*, they were gone!

Xiao Yao found this unbearable and felt it was a shameful betrayal of his mother, Miao Mama, which he could not allow himself to do.

Yan Xiao abandoned the ribbonfish because "I'm tired of you." As for Xiao Yao, if he were born into such a situation, he felt that Shen Jie would have a reason to strangle him with a rope.

If another ten or twenty years had passed, Xiao Yao, a single man in his thirties (assuming he hadn't met Shen Jie in that timeline?), might have been able to understand this situation more easily and wouldn't have been so easily filled with blind panic.

Perhaps in the matchmaking market, that old bachelor will meet a girl who is neither tall nor short, neither beautiful nor ugly.

Their family backgrounds are suitable, their ages are suitable, and their values ​​are also compatible.

Xiao Yao started dating that girl, and he thought she had a good personality and was fairly obedient to him. They planned to get engaged and married in a year or two.

Even after their daughter was born and turned three, he still found it a particularly ridiculous question when someone asked him, "Do you love your wife?"

What's the point of love? In the adult world, in the middle-aged world, there is only "suitability," only marriages of mutual support and companionship.

He would treat her as his closest relative, as the mother of his children, as family, but he wouldn't answer this kind of question.

He would hide in the toilet to avoid paying his grain tax.

When things don't go well or when there are arguments, he would vent online, saying, "What has marriage really brought to men?"

Love and hormones—those sound so distant, luxuries for teenagers.

But here's the problem—Xiao Yao is just a teenager now, with the most idealistic and beautiful fantasies and visions about love.

Of course he wouldn't leave Shen Jie, and he couldn't tolerate the idea of ​​"simply ceasing to love her."

His morality, his emotions, his reason—none of them allowed him to be so complacent.

Not to mention that while he was losing his "feelings" for Shen Jie, he was still irrevocably attracted to Yu Luying, and it was getting worse every day.

This is definitely what they call "emotional infidelity," right?

Xiao Yao had heard of a vicious curse called the "Love-Locking Curse," but like most people, he thought it was just fiction and wouldn't take it seriously.