Chapter 85: Didn’t You Say You Liked Me?
Inside Class 11’s classroom, everyone sat at their own seats. They all looked busy, as if they had a lot to do—but in reality, no one really knew what they were busy with.
He Ming’an had told them in advance that Gu Yang would be returning to class today.
Finally…
Although it hadn’t actually been that many days, every time they saw that empty seat, their hearts tightened.
If he came back to school, did that mean that—at least in Gu Yang’s heart—this whole incident had more or less passed?
Even after so many days, they were still wavering and conflicted. When they met him later, should they pretend nothing had happened, or should they have an honest conversation?
But judging from their understanding of Gu Yang, even if they tried to play dumb, he might just flip the table directly.
Yet if they tried to talk things through honestly, they were afraid that Gu Yang—who might have already calmed down—would get angry again.
Just then, the classroom door creaked open.
Gu Yang pushed the door and walked in.
It had only been a few days since they last saw him, so naturally his appearance hadn’t changed much. His head was buried in a scarf, and the small portion of his face that showed was pale from the cold. When he entered, the chill from outside seemed to cling to his whole body.
The classroom fell silent.
But inside, everyone was panicking like crazy.
They had rehearsed countless times in their minds, yet when the person actually appeared before them, everything felt instantly thrown into chaos, and they almost wanted to surrender on the spot.
“Hi, Gu Yang… um… you’re back?” Xie Wu stood up too quickly; his knee slammed against the underside of the desk with a loud clang. He endured the pain and tried to greet him in as natural a tone as possible.
Gu Yang had already returned to his seat and set down his backpack. He gave a cold “Mm.”
“Ah, you finally came back, Gu Yang,” Yu Bai said, emboldened by Xie Wu starting the conversation. He shamelessly shuffled over to Gu Yang’s side. “I thought you had caught a cold.”
Hearing this, Gu Yang smiled faintly.
“Why wouldn’t I come? Don’t you have any idea yourselves?”
Of course it turned out like this!
Yu Bai had stepped on a landmine for everyone else and effectively eliminated Option A.
“Well, um… what I mean is…” Yu Bai looked like he’d been battered by a level-ten hurricane, his expression completely disheveled.
“Sorry, Gu Yang. We shouldn’t have kept it from you before.”
Lu Ji directly chose Option B. He looked at Gu Yang calmly.
“The day I transferred into Class 11, I heard your inner thoughts. I got a lot of information from them, but I never told you. That was my fault.”
This attitude… was passable, at least.
Gu Yang lowered his expression, though he didn’t say anything. Under everyone’s increasingly tense gazes, he awkwardly lifted his head and looked at his classmates.
Actually, his relationship with these people hadn’t been that close before.
They had all known each other because of their families. If someone felt uncomfortable about something, they would flare up on the spot. No one yielded to anyone.
They hung out together sometimes, but it wasn’t exactly heart-to-heart friendship.
So when had things changed?
Gu Yang vaguely felt that the turning point had probably been the plot that appeared in his mind—and the fact that his inner thoughts could be heard.
But in truth, those things in the past didn’t matter anymore.
Now that the knot in his heart had finally been untied, it was like a snake shedding its old skin. That dry outer layer—along with the sand embedded between the scales—had been left behind on the road behind him.
What mattered was how he felt now.
“Forget it. This is already in the past.”
He had never been someone good with words. After thinking for a long time, that was all he managed to say.
But that single sentence was enough to brighten the entire classroom atmosphere.
“But if it happens again in the future…”
“If it happens again, what will you do?” Yu Bai asked cautiously.
Gu Yang hadn’t even figured out what threatening line to say yet. Hearing that, he simply smiled faintly at Yu Bai.
“You guess.”
Sometimes leaving things unsaid was even more intimidating than finishing the sentence.
Yu Bai shuddered slightly and raised both hands in surrender.
“That’s a naked warning and threat.”
“You’re really a bit dumb, Xiao Bai,” Ying Jiayi said with a helpless smile. “Shouldn’t the important part be the future?”
Something felt different.
In the past, Gu Yang had always stayed inside his own world, carrying a gloomy, self-trapping aura that imprisoned both himself and others.
But now the clouds had clearly parted. The eyes he used to look at them were no longer shrouded in inescapable fog.
No one knew what had happened, but it probably wasn’t a bad thing.
“Hey? Gu Yang, what happened to your eyes?” After resolving this matter, Xie Wu finally had the leisure to notice other details.
Although his thick eyelashes cast strong shadows, if you looked closely, Gu Yang’s eyes were still slightly swollen and moist. The redness looked exactly like the kind you get after crying the previous night.
Could it be that because they had deceived him, he had spent the past few days at home crying his eyes out?
Yu Bai’s eyes widened in shock.
In his mind, he instantly pictured Gu Yang curled up helplessly in bed, burying his head in the blanket while tears soaked the sheets.
A strong sense of guilt surged up, making him want to kneel and apologize on the spot.
“Well… yesterday… didn’t you meet Song Yinxing?” Xie Wu’s thoughts weren’t as wildly off track as Yu Bai’s. He frowned immediately, his expression turning a little unfriendly. “Did Song Yinxing bully you?”
At that sentence, Qi Lecheng—who had been keeping his head down like a quail—suddenly looked up. A trace of darkness flashed through his eyes.
After all, he was the one who had introduced them.
Gu Yang turned his head away somewhat unnaturally.
“No. I stayed up late watching TV.”
But that reaction only made it seem more like he was covering something up.
Xie Wu couldn’t quite decide what to think. On one hand, Song Yinxing didn’t seem like that kind of person. On the other hand, Gu Yang’s expression was definitely suspicious.
He Ming’an—who had been quietly letting the others handle the conversation—met Xie Wu’s eyes and shook his head slightly.
Seeing that, Xie Wu had no choice but to drop the topic for now.
After chatting for a while longer, everyone returned to their seats. But this time the atmosphere was clearly much more relaxed, and they no longer pretended to be busy just to avoid the tension.
“Welcome back.”
Once things quieted down, He Ming’an turned around as usual, looked at Gu Yang behind him, and spoke softly.
Gu Yang lay slumped over his desk and gave a muffled “Mm.” Then he asked casually,
“How was my performance just now?”
He Ming’an smiled.
“Very good.”
“So perfunctory,” Gu Yang muttered.
“I really mean it,” He Ming’an teased. “But you—since when did you start caring about other people’s opinions?”
“…Did something happen during your meeting with Xiao Song yesterday?”
Gu Yang’s eyes flickered.
“Not telling you.”
Exactly the answer He Ming’an expected.
But then Gu Yang added:
“Who told you to ditch me yesterday? I’m not telling you anything.”
Indeed, He Ming’an had used his name to arrange the meeting yesterday, yet he himself never showed up.
He knew Gu Yang was clearly avoiding the topic—and doing so with complete justification. Although technically, it was indeed his fault.
For once, He Ming’an felt like he had lifted a rock only to drop it on his own foot.
So it seemed Gu Yang and Song Yinxing had developed some kind of secret between the two of them.
Still, he could sense the change in Gu Yang.
That drifting, untouchable feeling he once had—the kind that made He Ming’an afraid he might lose his grip on him at any moment—was gone.
But wasn’t this exactly what he had wanted?
Back then, when he saw the special attention Gu Yang showed toward Song Yinxing, he had deliberately tried to match them together.
He Ming’an’s smile faded slightly as he fell into thought.
After a moment of silence, Gu Yang spoke again first.
“Don’t you want to know what happened that night?”
That night…
He Ming’an’s expression turned complicated. His eyes flickered, but in the end he just shook his head.
“Forget it. As long as everyone is safe.”
“Well, everyone’s safe,” Gu Yang said, “but I can’t guarantee what happens afterward.”
“Sorry, Ah Yang,” He Ming’an said with a bitter smile. “It was clearly my problem, but I pushed everything onto you. And in the end, I didn’t even have the courage to handle the aftermath myself.”
As he spoke, he lowered his head awkwardly, hiding his expression.
Gu Yang thought for a moment, then reached out and patted his head.
“It’s okay. If you don’t want to hear it, then you don’t have to.”
Like comforting a child.
The cool touch through his hair made He Ming’an freeze.
Then a helpless smile slowly spread across his lips.
“Didn’t expect you to be the one comforting me, Ah Yang. That’s embarrassing. A lot must have happened to you too, right?”
“Mm. Good that you know.”
Gu Yang nodded and took out his phone. He opened a screenshot from a recent jewelry auction and slid it across the desk.
“This is the one I like. Consider it the labor fee for this mission.”
He Ming’an looked at the image and laughed.
“That’s quite an expensive fee.”
“Of course. My value isn’t low.”
The heavy guilt that had been weighing on his heart slowly dissipated through those few casual sentences.
“Ah Yang, you really…”
“It’s snowing.”
The soft murmur interrupted him.
He Ming’an turned his head toward the window and squinted against the bright light. Finally, he saw the scene outside.
Countless snowflakes drifted down from the sky.
After so many years, the first heavy snow of winter had finally fallen upon Jiangcheng.
“It’s snowing…” he murmured.
“What? It’s really snowing?” Xie Wu excitedly rushed to the window and opened it to look outside.
Their city sat right on the boundary of the north–south snowfall line. It had been so long since they had seen snow.
From the front row, Ying Jiayi complained,
“It’s freezing! All the heat just escaped. Why don’t you go outside to look?”
The window was quickly shut again.
But a few snowflakes blown in by the wind had already landed on Gu Yang’s eyelashes—
falling into that bright summer afternoon in his heart that had trapped him for so long.
At last, the seasons within his world began slowly turning.
So winter had truly arrived.
