Back Then, I Adored You

Qin Zhi’ai stared at the screen for a while, until she couldn’t help but look up secretly and peek at Gu Yusheng.

Just as she was about to look away, Gu Yusheng set aside his documents, closed his eyes, and rubbed his fingers between his eyebrows.

Qin Zhi’ai glanced at his water glass on his nightstand. It was empty, so she hesitatingly stood up and walked to the nightstand.

Hearing someone approach, Gu Yusheng opened his eyes and looked at her without saying anything.

She picked up the glass, turned to fill it with warm water, and then gently placed it back on the nightstand. When she saw the roasted chestnuts that he’d asked her to buy earlier that day, she said, “Master Gu, I put the chestnuts here.”

Gu Yusheng turned his head and stretched out his arm.

Qin Zhi’ai picked up the chestnuts and put them in his hand.

Gu Yusheng opened the paper bag and took out a chestnut. As he was preparing to shell it, Qin Zhi’ai suddenly worried that he might pull the muscle around his injuries. “Master Gu, let me help you.”

Gu Yusheng stopped for a moment without replying.

Confused by his silence, Qin Zhi’ai eventually moved a stool next to him, reached in the bag for a chestnut, and started to shell it.

The room was silent except for the sound of shelling.

After Gu Yusheng had eaten several chestnuts, Qin Zhi’ai reminded him to slow down. “Be careful about eating too many of these before you go to sleep—it’ll make your stomach upset.”

But she didn’t stop shelling.

She found an empty bag in the room and put the shells in it. “Master Gu, I’ll shell them for you first, and you can eat them tomorrow.”

Gu Yusheng answered “hmm” in a low voice. He then turned away and stared out the window for a while. He could not help but fix his eyes on her reflection in the window.

Qin Zhi’ai didn’t notice Gu Yusheng staring at her, but she felt a woman’s intuition that the energy in the room had changed.

Whenever the atmosphere between them had become strange, she had always become extremely nervous, a symptom of loving him.

Qin Zhi’ai nervously shelled two chestnuts. To ease her nervousness, she looked up at him and said, “Master Gu…”

After she had called his attention, she realized that she hadn’t known what she was going to say, so she said, “Thank you.”

Concerned her words were too abrupt and confusing, she added, “Thank you for that night. If it weren’t for you, I might have…”

She stopped talking because she assumed he understood what she was trying to say.

When she called out “Master Gu,” he had broken his gaze on her reflection and focused on a streetlight.

Hearing her thanks, he eventually replied, “Well, it doesn’t matter.”

“Master Gu, why would you…” Qin Zhi’ai hesitated before continuing, “…hit the man who had hurt me so viciously?”