Chapter 551: I’ll Wait for You Until You’re 35
Li Zhi’s pupils dilated slightly.
That short line of text was like a tiny jolt of electricity, instantly piercing the wall of composure she’d thrown up.
Her fingertips curled unconsciously. The cool metal frame of the phone suddenly felt scorching hot.
It was as if something had given her heart a gentle squeeze, only for it to start hammering violently against her ribs.
‘This idiot…’
‘H-how could he… write this?!’
Her heart thundered in her ears, threatening to burst from her chest.
Li Zhi could almost hear their bickering from long ago.
—”From the looks of it, you’ll still be single when you’re thirty-five.”
—”And I’ll grant you a long life—you’ll be in the ground by thirty-five.”
But the feeling now was so real.
The warmth of his body pressed against her shoulder, that old piece of banter now glowing on the screen.
So that idiot remembered everything. He’d even carefully saved the angry words they’d thrown at each other.
And now, it had sprouted, growing into a sugar-coated bullet that struck the softest part of her heart.
Her breath caught in her throat, but a scorching warmth spread from her chest through her entire body, even setting the tips of her ears on fire.
Li Zhi’s head snapped up. Her bright eyes landed on Shen Yuan, a faint, unconscious smile playing on his lips.
The fluster of being seen so clearly, mixed with an indescribably sweet thrill, made her blurt out:
“Shen Yuan!” Her voice held an irrepressible tremor, and without realizing it, a hint of playful indignation.
“…You… you cunning idiot!”
She hastily pressed her fingertips to the corners of her heated eyes, afraid of betraying how moved she was, but she couldn’t stop the corners of her mouth from curving up.
Shen Yuan, who had been basking in the brilliance of his own writing and was just about to hit ‘send,’ felt the smug smile on his face freeze.
As if he’d heard something utterly unbelievable, he slowly turned his head to meet Li Zhi’s shockingly bright eyes.
Shen Yuan: ???
It was as if giant, physical question marks had materialized above Shen Yuan’s head. His eyes were filled with pure, unadulterated confusion.
‘Cunning?’
‘Me?’
‘Wait… this isn’t how it’s supposed to go!’
‘According to the script, wasn’t Li Zhi supposed to call me “dramatic,” “cheesy,” and “tacky,” then snatch my phone with beet-red ears to keep inspecting the post? Or at least give me a kick?’
‘So what was this “cunning” all about, delivered with that little tremor and hint of playful indignation?!’
Shen Yuan felt like this completely unexpected response had fried his CPU.
All the witty comebacks he’d prepared—the teasing remarks, the clever deflections, the shameless retorts—for the masterpiece of a relationship announcement he’d just crafted with all his literary might, were now stuck in his throat. They all melted away, leaving a single, standard expression on his face—
Goofball.jpg.
The handsome face that, just seconds before, had been radiating ‘I’m a genius,’ was now a complete blank.
He’d even forgotten that his finger was still hovering over the ‘send’ button, frozen in mid-air like a robot that had abruptly lost power.
Shen Yuan finally managed to recover from the bombardment of question marks. His dazed eyes blinked, slowly regaining their focus.
“Huh?!”
He jolted, leaning in close to Li Zhi until his nose was almost touching the tip of her reddening ear. His voice was laced with utter confusion.
“Wait, Li Bao! Explain yourself! How am I cunning?!”
Li Zhi’s body went stiff at the abrupt question.
She whipped her head around, nearly colliding with Shen Yuan’s chin.
His handsome, magnified face was filled with genuine bewilderment; he looked like a big, dopey dog trailing after its owner for an explanation.
His undisguised, straightforward confusion instantly demolished the wall of bashfulness Li Zhi had just erected.
She suddenly reached out, and with a touch of flustered exasperation, lightly smacked her cool palm against his forehead!
A soft SMACK.
“You’re impossibly dense!”
Li Zhi’s voice was like crisp frosting, a fierce shell hiding her irrepressible shyness.
She snatched her hand back and shot to her feet as if avoiding a scorching ray of heat, her high ponytail whipping through the air in a sharp arc.
“Figure it out yourself!”
Li Zhi tossed out the four words, leaving Shen Yuan with nothing but the sight of her ramrod-straight profile.
Shen Yuan clutched his forehead—which didn’t hurt in the slightest—and just stood there, stunned.
The lingering chill from the winter rain seemed to crystallize on his fingertips.
He could still feel the scorching touch of her skin where she’d hit him.
Her words, ‘Figure it out yourself,’ were like little hooks, tangling up the chaotic storm of ‘How am I cunning?’ that was raging in his mind.
He gazed at her deliberately stiff posture and her crimson earlobes, fiddling with his fingers unconsciously as if trying to decipher a top-secret code.
“So… uh… can I post it now?”
She whipped her head around as if she’d been pricked by a needle.
She shot him a fierce glare, but her cheeks were as red as ripe berries. “Do whatever you want! Don’t ask me!”
Shen Yuan instantly swallowed the rest of his sentence.
Watching Li Zhi, who looked so indignant she was about to combust, a dazzlingly bright grin slowly spread across his face.
‘Got it.’
This time, he truly understood.
Shen Yuan looked down, his finger hovering over the ‘Send’ button. The screen’s faint glow illuminated the delight in his eyes.
“So, should I post first, or you?”
He leaned in a little closer, his eyes sparkling as he watched her, his gaze full of anticipation and a hint of urgency.
Li Zhi stiffened at his sudden proximity, instinctively clutching her phone to her chest. The blush that had just begun to fade from her cheeks showed signs of making a roaring comeback.
“Th-that’s none of your business!”
She shot him a fierce glare, but her voice held a barely perceptible note of bashfulness and guilt.