Ji Qiansong didn’t get home until noon the next day.

When he saw me listlessly sitting on the sofa, he only looked slightly surprised and said in a flat tone,

"Why are you sitting here? Didn’t you cook?"

My eyes were swollen from crying.

I looked up, and his figure started to blur, until it turned into a hazy shadow.

"Ji Qiansong, you gave Han Jiana that ring, didn’t you?"

Ji Qiansong’s hand paused as he changed his shoes. His tone was casual and natural.

"Who told you that?"

I never thought he still wouldn’t admit it, even at this point.

"Two months ago, you customized a pair of couple rings on your phone. I thought they were for proposing to me, but I never imagined you bought them for your first love—"

Before I could finish, Ji Qiansong’s face clouded over, and he interrupted me.

"Did you go through my phone again?"

I was almost laughed out of anger.

"Ji Qiansong, if I hadn’t checked your phone, I would have never known you’d gone this far with her! What’s next—are you planning to get married?"

Ji Qiansong frowned, dismissing my words.

"What nonsense. She’s just a business partner. We were in the same lab in college."

That sentence ignited my anger completely.

"So you gave her couple rings?! Don’t you know what couple rings mean?! Don’t you realize how sensitive your relationship is?!"

I almost shouted the last sentence.

Ji Qiansong still looked cold.

"You’re overthinking this."

My surging emotions suddenly froze mid-air. I blinked blankly, feeling all my strength drain away like water from a sponge.

Ji Qiansong was always like this.

He always watched me hysterically falling apart in this relationship, like an outsider—calm and composed—then casually said, "Don’t be unreasonable."

But he wasn’t like this at the beginning.

At first, he would look into my eyes seriously and tell me not to hold back my emotions. He said if I was unhappy, I should tell him right away, and he would change, work hard to make our relationship better.

But seven years passed, and I was almost driven crazy.

While Ji Qiansong always stood in his own world, looking down at me, telling me my emotions were unnecessary when I was on the verge of collapse.

The boy in my memories—who would brave heavy rain to wait for me downstairs just to comfort me, who would go to great lengths to fulfill my little wishes—was gone, far away.

So far that I could barely see him anymore.

That night, the events of the past few days trapped me in an emotional vortex, weighing heavily on my heart.

Tears fell one by one, quickly soaking the pillow.

Amidst the rustling sound, someone hugged me from behind, and gentle kisses landed on my ear.

"Still angry?"

I turned my back to him and said nothing.

"Yiyi, you’re right. I was too inappropriate. I shouldn’t have given her that ring."

"She’s my business partner now. She’s helped me a lot at work, so I’m very grateful. The other day, she said her hands felt empty, so I thought of buying her a ring."

"I’m sorry, Yiyi. This is my fault."

"Forgive me, okay? I won’t do it again. I promise."

Since graduation, Ji Qiansong rarely talked to me this much.

His rambling made me feel a little dazed.

It turned out that the perfect love I thought we had had already started to rot from the inside.

In the terrible silence, I finally whispered a soft "hmm."

In the days that followed, it was as if we’d returned to the passionate days of our sophomore year. Ji Qiansong would share interesting stories about his work with me, and pour out his troubles.

Every morning, I would get up early to prepare breakfast for him.

The tall man would stand at the door, looking at me affectionately.

"Yiyi, come help me tie my tie."

After I stood on tiptoes to tie it for him, he would gently kiss my forehead, his tone so soft it almost melted.

"Yiyi, wait for me to come back."

Even though Ji Qiansong showed his love so clearly, even though he’d been so clingy lately, my heart always hung in the air, never settling.

It felt like if I took one more step forward, I would fall into an abyss, never to return.