Confession

It was an hour later by the time Liu Chang'an reached the foot of Mount Lu and found the milk tea shop named "Cha Dao Dao," following the location pin An Nuan had sent.

The walls were coated in white lime over uneven bricks, furnished with a few scattered wooden tables and chairs. Plastic vines hung from the ceiling, and in the corners sat students from nearby universities, hunched over laptops to finish homework or papers. There was nothing special about this milk tea shop.

Except for the special An Nuan.

When he first entered high school, Liu Chang'an, living under a new identity, had experienced the usual period of physical adaptation and adjustment. He had fallen down a flight of stairs, and while everyone said it was because he was lovesick over Bai Hui, it was actually An Nuan who had helped him up. When he opened his eyes, feeling somewhat dazed, the panicked gaze of the sixteen-year-old girl's beautiful face was fixed upon him.

A thousand years of wind and snow, walking the world, yet his heart remained that of a youth.

To Liu Chang'an, no one he had met since he could remember was truly special; they were merely lives born from the natural laws of this world, himself included. Yet, when these lives walked into his own during their respective eras, some individuals were indeed special at the time.

An Nuan was drinking orange juice. A glass of orange juice also sat in the seat opposite her, its rim beaded with water droplets. The ice inside had already melted, and it likely tasted quite watered down.

Sitting beside An Nuan was her best friend, Han Zhizhi, the daughter of Professor Ling who lived across from An Nuan's home. She was looking at Liu Chang'an with an expression that was half-praise, half-schadenfreude.

Han Zhizhi had visited the Affiliated High School to hang out with An Nuan back in their freshman year. She attended a different high school, one that rivaled the Affiliated High School in both reputation and strength.

"I told you, it takes others half an hour to get down from Mount Lu, but it takes him an hour," An Nuan remarked, chatting as usual.

"But he wasn't slow at all when he rushed over from home," Han Zhizhi replied, her tone thick with insinuation.

Han Zhizhi lacked An Nuan's looks and figure, but she was cute nonetheless... Liu Chang'an used the word "cute" to describe almost every female, from those just born to those nearing the grave.

Liu Chang'an sat down and drank the orange juice.

"To reach up and pluck the moon from the nine heavens, to reach down and catch turtles in the five oceans—that's him. He's incredibly capable," An Nuan said to Han Zhizhi.

Han Zhizhi immediately put on a look of adoration. "And beating up the nursing home on the South Mountain, kicking the kindergarten on the North Sea—those are his heroic deeds too, right?"

An Nuan actually had no heart left for banter. It would be a lie to say she wasn't moved. Liu Chang'an was usually lighthearted and indifferent, as if nothing mattered, but whenever she had a problem, he never hesitated. Such a... friend. An Nuan felt a bit unwilling to keep him in the position of a friend while he did these things.

Most importantly, his actions might bring him trouble. As a friend, she naturally felt uneasy about dragging him into it.

Liu Chang'an was drinking the orange juice with his usual air of enjoying life. An Nuan snatched his glass, took out the straw to put it in her own, and handed hers to Liu Chang'an.

After all, with Han Zhizhi present, An Nuan felt a bit shy about drinking directly without swapping straws.

"Didn't I tell you not to come?" An Nuan glared at Liu Chang'an, feigning anger, though the softness in her tone and eyes was impossible to hide.

"My feet were itchy," Liu Chang'an said in the Junsha dialect.

Han Zhizhi burst into laughter, her fingers twirling a lock of hair by her cheek.

An Nuan couldn't help it; she leaned over, wrapped her arms around Liu Chang'an, and gave him a shake. Torn between liking and hating him, she scolded, "I hate you! And you even started a livestream! Zhizhi was dying of laughter!"

"My orange juice." Liu Chang'an reached out, pressed against An Nuan's face, and pushed her away. "Keep it down, people are trying to do their homework."

The girl in the corner with the laptop turned her gaze back to her screen. Some things were truly unavoidable; the reality one had to face was that if a girl's looks were average, she had to seize more capital in other areas. Who wouldn't want to act spoiled and coquettish like that tall, beautiful girl? But men still looked at faces.

"I confess, I'm the one who sold you out. I just wanted to see if Ma Shilong was still livestreaming outside, but I didn't expect to see you. I think you could enter the livestreaming industry. Ma Shilong's Weibo and Nuan Nuan's Weibo are already filled with comments and messages about tonight," Han Zhizhi said, rolling her eyes at An Nuan. Can you be more reserved? You two aren't even together yet, and you're already feeding others dog food.

"Livestreaming yourself beating people up?" An Nuan sat back in her seat and said to Liu Chang'an, "Don't you dare listen to her crazy ideas."

"He forced me," Liu Chang'an believed. "I tried to reason with him, but he refused. He insisted on making me beat him."

"I don't think he'll just let it go," An Nuan said, filled with worry. "If he could stake out me, he can stake out you."

"As long as he stops staking out you, it's fine," Liu Chang'an said dismissively.

"Then I'd rather he keep guarding the school and the residential complex. He doesn't have any other options anyway," An Nuan shook her head.

Han Zhizhi looked at An Nuan, completely baffled. Why had she dragged her along? To torture her innocent, flower-bud-like heart that knew nothing of the sweetness of love and only longed for it?

An Nuan caught Han Zhizhi's gaze, blushed slightly, and gave her a look.

Han Zhizhi was furious. She had just been fed a mouthful of dog food, and now she was being treated like a third wheel? Han Zhizhi picked up her bag and stood up, rolling her eyes at An Nuan again. She's truly someone who values romance over friendship.

"Why did she leave?" Liu Chang'an's attention shifted. Han Zhizhi's back view was quite nice, and her figure wasn't bad, though she wasn't as tall or pretty as An Nuan.

"Focus," An Nuan said sternly.

"It doesn't really matter. It's a holiday for the next few days. He can only block me after school starts. Based on today's experience, he'll bring at least five people. But you can't cause trouble at the gate of the Affiliated High School, no matter how much of a spoiled brat you are. So his tactic will probably be to follow me to a place where it's easier to act, and then I'll just clean them all up." Liu Chang'an hesitated for a moment. "I promise, I won't livestream beating people up next time."

"Do you think you're invincible? Fighting five people!" The more Liu Chang'an spoke, the more worried An Nuan became. As for his little plan to keep livestreaming, she couldn't even be bothered to argue with him; at least he knew she would be angry if he did that again.

"I wasn't this strong before, but I really am very strong now," Liu Chang'an said objectively.

"But you..."

Before An Nuan could finish, Liu Chang'an had already walked out of the milk tea shop.

"I wasn't done talking!"

"Too wordy, I don't want to listen."

An Nuan caught up to Liu Chang'an at the entrance of the Juyuan residential complex. She ran in front of him, grabbed his arm, and tried to hoist him onto her shoulder for a shoulder throw.

But today, Liu Chang'an didn't cooperate. An Nuan gritted her teeth and exerted all her strength, but it was useless. In the end, she had to let go, panting.

"The Zhenwei Technique I gave you, have you been practicing it?" Liu Chang'an diverted her attention.

"What?"

"The character for 'Zhen' with the water radical, the character for 'Wei' with the water radical—the names of two rivers. Two rivers merging, symbolizing the harmony of Yin and Yang and the smooth flow of meridians; hence, it is called the Zhenwei Technique." Liu Chang'an explained, "The poem says: 'The Zhen and the Wei, are flowing deep and wide. The men and women, are holding orchids. The women say, shall we go and see? The men say, we have already been. Let us go and see again! Beyond the Wei, it is spacious and joyful. The men and women, are teasing each other, presenting each other with peonies.' In ancient times, people used orchids and peonies as symbols of beautiful love. Today, I gift you the Zhenwei Technique, also wishing for you to harvest love."

An Nuan stood there, stunned. Even though she was already accustomed to Liu Chang'an's erratic train of thought, she never imagined... that he was using a breast-enhancement massage technique to confess his feelings to her?

What Liu Chang'an did was hard to understand by the logic of ordinary people. If an average person were to confess to a girl like An Nuan, they would never subtly imply, "I'd like you more if your chest were bigger, and look, I've even thought of a way for you." That was absolutely impossible. No one with normal intelligence would do such a thing, but Liu Chang'an was not necessarily a normal person.

An Nuan was, of course, intimately familiar with such a world-renowned love poem. A sudden realization dawned on her, and she thought, That bastard Liu Chang'an, he must be implying that only those with big breasts are qualified to talk about love.

"Liu Chang'an!"

An Nuan was so infuriated by him that she grabbed his waist, attempting to throw him into the flowerbed nearby.

"Watch your image. We're near your residential complex; everyone here knows you!"

Liu Chang'an reminded her helplessly. Why did this young girl always resort to violence at the slightest disagreement? Wasn't his meaning clear enough? The man in the poem had clearly already been to the banks of the Zhen and Wei rivers, yet when the woman invited him, he agreed to go again. This showed that mutual affection between a man and a woman was what mattered most, and other factors were irrelevant.

Liu Chang'an and An Nuan had a very close relationship. This Zhenwei Technique, much like the orchids and peonies, was merely a symbol of love, not the cause of it. It was precisely because the two had already taken a liking to each other that they exchanged orchids and peonies; it was because they had taken a liking to each other that he mentioned the Zhenwei Technique. If they hadn't, why would he care if someone else's breasts were large or if they needed enhancement?

How could she fail to grasp such simple logic? Liu Chang'an thought to himself, allowing her to push him until he finally sat down on the edge of the flowerbed.

He would just let her have her way.