I just wanted to wear your clothes

Wen Zhiyan did not let Qiao Xin reveal the secret, merely giving her a knowing nod.

Jiang Lan watched their exchange, but still could not guess the purpose of this outing.

Guided by the staff, they boarded a small yacht.

Jiang Lan and Wen Zhiyan boarded last and naturally passed Xu Can, Tan Duoduo, and Lin Ziyou, who were sitting separately up front, to sit together in the back row.

Xu Can glanced back at Wen Zhiyan and Jiang Lan, paired up together. She wanted to speak, but felt that anything she said would be awkward, so she could only helplessly shut her mouth, then stand up and move over beside Lin Ziyou.

Lin Ziyou glanced at Xu Can and teased her, "Scared to sit alone?"

Xu Can nodded. "I came to keep you company."

Lin Ziyou reached out and touched Xu Can's slightly chilly shoulder, then took off the light jacket and draped it over her.

Embarrassed, Xu Can said, "You don't have to. Aren't you cold?"

Lin Ziyou waved a hand. "No, I'm a little hot."

Only then did Xu Can stop refusing. The faint scent of iris on the jacket drifted into her nose. She sniffed and whispered into Lin Ziyou's ear, "Your pheromones smell so good, Ziyou."

Lin Ziyou neither agreed nor disagreed. "Too bad the symbolism isn't good. I don't like it myself."

Sitting at the very back, Jiang Lan and Wen Zhiyan could not hear what Xu Can and Lin Ziyou were saying.

They could only see the little gestures between them.

For a moment, Jiang Lan remembered how he had once treated Wen Zhiyan with that same meticulous care.

He turned his head, looked at Wen Zhiyan's profile in the dim light, and asked softly, "Are you cold?"

At that, Wen Zhiyan turned to meet Jiang Lan's gaze. "No. Are you?"

Jiang Lan shook his head and asked Wen Zhiyan, "Then why did you get cold so easily before?"

Back then, Wen Zhiyan had not only been sensitive to the cold, but also disliked putting on more clothes. Whenever the weather changed, Jiang Lan had to keep an eye on him before he would agree to wear long underwear.

At first, whenever they went out and the wind picked up or rain fell, Wen Zhiyan's little face would turn deathly pale from the cold. Jiang Lan would have to take off his own jacket for him, then shiver in the cold with nothing but his own righteousness to keep him warm. Too proud to admit his suffering, he would grit his teeth and solemnly tell Wen Zhiyan:

He was roasting.

Later, Jiang Lan learned his lesson and checked the weather forecast before every outing. If the temperature was low or the weather was going to change, he would tell Wen Zhiyan in advance to dress more warmly and bring a jacket.

But Wen Zhiyan still often forgot.

After freezing a few times, Jiang Lan wised up too. He stopped reminding Wen Zhiyan and simply brought an extra jacket whenever they went out, just in case.

Hearing Jiang Lan's words, Wen Zhiyan seemed to remember those thoughtless days of his as well.

He shifted his gaze away from Jiang Lan's face and said softly, "I just wanted to wear your clothes."

Jiang Lan fell silent. Only a long while later, when the boat started moving, did he mutter a curse under his breath. "Aren't you clever."

The yacht slowly left the dock along the narrow river. On either side stood mangroves that were not particularly tall, but grew very densely. Their tangled roots spread beneath the water, their clawing black shadows barely visible under the pallid searchlight.

By the searchlight, Jiang Lan leaned over the railing along the side of the boat and peered down at the water.

When he saw something shaped like a crocodile's head slowly floating across the surface, he could not help edging closer to Wen Zhiyan. Pressing against his warm arm, he whispered, "Wen Zhiyan, I think I saw a crocodile."

Wen Zhiyan sensed what seemed to be goosebumps rising on Jiang Lan's arm. He glanced at the cameraman standing at the bow, turning the lens toward the water, then put an arm around Jiang Lan's shoulders and told him:

"The ecosystem here is very healthy. It's tropical, with swamps and forests. It's perfectly normal for crocodiles to appear here. If you're scared, move to the inside."

Jiang Lan slapped Wen Zhiyan's hand away. "You're the one who's scared."

Despite saying that, he could not help recalling all sorts of crocodile disaster movies, then started imagining whether a crocodile might secretly climb up the side of the boat.

He also silently calculated his chances of successfully evading a crocodile with Wen Zhiyan over his shoulder if something went wrong.

Before his thoughts could wander any further, the boat suddenly stopped.

At the same time, the searchlight at the bow went out.

Just as Jiang Lan's heart jolted, thinking something really had gone wrong, he heard Wen Zhiyan say beside his ear, "Lan-ge, look."

Following the direction of Wen Zhiyan's finger, Jiang Lan looked toward the other side of the boat.

A vast expanse of flickering lights appeared above the trees, fluttering in every direction, glowing and fading like stars falling before their eyes from a clear night sky.

Yu Nan was the first to react, taking Qiao Xin's hand. "Qiao Xin, fireflies!"

Everyone stood up at that moment and moved toward the side where the fireflies had appeared.

Except Jiang Lan and Wen Zhiyan.

Jiang Lan gazed at those little insects flitting through the woods with their glowing bottoms, rooted to the spot by the memories flooding his mind and the indescribably complicated feelings within him.

This was something he had promised Wen Zhiyan.

Just like going bungee jumping.

Seeing fireflies was one of the things on Jiang Lan's list of [One hundred things couples must do together].

Unfortunately, Haicheng was not tropical and had four distinct seasons. Jiang Lan had never had the chance to take Wen Zhiyan away from Haicheng to explore somewhere farther afield.

Jiang Lan lifted his head, looking at the river of stars flowing across the distant night sky, then at the little lights within reach in the darkness. He felt the gland at the nape of his neck throbbing gently, dizzy and a little dazed.

For a moment, he could scarcely tell which were the real stars: those far away, or those right before his eyes.

Having his old hopes stitched back together this way after so many years also left Jiang Lan barely able to tell whether the seven years he had spent without Wen Zhiyan were real or not.

Jiang Lan felt as though he had experienced a nightmare that seemed long and painful, but was actually brief and insignificant.

As his eyes began to burn, he lowered his head and reached up to touch the back of his neck. Looking at Wen Zhiyan's profile amid the others' excited exclamations and chatter, he stated softly:

"You knew all along what we were coming here for."

Not only that, Jiang Lan even suspected that Wen Zhiyan might have been pulling the strings behind the scenes throughout the show's planning and filming.

At the very least, if someone claimed that today's bungee jumping and fireflies had absolutely nothing to do with Wen Zhiyan and were pure coincidence, Jiang Lan would not believe it even if they beat Pei Du to death.

And barring any surprises, the biggest investor behind this show was probably the Wen Corporation.

Hearing this, Wen Zhiyan did not admit it, but neither did he deny it. He only said, "I went to a lot of places alone and did a lot of things I never got around to doing before."

"But doing them alone was really no fun. Lan-ge, could we go together in the future?"

Jiang Lan had once owned a notebook recording everything he and Wen Zhiyan had done together, and everything they wanted to do.

But after their breakup, Jiang Lan had moved several times, and he had never been able to find that notebook again.

Now it seemed that perhaps it had not been lost, but that Wen Zhiyan had taken it with him when he left.

Jiang Lan looked at Wen Zhiyan and asked tentatively:

"Wen Zhiyan, did you go see the hippos, then?"