Back Then, I Adored You

In the video, Gu Yusheng was staring intently at Qin Zhi’ai’s abdomen. His focus was that of someone looking at a sacred gift.

An unprecedented and strong emotion instantly filled his chest and, for a long time, it was difficult for him to calm down. It was only when the cigarette that his fingers were holding onto had burned to the end and singed his skin that his eyes gradually shifted away from Qin Zhi’ai’s abdomen.

Qin Zhi’ai was fixated on his expressions. When she saw his eyes move up, she turned her cell phone screen up to her face, and he looked back at her with a deeply profound stare. Although they were communicating over the internet, Qin Zhi’ai could feel the intensity of his gaze, and her breath and heartbeat came to a sudden stop. The words that came to her mind stopped before they left her lips. The two of them looked at each other quietly, as if they were the only two humans left in the world.

Gu Yusheng’s current mood during these moments was indescribable. While he could not touch her belly, just looking at it made his suppressed feelings of longing run rampant within him in an instant. The impact made his heart wrench periodically.

He had a thousand things to say in his heart but, after much effort, he moved his lips several times until everything boiled down to one simple statement. “Xiao’ai, I want to hug you so badly.”

That one sentence made Qin Zhi’ai’s eyes fog up. She gazed at Gu Yusheng for some time before managing to suppress her impulse to cry. Her lips curled up, and she said softly, “When you return, you can hug me to your heart’s content.” On the screen, she saw Gu Yusheng raise his eyebrows and smile back at her.

Since she had become pregnant, Qin Zhi’ai had been afraid of catching a cold, so she always kept the indoor temperature high. Even though it was already autumn, it was still a little warm, but she suddenly felt comfortable and began enthusiastically talking to him. Even though he had already read about what she was telling him now, he was eager to listen to her.

“Yusheng, back then, when you were in high school, if you had not given me a fake phone number and we had gone to the movie that day, would we have been together then? At that point in time, after you had entered the army, would we have chatted on the phone for hours like we’re doing now?”

As she spoke, Qin Zhi’ai suddenly beamed. “I was so sad when you left that day. How long have we been together? Grandfather had finally given us his blessing, but you were leaving. At night, the thought of it had made my eyes turn red, but now I feel that God was making it up to us and allowing us to experience the times that we had missed, as well as the things that we had not been able to experience. Now, we have experienced them.”

“Yusheng, you simply gave up on me back then. Weren’t you afraid that I would fall for someone else and that you would never have had another chance with me again for the rest of your life?”

“I was afraid…” Gu Yusheng, who had been listening to her silently, abruptly picked up on the conversation. “I was especially afraid, but I was even more afraid of holding you back.”

“At that time, you were still so young. And I was to leave for a few years or even longer. I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving you to wait alone naively and fearfully in Beijing. If you ultimately landed in some sort of an accident, other than being heartbroken, you would have wasted many precious years. You were the only girl I cared about in my entire life. Not to mention what I would have felt like back then. Even if it were now, I also could not bear the thought of that…”