With a sudden shove, the boy pushed the girl away and snarled viciously:
“Let me tell you the truth—I’m a scoundrel. I’ve fooled around with who knows how many girls. You’d better stay far away from me! Aren’t there plenty of other guys? Why hang yourself from a single tree?”
The flush drained from the girl’s face, leaving her deathly pale.
Chen Youzai felt a stab of pity. Yet he had already gone this far—if he retreated now, all would be wasted.
“You’re lying to me, aren’t you? You’re testing me, right?” the girl choked out. “I’ve said before—no one compares to you in my eyes.”
“But there’s someone who likes you more. Someone who wants to treat you better. I’ve decided to give you to him.”
“Who?” Tears brimmed in her eyes. “Whoever it is, I won’t fall for him.”
The boy sighed.
“Can’t you see? Chen Youzai follows you every morning, sneaking behind you on the road. He borrows books from your class just to steal a glance. He buys snacks and slips them into your desk…”
“Ha… heh…” She let out a cold laugh. “Even if you’ve changed your heart, you don’t have to insult me by bringing him up.”
The boy misunderstood her meaning and continued slandering himself.
“I’ll be honest—I’m stingy. I split every cent in two before spending it. I’m filthy—I eat things out of trash bins, don’t brush my teeth for a month, don’t wash my feet for half a year. I’m perverted too—sneak into the girls’ dorm to steal underwear and stash it under my bed—”
“Enough!” she cried, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Even like that, you’re still better than Chen Youzai! Stop disgusting me! I can’t take it!”
The boy stared, stunned.
“Is Chen Youzai really that bad?”
She clearly didn’t want to speak of him, but he pressed relentlessly. At last, weeping and furious, she burst out:
“Spare me! In my heart he’s not even as good as the old gatekeeper at school! Even if every man in the world died, I would never fall for Chen Youzai! If you want to break up, just say it!”
What she said after that, Chen Youzai did not hear.
Only her tear-streaked face—and those final words—echoed endlessly in his mind.
He reverted to himself and wandered the streets in a daze. He avoided passing storefront windows, afraid that if he saw his own reflection now, he would despise it beyond measure.
“Even if every man in the world died, I would never fall for Chen Youzai…”
He muttered the sentence over and over.
At first, it pierced his heart.
Then the pain dulled.
Then it numbed.
At last, kicking a stone down the road, he cursed savagely:
“You look down on me? I don’t even care about you!”
That night he dreamed.
He stood once more beside the lake. A lone man faced away from him, tall and poised, clad in ancient robes.
When the man turned—
It was his rival’s face.
The features magnified grotesquely, towering before him like a living colossus. Funeral music wailed from all directions. Then countless lips descended upon him from the sky—
Chen Youzai jolted awake.
The sky was still dark.
In the silence, he vividly recalled the afternoon kiss. He spat onto the floor, wiped his mouth hard, and only then forced himself back to sleep.
Futile Devices Scans 
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