Jiang Ruotang suddenly regretted it. He shouldn’t have watched such a movie with Lu Guifan.

Lu Guifan, only eighteen years old, had not experienced the ups and downs of life. His views might be traditional, believing that loving someone was a lifelong responsibility. In his world, marriage was also a logical system.

Overly heavy interpersonal relationships might make him completely lose trust in Jiang Ruotang.

Just then, the hand resting on his shoulder lifted.

Just as Jiang Ruotang thought the other’s hand was about to leave, Lu Guifan merely gently cupped his head, then leaned into his ear and whispered, “Are you thinking nonsense?”

“Ah? No… no…”

“Great painter Jiang Ruotang, even without love, can gracefully walk alone on the path of art.”

Lu Guifan’s voice was low and clear, and Jiang Ruotang’s ears immediately began to burn.

“So don’t compare yourself to characters in movies. You’re always someone who moves towards your goals. Even if you truly become a rose in a bottle, you’ll face the sun and seek your own value.”

Jiang Ruotang had thought Lu Guifan wasn’t such a meticulous person, but he hadn’t expected him to see through him so clearly.

Knowing that Lu Guifan wouldn’t be prejudiced against him because of a movie, Jiang Ruotang took a deep breath, looked up, and continued watching the screen.

Only, he didn’t know that Lu Guifan was leaning his face, looking at him with intense focus.

The female painter re-blossomed with vitality. Her paintings became bright and lively. She began to dress up, looking forward to the young man’s weekly visits.

However, the young man disappeared.

Until she received a call from her husband, who told her in a cold tone that the young man was dead because he was an enemy spy.

The female painter immediately fell into despair. She wiped off her lipstick, smashed a vase, and desperately tried to rush out of her confining room into the street, only to be found by her protectors and brought back to her room.

She began to retaliate against the mathematician, inviting her protectors for dinner and dancing, and when one was replaced, she would invite the next.

In her paintings, her once gentle husband became a monstrous devil of the rainy night.

Yet, the mathematician still called her weekly, asking how she was doing, and she would nonchalantly talk about dancing with so-and-so, or drinking and chatting with so-and-so…

Her protectors were replaced again and again, until the war drew to a close.

She numbly received a call from her husband. She thought he was about to return victorious, and that her torment of him had been meaningless.

But the mathematician said to her over the phone, “Actually, I know you never truly loved me. You only came for revenge. You were my friend’s fiancée. I saw your picture in his pocket watch. Before he was captured, he worried you’d be implicated, so he secretly hid the pocket watch in my pocket.”

To the painter, this was a completely unexpected outcome.

“Every motive can be explained by logic, including love. You disrupted my life in a special way, making my dopamine surge madly. You successfully made me fall in love, gave me the greatest passion, and then wounded me with betrayal. You manipulated me with the emotions you were most proud of, and you succeeded.”

In other words, the mathematician had seen through the female painter’s revenge plan from beginning to end.

“Pack your things. In half an hour, my student will come for you and take you by boat out of this country. You have completed your revenge. I love you very much, but I will never truly possess you. So, I will set you free… Live your own life after this.”

The female painter was put on a boat. The mathematician’s student gave her a book, which was one of the mathematician’s theoretical works. The first page, when opened, bore the mathematician’s handwritten words: Love is colder than logic.

From then on, they never met again.

The movie ended, and a lingering, poignant song played as the lights came up.

The couple in the front row left hand in hand, while Jiang Ruotang and Lu Guifan stood in the back, waiting for them to walk away before moving to exit.

To be honest, this movie left a heavy feeling in their hearts.

Thankfully, stepping out of the cinema, they were greeted by a clear, vast sky.

Jiang Ruotang felt stifled, so he immediately went to a fast-food restaurant on the first floor of the mall, bought a cup of coke, and gulped down more than half of it, finally feeling much better.

“Finished the movie. Want to hang out tonight too?” Jiang Ruotang asked. “You promised to win back my happy beans for me.”

Lu Guifan was silent for a moment, then said, “I have to go home. I haven’t seen my parents in days.”

And his parents had also messaged him, saying they had something to discuss.

Jiang Ruotang’s heart sank like the curtain at the end of a movie. “Oh, okay.”

The two walked silently towards a place where it was easier to hail a taxi. They happened to pass a flower shop, and to their surprise, the couple from the cinema had stopped at the entrance of the flower shop.

These two were truly a couple; they actually started acting out scenes, looking at the red roses in the flower shop window.

The boy said: “I’m sorry.”

The girl asked: “For what?”

“I brought you roses, but they wouldn’t let me give them to you.”

“Then you can give me a kiss.”

And then the two really kissed again, just like a scene replayed from the movie.

Jiang Ruotang touched his chin. “Being young is great. Love takes over, and you do whatever you want immediately.”

“You talk as if you’re very old,” Lu Guifan chuckled softly.

“Haha, shall we play along too?” Jiang Ruotang mimicked the mathematician’s tone when he visited the painter in the hospital, saying “I’m sorry” to Lu Guifan.

He thought Lu Guifan would swat his head away, but unexpectedly, the other person cooperatively asked in return, “For what?”

It was very soft, very gentle, completely different from the heroine’s helplessness and resignation in the movie.

Like a premonition, Jiang Ruotang’s heart suddenly leaped, his throat tight with tension and excitement.

“I brought you roses, but they wouldn’t let me give them to you.”

What would Lu Guifan say?

Would he say… give me a kiss like in the movie? If he said that, should he kiss him?

Time seemed to stretch infinitely, turning into frame after frame of an old movie.

Lu Guifan’s silence made Jiang Ruotang panic, fearing that their relationship would end there, that his attempt to use the movie as a test would be discovered.

But the eyes behind the glasses grew deeper and deeper, as if dragging Jiang Ruotang in, entwining him to the death, never to let go.

“It’s okay, you can love me forever.”

His heart was pierced in that instant. Jiang Ruotang stared blankly at Lu Guifan.

His memory was exceptional; it was impossible for him not to remember the lines from the movie.

But why did he say that?

Was he teasing him, or testing his reaction?

Don’t test me with words like that, because I take every word you say seriously.

“Okay, I’ll love you forever.”

Jiang Ruotang looked into Lu Guifan’s eyes, not avoiding them, with no hint of a joke. He knew he wasn’t making a vow, because only things that couldn’t be done needed vows.

For him, in this new life, loving Lu Guifan was natural, like breathing.

Even if he felt terrified after saying it, worried the other person would say, “Why so serious? I was just teasing you,” it wouldn’t change the fact.

If he didn’t say it now, he might regret it forever and ever.

Lu Guifan’s pupils instantly dilated. He was merely using the movie lines to release his own hidden, suppressed desire to Jiang Ruotang.

Because their relationship was so precious to Lu Guifan that he walked on thin ice, fearing that an ill-timed confession would shatter everything.

Jiang Ruotang’s gaze towards Lu Guifan made him feel solemn and ardent. Why did the movie compare love and logic? Jiang Ruotang was clearly so good; loving him was the logical thing to do.

“You… wait for me,” Lu Guifan said.

“Huh?”

Lu Guifan turned around and quickly ran into the flower shop, passing by the young couple.

“Hey, isn’t that the top student from our school?”

“Lu Guifan, right… What’s he doing in a flower shop?”

The shop assistant smiled at him warmly, and before she could speak, Lu Guifan asked, “What should I send to someone to express eternal love?”

“Nine red roses, for eternal love?”

“Then I want nine red roses. Wrap them up quickly, he’s waiting for me.”

The clerk only paused for a second before deftly beginning to trim the rose stems, swiftly pulling out exquisite wrapping paper. In less than three minutes, a bouquet was tied.

Lu Guifan quickly paid, grabbed the bouquet, and hurried out of the flower shop. Under the astonished gaze of the young couple at the entrance, he presented the bouquet of roses to Jiang Ruotang.

This was like a repetition of fate. That time before the monthly exam, Jiang Ruotang had also held a large handful of fountain pens out to Lu Guifan.

Jiang Ruotang’s heart pounded fast. The sunlight shone on the red roses, the dewdrops on the petals sparkled. Cars streamed down the busy road, pedestrians hurried along the sidewalk, and almost everyone subconsciously glanced at them.

Lu Guifan’s fingers, holding the bouquet, were so tightly clenched that his knuckles turned white.

He was this old, and this was the first time he felt judged mentally. Jiang Ruotang stood motionless, perhaps racking his brain for a polite way to reject him.

But Jiang Ruotang raised his hand and embraced the roses.

Lu Guifan said nothing more. He took hold of Jiang Ruotang’s other wrist and started walking forward.

Every step Jiang Ruotang took felt like walking on clouds, his thoughts seemingly disconnected.

Scene after scene from his past life flooded his mind.

Lu Guifan carrying him down from the apartment rooftop, peeling apples for him, bringing him chive pancakes from across half the city, staying up all night reading medical books, emailing overseas hospitals to secure trial spots for special medicines, replying to every boring text message he sent.

And carrying him, all the way to the end of his life.

Lu Guifan noticed that Jiang Ruotang’s steps were weak, and there were tears in his eyes.

At that moment, he regretted it. He shouldn’t have coerced Jiang Ruotang into accepting his feelings in this way, shouldn’t have put him in such a dilemma.

“Ruotang, if…”

If you don’t like this bouquet, it’s okay to give it back to me.

“Carry me, please. I want you to carry me,” Jiang Ruotang whimpered.

Lu Guifan had known for a long time that he liked to lie on his back, and although he didn’t know the reason, as long as Jiang Ruotang wanted it, he would give him anything.

“Okay.”

Lu Guifan turned his back and bent down.

Jiang Ruotang climbed onto his back, and he effortlessly carried him. Jiang Ruotang nestled against his neck, not saying a word.

Lu Guifan didn’t know where to go, so he stood at the bus stop. Across the street was another large shopping mall, and the advertisement screen was playing the trailer for The Mathematician, with the male protagonist’s roses left lonely on a hospital bench.

Lu Guifan lowered his head. Jiang Ruotang was clutching the bouquet of roses tightly, filled with a protective urge.

He knew Jiang Ruotang was crying. Tears flowed from his cheeks to Lu Guifan’s neck, as if gathering there.

Lu Guifan knew that Jiang Ruotang harbored an unknown secret, struggling and grieving alone within it.

“Ruotang, no matter what happens, I will always be with you.”

Jiang Ruotang said muffledly, “I know.”

Of course I know, because you already did it in my previous life.

“Then do you want me?” Lu Guifan tilted his head. His heart was tense. Even though his face was expressionless, his insides were in turmoil. He was afraid Jiang Ruotang would regret it, afraid he would retreat.

“Yes. If you give yourself to me, you can’t give yourself to anyone else,” Jiang Ruotang said with certainty.

“Even if you don’t want me, I won’t give myself to anyone else.”

Lu Guifan closed his eyes, lifted his head, and let out a deep breath. That suppressed and hidden desire finally saw the light of day.

And for Jiang Ruotang, Lu Guifan’s posture at this moment was the same as on that snowy night, except that night, the one crying was Lu Guifan.

Jiang Ruotang’s heart ached. He tightened his grip around Lu Guifan’s neck and kissed the back of his neck.

Lu Guifan’s entire body tensed. It was like a brand, his blood surging. He truly wanted to hide Jiang Ruotang away, to a place where only he could see him, touch him, make him truly belong only to himself. That way, he wouldn’t have to worry about gains and losses, wouldn’t have to fear that if someone better appeared, Jiang Ruotang would shift his gaze.

The high school couple’s eyes widened, their jaws dropping. They might as well have shoved a few eggs into their gaping mouths.

“Oh my… Our top student is publicly giving roses to a guy?”

“Is this something Lu Guifan would do?”

“I’ve lived long enough to see everything…”

Lu Guifan stood ramrod straight. Until Jiang Ruotang said it was okay, Lu Guifan remained motionless.

Not until dusk arrived, with the setting sun melting into gold, did Jiang Ruotang realize how much time had passed and how willful he had been.

“Take me home,” Jiang Ruotang said with a strong nasal tone.

“Okay.” Just as Lu Guifan was about to raise his arm to flag down a taxi, Jiang Ruotang tugged at him.

“Let’s take the bus. That way, we can be together longer.”

“Mm.”

Lu Guifan led Jiang Ruotang to the bus stop, his fingers gripping Jiang Ruotang’s wrist tightly, then loosening slightly, afraid of hurting him, then uncontrollably tightening again.

Back and forth, Jiang Ruotang watched Lu Guifan’s back, certain that he cared deeply for him.

It was almost rush hour, and being in the bustling city center, the bus was naturally crowded.

The two were immediately pressed together as soon as they got on. Lu Guifan was very tall and easily grabbed the handrail. He turned Jiang Ruotang, who was looking for a handhold, around and pulled him directly into his arms. Jiang Ruotang could just rest his chin on Lu Guifan’s shoulder.

Jiang Ruotang was flattered. He never thought that with Lu Guifan’s outwardly reserved personality, he would so blatantly be with him under the gaze of so many people.

But then he reconsidered. Lu Guifan was just that kind of person: when he liked something, he liked it, and he would never turn back, even if he hit a wall.

Jiang Ruotang relaxed his wildly fluctuating nerves, completely leaning his weight into Lu Guifan’s embrace.

Even though the bus swayed back and forth, and people occasionally bumped into them, Lu Guifan’s arm strength came into play. He held Jiang Ruotang, maintaining their balance, his arm gripping the handrail taut with muscle, while his other arm firmly protected Jiang Ruotang.