Back Then, I Adored You

“There’s almost zero possibility of this, right?”

“How will you know if you don’t try?”

How would I have known if I hadn’t tried?

That night, she had been intrigued and tried it out; however, she hadn’t spent her bill, but he had spent his.

Having changed hands for one year and six months, the bill had ended up in her hands.

So he’d been in love with little troublemaker since then…

Qin Zhi’ai’s breath quickened.

The woman had already exchanged all her money into foreign currency and had passed it through the tiny window. Slowly taking the money in a daze, Qin Zhi’ai was oblivious to the impatient people lining up behind her.

Frowning, the woman knocked hard on the glass window, and her voice thundered through the microphone, “Miss, your transaction is complete. Please move aside. Other customers are waiting behind you.”

Qin Zhi’ai was jolted back to her senses. Mechanically repeating “I’m sorry” twice, she took the last of the money without counting it and followed the crowd toward the security checkpoint.

After several minor problems throughout the security check, she realized that she had misplaced her plane ticket just as she finally made it through. She turned back to look for it and, after a long search, she finally found it near the security checkpoint.

She walked over to the waiting area with a lost look on her face and sat down. Staring vacantly at the foggy skies outside the window, she was still holding the money in her hand with Gu Yusheng’s handwriting. “Little troublemaker, I am in love with you.”

The plane was scheduled to depart in one hour and 20 minutes, and she spent 40 minutes staring blankly. She first had to force herself to move her eyeballs, which were stinging from dryness.

Her plane had only begun boarding and, worried she would be bored on the eight-hour flight, she walked to a bookstore and purchased a few magazines.

As she was paying for them, she realized that she didn’t have enough money on her, even after fishing out all her change, apart of course from the paper bill with Gu Yusheng’s note.

She began to feel inside the pockets of her jacket to check for more change.

She had worn the same jacket the day before, and her left pocket was filled with an assortment of random items like tissue, keys, and two small cards she’d been handed as she had been walking aimlessly after dinner.

Shoving those items back into her pocket, she started searching through her right pocket, where she kept her phone, plane ticket, and identity card and the bank card she’d used earlier to withdraw money.

She put those items in the side pocket of her bag and zipped it up, and then she dug deeper in her right pocket, where she managed to dig out a bunch of loose coins and paper currency.

Twenty, 10, 1, another 1…

After paying the cashier, she still had a bunch of coins clutched in her hand, and she considered buying some water and fruit since the money would be no good to her once abroad.

As she began counting out the coins in her hand, she saw a red currency note crumpled among them.