Chapter 153: Farewell

The basketball court was now empty except for Xiao Yi’an.

He stared blankly in the direction Ye Qingchang had left.

He didn’t know, nor could he understand, what Ye Qingchang was trying to do. It sounded like a farewell.

As if she was planning to leave him forever.

Or maybe it was just her mood swings during her period?

Ye Qingchang had indeed helped him a lot, and there were certainly things he needed to thank her for.

If it hadn’t been for that confession—Ye Qingchang pulling herself into opposition to his one and only White Moonlight—he guessed he and Ye Qingchang would have stayed on good terms, just like before.

But because of that confession, he had to guard against Ye Qingchang getting closer to him, because he knew he couldn’t win in a game with her.

Ye Qingchang was a good friend, but she could only ever be a friend.

Because of that confession, he only dared to treat Ye Qingchang as a friend he needed to keep at arm’s length.

But it seemed that after today, he was about to lose even this friend.

Ye Qingchang said she was leaving, quitting the Literature Club, cutting off all ties with Xiao Yi’an.

There was no way he would try to keep her. He was afraid this was yet another trick of Ye Qingchang’s.

Still, if Ye Qingchang and his White Moonlight weren’t on opposite sides, he definitely would have chased after her, trying to persuade her to stay.

It felt like bad news—he might have lost a friend.

But it also felt like good news—at least Ye Qingchang had given up on him, so he could now devote himself wholeheartedly to pursuing his White Moonlight.

Xiao Yi’an’s phone vibrated.

In the empty basketball court, only Xiao Yi’an remained, along with a bottle of sports drink placed gently on the sidelines.

He thought he recognized that bottle—the same drink Ye Qingchang had wanted to give him, the one he hadn’t accepted.

Or maybe it wasn’t that bottle, maybe it was just someone else who happened to leave it there. After all, since that slam dunk, the crowd for this match had grown.

He looked at his phone first, checking the message from his special contact.

It was a reply to the basketball game update he’d shared before the game began, but his White Moonlight had only just replied now.

She was probably busy with something.

He looked at the reply from his White Moonlight.

[You should have been living for yourself like this from the start. Don’t extinguish your own life just to please anyone. Just because I like reading and being artsy doesn’t mean you have to. I know you don’t actually enjoy it.]

[Looking at it now, I’m the biggest obstacle in your path to the future.]

[I’m tired too. Back then, I saved someone called Xiao Yi’an, not someone who doesn’t even know who he is anymore, only ever chasing after the light like a moth.]

[Goodbye.]

Xiao Yi’an stared at those four messages, his heart skipping a beat.

Then came a wild pounding, the telltale sign of panic.

“Impossible, impossible…”

He edited his reply again and again in the chat box. In the end, he only sent a single probing number.

A red exclamation mark appeared in front of the message.

It was like a bolt of lightning shattering everything inside him.

Had he done something wrong?

Of course, Xiao Yi’an understood what his White Moonlight’s messages meant.

It wasn’t that he’d done something wrong, but that he’d finally done something right.

After so many mistakes, after pushing his White Moonlight to the brink where she didn’t know how to let go, at last, he’d done the one right thing that allowed her to release him without worry.

Perhaps his White Moonlight had long wanted to let go. It was only his pathetic dependence that made her feel he couldn’t survive without her, so she’d delayed, unable to let go until now.

“No, no!”

Panicked, Xiao Yi’an let the sweat stream into his eyes, staring through blurred vision as he sent one friend request after another to his White Moonlight who had already deleted him.

No response, all sunk without a trace.

But it wasn’t because she was busy or hesitating.

His most recent friend request was directly blocked—not even sent.

He had been put on the blacklist.

His White Moonlight was resolute; she didn’t intend to have any further contact with Xiao Yi’an.

“How could this be?”

After all his struggles, after finally gathering the confidence to pursue his White Moonlight, after everything seemed to be getting better—now she had let go.

He searched through everything on his phone, but sadly realized he had no other way to contact White Moonlight.

No alternate accounts, no game friends, no contacts on short video apps.

The only way to reach his White Moonlight had just been cut off.

What was he supposed to do now?

Almost in desperate panic, he opened his chat with Ye Qingchang.

Now he prayed that Ye Qingchang would help him, prayed that her earlier anger was just because of her period, prayed that she would be willing to put aside past grievances and help the person who just moments ago was keeping his distance and even hurt her.

Again, he saw the red exclamation mark.

Ye Qingchang had deleted him too.

The bleak autumn wind seemed to instantly reduce him to a fallen leaf, knocking his overworked, trembling legs out from under him, toppling his entire body to the ground.

He held up his phone in his left hand, switching back to the chat with White Moonlight, scrolling again and again, praying over and over.

With his right hand, he gripped the collar of his shirt at his chest, finding it hard to breathe.

But it was useless. No one would pity him— the only one who might have pitied him had already let go, already left him behind.

Just like a chick or duckling newly out from under its mother’s wing, he couldn’t suddenly adjust to the cold; of course, he couldn’t understand why he’d been abandoned.

Was he really that unbearable?

Maybe so.

Just like Ye Qingchang had said so many times, and just as his White Moonlight had asked him more than once—Don’t you have anything you actually like?

In his White Moonlight’s eyes, he was only mimicking her hobbies and habits, becoming an inescapable, persistent, pathological leech—draining her blood, exhausting her energy.

Suddenly, he remembered the first time he chatted with White Moonlight.

Back then, his parents hadn’t had their accident yet. The two of them had only talked because they were the same age.

Different interests, different habits, different backgrounds—those were what they talked about most.

When did he start to go wrong?

It was after White Moonlight saved him, when he began to actively change himself, to forcibly adopt her interests, making her everything, snuffing out his own life just for a few more glances or words from her.

But how could the one who saved him not see through it?

Probably from that moment on, he’d already become an annoying person.

What kept her with him wasn’t interest, or friendship, let alone love—just a responsibility forced on her by his pathological dependence.

And that responsibility was never hers to bear.

He was the one with the problem—completely, entirely him.

He’d tormented her all the way to this point.

Yet she was so kind, only separating from him now.

He was wrong—so wrong.

Someone like him wasn’t supposed to be loved.

He had lost his love forever, lost one of the few people who might have loved him most.

No, that’s not right.

Xiao Yi’an suddenly looked up, bloodshot eyes widening.

He grabbed his phone, scrolling to those last four farewell messages.

There was something he’d overlooked.

His White Moonlight had called him “Xiao Yi’an.”

He had never revealed his name.

So—how did she know?