The Fantastic Little Farmer

Chapter 23: Chapter 23: Missed Confession

”A lot of people like you too... I even confessed my feelings to you back then. [Embarrassed]”

Chen Hui’s message left Zhang Yun stunned. Then, he realized she had to be joking! How could a goddess admired by so many popular guys ever confess to him?

If she really had, how could he have let such a great catch slip away?

”Haha, how is that possible? If it were true, you would have become my girlfriend a long time ago.”

Chen Hui did not reply.

Seeing the conversation die down, Zhang Yun didn’t wait for her message. He called the fish fry seller, ordered a batch of fingerlings, and arranged for them to be delivered.

After hanging up, Zhang Yun bought a bottle of Coke from a small shop. He wondered if he should buy a new motorcycle.

He had gone to look at bikes in the county town yesterday, but all his hesitations back then were just excuses. At the end of the day, he simply hadn’t had enough money and couldn’t bear to spend it. If money weren’t an issue, having a second motorcycle would undoubtedly be much more convenient, as both he and his father could use one at the same time.

Now that he had an extra hundred thousand yuan, his budget was much looser. Buying a motorcycle wouldn’t make a dent in his finances.

Just as he finished paying with WeChat, he saw an unread message from Chen Hui. He tapped it and saw a photo of a piece of letter paper.

Zhang Yun clicked on the original image and zoomed in. Instantly, his eyes widened in shock.

It really was a love letter! It didn’t look like something she had just scribbled down, and the tone clearly belonged to their high school days. However, there was no recipient addressed at the top, nor was there a signature at the bottom.

”Why aren’t you saying anything? Do you feel like you just got slapped in the face? Haha, bet you didn’t expect me to take a picture and keep it all this time [Laughing in tears]...”

Chen Hui sent another message. Although her tone was teasing, it carried a hint of hidden resentment.

Zhang Yun thought about it. The situation was a bit complicated, and typing it all out would be too troublesome. As for sending a voice message... if there were people around her, it would be awkward if they overheard.

He immediately took his Coke, crouched in a deserted corner, and initiated a video call.

After ringing for a few seconds, the call was abruptly cut off!

Zhang Yun was speechless. He wondered if Chen Hui was just not ready for a video call, or if she had found someone else’s love letter to play a prank on him.

He opened his Coke and took a huge gulp. Instead of typing, he waited for her message.

To his surprise, Chen Hui called him back with a voice call just a few seconds later!

Zhang Yun’s spirits lifted. It seemed it hadn’t been convenient for her to answer earlier, and she had just moved to a different spot to call him back.

They weren’t exactly close, having not contacted each other for a few years. Suddenly having a video chat about a love confession right after adding each other on WeChat... that really would have been a bit too awkward. A voice call was much more appropriate.

”Hello... haha.” After answering, Zhang Yun didn’t know what to say and let out a dry laugh.

Chen Hui was feeling awkward too, but Zhang Yun’s reaction instantly amused her. ”What are you laughing at?”

”Ahem, well... that picture you just sent, where did it come from?” Since his former female classmate had brought up the topic, Zhang Yun naturally had to take some initiative.

Chen Hui chuckled softly. ”I’ve always kept it in my WeChat Favorites. Bet you didn’t expect me to keep a photo of it, right? You probably tossed the original somewhere and forgot all about it.”

Zhang Yun’s mind was in turmoil. He wondered if Chen Hui had really slipped him a love letter during high school, and why he had zero recollection of it. Had he been so popular with girls back then that he completely ignored her? That was impossible! She was already very pretty back then, not to mention she had great grades.

Since Zhang Yun remained silent, Chen Hui assumed he was embarrassed and took the initiative to break the ice with a laugh. ”Haha! It’s all in the past anyway. Even I’m not embarrassed, so what are you feeling awkward for? I was just a little unwilling to let it go since I never had the chance to tease you about it, hehe...”

”No... I have to ask to be sure,” Zhang Yun replied. ”Did you really write this for me? In high school?”

Hearing him ask so formally, Chen Hui replied seriously, ”What motive would I have to make up a story just to prank you? I wrote that with my own hands!”

Zhang Yun hurriedly clarified, ”I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that there’s no name addressed and no signature...”

Chen Hui instantly caught onto the crucial detail. ”You mean... because I didn’t sign my name, you didn’t know I wrote it, so... you threw it away?”

She felt sick to her stomach. For the longest time, she had assumed he just wasn’t interested in her, keeping her feelings bottled up. If he had actually thrown it away because it lacked a signature and he mistook it for some other girl’s... then that was a massive injustice!

”How could I sign my name? What if you showed it to everyone in public? I would have died of embarrassment! I was the one who always did the chalkboard newspapers back then, so I figured you would recognize my handwriting...”

Zhang Yun interrupted her explanation. ”That’s a minor issue. The main point is... I never even saw this letter!”

”Huh?!” Chen Hui was completely stunned.

Having it mistaken for another girl’s letter due to the lack of a signature already felt like a huge injustice, but he hadn’t received it at all?

”Impossible! I put it there myself! Not in your desk, I put it inside your backpack!”

Zhang Yun said, a little regretfully, ”I really never saw it. The picture you just sent was the first time I’ve ever laid eyes on it. Unless I have some sort of partial amnesia—but I’m not a domineering CEO from a soap opera, nor have I ever been in a car crash or suffered a head injury, so it’s highly unlikely I have that kind of condition.”

Chen Hui felt completely defeated.

After a moment of silence, she finally let out a bitter laugh. ”So the thing I’ve been agonizing and brooding over for years was just a one-woman show. You had absolutely no idea.”

”Could someone have stolen it from me?” Zhang Yun tried hard to recall, but he couldn’t find a single clue.

It had been years ago, and since she had placed it behind his back, he had zero recollection. Besides, how many teenage boys constantly noticed if someone had touched their backpacks?

”Ugh... this is so infuriating,” Chen Hui let out a long sigh.

The fact that she was able to casually bring it up meant she had already let it go. Whether Zhang Yun gave a tactful or blunt reason for rejecting her, she wouldn’t have been hurt.

But finding out that he had never even known about it made it hard to swallow. There was no way to know which boy or girl had rummaged through his bag and taken it, and she certainly couldn’t just ask about it openly in their class group chat.

”You were quite the romantic back then, actually writing... a letter. It would have been much better to just add me on WeChat.”

”Hmph, if I sent it on WeChat, who knows if you would’ve taken a screenshot to show off to the other guys?” The reason Chen Hui hadn’t signed her name was, naturally, to protect herself against screenshots as well.

”Haha, I’m not that kind of person.”

Zhang Yun didn’t know what to say. As a girl, protecting herself like that was definitely the right move. It was just... how could he have been so completely oblivious back then?

If they had just interacted a bit more in their daily lives and become more familiar with each other...

Later on, because Chen Hui thought he had rejected her, she definitely wasn’t going to take the initiative to add him on WeChat. In fact, the only reason they had connected this time was because she wanted to warn him about something last night.

Zhang Yun took a sip of his Coke. It seemed he needed to be a bit more proactive. Who knew how many girls he might have missed out on in the past? ”Do you think I still have a chance?”

Chen Hui had been feeling quite conflicted and depressed, but hearing this, she burst into laughter. ”What? Are we in a thriller movie? If I say no, are you going to push me off a cliff?”

Zhang Yun felt as if a tragic soundtrack had started playing in the background, lamenting how some people, once missed, were gone forever.

However, his regret simply stemmed from not having a girlfriend and missing out on a great girl who had actually liked him. There wasn’t any deep emotional attachment involved, so he wasn’t genuinely heartbroken.

They hadn’t seen each other for years. Even if she had harbored some feelings back then, they would have faded by now—not to mention the misunderstanding and lingering resentment. They had gone to different universities and now worked in completely different environments. There was no going back to how things used to be.

Zhang Yun quickly changed the subject. ”What cliff? By the way, how much money did you lend Yang Bo?”

”Not much. His dad accidentally ran someone over and needed money to settle it out of court. Since we were all classmates and he was begging like that, everyone chipped in a little. We gathered about twenty thousand yuan yesterday.”

Zhang Yun was speechless. Yang Bo was a liar! She said they had gathered the money, which meant everyone probably only gave a few thousand yuan each, and they didn’t really expect him to pay it back.

”He told me that he was the one who ran someone over. It looks like everything he said might be a lie!”

”That bastard Yang Bo...” Chen Hui was a bit irritated, but then she continued, ”Let’s ignore him for a second. Let me ask you... If I said you did have a chance, would you be my boyfriend?”