Back Then, I Adored You

Xu Wennuan was taken aback by Lu Bancheng’s words. She was so stunned that all she could do was stare at him for a long time.

She only returned to her senses when Lu Bancheng said, “Of course, you don’t have to be in a rush to reply to me. Go back and think about it.” Xu Wennuan nodded slightly at him and entered the elevator without another word.

……

When Xu Wennuan recalled what had happened that day, she rubbed her forehead and disregarded her mother, who was standing outside her door, asking her about her wedding with Wu Hao. She then flipped over in bed and shut her eyes.

“Xu Wennuan, stop pretending you’re sleeping. Wu Hao’s mother called again today. I’m going to ask you once more: Are you really not intending to marry him anymore?” Mother Xu started banging on the door when she did not get any response.

“Alright, let our child be if she doesn’t want to get married. Why are you forcing her to? She must feel miserable deep down for the way things are with Wu Hao now.” Father Xu could not be silent anymore and stepped up to calm his wife.

“But we’ve already accepted his betrothal gift—one million dollars! How are we going to repay him now?” replied Mother Xu.

“Don’t we have the house? Is the house more important than our beloved daughter?” asked Father Xu.

“But we had to work so hard our entire lives to afford this house. We scrimped and saved for 30 years before we finally paid off the mortgage. It wasn’t easy to finally be able to relax, and now we have to sell our house? Where are we going to stay after we sell it?” said Mother Xu.

“We can just rent a house…” replied Father Xu.

“Tell me, why did you go and invest in stocks like other people and for no good reason? You don’t know anything about stocks. Also, if we sell the house, what will happen to Nuannuan when we’re gone? She won’t even have a house!” Mother Xu started wailing.

“Alright, stop crying. Our daughter will never feel better if she hears you. Hand me the house deed. I’ll take it over to the agency later,” said Father Xu.

Things had finally quieted down, but Xu Wennuan could no longer fall asleep.

As a daughter, how can I possibly let my parents sell their house and live in a rented one instead? How can I let them become homeless and miserable in their old age?

She knew, however, that she could not magically come up with one million dollars to repay Wu Hao overnight. Thinking again through her parents not having a home, Xu Wennuan opened her eyes and stared out the window for a while before she hugged her quilt. She then sat up, leaned against the headboard, and picked up her cell phone. Staring at the screen, she hesitated for a moment before ultimately selecting Lu Bancheng’s number to send him a text message. She wrote, “Brother Bancheng, are you serious about what you mentioned that day?”

Within 30 seconds of sending the message, she received Lu Bancheng’s reply. He wrote, “I am serious.”

Xu Wennuan bit down on her lips as if she could not make up her mind. Her fingers flew across the screen. After composing another message, she sent it without the courage to take another look at what she had written: “Brother Bancheng, I agree to your proposal; however, I’m not going to just take the money—I’ll slowly pay it back to you, so just treat it as a loan. Will you agree to our fake marriage serving as the interest?”

……

He had only come up with that excuse that day because he wanted to help her resolve the problem of the one million–dollar debt. After many days of not receiving any response, he had assumed that she had rejected his proposal. That had been the case until just now. He was so moved when he received her message; however, he had not expected her to say that she wanted to treat it as a loan.

Lu Bancheng stared at the screen, reading her message several times, before he tapped lightly on the screen and replied, “Okay.”