Back Then, I Adored You

She never had thought she would fall in love with Lu Bancheng. In another world, she had firmly rejected him—detested him, in fact—but at this very moment, she had to admit that she lost her heart to him without even realizing it.

Since the very beginning, he had been a nightmare for her. And in fact, it had not been just him who had made her unstable. Wu Hao had also destroyed her at one time. They had dated for a decade and when he had so suddenly dumped her and disappeared, she had been devastated. And then Jiang Qianqian had lost her child, implicating her as being responsible. And then Lu Bancheng had raped her, and she had aborted their baby. All these things had happened in a matter of months. The effect on her had been debilitating at times.

She had seriously struggled during that time, and Lu Bancheng had helped her out from her nightmare as Zero Degrees. Just as people often don’t realize something until later, when Xu Wennuan had looked back on it, she had recognized how patient Zero had been with her that year, and that was how she had fallen for him. That was why she had wanted to meet him in real life when he had somehow gotten her to the hospital when she had passed out alone in her apartment. She had wanted to know him more—in real life.

The night she had let Wu Hao go was the night she had called the radio station when she had been in Li Jiang. As she had told her entire story anonymously to the world, she had come to realize that she could leave Wu Hao, not because of confessing, but because Zero had entered her world and squeezed Wu Hao out.

She had only started to struggle after having learned that Lu Bancheng was Zero when she had overheard him talking with Wu Hao, forcing her to flee back to Beijing. She had been too scared to face her own feelings. She had actually already developed a crush on Zero back then, but she had hated Lu Bancheng so much that it had made sense that she should hate him, too. But she had suppressed her yearning for him, thus she had to confront it now.

That was also the reason she had dared not to contact Zero after she had returned to Beijing; however, because she had wanted to see Lu Bancheng, she had used the excuse of returning his money to do so. She had felt so bad for him when she had seen him so sad that she had not been able to stop herself from offering to take him out for dinner.

Everything she had done since then had been driven by her affection for Lu Bancheng. Because she had liked Lu Bancheng, she had chatted with Zero. And then she had become greedy and wanted to see Lu Bancheng, as well, thus she had attended his farewell dinner on January 4.

Once she had lost contact with him as both Lu Bancheng and Zero, she had become lonely and missed him every day. She had still lied to herself and not faced that she had feelings for Lu Bancheng. She had been too scared, until today when she had seen him so intimate with another woman. She could not lie to herself anymore.

I like him.

I really like him.

Instantaneously, her affection had taken root and began to sprout.