She Loved Too Little

1. Back then, at thirty and already successful in her career, Yu Huibai hooked up with a male college student. A friend asked, "What do you even like about him?" "Like him?" Yu Huibai chuckled. "People are prone to liking someone older because their experience and wealth are things a younger person can't yet attain." But how could an older person like someone young, naive, and shallow-minded? "He's young, good-looking, and easy to control." Yu Huibai rested her chin on her hand, her long middle finger swirling the ice in her glass. "We each get what we want. That's all." "What would you do if he gave up studying abroad for you?" "Break up with him," Yu Huibai replied casually. "Isn't it stupid to give up your future for some so-called beloved?" "I don't like stupid people." Shi Shuo, who had turned back outside the door, heard every word and felt as if he had fallen into an icy abyss. - Years later, Shi Shuo returns from studying abroad, no longer youthful and green. His manner is distant and composed. They meet at a cocktail party. Their friends are on edge, thinking Shi Shuo has come to settle the score for being toyed with when he was young. But he doesn't look at Yu Huibai even once. Just as everyone thinks they've both forgotten their old feelings, Yu Huibai leaves early. Slightly tipsy, Shi Shuo follows her and knocks on the car window. He asks the warm, languid woman inside, "Am I finally on your intellectual level?" When she doesn't answer, Shi Shuo tugs at his tie, seemingly calm. "Am I finally worthy of being loved by you?" Yu Huibai suddenly smiles, hooks a finger through the red cord on his wrist, and pulls him close, just as casually as she did back then. "Wearing a suit doesn't make you mature..." Her warm breath brushes past Shi Shuo's ear. "Besides, I never go back to an old flame, and I don't kiss people whose mouths reek of alcohol." In an instant, all of Shi Shuo's feigned distance and reason burn away. 2. The day twenty-two-year-old Shi Shuo left to study abroad and got dumped, he refused the congratulatory red envelope Yu Huibai offered him. All he wanted was the red cord she had worn on her wrist for years. Shi Shuo always thought the red cord was special to Yu Huibai, and that successfully asking for it made him a small exception in her life. Until much later, when a mutual friend hinted, "A red cord gets dirty so easily. Who wears the same one for years? Huibai has a whole drawer of them at home. They're just ordinary accessories." All the love and longing he'd poured into her over the years seemed like a joke. But Shi Shuo still returned to the country without hesitation, willing to be a joke. P.S.: 1. The female lead has past experience; the male lead doesn't. Nine-year age gap. For the detailed reading guide, see the author's note in Chapter One. Theme: A healthy relationship is the only kind that lasts