How Many Times Do I Have to Say I Like You?

[If you like me, you have to tell me more than once.]

It was a bright, sunny day. Li Yile was suffering through a "hellish" ordeal: period cramps. She overheard Su Yue making a bet with his friend to date her for three months.

The moment she heard that her relationship was a wager, she didn't get angry or feel like storming out to give him a piece of her mind.

Her unchanging life was a pool of stagnant water:

Monotonous.

Dreary.

Dull.

Boring.

She was a marginal figure, a shadow in a dark corner that no one noticed.

He, meanwhile, was the darling of heaven, the campus heartthrob everyone answered to.

They'd see who was using whom for amusement.

Li Yile kept up her lovestruck persona just right, going crazy for him, obsessing over him, and repeatedly smashing her head against a wall for his sake.

Her soulful eyes and perfectly timed praise made Su Yue delight in imagining that she loved him deeply, and he secretly congratulated himself.

At last, graduation day arrived, and the term of their dating bet came to an end.

Su Yue thought that since she liked him so much, there was no reason they couldn't extend the relationship. But after he went abroad, she blocked him on every platform.

If he couldn't find her, how was he supposed to keep dating her?

When he learned she didn't love him, Su Yue thought there was no need to pine after this crooked tree. Plenty of other people could love him.

But when he tried getting to know other girls...

So annoying!

So noisy!

So irritating!

The desire to be with her lingered year after year, impossible to shake.

[All those hurtful words that kept you at arm's length were just me being stubborn.]

Theme: Being loved is the good fortune you brought me.