The Echo of a Heartbeat

1.

Years later, Xu Jiayin saw Jiang Yuzhou again at the fire station.

The wind was bitterly cold. Xu Jiayin was bundled up in the garish padded coat her grandma had bought for 38 yuan at the street market. Barefaced and with her hair a mess, she held out her "injured" hand: a diamond ring was stuck tight around her ring finger.

Jiang Yuzhou used needle-nose pliers to cut the ring, focused and deft.

He didn't recognize her, and Xu Jiayin breathed a sigh of relief.

Thank goodness masks still existed in this world. She could just be an ordinary unlucky person, the kind who says thank you and never has to see him again.

Xu Jiayin bowed ninety degrees to express her gratitude. Just as she turned to leave, a familiar voice rang out behind her, tinged with amusement.

"Xu Jiayin, after all these years, you married a poor loser?"

Jiang Yuzhou leaned against the wall, picked up the ring, and looked at the initials of their names engraved inside it. He drawled, "You even got married with a ring I gave you."

Xu Jiayin: "..."

In novels, old lovers reunite amid sparks and daggers. Xu Jiayin wanted to stab him a few times too, then run him through with a couple more swords.

2.

Jiang Yuzhou moved into the apartment across from Xu Jiayin's. As if afraid she'd get the wrong idea, he made a point of telling her, "A friend helped me rent the place. Don't read anything into it."

Xu Jiayin nodded obligingly. She would not read anything into it at all.

When Jiang Yuzhou brought her a late-night snack, she didn't read anything into it. He'd simply made too much and couldn't finish it.

When Jiang Yuzhou took care of her around the clock while she was sick, she didn't read anything into that either. He was just trying to earn the title of China's Best Neighbor.

Later, their bodies joined, their hearts beating wildly against each other. He pressed over her as kiss after kiss fell, and his hoarse voice sounded beside her ear.

"Yinyin, your husband can't satisfy you."

"Get a new husband. How about considering me?"

Xu Jiayin couldn't stop trembling, fireworks exploding in her mind.

She thought she might have to read a little more into it.

[Has your heart been beating for all these years? Can you hear it?]

A heroine who never reads too much into things vs. a hero whose mouth is tougher than his...

A second chance at love. The heroine is not married!!!

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