Chapter 094: The Five-Minute Hug

“In truth, being the perfect girl all the time is exhausting. So many times, I really want to let myself go completely. Sometimes, I even want to be like you and Xiao Yue, and have a love that begins in childhood and lasts into youth. But I’m the daughter of Yang Xiong and Xia Ling, and I can’t do that.”

After a while, the graceful girl, her face wet with tears in the sea breeze, choked out those words.

“Stop overthinking it. Everyone exists in order to find their own value. Yours lies here.” Lin Yu touched his chest and comforted her softly.

“Then, since tonight’s theme is fairy tales, could you give me a hug? Like a prince would give a princess.” Yang Zhilin was a little shy, and could only lift her chin to the moonlight.

Lin Yu admitted that at that moment, he was moved. In the moonlight, the girl’s beauty was enough to topple kingdoms, dazzling and irresistible.

But he could not be like Liu Bang, breaking apart every convention people preached about ruler and subject, father and son, brother and brother, husband and wife, and friends, then sweeping away all sense of propriety, righteousness, integrity, and shame. He could not become someone who cared about nothing and put only his own interests first. So he forced down the arms he very much wanted to spread.

Seeing this, Yang Zhilin stubbornly held back her sobs and regained her usual cool composure. “It’s getting late. We should head back.”

At that, Lin Yu raised his wrist and glanced at his watch.

Then he said in a low voice, “Since you said tonight’s theme is fairy tales, let’s see it through to the curtain. There are still five minutes left. Let me show you what a lover’s embrace feels like. The feeling of being in love.”

With that, Lin Yu opened his arms and pulled Yang Zhilin tightly into his embrace.

Feeling the girl’s cool body and delicate skin, Lin Yu suddenly had the strange sense that this instant had become eternity. All the joys and sorrows, all the separations and reunions of a lifetime, were nothing more than this.

“Time passes; may you be well.” As he held her quietly and looked up at the vast sky, Lin Yu silently recited those words in his heart.

In the next moment, he separated from the girl with some reluctance. Yet after walking through a garden of flowers, how could one leave without a leaf unmarked? He felt a faint pain in his heart.

“Is it already October 14th? Am I eighteen now?” Yang Zhilin, by then mostly recovered, asked softly.

“Yes. Happy birthday. In my eyes, you are the most beautiful girl.” Lin Yu said gently. It was the plain truth.

Across two lifetimes, this was the first time he had met a girl whose beauty reached such a degree of perfection, so lovely that one could never grow tired of looking at her.

“Then what about Xiao Yue?” Yang Zhilin coughed once and asked. The cool evening breeze made her feel a little cold.

“She’s the best girl to me. A good girl.” Lin Yu said solemnly, and that was also the truth.

“Meeting the wrong person at the wrong time is absurd. Meeting the right person at the wrong time is a sigh. Meeting the wrong person at the right time is heartbreak. Meeting the right person at the right time is a lifetime of happiness. You and Xiao Yue—does that count as meeting the right person at the right time?” Yang Zhilin asked with a grave expression.

“We’re still young. Leave such weighty matters to time to answer.” Lin Yu shook his head, saying he had no answer in his heart.

Hearing that answer, Yang Zhilin smiled with quiet grace and returned to her usual cool, composed manner. Only her cheeks were faintly red, and her eyes a little moist.

After riding his bicycle and seeing Yang Zhilin to the building below Fortune Center, Lin Yu still did not feel at ease letting her go up alone, so he escorted her all the way to her door.

The instant Yang Zhilin stepped inside, she suddenly looked back and pointed upward. “It’s too late. Come upstairs.”

Lin Yu almost instinctively wanted to say yes, but in the end he only replied softly, “I need to go home tonight.”

After hearing that answer, Yang Zhilin somehow felt a sudden looseness in her heart. She smiled faintly and waved goodbye.

By the time Lin Yu got home, it was already past one in the morning. He crept inside gently, afraid of making noise and waking his mother. There were no shoes on the floor belonging to Lin Tiancheng, and he concluded that his father had not come home again.

“Mom really has it hard,” Lin Yu thought before going to sleep.

What he never expected was that insomnia would follow immediately after. He tossed and turned, unable to sleep, while scenes from the evening replayed over and over in his head.

“What’s wrong with me? I shouldn’t be like this!” The troubled Lin Yu felt as though two little men were fighting in his mind.

In the end, he truly could not sleep, and he also did not dare keep thinking about feelings. So he began considering what to do next.

Zhang Chao’s condition had stabilized. As for Dai Peng and himself, their names had finally been cleared. With contributions from several families, Qi Yue’s debt had also been repaid, though that money had now become part of a Patek Philippe.

His father had also been successfully promoted, and with Lian Jin protecting him at his side. Whether he could rise even further would depend on whether he could produce political achievements.

As for Zhang Yang, he had also been suppressed and temporarily brought under control. He probably would not dare reach his claws toward Lin Yu again, and Lian Jin under his father’s command would be relatively safe as well. But the next step in events would depend on the struggle at the leadership level. In matters like this, either the east wind overcomes the west wind, or the west wind overcomes the east.

But as Lin Yu thought about it, he felt that Zhang Yang was being a little too honest, and somehow that seemed abnormal. One can never be too cautious, and he quietly raised his guard.

As for school, the weakest subject, mathematics, had already found a good tutor. What remained was simply hard work.

The next thing he should do most of all was help his mother open a shop, on the one hand to ease the loneliness of staying home alone every day.

On the other hand, without first securing a corner, one could never hope to conquer the world. With so little capital of his own, he could only learn from the Jews and their idea of making numbers dance, and slowly build a stable half-life of prosperity.

For a simple and steady happiness, Lin Yu felt he had to work harder than anyone else. In school, and in his career.

Because he was like the mother hen in a game of “eagle catching chickens,” needing to protect many, many little chicks.

Half asleep and half awake, and occasionally dreaming, stumbling through a muddled haze, Lin Yu迎来了 the dawn of the next day. Today was the weekend, and he needed extra lessons, so a little after six he got up and washed up.

Seeing her son rise so early for once, Wang Chunhua, who was already preparing breakfast, let a trace of relief appear at the corner of her mouth.

She had already learned the results of the recent midterm exam. Lin Yu, who had only just started working hard, had unexpectedly broken straight into the top thirty. That nearly moved her to tears.

“How was it? When you went to Hu Bin’s birthday party yesterday, no one gave you dirty looks, right?” After Lin Yu finished washing up and came into the kitchen, Wang Chunhua asked with concern.

“Huh? No. Who would give me dirty looks? But I was really unhappy that Wang Yue’e didn’t invite you. After all, you two have been friends for so many years.” Lin Yu kneaded his mother’s shoulders.

“It was right of her not to invite me. If she had, she would have felt awkward, and I would have felt even more awkward.” Wang Chunhua was making her own version of a meat sandwich. At that moment she was frying eggs and ham, and the aroma filled the room.

“What exactly happened between you two? Was it because of Dad?” Lin Yu asked curiously.